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OPINION: It’s time to announce our winner and loser from this week and, with Apple delivering announcement after announcement at WWDC, it seemed natural that the company would take one of those spots.
Of course, Apple wasn’t the only company to hit the headlines this week. HTC announced the launch of the HTC U24 Pro, Samsung’s foldable line was tipped for a major price hike, and we saw leaked renders of the rumoured Pixel Watch 3 XL.
Elsewhere, Adobe received backlash for the phrasing of its updated terms of service as Microsoft was forced to rethink its AI Recall feature following concerns from privacy advocates and security experts.
Keep reading to learn who we named our winner and loser this week…
Winner: Apple
Our winner this week is Apple after the company finally confirmed a UK release date for the Apple Vision Pro.
The announcement comes four months after the mixed-reality headset first launched in the US in February.
Of course, the UK isn’t the only region that has been itching to get its hands on the Vision Pro these last few months. Apple listed nine locations in total that will soon receive the headsets, with the launch split into two phases.
From June 13th, customers in mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore will be able to order the Vision Pro, with availability starting June 28th. June 28th is also when users in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the UK will be able to preorder their headsets, with availability from July 12th.
This news came as Apple announced visionOS 2, the first major update to the Vision Pro’s operating system. Key updates include 3D Spatial Photos, 180-degree Immersive Video, a new Train Mode, and hand gestures that make opening the home menu, clock, and battery information faster and easier.
While there’s no set rollout date for visionOS 2 just yet, we’d expect the software update to be available later this year.
Loser: Jabra
This week’s loser is Jabra after the company announced its shock exit from the consumer headphones market.
The news came on the same day that Jabra unveiled the Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2 and Elite 10 Gen 2 earbuds, putting quite a dampener on the launch.
Parent company GN Group announced that it would be gradually winding down its Elite and Talk product lines to “increase focus and resources on more attractive parts of GN’s business”, including the company’s Hearing, Enterprise, and Gaming businesses.
Jabra has made steady appearances on our best lists over the years, which is why we were disappointed to hear that the company’s consumer business was shutting down. The Jabra Elite 3, for example, currently stands as our top pick for comfortable budget true wireless headphones with 4.5 stars.
Just last month, we praised the Jabra Elite 8 Active workout earbuds for their rugged design, enjoyably rich audio performance and strong noise-cancelling skills.
Hopefully Jabra will make a return at some point in the future.
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