Mobile Devices - Page 23

The original Apple iPhone released in 2007 has been sold at auction for an incredible $130,027.20 in a factory-sealed retail package.

Apple's original 4GB iPhone is considered a "Holy Grail" amongst iPhone collectors, with its extreme scarcity because of its limited production. Apple released the iPhone in 4GB and 8GB versions on June 29, 2007, but the 4GB sales were slow compared to 8GB, hence why there are not many 4GB iPhones out in the wild. The 4GB iPhone was also discontinued shortly after, with Apple pulling it just two months after its release on September 5, 2007.

LCG Auctions hosted the original 2007 Apple iPhone Factory Sealed (1st Release, 4GB) smartphone at a starting price of $100,000 following an extremely rate 4GB iPhone hitting auction and selling for a record-breaking $190,373. Another 4GB iPhone model also appeared during the LCG Fall Premier Auction in October, selling for an impressive $133,435.

In the latest edition of Bloomberg's Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman, a known Apple insider, revealed iOS 18 will feature more customization features for the iPhone home screen.

In previous editions of Gurman's Power On newsletter the reporter has revealed that artificial intelligence-powered features will be the main focus of iOS 18, and that Apple is gearing up to release what could be the biggest iOS update in the company's history. Notably, MacRumors reports that iOS 18 will make the home screen "more customizable" and that users will be able to place app icons freely on the grid.

This doesn't mean users will be able to put apps wherever they want, as MacRumors explains that sources informed them iOS 18 will introduce the ability to create blank spaces, rows, and columns between apps. So, there will still be an invisible grid present. As for AI features, reports indicate that iOS 18 will arrive with a plethora of AI features that will be designed to "help manage your daily life".

Apple is expected to unveil the iOS 18 software update for iPhones this year with big AI improvements. Now, a new report claims that the company is hard at work bringing the know-how on board that is required to make that happen. The report claims that Apple continues to be in talks with both Google and OpenAI about the possibility of either company providing its Large Language Model and generative AI capabilities to iPhones as well as Macs and other devices.

It was already known that both Google and OpenAI had been sounded out by Apple but now it appears that discussions between the companies are still ongoing. Apple CEO Tim Cook had previously said that the company intended to "break new ground" in the world of AI this year, but it seems increasingly clear that the company needs help to make that happen.

Bloomberg reports that talks are ongoing although no formal announcement about any kind of deal is expected to happen any time soon. Apple is expected to announce the iOS 18 software update alongside new software for the iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple Vision Pro, and Apple TV during its annual WWDC event in June. It's possible more details could be shared then. Either way, the software won't be available immediately - Apple will likely subject the software to a months-long beta process that will then see the software released to the public in or around September. That month will also likely see Apple unveil the new iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro.

Apple has long been rumored to be readying the launch of new iPad Air and iPad Pro tablets within the next few weeks, but it turns out that a report the new tablets will be unveiled on March 26 might have been wide of the mark.

That March 26 date was first suggested by the leaker Instant Digital via the Weibo social network, but Bloomberg's Mark Gurman now says that date is wrong, although he didn't clarify when the new tablets will actually be announced.

Gurman had however previously suggested that Apple would not be able to release the new iPads until it had completed a software update that will run on the new tablets. That update needs to be finished and then sent to factories to be preinstalled on the new tablets and that process was always thought to be unlikely to happen before the end of March. Instead, he believes that Apple would more likely announce the new iPad Air and iPad Pro in April.

The Apple Vision Pro headset has been on sale for a few weeks now, and Apple has today released a new software update for those who have picked one of the spatial computers up. The new update is of course a free download for owners of the headset and everyone should install the visionOS 1.1.1 software update as soon as possible. Just don't expect anything in terms of new features and exciting upgrades, however.

The new software update is available via the Settings app on the Apple Vision Pro, found in the General section. The Apple Vision Pro needs to be taken off during the update process and a restart will of course happen, while the progress bar can be seen via the EyeSight display on the front of the headset.

In terms of the update, there are no big new features here but the update is still worth downloading. Apple says that it includes important security fixes and security updates which means that it is a release that people should install as soon as possible to ensure that they're using the most secure software available.

Apple regularly releases new software updates for the iPhone and iPad and today saw the arrival of new software for both of those two devices. Owners of devices that are compatible with iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 now have new releases available although the iOS 17.4.1 and iPadOS 17.4.1 updates won't bring with them any high new features for people to sink their teeth into.

The new updates are both available for download via the software update mechanism found in the Settings app and the downloads aren't big ones by normal standards. The reason for that is likely their content - Apple says that these updates offer important bug fixes and security improvements which means that people are recommended to download and install them sooner rather than later.

It isn't currently clear exactly which bug fixes Apple believes that it has fixed this time out, but the security improvements are always worth having regardless. Apple has also released iOS 16.7.7 with the same security fixes for devices that do not support iOS 17, suggesting that the fixes are important ones.

The iPhone has been around for a good long while now and since its introduction in 2007 Apple has been able to improve its display in all manner of ways. Those displays are bigger and brighter than ever, and dropping an iPhone doesn't necessarily mean that it will break as was once the case. However, scratching said iPhone seems to be an increasingly common problem and now there's a suggestion that Apple is working on a way to improve matters.

That's according to a report that claims Apple is readying a new type of anti-reflective coating that will make it harder to scratch an iPhone 17 or iPhone 17 Pro model, although the source of that report isn't Apple itself. The report comes via a post on the Chinese social network Weibo by the leaker Instant Digital, a leaker with a mixed track record albeit a relatively strong one in terms of iPhone predictions.

According to the leaker Apple has spent a small fortune on new coating equipment in Japan which has now been handed over to the supply chain companies in China. The new technology comes too late for the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro models, the leaker claims, which means that we will have to wait for the 2025 iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro before we can take it for a spin.

The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro models might have only been on sale since late 2023 but Apple was already likely well on its way to having its plans laid out for what comes next. That next thing is of course the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro devices and while they're not expected to debut until September this year, we continue to see more and more leaks ahead of time. Now, a new leak appears to have confirmed the belief that the new iPhones will sport super-thin bezels while also detailing how that will be made possible.

The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max already had thinner bezels than anything we had seen from an iPhone before, but it now looks increasingly likely that the next round of iPhones will switch things up a bit. According to a new report that'll mean that Apple will have to use a new Border Reduction Structure (BRS) technology and it's only possible after some tweaks to the way that design dissipates heat. In fact, it's claimed that the technology was originally planned to be used on the iPhone 15 devices before Apple canned the idea over heat concerns.

This is all according to a Sisa Journal report that was picked up by MacRumors and details the way BRS works. The report says that BRS technology works by rolling up the internal copper wiring that allows for a more compact design which in turn gives Apple more opportunity to offer new, smaller bezels.

You only need to have taken a passive interest in the Apple rumor mill of late to know that the company is very much expected to unveil a pair of new iPad Pro tablets within the next few weeks. We expect the tablets to both sport OLED displays for the first time and come in 11- and 12.9-inch configurations, but it turns out that there might be another display tweak that has so far gone unnoticed.

That tweak, we're told, will be the option to choose a matte finish for the first time. It isn't yet clear whether that finish will be similar to the nano-texture finish on the Studio Display and Pro Display XDR, or if it will be little more than a screen protector. But this is the first that we've heard about it so it's possible there could be more leaks before we get to the final unveiling of these new high-end tablets.

The claim comes via Instant Digital, a leaker that posts to the Chinese social network Weibo. According to them, the new matte display will be offered as an extra option to the more familiar glossy display rather than replace it. It supposedly also features a -04-degree to +29-degree of haze and may also have some kind of anti-blue-light component as well. If that's the case it could make it easier to use an iPad Pro in the evening and at night while lessening the impact of blue light on the eyes.

Whether you've been using Apple devices for years or just picked up your first iPhone, you'll be familiar with the Apple ID. It's your login for all things Apple and it's been the key to accessing your devices and services for a long time. But a new report suggests that the humble Apple ID is about to change in an attempt to better reflect the way that it is used.

Apple IDs are now used as a method of authentication for third-party apps, Apple itself, the Apple Store, and more and that means that its name perhaps doesn't best fit the way people think about it. Now, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Apple intends to rebrand the Apple ID to Apple Account, changing the branding across all Apple devices as well as the iCloud.com website. The move could happen this year, Gurman wrote in the latest Power On weekly newsletter.

Gurman's report matches a previous one by MacRumors that suggested such a move was in the works. Gurman says that Apple will start to use the new Apple Account branding later this year with iOS 18 and watchOS 11 among the first software releases to initiate the switch. Those releases are all expected to debut this June at the annual WWDC event, while the updates aren't expected to arrive on devices until this fall.

Apple is very much expected to update the iPad Pro lineup of tablets within the next few weeks with upgraded OLED displays as one of the biggest additions. The iPad Pro will of course come in two sizes with an 11-inch model and a 12.9-inch version offering plenty of flexibility, but those who want to buy the smaller of the two might find it harder to pick up than the larger one.

That's according to a new report by 9to5Mac based on a post on the X social network by Ross Young, a display history with a strong track record in terms of sharing details about Apple's upcoming plans. According to the analyst and his DSCC firm, Apple has found it difficult to choose which OLED suppliers to use with LG Display and Samsung Display involved.

It was thought that Samsung Display would be the only company responsible for producing the OLED panels that would be used in the 11-inch iPad Pro but that now seems to have changed with LG Display also involved in production. However, it also appears that the production of the 11-inch OLED displays now lag behind that of the larger 12.9-inch version as a result and that could mean that there will be fewer iPad Pro models of that size available on launch day.

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.