Amazon’s Prime Day sale kicks off on June 23 — and it might be the last time we see big discounts on many tech products for a while, if some in the tech world are to be believed.
This includes Tim Cook who this week warned of price increases for Apple’s tech, as, he says, it’s now impossible for Apple to absorb the cost of the ongoing component crisis.
To catch up on Cook’s warning, and brighter news such as Commodore’s flip phone filling us with nostalgia, scroll down for our recap of the week’s biggest tech news.
7. Commodore’s flip phone took us back to 2004
Feeling nostalgic for flip phones and a simpler, pre-doomscrolling age? Commodore (yes, the latest incarnation of the classic computing giant) feels your pain, so it’s made a clamshell phone that’ll meet your retro needs while freeing your brain from smartphone addiction. Or that’s the idea, at least.
The Commodore Callback sits somewhere between a dumb phone and a modern Android flagship. It doesn’t work with social media apps, and has no touchscreen or web browser. But it does run most Android apps and has a 48MP rear camera, plus other flourishes like an “audiophile grade” DAC. Will it start a revolution? We’re not sure, but it’s definitely one of the most interesting phones of the year.
6. GTA 6 got a trailer
This week Rockstar unveiled a new teaser for Grand Theft Auto 6 — and while we weren’t lucky enough to see new gameplay, we weren’t left wanting.
To an underscore of 80s synth and guitar we saw the game’s cover art come together. The vignette collage, similar to GTA 5’s art, is full of pink and purple hues which perfectly capture the Vice City vibes.
Rockstar also announced that preorders will go live on June 25, ahead of its release on November 19, 2026.
5. Microsoft dropped new Surface laptops
Not content to let Computex hog the computing announcement limelight, Microsoft debuted new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop devices powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 processor.
The new Surface Laptop offers what Microsoft claims is up to 58% faster graphics performance over the previous generation of its notebook, and solid battery life of 20 hours for the smaller models, and 19 for the larger.
Meanwhile the Surface Pro 13-inch boasts a 53% graphics performance leap over its predecessor, with up to 15.5 hours of battery life, based on Microsoft’s internal testing.
4. Sonos updated its app
A few months ago, we interviewed Sonos CEO Tom Conrad about the company’s app woes in its 2024 update, and he said that while they’d worked hard on fixing its technical issues, he still had big problems with its design and usability that he wanted to get to. This week, he announced the first changes coming to the app to improve its layout.
They include all kinds of things fans have been asking for since the 2024 redesign, including easier volume-changing options, the ability to customize your list of products, and options being organised using tabs the mirror standard iPhone and Android app design cues. The update is rolling out in a beta first, to make sure it all works before everyone else gets it…
3. The UK government had bad news for kids
Depending on your point of view, it perhaps wasn’t a great week for young social media fans in the UK — Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that, like Australia, the country would be banning apps such as Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat for under-16s from next year.
It won’t just be social media apps that are affected either — livestreaming for under-16s is also going to be banned, across all platforms. The government says the move will “give kids their childhood back”, but UK teens naturally aren’t very impressed, and neither are fans of the open internet. Expect this to be a piping hot topic for the rest of 2026.
2. Android 17 rolled out
Android 17 began rolling out to compatible Pixel phones this week, and while Google’s flashy new Gemini Intelligence software isn’t among the available features just yet, there are plenty of neat new tools to try if you own a Google Pixel 6 or newer.
Chief among the new UI features are Bubbles, which lets you turn any app into a floating bubble that stays on top of other apps (useful for multitasking on large-screen devices), and Screen Reactions, which lets you capture your phone’s display and record yourself with the front-facing camera simultaneously.
My favourite Android 17 feature is foldable Gaming Mode, which adds a dynamic gamepad to one side of your foldable phone (so you can play it like a Nintendo DS — yes, really!); unfortunately, this one isn’t dropping until later in the year.
1. Tim Cook warned of Apple price hikes
Against the backdrop of the RAM crisis and other component price hikes brought about by AI hype and supply chain disruptions, the affordable MacBook Neo was a breath of fresh air when it debuted — but outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook had some bad news for anyone hoping the good times might last a little longer.
Speaking with the Wall Street Journal Cook said: “Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable. We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.”
We don’t know when we’ll see said price hikes, or how significant they’ll be, but if you have your eye on Apple tech you might want to think about buying sooner rather than later — especially with Prime Day kicking off next week.
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hamish.hector@futurenet.com (Hamish Hector)
