One truth about me as a runner is that I need my jams. No jams, no run. I have meticulously curated playlists where the bass drops are strategically timed to gas me up when I lose steam. Aside from my sneakers, my earbuds are the most important piece of running tech I own. And yet, my decade-long search for the perfect pair only just ended a few weeks ago.

Behold, the beautiful, purplicious Beats Fit Pro.

To understand why I’m gaga for these buds, you need to know about the headphones that didn’t make the cut. (Don’t worry, I’ll stick to the highlights and spare you a Dickensian-length novel recounting the dozens of earbuds that have failed me in my 10-year running journey.)

Earbuds with superior sound — like the Bose SoundSport — are often too large for my teeny-tiny earholes, and I’m over chasing them when they eventually fall out. I tried one of Aftershokz’s (now just Shokz) earlier bone conduction wraparound headphones. The thing is, I want to feel the “wah-ow-wah-wah-ow” of a sick bass drop vibrating in my skull. These, at best, delivered a sad “wah” that would embarrass Waluigi. I stanned my Jabra Elite Active 65t, but they still occasionally fell out of my ear and lost their luster when the AirPods Pro came along and ruined me with their superior connectivity. The AirPods Pro were convenient for daily life, but they’re not hardy enough for my exercise regimen. (I got sweaty ears, okay?) I thought I found a good compromise in the Bose Tempo. They were comfortable, gave me a good amount of situational awareness, and sounded great for open-ear audio sunglasses. Then they failed me during the New York City half marathon. I need my jams, and these were drowned out by the subpar music blasted over the loudspeakers. I’m firmly convinced this is a big reason why I ran out of steam at the 10th-mile marker and had to hobble the last 3.1 miles to the finish line.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

So, now that you understand the struggle, let me wax lyrical about why I love my Beats Fit Pro.

I’ve always hated winged tips because I find them uncomfortable. These weren’t — that was the first shocker. The Beats Fit Pro fit securely in my ear and stayed put during an hour-long run on a sweltering summer day. I was a sweaty mess, but the buds never felt like they were about to slide out of my ear like my AirPods Pro and weren’t gross when I took them out. After I got home, I did my best impression of a metalhead headbanging. The buds stayed put, and ever since that first run, they’ve stayed put and dry through multiple workouts. I don’t know if it’s the way the tips fit into my ear ridge, but I’ve never had this good of a fit with earbuds before.

Meanwhile, these aren’t the absolute best-sounding earbuds I’ve ever used, but they’re Very Good. Most importantly, I get my precious bass drops and my favorite K-pop singer sounds like a buttery smooth, mellifluous angel. The noise-canceling mode is also good enough that I can slip into the zone during workouts or while writing but not so silent that I can’t hear a bus behind me. Hot take: I actually don’t like it when noise cancellation is too good, like on the AirPods Max. It’s disconcerting, and I feel safer when I have a degree of situational awareness. (The Beats Fit Pro do, however, block the yowls of my attention-seeking cat, so I’m all set.)

They’ve got all the connectivity benefits of AirPods Pro, too, so they can do triple duty for fitness, work, and Netflix binges. I did next to nothing to set them up and never had to manually pair them to my MacBook Air or iPad. That’s magic when I’m switching from a podcast on my phone to a work call on my computer, followed by an on-demand workout on my iPad. We love a multitasking gadget. Also, I haven’t lost these yet, but I’m a scatterbrained dodo and inevitably will. When that moment arrives, I can at least use Find My to figure out where I misplaced them.

At $200 retail, the Beats Fit Pro weren’t something I could just buy on a whim. (Though I did get them on sale.) But, in the context of how much I’ve already spent on wireless earbuds, it’s pretty reasonable. It was within budget and, as I get older, I better understand that investing in good quality can save you more in the long run. These definitely fall into that category for me.

The last reason is silly, but I like that the “cute” colorway is pastel purple and not pink. I love a good shade of pink, but tech companies overuse it on gadgets to the point where it’s borderline insulting. Also, the majority of my earbuds have been a boring black with, at most, a gunmetal accent. The world is a dreary place and, as stupid as it sounds, a good pop of color boosts my mood when the news cycle is awful. Plus, this matches my gigantic water bottle, so I feel fancy when I work out. Small pockets of joy are precious these days, and I’ll take all the ones I can get.

Earbuds, particularly when it comes to fit, are an incredibly personal device. You might not love these the way I do. But, for me, the Beats Fit Pro are the exact right mix of price, form, and function. (The only thing I wish it had is wireless charging, but that’s small potatoes.) It’s funny because I avoided the Beats Fit Pro for a long time despite the recommendation of several trusted friends and colleagues. I’ve been burned before — hype seldom pans out, and returns are a hassle. But I love these so much it genuinely surprises me, a crusty, old, jaded reviewer. I can’t remember the last time my earbuds made me excited for my next run — and these do just that.

It’s on. Elon Musk has officially filed to kill his own Twitter acquisition, and Twitter is calling his bluff. They’ll see Musk in court. And while it’s only going to get messier from here, one important verdict has already been rendered by Elon Musk himself: he doesn’t have what it takes to run Twitter. And that’s a damning blow to his own central mythology.

We’ll look at the specifics of Musk’s formal SEC filing in a minute, but first it’s important to remember what he’s said about the deal and why he wanted to do it in the first place. It’s not like the world forced the acquisition of a relatively small social network on the world’s richest man. And Musk’s conduct surrounding the deal has been marked by a lot of obvious troll behavior. A reasonable person would conclude he was never serious about it to begin with, which is already leading to a lot of Musk stans and Twitter haters divining a 4D-chess narrative that makes his blunder seem intentional. But.

There are some things Musk said in the frenzy of the Twitter takeover that can’t be ignored. That’s because they strike at the heart of what built his original reputation: as a visionary, a bold industrialist, a futurist, and maybe even the guy who would solve climate change and multi-planetary civilization. Sure, lately he works tirelessly to attract a huge base of social reactionaries and various right-wingers who care more about his trolling than the missions of SpaceX or Tesla. But Musk’s real credibility — if he ever had any — was being the face of genuinely huge and ambitious efforts to change the world and make it better.

He probably didn’t need to, but he brought that same world-saving energy to the Twitter deal:

• Musk said he was motivated by the fact that Twitter had become a “de facto town square” and that it’s “really important that people have both the reality and the perception that they’re able to speak freely.” (He talked about “free speech” a lot during this time.)
• Speaking at a TED conference, Musk said the deal is not a way to make money. Some of his exact words: “it’s about the future of civilization, but you don’t care about the economics at all.”
• Later, speaking internally to employees of Twitter, Musk said “I want Twitter to contribute to a better, long-lasting civilization where we better understand the nature of reality.”
• Musk: “Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it.”

These statements stand out above everything else because (a) things that are important to the future of human life are not things you typically troll people about, and (b) that should be especially true if you are Elon Musk, who has spent his entire modern career since Tesla cultivating the idea that he is on a mission to save the future of humanity and spread civilization across the stars. Does he tweet dumb memes a lot? Yes. Did he send a car into space as a joke? Sure. But the missions of his companies are dead serious. Tesla’s mission is “to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” Neuralink wants to build devices that help people with paralysis to “regain independence.” And SpaceX? That’s about nothing less than “enabling people to live on other planets.”

So: Musk has intentionally spent his career leaning into some of the world’s most difficult-to-solve problems. He gives lots of keynotes, throws big ideas on the board, and makes lots of promises. Incidentally, this campaign to save the world earned him one of the biggest and most active fanbases on Twitter. And let’s be real: the man loves to tweet. The only person in the world who might love tweeting more than Elon Musk has been banned from the platform and impeached twice by the United States Congress.

But remember: Musk didn’t say “I want to buy Twitter because I love tweeting and I command an army of users here.” He said Twitter was important to the future of human civilization. And so, spiritually, the deal joined the ranks of the Teslas and the SpaceXs of the world.

What kind of problems would prevent this man from unlocking Twitter’s true potential? To help steer it and, along with his other companies, help humanity flourish in the future? He only really makes two assertions in his SEC filing:

1. Twitter won’t give him data necessary for him to figure out how many spam bots are on the platform.
2. Twitter fired some people and lost some executives.

This is weak crybaby stuff.

Musk has been going on about the alleged bot issue for a while, even getting into public beefs with the CEO of Twitter about it. I’m not going to unpack this whole spat — the Delaware Court of Chancery is about to examine that in some detail — but the TL;DR is that Musk wants to tank a huge deal over a problem known to every social media company on the planet, who have all dedicated vast amounts of resources toward fixing over several decades. It’s just a fundamentally unserious position from a guy who is willing to solve world-shaking problems like climate change

But let’s assume just for fun that Musk is right. After he started the deal and looked under the hood and laid out his plans for Twitter’s staff, he discovered Twitter’s bot population is more like 20% than 5%. So what? What’s a spread of 90 million users when TikTok and Facebook are ahead of you by billions? If your position is that Mark Zuckerberg is an unelected tyrant of speech, how is abandoning Twitter going to help you take him on? And why would you argue in your SEC filing that revenue from active users is at stake? That doesn’t sound like “not caring about the economics at all.” That sounds like only caring about the economics.

And as for blowing the deal because a few Twitter execs fired staff while continuing to operate normally and roll out new features (hi, co-tweeting!) — get real. You’re buying Twitter for $44 billion. It’s yours now. You can clean house if you want to and correct or reverse all of the ill-advised decisions that brought the platform within your sights originally. Nobody will stop you! The SEC couldn’t even get you to stop tweeting!

There are many possible theories for why Musk put himself, Twitter, and the world through this charade. But in the end, Musk wrote a check his myth couldn’t cash.

We’re left with two possibilities. Either Musk doesn’t think he can do the job he promised at Twitter, and he’s not the world-changing force he’s been made out to be. Or, he was lying about the kinds of lofty ideals and visions that built his companies and his image.

What kind of man trolls the world about a better future?

To button, or not to button? When it comes to wearables, the answer is you should always opt for physical buttons. And while they’re abundant on smartwatches, fitness trackers tend to favor touchscreens and capacitive buttons. But it looks like there may be some good news for fans of physical buttons. A new leaked photo of the Fitbit Versa 4 indicates that the side button is back, baby.

The photo comes from 9to5Google, and for the most part, it looks almost identical to the Versa 3 — except if you zero in on the right-hand side, where you can see a teeny little raised button.

It might not seem like it, but this is actually a significant design change. Earlier iterations of the Versa — one of Fitbit’s most popular devices — had a physical side button. Then, with the Versa 3 in 2020, Fitbit did away with it in favor of a smooth indentation. This was technically a “button,” but it wasn’t something you could actually press in a traditional sense. Instead, when you squeezed it correctly, the Versa 3 would vibrate. The Fitbit Sense, which came out the same year, also shared the same design.

Image: 9to5Google

On the surface, this seemed sensible. In theory, no buttons meant no accidental presses and a sleeker profile. In reality, it made for a crappy user experience.

If you use too little pressure on the Sense or Versa 3’s button, it won’t do anything. And if you use too much pressure, it still might not do anything. Or, instead of waking the screen as you intended, you might end up triggering the long-press shortcut instead. For whatever reason, the top half of the button tended to be more responsive than the bottom. If you peruse Fitbit and Reddit forums, you’ll find plenty of customers griping and sharing tips on how to make this button work.

This isn’t a new problem. There are plenty of fitness trackers that don’t have any kind of button or crown. Instead, they rely on touchscreens entirely. For instance, with the Garmin Vivosmart 3 and Vivosmart 4, you had to tap the screen to confirm your choices. That meant nailing the perfect cadence and pressure each time. If you didn’t master it, it meant a simple two-second task could end up taking several minutes to figure out. And while the Garmin Vivosmart devices are the example I’m using here, there are several touchscreen-only fitness bands out there with the same problems.

Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge

Sweaty fingers are also an issue. Touchscreens often don’t register moist fingers, and they also make it harder to use capacitive buttons. The irony is these are devices meant to be worn while exercising, so they effectively become harder to use just when you need them most.

A well-designed physical button is a simple solution to all these problems. When you see a physical button, you don’t have to learn how to use it. You just press and it does the thing you want. If you want to get fancy, you can program nifty shortcuts — like pausing your music — and never have to look down at your watch. A physical button does not care how sweaty your fingers are. It will always do its job.

I recently reviewed the Garmin Vivosmart 5, and one small change ended up being a game-changer in a tracker series that was always finicky. That change? Adding a physical button. The combination of a touchscreen and a button was perfect. I could use the touchscreen when it made sense, like when scrolling through menus. But I could also always rely on the button to get me back to the homescreen, the previous screen, or end a workout. Adding the button single-handedly eliminated one of the tracker series’ worst pain points.

This is the most likely reason why — if this leaked photo is to be believed — Fitbit has backpedaled to an older design. It’s a smart decision if so, and it’s further proof that you get the best wearable experience when you use both a touchscreen and physical buttons.

Samsung is under fire for a recent ad depicting a woman wearing a Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Buds running alone in the middle of a city at 2AM. Critics have called the ad both “unrealistic” and “tone-deaf” in the wake of the murder of Ashling Murphy, a 23 year old who was killed while running in January in Dublin, Ireland. The ad is oblivious to the dangers of nighttime running, but that makes sense since many smartwatch makers don’t seem to understand how their limited safety features may fail runners.

Samsung has since apologized for the ad, telling BBC Radio 1 that it hadn’t intended to “be insensitive to ongoing conversations around women’s safety” and that “the ‘Night Owls’ campaign was designed with a positive message in mind: to celebrate individuality and freedom to exercise at all hours.”

Samsung’s intent is understandable. The ad is meant to highlight how easy it is to use Galaxy devices together and “empower” users to leave their phones at home. For many people — especially runners — it’s a major draw for an LTE-enabled smartwatch. Many high-end devices, including Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 and the Apple Watch, also increasingly include fall detection and emergency calling features. In Samsung’s case, users can set up SOS alerts to notify designated contacts of their location and how to track them in “unthinkable” situations.

The thing is these features are not automatic and have their own technical requirements. Fall detection, for example, is something you have to choose to enable. If you don’t do this during setup, you may never get around to doing it while mistakenly believing it’s activated. Even if it’s enabled, it may not be considered “on” all the time. The Apple Watch, for instance, gives users the option to only enable fall detection during workouts. It’s easy to forget how you’ve configured this setting after a long time.

In some instances, emergency SOS alerts require an LTE-enabled version of a smartwatch. Garmin’s version usually requires users to have their phones on their person. Other watches need you to be connected to a known Wi-Fi network with Wi-Fi calling enabled. You’ll also have to take the time to designate your emergency contacts beforehand. In addition to setting these features up in advance, you’ll also need to know how to activate them on your specific smartwatch model. (While fall detection is automatic, SOS calling is often user-activated.) If any one of these things isn’t done correctly or you don’t have a good signal, you may not be as safe as you think you are.

Regardless of how smartwatches are marketed, they’re not true phone replacements, and you can’t always rely on their emergency features. Sure, it’s convenient to use NFC payments to buy a Gatorade at a local deli after your run. And it’s handy that you can stream your music straight to your wrist or don’t have to miss important calls while out on a quick errand. But it’s a wholly different situation when your safety is in question. Unfortunately, I’ve had my fair share of close calls, and when you’re afraid for your safety, it can be difficult to remember how to activate a smartwatch SOS alert among myriad other controls — especially if it’s not a feature you freshen up on from time to time.

For many people, safety while running outdoors is a real concern. A 2019 Runners World survey found that 84 percent of women had been harassed during a run while 70 percent of men had not. A disturbing 94 percent of women also said no one helped them while being harassed. And yet, tech-based solutions to alleviate this issue are still piecemeal. Some apps like Strava will allow you to edit your routes so that potential stalkers can’t see where you start or end a run. Other wearable devices, like ADT’s Invisawear, create fitness bands that can connect you with emergency services if you feel unsafe but don’t actually track your activity. Garmin recently introduced a promising no-touch LED flashlight for nighttime runners on its 51mm Fenix 7X — a gigantic watch size that excludes most women.

So, while Samsung’s intent with this ad likely wasn’t malicious, it’s a sobering reminder that smartwatch and wearable tech has not gotten to the point where anyone has the “freedom to exercise at all hours.”

While we’re likely months away from seeing Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 5 lineup, a disturbing report is making its way around the smartwatch rumor mill. According to a SamMobile report, Samsung is considering ditching the Classic model — and possibly the physical rotating bezel along with it.

To put it nicely, that is a stupid idea.

It is not hyperbole to say that the physical rotating bezel is one of the most beloved features on Samsung smartwatches. It goes back all the way to when its smartwatches were under the “Gear” moniker. The bezel at that time actually looked like a gear — teeth and all. It was a clever design aesthetically, but it was also functional. Being able to rotate the bezel to scroll through widgets, screens, and apps is one of those things that’s so intuitive, it makes you wonder why everyone doesn’t do it.

But no one else does. The only smartwatch that’s come remotely close was the Misfit Vapor — a watch that was beset with so many delays it almost became vaporware. That had a frosted glass touch bezel that paled in comparison to Samsung’s physical rotating bezel. Misfit then ditched the feature for subsequent models.

If you’ve never worn a Samsung smartwatch, I cannot overstate how satisfying the physical rotating bezel is to use. The clicks it makes put the Apple Watch’s digital crown to shame. It’s more enjoyable than touchscreens, and it doesn’t require you to memorize what the zillion buttons on the sides of your watch do. It works whether you’re wearing gloves or sweaty from a run.

Image: Victoria Song / The Verge

It’s also a fan-favorite feature. Seriously. You only have to take a look at this screenshot above to see how beloved it is. People keep searching to see whether Samsung’s kept the bezel from one generation of smartwatches to the next. When the Galaxy Watch 3 launched, Samsung even had a support page clarifying which of its watches had the physical rotating bezel.

To be fair, getting rid of the Classic doesn’t necessarily mean that Samsung will trash the concept of bezel navigation completely. It did that with the Galaxy Watch Active, a decision that was so bemoaned by reviewers that it released the Galaxy Watch Active 2 just six months later. This time, Samsung introduced a capacitive touch bezel. (It’s what the standard version of the Galaxy Watch 4 has, too.) Basically, it did what Misfit wanted to do with the Vapor but better. It made sense since the Active lineup’s design was supposed to be slimmer and sleeker. It was a nice way to keep the feature without sacrificing the design intent.

The thing is the touch bezel isn’t quite as useful. I appreciated that it kept Samsung’s signature feature, but it’s not as precise. It’s very easy to overshoot the app you’re trying to select, and there’s a learning curve to using it effectively. Also, I run a lot, and it’s simply not as reliable when you’re drenched in sweat.

Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge

The best-case scenario? Samsung is just switching up its branding. (Again.) Another Galaxy Watch 5 rumor is that in lieu of the Classic, Samsung will introduce a Pro model. All we know so far is that the Pro will have a significantly larger battery to make up for the poor battery life on the Galaxy Watch 4 lineup. SamMobile’s report also states this Pro model could potentially only come in one size. And, given the recent trend in wearables, that probably means a significantly bigger size.

Should Samsung keep the physical rotating bezel to the larger Pro, you end up creating less choice for consumers. People with smaller wrists who want a medium-sized watch that retains the physical rotating bezel are left with no good solution. People with larger wrists who want a sleeker vibe and good battery life are also left wanting.

I’m sympathetic to the fact that shifting over to Wear OS comes with its own challenges that likely require creative thinking both in terms of technology and design. Figuring out the right mix of SKUs to cater to a diverse customer base is also a huge challenge. It’s a problem that Samsung isn’t facing alone. Its competitors also have yet to figure out how to reconcile mass production with the fact that humans come in all shapes, sizes, and design preferences. I just know that removing or limiting options for consumers isn’t the answer.

Samsung had a good thing going with the Galaxy Watch 4 lineup by providing four sizes across two distinct styles. Is it too much to hope that it doesn’t try to fix what isn’t broken with the Galaxy Watch 5?

After years of rumors and false starts, it seems like we’re close to finally, finally seeing a Pixel Watch running Wear OS.

We’ve been hearing Pixel Watch rumors for the past few months, but what got me thinking about all this was a recent leak from Evan Blass. Earlier today, Blass posted a screenshot on Twitter of an interactive tutorial teasing a “Pixel Rohan” running Wear OS 3.1. Blass also captioned the tweet by saying, “Won’t be long now” — a nod to the very likely possibility that Google will tease the Pixel Watch at next month’s Google I/O.

Nothing about this is incredibly surprising if you’ve been paying attention. It was always likely the Pixel Watch would run Wear OS, though for a small while there was speculation Google might opt for a digital-analog hybrid. However, this relatively inconsequential leak solidifies that 2022 will be a watershed year for Google’s wearables ambitions.

Essentially, this is the culmination of at least three years of Google laying the groundwork for a real Apple Watch competitor. In early 2019, Google shelled out $40 million to buy Fossil’s smartwatch tech and a portion of the company’s research and development team. Fossil has long been one of Google’s most prominent wearable partners and, at the time, Google said the move was indicative of the company’s commitment to wearables. Later that year, Google emphasized a renewed focus on “ambient computing” at its Made by Google event before closing out 2019 by plunking down $2.1 billion for Fitbit.

Not much happened on the Google wearable front in 2020. Fitbit continued to release products under the Fitbit brand — though its smartwatches did get Google Assistant. Likewise, Wear OS continued to see incremental updates. However, Google busted the door wide open in 2021 at I/O, announcing it was partnering with Samsung to create a new unified version of its long-stagnant Wear OS platform. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 lineup then debuted Wear OS 3 in late 2021.

Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge

That brings us to 2022 — the first year where the new Wear OS platform will be available on more than just Samsung smartwatches. Google has said for the past year that existing Wear OS watches from Fossil and Mobvoi will be eligible to upgrade in the second half of this year. Google has also been hinting at future Fitbit integrations for some time now, and Fitbit CEO James Park has also stated multiple times that a Fitbit Wear OS watch is coming. (Though it’s hard to say when.) Google also recently received FDA clearance for passive atrial fibrillation monitoring on Fitbit devices. Given that Google owns Fitbit, it’s not hard to imagine that it’ll also benefit from Fitbit’s years of research into advanced health tech features. Qualcomm — whose lackluster Snapdragon Wear chipsets have also contributed to Wear OS’s struggles to catch up to its competitors — is also expected to release a more potent chip sometime this year.

Basically, all the pieces are falling into place. Sure, there are still a lot of questions. Will the Pixel Watch primarily focus on fitness and wellness or will it also incorporate more smart features like LTE connectivity? Is this going to work equally well with all Android phones or will it prioritize Google’s own Pixel ecosystem? What about iOS? We likely won’t have these answers until the second half of this year. But one thing is for sure. This is a big year for Google’s wearable platform — and capping it off with a Pixel Watch would be a hell of a way to make a statement.