Mobile Devices - Page 43

Sales of the new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 have broken records for the number of devices preordered, according to a new report.

The new foldable phones began preorders starting from August 1, with Yonhap News Agency reporting that the South Korean preorders reached a record 1.02 million units across both devices. That figure breaks the previous record of 970,000 units for the previous Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4, it's reported.

In terms of how the two devices' preorders break down, Samsung reportedly said that the Galaxy Z Flip 5 was the most popular of the two devices. The foldable is similar to the flip phones of yesteryear and made up around 70% of preorders which is an increase over last year. The Galaxy Z Flip 4 is said to have accounted for 60% of preorders when sold alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 4.

We've been hearing rumors of the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max coming with a new Action button, instead of the popular mute switch, for months now. And now it looks like we've seen our clearest confirmation yet that this is exactly what is going to happen.

In a new leak of supposed iPhone 15 Pro Max cases, Twitter leaker Majin Bu appears to have put the Action button question to bed for once and for all. The cases show that the iPhone will have the volume buttons we are familiar with, but where there would normally be a space for the iPhone's mute switch, there's now a new button.

The new Pro iPhones are expected to borrow heavily from the Apple Watch Ultra, adding a new Action button that can be configured to do more than just mute things. It's expected that ti will also function in much the same way as the Apple Watch's button as well, giving users the chance to configure things how they like and depending on their needs.

It's impossible to miss the fact that Apple is expected to announce a new set of iPhones soon. All you have to do is venture near the internet right now and it seems to be the one thing that everyone is talking about. And that isn't going to change today after a new report of when we can probably expect the new iPhones to be announced.

Conventional wisdom already penciled a launch window of September into our calendars thanks to the usual release cadence of these things. And now a new report appears to have put a pin firmly in a couple of potential dates.

The new dates come courtesy of Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, writing in the weekly Power On newsletter. According to him, Apple's iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro devices are likely to go on sale around September 22, which is a Friday and would very much match up with previous release dates. If that's correct, we can likely expect that preorders will begin a week earlier, on September 15.

The hugely popular and Meta-owned instant messaging platform WhatsApp has started to test a new feature that will make it quicker and easier to add people to a group chat than ever before, but it's only in Beta right now.

Those with the latest WhatsApp for Android beta installed may see a new option to quickly add people to a group chat right from within the chat itself, although the WhatsApp watchers at WABetaInfo do note that this might only be available to some people, rather than all of those with the beta installed.

Once that beta is installed opening a group chat will show a new "Add participants" button on devices whose accounts have been activated to see it. Tapping that button, just below the group chat's information, will allow users to quickly add new people to a group. However, this will only work if the group's admin settings allow the people tapping the new button to add people to that particular group.

The Samsung Galaxy S24 lineup isn't expected to debut until the first couple of months of 2024 but that apparently isn't stopping someone from putting a Galaxy S24+ through its paces. They've been doing that using Geekbench and, for some reason, uploaded the results. And those results tell us a lot.

It's still early days for this phone and it's important to remember that all of this information is liable to change before the phone goes on sale. But for now, here's what we have to hand.

According to the specs shared via Geekbench we can expect the Galaxy S24+ to carry the US model number SM-S926U and be powered by Qualcomm's next flagship chip, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. That chip will be paired with 8GB of RAM, too.

Owners of iPhones and iPads can control how their children use such devices using a feature called Screen Time. The feature gives parents control over when kids access apps and which apps they can actually use. But things haven't been right for a while and the settings parents configure don't always work. Now, Apple has admitted that something is amiss and that it is working on a fix.

In a Wall Street Journal report, Apple says that it is aware that Screen Time settings can sometimes be unexpectedly reset, while users sometimes report that the settings become completely useless and kids are given unfettered access to their devices regardless of the Screen Time settings in place.

Apple was thought to have fixed the issue in its iOS 16.5 software update but that doesn't appear to have been the case. What's more, testers have already confirmed that the issue remains in place even when using the latest iOS 17 betas which suggests that no fix will arrive any time soon.

Future iPads and iPhones could be about to get super-thin bezels thanks to the display technology used in the Apple Watch. That technology is called low-injection pressure over-molding, or "LIPO" and Apple is already getting ready to use it on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

According to Bloomgerg's Mark Gurman, writing in the weekly Power On newsletter, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max will benefit from 1.5mm display bezels, down from the 2.2mm of previous models. The LIPO technology was first used in the Apple Watch Series 7 and that produced a notable change in the appearance of the wearable when compared to previous models. It's thought that we can expect a similar change going from the iPhone 14 Pro to the iPhone 15 Pro series of devices.

Moving forward, we can apparently look forward to something similar taking place with iPads. Gurman didn't explain which iPads we should be looking at first, but it seems likely that the iPad Pro or iPad Air will be the first to benefit from more svelte bezels.

If you're planning on picking up a brand-new Apple iPhone 15 or iPhone 15 Plus this fall there's a good chance that you're going to have to pay a bit more than you did for your iPhone 14 or iPhone 14 Plus. And it might well depend on what part of the world you happen to be in at the time.

While we'd been hearing rumors of a price increase for the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, a new report suggests that buyers of the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus might not be safe, either. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, writing in the weekly Power On newsletter, there's a chance that the non-Pro iPhones are going to experience a price hike this year as well. But, only if you're buying outside of the United States.

Gurman says that the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are likely to see their prices increase by as much as $100 no matter where you buy them, but those picking up non-Pro models internationally can expect all four of the 2023 iPhone models to also cost more than the devices that they will replace.

The iPhone 15, along with next-generation Apple Watches, are right around the corner as Apple prepares for its September event, where it will announce both.

According to a recent report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 15, which will come with a range of upgrades compared to last year's iPhone 14. At first glance, Apple's newest iPhone will have a much smaller border size, expanding the display right out to the very corners of the device.

The reduction in border size is thanks to low-injection pressure over-molding, or LIPO, a technology first tested in the Apple Watch 7, according to Gurman. The border size will shrink from 2.2 millimeters to 1.5 millimeters, which may not sound like much, but it will be noticeable. Other features to expect a shift from a Lightning port to a USB-C port, which follows the recent ruling by EU regulators that forces Apple into USB-C adoption.

New foldable phones from OnePlus and Oppo are set to have the best periscope cameras ever offered in a foldable, a new leak claims. The leak specifically mentions the Oppo Find N3, but that phone is expected to be branded as the OnePlus Open when it arrives globally.

The report comes via the oft-reliable Weibo leaker Digital Chat Station and claims that the Find N3 will boast a big periscope zoom lens upgrade when compared to other foldable phones that are currently on the market. And that includes the latest from the likes of Samsung. A Hasselblad imaging system is also tipped in the same report.

If this turns out to be accurate then there could be some promising specifications for the two phones. We're also told to expect a phone with 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage which is a lot for any phone to have. It also matches the top end of Samsung's new Galaxy Z Fold 5 in terms of storage and even beats it in terms of RAM - Samsung's latest has 12GB.

Apple is going to require that developers of apps submitted to the App Store review team explain what APIs they are using and why starting later this year. The change is designed to help prevent users from having their privacy invited by rogue apps.

Apple told developers that this change was coming back at WWDC in June, but this is the first time that the change has been noticed in the public domain. Apple is also now telling developers which APIs it will consider as those that will soon require more information from developers.

According to Apple, some developers have been using some APIs as a way to digitally track people. That tracking information can then be used to target ads or sold to data brokers. It's Apple's hope that by making developers justify their use of those APIs that it will be able to catch those who don't have a legitimate reason to be accessing them.

The Samsung Galaxy S23 lineup is undoubtedly a strong one and the Galaxy S23 Ultra is among the best phones around. But while it included support for high bitrate 8K video recording at launch it's now a feature that seems to have gone missing. And nobody seems to know why.

According to reports it seems that the feature for High Bitrate Videos disappeared around the time that the June 2023 security update was installed on devices. Actually, when we say that it disappeared that isn't strictly true - the feature is still there, but it's grayed out so it can't be selected in the Camera app's settings screen.

While it isn't immediately clear why Samsung seems to have disabled the feature - or even if the feature was removed on purpose or if this is a but - some people had noted that there were issues with it while it was still available. Some complained that the High Bitrate Video option caused videos to stutter when they were recorded, so it's possible that it has been disabled while the feature itself is being improved upon.

The worldwide demand for new smartphones continues to plummet with Samsung announcing that its profits dropped a massive 95$ drop for the second quarter in a row. Those figures are for the second quarter of 2023, and they make for worrying reading not only for Samsung but for the smartphone market as a whole.

Samsung confirmed the news in its Q2 2023 financial results, with a 95% year-over-year drop mimicking that of the quarter that came before it. Operating profit was KRW 0.67 trillion ($523.5 million), down from KRW 14.12 trillion ($11.06 billion) the year prior.

Samsung itself says that it's blaming the overall lack of demand for new phones, including its own flagship devices. It says that demand for the Galaxy S23 Ultra, its best smartphone if you don't count foldable, "faded" as time went on. However, it does say that the Galaxy S23 lineup of devices was able to post better results than its predecessor, the Galaxy S22 lineup.

It had been rumored on and off for months but we just had our closest thing to confirmation yet that the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE is a thing and that it's probably just around the corner.

That's because the phone has just appeared in the database for the Wireless Power Consortium, complete with a photo of the device itself. And sure enough, it looks exactly as we'd been told to expect it to.

The Wireless Power Consortium is the outfit that is in charge of the wireless charging standard that is used by phones around the world, so when a new phone is released it's going to be tested. But it would appear that someone has gotten a little ahead of themselves and made the testing publicly available for all to see online.

Google has announced that it is delaying the expansion of its Find My Device feature while it waits for Apple to get its ducks in a row for iPhone users.

The Find My Device network, similar to Apple's Find My, is designed to help people locate missing devices and items. They could be headphones or wallets thanks to the addition of AirTag-like item trackers, but Google says that it won't roll anything out until Apple is ready to ensure that people can't use Find My Device accessories to track people.

Google made the announcement in a blog post discussing other item tracker changes including the rolling out of anti-stalking features aimed specifically at Apple's AirTags. Now Google appears to have decided that it won't add new devices to the world, via its Find My Device network, until Apple is ready for iOS to also have similar protection in place.

After announcing them during the I/O 2023 event, Google has now started to roll out alerts that are designed to warn people if an unknown Apple AirTag is being used to track them. Apple also announced the same feature earlier this year.

Apple's AirTags are among the best Bluetooth item trackers around but they have also garnered a reputation as the tracker of choice for stalkers. Their long battery life and hyper-accurate tracking make them excellent for keeping tabs on people, which can be bad if you're being tracked by someone you don't want to track you. Apple already offers an app for Android users so they can identify unknown AirTags, but now Google is building the same feature into Android at an operating system level.

Android devices will alert people if an unknown Bluetooth tracker has been separated from its owner and is traveling with them. If that's the case, it's possible that it was planted and being used nefariously.

Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 15 lineup this September and two of the four phones are going to have something new - an Action button - assuming all of the rumors are true. And if they are, iOS 17 might just have leaked what that Action button will be able to do.

The Apple Watch Ultra already has an Action button of course and it can be used for opening apps, launching features, and firing off shortcuts. With that in mind, we expected something similar from the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max when they get their own Action buttons. And sure enough, it looks like we were right on the money.

MacRumors reports that code snippets found in the iOS 16 beta 4 release have pointed the way to nine different options that users can choose when assigning an action to the new Action button. Many of them are exactly what you'd expect, with few surprises to be found.

The iPhone 14 Pro Max is already Apple's most expensive model and the iPhone 13 Pro Max was the same before it. But now the iPhone 15 Pro Max could be about to take things to a whole new level if one analyst turns out to be correct.

We've already heard rumors that Apple was planning to increase the price of its best iPhones this year but this particular analyst is the first to share numbers rather than simply say things would be going up. Unfortunately, the numbers they shared aren't great and it could be enough to make some people look elsewhere for their flagship phone.

The analyst in question is Tim Long of Barclays and in a research note seen by MacRumors he appears to have said that the iPhone 15 Pro will cost $100 more than the iPhone 14 Pro. But when it comes to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, that could cost as much as $200 more than the model that came before it. Thankfully, the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus aren't expected to hike prices at all.

Samsung has today announced a whole raft of products at the Unpacked event and while the phones and watches are going to get all of the attention, the three new tablets are also well worth running the rule over.

Those tablets are the Galaxy Tab S9, Galaxy Tab S9+, and Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra, and they're all available starting from August 11 with preorders already open for those who want to make sure that they lock theirs in for day one delivery.

All three models feature different screen sizes; the Tab S9 has an 11-inch display. while the Tab S9+ increases that to 12.4 inches. The top-of-the-range Tab S9 Ultra comes with a 14.6-inch display and all three models feature a variable refresh rate that goes all the way up to 120Hz.

After many months of rumors Samsung has finally taken the wraps off the Galaxy Z Fold 5, its latest large-format foldable phone. It arrives alongside the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and is already proving to be something of a disappointment for some.

The Galaxy Z Fold 5 appears to be almost identical to the Galaxy Z Fold 4 that it replaces in Samsung's lineup, albeit with an improved hinge that now allows the phone to close flat.

That new hinge is undoubtedly the biggest change according to those who have already spent time with the upgraded phone. But beyond that little seems to have changed.