Apple and Ford today announced that Apple Maps will be integrated directly into Ford’s upcoming Universal Electric Vehicle (UEV) Platform through Apple’s new MapKit for Automotive SDK. Coming to Ford’s UEV Platform in 2027, this integration will deliver a beautiful and easy-to-use navigation experience powered by Apple Maps directly to the vehicle’s displays. Road-level Maps information will also enable Ford’s Latitude AI team to build a seamless hands-free driving experience.
This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise: Ford CEO Jim Farley has been bullish on CarPlay and the UEV project was previously headed up by Doug Field1, who spent several years at Apple both on the Mac hardware team and, more significantly, leading up the abandoned car effort.
This integration is interesting, though, because of the lukewarm reception of CarPlay Ultra in the automotive industry. The new “MapKit for Automotive SDK”, which as far as I can tell is being announced in this press release, seems more like the Android Automotive approach of building in support at a low level, though here it’s predominantly focused on navigation rather than providing the full stack for the car. Here’s how Apple describes it:
This integration is made possible by Apple’s new MapKit for Automotive SDK, which allows automakers to embed and customize Apple Maps. The SDK also enables automakers to deliver a cohesive navigation experience for drivers that is consistent with the look and feel of their vehicles, and provides road-level information to help automakers build hands-free driving experiences.
I also appreciated this little tidbit nestled at the very end of the press release:
In addition to the integration of Apple Maps into Ford’s UEV Platform, CarPlay will continue to be available on Ford vehicles, providing drivers with a safe and smart way to use their iPhone in the car.
An e-reader magneted to the back of a smartphone, just as the prophecy foretold.
The market for small e-readers has been booming lately. Earlier this year, Jason took a look at the Xteink X4, a pint-sized reading device that was about as light and small as they come. But those maniacs at Xteink weren’t done yet: they followed it up with the $79 X3, which is unbelievably even lighter and smaller.
I wouldn’t blame you for wondering if there’s such a thing as too small and light—at 3.84 inches by 2.51 inches (and just 0.2 inches thick) the X3 is still larger than, say, a credit card, but not by much. The screen itself measures just 3.7 inches, more than half an inch smaller than the X4’s 4.3 inch, but its 259 ppi resolution still makes it plenty easy to read on.1 At that size it’s little imposition to take it with you wherever you go. Easy to lose? Maybe. Easy to love? Yes.
For one thing, this small size unlocks at least one capability that the X4 couldn’t fully deliver upon—the ability to stick to the back of your phone. Like the X4, the X3 has a MagSafe-compatible magnet in its rear case and it fits just about perfectly on the back of my iPhone 17 Pro, nestled below the camera plateau.
However, the magnet is not particularly strong, and it lacks the secondary stabilizing magnet that you see on official MagSafe accessories, meaning it wobbles around a bit. I wouldn’t call it a super secure connection, but it’s pretty good if you’re just slipping it in and out of a pocket. Just be aware that it probably will come loose.
Like the X4 before it, the X3 features a pair of rocker switches on the front for a total of four possible buttons. But they’ve opted to skip the X4’s side mounted rocker switch in favor of a single buttons on each side. There’s also an on/off switch at the top (plus a recessed button used for resetting the device). And with all of that, they somehow managed to continue to fit a microSD slot in the top. The bottom left corner also has a little set of holes for a lanyard or wrist strap.
The X3 is about the size of just the display on the X4.
The one casualty of the smaller X3, however, is the port. The X4 was big enough to accommodate a USB-C connector, but the X3’s thin profile makes that impossible. Instead, there’s a pogo-pin USB cable that connects to four magnetic contacts on the reader. Is this a step back? Strictly speaking, yes. Using a proprietary connector is a bummer in the year 2026, especially because it means having to keep track of a single-use cable. That said, once you get the X3 up and running, the only real need for the connector is charging, and the battery on this thing lasts a very long time. (I’ve yet to run it down in several weeks of usage.) Just remember to make a note of where you stow that cable for the point months down the road when you do need to charge it and find yourself wondering whatever happened to it.
As with the X4, the X3 lacks any sort of screen lighting, meaning that it’s strictly a “read in bright light” device. But don’t worry, because Xteink has already unveiled a new X4 Pro with the company’s first lit screen.2
All in all, I found the X3 very comfortable to read on, whether attached to my iPhone or not. The side buttons work great as page-turners, and the screen is high-contrast and sharp enough to make text render very clearly. All in all, it’s a great reading experience—if you take into account one major caveat.
Soft where?
The elephant in the room for the Xteink X3 is the software. Xteink ships the X3 with its own built-in firmware which, by all accounts, has improved since the first version. But I can’t really tell you, because upon opening the box and powering up the device, the first thing I did was install Crosspoint, the open-source community-built firmware that has turned this device from a curiosity into a real contender.3
Unlike a lot of other firmware replacements, Crosspoint is super easy to install; you can do it right from a web browser. While it’s not fully free of technological hurdles, I’d say that most people comfortable using an e-reader or updating their iPhones will be able to handle the process with few problems. And the benefits are manifold.
Crosspoint is extremely configurable for all your reading needs.
Crosspoint goes beyond simply turning this into a functional device and into one that is actually fun to use. It’s got a straightforward, easy to navigate interface that makes it simple to do everything from reading to loading books (accomplished via a web-based interface). For those who like to tweak their reading setup, there are plenty of configuration options, everything from screen orientation to hyphenation and, yes, custom fonts loaded via the SD card.
Even the onscreen keyboard that you need to use for various configuration tasks is pretty solid for what’s available—on par with navigating via an onscreen keyboard with a game controller, in my opinion. I wouldn’t want to have to type in my Wi-Fi password every time—and you don’t, because it saves it for you—but one time was fine.
There are also a bunch of other features that might appeal to those who want to take reading to the next level. For example, support for Open Publication Distribution System (OPDS) standard means that if you want to host your book library on your own server, you can point your reader at that and download any of the books you already own directly to your device. There’s also support for KOreader sync to help keep your place between supported devices.4
Crosspoint has been so successful, in fact, that the team at Xteink has smartened up and started collaborating. (This after a brief moment when it looked like the company might try to firmware lock its devices.) Now, not only do the “developer editions” sold directly by the company continue to allow you to install the custom firmware, the company has been working with the Crosspoint team to make sure new devices, like the X4 Pro, will already be supported when they arrive. While Xteink hasn’t quite adopted Crosspoint as the default OS, it’s not far off.
The world is not enough
Given how positive I’ve been above, you might be all too tempted to run out and snap up an Xteink X3 for yourself. I don’t blame you! At $79 (and often discounted for less than that), it’s well positioned as an impulse buy. And while I don’t want to dissuade you, I have to note the biggest caveat of all: the world.
Just try to tell me this wee fella isn’t charming.
If there’s one thing that’s holding back the X3 and the X4 and, frankly, all the other wacky readers out there, it’s the market. The e-reader space is still unquestionably dominated by Amazon purveying its razors-and-blades strategy: buy the Kindle for cheap5 and the company earns it all back when you buy your books or sign up for Kindle Unlimited’s all-you-can-eat plan. Kobo, who makes the hardware that I prefer, is a distant second, and has some advantages, but operates on roughly a similar scheme.
Both of these companies benefit from lock-in in the form of Digital Rights Management. DRM is, of course, largely pushed by publishers, who insist upon cryptographic schemes to lock down the books they sell in order to nominally protect against piracy. Never mind the fact that books are still easily and widely pirated, the DRM is relatively simple to crack6, and many of those books have been vacuumed up by the boatload by an even more insidious thief in the form of AI training data.
I come at this, of course, from the perspective of both reader and writer. As a writer, I certainly want to be compensated for all the hard work I put in to create my books, but I also want people to read and enjoy them. That’s why you’ll find no stauncher defender of libraries.
Personally, I find the industry’s insistence on DRM misplaced, just as I did with the music industry two decades ago. The lack of these security features does not automatically turn people at large into thieves and it’s insulting to think that it would. In fact, the sci-fi publisher Tor, one of the biggest names in the business and a subsidiary of Big Five publisher Macmillan, has put out its titles without DRM for almost fifteen years and I haven’t seen any significant indication that it’s harmed their business. Many of my books are also available directly from my publisher without DRM, and I don’t think that’s put a dent in my bottom line either.
I would love to be able to easily load any book I’ve ever purchased onto my Xteink devices—or, for that matter, any e-reader or e-reading app of my choice. There are, of course, extensive repositories of DRM-free public domain books available. Amazon, to its credit, does now allow you to download DRM-free copies of any book that you’ve purchased.7 I argued a few years back that this is an opportunity for Apple to distinguish its stagnant ebook marketplace from the competition. But for first-run books, your options are currently more limited (and sometimes harder to suss out).
I’d also love to somehow see support for Libby, the popular library ebook borrowing app, on Xteink devices, though I don’t see that happening anytime soon. But in my opinion, the bottom line is that more ways to read makes more readers of books, which in turn makes more customers of books.
But I digress.
The conclusion
The other week I was riding the train with my kid, our usual weekend pastime. As he was enjoying looking out the window, I was reading a book on the X3, magneted to the back of my iPhone 17 Pro. As we neared a stop, a woman nearby caught sight of it and marveled over it. “Is that a tiny e-reader?”
I extolled its virtues for a moment before they got off at their stop. But it told me one important thing: there’s a hunger for these types of devices. Because people who self-select as readers in this day and age are, above all, passionate. You have to make a choice to be sitting and reading a book when you could be watching TikTok or Instagram or listening to music or a podcast, all of which are constantly at your fingertips.
That’s where the X3 (and the X4) deliver. A Kindle or Kobo isn’t exactly bulky, but they’re not pocketable either. Being able to take your e-reader with you just as we stuffed mass market paperbacks in our back pockets in days gone by is freeing and fun. Now if the world might just shift a little bit more to meet us, maybe we could free ourselves a little further.
Fun fact: the X3’s display is 0.2 inches larger and has almost 60 percent higher pixel density than the screen on the original iPhone. ↩
Did I buy one? Yeah, I did. Because apparently these guys have my number. ↩
I should say that there are many other custom firmware projects for Xteink’s hardware, but Crosspoint is indisputably the most prominent and best supported. ↩
If you’re not familiar with KOreader, it’s an open source reading app that you can install on Kindle and Kobo, as well as other platforms; one of the features is its own syncing system. ↩
Though, to be frank, not as cheap as it used to be. ↩
Not unlike in music, the problem is that in order for someone to actually to consume your music or books, they must possess the means to unlock it. ↩
With some caveats. For example, if you’re in a household with someone else who’s purchased a DRM-free book, you can still read it on your Kindle, but only they can download the DRM-free version. ↩
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple is set to announce a new “Apple Upgrade” program (paywalled) next week to replace both its existing financing offerings and the iPhone Upgrade program. Details are still vague at present, but it will supposedly offer lease-style arrangements for not just iPhones, but Macs, iPads, and Apple Watches as well.
I’ve been in the iPhone Upgrade Program since Apple debuted it more than a decade ago. There have been plenty of ups and downs over that time—especially in the early years, when Apple was still figuring out how the whole program worked, but more recently it’s been pretty smooth.
And, I have to say, effective: I’ve had a new iPhone every year, without fail, and I’ve ended up paying only about half of what I would pay for a new phone outright.1
I do, however, have some concerns about the details Gurman does report. For one, the involvement of Klarna. They’re best known for their buy-now-pay-later service—a realm Apple was prepared to play in but ended up quickly abandoning. At the time I wondered if part of that about-face was Apple “perhaps not wanting to be in a business that can feel a bit troublesome.” But the company still subsequently partnered with other companies that offer that feature, like Affirm and, yes, Klarna.
Unlike the iPhone Upgrade program, this new offering will also reportedly not include AppleCare, meaning that you’ll have to shell out to protect the device you are leasing from Apple. There’s more than a whiff of “services revenue” around that, AppleCare now being somewhat more expensive than it was. No doubt some will choose not to go through the hassle and additional cost of purchasing it, which means a subset of those people will invariably damage their phones and incur additional payments to Apple. AppleCare as part of the iPhone Upgrade Program was fundamentally a good deal because it insured devices that Apple was probably getting back, whether for eventual refurbishment or just for parts.
Additionally, this part of Gurman’s story made me hesitate:
The Apple Upgrade service will work like a subscription and users can pay off the device early during their term, upgrade early to a new model or keep it at the end of the leasing period. In certain cases, those transactions will incur an additional fee. Like a car lease, it can also be returned at the end of the term. [emphasis added]
The iPhone Upgrade Program was, by comparison, straightforward. The cost of buying your phone was divvied up into 24 payments; after 12, you can upgrade. Loans were backed by Citizens Bank, but there were no interest charges or other fees. Hence it probably wasn’t a big money-maker. I don’t know what Apple’s deal with Klarna will be, but I’m skeptical that it’s going to be as consumer-friendly.
Finally, the other questionable part circling this is this report from 9to5Mac’s Marcus Mendes that code in iOS 27 suggests Apple will be able to restrict features of devices that fall behind on their payments:
The code describes a system called App Managed Features, which allows an authorized financing or provider app to enroll an iPhone and perform ongoing status checks.
If the contract is no longer in good standing, Apple’s system services can place the iPhone in “Restricted Mode,” which blocks access to most apps until the payment or contract issue is resolved, while keeping a small set of apps available.
Forget paying for heated seats, imagine if your car just decided not to offer CarPlay or, I don’t know, climate controls if you fell behind on your lease payments. This just feels, for lack of a better term, gross. Certainly predatory on lower income consumers who are most likely to take advantage of such a payment structure to buy an expensive phone.
As I said, details are still not concrete, so it’s always possible that this won’t be the exact situation. But if it is, I can say with some confidence that my days in Apple’s upgrade programs are at an end, and I certainly would be loath to recommend them to anybody.
How that compares to if I’d re-sold or traded in my old devices is, of course, an open question. But I avoided the hassle of having to do any of that. ↩
Login
