Technologies

2025 iPhone Photography Award Winners Prove Any Phone Can Create Stunning Images

The 18th annual competition showcases masterpiece photos taken with Apple devices across the globe.

The winners of the 18th annual iPhone Photography Awards (IPPAWARDS), a competition that showcases stunning photos captured worldwide by photographers using an iPhone or iPad, were announced on Friday.

The full collection of this year’s winners and their photos — along with which Apple device they used to take their masterful shot — is now available at the IPPAWARDS site. You might be surprised to learn you don’t need the latest iPhone models to capture great images.

In the Photographers of the Year category, Jarod Peraza took the grand prize for his photo «Viajero Nocturno.» The US-based photographer captured the nighttime scene in Villa de Leyva, Colombia, using an iPhone 16 Pro Max.

In first place, US photographer Carol Addassi won for «Passage,» a black-and-white night shot of Central Park in New York City taken using a 7-year-old iPhone XS.

In second place, «Moto Cães» is a playful shot of two dogs in a motorcycle sidecar at sunset, captured by Brazil’s Thiago Bernardes de Souza on an iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Third place is a moody early morning photo of Virginia’s Corrotoman River, entitled «Foggy Morning on the Corrotoman,» taken by US photographer Martha Nance on an iPhone 15 Pro.

Since the first iPhone appeared in 2007, the awards have showcased both the technology and the aesthetics of mobile photography.

«When we began, the idea was simply to explore how this new device was transforming the way people create and share images,» said Kenan Aktulun, founder and editor-in-chief of IPPAWARDS, via email. «Early on, there was a heavy use of filters; users were experimenting with the novelty of mobile photography. Over the years, as users grew more fluent with the medium, the work became more personal, emotional, and relatable.»

In addition to the four top slots, the awards also name three winners in 12 different categories, including Abstract, Architecture, Landscape, Nature and Portrait. Dozens of photos are also named as honorable mentions in each category.

This year’s winning photos were made using a wide variety of iPhones, the oldest being an iPhone 8 Plus from 2017. Nearly every model since then is represented, with just a handful of the latest iPhone 16 lineup appearing among the awarded photos.

The competition stipulates that photos must be captured using an iPhone or iPad, and not edited in Photoshop on a desktop computer, although editing using apps on the device (presumably including the mobile versions of Photoshop) is allowed.

This year’s grand prize winner received a 13-inch Apple iPad Air, and the other Photographers of the Year received an Apple Watch Series 10. In the 12 specific categories, the first-place winners each received a gold bar, and the second and third-place winners each received a platinum bar.

Judges evaluated images and determined winners based on artistic merit, originality, subject and style. According to Aktulun, the panel is made up of 10 to 12 judges from different backgrounds, «such as photographers, art buyers, creative directors, architects, academics, people in the creative field and occasionally selected winners from previous years.»

Submitting work to the competition involves an entry fee of $7.50 for one image and discounted per-image rates for batches of up to 25 images. There are no limits on the number of entries you can submit.

Submissions for the 2026 iPhone Photography Awards are now open through March 31, 2026.

Technologies

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Leak Claims Nov. 14 Release Date, No Switch 2 Version Yet

What new conspiracies will be revealed in Black Ops 7?

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 will be the next entry in Activision’s military shooter series, which typically comes out in October every year, making it one of the last big game releases before Black Friday. A leak suggests that the new CoD might come out a little later than usual, but still in time for the big shopping day.

Black Ops 7 will reportedly be released on Nov. 14, according to a leaker who goes by the name billbil-kun from a post on the French website Dealabs. Along with the supposed release date, the leak says there will not be a Switch 2 version when the game launches.

A spokesperson for the franchise said in an emailed statement that details about Black Ops 7 will be revealed at Gamescom Opening Night, which is this coming Tuesday, Aug. 19.

The Call of Duty series release dates typically straddle the late October and early November period. The last CoD game to come out mid-November was Black Ops Cold War, which was released on Nov. 13, 2020. It’s unclear if the later release was due in part to Battlefield 6 coming out on Oct. 10, which would allow for some time between the releases of the two popular military FPS games.

The lack of a Switch 2 version at launch could mean that the team working on that version of the game needed some more time before its release. While the original Switch has become too underpowered for modern games, Nintendo boosted the performance of the Switch 2, which makes it capable of running more graphics-intensive games, potentially including Call of Duty. Black Ops 7 will still likely be released on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X and Series S on launch day as it is every year.

In Black Ops 7, players will jump into the role of David Mason, played by Milo Ventimiglia. The year is 2035, and Mason is struggling with hallucinations of enemies from his past. The character was first introduced in 2012’s Black Ops 2 and was also in 2024’s Black Ops 6.

While other Call of Duty games tend to focus on certain eras of warfare, such as World War II and the Iraq War, the Black Ops series focuses on secret missions typically conducted by the US and range from the Cold War era to more modern and even futuristic times. Black Ops 2 took place in 2025, while Black Ops 6 was set in 1991.

Technologies

Beijing’s ‘Robot Olympics’ Are Off and Running (and Falling)

Strike up the Chariots of Fire theme and grab a flag, the futuristic Games are on.

China just turned a pair of Olympic venues into a playground for robots.

The inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games, running from Aug. 15-17, opened Friday with soccer, sprints, kickboxing and table tennis, as well as a healthy number of face-plants. The games feature 280 robot teams from 16 countries and hundreds of bipedal bots vying for medals and whatever passes for bragging rights to robots.

Events are split between two 2022 Winter Olympics landmarks: China’s National Stadium and the National Speed Skating Oval. On the schedule: track and field, football (soccer to Americans), table tennis, and «scenario» trials such as medicine sorting, cleaning services and industrial handling—the kind of practical skills that robot-makers actually care about.

The highlight reel revealed more chaos than control: robots colliding mid-match, sprinters crumpling mid-stride and kickboxers needing a reboot. But there were bright spots, too. Some bots popped back to their feet unassisted and even finished middle-distance runs as handlers puffed behind them. There was even a 1,500-meter race. Tickets ran 128–580 yuan (about $18–$81).

The robot athletes are supplied by a combination of academia and industry, including China’s Unitree and Fourier, with squads also from the US, Germany, Brazil, Japan and more. Organizers pitch the weekend as data collection under pressure, with sports forcing the robots to demonstrate balance, vision and decision-making, all of which later will translate over to the robot’s work in factories, logistics and as home helpers.

China is using the Games to showcase its bet on embodied AI — software linked to machines that can navigate human spaces. The country has poured billions of dollars into robotics and is planning a 1-trillion-yuan ( about $137 billion) fund for startups as part of a push to counter an aging-workforce crunch and compete in advanced manufacturing.

Rules vary by event, but organizers say competitions span autonomous control and remote operation: either way, no mid-match «player swaps» for fresh robots are allowed. That means lots of stress testing on robot batteries, heat management and recovery behaviors in real-time chaos.

The Associated Press has streamed some of the Games if you want to check it out.

The event runs through Aug. 17.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Aug. 16, #1519

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle, No. 1,519 for Saturday, Aug. 16.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle was a puzzler for me. I know the answer word, and the letters aren’t super-rare, but I didn’t seem to be able to put them in the right places. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.