Crypto News: Eagerly awaiting these tech gadgets

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Hi, it's Dana in New York. Here's a snapshot of some tech gear we're looking forward to in 2025. But first...

Three things you need to know today:

• Tesla's annual vehicle sales dropped for the first time in more than a decade
• Meta's Nick Clegg is stepping down as the company's head of global affairs
• Alibaba unloads ownership of retailer Sun Art at a steep discount

New tech toys

If I'm being honest, the best thing a technology company can give me right now is the long-delayed second season of Severance. But jokes aside, 2025 is shaping up to be a busy year for the consumer tech industry. Samsung will be the first of several brands to sell a mixed-reality headset powered by Google's recently unveiled Android XR platform. Nintendo Co. is expected to announce a successor to the Switch, making this a rare year that one of the big three game console makers has an entirely new video-game system to offer. And some of the most popular AI assistants are due for updates that promise to make them smarter and more useful. Here are the things I, a slightly jaded tech journalist, am most looking forward to.

Samsung's Project Moohan

Early last year, the industry's most-anticipated gadget was Apple Inc.'s Vision Pro headset. A year later, it doesn't appear to be selling well, and other device makers see an opportunity to improve on its shortcomings. Alphabet Inc.'s Google last month unveiled its new Android XR platform, which combines virtual and augmented reality, and is making the software available to various hardware partners, including Samsung Electronics Co., Sony Group Corp. and Xreal Inc. Samsung will be first to release such a device in 2025: a headset codenamed "Project Moohan" that it developed in close collaboration with Google.

Drawing on Google's vast ecosystem of apps for content (think: YouTube, Google TV, Photos and Maps), the headset bears many similarities to the Vision Pro, including the ability to toggle between virtual and augmented reality, and to control the user interface with pinching hand gestures. Like the Vision Pro, it can turn photos into 3D memories, but Google's software even allows you to do this on previously recorded videos. Of note, Samsung's device is lighter and more comfortable than Apple's headset, according to my colleague Mark Gurman. (For what it's worth, I had trouble finding a comfortable fit when I tried out the Vision Pro early last year.) Samsung has also hinted that Project Moohan will undercut the $3,499 Vision Pro on price. Will it be any likelier to appeal to the masses? It's too soon to say. But I sure am eager to try one out for myself.

Nintendo's Switch 2

Video-game console launches are kind of like US elections: Each of the major hardware brands only unveils a next-generation system every few years or so. Sometime in the first half of 2025, gamers are due for a much-anticipated update to Nintendo's popular Switch, which doubles as a handheld device and a traditional console that connects to a TV. Little is known about the new hardware, but Bloomberg has previously reported that Nintendo will likely hold off releasing new titles in popular game franchises like Legend of Zelda, Mario and Splatoon until after the launch. That alone could be reason enough for some gamers to upgrade. In the meantime, sales of the eight-year-old original Switch have slowed as the device nears the end of its lifetime.

Elsewhere in the industry, 2025 is set to be a big year for video games themselves, with Grand Theft Auto VI likely to be a best-seller.

Redesigned iPhones

Apple's flagship handsets haven't received a major design update since 2020, leaving price-conscious consumers with even fewer reasons to upgrade if their older handset is still kicking. But Apple plans to roll out more meaningful design changes for the iPhone Pro models later this year. The biggest alteration, though, will be with a new, slimmer iPhone 17 configuration to replace the iPhone 16 Plus. By using its own modem, Apple is capable of building handsets that are about 2 millimeters thinner than the iPhone 16 Pro, Bloomberg previously reported.

Meanwhile, Apple is also preparing to update the entry-level iPhone SE for the first time since 2022, with changes that include an edge-to-edge screen and support for Apple Intelligence. It's unclear what the price of the new low-end phone would be; the current SE debuted with a starting price of $429 and hasn't seen any cuts since then, despite its aging tech and dated design.

Upgrades for Siri and Alexa

Both Apple and Amazon are expected to release smarter, AI-infused versions of their respective digital assistants after getting a slow start in artificial intelligence. Apple announced in 2024 that changes to Siri were on the way, including the ability to control apps using one's voice and to tap into personal data to better answer queries. Those capabilities are expected to roll out this spring. Apple is also planning this year to tease a more conversational Siri based on an advanced large language model, Bloomberg previously reported. That version of Siri, intended to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT and other voice services, isn't expected to launch until spring 2026 at the earliest.

Amazon's Alexa assistant, which was once groundbreaking for its ability to tell jokes and answer questions about the weather, is also being reimagined as an AI helper capable of generating answers on the fly and doing things on the user's behalf, like ordering a pizza or hailing a car. That, too, should debut sometime this year, after missing a 2024 launch window.

A Fully Fixed Sonos App

As it happens, one of my most anticipated "gadgets" of the year is actually a software fix. Over the years, I've purchased Sonos' Wi-Fi speakers for myself and others on account of their seamless user experience — namely, the ability to wirelessly stream audio from a laptop or phone, without any finicky Bluetooth connections. But what's made Sonos products so good is the tight integration between the hardware and software; they are inextricable. And unfortunately, Sonos last year broke its software in a big way.

Following a botched update to its core app, the one necessary to set up the hardware and beam audio to the speakers, the user experience became unbearable. The damage was so bad that when the company announced its quarterly results in November, it blamed an 8% revenue decline in part on "challenges resulting from our recent app rollout," which it also described as "mishandled." For my part, I can confirm the software indeed felt buggy last year.

By the time the company reported its most recent quarterly results, it said it had issued 16 updates to restore "90 percent of missing features." (The company didn't add to that number when it issued a December software update.) As we enter the new year, I'm looking forward to hearing more about the brand's hardware and less about its app changelog.—Dana Wollman

The big story

The deadly car attack in New Orleans and the Tesla Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas put an unwelcome spotlight on Turo, the auto rental e-commerce marketplace used by both suspects to secure vehicles used in the incidents. Some workers on the closely held company's trust and safety team interrupted vacations to monitor and respond to the aftermath of the attacks.

One to watch

Rachel Tipograph, chief executive officer of MikMak, joins Bloomberg Technology to discuss the potential shift in advertising and online shopping if TikTok were to be banned in the US.

Get fully charged

Climate tech investors are reevaluating where to put their money after a dip in fundraising and the prospect of greater trade sanctions.

Nvidia's remarkable stock climb has created a few new billionaires

The US is considering a rule to limit or ban Chinese drones, another potential escalation in the conflict over technology between the two nations.