Mobile Devices, Tablets & Phones News - Page 4

When Apple finally releases the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro on Friday, September 22, there are plenty of new features and capabilities for people to look forward to. But there's one new feature that Apple never mentioned during its event and we're only now learning about if after reviewers were allowed to start sharing information about their handsets earlier this week.

That feature is something that a lot of people are going to love, but others might find it more anxiety-inducing than it's worth. We're of course talking about a feature that will finally bring a battery cycle count to the iPhone, and it's sure to be something of a double-edged sword.

The news was shared by Ray Wong, a reviewer who posted the information to X, the social network formerly known as Twitter. The new battery cycle count is available in the Settings app alongside information about the manufacture date of the battery and when it was first used.

When Apple released the iPhone 14 last year, the repair specialists at iFixit gave it a solid repairability score of seven out of 10, saying that it was recommended. That was a big deal for iPhones which normally fare pretty badly due to the way repairing them can often cost a lot of money or require removing multiple parts to get to relatively common ones that could need to be replaced. But iFixit now says that it has made a change to its score.

That new score is a rather poor four out of 10, with iFixit saying that the iPhone 14 is no longer recommended. Why? It turns out that the iPhone 14's repairability isn't quite as solid as it was once thought to be.

In a new blog post, iFixit says that when it gave the iPhone 14 such a good score last year people were surprised. Those within the repair industry have since reached out to say that actually fixing these devices isn't as easy as first thought, with official Apple parts often required and their costs being prohibitively high. What's more, some repair shops say that they are on the verge of collapse due to Apple's repair practices. Ships often use third-party parts or harvest them from other devices - something that Apple no longer makes possible.

Apple announced the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max during its September 12 event and the new models will finally go on sale on September 22. When they do they'll be the first phones with a 3nm chip installed, bringing improved performance to people who pick those handsets up. But it seems that Apple is already working on what comes next and one analyst believes that it might arrive sooner than you'd think.

This is all according to the supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo who is normally pretty good at predicting things based on what suppliers tell him. In a larger Medium post Kuo says that TSMC is already working on what will be the next big upgrade to its chips, with Apple being one of the two companies that will benefit greatly from the move.

Kuo says that he expects that Apple and NVIDIA will be the two companies most likely to make use of TSMC's chips first. For Apple, Kup expects the iPhone to switch to new 2nm chips as soon as 2026 while Intel is set to do the same for its own next-generation AI chips.

Apple's iOS 17 update was announced during the WWDC event on June 5 and it's been in beta testing ever since that time. But despite various betas throughout the last couple of months, Apple made a change in the final version and it's causing a few people some problems.

That change might not seem like a huge one for some people, but for others, it seems to be causing some big problems. The change? Apple has done away with the familiar Tri-tone message alert sound, replacing it with a new Rebound one. And it appears that the new tone just isn't going to pass muster for some people. Perhaps this is why Apple should have made the change earlier in the beta cycle so that it could get some feedback - the kind of thing betas are actually for, of course.

The new tone change was made in the iOS 17 Release Candidate update that was made available a week before the update was rolled out to everyone who wanted it. Now that iOS 17 is available to the public there are more people than ever falling foul of the new tone, and boy are they complaining about it. Some say that the new tone simply isn't loud enough for them to hear it, while others lament the change in vibration pattern that the new tone has - making it harder to feel when in a pocket, for example.

The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro models are set to go on sale on September 22 and expectations are already pretty high for the new models thanks to some improvements across the board. And one of the interesting things to come out of the first round of early hands-ons and reviews is a new charging option that will be available on the new models.

As noted by The Verge's Alison Johnson, the new iPhones all have an additional battery charging option that will limit their charging to just 80%.

This new 80% limitation will of course prevent the iPhone in question from being charted beyond the 80% mark. Johnson does note that the option to have the iPhone charge to 100% as normal remains, as does the option to enable Optimized Battery Charging feature. That feature charges the iPhone to 80% and then waits at that point before it charges to 100% closer to the time that Apple believes you're likely to wake up or use your new iPhone next.

The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE is a phone that has had a strange history and it isn't even on the market yet. Now it's closer than ever to a release and it's leaking once again.

The Galaxy S23 FE wasn't even sure to be a thing a few months ago with some reports claiming that there wouldn't be one. That now seems to be a long time ago with more and more leaks showing that yes, the phone is real. And yes, it probably isn't going to be all that much longer before it goes on sale.

The latest leak comes courtesy of leaker Evan Blass and shows a 3D version of the Galaxy S23 FE spinning around. The video is of a dark gray device so it isn't all that easy to see the display or its bezels, but we do get a good look at a device that bears more than a passing resemblance to the Galaxy S23 proper.

As we've already reported, buying a new iPhone 15 Pro Max for the September 22 launch date is essentially impossible right now. Apple clearly knows that it has an availability issue and it's already a problem that it's trying to fix - by throwing money at it.

There are thought to be a couple of key issues for Apple, not least the fact that production of the iPhone 15 Pro Max started the latest but the model also happens to be proving extremely popular with buyers. But supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo also notes that the company's new tetraprism 5x zoom camera is proving to be an issue. So Apple is taking action to fix that to allow it to build more iPhone 15 Pro Max handsets more quickly.

Writing as part of a larger Medium post discussing the current iPhone 15 Pro Max situation, Kuo says that the iPhone 15 Pro Max's new tetraprism compact camera module (CCM) is the main bottleneck for production. To improve the production yield of the CCM by supplier LGIT, Apple is thought to have told lens supplier Largan to increase the specifications of its wares - to counter the issues LGIT is experiencing.

When Apple announced the iPhone 15 Pro Max it also took the wraps off of the new tetraprism camera lens that makes the new 5x optical zoom possible. The iPhone 15 Pro doesn't have the same camera because of a lack of space, we're told, but a new report suggests that will all change when the iPhone 16 Pro arrives next year.

A new report by supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims that Apple is getting set to bring the same 5x optical zoom capability to the smaller 6.1-inch iPhone 16 Pro next year. Apple previously hinted that the iPhone 15 Pro Max's larger 6.7-inch display meant that there was enough internal space for the special light-bending lens.

Kuo was writing as part of a longer Medium post when he claimed that both the iPhone 16 Pro Max and iPhone 16 Pro are expected to feature the new tetraprism telephoto camera.

All of the attention might be on the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro family of devices right now, but it sounds like we should already be starting to look forward to what will come next. The 2024 iPhones will likely be called iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max and the rumors are already starting to gather pace. Including the fact that there will be a slight size increase in terms of the displays that will be used.

Writing in a wider piece about Apple and its plans, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that the Pro iPhones will get slightly larger displays next year, although it isn't clear how slight those display improvements will turn out to be. Gurman says that new displays are a major driving factor behind iPhone hardware upgrades, suggesting that it could be a good reason for iPhone buyers to pick up a new model.

The iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max were only announced last week and won't go on sale until September 22. But with the overall size of the new Pro models shrinking thanks to smaller-than-ever bezels, it's possible that Apple is getting ready to increase the size of the displays next year. Whether that will mean smaller bezels or a return to slightly larger chassis remains to be seen, however.

Apple put the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max up for preorder last Friday, September 15. But if you weren't particularly quick when placing your order you're going to have to wait weeks for delivery. The reasons? It's complicated.

In a post to Medium, supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that there are a few reasons why picking up a new iPhone 15 Pro Max is going to be harder than you might think. Delivery windows are already stretching into October or November, depending on the model that you might choose. Some colors and storage combinations are worse than others, but no iPhone 15 Pro Max can now be ordered for launch day - September 22.

Writing on Medium, Kuo notes that demand for the iPhone 15 Pro Max has been robust, as had been expected, and that it's already outpacing demand for last year's iPhone 14 Pro Max. Wait times for the iPhone 15 Pro Max are already significantly longer than other new models announced by Apple last week, but Kuo believes that strong demand can't be blamed alone.