Technologies

Amazon Prime: You now have to pay to use this one perk. Here’s what to know

While this Prime perk is no longer around for free, there are still benefits that can save you time and money.

There’s an Amazon Prime perk that’s no longer free and instead will cost you an extra $10. Now, Prime members will have to pay a fee for Whole Foods’ grocery deliveries, which may mean that you buy more to offset the delivery charge or use other grocery delivery options to avoid the extra charge. But there are still ways to get organic fruits and vegetables delivered to your door for free.

Even though Whole Foods delivery will now cost you, other perks are still included in your membership like free two-day shipping and free grocery delivery directly from Amazon. But there are membership benefits that you may be missing out on. For instance, you can cut the hustle and bustle of running other errands, like the pharmacy or the mall with Amazon’s service. And if you didn’t know, Prime Video and Prime Music can help you limit your monthly subscriptions.

So don’t fret. We found other ways to help you make the most of your membership. You can also check out these top CNET deals before they’re gone. This story was recently updated.

1. Whole Foods discounts

Even though Whole Foods deliveries will now come with an additional $10 charge, there are other ways to save on organic fruits and vegetables. There are also free 1-hour pickup windows depending on your location — just remember to check in with the Amazon app to see if you need to enter the store.

Some other Whole Food perks for Prime members are still around. Blue tags indicate sales exclusive to Prime members, while yellow tags mean an extra 10% off of an item already on sale. This gets you discounts on weekly bestsellers, including produce, packaged goods and beauty products, but note that it excludes alcohol.

You can also use the Whole Foods Market app at checkout to get exclusive Prime discounts on select products. The few cents saved on items may seem insignificant individually, but savings do add up in the end. But there are other Amazon grocery delivery options if you don’t want to pay the extra fee.

2. Amazon Fresh delivery

Another grocery delivery option for Prime members is Amazon Fresh. You can restock your pantry directly from Amazon. But instead of paying $10 for Whole Foods grocery delivery later this month, you can get free delivery for orders that exceed a certain amount (depending on where you live).

You can also use the service to get discounts when you order more or when you set up automatic delivery subscriptions for certain items and save even more for future deliveries. Plus, some items, like fruit snacks and cookies, are SNAP-eligible.

3. Amazon Pharmacy’s two-day delivery and discounts

If you refill at least one prescription on a regular basis, Amazon’s Pharmacy may be a more convenient choice. Plus, Prime members may get lower prices on medicine. Amazon will transfer your prescriptions, and 24/7 pharmaceutical assistance is available. The pharmacy works with most insurance plans, but it is available in 45 states right now.

4. Try Amazon’s personal shopper program

Prime members can order clothes for their next outing with Prime Try Before You Buy (the name changed from Prime Wardrobe). Here’s how it works: Choose up to eight items — clothes, shoes or accessories. Keep them for up to seven days to see if you like them. Send back what you don’t like for free and only pay for what you keep.

And you can try the styling service for personalized help starting at $5 per month. If you’re not sure which clothing or shoes are eligible, look for the «Try Before You Buy» icon.

5. Amazon gift cards when you trade in used electronics

Amazon is boarding the train to the sustainability station, and it’s something you can directly benefit from. With Amazon Trade-In, you can send back your used electronics in exchange for Amazon gift cards. Make sure to check on the eligibility of each product — some trade-in options are only available for a limited time.

6. Discounts and guarantees on preowned products

Amazon Renewed gives you access to products that may have been opened but weren’t used by their original owners — or were refurbished. Amazon assures that these preowned items work and look like new, coming with the Amazon Renewed Guarantee. A variety of products and brands are available, even from Apple and Vitamix.

7. Amazon Warehouse savings on almost everything

Amazon Warehouse resells like-new or preowned items that have been returned by customers. Some of the products only had their boxes opened by original purchasers before they were sent back, unused, so they’re resold at a discount. While there’s no regular manufacturing warranty on these products, they are backed by Amazon’s 30-day return policy and 90-day renewed item return policy.

8. Amazon Outlet’s overstocked items

The Amazon Outlet features overstocked items and other products at discounted prices. Like at an outlet, you can find premium brands and items under $10 ranging from home furniture to clothing and pet supplies. Keep in mind that although the online shopping experience is convenient, just like an outlet, the best deals can take sifting to find. Luckily, you can do it from the couch.

9. Limited-time Lightning Deals year-round

Amazon’s Lightning Deals are a promotion where a product or service is on sale for a short period of time or until it’s sold out. You can find them all throughout the site, but especially on Prime Day and in Today’s Deals. On Prime Day, Lightning Deals are only for Prime members.

There is one lightning deal per customer until the promotion ends or all the deals are claimed by other shoppers. You can join a waitlist for a deal, but keep in mind that these discounts are extremely time-sensitive, so grab them fast. Unless refreshing the page over and over is your thing, these deals aren’t necessarily the way to find something specific because of their fleeting nature and limited availability.

10. 5GB of storage with Amazon Photos

Amazon’s online shoebox for photos and videos offers secure and unlimited full-resolution photo storage plus 5GB of video for Prime members. To use this feature, you can choose to manually or automatically upload media in the Amazon Photos app. You can personalize the displays on Amazon devices like Fire TV, Echo Show and Fire tablets as long as you have the app.

Plus, with the Family Vault perk, up to five family members can share the same plan. If you want more, there are paid plans available. If you choose to switch — which can be done anytime — there is a 100GB option for $2 per month and 1TB plan for $7 per month.

For more, here are our picks for the best Alexa devices and which e-reader is right for you.

Technologies

Apple Gives a Reason for the Reports of Terrible iPhone 17 Scratches

If you’ve seen scratched iPhone 17s, Apple says it’s just residue from their old display stands.

You may have missed it, but the internet had a collective meltdown about the brand-new iPhone 17 Pro, Pro Max, and iPhone Air demo units looking scratched up in stores. We finally have an answer. And no, the phones are not, in fact, made of butter.

Apple has officially weighed in on «scratchgate,» and the culprit isn’t a design flaw — it’s grimy display stands. Apparently, old and worn-out MagSafe holders were rubbing off on the backs of the new devices, creating the illusion of a scratch.

The company says that it’s fixing the problematic displays, and the marks can simply be wiped clean. The great iPhone panic of 2025 has ended not with a bang, but with a microfiber cloth.

Not all scratches are equal, and the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max’s shape could make the anodized coating susceptible to chipping. People are also reacting to videos from iFixIt and Zach Nelson’s YouTube channel JerryRigEverything. The videos show a possible issue with the anodized coating around the edges of the camera plateau on the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max. In his video, Nelson takes a quarter and rubs it along the edge of the camera plateau, causing the coating to chip.

Apple explained to CNET that the anodization on the 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max is just as durable as that on other products. However, over time, it may show small abrasions with normal wear and tear. The company said that its anodization layer is extremely hard and exceeds industry standard guidelines for microhardness.

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Concerns about scratching and durability come on the heels of one of Apple’s biggest iPhone redesigns in years. And while marks and scratches don’t affect how Apple’s phones work, no one wants to have a new $800-plus iPhone look anything but the best it can. The iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro units CNET has been testing for the past two weeks don’t show any scratches, chips or scuffs.

If you’re concerned about your new iPhone getting scuffed, you can always buy a case and screen protector.

What is the iPhone 17 Pro made of?

The 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max bodies are made with aerospace-grade 7000 series aluminum, Ceramic Shield and Ceramic Shield 2. The Pro models have an aluminum unibody frame, which means a lot of the back is no longer made of glass.

While some on social media point to the new aluminum chassis as the problem behind the demo-unit damage, multiple videos show the scratches on the Ceramic Shield back panel on the dark blue iPhone 17 Pro (and on the black iPhone Air). There are even videos like this, where a person purposely scratches the back of their new iPhone Air only for the residue to wipe away, mostly clean.

Ceramic Shield, made of ceramic nano-crystals suspended in a glass matrix, covers most of the 17 Pro’s back under the camera bar. Apple says it is four times more resistant to cracks than the back glass on the iPhone 16 Pro.

Then there’s Ceramic Shield 2 on the 17 Pro’s display, which Apple says is three times more scratch-resistant than the Ceramic Shield used on previous iPhone models (and the backs of the new Pro and Air models).

During a briefing for the new iPhone models on the day they were announced, an Apple spokesperson noted that Ceramic Shield is focused on handling drops and resisting cracks, while Ceramic Shield 2 is about crack and scratch durability.

JerryRigEverything’s video and anodizing on the edge

In his iPhone 17 Pro video, JerryRigEverything’s Nelson does his usual array of scratch, bend and burn tests, but calls out a possible issue with the anodized coating on the iPhone 17 Pro’s aluminum.

«Apple forgot to do one really important thing. They ignored an international standard. And it’s going to haunt every single person who buys this phone,» Nelson warns in his video.

The ISO standard Nelson refers to is for decorative anodizing and recommends a specific radius threshold that’s 10 times the thickness of the finish, which apparently the edge around the camera bar doesn’t follow.

Apple explained to CNET that its anodization on the 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max exceeds industry standards and that the edges of the camera plateau have similar characteristics to the edges of the anodized cases on other Apple products.

In his video, Nelson explains that corners, like those around the iPhone 17 Pro’s camera plateau, are weak points for an anodized coating. Think of the anodized layer on the aluminum like nail polish: It gives the phone its color but also helps protect it. If the coating gets scratched too deeply, you can see the actual metal color of the aluminum underneath. More people are likely to notice the damage on darker colors than cosmic orange.

In his video, Nelson shows how the corners around the 17 Pro’s camera plateau are particularly a concern because they lack a chamfer, fillet or bevel, which would typically help protect the edge from having its anodized coating chipped. He acknowledges that Apple used a robust coating and shows how it protects the back against a coin sliding against it or a key scraped on it.

But when he takes the same quarter and rubs it along the edge of the camera plateau, chunks of the finish come off.

I should note that Nelson made all of the scratches on the phone’s body with a knife, which leads me to suspect that someone may have intentionally scratched in-store demo units, in addition to Apple’s explanation about the MagSafe risers.

It could also be that people were holding multiple iPhone display samples one-handed for a photo or video, and that the sapphire crystal covering on the rear cameras rubbed against the back of the other iPhone. Sapphire crystal is second only to diamond in terms of its hardness. As anyone who’s had a retail job knows, in-store display units are often subjected to some of the worst customer treatment.

«I’m a massive fan of this new iPhone design,» says Nelson toward the end of his video. «Less glass and more aluminum is always a good thing.»

iFixIt’s ‘spalling’ iPhone 17 Pro teardown

In iFixIt’s iPhone 17 Pro teardown video, Shahram Mokhtari, the company’s lead teardown technician, confirmed Nelson’s finding of an issue with the anodized coating on the camera plateau’s edges. Mokhtari said the issue isn’t the aluminum unibody but the shape of the phone’s camera bump. The plateau’s sharp edges don’t adhere to the anodized coating, but flat surfaces, like the phone’s back, do.

Under a microscope, Mokhtari drags a hardness tool (equivalent to a penny) across the flat back of the camera plateau. You can see where he dragged, but the anodized coating is still intact. He drags the same tool across the edge of the camera plateau, and the coating chips off, revealing the metal underneath. The technical term for this is spalling.

«When there’s an edge to the oxide layer, like at the edge of the camera plateau, the brittle oxide bears the stress of your keys or coins rubbing against it. And so it spalls,» Mokhtari explains in the video.

He also acknowledges that iFixIt hasn’t seen the same level of vulnerability on the iPhone Air and standard iPhone 17 because their backs are made of Ceramic Shield and glass, respectively.

Are the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air durable?

In short, the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air are durable, yes. But normal wear and tear on iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max models could cause small abrasions to show. These issues won’t change how the phone operates or is used, but putting a case on the Pro models seems like the only way to avoid any chipping.

The iPhone Air and baseline iPhone 17 don’t seem to have the same issue with spalling that Pro models have because their backs are made of glass.

If you find that your new iPhone is scratched or has some of the anodized coating chipped off, take it back to where you bought it and see if you can exchange it. If those scratches were done deliberately, you’re likely stuck with it.

If you’re worried about your new iPhone getting damaged, the best solution is a case. Luckily, you have plenty of options.

Technologies

T-Mobile Hikes Late-Payment Charge Amid Other Recent Billing Changes

T-Mobile encourages customers to use autopay by offering monthly discounts.

T-Mobile is increasing the fee it charges customers who pay their bills late. Starting Nov. 1, the carrier will raise its late payment fee from $7 to $10, according to updated billing disclosures sent to customers and first reported by The Mobile Report.

The company says the fee will now be the greater of $10 or 5% of the customer’s monthly bill, depending on state regulations. The move represents a roughly 43% increase in the minimum charge and brings T-Mobile more in line with what rival carriers like AT&T and Verizon already assess for overdue payments.

A representative for T-Mobile did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read more: T-Mobile Is the New Mobile Network Champ. I Got a Behind-the-Scenes View Into How It Got There

The higher late fee could hit customers with smaller monthly plans the hardest, especially those who don’t use autopay, which is an option T-Mobile promotes by offering monthly discounts. The policy change continues a broader trend of wireless providers tightening payment terms and nudging subscribers toward automated billing as part of cost-control and retention strategies.

T-Mobile has not commented on the reason for the increase, but the change follows other recent billing and plan adjustments as the company continues to streamline operations after its merger with Sprint and amid rising operational costs.

Read more: My First Look at T-Mobile’s Unique Starlink T-Satellite Service Made Me Head Far From Home

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Technologies

It’s Easy to Get Free Extended Security Updates for Windows 10. Just Do This One Thing

Windows 10 support ends on Oct 14. Here’s how to keep access to Windows 10 security updates without spending a dime.

The era of Windows 10 support ends on Oct.14. After more than a decade, Microsoft is prioritizing updates for the most current OS, Windows 11, and stopping security updates for Windows 10.

If updating to Windows 11 isn’t an option, you can snag a year of extended security updates for the prior OS for $30. If you’re on a budget, there’s a free option that will let you keep extended security updates for a year. You’ll just be required to connect your OneDrive account and enable cloud backup.

Getting free updates on Windows 10, which was released more than a decade ago in July 2015, is a pretty big deal. As the most widely used Windows OS, it accounts for just over 53% of installs as of May 2025. Millions of people would be left without security support unless they upgrade. The cloud backup option gives users a choice without costing money.

The only potential issue is OneDrive. Anyone with a Microsoft account gets up to 5GB of storage for free. However, as The Verge points out, some backups may exceed this limitation, requiring users to purchase a monthly or yearly plan. At $2 a month for 100GB of cloud storage, a year of OneDrive still costs less than the $30 for a year of additional security updates, but it may still cause frustration among some customers.

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How to get Windows 10 security updates for free

Per Microsoft’s blog post, there are now three options for those who want to stay on Windows 10 and still receive security updates:

Use Windows Backup to sync settings to the cloud via OneDrive.
Redeem 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points. Redeeming those points can buy you one year of security updates.
Pay $30 for the Extended Security Updates program.

These options are available now. Microsoft began offering its Extended Security Updates program in July. Signing up for this option will guarantee updates until Oct. 13, 2026, although businesses will have the option to purchase up to three years of additional updates. So, this isn’t a long-term solution, but rather gives you more time to upgrade to Windows 11.

It’s been an uphill battle for Microsoft, as people have been reluctant to upgrade their existing hardware. There are myriad differences between the two operating systems, but Microsoft’s string of unpopular decisions, along with Windows 11 compatibility issues, have kept the prior-generation OS around a lot longer than it normally would.