Technologies

Sorry, Spotify Wrapped. My Listening Age Is Not What You Think It Is

Commentary: I may be old in Spotify’s eyes, but I got to see Prince live in Minneapolis in the 1980s, so I can live with that.

Spotify Wrapped is a fun annual roundup of your listening habits. Every year, the music streaming app adds new features, like back in 2023, when it assigned people a Sound Town, meaning a city that supposedly matched their listening style. The Spotify Wrapped for 2025 just landed on Wednesday, and new features this year include a multiplayer game called Wrapped Party and an in-your-face assessment of your listening age.

That last one blew my mind a little. My actual age is 57. According to Spotify, my listening age is 79.

SEVENTY-NINE.

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President Donald Trump and former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are 79. Liza Minnelli is 79. Cher — well, she’s ageless, but technically, she’s 79.

Look, I’m no teenybopper, I get it. I’m a proud Atari Wave Gen Xer. So it’s not like I was 18 and was then told I was listening to AARP tunes. But does Spotify realize how it sounds to be hit with a listening age that’s 22 years older than I really am?

What’s my age again?

I’m not the only one Spotify is aging up. My 18-year-old daughter was told she was 37, maybe because of her love of 1990s emo. Some people get aged down — my colleague Corinne Reichert’s 73-year-old mom was labeled 21. («She listens to a lot of K-pop,» her daughter says.)

Spotify pegged my colleague Jon Skillings as an octogenarian, with a listening age of 86, «since you were into music from the late ’50s.» Blame that on his passion for jazz and a healthy dose of Miles Davis and Duke Ellington in his sonic excursions. At least Spotify had the good taste to play Count Basie’s 1957 version of April in Paris when it delivered the news.

«I won’t lie. That 86 did sting a little,» Skillings says. «I really thought I was mixing in a lot more tunes from this century.»

For the record, Spotify did flag a 2024 release from the contemporary jazz pianist Vijay Iyer as his top album. «See?» he says. «I can keep up with the times.»

But Skillings looks like a spring chicken next to CNET’s Ty Pendlebury, who wrote our main Spotify Wrapped article and revealed that Spotify bluntly told him he was 100.

I may be old, but I got to see all the cool bands

I know 79 isn’t old to many people. I lost my sister Claudia last December at 78, and her ghost will haunt me forever if I get snippy about an age she never even got the chance to complain about. But there’s something jolting about seeing an age that’s 22 years older than you are, especially relating to music, where the industry is always riding on the back of some hot new young singer.

Do I really care? Maybe I shouldn’t. There’s a T-shirt that says something like, «I may be old, but I got to see all the cool bands.» It’s probably made for Baby Boomers, but as an Xer who saw Prince live in his hometown of Minneapolis in his best decade, the 1980s, I proudly identify with that remark.

I’ve seen some oldsters in concert, yeah, can’t deny it. A couple of years ago, I saw Steely Dan at an outdoor amphitheater near Seattle. (No static at all.) I saw folk legend Pete Seeger perform with Arlo Guthrie at the University of Minnesota one year. My mom, born in the 1920s, and my brother, a 1944-born baby, were with me, and we were all rapt. There were kids bouncing on their parents’ laps at that show. Pete and Arlo’s music knew no age. And as an 1980s concert-goer, I’ve seen bands like The Pet Shop Boys, REM, U2, Redd Kross, The Church, and the Pixies.

But as mom of a teenage daughter, I’ve also been flooded with more modern music, and I love it, too. Thanks to her, I’ve seen Panic! at the Disco, Alex G, Car Seat Headrest, Melanie Martinez and Slaughter Beach, Dog. And my daughter isn’t easy to categorize, either. She’s in an emo groove these days, listening to music from before she was born, and saw My Chemical Romance kick off their Long Live The Black Parade tour, where they performed their 2006 album The Black Parade in its entirety.

How does Spotify determine your listening age?

Spotify claims my listening age is 79, not because I sit around watching Lawrence Welk Show reruns, but because I «was into music from the early ’60s.»

I think my Spotify musical age has a lot to do with me watching the recent Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown and suddenly deciding Spotify was the perfect way to catch up on Dylan’s music. I was just a little too early for his heyday, although I lived just off the famous Highway 61, where God said to Abraham, kill me a son. OK, so I saw the movie, and I mainlined me some Dylan on Spotify.

So why not hand me a decade instead of an age? I was born in the ’60s, so dubbing me a ’60s baby would be just fine by me. (My birth year is 6-7, which should be a popular year with Gen Z and Alpha.) I grew into my musical tastes in Minneapolis in the 1980s, with Prince, The Replacements, Husker Du and The Suburbs, so call me an ’80s child and I will put that sucker on a T-shirt and flaunt it.

I’ve decided I’m going to wear my Spotify age proudly. Nobody should be shoved into a musical pigeonhole; there are great tunes from every decade, if you’re open enough to listen, and an 80-year-old can listen to whoever they choose. I’m proud that my musical tastes aren’t narrowly defined by my birth year, but instead, are open and vast.

So you’ll excuse me if I look at Spotify calling me 79 and quote an iconic song from those Gen X gurus, Nirvana:

Oh well, whatever, never mind.

Technologies

Apple Reportedly Eyes ‘iPhone Ultra’ Name for Folding Phone Expected This Year

It’s another week and another bunch of rumors about the company’s first foldable phone.

It’s a new week and a new set of rumors for Apple’s first foldable phone. If Tuesday’s reports are true, the device will be called the Ultra, have a bookish shape and launch in September.

The main report comes from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who said the foldable is on track for a September launch, despite Nikkei Asia reporting that the phone might not launch until 2027 due to issues that cropped up during the engineering test phase.

Citing unnamed sources, Gurman said Apple will introduce the foldable phone in September alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max. Those phones would likely go on sale about a week after being unveiled.

An Apple representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. It’s important to note that while rumors abound, Apple has confirmed none of them — not even the existence of a foldable iPhone.

Still, the earlier Nikkei Asia report was jarring enough to send Apple’s stock down 5.1% before it rebounded later, Gurman noted. The Nikkei Asia story said unexpected issues had arisen during engineering testing and that more time was needed to make «necessary adjustments.» Under a worst-case scenario, the first shipment of the foldables would not occur until 2027, the report said.

Looks like a book

Meanwhile, consumer tech reviewer Sonny Dickson posted images on X showing dummy models indicating how big the iPhone Fold, iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max might be. In the image, the foldable has an almost square shape when fully opened.

Dummy images are useful for phone accessory manufacturers — such as case-makers — so they can get a head start on mass production before the devices are launched. When phones are released, consumers are quick to order cases and other accessories, so the sizes need to be known. It is unclear whether the dummy models shown are actual mockups from Apple.

People who commented on X didn’t seem to love the dummy images, particularly because the models shown appear to lack MagSafe, Apple’s magnetic system on the back of the phone that lets chargers and other accessories snap on.

Stefan Moser wrote, «If the Fold is missing MagSafe, this will be a big NO for me.»

There were other criticisms, too.

An X user going by DasnkiCS posted that the phone looks «too wide, can’t palm that easily in normal phone use.»

And another X user, Brosnan Hoban, wrote, «Fold looks like a credit card from 2050.»

What’s in a name?

Tuesday’s other big rumor concerned the foldable’s name.

A leaker, Digital Chat Station, posted on the Chinese social site Weibo that the foldable iPhone could be called the iPhone Ultra. The post also said Chinese competitors may use the Ultra name for their own foldables to compete directly with Apple on design, specs, and price.

The predominant rumored name has been the iPhone Fold, but others have included Flip, Duo and iFold.

In March, Gurman wrote in his Power On newsletter that Apple was considering a full line of Ultra products, possibly including a foldable phone, an M6 MacBook Pro with OLED, a foldable iPad and high-end Macs. Gurman also said Apple might introduce AirPods with «computer-vision cameras» to send visual data to Siri for its AI assistant feature.

We’ve seen a steady stream of tidbits about the foldable recently. There could be a large inner screen for multitasking, and people could open apps side by side. There might also be two rear cameras, a front-facing camera and a Touch ID side button.

Whatever Apple finally comes up with, it will be playing catch-up. Other major phone-makers already have foldable phones on the market, including the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold, the OnePlus Open, the Huawei Mate XT, the Honor Magic V5 and the Motorola Razr Ultra.

Technologies

Artemis II Astronauts Name Moon Crater After Commander Reid Wiseman’s Late Wife

The emotional moment was streamed by NASA moments after the crew made history.

On Monday, after the crew aboard Artemis II made a historic feat by breaking Apollo 13’s distance record, they made the moment even more special by proposing to name one of the craters on the moon «Carroll,» in memory of Commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife.

While contacting Mission Control, Mission Specialist and astronaut Jeremy Hansen stated that the «close-knit astronaut family» previously lost a loved one who was «the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katie and Ellie.»

«It’s a bright spot on the moon,» Hansen said while describing the crater during the emotional call. «And we would like to call it Carroll.»

After the request, you can see Wiseman embrace Hansen before the rest of the crew joins in for a group hug.

Carroll Wiseman died in 2020 at 46 years old from cancer. Wiseman’s NASA bio page states that Carroll «dedicated her life to helping others as a newborn intensive care unit Registered Nurse.»

Before the Artemis II mission, Wiseman posted a selfie with his two daughters on X with a caption that reads in part, «I love these two ladies, and I’m boarding that rocket a very proud father.»

Follow CNET’s coverage of the 10-day Artemis II mission as the Orion makes its way back to Earth.

Technologies

Artemis II Astronauts Are Using iPhones to Capture Stunning Space Images

After smartphones were cleared by NASA for space missions, the crew members of the Integrity spacecraft are beaming back lots of iPhone photos.

The four astronauts aboard the Integrity spacecraft now headed home from their historic arc around the moon really are like the rest of us: Sometimes they reach for their smartphones to snap photos.

For the Artemis II mission, iPhone 17 Pro Max phones have been used to capture photos inside the capsule of the astronauts pondering the views of Earth and working on mission objectives. (Technically, NASA refers to them as PCDs – personal computing devices.)

Smartphones were cleared for use in space for the first time in February. In a post on X, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman wrote, «We are giving our crews the tools to capture special moments for their families and share inspiring images and video with the world.»

Early in the mission, Commander Reid Wiseman snapped a pair of photos looking out the window with Earth behind him. Mission specialist Christina Koch and her dynamic curls in zero-gravity also captured a pensive view looking out over the planet. All three were made using the front camera — because wouldn’t you want to grab a selfie if you were in space?

The iPhone 17 Pro’s rear cameras are pulling their own weight during the mission, too. During the live broadcast as the crew approached the moon, Wiseman took a photo of the moon’s surface using the iPhone’s telephoto camera at 8x zoom. He turned the screen toward one of the video cameras mounted inside the spacecraft, creating an image of the moon’s surface alone against the darkness of the unlit cabin, with the iPhone’s signature rounded edges and Dynamic Island cutout at the top.

The main photo workhorses on this trip are a Nikon D5 DSLR and a Nikon Z9. The D5 is a model that has been used on several space excursions, and the Z9 is onboard as an experimental camera.

For NASA missions, every piece of equipment must be tested and certified, which is why the previously-approved D5 has a secure spot. Cameras must be resistent to space environmental factors like radiation, and safe if they’re floating around the capsule. However, the iPhones in space now are off-the-shelf models, according to a report by Jackie Watties of CNN.

The moon flyby was especially photo-intensive, with astronauts switching places several times so that two were always at windows with cameras and relating what they could see with their eyes. This photo of mission specialist and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen taking images using one of the Nikon cameras shows how some windows have camera shrouds attached. The shroud ensures that light from the interior isn’t reflected in the glass.

In a particularly relatable photo, Hansen is also using the front-facing camera of a white iPhone 17 Pro — as a portable mirror while he shaves. As the (modified) saying goes, the best selfie screen is the one you have with you.

The iPhone 17 Pro isn’t the first Apple product to go into space. Crew members have taken iPods, iPads and AirPods on missions since the Space Shuttle era. The Mac Portable even went up on a shuttle (and revealed that its trackball in zero-G isn’t the best option).

An Apple representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.