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Engadget
15-05-2025
- Engadget
How to turn your old iPhone into an alarm clock
Getting a new phone might leave you wondering what to do with your old one. Trading it in, particularly for credit towards your new handset, is ideal and could make a future refurbished shopper happy. But if the trade-in value isn't worthwhile to you and you've been wondering what else your retired pocket computer can do, we have a few ideas. One suggestion is to turn it into a dedicated alarm clock. Yes, you can absolutely use your new phone for that purpose — you probably already do. But there are clear advantages to using your decommissioned device instead. Here's how to upcycle your old iPhone into an alarm clock. Stuffing a retired gadget in a drawer does nothing — except make you half-heartedly contemplate doing something with it each time you open said drawer. Recycling is a valid option, but even if your old handset isn't as speedy as your new one, it's almost assuredly more powerful than any sleep machine or smart alarm clock on the market. And with the setup tips detailed here, it can actually perform more advanced functions, too. Plus, using your current phone when you're trying to sleep is perilous. I've never picked up my phone without getting distracted. Finally, with on-again, off-again tariffs making electronic gadgets harder to come by for a good price, rethinking what an existing device can do is intelligent alchemy. OK, not everything. But the idea is to make your phone as unexciting as possible — no Instagram, no Monument Valley , no Photos memories from last year's road trip. Your iPhone won't let you delete certain apps, such as Phone, Messages, the App Store and others — but you can hide them from your home screen so they'll only pop up if you search for them. You'll still need a few apps to create your alarm clock, so don't delete or hide the following: Clock Music (and iTunes store if you don't pay for Apple Music) Shortcuts Health Settings Make your phone look exactly as boring as this. (Amy Skorheim for Engadget) If you'd rather wake up to something more pleasant than the Clock app's chirps and bleeps, pick a personalized sound instead. 1. Set your sleep schedule in Health. Apple requires you to set your Sleep Schedule in the Health app before you can set an alarm in the Clock app. 2. Download a song. Theoretically, you can use any song you have downloaded to your phone as a sound for your alarm. But I couldn't get it to work with any song that supported Dolby Atmos or Lossless audio (even if I turned those options off in Settings > Music > Audio). But standard quality songs worked great. If, like me, you're not a heavy sleeper, you might like something like singing bowls or a meditative flute. If you need the thunder of the gods to wake you, perhaps go for something more rousing. 3. Set your alarm. Open the Clock app and select the Alarms tab. Set your alarm as usual. Then tap Sound > Pick a song > Downloaded > and select the (non Lossless!) song you desire. Hit Save. 4. Turn off vibrate. If you don't want your phone to vibrate when it plays your alarm, turn the Haptics option to Never Play in Settings > Sounds & Haptics. Tap Sound then select any downloaded song as your alarm sound. Just be sure not to select a Lossless or Dolby Atmos track. (Amy Skorheim for Engadget) My favorite thing about my sleep machine is the ambient music it plays as I drift off into slumber. Unsurprisingly, your old iPhone is capable of playing lulling tunes as well. And if white noise helps you stay in dreamland, you can program your phone to play those sounds, too. A combination of Shortcuts and Automations will make your sleep routine play automatically so you don't have to touch your screen at all. 1. Build a sleepytime playlist. Open Apple Music and make a playlist. (Unfortunately, Shortcuts doesn't work with Spotify.) I populated Amy's Sleepytime Mix with songs from Apple's Ambient Chill and Pure Ambient playlists. I made the set about 30 minutes long because that's a little longer than it takes me to drift off. 2. Turn off Autoplay. It's pretty jarring when you're drifting off and your dreamy playlist morphs into some algorithmically selected oontz oontz banger. To turn Autoplay off: Play any track in Apple Music. Tap the name of the song to enlarge the album cover and track controls. Tap the three lines at the bottom right. You'll now see upcoming tracks and three buttons at the top of the list: crossed arrows (shuffle), looped arrows (repeat) and an infinity symbol (Autoplay). Toggle Autoplay off so it's greyed out. Tap the song that's currently playing to access the Autoplay option (left). Tap the infinity symbol at the top of the screen to toggle Autoplay off (right). (Amy Skorheim for Engadget) Note: Turning Autoplay off turns it off across ALL your Apple devices. If you like it when Apple keeps the tunes flowing after a playlist ends, you'll have to complete a side quest, which is detailed at the end of this post. 3. Pick your white noise sound. An accessibility feature gives you the option of eight different white noise sounds, including Rain, Ocean, Fire and Night (with more functions coming soon). Open the Settings app Tap Accessibility Tap Audio & Visual Tap Background Sounds Toggle Background Sounds on Tap Sound then pick your favorite Press back and toggle Background Sounds back off Toggle on Use When Media Is Playing Toggle off Stop Sounds When Locked 3. Create a Shortcut. This will make your phone play your playlist with white noise beneath it (which softens song transitions) and when the playlist ends, the white noise continues. Open Shortcuts and tap All Shortcuts, then tap + in the upper right Search for the term 'volume,' tap Set Volume and choose a percentage, such as 25-percent or your desired level Search for 'background,' tap Set Background Sounds. The shortcut should read: [Turn] [Background Sounds] [On] Search for 'play' and tap Play Music Tap Music > Library > Playlist > [Your sleepy time mix]. Then tap the tiny ⊕ in the upper right Tap the arrow next to the Shortcut title at the very top to rename your shortcut, perhaps something like Sleep Routine or Night Night. Tap Done. 4. Trigger your Shortcut with an Automation. To run your Shortcut, you can just ask Siri by saying 'Hey Siri, Night Night' (or 'Hey Siri, Sleep Routine' or whatever you named the above shortcut). But if you want your routine to start at the same time each night, create an automation. In the Shortcut app, tap the Automation tab at the bottom Tap + to create a new Automation Tap Time of Day and enter your preferred start time and days Make sure there's a checkmark near Run Immediately (and not Run After Confirmation) and keep Notify When Run toggled off Tap Next If you don't see the name of the Shortcut you created at the top, search for its name and tap on it Create a Shortcut that sets the volume, turns on white noise and plays a playlist (left). Set an Automation that automatically runs the Shortcut at bedtime (right), or just say "Hey Siri..." and the name of your shortcut. (Amy Skorheim for Engadget) 5. Turn off Background Sounds. Whether you want your white noise to play all the way up to your alarm or just for an hour or two, it's wise to create an automation to turn it off so you don't have to do it manually. Create a new Shortcut Search for 'background' Tap Set Background Sound Tap [On] to [Off] so the Shortcut reads [Turn] [Background Sounds] [Off] Rename the Shortcut: Background Sounds Off Hit done Create a new Automation in the Automation tab Tap Time of Day Set it for your alarm time or a couple hours after you're usually asleep Tap Run Immediately and make sure Notify When Run is toggled off Hit done and choose the shortcut you just made (Background Sounds Off) To enable an Automation that turns off Background noises (left) first, create a Shortcut that turns Background Sounds Off (middle). You can change which background sound you want in Settings > Accessiblity > Audio & Visual (right). (Amy Skorheim for Engadget) Phones running iOS 17 or later have StandBy mode, which displays your choice of stylized clock faces when the handset is charging and oriented horizontally. To enable StandBy: Open Settings Tap StandBy and toggle it on Toggle on Night Mode (This makes the clock dimmer when it's dark in the room) If you put your phone in a stand, it'll look a lot like an alarm clock (and be easier to see from afar). Whether you use a MagSafe wireless stand or a basic stand-and-cord combo, your new alarm clock (aka old phone) will likely be plugged in all the time. So you may want to change your battery settings to keep it from reaching 100 percent. (Being fully charged or fully empty is what strains batteries the most). To do that: Open Settings Tap Battery Tap Charging Set Charge Limit to 80 percent Putting your phone on a stand and plugging it in enables StandBy mode and makes it look like a real alarm clock! (Amy Skorheim for Engadget) Some people like it when the algorithm tries to keep the party going with related songs after a playlist ends. But, playing random music all night probably isn't great for sleep. The good news is, you can set a timer to have your sleep tunes play for a specified period, so it ends on its own without you having to disable Autoplay across all your devices. Note the length of your playlist Open the Clock app and tap the Timers tab Tap When Timer Ends and scroll down to and tap Stop Playing Tap Set Open Shortcuts and edit your night time routine by tapping the three dots in the Shortcut card (the one with your playlist and Background sounds) Search for 'timer' Tap Start Timer Enter the length of your playlist in the Duration field Tap Done Because the Background Sounds are a setting and not technically media that's playing, your white noise selection will still play until the automation that ends it runs.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Nintendo Download: A Monumental Adventure
REDMOND, Wash., April 17, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--This week's Nintendo Download includes the following content: Nintendo eShop on Nintendo Switch: Monument Valley and Monument Valley 2 – Embark on a series of peaceful journeys across these meditative puzzle games. Explore isometric worlds filled with individually crafted puzzles to unravel, stunning landscapes to manipulate, optical illusions to discover and mysterious secrets to uncover. Monument Valley and Monument Valley 2 feature all additional chapters, add-ons and DLC for the complete experience. Monument Valley and Monument Valley 2 are available now on Nintendo eShop. SEGA Genesis – Nintendo Switch Online Three more classic games have been added to the SEGA Genesis – Nintendo Switch Online library*! Streets of Rage, ESWAT: City Under Siege and Super Thunder Blade are available to play now for Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack members. Nintendo Music: Hylian Harmonies – It's dangerous to go alone – take this! The soundtracks for The Legend of Zelda (NES) and The Legend of Zelda (Famicom Disk System) are available now on Nintendo Music, the smart-device app for Nintendo soundtracks**! Immerse yourself in the tracks from Link's first hero's journey while you embark on your own adventures. Nintendo Music is exclusively for Nintendo Switch Online members. For more info, visit: Activities: Creator's Voice – Split Fiction – The latest installment of the "Creator's Voice" video series is here, featuring Split Fiction. Hear from the game makers at Hazelight Studios as they dive into the development process and share more about this surprising co-op action-adventure game where players jump between sci-fi and fantasy worlds as contrasting writers who have become trapped in a simulation of their own stories. You can watch the video here: For more information on the series, visit Nintendo eShop sales on Nintendo Switch: Check out the full list of deals available this week at Also new this week on Nintendo eShop on Nintendo Switch: Animal Quest: The Battle for Green Hollow Arcade Archives GANGBUSTERS Bubble Wizard II Saga Chessarama Chippy's Stash Cozy Stitch Puzzle Dragons Legacy : Monsters Lair – Available April 19 EGGCONSOLE DINOSAUR PC-8801mkIISR Hegzis – Available April 23 Hit Back – Available April 19 I Am Busy Digging a Hole I, Robot Irisy Aqua Leila LunarLux LUNAR Remastered Collection – Available April 18 Masters Bowling – Available April 19 Maths Pals Mayhem Mail MINI HOCKEY CUP Necroking Old Skies – Available April 23 ONLY UP! – Available April 18 Orphans – Available April 18 PAWfect Pet Paradise Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds Ultimate Pool With Me – Available April 19 Rusty Rabbit Sacre Bleu Skies Above Sneaky All-Nighter Snow Squall Grip Sunderfolk – Available April 23 Tempopo There's No Easter Eggs Thought Experiment Simulator Thrill Penguin – Available April 18 Vinebound: Tangled Together * Any Nintendo Switch Online membership (sold separately) and Nintendo Account required for online features. Paid Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack required to play the Nintendo 64 – Nintendo Switch Online, Game Boy Advance – Nintendo Switch Online and SEGA Genesis – Nintendo Switch Online collection of games. Membership auto-renews after initial term at the then-current price unless canceled. Persistent Internet, compatible smartphone and Nintendo Account age 13+ required to access some online features on the app, including voice chat. Data charges may apply. Online features, Save Data Cloud and Nintendo Switch Online smartphone app features available in compatible games. Not available in all countries. The Nintendo Account User Agreement, including the Purchase and Subscription terms, apply. ** Nintendo Switch Online membership (sold separately) and Nintendo Account required. Not available in all countries. Internet and compatible smart-device required to use app. Data charges may apply. Terms apply. Nintendo Switch Online is a paid membership service that allows members to team up or face off online in compatible Nintendo Switch games, such as Splatoon 3, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Nintendo Switch Sports and Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Members also enjoy a curated library of classic NES, Super NES and Game Boy games, including Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Metroid, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Kirby's Dream Land, among many others. To find out more about the benefits that come with Nintendo Switch Online, to view membership options and to learn about a free seven-day trial for new users, visit With a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership, players get access to even more benefits, including a library of Nintendo 64 games with added online play for up to four players (additional accessories may be required for multiplayer mode; sold separately), a library of select Game Boy Advance games, Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Happy Home Paradise DLC, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Booster Course Pass DLC, Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion DLC (full version of game required to use DLC for that game; sold separately) and retro SEGA Genesis games. Nintendo eShop is a cash-based service that features a wide variety of content, including new and classic games, applications and demos. Users can add money to their account balances by using a credit card or purchasing a Nintendo eShop Card at a retail store and entering the code from the card. All funds from one card must be loaded in Nintendo eShop on the Nintendo Switch family of systems. Customers in the U.S. and Canada ages 18 and older can also link a PayPal account to their Nintendo Account to purchase digital games and content for the Nintendo Switch family of systems both on-device and from the Nintendo website. Remember that Nintendo Switch features parental controls that let adults manage some of the content their children can access. Nintendo Switch players who register a Nintendo Account gain access to free-to-start games and free game demos from Nintendo eShop, and also get the latest news and information direct from Nintendo. For more information about parental controls on Nintendo Switch and other features, visit and Note to editors: Nintendo press materials are available at a password-protected site. To obtain a login, please register on the site. View source version on Contacts Eddie GarciaGolin213-335-5536egarcia@ Justin AclinGolin212-373-6004jaclin@ Sign in to access your portfolio
The Guardian
28-01-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
‘The banks thought we were mad': coral castles and look-at-me loos reinvent New York housing
For all its metropolitan dynamism and heady sense of possibility, New York is not a city that produces good housing. Its building codes are so strict, its land values so high, and its construction practises so intractable, that the results tend towards grim stacks of cells. New apartment blocks – even at the high end – do little to disguise the fact that they are simply physical spreadsheets of units, expressions of brutal economic efficiency, occasionally garnished with a thin architectural dressing. 'New York is supposedly the greatest, most competitive city on Earth,' says Sam Alison-Mayne, who grew up in Los Angeles, son of the prominent west coast architect Thom Mayne. 'Competition usually breeds the best solutions for things – but not when it comes to housing.' While he was working as a contractor, he met Sebastian Mendez, an Argentinian architect at Foster + Partners at the time, and the two realised there was scope to do things differently. They quit their jobs, founded a development company, Tankhouse, and, 10 years later, have built three of the city's most innovative housing projects in recent memory. Their latest provocation stands on the corner of Vanderbilt and Myrtle avenues in Brooklyn's trendy Fort Greene neighbourhood, rising from the sidewalk like a jaunty pink castle. Its rose-tinted mass lurches in a staccato rhythm along the street, growing in blocky jolts from four-storey townhouses, up to eight storeys on the corner. The cubic volumes fold and twist as they rise, framing a world of shared terraces and open, breezy landings. The pink precast concrete walls are grooved like fine needlecord, their surfaces variously etched and bead-blasted, making the building shift and shimmer in the bright sunlight, casting sharp shadows across the facade. It recalls the enchanting work of Ricardo Bofill in Spain, whose La Muralla Roja stands like a vertical casbah on the Calpe coast, or the pastel-hued levels of the video game Monument Valley – as if this 3D jigsaw of apartments and courtyards might reconfigure itself at any moment. The striking coral-coloured outcrop is the work of SO-IL, a Brooklyn-based architecture practice led by Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu, who hail from the Netherlands and China, and bring a healthy outsider's perspective to New York's real estate conventions. 'Everything here is driven by 'net-to-gross efficiency',' says Idenburg, with a Dutch sense of exasperation at North America's mercenary reality. 'The architect's task is just to maximise the sellable floor area within the smallest possible building envelope. The result is narrow, windowless corridors, with single-aspect apartments either side, stacked up into a dumb box. So we tried to do the exact opposite. And everyone thought we were insane.' Since the earliest decades of the 20th century, the regulatory corset of the 'zoning envelope' has defined the architecture of New York. After the city's 1916 zoning resolution, the architectural draughtsman Hugh Ferriss created a prophetic series of illustrations, depicting how the set-back rules – which dictate how buildings must step back as they rise, to allow daylight to reach the streets – would lead to a particular architectural form. The zoning envelope, he wrote, is a 'shape which the law puts into the architect's hands,' and it has determined the city's form ever since. In a new book about SO-IL's work, In Depth: Urban Domesticities Today, architect Karilyn Johanesen explains how the situation has since evolved into a complex cocktail of ever more constraining codes. 'Subsequent amendments to the zoning resolution such as height factor, floor-area ratio, open-space ratio, quality housing deductions, and affordability incentives,' she writes, 'have added more complexity to a matrix of ratios that pits zoning and code requirements against profit maximisation.' A building's boundaries are predefined before an architect can even make their first move. SO-IL's impressive talent is to limbo beneath the bureaucracy, stretching loopholes and exploiting zoning quirks, to carve out space for architecture. Tankhouse began working with them in 2014, with an approach that, to their peers, looked like commercial suicide. They chose awkward corner plots that came with hosts of restrictions, but then turned those constraints, jiu-jitsu-like, to their advantage. On each project, the team decided to build out to the maximum volume that the zoning envelope would allow, in order to then carve out 'unsellable' space within it – in the form of terraces, balconies, stoops and shared outdoor circulation space, drawing on the developers' experiences of outdoor living in the sunnier climes of LA and Buenos Aires. 'The banks and the brokers thought we were mad,' says Mendez, who drummed up investment from friends and family in Argentina for their first project, after the usual lenders were reluctant to cough up. 'We weren't maximising the sellable floor area, so it simply didn't fit any formula they were used to dealing with.' The gamble paid off. On the corner of Warren and Bond streets, in the formerly industrial Brooklyn neighbourhood of Gowanus, stands the group's first mini manifesto: a cluster of 18 homes, arranged around three lush courtyards, which sold out before construction was completed in 2023. A sculptural outdoor staircase curves its way between broad, convivial landings, where the homes enjoy views out in all directions on to planted gardens, crowned with a stunning roof terrace. In conventional real estate terms, the floor plan is as economically 'inefficient' as it gets; but the payoff is a liberating sense of connection to the outdoors, and a sociable, neighbourly, child-friendly place to live. Mendez liked it so much, he moved in with his family. The design details are as pragmatic as they are ingenious. A drape of wire mesh netting, stretched tautly between the curving landings, is a cheap and cheerful substitute for balustrades (and has led to the space being hired for several photoshoots, a handy income stream). The walls are built with inexpensive concrete blocks, spiced up with a greenish aggregate, and laid at an angle to create an unusual serrated effect. 'It's also a way to overcome a bit of imperfection,' says Idenburg. 'Building here is not like the precision of Japan. In New York City, you have to create a lot of noise.' He would know. Idenburg used to work for Sanaa, the Japanese masters of minimalism, leading their project for the New Museum in New York – acting as the translator between Japanese perfectionism and less-than-perfect US building practises. It left him with a dogged single-mindedness, and an uncompromising ability to push builders and suppliers beyond their usual standards (if sometimes alienating them in the process – Alison-Mayne jokes how many contractors refuse to work with them again). Sign up to Art Weekly Your weekly art world round-up, sketching out all the biggest stories, scandals and exhibitions after newsletter promotion While 450 Warren and 144 Vanderbilt both take mid-rise courtyard forms, a third project, between Dumbo and downtown Brooklyn, shows how the same approach can also work in a high-rise context. Standing as a shimmering pleated apparition, worthy of Issey Miyake, 9 Chapel St is another intelligent essay in interpreting zoning codes. It makes use of special allowances for features such as dormer windows, bulkheads and balconies, to play with the form – and create nicer apartments in the process. As in the other projects, the elevator opens on to an outdoor hallway, leading to wide decks and generous porches in front of each home. All units have deep balconies, some of which wrap the entire way around, shielded by a perforated screen of metal mesh that ripples its way the full height of the building. Gentle vertical corrugations in the mesh create an irregular play of shadows across the building, while also serving a structural purpose – the pleats allow the panels to span floor-to-floor, without the need for additional support. Subtle rotations between bedrooms and living areas create varied views across the city, and capture sunlight at different times of day, while some bathrooms enjoy full-height glass doors to balconies from the showers – a moment of exhilarating exhibitionism, 15 storeys up. It's impressive stuff, but none of these flats are cheap. Could the Tankhouse model be scalable, and, more importantly, affordable? 'Those are the two big questions,' says Alison-Mayne, who says the team is now working on their biggest project yet, a 20-storey tower of rental apartments in Gowanus with 'a deep affordability component'. It looks set to be a big, bulky thing, but one that has been elegantly chiselled into shape by SO-IL, with serrated sawtooth facades providing the apartments with views in two directions, as well as day-lit corridors, and a silhouette that recalls the muscular early days of Manhattan towers. Details like grey, iron-speckled brick, laid in a stacked bond with blue-green mortar, promise to give it a powerfully monolithic, mineral quality. 'I don't want to pretend like we're solving all the problems,' says Alison-Mayne. 'We've built a bunch of very expensive housing.' But there are lessons here, in terms of intelligent spatial thinking beyond the units-by-numbers approach, that developers of all tenures – as well as those in charge of codifying the city – could do well to learn from. In Depth: Urban Domesticities Today by Florian Idenburg & Jing Liu is published by Lars Müller
