Dec 24, 2018 10:00 AM

The Most-Read WIRED Gear Stories of 2018

A review of the Air Fryer, a three-month sojourn in Bing, and a user's guide to how to disable throttling on an iPhone all topped this year's list.

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One of the great controversies in recent years was the revelation that Apple had been purposefully throttling iPhone performance as the device's battery degraded. Then the company released a slate of new phones, and people rushed to buy them, thinking, surely I am now inoculated from throttled performance. Ha ha, silly consumer! We learned this fall that Apple will continue the practice even in its newer iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X models. Lucky for you, news editor Brian Barrett put together a handy guide for how to bypass the throttling that proved so popular, it made our list of most-read Gear stories of the year. Here, nine other stories that helped us make sense of consumer technology this year.

HOTLITTLEPOTATO
01
How to Take Back Your Facebook News Feed
It's easy to feel beholden to the social network's tweaks, but there are plenty of ways to customize your experience.
Read More
lberto Pezzali/NurPhoto/Getty Images
02
Apple Will Keep Throttling iPhones With Old Batteries. Here's How to Stop It
Read More

Samantha Cooper
03
Are Air Fryers Worth It?
Can the trendy, expensive countertop air fryer outperform a simple sheet pan in an oven?
Read More
SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
04
Why Didn’t I Get an Emergency Presidential Alert Text?
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JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images
05
Facebook Is Testing Its Dating Service. Here’s How It’s Different From Tinder
Read More
Hotlittlepotato
06
I Used Only Bing for 3 Months. Here's What I Found—and What I Didn't
Read More

Ian C. Bates
07
Surface Go Is Microsoft’s Big Bet on a Tiny-Computer Future
Read More
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
08
The Best Cheap Phones for Almost Every Budget
There’s little reason to pay top dollar for a smartphone. These iPhones and Android devices—ranging from $100 to $600—stood up to WIRED’s testing.
Read More

Courtesy of Corsair
09
Want a Better PC? Try Building Your Own
Assembling a computer yourself is a good way to learn how they work.
Read More
The Weather Channel
10
How The Weather Channel Made That Insane Storm Surge Animation
Read More

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Andrea Valdez is the editor of WIRED.com. Before arriving at WIRED in 2017, she worked at Texas Monthly for 10 years, first as a fact checker, then as a columnist, and, ultimately, as the editor of texasmonthly.com. She is the author of How to Be a Texan: The Manual. Valdez ... Read More

Editor of Wired.com

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