In what is nothing short of a huge scoop that settles a long-running debate, Apple's upcoming iPhone 18 Pro is "nearly confirmed" to sport a smaller Dynamic Island - especially as the Face ID's infrared flooder has moved to the side and possibly underneath the display - as well as a huge vapor chamber. Apple appears to have moved the iPhone 18 Pro's infrared flooder to the side, while housing the front camera and the Face ID scanner within a smaller pill-shaped cutout that now forms the new Dynamic Island The tipster Reptalica has just shared a CT scan of […]

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Apple has thoroughly established itself as a leader when it comes to designing its custom silicon. Even so, it's not above emulating innovative ideas, as it appears to be doing with the upcoming A20 Pro chip, which borrows heavily from Samsung's new 'Side-by-Side' (SbS) architecture. Both Samsung's Exynos 2700 and Apple's A20 Pro chip place the DRAM alongside the AP, and employ a thermal solution that remains in contact with the AP Samsung's Exynos 2600 broke the prevailing mobile chip architecture mold by placing the DRAM on top of a part of the AP, right alongside a copper-based heat sink, […]

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After Verizon's "Simplicity" and AT&T's "Build-A-Plan," T-Mobile was also expected to come up with innovative and low-cost plans at a time when consumers are becoming increasingly cost-conscious. Yet, the telecom giant appears to have polar opposite ambitions, as illustrated by its decision to graduate customers from legacy plans to "modern" ones that entail material price hikes. T-Mobile is retiring its Simple Choice, ONE, ONE Plus, and the Magenta family of plans that collectively span around 1,100 distinct billing codes T-Mobile's COO, Jon Freier, sent a company-wide email earlier today, one that CNET got hold of in due course. As per […]

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Given the sheer scale of disruption emanating from the ongoing global memory 'chipflation,' it was only a matter of time before the so-called 'Big Three' - Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron - were dragged into a courtroom on allegations of collusion and price-fixing, as appears to have happened last week, just as Apple cited soaring memory prices for implementing a slew of price hikes. A new lawsuit accuses Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron of using their coordinated "pivot" to HBM as an excuse to keep commodity DRAM production artificially low Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron were collectively sued on June […]

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If you are using AI to embellish your physical achievements, do make sure that you edit out the "made with AI" label, lest you appear hopelessly tech-illiterate. That's a lesson that Vancouver Police Department can now learn at its leisure following a scathing public backlash on one of its most recent AI-related antics. You can now add Vancouver PD to the list of entities that are using AI Slop to artificially enhance their achievements A few days back, Vancouver PD posted pictures of a supposed drug bust on various social media platforms. The pictures were notable not only due to […]

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We are, by now, accustomed to being dismissive about Microsoft's browsers, especially after years of mockery that the Internet Explorer garnered for operating at a glacial pace. Well, it so happens that Microsoft Edge and its Chromium-based architecture now fall in an entirely different league, especially after years of under-the-hood performance improvements, allowing Microsoft to now uncharacteristically claim a few well-deserved bragging rights. Microsoft appears increasingly confident of its Edge browser, and it's beginning to show up in its swagger on social media It all began with a par-for-the-course ribbing of Microsoft Edge on X. Contrary to expectations, however, most […]

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How the tables appear to have turned for Apple, which used to command absolute obeisance from its supply chain, leading to obscene margins, but now finds itself displaced by the AI hyperscalers in the supply chain hierarchy, and so starts calling for aid from the Chinese. Cue in the idiom: how the mighty have fallen. Apple's envisioned CXMT-led salvation is an illustration of its still-intact hubris Back in 2023/2024, Apple typically paid around $17 for an 8GB LPDDR5X RAM, and another $22 for a 256GB flash storage module, netting out the total memory-related costs to $39. At the time, Apple […]

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Apple appears adamant to break through the memory-related constraints imposed by Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron, and is willing to take on a sizable political risk by lobbying the eminently mercurial Trump administration on behalf of China's CXMT. While this gambit is quite risky, it is nonetheless the only viable option for Apple to gain access to the required memory resources at affordable prices short of setting up its own memory fabs. Apple wants explicit clearance from the Trump administration to procure bulk shipments of DRAM from China's CXMT The Financial Times is now reporting that Apple has begun lobbying […]

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In what is a continuation of a sordid saga, one that involves OpenAI and its proverbial halls rapidly filling up to the brim with talent poached from Apple outright, the head of Apple's Vision Products Group is now departing for supposedly greener pastures over at OpenAI, leaving behind an Apple product category that is hopelessly falling behind its peers. It's a tale as old as OpenAI itself: Apple's talent lured to lay the foundations of future growth avenues over at OpenAI According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Paul Meade, who is Apple's VP of hardware engineering at its Vision Products Group, […]

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Tis' the season of product recalibration at Apple, with its labyrinthine supply chain now leaking the kind of atypical product specifications that would have attracted a serious flak at any other time. Such is the upheaval currently permeating through the entire global consumer electronics industry, however, that Apple's growing litany of compromises now barely raises any eyebrows. Apple's so-called MacBook Ultra won't launch with a brand-new silicon We reported recently that Apple has significantly revamped its silicon-related plans, settling on the launch of the M5 Ultra and the base M6 later this year, and then jumping straight to the base […]

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