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How Teachers Fight Students’ Shortening Attention Spans Shorter Activities, Hands-On Projects, and Meditation

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The Washington Post reports that some teachers are now implementing “brain breaks” in their classrooms to cope with shorter attention spans, “including limiting screen time; cutting the time students spend on one activity; adding more engaging, hands-on projects; and practicing meditation.”

Some teachers say the efforts are helping, at least a little… To engage students, teachers say they often feel the need to deliver teaching not only in shorter bursts, but also in more entertaining ways. “The new word is ‘edutainment,’” said Curtis Finch, superintendent of Deer Valley Unified School District in Arizona. “How can you make your lesson applicable, interactive? Teachers are going to have to be more engaging for students….”

In a kindergarten classroom at McKinley STEAM [a K-8 public school], students start the day with a meditation. The classroom of two dozen children is perhaps its quietest during this short activity every morning. Imagine you’re in the Arctic, a voice from a meditation video tells them, with snowflakes melting on your skin. Silently, the children lay down on the carpet and close their eyes for a moment. After the meditation, the students gather in a circle and do a few deep breathing exercises before taking turns proclaiming what they are capable of each day. “I can be a good student,” one little boy said before the child next to him replied: “I can listen to the teacher.” The goal is that these mantras will stay with the children hours later, when they have to sit through the more tedious lessons of the day.
An instructional coach at McKinley STEAM says the strategies are working students aren’t reaching for their phones during class and sometimes actually get drawn into lessons.

The article also explains why some teachers find this necessary:

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In recent years, educators say, it has grown more challenging to get students to pay attention. Eighty-eight percent of respondents in an international survey from 2025 of more than 3,000 teachers believed their students’ attention spans were getting shorter. In a study published last year about kindergarten through second-grade classrooms in the United States, 75 percent of teachers said attention spans had dropped since the coronavirus pandemic, when the use of laptops and other technology for schooling spread rapidly. A growing body of research says that excessive screen time and short-form content such as TikTok videos are part of the problem. At least 36 states, including Ohio, have laws requiring schools to have some form of a cellphone ban.

There is debate over whether screen time reduces people’s ability to focus or their desire to — many developmental experts lean toward the latter, suggesting that it is possible to help students regain longer attention spans.

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Who Owns Sheetz Gas Stations?

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Sheetz is an American gas station and convenience store chain concentrated in seven Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states with over 829 locations in 493 cities. According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index 2025 Convenience Store Study, the company recently tied with Wawa for second place as the best U.S. convenience store. The largest number of Sheetz locations are in its home state of Pennsylvania, where 316, or 38% of all Sheetz stores are based. After Pennsylvania, the next most Sheetz-populous state is North Carolina with 142 stores, followed by Ohio with 135, Virginia with 124, West Virginia with 61, Maryland with 44, and Michigan with seven stores.

The name Sheetz goes back to Jerry Sheets, who married a woman from a family that owned a large dairy business in Altoona, Pennsylvania. When his nametag was misspelled as “Sheetz” as he attended a dairy conference, he liked it enough to officially change his last name to Sheetz. The Sheetz business empire traces its roots to 1952, when Jerry’s son Bob purchased one of Jerry’s unprofitable dairy stores located in Altoona and founded the Sheetz company. Altoona remains the home of Sheetz to this day.

The Sheetz family owns and operates the company with a 90% share, while the employees own the rest through an employee stock ownership plan. Sheetz family members at the helm include Travis Sheetz as president and CEO, Joe Sheetz as chairman of the board, and Stan Sheetz as board director, with additional family members in positions like EVP of operations, EVP of marketing and supply chain, and EVP of strategy and information technology.

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What else should you know about Sheetz?

Some Sheetz milestones include the first self-service gas pumps in 1973, the introduction of its Made To Order, or MTO, menu in the mid-1980s, and its memorable “Free My Beer” campaign, which successfully led to the state of Pennsylvania allowing the sale of beer in convenience stores that also sold gasoline in 2016. Sheetz will also let you charge your EV at certain locations that have had chargers installed.

The journey from a single store to the current count of 829 took 74 years and the efforts of numerous members of the Sheetz family. Bob’s brother Steve had the idea to expand the Sheetz venture in 1969, and by 1972, there were 14 Sheetz stores. By 1983, Sheetz boasted 100 stores, and Bob turned over the business to Steve. By 1995, Bob’s son, Stan, became president of Sheetz. Stan added Sheetz-branded coffee and bakery products to the stores’ lineups, as well as a touchscreen ordering system. In 2013, Joe S. Sheetz, who was Bob’s nephew, became president and CEO, succeeded by current CEO Travis Sheetz in 2022.

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Sheetz gas stations and convenience stores continue to expand their empire, far from their original location in Altoona, Pennsylvania. A newly opened Sheetz location in Macomb County, Michigan, recently dropped its gas price below $2 as a way to generate local customer traffic. It may take some time before gas prices get that low again.



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What to expect from Apple's Q2 2026 earnings on April 30

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Apple will announce its second-quarter financial results for 2026 on April 30. Here’s what happened in the quarter, and what analysts think is going to be revealed.

Smiling man with gray hair and glasses waves, standing before rising blue bar graph, with faded US dollar bills in the smoky background, suggesting financial growth or success
Apple CEO Tim Cook

The Q2 2026 financial results will be shared by Apple in a press release on April 30. A short time after, at 5 P.M. Eastern, it will hold its usual analyst and investor conference call.
That call will involve both current CEO Tim Cook and CFO Kevan Parekh discussing the quarter and providing guidance for future quarters. There will also be questions from analysts about the quarter and expectations for Q3 and beyond.
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I’m Calling It: The Elden Ring Movie Will Live Up to the Mario Movies’ Successes

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As a gamer, I’m enjoying the current renaissance of video game adaptations. Whether it’s the new 3D-animated Super Mario Galaxy Movie or Sonic movies or award-winning TV series like The Last of Us, Fallout and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Hollywood is now filled with creators who are actually fans of the games they’re adapting, a shift from the 1990s when licenses were often purchased just to cash in on younger audiences. 

On Monday, A24 revealed the cast of the live-action adaptation of the Elden Ring movie, which will be directed by Alex Garland (Civil War, Annihilation) and released on March 3, 2028. While this looks promising on paper, it’s hard to ignore the scale of the challenge to adapt a game known for its personality-less protagonist, cryptic lore and multiple endings. Still, there is reason to believe this could become one of the most successful video game adaptations.

To start, A24, the studio behind the production, is known for acclaimed films such as The Brutalist, Moonlight and Everything Everywhere All at Once — all very different films following unique, humanistic visions. While the studio typically produces smaller films with budgets under $50 million, the Elden Ring movie is reportedly set to exceed a $100 million budget.

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Filming is already underway, and leaked set photos show what appears to be an almost perfect recreation of locations and scenes from the game. On Wednesday, a video uploaded to YouTube showed a crowd cheering during the hanging of a character known as the Dung Eater, closely mirroring a moment from the game’s opening intro cinematic.

Watching that short clip of a character who isn’t central to the story, yet is depicted with such accuracy, is astonishing. My biggest concern, though, is Elden Ring’s story. Unlike some other adaptations in development, such as Death Stranding, The Legend of Zelda and Resident Evil, Elden Ring is just one game with one DLC (Shadow of the Erdtree) and one multiplayer spinoff (Nightreign). That’s it.

Even so, developer FromSoftware packs an immense amount of lore into the game, though not in the traditional sense through dialogue or readable documents. Instead, as in its other titles, the studio distributes background details about characters and the world through descriptions of items, weapons, armor and spells.

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This approach to world-building, which FromSoftware first used in 2009’s Demon’s Souls, is like a jigsaw puzzle. But instead of assembling pieces to form a picture, it’s about taking two or three sentences and building an entire book. Literally, fans who create YouTube videos about the game’s lore are now publishing a 400-page book.

Not only is there a vast amount of lore to dig into, the Elden Ring’s sheer scope is immense. The game’s main story follows the player character’s journey to become an Elden Lord in the Lands Between, a god over mysterious undying lands. That quest is shaped by wars and betrayals that occurred long before the events of the game. It unfolds like a season of Game of Thrones, which is fitting given that George R. R. Martin helped develop Elden Ring’s story.

Fortunately, there’s hope that director Alex Garland understands the assignment when it comes to adapting Elden Ring. Unlike earlier video game adaptations, where screenwriters were often tasked with making sense of stories from games they hadn’t played and forcing them into a 90-minute structure, this production is being led by a fan of the game.

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New Yorker article about A24 last year recounted an anecdote involving Garland and Noah Sacco, the studio’s head of film. Sacco visited Garland, who had been enthusiastic about the game, and proposed a film adaptation. Sacco approved the idea, and Garland went on to write a 200-page script that includes 40 pages of visuals. The two later traveled to Japan to seek approval from the game’s director, Hidetaka Miyazaki. Miyazaki was reportedly impressed with Garland’s knowledge of the game, which came from completing it at least seven times — a sizable feat considering it takes 60 hours or more to beat.

We still don’t know which time period the Elden Ring movie will explore. One assumption is that it could serve as a prequel, focusing on the Shattering, the in-game historical event that set the stage for the game’s present-day story. Extensive lore surrounds those events, and because FromSoftware leaves many details open to interpretation, there’s room for Garland to develop a compelling narrative while staying true to the source material.

Looking at all the elements of this production, the pieces are in place for a successful film. An award-winning studio is making one of its largest investments in a video game adaptation, led by a director who is a devoted fan. He has the approval of the game’s creator, who was not quick to grant licensing rights, and Martin is also involved as a producer. The Elden Ring movie has the potential to be not just a worthy adaptation, but one of the best video game adaptations ever made.

At least, that’s the hope.

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Stop the financial bleed! How Orbit fights back against the dreaded ‘Subscription Creep’

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It appears that all of life is becoming one big subscription fest. There’s Netflix, Spotify, Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, food order subscriptions, Duolingo, Amazon, and YouTube. Can you believe there’s even a subscription for buying socks? Look, the list could go on, but I don’t want to bore you or myself.

Subscription services are here to stay, and there’s nothing you or I can do about it. As much as we hate them draining our money every month, if we want the goods, we must accept that, in return, we have to part with our hard-earned cash.

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SpaceX agrees rights to buy AI coding darling Cursor for $60bn

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As it vies to catch up with rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic, SpaceX has done a deal to enable purchase of the fast-growing AI coding start-up Cursor.

In a post on X, SpaceX said the companies were “now working closely together to create the world’s best coding and knowledge work AI” and that “Cursor has also given SpaceX the right to acquire Cursor later this year for $60bn or pay $10bn for our work together”.

In its own statement, Cursor confirmed it was partnering with SpaceX “to accelerate our model training efforts”, which it said had been stymied by lack of compute.

“With this partnership, our team will leverage xAI’s Colossus infrastructure to dramatically scale up the intelligence of our models,” it said.

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Cursor had been widely reported to be raising a $2bn round at a $50bn valuation in recent days, as it sought investment to increase compute, but that raise will now be halted as the SpaceX deal will offer it all the capacity it needs to expand, according to Bloomberg sources.

It is likely that the reason SpaceX has bought the rights to purchase Cursor, rather than acquiring it immediately, is that the space tech and AI giant is keen to win the race to IPO, and any acquisition of such a size would require it to refile for IPO.

Reports have suggested a SpaceX IPO between April and June, which means it would precede speculated listings by rival AI giants OpenAI and Anthropic in the near future.

Elon Musk has consolidated various businesses over the past year to arrive at a mooted $1.75trn valuation. In February, SpaceX acquired xAI, which in March 2025 had acquired X.

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Revenue growth from SpaceX’s Starlink satellite broadband service is widely and largely credited for the foundation of the valuation. Starlink currently dominates the global satellite internet service industry, with more than 9,000 satellites in orbit and roughly 9m customers.

The February merger deal valued xAI at around $250bn, but preceded the departure of all 11 of Musk’s co-founders from that company. Now Musk looks set to buy in the talent he believes he needs to compete with his major rivals.

Cursor is one of the fastest-growing AI start-ups right now, and well-regarded, boasting some very high-profile investors, including Nvidia, Andreessen Horowitz, Google – and indeed, OpenAI’s venture fund. It remains to be seen whether the expensive acquisition goes ahead, or whether both companies could take up the agreed alternative within the deal to pay $10bn for their collaborative work.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

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The Best Kindle Accessories (2026): Cases, Page Turners, Stickers

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Kindle Holders

Hate holding up your Kindle? Or struggle with chronic pain that makes holding it feel terrible? These holders will literally take the weight out of your hands.

Lamicall

Gooseneck iPad Holder

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This holder works for Kindles and tablets alike, and even my Nintendo Switch. The clamp base lets you attach it to tables and furniture, and it’s easy to position in front of or even above you if you wanted to lie down and read.

Lamicall

Tablet Pillow Stand Holder

If you want something that’s freestanding, this pillow tablet stand holder works great for a Kindle. I use it on the couch, and I can sit up or lounge back and adjust the stand arm to suit my position. There are also two built-in cup and snack holders. Lamicall says they’re food safe, but I just use it to hold my tea mug and phone.

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A Freestanding Charger

Looking to keep your Kindle charged without adding another cord to the floor of your desk or bedside table? Same. Here’s a more stylish solution if you have one of the Signature editions.

Anker

Wireless Charging Dock for Kindle

This wireless charging dock is made by Anker for Kindles, specifically for Kindle Paperwhite and Colorsoft’s seven-inch Signature editions. Those versions have wireless charging capabilities, and this stand takes advantage of that with charging coils that line up with the back of the Kindle, where the wireless charging is. You’ll want to take off any MagSafe cases; leaving mine on made the little light on the charging dock flash until I took it off.


A Kindle Page Turner

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The hottest new item to get as a Kindle lover is a page turner. They’re especially handy for holders like the ones above, where your hands aren’t already on the device, and can make for a great accessibility accessory for readers with different needs.

My biggest irritation with these devices so far is that you have to charge them both individually, and if one runs out of battery, the whole thing is useless. I also don’t love that the turner does tend to block at least one letter while I read, and you can’t place it on the lower or upper margins since it’ll activate the menus instead of turning the page. Still, it makes reading ultra comfortable, especially for my strained wrists.

Here’s my favorite one so far, that’s been solid at holding a charge, and next I’m testing this remote ($15) with a wearable ring clicker instead of a remote.

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This Is the Way: Burger King Mandalorian and Grogu Meals Are Coming

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Baby Yoda famously snitched (and later barfed up) some blue cookies in a scene from the hit Disney Plus show The Mandalorian. The folks at Burger King are about to release some Mandalorian and Grogu fast-food menu items and kids’ meals, and they’d probably rather you not think about the barfing part.

The show’s spin-off feature film, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, opens in theaters on May 22. Burger King is releasing its Mando-themed kids’ meals on April 28 and the adult meals on Star Wars Day, May 4.

Other than themed packaging, the kids’ meals are pretty standard, except for the real treasure, a Mandalorian-themed toy. The meal itself consists of a hamburger or four chicken nuggets, applesauce, kids’-size fries and your choice of milk or apple juice.

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The toys include two versions of Grogu, two of The Mandalorian himself, a Stormtrooper, an AT-RT driver, the Mandalorian’s ship the Razor Crest and the Lasat rebel Zeb Orrelios.

mandalorian-bk-toys.png

The kids’ meals come with Mandalorian-themed toys.

Burger King

The menu items that arrive on May 4 aren’t in meals, so they don’t come with toys, which seems like a missed opportunity. However, you can nab one of four collectible cups by ordering one of three combos. The cups come in maroon, black, green and navy.

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There’s a BBQ Bounty Whopper (burger with Swiss cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato and barbecue sauce), Grogu’s Garlic Chicken Fries with garlic dipping sauce, and Imperial Cheddar Ranch Tots.

But the item I’m most excited for is Grogu’s Blue Cookie Shake, which blends soft-serve with blue sugar cookie syrup and tops it off with blue cookies. Maybe don’t suck one down and then go for a bumpy, breakneck ride in the Razor Crest.

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Irish Government launches new national AI skills platform

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The platform will offer ‘bite-sized online courses’ that are 30 minutes or less and can be accessed using a tablet or laptop.

Irish Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Skills James Lawless, TD has today (23 April), launched AIReady.ie, a new Governmental, national AI skilling platform, designed to provide people across Ireland with the means to learn essential AI skills.

Developed by Solas, in partnership with the National Skills Council, the initiative is free and suited to learners of all abilities. It teaches the fundamentals of AI and can be engaged with at the user’s own convenience via flexible “bite-sized online courses” that are 30 minutes or less and can be accessed using a tablet or laptop. 

The curriculum is designed to support people as they work to develop the in‑demand skills needed for work, study and everyday life, regardless of their prior experience or technical background, with the current content focused on building foundational AI literacy and practical digital capability. 

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To start, the programme will offer four short courses tailored to older people, small businesses such as sole traders and farmers, and those returning to the workforce. The initiative aims to upskill 1m people in AI, which the platform said is “one of the Government’s most ambitious responses to the rapid emergence and impact of artificial intelligence to date”.

Commenting on the launch, Lawless said: “Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping how we work, learn and live and ensuring people are ready for that change is one of the most important challenges we face. I strongly believe that everyone should have the opportunity to understand AI and to use it with confidence.

“We are now at a point where AI readiness is no longer optional, it is essential. Being ‘AI‑ready’ is about more than technology, it is about giving people the skills, confidence and understanding they need to participate fully in an AI‑enabled society. AI skills are for everyone, not just experts or specialists.”

Dr Kevin Marshall, the chair of the National Skills Council, added: “I welcome the launch of AIReady.ie, which will support the development of AI skills. We know the biggest risk today isn’t AI, it’s being unprepared to use it.

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“We want people to feel like AI is accessible to them, regardless of their background or stage in life and this new platform delivers exactly that, a simple entry point for anyone looking to start their journey with AI. With the launch of AIReady.ie today, we are laying the foundations to build the AI skills our economy and society needs for the future.”

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

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Apple is eyeing ten new product categories in the coming years

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Apple is at a transformational point in its product history. The company is making a record amount of money with a rich product portfolio, fumbled its AI strategy, and just had a leadership change.

Tim Cook is out as the CEO, and engineering veteran John Ternus is taking over the chief role. Interestingly, it seems Apple is also making the biggest shift in its product development history, with no less than ten categories of devices planned for the coming years. 

What’s next from Apple?

It seems Apple planned the leadership change at a crucial point in its product development phase, with the focus being on Ternus delivering some knockout products early in his leadership tenure. According to Bloomberg, the first of these buzzy product reveals is going to be the iPhone Fold (or the iPhone Ultra), the first foldable smartphone by the company.

Apple is years late to the race, but the excitement around the upcoming “pocketable but not pocket-friendly” phone is pretty high. “Ternus is poised for an even bigger flood of products. Including the foldable iPhone, Apple will enter roughly 10 new product categories within the next few years. That means Ternus could quickly eclipse his predecessor by this measure,” says the report.

The launch of ten product categories is pretty ambitious, as Cook’s tenure only witnessed the launch of three new segments, two being mass-market wearables (AirPods and Apple Watch) and one XR hardware in the misfiring Vision Pro. 

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A truly transformational roadmap 

Apple has played it relatively safe with its wearables, but it seems the company is going all-in across the board. Starting with the AirPods, the company is reportedly planning to launch a camera-equipped version, dramatically boosting their health potential as well as understanding of the world around them using multi-modal AI. Think of Visual Intelligence, but instead of pointing your iPhone’s camera, the earbuds in your ears do the job.

It’s an immensely promising idea that will also be pretty hard to execute. Yet, if products like the Meta-Ray Ban AI glasses are anything to go by, Apple can execute it. And it’s not an outlandish idea, either. Experts at the University of Washington recently showcased the VueBuds, packing cameras on off-the-shelf earbuds that are capable of world-understanding and assisting with translation, among other AI-powered tricks. And let’s not forget Apple’s partnership with Google, which essentially puts Gemini at the foundations of Apple’s AI revival plans. 

Aside from the earbuds, the following is the list of other product categories that are reportedly in development at the company, many of which have been delayed due to Apple’s hobbled AI efforts: 

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Giant folding iPad may remain an unreleased experiment

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While the iPhone Fold is nearing launch, the future of the often-rumored folding iPad is still in question, as it may never actually make it to consumer hands.

Foldable tablet on a desk displaying a scenic mountain sunrise, beside a potted succulent, a wireless mouse, and a small cat-shaped lamp in warm indoor lighting
What a large folding iPad could look like – Image Credit: AppleInsider

The rumor mill has been infatuated by the idea of the folding iPhone, which is widely believed to be on the way later in 2026. However, Apple has also been working on another foldable device with less chance of becoming a reality.
Writing in Sunday’s “Power On” newsletter for Bloomberg, the foldable iPad is a real thing being developed behind closed doors. Described as a tablet with a super-sized 20-inch display, it has been a priority of incoming CEO John Ternus while in his hardware chief role.
Rumor Score: 🤔 Possible
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