Mobile Devices, Tablets & Phones News - Page 8

If you're an iPhone owner you can perhaps start looking forward to a new software update to take a look at, but it's unlikely to rock your world too much - unless it fixes a bug that you've been dealing with, that is.

Apple might have only just released iOS 17.4 to the public and there are rumors that the iOS 17.5 software is already being tested internally, but a new report now claims that the iOS 17.4.1 software will be released to the public within the next few days. That's for the iPhone of course, and we can also expect Apple to release the iPadOS 17.4.1 software for the iPad as well.

That's according to a MacRumors report which cites an unnamed source with a proven track record. The update is expected to be one that fixes security issues and deals with specific bugs that might have been troubling iPhone owners of late. However, it isn't yet known what we can expect in terms of features - although it isn't thought that we should expect too many if any at all. It also isn't yet clear what we should expect in terms of which bugs will be fixed.

Apple is largely expected to unveil a number of new iPads within the next few weeks including a pair of iPad Pro tablets as well as at least one new iPad Air. We thought that recent rumors had cemented what we could expect from the new tablets, but a new report has thrown cold water on one particularly interesting aspect of those previous rumors.

We've been hearing all kinds of rumors but the key one was that the existing 11.9-inch model will be joined by a whole new 12.9-inch version for the first time. The move would give the iPad Air a new option for people who want a big display but don't want to pay for the iPad Pro, but a new leak suggests that it might not happen after all.

That leak comes via the X leaker @ShrimpApplePro, with the suggestion being that while their source has seen the smaller 11-inch model, the larger one has so far been AWOl. It's that that might mean that the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is not in the works after all.

If everything goes the way that we have been told to expect it to, Apple will announce a slew of new iPads as soon as the end of this month. But what will they be and what will they have in terms of features? Those are questions that are currently up in the air, but one leaker has thrown a new tidbit into the mix that appears to back up an old one - the new iPad Airs will feature a rejigged camera situation.

The current iPad Air has the FaceTime camera at the top of the display as is the case with all iPads except the base model 10th-gen iPad. However, leaker ShrimpApplePro has now added further fuel to the fire that suggests Apple is getting ready to switch things up a bit with the 6th-gen iPad Air, and it could be good news for people who spend their time using an iPad docked to a keyboard and trackpad.

According to the leaker Apple intends to move the FaceTime camera from the top of the iPad Air to the side, a move that will be a big deal for those who make video calls with the iPad in the landscape orientation - like when docked to a keyboard. The current camera location makes it appear as if the iPad owner is looking off to the side, but that will all change if the camera moves to the side of the iPad - or the top during docked calls. The move would put the FaceTime camera in the same place as laptops, including Apple's own MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

There's been a lot of talk about the European Union and its Digital Markets Act in recent days and weeks, mostly surrounding Apple and the way the DMA has forced the company to begin offering support for third-party app stores and more within the bloc. Now, the latest mention of the DMA comes over in the world of Android with the news that the Google Pixel Launcher is rolling out the option to choose a new search provider in the EU.

The move means that people will be able to choose a new search option other than the default Google Search for the first time, something that is being done in order to better comply with the new DMA requirements that came into effect this month.

The new roll-out was first reported by people on the X social network who saw Google, DukDuckGo, and Ecosia as search options with some receiving a notification that offered the option to change the default search engine. This of course all relates to the search bar on the Home Screen.

Apple has agreed to pay a whopping $490 million to bring an end to a class action lawsuit that was led by a UK local council over the way its CEO Tim Cook described the demand for iPhones in a key market. It was argued that Cook misled investors by suggesting that demand was stronger than it really was and as a result. the UK's Norfolk County Council lost money.

The council had invested money as part of a pension fund that it administered and in a statement reported by the BBC it said that it would, where warranted, take decisive action to recover losses when pension holders are harmed by what it deemed fraud.

That fraud came about after an investor call on November 1 2018 when it was noted that there was so-called "sales pressure" in some countries. However, Cook reportedly told investors that he "would not put China in that category," a comment that seems to have been enough to convince investors like Norfolk County Council to buy shares in Apple. However, things soon proved to not be quite the way Cook had suggested that they were.

While Apple continues to refuse to enter the foldable smartphone market companies like Samsung and Huawei are going all-in. We're getting ever closer to the expected launch of the Galaxy Z Fold 6 lineup, and while there has previously been a single phone there will likely be two this time out. Now, a new report claims that one of those phones won't have a key feature that has previously been a cornerstone of the Galaxy Z Fold family.

With Samsung expected to try and make one of the two Galaxy Z Fold 6 devices cheap enough to appeal to a whole new audience, it's now been said that the company intends to drop support for the S Pen on that model. The stylus will continue to be supported on the high-end version, thought to be called Ultra, but those who look to save some cash are going to have to make do with stabbing at their phone screen with their finger rather than the S Pen which will be available to buyers of the more costly model.

That's all according to an ETNews report which also notes that a report by the display analysts at DSCC expect Huawei to surpass Samsung in the first quarter of the year in terms of global foldable smartphone market share. That's a big deal for Samsung and would mark the first time that there has been such a thing in the cards. The Huawei Mate is thought to be the reason behind the switch, but Samsung will hope that the launch of its Galaxy Z Fold 6 lineup can swing things back in its favor. That might explain the two-pronged approach here.

Unlike competitors like Samsung and Google, Apple is yet to enter the foldable phone market, but that is surely going to change sooner or later. Reports have so far suggested that the first foldable device to come out of Apple Park will be something similar to a 20-inch laptop device, but a new report suggests something more iPad-like is in the air.

That's according to a report by The Elec citing Omdia Kang Min-soo. They were speaking at the 2024 Korea Display Conference and when attention turned to Apple's foldable plans, they made it clear that we might not have to wait too much longer for Apple to enter the foldable fray.

According to the report Apple is expected to launch a foldable iPhone in 2026 with a display size of around seven or eight inches. Such a size would make the unfolded iPhone into something more akin to an iPad mini - the current iPad mini has an 8.3-inch display. It's thought that Apple could use the fact that the iPhone can turn into an iPad mini-like device as a key differentiator, especially when compared to competing foldable devices from the companies mentioned earlier. It remains to be seen whether iPad-like features, such as Stage Manager, would make the move to iOS as part of that move, however.

As Apple reportedly gets ready to launch its first iPad with an OLED display in the form of the 2024 iPad Pro, a new report claims that the high-end tablet won't be the last of Apple's lineup to make the switch to the new technology.

The report, which is based on research by Omdia that was first picked up by The Elec, claims that Apple will start to look towards the iPad Air as the next tablet to move to OLED after the iPad Pro, but it won't happen just yet. Alongside the new OLED iPad Pro, Apple is tipped to be ready to launch new iPad Air models within weeks, likely alongside the new iPad Pros, but they will continue to use the existing LCD displays.

So when should we expect the iPad Air to also make the move to OLED? Omdia researcher Kang Min-soo, speaking on Thursday at the 2024 Korea Display Conference in Seoul, said that the researchers at their firm believe that Apple will launch an OLED iPad Air in 2028. However, the technology won't be quite the same as the higher-end, and more expensive, iPad Pro.

Apple continues to be widely rumored to have plans to make a big push into the world of AI with its upcoming software updates including the iOS 18 release for the iPhone, macOS 15 for the Mac, and others. Now, a new report suggests that Apple has taken a step further in its quest to do just that by buying a new company in the form of Canadian AI startup DarwinAI.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Apple actually bought the company earlier this year and that dozens of DarwinAI employees have already joined Apple's artificial intelligence division. Gurman doesn't cite his sources by name because the deal has not been officially announced.

DarwinAI has previously developed AI technology for visually inspecting components during the manufacturing process and already works with other companies in a variety of industries, Gurman says. However, a core technology offered by the company is its ability to make artificial intelligence smaller and faster. That's a good fit for Apple for obvious reasons with the company preferring to offer its AI functionality as an on-device function rather than relying on sending data to its servers in the cloud. Such an approach is not only faster for the user, but also offers improved privacy as well.

The current lineup of iPhones has some of the best displays we've ever seen on a smartphone, but Apple still refuses to offer a foldable iPhone in a market where other companies are leaning into such handsets with increasing regularity. That doesn't mean that Apple isn't working on something new or trying to innovate however, and a new display patent appears to drive that point home well.

Spotted by AppleInsider, the patent appears to show a phone-like device that has displays on the outer edges - where you would normally find the volume buttons, power button, and on the iPhone 15 Pro, the Action button.

Putting displays on the side of phones isn't entirely new, however. Motorola and Samsung have both tried the idea of a display that wraps around the side of the display to offer a new way to interact with buttons and controls. But they've largely been moved away from because those buttons are easily accidentally pressed yet oddly difficult to interact with when you want to. However, Apple's implementation seems to be slightly different than what Samsung and Motorola have tried so far.