Mobile Devices, Tablets & Phones News - Page 1

While the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro might be the flagship Google phones that everyone turns to and the Pixel Fold is the one that captures a ton of attention, the Pixel 8a could be the most important of them all. It's a phone that will offer a budget option for people who want a solid Android experience without spending huge sums. And it's leaking in a big way of what is expected to be a release next month.

In a leak shared via Android Headlines that detailed a number of different aspects of the new and as-yet unconfirmed Pixel 8a, we learn that Google has plans to make sure that the phone lasts as long as possible. According to what appears to be marketing material for the phone, the Google Pixel 8a will come with seven years of security updates, ensuring that the phone remains as safe and secure as possible for a long, long time. That isn't something that people have always been able to say about Android devices at all.

That is of course excellent news, although there is one question left open. The leak doesn't appear to confirm how long Google will offer Android OS updates for this particular device which means that it could end much sooner than those seven years. For comparison, the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro now come with seven years of Android updates, so it would stand to good reason that the Pixel 8a will as well. We'll await confirmation one way or another.

Apple announced the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro in September of last year and now we expect it to announce their replacements in September of this year. There are likely to be four new iPhones when they are all announced and we've been hearing various leaks here and there ever since the iPhone 15 launched. Now, we've been treated with a new leak that shows some of the features that we've been told to expect from this year's iPhone refresh.

The leak comes in the form of a post on the X social network, with leaker Majin Bu sharing three different CAD renders of what appears to be cases for the new phones.

The cases show one of what is sure to be the biggest addition to the new iPhones in the form of the Capture button, as has been rumored for months. It's going to come in the form of a new button that will reportedly be used as part of the camera setup, allowing people to more quickly and easily capture photos and videos, hence the name. The button is also expected to have pressure sensitivity which means that it will allow people to perhaps press slightly to focus and then press further to take the shot.

If you received a strange email earlier today saying that your Apple Store trade-in has been canceled, panic not - you can safely ignore it. The whole thing seems to have been an unfortunate glitch.

When buying a new iPhone, via the iPhone Upgrade Program or any other way, trading in your old device is a good way to save money. Buyers mail off their old handset and get a credit for the correct amount and everything normally goes well. But that hasn't been the case today, it seems, with Apple sending emails to people saying that their trade-ins have been canceled even if they haven't.

In some examples, the trade-ins took place months ago. One user took to the X social network to say that they traded in an old iPhone in September and have the receipt to prove it. But that didn't stop Apple from sending them an email today saying that their trade-in had been canceled because they didn't send their old iPhone in.

There once was a time when the iPhone could do no wrong and Apple couldn't make them quickly enough to keep up with demand, but those times are now few and far between. According to a new report by the researchers at CIRP, Apple's share of the US smartphone activations has taken a tumble despite the fact that the report believes that Apple's installed user base is still higher.

The number of smartphone activations for Apple topped out at 40% in the first and second quarter of 2023, the report notes, But Apple experienced a new smartphone activation decline to 33%, a full third of all smartphone activations, in the United States during the first quarter of 2024. You don't have to be too great at maths to know that the figure means that two-thirds of all smartphone devices are not iPhones - and that means that they're all running Android.

The reason for that isn't always easy to come up with, but CIRP believes that Apple may be a victim of its own success. The latest iPhones are so good and they last for so long that people simply don't see the need to update so often.

With Apple having already confirmed that it will be holding a new event on May 7 we were already pretty sure that we knew what the company intended to show off. Now, it seems increasingly likely that all of the rumors were right - the event will focus on new iPads and yes, a new Apple Pencil.

That's the assumption that we can now make after Apple CEO Tim Cook shared a post on the X social network that hinted as much. The post, embedded below, mentions the Apple Pencil and includes a gif of of one, essentially confirming the news.

The rumors over the last few months had told us to expect a raft of new iPads and accessories to be announced within weeks, and those rumors had started to settle on May being the big month. Now Apple has confirmed that it will stream ane vent on May 7 and while it hasn't said what it will be about, there are surely few doubts as to its content.

Following recent rumors that the 12.9-inch iPad Air that we expect to be announced next month would feature an impressive mini-LED display, the person who shared that rumor initially now says it wasn't right after all.

Display supply chain analyst Ross Young is normally extremely accurate when detailing information about which displays will feature in future products, but he says that he got this one wrong. Writing in a paywalled post on the X social network, Young said that he had heard from supply chain sources that the new 12.9-inch mini-LED display was destined for the iPad Air but that other sources have now said that won't be the case after all.

The news will no doubt be a disappointment for anyone who had originally planned to pick up a new 12.9-inch iPad Air, although the lack of mini-LED display does make sense. Such technology, currently employed on the iPad Pro lineup, is expensive and it never quite matched up with a place in the iPad Air lineup. However, it was a possibility that Apple could be using up older iPad Pro inventory, but that doesn't seem to be the case now.

Apple is holding a special event on May 7 with new iPads expected to be the stars of the show. One of those iPads is set to be an all-new 12.9-inch iPad Air, reports have suggested, but that won't be the end of the new tablet arrivals according to a new report.

Supply chain analyst Ross Young had previously suggested that the 12.9-inch iPad Air will feature a mini-LED display, but in a paywalled post on the X social network, he now says that isn't the case after all. However, there IS some truth to the previous rumor in the fact that there is indeed a 12.9-inch iPad of some description, featuring a mini-LED display, in the works.

What that unnamed and mystery tablet will be, nobody knows. Young believes that it will arrive in the fourth quarter of the year which means that it will come much later than the expected OLED iPad Pro and new iPad Air announcements next month. The news is interesting because the current 12.9-inch iPad Pro uses a mini-LED display and will be replaced by an OLED version soon. That would suggest that the new 12.9-inch tablet won't be an iPad Pro, and with a 12.9-inch iPad Air debuting next month also, that leaves little room in the lineup for another 12.9-inch device.

Apple recently announced that it will be holding an online, streamed event on May 7 and it's roundly thought that it will see the company announce new iPads including a pair of iPad Pros. Now, a new report suggests that while that remains true, actually getting your hands on one of the tablets in particular could be more difficult than buyers might like,

The tablet is the 11-inch OLED iPad Pro, the smaller of the two tablets and often the most popular for those who want to be able to get the most powerful tablet with the added portability of a relatively small display. However, display analyst Ross Young believes that stocks of the 11-inch model might be harder to find than those of the larger 12.9-inch version. And it's the display that buyers can blame.

Young was writing via a post on the X social network that now appears to have been removed, but not before it was picked up by various outlets including 9to5Mac.

Apple regularly releases new software updates to the public and as part of that, it also releases earlier beta updates to developers as well. The current wave of betas is for iOS 17.5 and the company has now made the third beta version of that update available for registered developers to download.

Those who are registered developers can sign in using their Apple ID and then choose to download the latest beta via the usual Software Update mechanism within the Settings app. However, we would always suggest that only developers who have a spare device should do that - as good as Apple's betas currently are, they can still prove problematic and installing the releases on a mission-critical device can still cause unexpected issues further down the line.

The lack of a need to install this beta on most devices is driven home by the fact that there are no huge new features in this beta, especially if you don't live in the European Union. The most notable change in this release is the option for app developers to offer their apps for download directly from their own websites, not just the App Store or authorized third-party app marketplaces.

Many members of the younger generation cringe when they get a hold of a parents phone as they quickly realize that parent doesn't close apps once they are done using it, leading to the assumption they are wasting battery life. But what if I told you that assumption was wrong?

Or at least it is for iPhone users. Users around the world are always looking for more ways to save battery, and one of those strategies is closing every app after use is done or in a large fell swoop every now and again. 9to5MacApple reports iOS chief Craig Federighi answered a question about if closing apps saved battery, to which he said, "no and no". Additionally, Apple's own support pages state that force-quitting an app should only be done if the app stops responding or is freezing.

Why is this the case? iOS is simply that good. Quitting apps seeming like the logical thing to do to save battery life is based on the presumption that more apps running in the background = more battery being drained. This isn't the case for iOS, as Apple's operating system freezes background apps, suspending any resources they demand to run, meaning background apps don't impact battery once they aren't being used (unless they have background processes such as GPS tracking or background music playing).