Matthew Panzarino

Since 2014, I’ve been reviewing Apple’s latest iPhones at Disneyland. The rationale was, and is, simple: Instead of lab tests, do my best to get a feeling for what these devices will be like to use for people and families in a real-world scenario. Disneyland offers the ability to test the capabilities of the battery,…

It’s been 10 years since I stepped off a ledge and landed at TechCrunch. I don’t get self-referential a lot here on the pages of TC, but I figured that a tin anniversary is a nice time to look at what we’ve done over the past decade as we approach this year’s Disrupt, coming up…

How do you critique functional art? Do you base your assessment on its capability or the resolution at which it solves a problem? Is it more important that it succeeds as art? Or is it the overall statement of purpose that matters, balance between form and function be damned? Not questions I expected to grapple…

After a roughly 30-minute demo that ran through the major features that are yet ready to test, I came away convinced that Apple has delivered nothing less than a genuine leapfrog in capability and execution of XR — or mixed reality — with its new Apple Vision Pro.  To be super clear, I’m not saying…

Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI), the workshop that makes all of the cool things you experience at the Disney Parks, is bringing back a veteran to co-lead the division. Bruce Vaughn was previously at WDI for 22 years, leaving for VR experience company Dreamscape before landing at Airbnb. Vaughn will take the role of chief creative…

Apple’s M series chips were incredibly well telegraphed when they arrived in late 2020. Apple had been designing its own silicon since the A4 appeared in the iPhone 4 just over a decade earlier. The appearance of Apple’s in-house efforts in the Mac was really just a question of when, not if. When the M1…

Apple’s iPhone 14 lineup delivers on a bunch of different vectors this year with very few peccadillos or complaints. Apple is really leaning into its silicon lead to deliver big gains year over year in cameras, and it’s leaning on its design teams to give users new ways to interact with their very familiar devices.…

Though the iPad was a huge hit from the beginning based on its user-friendly interface and single-application focus, it had begun feeling a bit stale for those who hunger for more depth. Long one of the world’s lightest and most powerful medium-format computers, the lag between what kind of work it was capable of and…

The seeds of the Mac Studio were planted 5 years ago next month when, in a rare candid admission of misstep, Apple said it was pushing the reset button on the Mac Pro. Having painted itself into a “thermal corner,” Apple realized that it had to burn down the architecture it created and start anew. …

I must confess, the iPad Air was a bit confusing to me at first. With each passing addition to Apple’s iPad lineup, they fill out more of their pricing umbrella, leaving less room for competitors. But they also make the lineup more complex. For a consumer looking to buy the right device, this year’s iPad is…

I wish I was an iPhone SE person. Since its re-launch in 2020, the entry model iPhone has transformed from a nod to relic-era sizing into a prime example of a “just what it needs to be and nothing more” smartphone.  Even as Apple has retained the smaller 4.7” screen and the Touch ID authentication…

The Cinematic Mode on the iPhone 13 Pro models had a marquee spot in Apple’s presentation about the devices last week. The reviews so far this week have people acknowledging the cleverness but questioning its usefulness. I’ve been testing out the feature for the past week and this weekend took it to Disneyland to give…

This year’s iPhone review goes back to Disneyland for the first time in a couple of years for, uh, obvious reasons. I’m happy to report that the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 performed extremely well, and the limited testing I was able to do on the iPhone mini and iPhone 13 Pro Max showed…

Last week, Apple announced a series of new features targeted at child safety on its devices. Though not live yet, the features will arrive later this year for users. Though the goals of these features are universally accepted to be good ones — the protection of minors and the limit of the spread of Child…

The announcement of new iPad software at this year’s WWDC conference had an abnormally large expectation hung on it. The iPad lineup, especially the larger iPad Pro, has kept up an impressively frantic pace of hardware innovation over the past few years. In that same time frame, the software of the iPad, especially its ability…

If you’ve lived in a few places in your life then you probably have experienced the feeling of moving into a nice new apartment or house — a blank canvas of rooms and spaces filled with possibility. Most times, unless you’ve got that money money, you then fill it up with all of your same,…

When the third minute of Apple’s first product event of 2021 ticked over and they had already made 3 announcements we knew it was going to be a packed one. In a tight single hour this week, Apple launched a ton of new product including AirTags, new Apple Card family sharing, a new Apple TV,…

The black curtain pulls aside and a character straight out of the movies waves hello. This is not an uncommon occurrence when I’m around Imagineers, but this time is special. The character isn’t a costume, it’s a robot. And, unlike the m​any animatronic figures you’ve seen in the parks, it’s not stuck in one place.…