Apple has ordered more than 24 million iPhone displays from LG as it prepares to start manufacturing its next-generation devices.
The South Korean company is expected to supply around 20 million LCD panels for the all-new 6.1-inch iPhone, plus 4 million OLED panels for a flagship model.
LG is also said to become the primary supplier of OLED displays for next year’s devices.
Editor’s note: There’s fresh evidence that the new MacBook Pro keyboard actually does address the problems experienced by some owners.
Read our: Teardown reveals MacBook Pro keyboard is redesigned to prevent keys sticking
The MacBook Pro models just introduced include faster processors and better displays, but the most important new feature might be the keyboard. This has been redesigned, hopefully to fix serious problems that plagued earlier versions.
The “butterfly” keyboard in MacBook Pro models since 2016 have sparked a well-publicized recall petition and multiple lawsuits. This makes the reliability of the keyboard in the new devices a critical matter.
Siri has plenty of problems, but it just got one more: a lawsuit claiming Apple’s technology is infringing on patents belonging to another company.
The company in question, Advanced Voice Recognition Systems, is suing Apple for infringing on its previously held patent “Speech Recognition and Transcription Among Users Having Heterogeneous Protocols.”
Apple’s allegedly offending products include *deep breath* the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, HomePod, and Apple TV. Everything that runs Siri, basically!
Apple appears to be planning to put WiGig in future iPhones. This a version of Wi-Fi that’s more than five times faster than 802.11ac.
An Intel Wi-Fi and Bluetooth modem has reportedly been turned down by Apple because it lacked WiGig. This certainly implies that the iPhone maker will go looking for a modem that does include this feature.
The patent for a case that can protect an iPhone X from a 100-foot drop was filed in 1883 – toilet paper on a roll.
Admittedly, the history isn’t quite right, but the hosts of the YouTube channel GizmoSlip did discover that an iPhone X nestled in two rolls of toilet paper can fall form a drone high in the sky and look and work like new.
Don’t expect to see the rumored folding Windows computer any time soon. In fact, Microsoft might have cancelled the device code named Andromeda.
This would have been small enough to be pocketable, but then unfold to become a tablet about the size of an iPad mini.
Apple is considering a new iPhone modem supplier as it looks to reduce its reliance on Qualcomm.
The company is yet to decide whether it will add MediaTek to its supply chain for its next-generation iPhone lineup. But Apple is keen to limit its dealings with Qualcomm after a recent legal spat in which the latter attempted to ban iPhone imports into the United States.
This week on The CultCast: Apple plans new, improved AirPods, HomePod and over-ear headphones; Apple finally acknowledges its new MacBook keyboards suck, and they’re going to make it right; a top Apple analyst drops a bunch of details on Apple’s 2018 product pipeline; and how Apple is trying to solve a fascinating issue their autonomous car.
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Apple’s heated battle with Qualcomm is continuing and, as part of it, the company wants a legally sanctioned block to be placed on import iPhones featuring Intel chips.
However, a group of Apple consumers is striking back, arguing that any kind of an import ban would, “freeze out Intel’s nascent challenge to Qualcomm’s illegal monopoly” and “injure competition in a market already suffering from Qualcomm’s anticompetitive behavior.”
Apple is developing technology that would combine a cylindrical device and possibly smart clothing to provide blind and deaf people tactile or auditory signals to navigate their environments.
According to a patent application filed by Apple today, the device would map the environment with sensor data and provide feedback. For the blind, the device could sync with an iPhone to provide spoken feedback to the blind. For the deaf, vibrating signals could be delivered to a wearable, such as a shirt or the Apple Watch.