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Apple Confirms that all Three iPhone Models Releasing in 2020 will be 5G

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Most of the network providing companies have got their hands on the 5G technology, and so, the least we can expect from Apple is to incorporate the next iPhone models with the 5G compatibility. The rumours were already making rounds that the latest iPhone models will have support for 5G, and now, a note sent by Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo to the Apple investors has confirmed that three of Apple’s latest iPhone will render support for 5G.

Though in the past the company had suggested that it would be including the support for 5G in the two models of the three, it is going to launch in 2020. But since the competition is increasing and most of the Android phone developers have opted for 5G, the company has decided to get 5G to all three models it is going to release in 2020.

The previous reports also gave a hint on the sizes of the iPhones, i.e. 5.4, 6.7-inch and a 6.1-inch. All the three iPhones will have an OLED display, the first two models being the high-end iPhones. Previously, it was decided that except the 6.1-inch iPhone model, the other two would be supporting 5G, and it being the cheaper one, will have support for 3G/LTE network.

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Reportedly, Apple will be including a smaller TrueDepth camera with all the three iPhones, that will be able to shrink the notch on OLED screens. Also, the company will be adding a seven-piece lens system for their rear cameras.

All the three iPhones will also be including support for mmWave and Sub-6GHz spectrum. Though rising competition is one of the main reasons for adding the 5G support in all its new iPhones coming in 2020, having acquired Intel’s 5G business, the company, now, has more resources for bringing the 5G technology to its new phones. But the company will still be using the Qualcomm chips to make the 5G technology work on the upcoming iPhone models.

“Apple may have the intention to launch the 5G iPhone, which only supports Sub-6GHz, to gain market share by lowering the cost/price for markets which only support Sub-6GHz (e.g., Chinese market). However, 5G iPhone, which only supports Sub-6GHz and the version which supports mmWave & Sub-6GHz are regarded as different projects even though they share the same form factor design,” said Kuo.

Apple currently is working on the launch of its next range of iPhones in coming September. These iPhones are said to be the revision of the iPhone models the company released in 2018. There will be successors to all the three previously launched models, i.e. iPhone XR, XS and XS Max. The iPhone XR will have an LCD display, whereas the other two iPhones will be incorporated with Sport OLED displays. The all three iPhone models will be the premium version of their ancestors and will also have dual cameras.

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Apple and Intel Agrees on Apple Acquiring the Intel’s Smartphone Modem Business for $1B

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Apple, through a blog post, announced on Thursday that it is going to acquire the majority of Intel’s smartphone modem business. According to the post, over 2200 Intel employees will switch to Apple. The agreement between Apple and Intel also includes the acquisition of IP and equipment from Intel and the payable amount for Apple is set to be $1 billion.

The deal between Apple and Intel is no surprise for most of the people, as there have been rumours making rounds that Apple will be taking over the Intel’s modem business so that it will not have to rely on other companies for the modems for its smartphones.

After the deal is closed, Apple will be independently building its own 5G modems for iPhones. Recently the company settled its dispute with its longtime modem supplier Qualcomm. But it seems Apple is no more interested in taking the help of a third party supplier for the equipment. The company will also be taking over the right on Intel’s 17,000 wireless technology patents.

Apple and Intel
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“We’ve worked with Intel for many years and know this team shares Apple’s passion for designing technologies that deliver the world’s best experiences for our users. Apple is excited to have so many excellent engineers join our growing cellular technologies group, and know they’ll thrive in Apple’s creative and dynamic environment. They, together with our significant acquisition of innovative IP, will help expedite our development on future products and allow Apple to further differentiate moving forward.” said Johny Srouji SVP Apple.

Apple leads towards in-house production

Apple and Intel broke the news two months after the former made a settlement with Qualcomm in April. In fact, Intel had also announced that it plans to stop all its operations of producing smartphone modems after the two companies had ended their years’ long-running dispute. However, Intel will still be developing the modems for PCs, laptops, Internet of Things, etc.

According to Apple, the two companies will close the deal by the end of 2019, after going through all the legalities. Beliving the rumours, Apple may start 5G modem production as soon as the mid of 2020. The deal will lead Apple towards in-house production, and this way, it can focus better on the quality of its products as well as save a lot of money.

Apple Acquires Drive.ai, a Dying Startup that Once Valued $200M

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Reportedly, Apple has just acquired the California based technology company, Drive.ai, for an unknown amount. Noticeably, around a fortnight ago, Drive.ai started planning to cease all its operations, and now, Apple has taken over its regulations, in order to strengthen this four years old self-driving startup, which once even valued a $200 million.

The startup was founded by a group of PhD students in 2015, and since then, it has developed various retrofit kits to transform a simple vehicle into a self-driving car. The kits developed by Drive.ai includes camera-based and LIDAR sensors that help the vehicles drive by themselves. In fact, it is the second AI company that removed the human assistance from its autonomous vehicles. The company had been successfully operating a ride-hailing service in Texas, but due to some failed experiments, it had to shut down.

According to a June 12 filing with California’s Employment Development Department, the company decided to cease its operations and layoff over 90 employees. In fact, the cofounders Sameep Tandon and Tao Wang left the company in June only, and there are a few other key people who have left the company till now.

But with the acquisition, there are chances that the company may be back in the business. According to a report, with the takeover, Apple has also hired a dozen engineers from Drive.ai. All the company’s autonomous and the other assets have also come under Apple’s acquisition. But still Apple would be cutting off 200 of Drive.ai’s employees from Drive.ai’s Titan self-driving car project, and that would be at the beginning of 2020.

The acquisition of a dying autonomous vehicle manufacturing company is only indicating that Apple is still interested in self-driving car software development. This way, it will be a great step for the company in the field of the self-driving car business. The issue here again maybe for Drive.ai, as it has already raised a good amount of money from the biggest of the investors around the world, but it could not survive the pressure. Now we need to see if it can survive with Apple or not.

Apple Releases the iOS13 Beta for Public

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Apple just launched the public beta of its next operating system, iOS13, for the iPhone and iPad. The company has developed separate operating systems for iPhone and iPad for the very first time, naming them iOS, for the iPhone and iPadOS, for the iPad. The iOS13 will also empower the iPod touch. And, both the OSs are now available as a beta for the general public.

The company plans to release the original iOS13 by the coming fall, but before that, it will be testing the OS and will keep on updating it to fix the bugs prior to the original release.

iOS13
Image Source: macrumors.com

With the release of the iOS13 beta, it revealed the various features that will be embedded to the OS, including the dark mode, new photo gallery and editing options, revamped Apple maps and reminders, etc.

The company has finally brought the dark mode to iPhones and iPads. There are various options to activate the dark mode. The user can apply the dark mode manually or can schedule the on and off time for the same. There is also an option through which the iPhone and the iPad automatically adapt to the dark mode when it senses darkness around. For now, all Apple’s pre-installed apps are enabled with dark mode, whereas the third party apps that do not support dark mode will not respond to the iOS dark mode.

With the iOS13, Apple has brought a new photo app, that sorts pictures on the basis of time, date, month and year, and also provides various new editing features. These amazing editing features allow you to make changes to the white balance, definition, vignette, brilliance, contrast, saturation, sharpness, noise reduction on pictures, highlights, and shadows, etc. This new app has got great UI and is faster.

iOS13 also brings new renovated Apple Maps that allow the users to set icons for the places they visit often, like their home, office, a favourite restaurant, a friend’s house, etc. The new app now has more precise data about locations and is faster when showing the directions. The company has also made some good changes to the app’s street view and CarPlay features. The street view option is now better with its new 3D feature ‘Look Around’.

The old Reminder app that Apple offered to its users was quite a useless one, but this time, the users will be able to add geofences, times, or pictures to reminders. The app has got new options, like filters for the due work, for the work that is already done, and for the scheduled work. Siri will also play a role in the Reminder, and the user will also be able to add contacts to the app.

Apple has also worked on enhancing the security for the Apple devices, and has introduced a new signup option called “Sign in with Apple”. Along with that, it has also released new permissions for the Bluetooth, wifi, as well as location tracking.

The other new features include adding a profile picture to the messaging app, which will be visible to the user’s contacts only, Mail with new formatting options, and Safari with a new website settings menu, etc.

Apple May Replace iTunes with New Music, TV and Podcast Apps

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iTunes
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The Apple’s annual conference, WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference), to be held in San Jose, is about to start, and the company is all set to make the major announcements for this year. The main attraction for the event will be the latest iOS it is going to announce for the iPhones and the iPads. But as reported by Reddit, Apple might say goodbye to its eighteen years old music streaming service, iTunes.

MacRumors and some of the Redditors have noticed that the company has been removing stuff, i.e. pictures, posts, and videos, related to iTunes from its official Facebook and Instagram accounts. The company has even removed the iTunes Facebook and Instagram pages, giving an indication that Apple might be planning to discontinue the very service. In fact, the posts have been migrated to the Apple TV’s social media handles. But the company has still maintained iTunes Twitter account.

According to a report by Bloomberg, the company aspires to make a hold in the entertainment industry by introducing three separate apps for music, TV and podcasts, replacing iTunes. 9to5Mac, even, shared leaked screenshots of those three apps, displaying how these would look like.

The company has not commented on any of these reports, but we can expect the mention of iTunes in the keynote the Apple CEO Tim Cook will deliver at the conference.

iTunes is one of the revolutionary product from Apple released at the time when the internet had not even reached to every corner of the world. It was a single online place where people could purchase music legally. Even Napster had come two years earlier than iTunes, the latter went viral in no time. But since there has been the emergence of other better music stores and music streaming services, iTunes somewhere lagged behind, and now Apple has to think of new methods of entertainment it should provide to its consumers.

Also, like every year, the company is going to announce a new iOS at the conference, i.e. iOS 13. According to the reports, the new iOS will feature dark mode as well as a new health feature. Also, the new iOS will help turn the iPad as a computer-like device. The company is also up to upgrading its other apps, including Reminders and Books, and it may announce a newer iOS version for the Apple Watch, that it may launch by the end of 2019.

Apple’s Q2 Revenues Shows a Drop in iPhone Sales, Apple Services Being the Profit Maker

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Apple has just released its quarterly revenue report, which clearly shows that the profits gained through the sales of its smartphone have lowered to an extent, as there has been a steady decrease in the sales of the iPhone in the recent times. But the company is not making much of the fuss about it as its quarterly profits also included the revenues from its other services.

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The company reported on Tuesday that though it sold $31 billion worth of iPhones in Q1 2019, in the Q2 2019, the share of the iPhone sales was only 53% of the total fiscal second quarter revenues. The lowered profits through iPhone sales have also lowered the total year-over-year revenue by 17.33%. Also, Apple’s laptop series including MacBook Pro and iMac had to see a decrease in their sales despite new updates and the last year’s 100 million Macs in use milestone.

But on the other hand with the new updates to Apple’s other hardware series, i.e. iPad, outshined in the tablet market, and its individual revenue was higher by 22% year-over-year. Also, the company is constantly providing new services to its installed base of 900 million active iPhones, which also added to the Q2 fiscal profits. The company CEO Tim Cook mentioned the services including iCloud and iTunes, which are becoming more popular and are contributing more to the revenues. Also, its other hardware lineups, especially its wearables, including the AirPods, Apple Watch and Beats headphones are having more demand among the users, resulting in more profits.

“Our March quarter results show the continued strength of our installed base of over 1.4 billion active devices, as we set an all-time record for Services, and the strong momentum of our Wearables, Home and Accessories category, which set a new March quarter record. We delivered our strongest iPad growth in six years, and we are as excited as ever about our pipeline of innovative hardware, software and services. We’re looking forward to sharing more with developers and customers at Apple’s 30th annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June.” said Cook.

Apple has also got a share of its Q2 revenues from its streaming service, which is expected to gain more client base in the coming future. The wearables, other hardware and the streaming services, are the new sources of revenue for the company, which it had been neglecting in the past years. But still, the iPhone is going to be its main revenue generator in the coming years, too. Though iPhones have seen a decrease in its sales, its sales are expected to revamp as soon as the new 5G iPhone will arrive in 2020.