New technology usually comes at with a higher price tag, but Apple is trying to find ways to give its users new 5G enabled iPhones without increasing prices. However, that doesn’t mean the new iPhone 12 lineup will be more expensive than its predecessor. A new report from Ming-Chi Kuo suggests that Apple is looking for alternatives to cut costs with other components.
According to the latest research note by Ming-Chi Kuo, Sub-6GHz 5G technology will increase the cost of new iPhones by $75 to $85, and millimeter-wave would make them $125 to $135 more expensive. This doesn’t necessarily mean the new iPhone 12 will be more expensive than the iPhone 11 lineup, since Apple is trying to save money on other components. The battery board is one of the areas where Kuo believes Apple will be able to cut costs the most.
Ming-Chi Kuo believes that Apple is going for a simpler and smaller battery board design with fewer layers. This hybrid battery board would be 40 to 50 percent less expensive than the one in the iPhone 11, and it would help keep costs down. Apple may also try to adopt a purely soft board design in the 2021 iPhone lineup that would reduce an additional 30 to 40 percent to the price of the iPhone 12’s board.
According to Digitimes, Genius Electronic Optical has refuted a report claiming that it was having issues with the wide-angle lens for the lower-end iPhone 12 variants. The company says that its production is running without any sort of quality issues and that demand from Apple remains normal. Now, if there were a problem with these camera lenses, Apple would still be able to manage, since it also has Largan Precision as a camera lens supplier for its devices.
Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, Apple’s 27-inch iMac and more devices, on sale today
Deals. Let’s start today with the Galaxy S20 Ultra, which is currently available for $171 off on Amazon, leaving it at $1228 shipped with the US warranty. The 2019 27in iMac is also up to $250 off, meaning you can find the 6-core Intel i5, 8GB of RAM and 1TB of storage variant for $1700 shipped. If you’re interested in the HomePod… for some reason… Best Buy also has it for $100 off, leaving it at $199. We also have more deals on Sennheiser headphones, Jabra Earbuds and more.
Qualcomm reportedly seeks US government’s permission to sell chips to HUAWEI
Last week we talked about how the Mate 40 Series might be the last Huawei phone powered by a Kirin processor and, if you watch that video I speculated about them turning to Qualcomm for SoCs and well…. According to the Wall Street Journal, Qualcomm made a presentation for the US government, to remove restrictions and let them sell Snapdragon chips to Huawei. They’re pitching it by saying how this ban could drive “billions of dollars” to foreign chip makers like Samsung and MediaTek and lifting this ban could help Qualcomm stay competitive. Qualcomm’s goal right now is to sell to every smartphone maker and if a shift in the 5G market share changed, this could be big for them.
We have new leaked renders of the upcoming Microsoft Surface Duo
I think it’s been 10 or 11 months since we’ve been waiting for the Surface Duo… Yeah. Well last week it went through certifications and it looked like we were getting closer to a launch date but, we still don’t have it. Now we have some new leaked renders from Evan Blass showing off the AT&T variant of this device. On these pictures we can see the phone both open and closed, showing off the interface. We also get to see the selfie camera and the pretty big bezels and, it looks like there’s still no main camera on the outside. There’s also that leaked video which surfaced months ago showing how you can interact with the phone without it being fully open. We’re still expecting this device to launch… sometime soon with the same dated specs.
First public beta for watchOS7 is available for beta testers
You will soon find Google Maps in your Apple Watch
After several developer betas, Apple just seeded the first Public Beta of WatchOS 7 to consumers. The update can be installed pretty much like an iOS beta by downloading the profile and since this is the first release, it might bring some serious bugs. It brings new features like sleep tracking, complications, and more. Speaking of new features, Google just announced several of them for Apple products that are independent of the beta. For example, now you get a fully working Google Maps app for the Apple Watch that works pretty similar to the iPhone app, letting you get walking, biking, public transit and car directions from your wrist. Some destinations need the iPhone to be able to work properly but, it also supports step-by-step and it gives you an ETA. Moving on to CarPlay, there’s a new Dashboard integration for the media app now, the calendar and turn-by-turn directions as well but it is now presented in a split-screen view.
Twitter purportedly expresses interest in acquiring TikTok US operations
TikTok is reportedly suing Trump administration over executive order threatening a ban
Let’s talk about Tik Tok because, it’s actually a pretty big deal right now. If you haven’t been following, the US President basically told them that they had 45 days to sell the US arm of Tik Tok to a US company or they would be banned in the States. Well, since them we’ve seen Microsoft interested in buying and now, it looks like Twitter wants in too. According to Reuters, Microsoft is still the front runner but, Twitter has apparently approached ByteDance to make the acquisition. The problem is that Twitter is worth around $30B which is almost the value of the Tik Tok assets being purchased here so, they would need to raise additional capital to make this deal happen. However, it looks like ByteDance doesn’t want to stay quiet, they will reportedly be filing a federal lawsuit in Southern California for the President’s “far-reaching action which is unconstitutional, based on pure speculation.” We’ll keep you posted to see what ends up happening here but, in the meantime Facebook already launched a copy cat with Instagram Reels because… it’s Facebook.
Story of the day:
iPhone shipments could decline by up to 30% if Apple axes WeChat from App Store: Kuo
And finally, speaking of bans since it seems to be the major topic of discussion today, it looks like Apple will be affected by another ban too. There was recently an executive order, kind of like the one with Tik Tok, to end US transactions with WeChat and Tencent. And by the way, WeChat is like all our social media, chat and payment services baked in one, so for China it’s pretty much everything. Well, according to a new report from Ming Chi Kuo, Apple could suffer a lot from this as WeChat currently has 1.2B monthly users and banning it globally from the App Store would be catastrophic . He laid out different scenarios as to how this might affect iPhone sales, in the best case, shipments would be affected by 3%-6% but, in the worst-case scenario, iPhone shipments globally would decline by 25-30% and this also translates to other products like the Apple Watch, AirPods and even Macs. Kuo is even recommending that investors should reduce their stock holdings of companies in Apple’s Supply Chain due to the risks this WeChat ban. The order will apparently happen on September 20th so, let’s see what happens.
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Back in March, we saw that Ming-Chi Kuo was talking about a new 14-inch MacBook Pro. He believes that this new mini-LED laptop will take the 13-inch MacBook Pro’s place in 2021, and new information from Taiwan suggests that he is right.
According to TrendForce, Apple suppliers are getting ready to manufacture 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops with mini-LED displays. These new models should start production in the first quarter of 2021, and they would include brighter displays and high contrast ratios. These new panels would also help Apple to give its users thinner and lighter devices. Ming-Chi Kuo mentioned six new mini-LED products by the end of 2021, which would include these new MacBook Pros, which are expected to include Apple Silicone.
It is also believed that Apple may launch a new 12.9-inch iPad Pro with mini-LED displays in the first quarter of 2021. These new iPads could arrive with a 5nm A14X chip and 5G connectivity.
According to well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple will release its new AirPods 3 sometime in the first half of 2021, but he also gives details about these new earphones.
A new report by Ming-Chi Kuo suggests that Apple’s new AirPods 3 will arrive with significant changes in 2021. First of all, these new earphones would include SiP technology, instead of the SMP tech used in the current version. This means that the internal components of the earphones could take up a smaller space. This change would also help give them a design that resembles the one we find on the AirPods Pro. Kuo also believes that the second-gen AirPods may be discontinued when this new model arrives.
Apple’s latest 16-inch MacBook Pro, Apple Watch Series 3 and more on sale today
Deals. Let’s start off today with the latest 16-inch MacBook Pro which is $300 off on Amazon, leaving the 2.3GHz Intel Core i9, 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage variant for $2500. The Apple Watch Series 3 is $30 off, leaving the GPS only 38mm variant for $169 shipped. The Hisense H8 Quantum Series 4K TV is $50 off which leaves it at $350 shipped and, that’s actually a steal. I actually have one set for review as soon as I get back to NY. Finally the Razer Viper Ultralight Wired mouse which my son loves more than me is $30 off, leaving it at $50 shipped. We have more deals in the links in the description. And yeah, sad truth.
We could get up to 100W fast charging with the Snapdragon 875
Some new leaks for the Snapdragon 875 have just emerged, showing an interesting new feature. According to the tipster, the 875 will be capable of 100W fast charging. This will be advertised as a feature for gaming phones, allowing for a shorter down-time between gaming sessions. We’re expecting this SoC to be produced on a 5nm architecture and rocking the new Cortex X1 as its prime core and three Cortex A77 cores. On the meantime we’re expecting Qualcomm to launch an 865+ this July which we’ll talk about in a minute.
New Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 renders reveal its color variants
Samsung Galaxy Fold Lite launch reportedly delayed, could debut next year for $830
We’ve been covering a lot of leaks when it comes to the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3. From certifications, to specs to renders. Well, now we have some more renders from Evan Blass as well but, these look more like the official renders Samsung would use to show off the different color variants. According to Evan and the renders, we’ll be getting Black and Bronze variants while the Bronze kinda looks like a Rose Gold tone. There’s also been some rumors of a Galaxy Fold Lite which we were apparently going to get at Unpacked but, a new leak claims that it was postponed. According to a South Korean publication, the Fold Lite has been delayed until 2021 and it will reportedly cost around $830. It’s said to arrive with different components as the Fold and the outer display will reportedly be smaller than the Z Flip’s, if that’s even possible. It’ll only support LTE, bring 256GB of storage and Mirror Black and Purple variants.
OnePlus Buds in Black with a closed-fit design leaked
Along with the leaks for the OnePlus Nord, we’ve been getting leaks of some OnePlus TWS earbuds for the longest time. Most of them came in sketches and now we have a new one from the same source. The design hasn’t really changed much, they still kinda look like AirPods on the Pixel Buds case but these ones seem to have buttons on the side. This sketch emphasizes on a Black color variant with red accents which we hadn’t exactly seen before. We’re supposed to be getting these along with the OnePlus Nord and they should have Touch Controls, the Google Assistant and fast-pairing with OnePlus devices.
Samsung Galaxy Note 20 has fixed Galaxy S20 focusing issues
We have some new tweets from Ice Universe about what we should expect at Unpacked and now it’s getting way better. On the first tweet he mentions again that Samsung has completely fixed the S20 Ultra’s focusing problem but he also mentions that the QHD+ display at 120Hz is still not optimistic. Then on a more interesting tweet he claims that Samsung have eaten up the Snapdragon 865+ processors. He claims that the whole Note 20 Series, the Galaxy Fold 2, the Z Flip 5G and even the Tab S7 will be using the Snapdragon 865+ processors. If you remember last year, the 855+ was announced on July 15th so, we’ll keep you posted.
Story of the day:
Kuo reiterates Apple’s plans of a new 10.8-inch iPad in 2020, iPad Mini in 2021
[UPDATE] Apple to not include in-box charger and EarPods with iPhone 12 series?
Ming Chi Kuo is back and, we don’t really like what he has to say this time. Let’s start off with iPads, back in May Kuo said that Apple would be releasing two new iPads. Now, on his latest report he mentions them once again, a new 10.8-inch iPad for the second half of 2020 followed by an 8.5in iPad Mini in the first half of 2021. We don’t know if the 10.8in iPad will be a successor to the 10.2-inch iPad or the 10.5-inch but, both this one and the iPad Mini should bring that 20W charger we covered last week in the box. Speaking of that charger, Kuo claims that it might not make it to the iPhone 12’s box after all. The report says that Apple will remove the EarPods and the power adapter from the box, leaving only the USB-C to Lightning Cable. This means that you’ll either have to pony up $30 for the 18W or 20W or $20 for the 5. We’ve also been seeing some leaks of AirPower fully working so if that’s coming that might be the reason for this decision.
The Apple Watch Series 5, Fossil’s Gen 5 Carlyle HR smartwatch and more are on sale today
Deals. Come on, we know you want more Apple deals so yeah, awe got you. Amazon currently has the 40mm Apple Watch Series 5 for $99 off, leaving it at $300 shipped. However, this is the GPS only version but you can get the discount on more color variants. The Fossil Gen 5 Carlyle stainless steel watch is also $96 off, leaving it at $199 shipped. We have more deals on Motorola phones and Amazon products in the links in the description.
Razer’s new Blade 17 Pro offers a 300Hz display and NVIDIA’s RTX 2080 Super graphics
Razer just refreshed their Blade 17 Pro Laptop for this year in two different variants, and let’s just say both are insane in their own way. One with a 17.3in FHD IPS display at 300Hz refresh rate and another 17.3in 4K touch display at 120Hz. The specs include an 8-core 10th Gen Intel i7, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, up to 2TB of SSD and graphics can go up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super Max Q. It starts at $2599 and it will be available later this month. We have a full spec sheet for the ports and other details in the links in the description.
Asus ROG Phone 3 reportedly spotted on WiFi Alliance and Geekbench
We know a lot of you are huge fans of the ASUS ROG Phones and it looks like we might be getting another one soon, thought this one doesn’t seem like the powerhouse its predecessors were. It was just spotted on Geekbench and the WiFi Alliance, sporting the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, 8GB of RAM and running Android 10. The model number is pretty similar to the one we got for the ROG Phone 2 so it only makes sense. This phone could launch in the second half of the year, we’ll keep you posted once we get more leaks.
It seems that Amazon Prime Day sales will be delayed until September
The WSJ claims that Amazon will be delaying their Prime Day this year for, obvious reasons. Previous reports speculated that they would delay it until August but this report claims that they will be pushing it back until September. This delay would create room for more inventory and prepare shipping for more types of products. This will most likely not hurt Amazon too much but instead the third party companies that get more sales through Prime Day. We don’t have an official date for Prime Date yet, but it won’t happen in July. Thing is, let’s be honest. I don’t think anyone is really looking for some crazy shopping in the current state of the economy.
The iPhone 12 may arrive without bundled earphones
According to Ming Chi Kuo, Apple is ready to make their next courageous move. In his latest report, Apple will stop shipping wired EarPods inside the iPhone 12 lineup’s box. This would create an inconvenience for most of the consumers which use these earbuds but, it would also boost up AirPods sales for the holidays. This goes along with Kuo’s report that Apple won’t be releasing more AirPods this year, as they might be trying to sell as much from the current models as they can. Some sources claim that we might get an AirPods bundle with the iPhone 12 but, you never know with Apple. Now why is this important? I know most Android OEMS don’t bundle earbuds, but the iPhone was always meant to be a successor to the iPod. It’s been legendarily known for the earbuds in the box since generation 1. You see people with them all the time. Oh well..
Story of the day:
Pixel 4a reportedly delayed again, might now be announced on July 13
And finally the most interesting news today continue to be Google Pixel 4a, but NOT necessarily for good reasons today. We’ve been getting more and more Pixel leaks lately because, we thought we were getting closer to the launch date for the 4a. First we were expecting it to launch around May 15th but that was clearly delayed, and we were expecting a June launch which made sense because of the Android 11 Event but it seems that won’t be the case, again… Gotta hand it to Jon Prosser for his track record in leaks, and in his new report, the Pixel 4a will be delayed once again and it will get a July 13th announcement. According to his sources, the phone is ready to ship but it keeps getting pushed because of the market’s condition due to the pandemic. Apparently it will bring a regular Snapdragon 7 Series chip with no 5G, and he also pretty much confirms that we won’t be getting an XL variant after all. The Pixel 5 might get pushed back as well.
It seems that Apple is serious in its desire to get rid of cables. Its first step was to remove the headphone jack from its iPhone, we then stopped getting a dongle with the device, and now it seems that we may stop getting wired headphones altogether with the next iPhone 12 lineup.
According to the latest report from Ming-Chi Kuo, the upcoming iPhone 12 may arrive without a pair of wired EarPods in its retail package. Apple could use this determination to boost AirPods sales, which could mean that we’re not getting new AirPods or AirPods Pro this year. Rumors also suggest that Apple may offer an iPhone and AirPod bundle in the future, so people won’t miss the current EarPods that currently cost $29.
Today’s savings include Apple’s Mac Pro, MacBook Pro and more
Deals. Apple’s previous 13in MacBook Pro is currently $300 off on Amazon in several models, for example the 2.4GHz Intel Core i5, 8GB of RAM, 256GB of SSD variant is available for $1500. Yes it might not seem like a good deal at first, but consider this is the 4 thunderbolt 3 port model. If we have some pros in the comments, you can find up to $1600 in savings for the Mac Pro over at B&H with the most affordable variant going for $5900 with the discount. The 2018 iPad Pros are also $217 off, leaving the 11in variant starting at $800.
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Now, for those of you that aren’t interested in a Mac, we finally get some good looking competition to return along with the recent launches from Microsoft. After three years of recycled designs, Dell is finally updating their XPS Laptops. The company just announced a new XPS 15 Ultrabook and the XPS 17 which Dell claims is the smallest 17in laptop there is. To make matters more special is the price tag. The XPS 15 starts at $1300 for base configuration, but your upgrade options can get up to a 10th Gen Intel Core i7, 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, starting but that’ll hold you back $2449. The XPS 17 starts at $1499 for the base model, but configurations allow up to an octa-core 10th gen Intel Core i7, and up to 64GB of RAM, but that price is a steep.
Epic Games Store is down because everyone wants a free copy of GTA 5
Epic Games is notorious for giving you free games each month and this time they have a special one. GTA V Premium Edition is currently available for free but, there’s a problem… There was so much people trying to download it that the servers were completely down and you would simply get an error screen when you try to download it. It is running back now as my son just purchased it but if it isn’t working for you, the sale will go on until May 21st.
Apple to launch a new 10.8-inch iPad in 2020, iPad Mini to follow next year: Ming-Chi Kuo
We have a new report from Ming Chi Kuo with Apple’s roadmap for different products. He predicts that the Apple AR Glasses will launch some time in 2022, and they’ll be reliant on the iPhone to keep them slim and lightweight. They are expected to run Reality OS or rOS, and Apple is currently exploring touch panels, voice activation and gestures. Moving on to iPads he claims we will be getting two new iPad soon. A 10.8in iPad and a 8.5-9in iPad Mini for the second half of 2020 and the first half of 2021 respectively. These new iPads will follow on the iPhone SE product strategy with an affordable price tag and the adoption of newer, faster chips. On a previous note he also said that they are working on a miniLED iPad Mini which could be released later this year but it is not clear if this is the same one.
Samsung Galaxy Note 20 series may arrive with a 16GB RAM standard
We’re still a few months away but we’ve been getting a good amount of leaks for the Galaxy Note 20 line up. The same source from the previous leaks claims that one of the ways Samsung plans to differentiate the Note 20 from the S20 is with RAM. Apparently these could bring 16GB of RAM as a standard for both the Note 20 and the Note 20+. Currently, the only Galaxy S with 16GB of RAM, is the Ultra 5G with 512GB of storage. Samsung has been mass producing LPDDR5 RAM chips for mobile since February, and since the Ultra hasn’t sold too well, this might be a way of getting rid of the extra inventory. We are expecting both LTE and 5G variants so we don’t know yet if it will only be a standard on the 5G variants or on all of them. The source also claims that these are getting larger on-display ultra sonic fingerprint scanners from Qualcomm with an area 17x larger than before.
Story of the day:
New Google Pixel 4a could be more affordable than iPhone SE
And finally the hottest news today have to do with the gift that could keep on giving, the Google Piourse there can’t be no Pixel launch without the incredible amount of leaks. Now, we have the wallpapers for the 4a because, there’s nothing else to leak from the same source we had before. And if you want to, you can actually download these as the source uploaded them to a shareable folder so, we have them in the links in the description. All 16 of them. More importantly, all of the leaks hinted that the Pixel 4a would start at $339, like the iPhone SE but some new information claims that the Google Pixel 4a might undercut the iPhone SE by $50 or more, meaning that the 128GB Pixel 4a would cost $349 so there is a possibility that the 64GB variant could cost $299.
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Apple is reportedly working on a new 10.8-inch iPad that will debut in the second half of 2020, says reputed Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. As per an investor note obtained by Macrumors, GIS will be the key supplier of touch panels for the upcoming iPad.
In addition to it, Apple reportedly has an iPad Mini in the pipeline as well that will go official in the first half of 2021. The upcoming iPad Mini will have a display that will measure between 8.5 and 9-inch, but details about the rest of the package are not known at the moment.
Kuo adds that for the aforementioned iPads, Apple will follow a strategy similar to the iPhone SE. What this means is Apple will equip them with powerful processors but will cut a few corners to market them as affordable tablets in its lineup.
It seems that Apple is being forced to delay the arrival of more of its products due to coronavirus. Just yesterday, we found out that Ming-Chi Kuo expects the mini-LED iPad Pro and 16-inch MacBook Pro to arrive later than expected, maybe even 2021, and it seems that the new AirPods would share the same problem.
A new report from Nikkei Asian Review suggests that the new AirPods won’t arrive this year. They would be delayed until 2021 because of the current pandemic. It seems that the third-gen AirPods Pro mass production would start in the first half of 2021, while the second-gen AirPods Pro could begin their mass production between Q4 2021 and Q1 2022. Apple’s new headphones would also enter mass production by mid-2020.
The new AirPods that were rumored to arrive in the second half of 2020 could be the new Beats model. We are also waiting for the new “AirPods X” that are supposed to arrive sometime in September or October with a BeatsX-like design, since these would be fitness-focused.
