If you’ve just upgraded to a new iPhone and are looking for the best accessories to buy during the ongoing Prime Day 2026 sale, you’ve landed in the right place. I’ve gone through dozens of iPhone accessory deals, but these are the ones I’d actually use myself, buy with my own money, or recommend to friends and family.

Lisen Cell Phone Stand

Anyone who works at a desk in an office knows how easy it is for a phone to get buried under printouts, documents, and the steady stream of items that get handed over to you throughout the day. Even beyond that, I prefer to position my screens closer to eye level. The Lisen Cell Phone Stand makes all of that easier.

Down from its $17.99 listing price, the stand is currently available on Amazon for just $9.45. For the price, you get a weighted metal base for added stability, an anti-slip design, adjustable height ranging from 7.1 to 8.5 inches, and the ability to tilt your iPhone to a comfortable viewing angle (5° to 85°) and to use it hands-free.

Anker MagGo 3-in1 iPhone Charging Station

If you own an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods, instead of leaving them scattered across your desk or nightstand and carrying separate charging adapters and cables, you can place each device in its designated spot on the Anker MagGo 3-in-1 Charging Station. The charger can power all three devices simultaneously, reducing both clutter and cable management headaches.

This one offers 15W wireless charging for compatible iPhones (iPhone 12 or later), carries Qi2 certification, has a compact, foldable design that’s easy to toss into a backpack, and comes with a 40W power adapter included in the box. For $59, the charging station replaces all your charging adapters and cables for a single, travel-friendly accessory, and that’s the kind of convenience I’d choose any day.

Pitaka Military Grade Protective Case

The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max look gorgeous without a case, but the repair bill for a broken back glass panel or cracked screen is far more painful. This is why I always recommend that my friends and family members use a protective case on their iPhone, not the rugged ones, but good ones. 

What I’ve got for you is the $29.99 Pitaka protective case (previously $59.99), made from woven aramid fiber for the back panel and flexible TPU on the sides. Without adding much bulk, the case provides drop protection from heights of up to 2.44 meters, raised screen and camera lips to help prevent scratches, and a plush leather interior.

Lisen MagSafe Car Mount

The infotainment system in your car is great, but there are times when you may want to check a new route without interrupting the one already active, or quickly check a message or app that looks better on your iPhone.

For a more distraction-free driving experience, I recommend the Lisen MagSafe Car Mount, which keeps secondary navigation, calls, and messaging within easy sightline without taking your attention off the road. Currently priced at $16.08 (down from $29.99), the car mount attaches securely to your car’s dashboard, and its built-in magnets snap your iPhone (iPhone 12 or later) into place without using any clamps or locks.

Baseus Picogo Power Bank

I’m always using my iPhone, which is why it rarely makes it through a full day on a single charge. Naturally, I have to carry a power bank at all times. Having used bulky models with 10,000mAh and 20,000mAh battery capacities, I was on the lookout for something sleeker, more elegant, and lightweight when I found the Baseus Picogo Powerbank.

Measuring around 0.3 inches thick, the compact power bank weighs around 108 grams and can easily slide into my jeans pocket. Yes, it only has a 5,000mAh battery, and the max wireless output is 7.5W. However, that’s enough to take your iPhone (iPhone 12 or later) from nearly dead to 70% to 80%, depending on which model you have.

I’m willing to trade off charging speed for the convenience of the form factor. For $24.99, the Baseus wireless power bank is among the best iPhone accessory Prime Day deals you can invest in.

Whether you’re looking for a protective case for your iPhone 17 Pro or a 3-in-1 charging station for your Apple devices, there’s something for everyone on this list.

Disclaimer: Unless otherwise stated, any opinions expressed below belong solely to the author.

For the past few years, my commentary on regional ecommerce has revolved around the competition between Shopee and Lazada. The ambitious upstart from Singapore ended up pushing out the former market leader, even though it received backing from Chinese Alibaba.

And just when it seemed that the war was settled, that Shopee would reign over Southeast Asia with its rivals scrambling for the breadcrumbs it left behind, TikTok—of all the brands—has decided to enter the fray as well.

But what does a social media company know about running an online store? How can it be a match for industry veterans?

Well, one thing it does know is that those veterans have to pay for access to eyeballs that it owns. And if that’s the case, then why not sell to them directly?

Location, location, location

Nobody can sell anything if people don’t know about it. You have to make yourself known or, better still, place your business where the people already are. That is the source of the famous rule of real estate—location trumps everything else.

But it works in the digital world as well. It doesn’t matter how attractive your offer is, or how robust or cheap your product selection is, if nobody is aware of your existence.

And so, major ecommerce companies have had to first spend billions of dollars to position themselves in front of potential consumers—and now continue spending more to keep them coming back.

What’s more, size and brand awareness is no guarantee of enduring success, as the case of Lazada proves.

However, even its successful challenger, Shopee, still operated within the same rules. But what if the next competitor injects himself before customers can ever see you?

That’s what TikTok is trying to do. It is like a landlord who used to rent space for other companies, only to now reserve half of it for himself and compete with them instead.

This is a catch-22 situation for the incumbents. On one hand, they are effectively paying a direct competitor for access to the same audience that TikTok can reach freely through its own platform. On the other, they cannot simply walk away, because TikTok remains a gateway to millions of potential customers.

Meanwhile, TikTok benefits from both sides of the equation. It earns revenue from advertising while also generating income from direct sales to consumers.

Given its rapid growth, the strategy appears to be paying off. Including Tokopedia, which TikTok took control of in 2024, the company now commands close to 30% of Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market. Shopee still leads with a 52% share, but the question is whether it can maintain that dominance.

Monetising boredom

In the consumerist world we’re living in, many purchases are made on impulse. You see something cool, fun, stylish, and you want it.

Over the past few years, short, catchy, viral videos have become one of the most powerful tools for creating demand. Traditionally, however, acting on that impulse required an extra step: clicking a link or searching for the product on a marketplace such as Shopee.

In fact, most traditional e-commerce platforms are built around intent. Consumers typically visit them with a specific goal in mind, whether it is searching for a product, comparing prices, or making a purchase they have already decided on.

TikTok Shop works differently. It creates the desire before the search happens.

A creator tests a product. A livestream host demonstrates it. A short video shows a before-and-after result. A discount appears while the viewer is still watching. The purchase button is not placed after a search query, but inside a moment of attention.

That is a problem for Shopee and Lazada because search-based marketplaces tend to reward scale, logistics and price. TikTok rewards attention, storytelling and impulse.

A seller does not necessarily need the best product listing. He needs a video that converts—and it converts within TikTok Shop, just moments after buyer interest has been piqued.

Millions of people swiping through short clips are regularly exposed to new products, which they can now buy right then and there. The whole ecommerce experience of going to a third-party app or website and completing your checkout there has just been truncated into a few taps in the midst of your social scrolling session.

In other words, TikTok’s approach to ecommerce is not only fulfilling the demand but creating it too, and monetising it before competition ever has a chance.

This is where it gets really dangerous for existing ecommerce platforms.

While there are certain necessary goods that we are buying on a regular basis, which people may habitually visit Shopee, Amazon or Lazada for, consumer demand needs to be regularly refreshed with something new.

And all of those new products are introduced through various forms of content. These days, it’s mostly video—the medium that TikTok dominates over, especially in Southeast Asia.

So, not only does it own the main communications channel, but it gets to create new trends before competitors are even aware of them.

Can it replace big online marketplaces entirely? Most likely not. But it can monopolise access to the latest, most attractive products or even create many of them itself, a little bit like Shein does through its tight integration with Chinese manufacturers.

If it continues its successful run, it could redefine ecommerce forever and encourage other social media giants to follow suit.

• Read other articles we’ve written on tech giants here.

Featured Image Credit: airdone/ depositphotos

Sort out your summer viewing with this deal from Paramount Plus, netting you two months at just $0.99 per month. But only if you’re quick.

The summer is upon us, and while we should all be going outside and enjoying the sunshine, it’s also a great opportunity to catch up on TV. Thanks to one deal from Paramount Plus, you can do that without spending much money at all.

New and eligible former subscribers can sign up for Paramount Plus for $0.99 per month for their first two months of service. That means being able to watch everything on the service from sports to original dramas.

Get Paramount+ for $0.99 for 2 months

You can also choose the plan you want, except for live TV and trailers.

Once the two-month promo period is up, it will auto-renew at the normal rate for your chosen plan. If you go for the cheapest option, that would be $8.99 per month.

The offer is open until June 25, 2026, meaning you have only a small window to grab it. It’s available to people aged 18 or over, and other terms and conditions also apply.

Get 50% off Apple TV too

While the Paramount Plus deal is great, you can also get another Apple-related deal. Select Amazon accounts are able to sign up for Apple TV streaming with Amazon Prime at half the usual price for two months.

This is an account-specific offer, so not everyone will gain access to it. Your mileage may vary, but it’s worth a try.

from the an-actual-political-prisoner dept

In Trump’s America, the First Amendment is a dead letter. If you’re seen as anti-Trump, you apparently no longer have any rights at all. We’ll get to the man who moved a box of zines and got thirty years — he wasn’t even at the protest, but the judge claimed he was aiding a “terrorist on the run” (he was not). To understand how that’s even possible, though, you first have to look at how some people who actually tried to overturn democracy were treated. Because they walked.

Just look at the treatment of the January 6th insurrectionists, who literally sought to hang the Vice President, invaded the Capitol, blocked the certification of the free and fair 2020 presidential election, and generally tried to take down the federal government. While some were convicted of their crimes and given jail sentences commensurate with their actual crimes, Donald Trump then pardoned them all and is now trying to pay them millions of dollars, claiming that it was so unfair that the government was “weaponized” against them.

Now, compare them to the Prairieland protestors, who went to the Prairieland ICE detention center in Texas last year on July 4th. It was like plenty of the angry protest gatherings we’ve seen lately: a bit rowdy, with a few individuals going too far. Some set off fireworks. Some engaged in vandalism. One person fired a gun which appears to have hit a local police officer (who was released from the hospital soon after with no lasting damage).

It seems totally reasonable for prosecutors to prosecute the actual crimes that happened: mainly the person who fired a weapon at someone, and perhaps some of the vandalism. But, instead, the federal government tried to turn this into “an antifa terror cell” engaging in “domestic terrorism.” While a small number of those arrested knew each other and had planned to show up and be disruptive, many others didn’t know those who were engaged in the planning or the vandalism. They were just there.

some of the defendants – like Batten, Elizabeth Soto and her husband, Ines Soto, were not involved in the planning, arrived separately at the protest, and left when guards at the facility asked them to do so.

The whole case was always nonsense:

“This indictment stretches far beyond a specific, violent criminal action that might have taken place,” said Rachel Levinson-Waldman, director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “It characterizes these people who put together a protest as being in an antifa cell and tars all of them with this label of domestic terrorists.”

Levinson-Waldman said the overreach threatens the civil liberties of all Americans. 

“This is not just about antifa,” she said. “Anything that somehow feels at odds with this administration’s policies could be considered domestic terrorism and will be pursued with the full force of the federal government.”

But the cases were filed in North Texas before two of the most Trumpy judges around: Mark Pittman and Reed O’Connor. As we discussed back in March, the DOJ was able to get convictions against the protestors, including the one who wasn’t even there (hold that thought… it’s coming further down). A big part of the evidence was the weapons that some of the protestors brought to the protest. But, this is Texas. You’d think that in “we love the Second Amendment, Texas” that this wouldn’t be seen as a crime, but we’re dealing with a clearly ideologically driven prosecution.

This week, some of those convicted had sentences handed down, and they are so extreme and so long that they literally seem unbelievable.

Eight activists found guilty of terrorism-related charges in connection with an attack on an immigration detention facility in Texas in which a police officer was shot were sentenced to decades in prison Tuesday. One person in the group was sentenced to 100 years in prison, federal court records show.

Benjamin Song, who shot an Alvarado Police Department officer in the neck during the July 4 incident at Prairieland Detention Center outside the Dallas-Fort Worth area, was sentenced ​to a century behind bars, according to court documents reviewed by USA Today.

Maricela Rueda, another defendant, was sentenced to 70 years in prison, records show.

Zachary Evetts, Savanna Batten, Elizabeth Soto, Autumn Hill and Meagan Morris were each sentenced to 50 years in prison….

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Again, Batten and Soto had no connection to those who planned the event or who showed up with weapons or engaged in violence. And they left when guards asked them to leave. And now they’ve been sentenced to 50 years in prison. For what?

Even if we compared these sentences to the absolute longest sentence for January 6th insurrectionists, they are nowhere near as long as this. From The Guardian’s coverage of the sentencing:

The punishment for the protesters exceeds the lengthiest prison sentences given out for the attack on the Capitol on January 6. Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys who was convicted of seditious conspiracy, was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right group the Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Tarrio and Rhodes were found guilty of detailed planning to overturn a presidential election. All anyone involved in the Prairieland case did was… get mad about ICE kidnapping and kicking their neighbors out of the country, and maybe a bit of vandalism.

Song, who was sentenced to 100 years did fire his weapon and hit a law enforcement agent, meaning he was always going to face some more serious sentence, but he claims he did so because he thought the officer was going to shoot protestors. From The Guardian again:

In a statement, Song said he had fired at the police officer, Lt Thomas Gross, because Gross had his weapon drawn and Song believed he was about to shoot a protester.

“I never want to see good people, standing for what they believe in, gunned down in the street,” he said. “Now 21 people have been arrested, have been persecuted, have been punished. For knowing me or being my friend? This is wrong. This is mass punishment. Collective punishment. This is guilt by association. This is injustice.”

Even worse, Judge O’Connor (who has been one of MAGA’s favorite judges, and who has no problem making it clear that he rules on purely ideological grounds) allegedly told some of the defendants that the long sentences were necessary to make sure that leftist ideology was seen to be punished:

If you can’t see that, it’s a post from a group that is supporting the defendants (and hasn’t yet been confirmed by other reporting) saying that O’Connor said, from the bench: “the state wants to send a message to anyone who shares a similar ideology.”

If accurate, that would be incredibly damning. Judges aren’t supposed to increase sentences to stamp out ideology. That’s about as blatant a clear First Amendment violation you could imagine.

The Intercept has some other quotes from the courtroom, and while they don’t have the same ideology quote from O’Connor, the quotes they do have from him are pretty bad on their own:

O’Connor, the judge, said several times that the defendants had committed an “assault on democracy.”

“What happened here was not by any stretch of the imagination a protest,” he said during the sentencing of one defendant.

I mean… come on. January 6th was an “assault on democracy.” It was quite literally an attempt to overturn a democratic election. What happened in Texas was quite clearly a protest where a few protestors went too far. It happens at plenty of protests. It’s not an “assault on democracy” unless you’re a partisan activist. Given that we’re talking about Reed O’Connor, the claims of being a partisan activist have stuck on him for years.

Again, it’s clear that some of the defendants did break some laws, though most seemed to be minor property damage. There is zero indication of anything even remotely looking like a “terrorist” plot.

But the worst, most ridiculous case is that of Daniel “Des” Sanchez-Estrada. He wasn’t even at the protest. He was arrested for… moving some left wing zines after his wife — Maricela Rueda, one of the people just sentenced to 70 years — was arrested. Prosecutors claimed that moving a box with zines in it amounted to “corruptly concealing a document.” It sounds unbelievable, but you can read the criminal complaint against him, which really is just about him taking a box of leftist zines from his and his wife’s house (after she called him from jail) to another apartment.

He was just sentenced to 30 years in prison.

I need to repeat that. He moved a box of zines. He wasn’t at the protest.

He’s now been sentenced to THIRTY YEARS in prison.

For scale, this is in Texas, where Attorney General Ken Paxton (currently running for the US Senate) let a repeat child sex abuser plead down to one day in jail. One day for a child abuser. Thirty years for moving a box of pamphlets.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation has rightly called out how utterly unconstitutional this is:

Texas artist Daniel “Des” Sanchez Estrada was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison today for transporting a box of zines, or political pamphlets. The prosecution claimed Sanchez moved the zines so they wouldn’t incriminate his wife, who attended a protest outside the Prairieland immigration detention center near Dallas, where a police officer was wounded by gunfire.

The zines at issue may have discussed controversial political views, but they said nothing about the shooting or the Prairieland protest, and prosecutors did not allege that Sanchez’s wife, Maricela Rueda (who was sentenced to 70 years today), fired any shots or had anything to do with the shooting.

According to The Intercept, O’Connor insisted that moving the box of zines was helping a “known terrorist.”

Sanchez Estrada said he still could not understand why he was convicted.

“I am a father, I am a husband, I am a teacher, a poet — I am many things, Your Honor, but I am not a terrorist,” he told the court.

O’Connor said he disagreed with the idea that moving the box of the zines was harmless. At the time of Sanchez Estrada’s actions, Song was still on the run from police.

“What was at stake at that time was a known terrorist was on the run for shooting a police officer during a terrorist attack,” he said.

Even if Song was a “known terrorist” (he’s not), that still…. means nothing. Sanchez moved a box of zines. What the fuck does that have to do with Song being on the run? The answer is absolutely nothing.

Yes, the Trump administration has been desperately trying to drum up some sort of violent organized opposition because they need that to justify the suppression of everyone’s rights as part of their continued authoritarian project. That the Trump Justice Department and a couple of famously partisan judges played along with this travesty of a prosecution, doesn’t make it legitimate by any stretch of the imagination.

It’s just another sign that in Trump’s America those who violate the law in support of Trump get told they can do whatever crimes they want, and Trump might even get them paid, but protesting the ongoing fascism, may get you sent to prison for decades. It’s so extreme that it’s almost difficult to believe it has happened in the United States. This case will go down in history among the most ridiculous, partisan, bullshit attacks on free speech, and Judges Pittman and O’Connor will both be remembered for being the judges responsible for this travesty.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, autumn hill, benjamin song, daniel sanchez estrada, elizabeth soto, excessive punishment, free speech, ice, ice protests, ken paxton, mark pittman, meagan morris, prairieland, reed o’connor, savanna batten, terrorism, texas, todd blanche, zachary evetts

Qualcomm has signed Meta as the first named customer for its new Dragonfly C1000 data centre processor, the strongest signal yet that the mobile chipmaker is serious about competing in the AI infrastructure market. The company announced the deal at its investor day in New York on Wednesday, alongside a new AI300 accelerator chip and its confirmed acquisition of AI software startup Modular for roughly $3.9 billion in stock.

The Dragonfly C1000 is a general-purpose server processor designed to sit inside data centres alongside Qualcomm’s AI accelerator chips. Meta has committed to using the C1000 and its successors across its facilities. The chip will not be available until 2028, meaning the partnership is a forward-looking commitment rather than an immediate deployment.

The Dragonfly brand, which Qualcomm first revealed at Computex in early June alongside an ASIC supply deal with ByteDance, covers three product categories: data centre CPUs, AI inference accelerators, and custom silicon built with hyperscalers. Wednesday’s event filled in the product details that the Computex teaser left out.

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On the accelerator side, Qualcomm added an AI300 chip to a lineup that already included the AI200 and AI250. The AI200, built on Qualcomm’s Hexagon neural processing unit technology with direct liquid cooling and up to 768GB of LPDDR memory, is on track for initial customer shipments later this year. The AI250 is expected to follow in 2027.

These accelerators are designed for inference, the process of running trained AI models at scale rather than training them from scratch. Qualcomm argues that its decades of mobile chip design give it an advantage in power efficiency, a claim that matters as data centres strain electricity grids worldwide. Whether that mobile expertise translates to data centre performance remains unproven at scale.

The Modular acquisition, which TNW reported was nearing completion on Monday, is now confirmed at roughly four billion dollars in an all-stock transaction. Qualcomm will issue roughly 19 million shares to Modular’s owners. The deal is expected to close in the second half of this year.

Modular makes the Mojo programming language and the MAX inference engine, software that lets AI models run across chips from Nvidia, AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm without developers rewriting code for each processor. That is a direct challenge to Nvidia’s CUDA platform, the software layer that has locked AI developers into Nvidia hardware for two decades. Breaking that lock-in is the central challenge for every company trying to compete with Nvidia in AI infrastructure.

The strategic logic is straightforward. Qualcomm can design competitive chips, but without a software ecosystem that makes developers want to use them, the hardware alone is not enough. Modular’s cross-platform tooling could give Qualcomm the kind of developer on-ramp it currently lacks.

CEO Cristiano Amon framed the deal as part of an industry movement toward open, multi-vendor architectures. That framing positions Qualcomm as the anti-Nvidia, offering flexibility where Nvidia’s CUDA demands loyalty.

Qualcomm’s ambition is large but its data centre track record is thin. The company generates the vast majority of its revenue from smartphone processors and modems, and its previous attempt to enter the server market with the Centriq processor in 2017 ended in a shutdown. The current push has more institutional support, a named hyperscaler customer in Meta, and a clearer market opportunity in AI inference, but the gap between investor day announcements and shipped revenue remains wide.

The Meta partnership is notable for what it implies about diversification. Meta currently builds AI infrastructure primarily around Nvidia GPUs and has also invested in its own custom MTIA chips. Adding Qualcomm to that mix suggests Meta wants more supplier options as it scales inference, not that it is replacing Nvidia, which announced a multiyear strategic partnership with Meta earlier this year.

Qualcomm shares have climbed about 30 percent this year on expectations that AI would open a second growth engine beyond smartphones. The investor day was designed to turn that expectation into a roadmap. With the Modular acquisition providing the software layer, Meta providing the first marquee customer, and the AI200 approaching shipments, the pieces are assembling on paper.

Whether they assemble in practice depends on execution over the next two years. The C1000 does not ship until 2028, the Modular deal has not closed, and the AI accelerator lineup has no published benchmarks against Nvidia’s current or upcoming hardware. Qualcomm is making the right moves to enter the market, but it is entering a race where Nvidia has a commanding lead and every major cloud provider is also designing custom silicon.

Warhammer 11th Edition has arrived with the Armageddon launch box, and although a new edition seems like the perfect way into the hobby, it’s a daunting prospect. What do you need to build your models? What do you need to play the game? I’ve tried to make it easy for you by scouring Amazon for some Prime Day deals to get started.

• View the full Amazon Prime Day sale

I’ve found deals on paints, brushes, Citadel plastic glue, gaming accessories and some models to complement the main starter set, whether you pick the bestial orks or the dogmatic Space Marines.

Obviously the Armageddon 11th Edition launch box set including 23 Space marines, 38 orks & rulebooks is the big-ticket item with $50 off, but I’d also recommend the Infernus Marines & Paints Set, which comes with starter paints and a paintbrush. It’s good value although there’s no discount: it’s a gentler introduction to the build and paint side of things, and easier on your wallet, too. I’ve also recommended cheaper, well-known brands like Army Painter to save you money.

Check out the deals below, or visit our Amazon Prime Day US live blog for more deals as we find them.

Amazon Prime Day Warhammer sale — top picks

Amazon Prime Day Warhammer sale