You’ll find some of the most interesting, important and entertaining information in books. But with all the books out there, and all the things vying for your attention and time, it can be hard to get through even a single book. That makes these condensed book breakdowns essential for anyone who wants to stay in the know while on the go.

A $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund that Apple invested in has published a quarterly loss of $8.9 billion. The fund backs promising (or seemingly promising) startups.

SoftBank Group founder, chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son announced the disappointing returns today. “My investment judgment was poor,” Son said.

Amazon is reportedly testing workout-tracking software for its Amazon Echo Buds. While this feature is seemingly still in its early testing phase, fitness-measuring earbuds could be a massive deal.

The good news? Apple is working on something very similar — and possibly even more advanced.

Police in Franklin, Tennessee, are looking for three snatch-and-grab suspects in an Apple Store theft. They stole 17 Apple Watches, worth $9,000.

Surveillance footage released by the police shows the trio walking into the Franklin store and grabbing the Apple Watches from the display table. They escaped unimpeded.

Apple and Chinese music video app TikToks were the two holdouts at a U.S. congressional hearing Tuesday regarding the tech industry and China. Both were represented by empty seats.

Republican senator Josh Hawley slammed the two as “two sides of the same coin when it comes to data security.” TikTok represents the entry of Chinese tech platforms into the U.S., Hawley said. Meanwhile, Apple represents “the danger of American tech companies’ operations in China.”

The outside ad agency dedicated to Apple marketing was hit with a big round of layoffs this week.

Media Arts Lab cut about 50 employees across multiple divisions of the company. Owned by Apple’s longtime ad partner TBWA Worldwide, Media Arts Lab counts Apple as its only client. The Los Angeles based company helps Apple come up with advertisements for many of its popular products, but is facing changes as Apple’s needs evolve.

Parents will soon be able to limit when their children use an iPhone or iPad to talk to their friends, thanks to a long-awaited new Screen Time feature. Communication Limits were supposed to come earlier, they debuted in the first iOS 13.3 beta that launched today.

You can add almost endless faces to your Apple Watch, and switch between them with a simple swipe on the screen. Maybe you have a carefully-crafted fitness face, an elegant, complication-free evening face, plus faces for shopping, hiking, commuting, and so on. But is this really an optimum strategy?

After a months or so using the Apple Watch Series 5, I’ve settled on something way simpler, and probably good enough for 90% of Apple Watch use cases. I call it the “Two-Face Mullet Strategy,” and you’re going to love it.

Notorious Apple copycat Xiaomi is ready to up the ante on the iPhone 11 Pro Max with its newest phone that packs not three, not four, but five camera lenses on the back.

The CC9 Pro from Xiaomi isn’t the first smartphone to pack five lenses but it is the first Xiaomi phone to and it’s also armed with a 108MP sensor that churns out high resolution photos the latest iPhones can’t match (in size).

Sorry, cows: I love leather iPhone cases. They add a layer of warmth on top of the iPhone’s cold metal-and-glass construction that can’t be beat. And, unlike most thermoplastic polyurethane cases, a good leather case looks sophisticated and, dare I say it, grownup.

Woolnut’s leather iPhone 11 Pro case takes things a step further, adding a pebbled look that reminds me of vintage gear from the ’60s. It’s so freaking manly I can almost smell the English Leather and Old Spice.

This OS updates and security post is presented by Jamf Now.

Apple’s new operating systems, macOS Catalina and iOS 13, bring innovative capabilities to organizations using them. A streamlined approach to Apple upgrades ensures security measures are met, an accurate systems inventory is maintained and downtime is eliminated. Mobile device management products like Jamf Now help simplify the upgrade process and maintain security of employees’ devices by keeping them up to date.

Apple has just begun beta testing the next updates for iPhone and iPad. It’s not known yet if iOS 13.3 and iPadOS 13.3 fix the serious memory management problem introduced in the previous version, introduced last week.

In addition, watchOS 6.1.1 also just entered beta testing.

You’ve got your amazing new AirPods Pro, and now you have a set of perfectly good (if a little waxy) AirPods Normal just taking up mental space.

Should you keep them as spares? I guess that’s the safe route (just in case you misplace the Pros). But how about giving them away to a friend or family member? Today we’ll see how to unpair AirPods from your iCloud account so you can do just that. (Plus how to clean them before you pass them along.)

With the holiday season approaching, maybe you could make someone very happy.

Apple engineers dreamed up an iPhone case that’s also a stand and a handle. And maybe a keyboard. It’s surprisingly simple, but also a dramatic departure from typical cases.

And it’s possible the designers see this as more than an add on. They seem to be proposing that handsets and tablets have this case built in.

Apple’s coming-of-age drama about a Pakistani American teenager will land on Apple TV+ and in theaters just in time for award season.

Hala, the first narrative feature film Apple bought, will premiere on the streaming service on December 6. That’s just two weeks after The Banker lands on Apple TV+. To hype up the release date, Apple published the first full-length trailer for Hala. The movie follows a girl who goes from picking up skateboarding to falling in love for the first time. Meanwhile, her Pakistani family starts unraveling.

Don’t settle for the basic bands that ship as standard with your new Apple Watch. These leather straps from Clessant add a dash of luxury that will separate your new wearable from all the others.

Hand-crafted from the finest materials and available in a variety of styles, they’re smart, outrageously stylish, and unlike anything you’ll find in the Apple Store.

The Apple Watch running cadence setting arrived in watchOS 5, but if you didn’t notice, you’re not alone. It tends to get buried in the myriad stats Cupertino provides for runners. Plus, there’s a lot of confusion about what it actually means and whether it’s useful.

But when you understand what your running cadence is telling you, it can help make you run faster and reduce your risk of injury. So it’s definitely worth taking the time to get your head around it. Here’s our handy guide.

An off-duty firefighter in Florida was shot to death after refusing to give robbers the passcode to his iPhone.

The killers had spared Chris Randazzo his life after robbing him of his iPhone and other belongings in Broward. The three men sped off in a car but quickly turned around to demand Randazoo provide the phone’s security code. They shot Randazzo when he refused, police said.

Xiaomi today showed off its new Mi Watch wearable — and, as predicted, it looks pretty much exactly like Apple Watch. Only it costs a whole lot less.

The device, which starts at $185, runs a skinned version of Google Wear OS. This is packaged into a form factor with the familiar rectangular display, digital crown and pill-shaped button of the Apple Watch.

Learning languages is a lifelong endeavor, and there’s no single way to do it. Many language-learning apps revolve around one concept or approach, so they’ll limit the amount of progress you can make. But with a variety of technologies backing its lessons, Mondly offers powerful tools for learning languages.

Professional Fortnite player FaZe Jarvis has been permanently banned from the game for using hacks.

The 17-year-old uploaded videos of himself using an “aimbot.” Jarvis claims he cheated only to entertain fans, but Epic Games says it has a “zero tolerance policy” on cheat software.

The ban has reignited debates over Epic’s seemingly unfair and inconsistent punishment policy.

Mario Kart Tour‘s world tour has so far taken players to New York, Tokyo and, err, Halloween. Now it’s headed to Paris, France for its next location.

Starting tomorrow, players logging into the game today should be able to access the Paris Tour course. In addition to landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, and more, the Paris tour adds new characters as well.

The founder of a Chinese smartphone company which has been a vocal critic of Apple has landed on China’s official list of deadbeats. This is a national database held by China’s Supreme Court which can be described as a credit blacklist.

Smartisan Technology CEO Luo Yonghao is barred from taking flights or high-speed train journeys. He can also no longer stay in luxury hotels, spend money in nightclubs, or buy property.

Microsoft is preparing to make its Outlook app for macOS better than ever. An overhaul will introduce new sync technology and big performance improvements, as well as welcome design tweaks.

Here’s what you can expect.

If you’ve been enjoying Apple TV+ and wondering why your vision is suddenly better, it’s not that you’re getting younger. It’s that Apple’s new service streams the highest-quality 4K content yet.

That’s according to new tests that measure the bitrate of video streams. They reveal See has the highest bitrate so far, closely followed by The Elephant Queen.