Friday Quick Takes: August 15

It’s after 5:00 pm on Friday afternoon at the end of a very long and tiring week, Laurent is out today, and I don’t have a lot of time. But there are a few more things I’d like to communicate today. And so I will do that quickly and briefly.

I wasn’t sure what to call this, so Quick Takes it is.

?️ Microsoft might actually fix Windows 11 Dark mode

Anyone who uses Windows 11 today knows that Dark mode is a mixed bag for all kinds of reasons. There’s no way to switch seamlessly between Light and Dark mode on some schedule, for example, though there’s at least one third-party utility that can fix that issue. But the biggest issue, to my mind, is that so many Windows 11 user interfaces, like the File copy dialog and the Folder Options dialog in File Explorer always display in Light mode, even when you’ve configured Dark mode.

Well, here’s some good news. It looks like Microsoft is finally going to fix this “details matter” issue in Windows 11 version 25H2. Nice!

? August Gemini Drop

Google loves the term “drop” for some reason, usually in the term “feature drop,” and it’s starting to use it everywhere. Gemini is the latest example, and today Google announced that the August 2025 Gemini Drop is now available. New features and changes include:

• Storybook. This feature helps you “turn cherished memories, inside jokes, and complex concepts into an illustrated storybook.”
• Deep Think. This feature is exclusive to Google AI Ultra subscribers, and it provides an improved reasoning mode that’s particularly good for solving “highly complex problems in math and coding.”
• Temporary Chats. So you can have conversations with Gemini that won’t be saved to your history or influence future responses.
• Personalization. Gemini will now use your past chats to give you more personalized and relevant answers.
• Guided Learning. This feature creates practice quizzes and flash cards from your notes, organizes study guides, fine-tunes your writing, and more. There’s also a Free Pro Plan for Students.

? Google releases Gemma 3 270M compact AI model

And speaking of Google and AI, Google this week released a major update to its Gemma 3 compact AI models that’s available alongside Gemma 3 (for cloud), Gemma 3 QAT (for PCs), and Gemma 3n (for mobile).

Today, we’re adding a new, highly specialized tool to the Gemma 3 toolkit: Gemma 3 270M, a compact, 270-million parameter model designed from the ground up for task-specific fine-tuning with strong instruction-following and text structuring capabilities already trained in.

Core capabilities of Gemma 3 270M:

• Compact and capable architecture: Our new model has a total of 270 million parameters: 170 million embedding parameters due to a large vocabulary size and 100 million for our transformer blocks. Thanks to the large vocabulary of 256k tokens, the model can handle specific and rare tokens, making it a strong base model to be further fine-tuned in specific domains and languages.
• Extreme energy efficiency: A key advantage of Gemma 3 270M is its low power consumption. Internal tests on a Pixel 9 Pro SoC show the INT4-quantized model used just 0.75% of the battery for 25 conversations, making it our most power-efficient Gemma model.
• Instruction following: An instruction-tuned model is released alongside a pre-trained checkpoint. While this model is not designed for complex conversational use cases, it’s a strong model that follows general instructions right out of the box.
• Production-ready quantization: Quantization-Aware Trained (QAT) checkpoints are available, enabling you to run the models at INT4 precision with minimal performance degradation, which is essential for deploying on resource-constrained devices.

Gemma 3 270M embodies this “right tool for the job” philosophy. It’s a high-quality foundation model that follows instructions well out of the box, and its true power is unlocked through fine-tuning. Once specialized, it can execute tasks like text classification and data extraction with remarkable accuracy, speed, and cost-effectiveness. By starting with a compact, capable model, you can build production systems that are lean, fast, and dramatically cheaper to operate.

Right tool for the job. I like it.

? ChatGPT has earned 30x the revenue on mobile as all its competitors combined

Appfigures reports (behind a paywall, so going off a TechCrunch article) that ChatGPT for Android and iPhone has earned over $2 billion in revenue since its launch in May 2023.

“That figure is approximately 30x the combined lifetime spending of ChatGPT’s rivals on mobile, including Claude, Copilot, and Grok, the analysis indicates,” the article says. “So far this year, ChatGPT’s mobile app has made $1.35 billion, up 673% year-over-year from the $174 million it made during the same period (January-July) in 2024, per the data. On average, the app is generating close to $193 million per month, up from $25 million last year.”

That’s 53x higher than the revenues earned by Grok, which has made about $26 million this year so far.

And, yes, Copilot is at the bottom of the ratings. Where lifetime spending on ChatGPT on mobile is $2.91 per download, it’s $2.55 for Claude, $0.75 for Grok, and, wait for it, $0.28 for Copilot.

? VirtualBox 7.2 brings Windows 11 on Arm support

As many of you know, VirtualBox is a free virtualization solution for those that wish to run operating systems in virtual machines (VMs). And, yeah, it’s been a while since we talked about it. But since then, Oracle (which owns VirtualBox) has been steadily adding support for Arm platforms. Version 7.1 was the first to support Apple Silicon Macs, for example, and now 7.2 is adding support for Windows 11 on Arm. Here’s a few notes from the changelog.

This is a major update. The following new features were added:

• Windows/Arm host: Arm virtualization of VMs added, in the unified Windows installer package
• Arm host: Virtualization of Windows 11/Arm VMs
• Windows/Arm guest: Guest additions for new OS type Windows 11/Arm

In addition, the following items were fixed or added:

• Arm VMs: Note that the saved state of Arm VMs from VirtualBox 7.1 is incompatible with VirtualBox 7.2, so please shut down such VMs in saved state before upgrading to 7.2 (snapshots with associated saved state created with 7.1 will no longer work with 7.2)
• VMM: Improved x86_64 and Arm CPU feature reporting when using Windows Hyper-V as the virtualization engine

?️ WhatsApp has new group chat features

WhatsApp is owned by Meta, which makes me want to hate it, but we have to use it in Mexico, and it’s honestly not that horrible. Plus, it is end-to-end encrypted. Yesterday, it announced an interesting update for group chat.

Today we’re announcing new features on WhatsApp that make group calls easier to plan, and more interactive.

Whether you’re coordinating a catch-up with the entire family or scheduling a meeting with colleagues, sometimes you need to plan ahead. Now you can schedule calls and invite people or groups to join in advance by pressing the + button in your Calls tab > ‘Schedule call’.

You can see and manage all your upcoming calls in the Calls tab, alongside a list of attendees and call links to add to your personal calendar or share with others. Helpfully, all participants will receive a notification when a call is about to begin.

We’ve also introduced new ways for users to express themselves on group calls. Now you can raise your hand to indicate you’d like to speak, or send a reaction to take part without interrupting.

Call links also just got an upgrade. Now, as a call link creator, you’ll receive notifications when someone joins.

? iPhone 17 Pro Max to get a nice camera upgrade

I’m not sure what if anything I’ll do when the Pixel 10 series and iPhone 17 series phones are announced over the next month, but it appears that the phones I typically buy–the Pixel Pro XL and the iPhone Pro Max–are going to be minor updates this go-round. But this kind of thing is always of interest to me: According to new leaks, the iPhone 17 Pro Max is getting a major camera system update that will differentiate it from the smaller iPhone 17 Pro.

In a new post on Weibo, leaker Instant Digital [says that the iPhone 17 Pro Max] will offer perhaps the strongest [iPhone] telephoto camera yet.

Both iPhone 17 Pro models have long been rumored to get a 48 MP telephoto upgrade.

The current telephoto lens is 12 MP, and bumping it to 48 MP will make the full trio of rear cameras 48 MP.

Perhaps the rumored 8x optical zoom will be Pro Max exclusive

Maybe.

? PlayStation, Xbox, and online services

I focus so much on Xbox and Windows gaming that I sometimes lose sight of what’s happening outside my bubble. But this week, Sony announced a new set of games that it’s bringing to subscribers of PlayStation Plus Premium, its highest-end subscription service, which is similar to Game Pass Ultimate in that it offers a cloud streaming service in addition to whatever other perks.

This month, unleash brutal finishers in the reimagined Mortal Kombat 1, swing through Marvel’s New York skyline as the iconic web-slinger in Marvel’s Spider-Man, or gear up to repel swarming alien forces in Earth Defense Force 6. All these titles and more are available in August’s PlayStation Plus Game Catalog lineup. That includes Sword of the Sea, which releases day one into Game Catalog. Meanwhile, Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis bring retro survival horror to PlayStation Plus Premium. All titles will be available to play on August 19.

On the same day, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach will also be available as a Game Trial for PlayStation Plus Premium members. Enjoy up to 5 hours of gameplay with this time-limited trial, and if you decide to purchase the full game, your progress and trophies will carry over.

Speaking of which.

Battlefield 6 Open Beta is free on Xbox consoles this weekend. It’s been available on other platforms, including Steam for PC, for a week or so, but if you’re on an Xbox, this is your chance to see whether this game can outdo Call of Duty. Battlefield 6 is in open beta on Xbox Series X|S until 1 am Pacific on Sunday, August 17, and you can play it online with no Game Pass membership during this time. The full game launches October 10.

 

OK, I’m out. Hopefully there’s something interesting in there for you.