Evaluating 2023's Most Popular Tech Stories

The Verge's Nilay Patel, David Pierce, and Richard Lawler discuss Apple pulling the Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 from its website, the potential Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount merger, and what the biggest stories were on The Verge Dot Com.

Further reading:

• Apple to pull Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 this week due to ITC ban
• Apple loses attempt to halt Apple Watch sales ban
• Why the Apple Watch is being banned — and how Apple can avoid it
• Masimo CEO thinks Apple can’t code its way out of the Watch ban.
• Apple Watch ban: everything you need to know
• Beeper is giving up on its iMessage dream
• Apple reportedly plans Vision Pro launch by February
• Apple’s immersive next-gen CarPlay will start with Porsche and Aston Martin
• Bird’s goose is cooked.
• Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount in discussions for a max merger
• Adobe explains why it abandoned the Figma deal
• Adobe won’t compromise on UK’s attempt to block Figma merger
• Peloton’s oldest bike tablet will be cut off from classes in a few months
• Peloton’s app now pairs with third-party treadmills for some subscribers
• Inside Elon Musk’s “extremely hardcore” Twitter
• Elon Musk predicts X will replace banks in 2024
• Mark Zuckerberg agrees to Elon Musk cage match challenge
• Apple Vision Pro is Apple’s new $3,499 AR headset
• I wore the Apple Vision Pro. It’s the best headset demo ever.
• Sam Bankman-Fried gambled on a trial and his parents lost
• Amazon has just opened up its Sidewalk network to give any gadget free low speed data
• Sony’s portable PlayStation Portal launches on November 15th for $199.99
• Sam Altman fired as CEO of OpenAI
• OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO
• FTC v. Microsoft: all the news from the big Xbox courtroom battle
• Buckle up because El Niño is almost here, and it’s going to get hot
• iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max in titanium: price, features, and release date 
• This is Microsoft’s new disc-less Xbox Series X design with a lift-to-wake controller
• Samsung caught faking zoom photos of the Moon
• The Steam Deck wasn’t born ready, but it’s ready now
• Inside the AI Factory: the humans that make tech seem human
• SodaStream is a bad deal, and modding your own is better
• Did SEO experts ruin the internet or did Google?

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