Mobile Devices - Page 50

Apple might have a new color for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus arriving in the spring, with these models set to be offered in yellow if a new rumor is right.

The yellow color was last seen with the iPhone 11 (some four years back), and it could be something Apple revisits with the iPhone 14, given that it's generally expected that the current-gen smartphone gets a new color in the spring to help boost sales somewhat.

There's nothing like a shiny new paint job to nudge you off the fence perhaps and tempt you to finally grab the new handset you've been mulling over, although of course, we can't take it for granted this is happening.

If you've ever looked at your phone's battery percentage and wished that it wouldn't fall quite so quickly, you're probably going to love this.

One owners of the mid-range Samsung Galaxy A32 wanted to see what would happen if they took matters into their own hands and ditched the built-in 5,000mAh battery for something a little meatier. OK, something a lot meatier. What would happen if that 5,000mAh battery was replaced by something that had a 30,000mAh rating?

Turns out, it'll actually work.

The owner of an iPhone 11 was reunited with their device after it spent a week in the water, according to a new report. To make the story even better, the phone belonged to a Good Samaritan.

The story goes that a student named Breno Rafael was in his kayak when he heard a woman drowning. He jumped into the water with his iPhone in a pocket but when he helped the woman to shore he realized that his phone had taken a spill, never to be seen again. Or at least, that's what he thought.

Fast-forward a week and diving instructor Edinho Roch found the iPhone seven meters down in the same location - lake Paranoá in Brasilia. The iPhone seemed to be working but was locked and couldn't be used. That's when the power of social media came into play.

Apple is expected to announce four new iPhones next month, but only two of them are set to get flashy new chips. A new report claims that those devices will benefit from significant specification upgrades as a result.

Apple is set to announce the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max this September. But it's only those last two that will get an A17 chip, based on a refreshed TSMC 3nm manufacturing process. And it's that which is expected to make all the difference.

A DigiTimes report cites industry insiders when it says that the new 3nm chip will allow for significant upgrades, although it doesn't go so far as to say what they might be. However, the move to a 3nm manufacturing process doesn't necessarily mean that the chips will be faster - just that they will likely generate less heat and use less power. Both of those two things do often allow companies to clock their chips higher, though.

Those looking to trade in an old iPhone when buying a new one - or a used Mac in the same scenario - will be interested to learn that Apple will pay out more cash for their hardware in the US, at least in some cases.

No, there hasn't been an uptick in cash pay-outs across the board, but iPhone 13 and 12 owners are getting more dollars for their handsets with some models.

As Mark Gurman (of Bloomberg fame) pointed out on Twitter, those models are the iPhone 13 Pro Max which will now score you up to US$600 (rather than a maximum of US$570), and the iPhone 13 Pro which is now at US$500 (up from US$470). Finally, the iPhone 12 Pro Max will now net you a return of US$420 (an increase from US$400).

Apple has today increased the price of its iPhone batteries, making it more costly to put a brand new power source in anything from an iPhone 8 through to an iPhone 13. However, the iPhone 14 lineup hasn't been affected - because its $99 batteries were already more expensive than the others.

The battery price increases don't just affect iPhones, but they're the devices most likely to get new batteries. Price hiked can be found in the iPad and Mac lineups as well, however.

In terms of prices, batteries for iPhone 13 models now cost $89, which is $20 more than they cost yesterday. The iPhone 8 and earlier have had a similar price increase and now cost $69.

Qualcomm has today announced that it has managed to create the world's first GSMA-certified I Integrated SIM, or iSIM.

We're all familiar with the eSIM, an electronic version of the physical plastic SIM cards that have been used for decades. But the new iSIM technology takes things a step further.

While an eSIM requires a dedicated chip that can be installed into smartphones like the iPhone 14 and Samsung Galaxy S23, the iSIM works differently. Instead, an iSIM can be part of the SoC of the phone itself, which is normally left to house the CPU, GPU, and other key components.

The Nothing Phone (1) never got an official launch in the United States but that's all going to be put right with the follow-up device - the Nothing Phone (2). Now we also know what chip it'll run, too.

With the Mobile World Congress 2023 event now very much underway in Barcelona, Spain, we're hearing all kinds of things from just about every phone company on the planet - bar Apple, of course. And one bit of welcome news is that the aforementioned Nothing Phone (2) will benefit from a flagship Qualcomm chip when it does launch later this year.

Qualcomm and Nothing CEO Carl Pei confirmed that there will be a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8-series chip used in the new phone when it reaches US shores, while CNET reports that the publication was told exactly what chip that will be.

3D displays aren't new, and with the rise and fall of 3D TVs over a decade ago, not to mention devices like the Nintendo 3DS becoming the 2DS, you wouldn't be remiss to think that 3D displays are a thing of the past. Leia Inc.'s Lume Pad 2 wants to change that perception by presenting a device with 3D display technology that sounds very cool in 2023. This is non-glasses 3D too.

The Lume Pad 2 is an Android tablet that not only features 3D cameras capable of capturing and presenting full 3D images and video, with native 3D video chat functionality between multiple Lume Pads, but it's leveraging the power of AI to enhance its features.

Namely converting 2D images to 3D, adding an extra layer of immersion to all content viewed on the pad. LeiaTube is a real-time tool for 2D to 3D content where you can share videos from YouTube, Vimeo, TikTok, and others and watch them in 3D.

OnePlus already has the OnePlus 11 available to buy and it's generally accepted to be a pretty good phone for those who want to try something different from the usual iPhones, Pixels, and Galaxies. But OnePlus has shared something new. And it's a stunner.

Say hello to the OnePlus 11 Concept, a gorgeous phone that you can't actually buy but that we really. really wish that we could. Because it's pretty great to look at.

There is more to the OnePlus 11 Concept than that black aesthetic and blue cooling channels, though. For starters, those cooling channels are full of liquid that keeps the phone's processor and other bits and pieces nice and cool. How cool? Well, that depends on what you're doing but OnePlus reckons that you can expect to see temperatures a couple of degrees lower than you would otherwise.

Apple's next iPad Pro models, inbound for 2024 in theory, are set to run with super-slick OLED screens - but the catch is this will mean the tablets are pricey.

The theory is that the next-gen iPad Pros would come in two sizes, 11.1-inch and 13-inch, so slightly larger than the existing tablets, but the major upgrade would be the shift to an OLED panel.

However, getting those high-quality panels from LG and Samsung would be a costly affair, and a report from The Elec (a Korean tech site) makes it clear that the bump in price might be significant.

The display of Apple's iPhone 15 could be larger than the existing iPhone 14, if a new leak is correct.

However, don't expect the screen to be much bigger, as the rumored increase - and remember, this is just a rumor - is very slight.

This comes from 9 to 5 Mac, who got hold of 3D CAD files that are purportedly for the iPhone 15, and indicate that the display is going to be 6.2-inches, just a tad bigger than the iPhone 14 which sits at 6.1-inches.

Apple's iPhone 15 models will be beefed up with a larger quantity of RAM, or faster memory in some cases, according to the latest nugget from the rumor mill.

Analyst firm TrendForce just produced a report (spotted by MacRumors) that claims Apple is set to 'bump up the capacity and specifications' of the RAM that's incorporated in its next-generation iPhones.

We're talking about an increase in capacity from the current 6GB seen in the iPhone 14 Pro to an 8GB loadout for the iPhone 15 Pro, or that's the possibility put forward by TrendForce in a previous leak.

OnePlus has only just announced the OnePlus 11 5G and as great as that phone is, there is always going to be something new around the corner. The OnePlus 11 Concept might not be ready for primetime just yet, and it might never ship at all. But there's no denying it looks cool.

The OnePlus 11 Concept is a phone that will get its official unveiling at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona next week, but for now the company has teased what it's calling the "flowing back." In reality, that's some cool LED trickery that's similar to Nothing's Phone (1) and it's just as awesome.

OnePlus says that the images it's already shared show the engineering breakthroughs that the OnePlus 11 Concept would have to offer. There are icy blue pipelines that run the entire length and breadth of the device's rear, with a futuristic unibody glass design sure to look even better in person than it does in the images we can see here.

An original iPhone, which remained boxed and sealed in mint condition, has sold for a record-breaking amount, with someone paying $63,000 at auction for the first-gen Apple smartphone.

Remember that the iPhone came out in 2007 with a retail price of $599 in the US, so the final auction selling price of $63,356 is over 100 times the original asking price, a pretty mind-boggling figure.

The smartphone was sold by LCG Auctions, and the seller was a tattoo artist who was given the iPhone as a gift, but never opened it.

Samsung's Galaxy S23 lineup is only days old but the company has already started to roll out a software update for the flagship phones.

Samsung has reportedly begun to roll out the February security patch to those who already have the phone in their hands, with Samsung saying that it has dealt with as many as 48 different security issues and a number that are related to One UI.

The first to start seeing the update were located in Europe, but by the time you read this the release is likely to have been made available to those around the world.

Samsung's Galaxy S23 smartphones are about to go on sale, and these handsets offer excellent battery life going by reviews - but you probably won't be able to guess one of the reasons for that longevity.

In fact, the AMOLED display helps boost the length of time the battery lasts, and the surprising bit is that thanks to new tech used in the screen, Samsung has achieved better brightness, but with lower power consumption.

Of course, those two elements would normally be at odds with each other, so this is an eye-opening revelation.

We've been reporting on a foldable iPhone for many years, with rumors and analysts pointing to Apple developing a next-gen foldable iPhone for release in the coming years. Recently we got word that Apple was also planning a foldable iPad with a kickstand and a screen size of 20 inches, so it seems that it's just a matter of time.

With Samsung already deep into its foldable device roadmap, a new patent filed by Apple reveals some fascinating insight into why it's taken the company so long to fold. As per the filing, it seems Apple is looking to make every inch of the foldable iPhone or iPad an input surface, even when it's all folded up. This would be cool for scrolling through apps and notifications even when the device is "closed."

As Apple didn't invent the touchscreen with the original iPhone, it certainly sounds like it's planning to make the idea of a foldable device as ubiquitous as what the iPhone's interface did for the smartphone.

Apple's iPhone 15 Pro might have some really slim bezels, at least according to a new rumor which backs up some previous chatter on the grapevine.

As shared by ShrimpApplePro on Twitter - not a veteran leaker, true, but one who has recently established a robust track record - the iPhone 15 Pro is expected to have thinner bezels with curved edges, and this claim is backed up by other sources who are apparently in agreement.

We only have ShrimpApplePro's word for that, mind you, so take this assertion with an appropriate dose of seasoning, as with all rumors.

Xiaomi is expected to announce as many as three new phones at this year's Mobile World Congress, and one of them borrows very heavily from the very best that Apple has to offer.

Just like the iPhone 14 Pro, the mid-range Xiaomi 13 Lite will have a front camera system that isn't like the ones we're most familiar with in the world of Android. It sure does look like a Dynamic Island, but that is where the similarities end.

Whereas Apple's iPhone 14 Pro uses its Dynamic Island to display information and widgets, there is no suggestion right now that we can expect anything that impressive from what the Xiaomi phone will have to offer. Instead, it looks like we can simply expect it to be a larger hole in the screen than other Android hole-punch designs. But in a world where so many Android phones look the same, it's probably fair to say that this one stands out.