One of the best parts of owning AirPods is the nearly phone-free experience you can have while using them. Once I put my ‘Pods in and start my music, I can just tap on the physical earbud to skip to the next song, or take an AirPod out to pause it.

But what if you find yourself going back to a previous song more than skipping forward? Or you want to tap to pause rather than taking an earbud fully out? Well, luckily for you, you can customize the gestures on AirPods, and we’ve got a guide on exactly how to do it.

SEE ALSO: The best headphones under $100

1. Connect your AirPods to your phone, then open your Settings.

Before you can do anything to your AirPods functions, you have to make sure they’re connected and running.

2. Tap on Bluetooth, then the little “i” button next to your AIrPods in the devices list.

Your AirPods settings live under Bluetooth when connected.

Credit: Screenshot: Apple

Tap that little “i” button.

Credit: Screenshot: Apple

This will take you into your AirPods’ settings.

3. On the next screen, tap on either “Left” or “Right.”

You can change both the left and right AirPods gestures.
Credit: Screenshot: Apple

This will let you choose what double tapping will do on each AirPod.

4. Choose what gesture you would like for each AirPod.

The gesture options are the same for both sides.
Credit: Screenshot: Apple

The options are to activate Siri, Play/Pause, Next Track, Previous Track, or turn off gestures completely. Both sides have the same options.

5. Go back to the AirPods settings, and decide if you want Automatic Ear Detection turned on.

Toggle this off if you don’t want your music to stop playing when you take an AirPod out.
Credit: Screenshot: Apple

Under the Left and Right options, there is also a toggle for Automatic Ear Detection, which senses when your AirPods are taken out or put back in and can pause and play your sound. If you’d prefer to manually control this or opt for double tapping, toggle this option off.

And that’s it! Once your controls are set to your liking, just exit out of the settings and resume your AirPods usage, now complete with the gestures you’d prefer.

Classic role playing game Dungeons and Dragons has historically focused most of its attention on the dungeons, and less on the dragons. Now publisher Wizards of the Coast is seeking to rectify this imbalance, introducing a new bestiary of the beasts for intrepid adventurers to encounter.

Releasing Oct. 26, upcoming sourcebook Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons provides details, statistics, and lore on the titular creatures populating Dungeons and Dragons‘ worlds, as well as items, environments, and races which are related to them. It also reintroduces gem dragons, crystalline scaled beasts which last appeared almost two decades ago in 2002’s Dungeons and Dragons Third Edition Monster Manual II.

Now, Mashable can exclusively reveal an excerpt from Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons, providing new details on the lairs of the returning crystal dragons.

“Crystal dragons are the most amiable of the gem dragons, for sure,” senior game designer James Wyatt told Mashable via email. “But they live in remote, inhospitable places — arctic wildernesses that are much less friendly than they are. So if you were to seek out a crystal dragon, braving the environment would be a significant first hurdle.

“Once you reach the lair, the dragon might welcome the chance for some conversation, but it’s not necessarily inclined to do whatever you ask. Crystal dragons are chaotic neutral, so they’ll do what feels right at the time, without any concern for anyone’s standards of ethics or morality.”

Crystal dragons tend to be less hostile than other gem dragons, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re friendly.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Though gem dragons haven’t featured in Dungeons and Dragons for 19 years, Wyatt told Mashable that Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons is finally bringing them to the fore again “largely because I have a soft spot in my heart for them.”

“From an in-world perspective, [gem dragons have] never gone away,” said Wyatt. “But they do tend to be more reclusive than other dragons, so their presence is not always obvious, and they’re also sometimes mistaken for other kinds of dragons by people who don’t know better.

“In our world, I think a big part of the reason they’ve been sort of in and out of favor in the game over the years is that their place in the game’s lore has been sort of hard to pin down,” Wyatt continued. “The metallic and chromatic dragons have a clear story and they exist in a satisfying opposition to each other. Bahamut and Tiamat, as the patrons and progenitors of those two dragon families, set the tone for everything we say about metallic and chromatic dragons. Gem dragons have been more nebulous.”

Crystal dragon lairs are typically found in cold, icy landscapes.
Credit: Wizards of the coast

A few adjustments therefore had to be made to better incorporate gem dragons into Dungeons and Dragons‘ mythology, as well as clarify their role in the universe. While gem dragons were strongly linked to the Elemental Planes in their last appearance, Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons takes a different approach when weaving them into its creation myth.

“In Fizban’s, we really wanted to stress how dragons are intricately linked to the fabric (and the mythic history) of the Material Plane, so we brought them back to the Material worlds,” said Wyatt. “But some things haven’t changed: their psionic nature, their unusual breath weapons, their neutrality (both in terms of alignment and in terms of the chromatic vs. metallic conflict among dragons), and their overall personality.

“In the creation myth that leads off the book, the Ruby Dragon, Sardior, is the first dragon made by Bahamut and Tiamat as they worked together to populate the First World. But in the destruction of the First World, Sardior was also destroyed. Gem dragons believe that every gem dragon holds a shard of Sardior’s consciousness and divine power. That explains their psionic nature, and it ties them into a theme that runs through this book: the idea that dragons are connected to each other across the worlds of the Material Plane.”

According to Wyatt, the most challenging part of creating Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons was keeping the scale “appropriately mythic.”

“We didn’t want to get down in the weeds of dragon biology in any way; dragons are inherently magical creatures, not just big flying reptiles,” said Wyatt. “So things like the discussion of where dragon eggs come from (it might not be where you think!) or exploring how one dragon’s transformation into an Undead might have repercussions across multiple worlds are where I was stretching my brain and forcing myself to think more fantastically.”

Fortunately Wyatt didn’t have to grapple with those questions alone, working with a variety of different designers and writers to put together Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons.

“In particular, chapter 5 — the long section where we take a deep dive on all the different kinds of dragons — is where we brought together a total of nine different writers, so you really get to see a diverse set of takes on different dragons,” he said.

In addition to chapter five, Wyatt also singled out the sourcebook’s opening poem “Elegy for the First World” as a section he’s “ridiculously proud” of.

“After stretching my poetic muscles writing Homeric hexameter for Mythic Odysseys of Theros (and the Theros Beyond Death card set for Magic), I added a metrical foot and told the story of the creation of the First World in Homeric heptameter, and I’m just delighted by it,” said Wyatt.

“I think of Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons as a treasure chest full of trinkets and jewels of ideas, inspiration, and game mechanics,” said Wyatt. “I hope everyone will find something they can use in their next adventure, campaign, or character, and I can’t wait to hear stories about the fun ideas we inspired!”

Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons takes flight on Oct. 26.

It’s hard to keep up with the latest Apple products. With its second event of the year just a few days away, Apple is releasing more products than ever. But still, the most highly-anticipated part of every Apple event is the new iPhone. Since 2007, a new iPhone has steadily released new models. And each generation of iPhones offers something bigger, smaller, more powerful, faster, lighter, better than before. But where are we on the iPhone timeline? Here’s a hint: if the iPhone were a human, it would now be a teenager.

This past September, Apple revealed the iPhone 13. It’s the 13th generation in the iPhone family, although Apple has produced 33 iPhones overall; some iterations are from the same series or have branched off non-linearly from the original.

The iPhone 13, in all its glory.
Credit: apple

The iPhone 13 has come a long way from generation one. To put things in perspective, the very first iPhone had a measly 4 GB of storage, a 3.5-inch screen, a single-core 412 MHz professor, no front camera, and no apps.

By comparison, the iPhone 13 comes with a minimum of 128 GB, a 6.1-inch screen, and a six-core processor that can perform 15.8 trillion operations per second. Display-wise, it has Super Retina XDR with ProMotion, which means it makes for smooth scrolling.

The iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini have a 12MP dual camera system: a wide and ultra wide lens that shoot in a range of modes, larger aperture, and a bigger sensor. The iPhone Pro and Pro Max are also equipped with a third telephoto lens and something called Cinematic Mode that will make your videos look Oscar-worthy. All in all, its camera features will impress any photographer.

For 13 generations, iPhones have kept cult of Apple happy. Here’s to another 13 and beyond.

Makes you feel nostalgic, doesn’t it?
Credit: ian moore / mashable

Apple unveiled the next gen AirPods, along with the new Macbook Pro powered by the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips.

Surprise, TATBILB fans! Looks like Always and Forever wasn’t the end of the Song Covey saga.

On Thursday, Netflix announced creator and executive producer Jenny Han will continue her beloved rom-com trilogy with spinoff TV series XO, Kitty. The new YA dramedy will consist of ten 30-minute episodes, and will see Anna Cathcart reprise her role as fan favorite Kitty, aka the little sister who sent the letters out all those years ago.

“Teen matchmaker Kitty Song Covey thinks she knows everything there is to know about love,” the series description, included as part of the official announcement, reads. “But when she moves halfway across the world to reunite with her long-distance boyfriend, she’ll soon realize that relationships are a lot more complicated when it’s your own heart on the line.” 

That certainly seems like a nod to Kitty’s past love interest Dae, who she met during her trip to Korea in Always and Forever. However, it’s not yet been announced if actor Ho-Young Jeon, or any of the other TATBILB cast members, will return. We get a few more clues in this teaser…

Tweet may have been deleted

…but without a release date and no details to go on, the answer to the question “Who will steal Kitty’s heart?” seems a long way off. Alas, as with all things in romance, absence makes the heart grow fonder. And now, we know we’ve got more TATBILB to pine after.

In the meantime, all three films in the To All The Boys trilogy are available to stream on Netflix.

The first Apple keynote I ever attended began with a parody of Steve Jobs. Literally: Noah Wyle, the ER actor who’d just played Jobs in the TV movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, strode out on the Macworld 1999 stage promising “really, totally, wildly, insanely great new products” before being interrupted by the real deal. It was a neat way to defuse and co-opt Wyle’s (correct) portrayal of Jobs as an egomaniac who had gotten himself kicked out of his own company.

More importantly for us Apple faithful, it was a sign that this was not, and would never be, a boring button-down tech conglomerate with snoozefest keynotes. All Apple events since have had some element of entertainment in their DNA. We laughed when Jobs unveiled the iPod socks, and loved discovering later you could actually buy them. Tim Cook, though not the same level of showman, understands the importance of memeable moments — such as the devious grin after ripping off his mask during an April 20 event subtly designed for stoners.

But the fun came to a screeching halt during Monday’s Apple event, in which there was precious little to announce (new Apple Music price tier, new HomePod colors, barely new AirPods) and enough tech specs from a confusing couple of laptop chips to send a Mac nerd like me to sleep. The $19 screen cleaner — this year’s iPod socks — didn’t even rate a mention. And not for lack of time. The keynote lasted 50 minutes, making it Apple’s shortest ever, and didn’t so much end as gave up the ghost.

This isn’t about entertainment value; it’s an indicator that the company is running out of creative steam. Apple was widely criticized, even by the Macworld faithful, for having little actual new technology to wow us with at September’s iPhone 13 launch event. But at least it covered that fact up with a vibrant love letter to the state that birthed it. A month later, the marketing department has nothing left in the tank. If I was an investor looking for signs of the company’s long-term health, this would be a troubling one.

The only humor at this Apple event came from unintentional self-parody. My first reaction to the Apple Music voice plan, which charges $5 a month but removes the ability to type your searches (it’s Siri-activated only), was to check the calendar and make sure it wasn’t April 1. Apple keynotes have felt dystopian before, but here was the first one herding us into a world where the have-nots have their keyboards literally removed from the screen. (Plus, in marketing terms, it’s kind of a self-own: If Siri is so great, why is a Siri-only plan half-price?)

The introduction of the new Macbook Pro was the next source of self-parody (if you don’t count the fact that Apple is still trying to make HomePods happen by … selling them in different colors). Remember the notch, that weirdly-shaped iPhone camera zone so long despised that Apple is reportedly ditching it on the iPhone 14? Then you’ll love the laptop notch! If you looked closely — and which Apple nerd doesn’t look closely? — you’d have noticed that core Mac apps such as FaceTime do not use the new space offered by this weird screen carve-out. They know what’s up.

Everything old is new again on this Macbook. It brought back Magsafe charging (prompting the question: Why did it ever go away?), retains the more secure Touch ID rather than “upgrading” to Face ID, and still has the headphone jack that Apple took away from the phone after the late, lamented iPhone 6S. So let’s get this straight: Touch ID and wired headphones are too old-school for the iPhone, but they’re indispensable on a notebook the marketing team calls “game-changing”?

And if those questions hurt your head, don’t even wade into the differences between the M1 Max and the M1 Pro chips. Is the Max for amateurs? Is the Pro not really taking it to the max? The way Apple chose to arrange its introductions, it was almost like the Pro became obsolete and was replaced by the Max during the keynote. Come on Apple, SNL did this gag a decade ago in a Weekend Update starring Fred Armisen as Jobs. Get some new material!

The keynote cut between never-before-seen Apple executives so fast, that almost seemed part of a self-parody too. The one who got the most screen time was also the one who introduced a wide range of seriously esoteric charts about CPU and GPU performance, then glared at the audience like we’d forgotten to do our homework. Poor old software chief Craig Federighi, daddy extraordinaire, returned for his first Apple event since 2020 — and with under a minute of screen time, he didn’t get to crack a single dad joke.

Maybe that will change when Tim Cook-helmed live events return in 2022. In the meantime, it’s Apple itself that is starting to seem like a dad joke, and a particularly stale one. The company is, at long last, becoming a boring, button-down tech conglomerate with snoozefest keynotes. At least it can always find comfort in the hardcore fans who will defend anything the company does — such as the one who slipped into our writer’s DMs asking why we had to “shame the Apple cloth so hard.” Somewhere, even the ghost of Steve Jobs is smiling at that one.

Even if you have a very capable smartphone and a nice laptop, tablets are still a worthwhile hunk of tech to add to your arsenal.

The touchscreen that can be carried anywhere makes for a portable studio for creatives, a crucial sidekick for commuters and frequent travelers, and a mini TV for people who aren’t missing the newest episode of Loki just because they’re on vacation.

Basically, pretty much anyone can enjoy a tablet. Certainly, no one would be upset to be gifted one, which is why we expect them to be a hot ticket item again this holiday season. Though retailers are anticipating this, don’t plan on scoring a tablet last-minute — in typical unprecedented pandemic fashion, supply chain shortages mean you’ll want to do your shopping much, much earlier this year. Luckily, that’s another reality retailers are anticipating, so those Black Friday savings you usually wait for are also coming much, much earlier. What that means is you’ll want to start figuring out what tablet would be best for you (or your gift recipient) sooner rather than later.

SEE ALSO: Best Black Friday 2021 deals, all in one place

A simple question kicks off the process of narrowing down your options: Are you an Apple person? Whether that’s yes, no, or an “I have no idea,” the buying guide below lays out the pros and cons of the main picks from Apple, Amazon, Samsung, and Microsoft.

Are refurbished tablets worth buying?

Taking a refurbished device off the market is a great way to save money — and save that device from going where e-waste goes to die. Refurbished or renewed tablets are often next to impossible to tell apart from a brand new one. Cosmetic dings are a possibility (the retailer will mention this) but unless stated otherwise, the devices have been reworked and tested to run like new. iPads are probably the easiest tablet to find refurbished, both at Amazon and Apple’s website.

What about a tablet for your kid?

Most tablets made specifically for kids will already be equipped with built-in parental accounts, timers, and pre-selected websites or apps that are strictly for kids.

General-purpose tablets aren’t a bad choice, either — many sites name the iPad as one of the best tablets for kids even though it’s an everyone tablet. These won’t have any parental guardrails baked in, so you’ll need to get creative if you’d rather your kid not have unlimited access to the internet. Apple and Android have features that can filter or block content and prevent purchases, but the closest thing you’ll be able to get to close monitoring is by installing parental control software. Such monitoring features are easy to toggle off or uninstall as your kid gets older or if the family is sharing the device. In the latter case, Osmo is a neat snap-on kit that connects to iPads and Fire tablets for augmented reality-ish learning exercises and games. When your kid moves a physical piece in real life, the same piece moves on the screen.

Here are the best tablets you can buy in 2021:

Some people wake up and check the weather, others check their horoscope, but the latest thing to do is to check if Noodle has bones or not.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, Noodle is Jonathan Graziano’s 13-year-old pug. Every morning he posts a video on his TikTok account @jongraz where he plays the game “no bones” with Noodle. The game is simple, and involves chicking if Noodle has bones or not that morning. If Noodle can hold himself up, it’s a bones day. If he can’t, it’s a no bones day.

SEE ALSO: Best electric toothbrushes

Today? A bones day.

Bones days and no bones days have taken on a meaning of their own based on Graziano’s corresponding commentary. Noodle acts as an indicator of what the day will bring. He’s like a combination of a horoscope and the Punxsutawney Phil and his shadow.

Noodle suddenly has a lot of power.

A bones day is a day to treat yourself and get shit done. They are motivated and energetic days that you take by storm. No bones days, on the other hand, are for taking it easy and relaxing.

In today’s video, Graziano tells his followers “It’s a bones day on Monday! This is so exciting. You know what to do, you’ve got to treat yourself today. The Japanese fried chicken you were going to order for lunch? Get the curry to dip with it. All those festive gourds? Buy them! That raise you deserve, but haven’t asked for yet? You totally deserve it! Ask for it.”

Granziano’s TikTok boasts almost 2 million followers and over 17 million likes. The tag #noodletok has almost 90 million views. The bones day phenomenon has spurred a ton of content from other creators.

In a TikTok posted by @morgandrinkscoffee she demonstrates “how it feels going to work when it’s a bones day.” In another TikTok by @mlmclands, she writes “my biggest mistake today was that I didn’t check the bones forecast this morning.” Both videos have over 300,000 likes.

Tweet may have been deleted

It’s absurd that we are letting this geriatric pug determine what kind of day we are going to have, but the videos are fun and engaging, and maybe what we all need right now. Graziano’s commentary in each video is warm, energetic, and well, inspiring. It’s nice to have someone tell you how to spend your day.

No matter what kind of day it is, bone or no bones, Graziano spins it into something positive and urges us to go and live our best lives.

Olivia Colman fans are in for a hell of a mystery with Netflix’s The Lost Daughter, based on author Elena Ferrante’s book of the same name

Helmed by first-time writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal, who also produces, this seaside drama follows Leda (Colman), a woman on vacation whose mysterious past bubbles to the surface when she meets Nina (Dakota Johnson) and her young daughter on the beach. What begins as a friendly interaction between travelers soon blooms into an unsettling obsession — a theme the trailer’s nail-biting soundtrack and dream-like cinematography underscores.

Peter Sarsgaard, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Paul Mescal, Dagmara Domińczyk, Jessie Buckley, and more support in what’s sure to be an edge-of-your-seat thriller. Heck, it already has great reviews.

The Lost Daughter is in some theaters Dec. 17; streaming on Netflix Dec. 31.

$6,099.

That’s the price of Apple’s latest 16″ MacBook Pro with the new M1 Max chip — if you max out all of the hardware specifications, too.

That’s quite a different price than the already hefty $2,499 starting price Apple advertised at its Apple Event on Monday.

What do you get with this more than six thousand dollar computer?

First let’s talk about the basics. At Monday’s Apple Event, Tim Cook and company unveiled its latest in the line of its in-house processing chip, the M1. The new chips, the M1 Pro and M1 Max, are faster, more powerful and energy efficient than ever before. And, now, they come in 14″ and 16″ models of the MacBook Pro for the first time. (The M1 was previously only available in 13″ MacBook Pros. The other models were still stuck with Intel chips.)

During the announcement, it took forever for Apple to get to the pricing on these new devices. Here at Mashable we braced for the eventual impact of the new cost of the new MacBook Pros. The starting prices did hit at somewhat expected price points: $1,999 for the 14″ Pro and $2,499 for the 16″.

But, of course, I knew the real fun with the pricing was to be had when the online Apple Store reopened and you upgrade the hardware well-beyond the stock options.

The 16″ $6,099 laptop comes with the most powerful of its new M1 chips, which Apple unveiled at the event: the M1 Max.

The base 16″ MacBook Pro with the M1 Max chip, 32GB of memory, and a 1TB SSD is $3,499. If you want that M1 Max chip, that’s the lowest price.

The M1 Max is only available with 32GB or 64GB of memory. That’s a lot and no regular, everyday computer user needs that much power. So even though the M1 Pro is called the “Pro,” the “Max” is really the professional level chip here.

But, we’re maxing out here, remember? Once 64GB is thrown in for an extra $400, we move to storage. The minimum you can go with a 16″ MacBook Pro with an M1 Max chip is 1TB. The maximum? A monstrous 8TB.

If you want an 8TB internal solid-state drive, that’s going to cost you an additional $2,200 over the base 1TB SSD.

These computers are not upgradable once you purchase one. You can’t open these up and add more internal storage or upgrade the RAM. However, realistically, you don’t need that much internal storage. You can always carry a small, portable SSD drive if you need more space.

So, if you just add the 64GB memory upgrade and keep the internal 1TB drive, we’re looking at $3,899. (And we are sticking with the 16″ model because the creative professionals these computers are built for need the extra screen space.)

Yes, it’s still a lot of money, but not as much as the absolute maximum priced $6,099 16″ MacBook Pro.

Either way, it’s a lot of money. Better hope you’re approved for that Apple Card.