Buy a professionally refurbished iPhone 6 and save $100

Apple gadgets can get expensive — a fact that fans are all too familiar with — and the iPhone is no exception. In fact, the company’s latest flagship, the iPhone X, was the most expensive one yet at a cost of $1,000. Deals can also be rather scarce on Apple gear as well, but you can score some serious discounts if you opt for older (but still great) models like the excellent iPhone 6.

You can stack even more savings by shopping for refurbished iPhones and this is often the most reliable way to find Apple deals when there aren’t any big sales going on. If you’ve been considering an iPhone and have been waiting for a deal on one, now is your chance, as both Amazon and Walmart are offering the professionally recertified iPhone 6 for as low as $150. Buying a refurbished phone is a better option than buying a used one, as these are backed by warranty support that you won’t get when you grab one on eBay.

Apple went a bit larger after the iPhone 5, following the current trend of bigger phones, but the iPhone 6’s 4.7-inch retina display thankfully doesn’t veer too far into “phablet” territory. Our review team cited this nice, crisp HD touchscreen as one of the selling points of the iPhone 6 along with its great build quality and solid camera — none of which should come as any surprise given Apple’s long-standing reputation for creating arguably the most polished mobile devices on the market today.

Buying a new iPhone 6 today would normally set you back $250, which is still pretty affordable for an Apple flagship even if it is an older model. Now, however, you can score a professionally refurbished iPhone 6 for as low as $150 from Walmart (or $160 from Amazon), giving you a nice discount of around $100 off of its current retail price. These models come fully unlocked as well, so you can activate them with any GSM carrier of your choice.

$150 from Walmart

$160 from Amazon

Looking for more great stuff? Find Apple deals and more on our curated deals page, and be sure to follow us on Twitter for regular updates.

We strive to help our readers find the best deals on quality products and services, and choose what we cover carefully and independently. If you find a better price for a product listed here, or want to suggest one of your own, email us at dealsteam@digitaltrends.com.Digital Trends may earn commission on products purchased through our links, which supports the work we do for our readers.

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Microsoft pulls its ‘Sets’ feature in the latest Windows Insider build

The latest preview build for Windows Insiders is out, Build 17704, and with it sees the removal of Sets. Originally slated to be a part of the next major feature update dubbed as Redstone 5, Sets intended to group your favorite apps together for a more productive workflow, presenting a tab-like interface for switching between these grouped apps and tools. But based on feedback, Microsoft decided to simply remove Sets in order to “continue making it great.” 

“Some of the things we’re focusing on include improvements to the visual design and continuing to better integrate Office and Microsoft Edge into Sets to enhance workflow,” says Microsoft’s Dona Sarkar. “If you have been testing Sets, you will no longer see it as of today’s build, however, Sets will return in a future WIP flight. Thanks again for your feedback.” 

Outside the departure of Sets, Build 17704 is packed with juicy new features and updates to Microsoft’s platform. The list is long and begins with Microsoft Edge, as the browser received a number of upgrades to make your browsing experience easier. That includes a new depth effect to better emphasize active tabs, an overhauled Settings menu, and a customizable Microsoft Edge toolbar. You can now also prevent media from automatically playing. 

Skype for Windows received a major update, too. The chat client now sports a new layout so you can easily access and view your contacts. You can also choose a color and theme for Skype to brighten up the experience and make it your own. Other improvements include controls for sharing your screen with other callers, taking snapshots, and rearranging the group call canvas so you can decide who is front and center. New calling features were added to the client as well for a “best in class” experience. 

Microsoft’s Windows Diagnostics Data Viewer, available on the Microsoft Store here, now lets you directly view Problem Reports. The update brings changes to the user interface as well, pulling the filter feature over to the right side of the search bar and the export data feature up into the top right corner of the app. Overall, this app enables you to see what data is sent to Microsoft, such as browsing history, product and service performance, device connectivity and configuration, and more. 

As for other bells and whistles in the latest preview build, Microsoft added means for better viewing videos outside. The feature relies on your device’s ambient light sensor and will automatically adjust the video brightness according to the current lighting conditions.

Meanwhile, if you want to install a font on a shared Windows 10 device and don’t have administrative rights, Build 17704 provides means for installing a font without the need for permission. Simply download the font, right-click on the file, and select “install.” The other available option — Install for all users — requires permission from the device administrator. 

The list goes on from here, covering improvements to Task Manager, Windows security, Ease of Access, Windows Container, and loads more. 

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How to use Gmail’s new ‘smart compose’ feature

Gmail’s option to enable experimental features gives users access to unreleased functions and tools which, though still in an unfinished state, can provide solid and convenient upgrades to email. One such feature is Smart Compose. Expected to be rolling out in the next couple of months, this is a neat tool that can eliminate the need to type common phrases and streamline email writing.

Smart Compose draws on the same technology as Gmail’s Smart Reply feature, released last year. That functionality, which offered potential messages for the user to send in an email reply, has been extended by Smart Compose to apply to new email compositions. Not only this, but the recommendations come in line, as the user is typing, allowing for a faster, modular approach to email writing.

If you’re inviting people to an event, Smart Compose might suggest phrases indicating time of day, the location of the event, or the cordial language typical of an invitation. Now implemented for simple phrases, Google’s AI Blog indicates that future iterations of the feature may be able to match the user’s specific writing style when generating suggestions.

How do I enable it?

Step 1: To access experimental features, you’ll first have to upgrade to the latest version of Gmail. You may have already received a notification like the one below.

Step 2: If not, click the gear icon in the upper right corner of the page and then click on “Try the New Gmail” at the top of the drop down menu:

Step 3: Then click Settings. Under the General tab, scroll down and check the box that reads “Enable experimental access.”

Step 4: Finally, scroll to the very bottom of the page, hit Save Changes, and you’re ready to start using Smart Compose!

In Practice

Step 1: To use the feature, hit compose as you normally would.

Step 2: While typing, you’ll notice grayed out suggestions after the cursor for certain sentences.

Step 3: Hit Tab as the prompt indicates and the suggestion will fill in.

And you’re off and running with Smart Compose! To learn more about the new Gmail design you can look at our article detailing the changes and new features.

For more tips to help optimize your workflow, check out this article on Gmail shortcuts and tricks.

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How to recall an email in Gmail

The instantaneous delivery of email comes with consequences. Most importantly, once you send an email, you might not be able to take it back. That could cause problems if you send a message when you aren’t ready — or send it to the wrong people.

The good news is that Gmail provides a quick, effective way to unsend an email before the worst happens. This brings the email back and keeps it from appearing in anyone’s inbox until you are ready. Here’s how to use the feature!

Step 1: Check your unsend settings

In the past, you had to enable the “unsend” option to recall Gmail emails. However, Google has made this a standard feature for Gmail, so it’s now always on. But you should still check the settings to make sure it’s properly customized.

Start by signing into Gmail with your account. and then selecting the gear icon in upper right corner, just above your email list. From this menu, select “Settings.”

Step 2: Adjust settings if necessary

The settings menu holds all the special features you can activate or adjust in Gmail. Scroll down the “General” tab until you see the “Undo Send” section. Here you will see an option to adjust the “Send cancellation period.” You can choose to recall an email up to 5, 10, 20, or 30 seconds after you sent it.

If you are worried about sending the wrong email and it’s happened in the past, you probably want to set the cancellation period to at least 10 seconds, just to be safe. Five seconds isn’t very long to realize you made a mistake, and hit the unsend option. When finished, scroll to the bottom of the “Settings” section and save your changes.

Note that the email may show up in the inboxes of those you sent it to while the unsend option is present. Recalling the email will make it disappear, but it’s possible that someone could have started reading it, so it’s still important to act quickly.

Step 3: Send a test email

Now that you know how long you have to recall an email, it’s time to test the service out. Hit “Compose” and address a quick email to yourself. When you are ready, hit the blue “Send” button.

Now, immediately look in the lower left corner of your Gmail window. You should see a quick sent notification pop up there that lets you know that says, “Message sent” and gives you an option to view the message or create a new one. In the middle of the notification bar will also be an option to “Undo.”

If you wait, you will see this Undo option vanish. That means that your cancellation period has ended and it is now too late to recall the email. If you aren’t sure how long to set your cancellation period, we suggest you try this several times just to get a feel for how long different periods last.

Hit the Undo option, and you will see that your email pops back up in the same state it was when you sent it. This allows you to freely change the content or address before sending it as intended. Once the email has been recalled, there’s no time limit on how long you have to work on it, or simply delete it and start over.

You may also want to check out other tips and tricks for Gmail here!

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Add two USB ports to any wall outlet with the $7 Aukey power strip

Multiple. Ports.

The Aukey dual USB/AC wall outlet power strip is down to $6.99 with code 7MSJ8ZG2 on Amazon. It’s $14 without the code, so you’re saving 50% off the price. The grey version is also down to $7.99, just a dollar more, with the same code. That’s a drop from $16. We have seen these go on sale before but not since late April.

Sure, the plug requires both outlets to use, but it gives you those outlets back and adds two USB ports for you! The top of the device has a little lip that can hold your phone while it’s charging, too. It has safety precautions to keep your devices from over-heating and over-charging. Aukey backs it up with a two-year warranty. Users give it 4.4 stars based on 32 reviews.

See at Amazon

NVIDIA Shield TV Android 8.0 Oreo update rollout is back on!

NVIDIA Shield TV is still the gold standard for Android TV. It starts at $179 on Amazon.

The only Android TV box you should buy just got better.

Update: After a false start at the end of May, the Android 8.0 Oreo update is rolling out once again to NVIDIA Shield TV!

Big news for those of you who have NVIDIA Shield TV — which, by the way, is the only Android TV box you should consider right now. The Android 8.0 Oreo update (which brings it up to the latest major version of Android) is available starting today.

This’ll bring along a major update to the user interface. You’ll get new sections along the left side of the screen, with your favorite apps (customizable, of course), play next (where what you’ve been watching and playing recently will appear) and channels (which is what apps are now called, sort of).

In addition, Amazon Prime Video will get a major refresh, Plex Media Service is improved, and a whole bunch more.

And, of course, Google Assistant still plays a big role here, and that means you can take advantage of all the smart stuff you’ve got scattered throughout your home, accessible via the Shield remote or game controller.

A few other things NVIDIA says to look out for:

• Hold the back button to access to the settings menu from the home screen
• A higher polling rate for gaming mice for NVIDIA GameStream
• Improved support for game controllers like the Shield controller, Xbox 360 and DualShock controllers
• Can connect to Wifi without disconnecting Ethernet
• Improves Bluetooth re-pairing

To update your Shield TV, just head into the settings menu, then About, then choose the update option.

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Should you update your NVIDIA Shield TV to Android Oreo?

The Shield 7.0 Experience for NVIDIA Shield TV will look a little different than what you had before.

Yes, but get ready for some changes.

The question popped up now that the Shield TV update is pushing out again, so let’s answer it. Should you update a perfectly good NVIDIA Shield TV to the Shield Experience 7.0, which among other things includes an update to Android 8.0 Oreo? (Yes, it’s annoying that NVIDIA’s versioning doesn’t match Android’s but we’ll all have to get over that.)

The short answer is that, yes, it’s worth updating. At the very least it’s because an update like this includes an update to the May security patch of Android. (Which, yes, isn’t June, but it’s also more recent than what we had.)

Pro tip: Hold the Home Button on your remote to quickly see all apps.

The longer answer? Also yes, you should update. But know that there are going to be some pretty major changes hitting your box. The biggest of which is an all-new home screen, and new remote control shortcuts.

Everything’s been moved into sections, and you’ll probably immediately wonder where all of your apps went. There’s still there — nothing’s been removed. But the Oreo update allows you to choose your own favorite apps, and that’s what you’ll see in the top row.

The quickest way to see all of your apps is to hold down the Home button on the Shield TV remote (or game controller) when you’re on the home screen.

From there you can long-select an app to add it to your favorites row, get info on the app (the easiest to clear app data should you need to), and move it around in the list.

If you long-press the back button while on the home screen it’ll take you straight to the settings menu. (Which also looks new.)

Below that Favorite Apps row you’ll see “Play Next,” which is a handy way to pick up where you’d left off in a movie, show or game.

And below that you’ll find row after row of what Android TV is now calling “Channels,” which basically is more content from the apps you have installed. It can be shows or channels on various streaming apps, or additional games to play. Long press any of those items and you might get the option to add it to the “Play Next” row, or remove it from the suggestions. Or you might be told you can’t do a damned thing with it, which isn’t all that helpful at all.

Also, it’s now more difficult to take a screenshot, because you can no longer just tell the Shield TV “Take a screenshot.” If you do, it’ll bring up a knowledge graph answer from Android Central. Which is funny, but not really helpful in this case.

That’s the big stuff. More niche updates include better support for mice in NVIDIA GameStreame, and more support for gaming controllers. Bluetooth and Wifi pairing gets easier, and Shield remote and game controllers get updates.

So, yeah. You want to update. You should update.

Just know that things are going to look a little different when you do.

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Apple’s Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre Ordered to Pay $25 Million in Royalties to Former Beats Partner

Apple’s Beats Electronics division today lost a lawsuit levied against it by Steven Lamar, who had a hand in the development of the Beats brand.

According to Bloomberg, a jury today decided that Lamar is entitled to $25 million due to a disputed settlement in 2007 with Beats co-founders and Apple execs Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre.

Lamar signed over the rights to the Beats design in exchange for royalties back in 2006. He claimed that under the terms of the settlement, he was owed royalties on all Beats models, while Dre and Iovine said he was entitled to royalties only on the original Studio model released in 2008, leading to a legal dispute.

The jury awarded Lamar royalties on all models of the Studio Beats headphones, but not on other models, an amount that could add up to a total of $40 million when interest and attorney fees are taken into account.

Lamar in 2006 claims to have shown a headphone design to Iovine, who recommended Dr. Dre as an endorser, creating the partnership that led to the creation of Beats Electronics. Lamar then helped to develop the Beats brand and the concept behind the headphones until he had a falling out with Iovine and Dre in 2006.

Apple purchased the Beats brand in 2014 for $3 billion, with Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre (otherwise known as Andre Young) joining Apple at that time. Since then, Apple has continued to sell products under the Beats label.

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AT&T More Than Doubles Administrative Fee for Wireless Customers

AT&T has raised the amount of the “administrative fee” that it charges many of its 64.5 million wireless customers, a move that will earn the company an additional $800 million in annual revenue.

The fee hike was first noticed by BTIG Research analyst Walter Piecyk (via CNBC), who pointed out that AT&T has increased its monthly fees by approximately $1.23 in 2018 with two price hikes in April and June. Customers are now paying $1.99 in administrative fees, up from 76 cents last year.

Approximately 85 percent of AT&T’s customers have seen the fee hike, as it applies to all postpaid accounts. Prepaid customers are not required to pay the administrative fee.

Prior to the doubling of the fee, it hadn’t changed much since AT&T introduced it in 2013, going from 61 cents to 76 cents over a period of several years.

Piecyk speculates that AT&T has increased the fee to offset the debt incurred by its recent $85.4 billion purchase of Time Warner. “Presumably the Administrative Fee is another way to help AT&T fund its network build and Time Warner acquisition going forward,” he wrote.

In a statement to CNBC, however, AT&T said that the fee is standard across the wireless industry: “This is a standard administrative fee across the wireless industry, which helps cover costs we incur for items like cell site maintenance and interconnection between carriers.”

Earlier in June, AT&T also raised the price of its grandfathered unlimited data plans by $5 per month. That plan, which was originally priced at $30, is now $45.

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Apple May Create Subscription Service Bundle That Includes Original TV Content, Apple Music and News

Apple may be planning to develop a single subscription service that would offer customers access to its original TV shows, Apple Music, and digital magazines, according to sources with knowledge of the company’s plans that spoke to The Information.

Apple has ordered multiple television shows, ranging from comedies to dramas, but there has been no clear word on how these shows would be distributed.

Its first original shows, “Planet of the Apps” and “Carpool Karaoke: The Series” debuted in Apple Music as a perk for Apple Music subscribers, but that would not likely be sustainable for the more than a dozen shows that are in development, so it makes sense that a wider TV offering is in the works.

According to The Information, Apple will begin by launching a digital news subscription service next year, which will combine the Apple News app with magazine subscription service Texture, which Apple purchased back in March. Bloomberg in April also said that Apple was working on such a service.

Texture offers subscribers unlimited access to more than 200 digital magazines for $9.99 per month, with titles that include People, Better Homes and Gardens, Time, Forbes, Condé Nast Traveler, Allure, Billboard, Town & Country, ELLE, National Geographic, Rolling Stone, Vogue, and more.

Apple eventually plans to bundle the digital news subscription service with both Apple Music and the video content that is in the works, but it is not known when Apple will provide the new subscription offering, nor what it will be priced at.

Apple is said to be planning to continue to offer each of the services on a standalone basis, suggesting a standalone TV service as well, and discussions are still underway about what its subscription services will look like, so a bundle might not ultimately come to fruition.

It isn’t clear if Apple would roll out some of its original programming for free initially and then bundle it with the other services, the people said. The discussions at Apple are still ongoing about what the subscription service ultimately will look like and could change, they said.

Prior rumors have suggested that the first of Apple’s television shows will launch sometime between March 2019 and the summer of 2019, which would mean a TV subscription service would likely come out around that time.

Apple has previously attempted to build a television subscription service that offers shows and movies from third-party content providers, but it was never able to establish the deals necessary to make that happen. With its own slate of original TV shows, though, Apple does not need to rely on deals with content producers to roll out a streaming TV service.

Related Roundups: Apple TV, tvOS 12Tag: Apple’s Hollywood ambitionsBuyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Neutral)
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