Dieter Bohn Xiaomi’s new phone is almost all display

I've had an annoying Nintendo Switch problem for months that I managed to (mostly) fix on my own for like $10 last night.

My left Joy-Con controller kept disconnecting when attached, freezing up my games every few minutes. Turns out, this was because Nintendo uses a cheap piece of plastic to lock it in place, and that plastic can be very easily damaged when you accidentally attach a strap the wrong way.

Fortunately, there are kits online that include screwdrivers and replacement locks made out of metal. In about 10 minutes, I was able to open up the controller, remove the old lock, and replace it with a sturdy new one. And from what I can tell so far, the problem is solved.

The real solution is for Nintendo to ship the controllers with a better part. But if you don't want to pay for repair costs, I found it pretty easy to do this on my own.

–Jake

P.S. I'm OOO tomorrow, so I'm going to hand the newsletter back to Ashley Carman for the next few days.

+ Boston Dynamics Spot hands-on: new dog, new tricks

At long last, Boston Dynamics' robots are starting to enter the world, and the company let us come by to test one out. In all seriousness, this video is extremely cool. Russell got to pilot the robot... and dance with it. But more than anything else, watching it move is downright eerie and looks like something straight out of science fiction.

+ Xiaomi’s new phone is almost all display

I can think of very few uses for a fully wraparound display and a whole lot of drawbacks for it. That being said, this thing looks extremely cool.

+ Amazon creates a huge alliance to demand voice assistant compatibility

Amazon is basically imagining a world in which Alexa, Siri, Bixby, and Google Assistant coexist on a single speaker. More than 30 companies are on board... but Apple, Google, and Samsung aren't among the names.

Dieter writes:

It’s a very high-minded ideal, but it also may be strategically savvy. Amazon already has a strong position in the home with Alexa, so allowing other assistants to work on its Echo speakers doesn’t seem like a big problem. ... However, Alexa has not had as much success on phones, despite several attempts at partnerships with Android manufacturers and headphone makers. An industry-wide initiative where everybody is involved except the three most influential companies in smartphones seems custom-designed to put pressure on those companies.

+ Fortnite season X has changed so much that it’s overwhelming

Some of the ideas in Fortnite's new season sound cool. Others... Andrew makes a pretty convincing case that they're a bit too much at once.

+ The Galaxy Tab S6 is a beautiful tablet foiled by half-baked software

Dan reviews Samsung's new tablet, just in time for the new iPad to start shipping.

+ 7 good and 3 bad things in iPadOS

If I can add one more bad thing: somehow — somehow — there is still no support for multiple user accounts.

+ RIP your old Webkinz

Makena writes about the death of forgotten digital pets:

Despite its decline in popularity, nostalgia for Webkinz remains a popular trope online. Social media is littered with jokes about dead and starving pets, or POV-style (point-of-view) videos of users logging back into the game after years of abandonment. TikTok users have been particularly active in spreading the news of the looming shutdown. “URGENT DO NOT SCROLL,” the caption of one video read

+ Amazon has a big event tomorrow, so check the site at 1PM ET / 10AM PT for all of the news

---> Here's what we're expecting

---> And here's why so little has leaked