Ever felt like your phone is eavesdropping on your conversations? You mention a new pair of hiking boots to a friend, and miraculously, your Instagram feed is awash with walking clobber.
While tech companies often claim they don’t “listen” in the traditional sense, they do use “passive listening” for wake words as well as massive amounts of behavioural data to predict your interests.
If you want to reclaim your privacy, here is a short guide on how to shut down the digital ears of your smartphone right now.
1. Disable Your “Virtual Assistant”
The primary way your microphone stays “active” is to listen for wake words like “Hey Siri” or “Hey Google.” While these are meant to be helpful, they mean your microphone is technically always on.
For iPhone: Go to Settings > Siri & Search. Toggle off “Listen for ‘Hey Siri’” and “Press Side Button for Siri.”
For Android: Open the Google App, tap your profile icon, and go to Settings > Google Assistant > Hey Google & Voice Match. Toggle it off.
2. Audit Your App Permissions
Many apps request microphone access during installation for no logical reason. Why does a calculator or a photo editor need to hear you?
For iPhone: Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Microphone. You will see a list of every app with mic access. Toggle off anything that doesn’t strictly need it (including social media apps if you don’t record stories).
For Android: Go to Settings > Apps > See all apps. Select an app, tap Permissions, then Microphone, and select “Don’t allow.”
3. Kill “Personalized Advertising”
Even if the mic is off, apps track your “cross-contextual” behaviour – in other words, they follow you from one app to another to build a profile of your life.
For iPhone: Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking and turn off “Allow Apps to Request to Track.” Then go to Apple Advertising at the bottom of the Privacy menu and turn off “Personalized Ads.”
For Android: Go to Settings > Google > Ads and tap “Delete Advertising ID.” This resets the unique string of numbers used by marketers to identify you.
The orange dot on an iPhone screen means the mic is in use
4. Watch for the “Warning Lights”
Modern smartphones have built-in physical indicators to tell you when a hardware component is active.
iPhone users: Look for a small orange dot in the top right corner of your screen. If you see it and you aren’t on a call or recording a memo, an app is actively using your microphone.
Android users: On newer versions (Android 12+), a green microphone icon or dot appears in the status bar when the mic is being accessed.
5. Clear Your Voice History
Big Tech keeps a “memory bank” of your previous voice requests to “improve their service.” You should purge this regularly.
Google: Visit myactivity.google.com,click on “Web & App Activity,” and find the section for “Voice & Audio Activity” to delete your recordings.
Apple: Go to Settings > Siri & Search > Siri & Dictation History and tap “Delete Siri & Dictation History.”
6. The “Hardware” Approach
If you want to go full paranoid mode, consider physical barriers. Some privacy-conscious users use “microphone blockers” – small plugs that go into the headphone jack or charging port to trick the phone into thinking an external mic is plugged in.
Alternatively, keep your phone in another room or inside a “Faraday bag” during sensitive private conversations.
By following these steps, you move from being a passive data point to an empowered consumer, ensuring that your private conversations stay exactly that.
Suffolk, England – For parents Daisy Greenwell and Joe Ryrie, freedom means looking up at the world around them instead of down at their phones, and they’re determined to pass that sense of non-digital liberty on to their children.
Their daughter started asking for a smartphone when she was just eight years old, because her classmates were getting them. The pressure to have a phone at such a young age surprised Greenwell, and pushed her to look more closely at the trend.
She found a growing body of research suggesting that heavy smartphone use may negatively impact young people’s mental health.
The more she read, the more concerned she became, so Greenwell decided to take action. She posted a question on Instagram: What if we could switch the norm? What if parents united to create a “smartphone-free childhood?”
The response was immediate.
“That post went viral,” she told CBS News. “Thousands of parents joined the group overnight.”
Daisy Greenwell and Joe Ryrie are the co-founders of Smartphone Free Childhood. The grassroots parent-led movement now has chapters in 39 countries.
CBS News
Within a couple weeks, Greenwell said there were smartphone-free childhood groups in every county in England. One year later, the grassroots campaign has expanded far beyond the U.K. borders.
The group — Smartphone Free Childhood — now has chapters in 39 countries.
For Greenwell, Ryrie and the thousands of families who’ve joined the movement, the goal is simple: More time outdoors, and a childhood lived offline as much as possible.
In the U.S., the movement even inspired a cautionary viral advertisement, highlighting the dangers of giving children unrestricted access to the internet. A parent in the ad tells their child: “There’s a box in the corner with all the pornographic material ever made. I’m trusting you not to look in there, okay?”
The backlash against youth consumption of social media has drawn the attention of governments globally. On Wednesday, Australia became the first country in the world to enact a ban on social media accounts for children under the age of 16. The law compels huge tech companies such as Meta and TikTok to enforce age restrictions, or face hefty fines.
In the U.K., national Culture Minister Lisa Nandy said the government would be keeping a “close eye” on Australia’s social media ban, but added that there were no current plans to replicate the legislation.
At a grassroots level, however, parents who join Greenwell and Ryrie’s movement are asked to sign a pact: No smartphones for the kids before they turn 14, and no social media before 16.
“This isn’t an anti-tech movement, it’s a pro-childhood movement. We’re not saying no smartphones ever. We’re just saying children don’t need unrestricted internet access in their pockets 24/7,” Ryrie told CBS News.
When asked what she’d tell busy working parents who rely on phones for convenience, Greenwell acknowledged the challenge.
“It’s really tough,” she said. “But delaying the smartphone is free, it’s simple, and it gives your child the best chance to thrive.”
Many families are turning to basic “brick phones” as alternatives — devices that allow calls and texts, but limit internet access. Sales of such “dumb” devices have risen 150% among 18-24 year olds in the United States, according to a study by the peer-reviewed journal Partners Universal Innovative Research Publication.
Despite the momentum, Greenwell says there’s still a cultural norm to disrupt, and available data highlights that point. One in four British kids between the ages of 5 and 7 already own a smartphone, according to the U.K.’s independent media regulator Ofcom.
Greenwell said she believes real change can be driven from the community level.
“If children know several classmates are also delaying smartphones, the peer pressure dissolves,” she told CBS News. “It becomes easier for families to wait a few years. A brick phone in the meantime isn’t that hard. We can do this.”
A U.K. couple started with a simple message, asking on Instagram if other parents could ban together to start a smartphone-free childhood. It’s now grown to a global movement, with a chapter in 39 countries. Leigh Kiniry reports.
New Delhi — India’s government revoked an order on Wednesday that had directed smartphone makers such as Apple and Samsung to install a state-developed and owned security app on all new devices. The move came after two days of criticism from opposition politicians and privacy organizations that the “Sanchar Saathi” app was an effort to snoop on citizens through their phones.
“Government has decided not to make the pre-installation mandatory for mobile manufacturers,” India’s Ministry of Communications said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.
The initial order, issued privately to phone makers by the ministry late last month, was leaked to Indian media outlets on Monday. It directed all phone makers to preinstall the Sanchar Saathi (which means Communication Partner in Hindi) app on new phones within 90 days, and also on older phones through software updates.
A man installs the state-owned and run cybersecurity application Sanchar Saathi on his mobile phone in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India, Dec. 2, 2025.
Firdous Nazir/NurPhoto/Getty
The order, reported from Monday by numerous Indian media outlets and later acknowledged by the government, had asked manufacturers to ensure that the functions of the app could not be “disabled or restricted.”
There was an immediate backlash on Monday, with opposition political parties quickly labelling the government software a “snooping app” and drawing parallels to Pegasus, the hacking spyware developed, marketed and licensed to governments around the world by the Israeli company NSO Group.
On Tuesday, India’s national Minister of Communications Jyotiraditya Scindia insisted to journalists outside the parliament that the Sanchar Sathi app was non-compulsory and in line with democratic principles. He said smartphone owners could activate the app at their convenience to access its benefits, and they could also delete it from devices at any time.
He did not, however, say anything on Tuesday to deny or change the order to phone makers to ensure the app was pre-installed.
On Wednesday, Scindia insisted that “neither is snooping possible, nor it will be done” with the app.
India’s Minister of Communications Jyotiraditya M. Scindia speaks during a news conference at the National Media Center, in an Oct. 17, 2025 file photo taken in New Delhi, India.
Vipin Kumar/Hindustan Times/Getty
While the order for it to be installed universally was revoked, the government continued defending the app on Wednesday, saying the intent had been to “provide access to cybersecurity to all citizens,” and insisting that it was “secure and purely meant to help citizens.”
Opposition politicians say “it is a snooping app”
The government’s U-turn came after sharp criticism from opposition political parties and digital rights advocates.
“It is a snooping app. It’s ridiculous. Citizens have the right to privacy. Everyone must have the right to privacy to send messages to family, friends, without the government looking at everything,” Priyanka Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress party, told reporters outside India’s parliament on Tuesday.
“They brought in Pegasus and have been unable to keep it under control. MPs and MLAs all say that their phones are being tapped. For the last 11 years, basic rights of the Indians have been taken away… This is the real violation of National Security,” said Renuka Chowdhury, another Congress member.
Digital privacy advocates also raised concerns about the government order, saying it would breach citizens’ right to privacy in a country with more than 1.2 billion cell phone users.
“No government will ever be expected to acknowledge that a government app is a snooping tool, even in China and Russia, where such apps have been mandated,” Indian technology analyst Prasanto K. Roy told CBS News on Wednesday. “A government statement alone is not adequate to inspire confidence in this.”
Roy said the government should restrict the default permissions settings that enable the app to access data on smartphones to the absolute minimum, and explain why those permissions were deemed necessary. He added that the code for the app should be open-source and published online, to enable independent security professionals to scrutinise it.
“In plain terms, this converts every smartphone sold in India into a vessel for state-mandated software that the user cannot meaningfully refuse, control, or remove,” the Internet for Freedom organization said in a statement Tuesday, before the government revoked its order. “For this to work in practice, the app will almost certainly need system level or root level access … so that it cannot be disabled. That design choice erodes the protections that normally prevent one app from peering into the data of others, and turns Sanchar Saathi into a permanent, non-consensual point of access sitting inside the operating system of every Indian smartphone user.”
Technology analyst Roy told CBS News the real issue was “not about faith in the government’s benevolence,” but rather “concerns about potential access to a wide range of data by many junior or mid-level officials in government or law enforcement,” as there was no clarity about what data could be accessed via the app, or who would have access to it.
Major phone makers did not publicly react to the government order, but the Reuters news agency reported that Apple had planned to refuse to comply.
Indian government says it’s just trying to help
The government argues that the app allows users to track, block and recover lost or stolen smartphones using the device’s International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI), a unique code assigned to all handsets sold around the world.
It also enables users to check how many unique mobile data connections are registered under their name, which it says will help people identify and disable fraudulent numbers and accounts opened by scammers.
Other features include tools to report suspected fraudulent calls and to verify the authenticity of devices being used to make purchases, according to officials.
The government said in its multiple statements that the app had already been downloaded 14 million times, and used to help trace 2.6 million lost or stolen phones. It said Sanchar Sathi had helped in the disconnection of over 4 million fraudulent connections, based on citizen reports.
Having a smartphone may be harmful for children younger than 12, according to a new study.
The study published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Pediatrics found that owning a smartphone during early adolescence is associated with increased risks of mental health issues and obesity. As far as psychological impacts, it pinpointed higher incidences of depression and insufficient sleep among children who owned smartphones by ages 12 or younger, compared with others kids without the devices.
Researchers at Children’s Hospital Philadelphia, the University of California at Berkeley, and Columbia University arrived at those conclusions after analyzing data from more than 10,000 adolescents around the United States who participated in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (ABCD) between 2018 and 2020. That study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, describes itself as “the largest long-term study of brain development and child health” in the country.
According to researchers, 63.6% of the ABCD study’s participants owned a smartphone, and the median age they received them was at 11 years old. Using that data, the researchers determined that younger children had greater risks than older participants of poor sleep or obesity linked to smartphone ownership, with increasingly worse health outcomes reported for kids the younger they were when they received their first smartphone.
“We didn’t even look at what the kids did on the phone,” Ran Barzilay, the lead author of the study and a child psychiatrist with the Youth Suicide Prevention, Intervention and Research Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told CBS News. “We basically asked one simple question: does the mere factor of having one’s own smartphone at this age range have anything to do with health outcomes?”
The Pediatrics study also compared children who had obtained a smartphone by age 12 and children who had not, and found that one year later, those without smartphones were experiencing better mental health than those who had them.
“We did account for the fact that the kids may have had other technological devices like tablets or iPads, and it did not change the results,” Barzilay said in an interview on CBS News’ “The Daily Report.”
In a separate statement, Barzilay said his study’s findings suggest that parents should see smartphones as having “a significant factor in teen health” and approach the decision to give children a phone with care and consideration. He noted that smartphones “can play a constructive role” in teens’ lives by strengthening their social connections and helping them learn, adding that some families see smartphones as necessary for their children’s safety.
Going forward, Barzilay said the researchers behind the study hope to investigate which aspects of smartphone use and ownership are connected with negative health effects for young people. Researchers intend to study younger children, who acquired smartphones before age 10, in an effort to understand who is most vulnerable to the detrimental impacts of smartphone use who and who could most benefit from it. Ultimately, Barzilay said the goal is to identify ways to protect children and adolescents who own smartphones from the consequences outlined in their findings.
In recent years, a growing number of experts have sounded the alarm about increased screen time and the effect it has on kids and teens. In a 2023 advisory on social media use and mental health, former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy recommended creating “tech-free zones” and encouraging kids to “foster in-person friendships.” Meanwhile, several states have taken steps to ban cellphones in schools.
According to Pew Research Center, 95% of teens between the ages of 13 and 17 owned a smartphone in 2024. More than half of parents with children between the ages of 11 and 12 who were surveyed by the research center at that time said their kids also owned smartphones. The same survey found that nearly 30% of parents with children between 8 and 10 years old said their kids owned smartphones, as did 12% of parents with children between 5 and 7 years old, and 8% of parents with children younger than 5.
“Most probably, all teens will eventually have a smartphone,” said Barzilay. “Once this happens, it is advisable to monitor what our children do on their phones, ensuring they’re not exposed to inappropriate content and that smartphones don’t disrupt sleep.”
Ayaneo is breaking into the competitive smartphone market with its latest offering, but it’s hoping to attract the mobile gamers out there. In a teaser posted to its YouTube, the gaming handheld maker offered its first look at the Ayaneo Phone. As vague as the trailer is, Ayaneo clearly has a target demographic in mind, describing the smartphone as when a “mobile phone meets the soul of gaming handheld.”
From the teaser, it looks like the Ayaneo Phone will be built with a standard dual-camera setup. Perhaps more relevant for its gaming-centric design, it looks like the smartphone will have physical shoulder buttons when held horizontally. Ayaneo previously mentioned the Ayaneo Phone during a product sharing session in the summer, where it hinted at a form factor that slides out. This could be another hint that Ayaneo is looking at making a modern-day version of the Sony Xperia Play, particularly since the Ayaneo Phone will fall under the company’s Remake branding that features remakes of retro consoles and devices.
Considering Ayaneo’s price tags for its other products, the Ayaneo Phone likely won’t be cheap. However, it could offer serious competition to other gaming smartphones from Asus or Redmagic.
Hardware startup Nothing said Thursday that it plans to make its affordable device brand, CMF, into an independent subsidiary with India serving as its headquarters for manufacturing and R&D.
The company first launched CMF in 2023 with a pair of earbuds and a smartwatch. Since then, it has introduced smartphones under the brand as well.
Nothing said that it is partnering with Indian ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) Optiemus to create a joint venture for manufacturing. While the startup didn’t reveal the ownership structure of this venture, it said that it aims to invest more than $100 million over the next three years, while creating over 1,800 jobs.
Nothing’s decision to choose India as CMF’s operational headquarters makes sense for a few reasons. CMF’s smartphones have been priced under $200, and that is the dominant category in India, with over 42% of phones shipped in Q2 2025 being in the $100-$200 price range, according to IDC.
India has also been Nothing’s strongest market with over 2% market share in smartphones. IDC told TechCrunch via email that Nothing was the fastest-growing brand in the country in Q2 2025, with 85% growth in shipments year over year.
“India will play a key role in shaping the future of the global smartphone industry. CMF has been well-received by the market since we launched it two years ago. With our end-to-end capabilities, we are uniquely positioned to now build it into India’s first truly global smartphone brand. Our joint venture with Optiemus is a key milestone toward making that vision a reality,” Nothing’s CEO Carl Pei said in a statement.
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The company’s move comes after it poached Himanshu Tondon from Xiaomi’s spin-off brand POCO last month to be VP of Business for CMF.
Next to the ultra-thin iPhone Air and the packed-to-gills iPhone 17 Pro/17 Pro Max, the iPhone 17 looks unremarkable—boring, even. The three new colors other than black and white are less vibrant than the shades the iPhone 16 came in. But peel back a few layers and things become clear: the iPhone 17, starting at $799, is in fact a remarkable value, providing a ton of bang for your buck.
Besides the slight growth of the screen from 6.1 inches to 6.3 inches, the iPhone 17 is cosmetically similar to the iPhone 16. If the iPhone Air is the new premium model and the iPhone 17 Pros are the most powerful, then the iPhone 17 is the everyman’s iPhone. It has more than enough solid upgrades over last year’s model, but not as many as the iPhone 17 Pros.
The iPhone 17 is not going to wow anyone with its industrial design, but underneath it all, it’s a trooper that goes the distance. It’s the iPhone you get if you want the Goldilocks experience.
iPhone 17
The iPhone 17 offers the best bang for buck in an iPhone. It’s a value proposition that’ll last for at least five years.
Take the iPhone 16 design, stretch it a teensy bit up, and you get the iPhone 17. That may sound harsh, but it’s true: the iPhone 17 is 5.89 inches tall versus the 5.81-inch iPhone 16. Somehow it’s 0.01 inches narrower, though. It’s unlikely you’ll feel that it’s 0.24 ounces heavier, either; I didn’t.
If you were hoping for more material change, you’re gonna be disappointed. I don’t think it’s worth fretting over since the iPhone 17 feels great in the hand. Not that most people will care since they’ll slap a case over it.
Apple has stuck with an aluminum frame and gently curved sides that melt into the cover and back glass. The back has a vertically aligned pill-shaped bump for the dual cameras. What you can’t see with the naked eye is the improved scratch resistance for the screen. Apple is using Ceramic Shield 2, its second-gen cover material with increased durability, which Apple claims is 3x more scratch resistant than the iPhone 16’s first-gen Ceramic Shield screen. Apple also says Ceramic Shield 2 cuts down on glare. It doesn’t eliminate reflections from what I could see, and any reduction in glare is minimal at best. Still, I’ll take the increased scratch resistance. I asked Apple if Ceramic Shield 2 now means that keys or sand or pocket lint won’t easily scratch it, but the company clarified that its durability claims are not for a single instance where there’s unfortunate contact with some scratchy objects; it’s over time. Take that for what you will.
Colors are subjective, but if you ask me, I think the iPhone 17 colors are dull. Besides black and white, there’s lavender, sage, and mist blue. Sage looks the best to me, but it’s still a muted green. I think it’s time for Apple to bring back red or coral or pacific blue. Give the regular iPhone some soul to stand out between the iPhone Air and iPhone Pros.
That 0.08 inches of extra height means Apple was able to squeeze in a slightly larger 6.3-inch screen versus the 6.1-inch display on the iPhone 16. This is the same screen as the iPhone 17 Pro, with the same resolution, same 3,000 nits of peak outdoor brightness, the same 120 Hz “ProMotion” refresh rate, and the same always-on display. At last, Apple’s regular iPhone series isn’t saddled with a 60Hz refresh rate.
To my eyes, there’s no visible difference between the screen on the iPhone 17 and the 17 Pro. Both Super Retina XDR displays look crisp, have excellent and wide viewing angles, and get more than bright enough indoors and outdoors. I neglected to mention this in my iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pros review, but I really wish Apple would include something akin to the “Aqua Touch 2.0 technology” in the OnePlus 13 that makes the touchscreen more responsive when there’s liquid on it or your fingers are wet. The slightest droplet of water on the iPhone 17 still confuses the screen into thinking you’re touching it when you’re not.
Nearly pro performance
Unlike Android phones, where performance can take a major downturn if the chipset maker (Qualcomm, Samsung, MediaTek, etc.) has architecture or production problems, Apple’s A-series silicon just steadily gets better year after year.
I’ve long stopped putting too much emphasis on synthetic benchmarks like Geekbench 6, but just to see how much less powerful the iPhone 17’s A19 chip is compared to the A19 Pro in the iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pros, I ran the CPU test. The results truly shocked me. Using the average of three tests taken on the iPhone 17, iPhone Air, and iPhone 17 Pro, the iPhone 17 was 1.6% more powerful than the Air and 1.3% less powerful than the 17 Pro for single-core tasks.
The A19 Pro chip pulls ahead of the A19 for multicore applications, but not by much: the Air is 5% more powerful and 17 Pro is 9.48% more powerful than the iPhone 17. I thought for sure with one less GPU core (five instead of six) that the iPhone 17 Pros would be more powerful by a larger margin, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
That’s great news if you’re worried about getting FOMO from not having the A19 Pro chip in the iPhone 17. But there’s another thing to consider: thermals and sustained performance. Compared to the iPhone 17 Pros, which have a vapor chamber that keeps temperatures down and spreads heat across the phone more uniformly when apps push the GPU hard, the iPhone 17 gets warmer a lot quicker. And if it gets too hot, it takes a little longer to cool down. Generally, my iPhone 17 review unit never got toasty, but if you’re planning to play 3D games like Genshin Impact or shoot a lot of 4K video with the phone or do either under the sun in hot environments, you may run into the infamous “”iPhone needs to cool down” sooner.
The iPhone 17 has some solid camera upgrades, too. The dual rear camera is now a “Fusion” camera consisting of a 48-megapixel main camera and now a higher-resolution 48-megapixel ultrawide (up from 12 megapixels on the iPhone 16). Photos look about the same to me compared to the same shots taken with my iPhone 16 Pro. Even the ultrawide shots look nearly identical; okay, they’re slightly brighter, but that’s nothing dialing up the brightness slider in the Photos app couldn’t easily handle. There’s no telephoto lens on the iPhone 17; if you want that, you’ll need to step up to the iPhone 17 Pros, which have a 4x telephoto lens that’s also capable of 8x “optical-quality” shots. You do get the 2x “optical-quality” lens from the main 48-megapixel image sensor, but that was already a feature on the iPhone 16.
As I said in my iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pros review, the Center Stage camera is the biggest upgrade for photography and video since Apple first added a front-facing camera on the iPhone 4. The 18-megapixel Center Stage camera is a square image sensor, which can capture horizontal selfies even if you’re holding the phone vertically. You can also take vertical photos if you hold the iPhone 17 horizontally. The feature also works for video recording. It’s a very cool feature that everyone is going to appreciate, not just Gen Z TikTokers. The Dual Capture mode that records from the front and rear cameras is also very fun, especially for reaction-type videos.
Since the iPhone 17 is not a “pro” iPhone, it doesn’t have the more advanced recording features found in the iPhone 17 Pros, like ProRAW for stills, ProRes for video, Apple Log 2, or genlock. Slow-motion video recording is also limited to 1080p at 240 fps compared to 4K at 120 fps on the 17 Pros. Lastly, you don’t get the “studio-quality” microphones found in the 17 Pros. I don’t think any of these “missing” features makes the iPhone 17 a dealbreaker, but it does feel like Apple could have included them if it wanted to, other than to feature-lock them to the higher-end iPhones.
And just like I said in my iPhone 17 Pros review, I think Camera Control is still largely wasted. It’s there, but not more useful than as a shortcut to launching the Camera app. I much prefer the camera shortcut on Android, which has been a thing for over a decade: double-clicking the power button.
No amount of battery life is ever going to be enough, but I’ll gladly take more hours gen-over-gen. In the iPhone 17’s case, battery life has increased by 8 hours compared to the iPhone 16—up to 30 hours versus 22 hours (for local video playback, which is how Apple measures battery life). It’s 3 fewer hours than the iPhone 17 Pro, which gets up to 33 hours.
Using the iPhone 17 like a normal human being (because who is insane enough to watch local video for 30 hours straight), I found the iPhone 17 lasted about as long as my iPhone 16 Pro, which Apple says gets up to 27 hours for video playback. Give or take, I was able to go from off the charger at 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on a single charge with around 20 to 25% left in the tank. That’s great battery life and you can easily go two days with light usage.
If all of that doesn’t sound like a good enough value, how about double the storage (256GB versus 128GB) versus the iPhone 16—for the same $799? That’s a good deal. Yeah, inflation and all that, but that’s still a damn good deal for everything that you get.
There’s a $300 difference between the iPhone 17 and the 17 Pro this year, which is $100 more than last year. For most people, the iPhone 17 has more than enough, and the extra $300 can be pocketed or put towards an accessory like the new $250 AirPods Pro 3.
I truly couldn’t find much to complain about on the iPhone 17. iOS is iOS. If you don’t like the “walled” Apple garden, there’s nothing new to report here, since it’s the same deal. Apple Intelligence, unfortunately, is still underwhelming and we’ll have to wait until next year to see the new AI-powered Siri. If there’s anything to really gripe about, I wish the USB 2 transfer speeds for the USB-C port were the faster USB 3 on the iPhone 16 and 17 Pros.
If you’ve reached this far and you’ve been nodding your head at all the new stuff and don’t feel an urge to jump up to the 17 Pros, congrats, maybe the iPhone 17 is for you. If you still have an iPhone from recent years and it’s not having any issues, just update to iOS 26 (unless you really hate Liquid Glass). The best thing about iPhones is that they last a long time and Apple supports them with annual software updates for at least five years, and security updates for a few years after. You get a lot with the new iPhone 17, but you also may not need one if yours works just fine. For people switching from Android—you’re either gonna love Apple’s ecosystem or hate it and crawl back.
Clinical psychologist Dr. Sheryl Ziegler, author of “The Crucial Years,” joins “CBS Mornings Plus” to explain the dangers of giving kids smartphones too early and share advice for parents.
OPPO und Hasselblad vertiefen ihre erfolgreiche Kooperation. Das bereits seit 2022 bestehende Bündnis Oppo x Hasselblad geht in die nächste Runde.
Auf einem Event in Göteborg bestätigten beide Unternehmen, dass sie gemeinsam ein next‑generation mobile imaging system entwickeln, das voraussichtlich mit den kommenden Find X9-Modellen Premiere feiert.
Seit dem Start mit dem Find X5 hat sich das Duo – bestehend aus OPPOs Ingenieursleistung und Hasselblads renommierter Farbwissenschaft in Videoprofilierungen wie Natural Colour Solution, Portrait Mode, Master Mode und exklusivem XPAN‑Mode bewährt.
Next‑Gen Imaging: Mehr als nur ein Kamera‑Upgrade
Das neue System zielt auf eine noch realistischere, professionelle Fotoqualität ab – sowohl in Hardware als auch in Software. OPPOs Chief Product Officer Pete Lau betont den gemeinsamen Innovationsfokus:
„Mit der Verlängerung unserer Zusammenarbeit treiben wir die Grenzen der mobilen Bildverarbeitung weiter voran“
Auch Hasselblads Marketing-Chef beschreibt das System als „organische, innovative Symbiose aus Technik und Ästhetik“ – mit dem Anspruch, über das klassische Kameraerlebnis hinauszugehen.
Zeitplan & Aussichten für das OPPO Find X9
Erwartungsgemäß soll das OPPO Find X9 und X9 Pro noch im zweiten Halbjahr 2025 erscheinen. Kurz danach folgen möglicherweise das Find X9s/X9 Ultra. Erste technische Details bleiben jedoch noch zurückhaltend. Hinweise verspüren Vorfreude auf Dual-Periskoplinsen, KI-gestützte Bokeh-Optimierung und ein „Hasselblad Photography Kit“ ähnlich dem von Xiaomi oder Vivo.
Die erneuerte Kooperation von OPPO und Hasselblad stärkt OPPOs Position im High-End‑Smartphone‑Segment. Mit erweiterter Farbgenauigkeit, fortschrittlicher Sensorintegration und neuen Kreativ-Funktionen werden die nächsten Find‑Flaggschiffe wohl die mobile Fotografie weiter definieren. Das Zusammenspiel aus Hardware‑Innovation, KI-Optimierungen und Hasselblads Bildästhetik verspricht ein beeindruckendes Kamera‑Upgrade.
New York Fototour mit der (200 MP) Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 Kamera
Wenn ich schon mal in New York City bin mit dem neuen Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, dann darf natürlich ein kleiner Fotowalk in meiner Lieblingsstadt in den USA nicht fehlen. Hier meine Bilder der Samsung Galaxy Fold 7 Kamera die mit allen drei Kameras aufgenommen wurden, selbstverständlich auch mit der neuen 200 Megapixel Ultra Kamera.
Fotogalerie
Die Bilder habe ich euch in Originalauflösung und unverändert hochgeladen.
200 Megapixel Bilder mit dem Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7
Das Galaxy Z Fold 7 ist nun mit der 200 Megapixel Ultra Kamera ausgestattet und natürlich dürfen auch hier Bilder nicht fehlen. Diese sind richtig groß und nehmen natürlich auch einiges an Speicherplatz weg (16.320 x 12.240 Pixel und ca. 35 – 60MB). Deshalb sind sie nicht für einfache Schnappschüsse gedacht, sondern wenn ihr ein wirklich schönes Motiv habt, welches ihr sehr hochauflösend aufnehmen möchtet.
Hier habe ich nun zwei Bilder die ich mit 200 Megapixel aufgenommen habe. Ausserdem habe ich je zwei 4K Ausschnitte hier herausgezogen und zeige euch diese in voller Auflösung als Originalbilder.
Kleiner Hinweis: Die Originalbilder der 200 Megapixel Kamera sind natürlich recht groß, weshalb ich hier verkleinerte Varianten auf der Seite poste. Die beiden Originalbilder habe ich euch aber auf Google Drive hochgeladen.
Bild1
Das Originalbild könnt ihr hier herunterladen. 16.320 x 12.240 Pixel (51,2MB)
Bild2
Das Originalbild könnt ihr hier herunterladen. 12.240 x 16.320 Pixel (56,8MB)
Fazit
Die Bilder sind schon wirklich sehr eindrucksvoll und auf dem Level eines Flaggschiffs. Die Bilder der 200 Megapixel Kamera sind natürlich auch etwas besonderes, da man aus ihnen ganz einfach im Nachhinein Ausschnitte wählen kann, die immer noch eine tolle Qualität aufweisen. Die 4K-Ausschnitte die ich aus dem Original 200 Megapixel Bild gezogen habe, können sich auf jeden Fall sehen lassen!
Im Vorschaubild sieht man ja auch noch mal was für ein vergleichsweise kleiner Ausschnitt ein 4K-Bild aus dem großen 200 Megapixel Bild ist. Ihr habt also bei solch einem großen Bild noch so einiges an Reserve um euch das passende Wunschbild auszuschneiden. Das ist natürlich auch der große Vorteil wenn man mit sovielen Megapixel aufnimmt.
Samsung just yesterday launched its newest slate of foldable smartphones, but that might not be the only foldable phones the company releases this year: The company is reportedly preparing to launch a triple-folding smartphone before the year’s end.
Samsung’s consumer electronics head TM Roh told The Korea Times that the company aims to release such a device this year.
“I expect we will be able to launch the tri-fold phone within this year. We are now focusing on perfecting the product and its usability, but we have not decided on its name. As the product nears completion, we are planning to make a final decision soon,” he told the publication.
Separately, another unnamed executive confirmed to Android Authority that a tri-fold device by Samsung is ready to go into production.
Carl Pei led electronics manufacturer OnePlus from being a scrappy brand for tech enthusiasts offering affordable phones to one that produces multiple lines of devices, including flagship phones that challenge Samsung and Apple. He is running a similar playbook with Nothing, a 5-year-old, venture-backed hardware startup that just launched its most ambitious device, the Phone (3), earlier this month. The phone, priced at $799, is intended to compete with devices from Samsung and Apple.
While OnePlus focused on providing value-for-money specifications and experience in its early days, Nothing focused on design and software as a differentiator to stand out from other phones. The startup produces eye-catching devices with a transparent design that draws attention.
The phone has a lot of asymmetric elements on the back, including the strangely arranged camera module. If you look at the reactions on the internet, some people liked it because it is not like other phones, while some hated it. If you can get over the asymmetrical arrangement, you might like the device.
Nothing also took away the glyph LED arrangement that was prominent in previous Nothing phones. This arrangement made devices stand out even more when they illuminated to indicate an incoming call or a message. Over the years, the company made it more customizable, allowing you to assign different patterns for different contacts. It even created an SDK for developers, which didn’t take off.
Image Credits:TechCrunch/Brian Heater
With Phone (3), the LED arrangement is substituted with Glyph Matrix, a circle-shaped second screen in the top right-hand corner to display more information. It can display basic stats such as time and battery level when you press the button on the back.
The company has also included mini apps such as spin the bottle, a stopwatch, and rock, paper, and scissors. This is more of a fun gimmick that you might use to show off your phone.
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Image Credits:Ivan Mehta
A second screen on a device is not a new concept, and it doesn’t solve the problem of having to turn the phone to read the message. You can assign an emoji to a contact, but it just tells you that you got a message from that contact, but doesn’t tell you what it is. So you have to turn your phone on anyway. Is the matrix cool? Kind of. Is it useful? Not by much yet.
The company is inviting developers to build tools for it, which could improve things if there’s adoption.
Hardware and camera
The company is using a Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 processor, built on a 4-nanometer architecture, which is a step below the Snapdragon 8 Elite used in the Galaxy S25, OnePlus 13, and Xiaomi 15 Ultra. However, in your day-to-day usage, that wouldn’t matter a lot.
The device also includes a 6.67-inch AMOLED screen with 1.5K resolution, which is protected by Gorilla Glass 7i instead of a stronger Gorilla Glass Victus. The screen is bright and has punchy colors. While it supports HDR for YouTube, Nothing said that Netflix hasn’t whitelisted its devices to run HDR content.
The Phone (3) features three 50-megapixel cameras for different purposes. The main camera has a 1/1.3-inch sensor, which is 20% bigger than Phone (2), at a f/1.68 aperture; the periscope telephoto lens offers 3x optical zoom, 6x in-sensor, and 60x digital zoom with AI Super Res Zoom; and the ultra-wide lens provides a 114-degree field of view. There’s also a 50-megapixel selfie camera with an f/2.2 aperture.
While Nothing claims that this phone is its “true flagship,” top-tier devices such as iPhones and Samsung Galaxy phones have achieved distinct camera quality with years of work. Nothing Phone (3) takes good photos, but color accuracy needs work to match other flagship phones. Plus, if the lighting was not ideal, the phone produced crushed shadows and overblown highlights in dark or bright areas of images.
The phone has a 5150 mAh battery for international versions, which is good enough to last you a day of moderate to heavy usage. You can charge the device through 65W wired charging and 15W wireless charging.
AI features
Nothing debuted a customizable hardware key called the Essential Key with the Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro. This key ports over to the new flagship and opens up the Essential Space app, which lets you save screenshots with notes. But strangely, you can’t save just notes.
The Shiny Key is the essential key. Image Credits:Ivan Mehta
The company is also debuting Essential search, which doubles up as an internet and web search using AI.
You can search for files and events by typing in keywords, or you can also ask a query like “Who won Wimbledon in 2024?” and then tap on the AI button to surface web results using Google’s Gemini models. This is akin to Apple integrating ChatGPT with Siri to search the web for certain queries.
What Essential Search Looks Like.Image Credits:TechCrunch (screenshot)
The phone also gets a meeting note transcriber, which records your meeting and summarizes key points. You can trigger this by holding the Essential key and flipping the phone. You can double-press the Essential key to record a voice snippet with transcription. However, users don’t have a way to access these recordings and transcripts outside the Nothing phone, unless they explicitly export them.
In a chat with TechCrunch, CEO Pei said the smartphone is the best medium to distribute AI and the company wants to make AI features useful for users.
“We have to be really focused on building things [AI features] that are useful [for end users] and not just call our phones ‘Nothing AI phones’ with some having some image generation and call it a day,” he said. “[We are thinking about] how we can really leverage this new technology to help people. The idea is not to compete with people or to take their jobs away. How do we help people become better and also more creative?”
While this ambition is a good one to have, Nothing’s feature set, which also includes an AI-powered wallpaper-generation tool, is in step with other phone makers.
At $799, the device directly competes with the Samsung Galaxy S25, Google Pixel 9, and the iPhone 16. Since it is not being offered through wireless carrier bundles, the phone is still aimed at people buying unlocked phones and looking for alternatives to Samsung, Apple, and Google.
In India, the company’s biggest market, it is a different story since the phone starts at ₹79,999. Although the company offers discounts and exchanges, the prices are on par with or above the iPhone 16 and the Galaxy 25, depending on the seller. Initial reactions on social media suggested that the customers found the price high, which could impact the company’s sales.
Nothing has taken it upon itself to challenge Samsung and Apple, but at the moment, rather than direct competition, the phone is a good, cheaper alternative to those devices.
Nothing on Tuesday launched its newest flagship phone after a two-year gap. At an event in London, the company unveiled the Phone (3), which starts at $799 and aims to take on bigwigs like Samsung and Apple with its differentiated design and features targeting tech enthusiasts.
Since releasing Phone (1) in 2022, the GV-backed startup has relied on a transparent design to make its phone stand out from others.
The Phone (3) follows that same design language, but it introduces a stranger camera arrangement that forgoes the typical square or circular alignment found on other smartphone devices. (If you are someone who gets triggered by unaligned elements on websites or apps, this camera arrangement might make you mad!)
Image Credits:Nothing
Nothing has also favored arranging LEDs on its back — a feature that it calls Glyph. This was always somewhat gimmicky, but the company made use of this to show you different alerts and notifications using the LED lights.
Old Glyph interface on Phone (2)Image Credits:TechCrunch/Brian Heater
Now, the company is replacing Glyph with a small circular mini LED screen, called Glyph Matrix, on the back of the device at the top right.
This addition displays 16-bit styled patterns, which can offer more information than the earlier Glyph arrangement.
The company is also releasing mini-apps for this interface, such as spin the bottle and rock, paper, scissors.
The new Glyph Matrix interface is on the top rightImage Credits:Nothing
It is 2025, so the phone has to include some AI-powered features, too. At launch this includes two features called Essential Space and Essential Search.
The company first debuted Essential Space, an app to save screenshots and take notes, on the Nothing Phone (3a) Pro. Now, Nothing is upgrading this app to let you record meetings and view an AI transcription and summary.
To use the feature, you’ll have to press the Essential key and place the phone with the screen side down to start the recording. While this sounds potentially useful, Nothing doesn’t have a web interface to access these transcriptions and summaries at this time.
Nothing is also debuting Essential Search — a feature like the iPhone’s Spotlight search — and infusing it with AI.
This search feature allows you to search for settings, files, or photos on your phone by typing in keywords.
Plus, you can type in natural language queries to get web results by pressing a button next to the search bar. This is similar to iPhone’s upgraded Siri interface, which is integrated with ChatGPT.
Specifications and availability
The new smartphone has comparable specifications to other companies’ Android flagships.
This includes a 6.67-inch AMOLED screen with 1.5K resolution, which is protected by Gorilla Glass 7i. The device is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 processor, built on a 4-nanometer architecture.
The trio of cameras all have a 50-megapixel resolution, but play different roles. The main camera has a 1.3-inch sensor, which is 20% bigger than Phone (2), at a f/1.68 aperture; the periscope telephoto lens offers 3x optical zoom, and 60x digital zoom with AI Super Res Zoom; and the ultra-wide lens provides a 114-degree field of view.
Nothing is also upgrading the selfie camera from 32 megapixels to 50 megapixels.
The Phone (3) has a 5,150 mAh battery (5,500 mAh in its India variant) with support for 65W wired charging and 15W wireless charging.
The company said the phone will ship with Nothing OS 3.5, which is based on Android 15, and will be updated to Nothing OS 4.0, based on Android 16, later this year. It noted that the flagship device will get five years of software updates and seven years of security updates.
The company will sell the 256GB model of the Phone (3) for $799 and the 512GB model for $899. At this price, the phone directly competes with the Samsung Galaxy S25, which was released at a base price of $799 earlier this year.
Preorders for the device begin on July 4 with general availability on July 15.
Don’t doomscroll more depressing news, use that phone to lift your mood instead. The best mobile games will bring a little joy to your day, whether you’re killing time on the commute or chilling on the couch. And these games are all addictive slices of gaming pleasure that we have been gorging on for years.
As smartphone screens and processing power have grown, the lines between mobile gaming and just gaming have blurred, and you can find tons of great mobile games that have been ported or adapted from other systems (Minecraft, Call of Duty, Fortnite, Roblox, Stardew Valley, Grand Theft Auto, and the list goes on). But all of these titles are best enjoyed on other platforms. Our picks here are games that work especially well on your phone.
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ROG Phone 9: Hands-on mit dem ersten Snapdragon 8 Elite Smartphone
Auf dem Snapdragon Summit 2024 hat ASUS sein Gaming-Smartphone ROG Phone 9 präsentiert und ich hatte hier die Möglichkeit das Smartphone bereits in einem ersten Hands-on auszuprobieren. Hier mein erster Eindruck.
Zwar wird das ROG Phone 9 offiziell erst im November vorgestellt, also erst nach dem Xiaomi 15 und dem Honor Magic 7, aber ich hatte auf dem Snapdragon Summit 2024 die Möglichkeit mit ein Preproduktion Sample anzuschauen und auch unter die Haube zu schauen, weshalb es für mich natürlich das erste Snapdragon 8 Elite Smartphone ist.
Bereits bei den Vorgängermodellen hatte ASUS immer eine kleine Besonderheit auf der Rückseite verbaut und zwar ein Infodisplay. Auch beim neuen ROG Phone ist dieses vorhanden und ermöglicht es euch so euer Smartphone zu individualisieren. Man kann hier entweder den Akkustand, die Uhrzeit oder eine Laufschrift mit Wunschtext anzeigen lassen.
Auf jeden Fall sehr cool, auch wenn ich das kleine Display beim ROG Phone 7 etwas schicker fand. Optisch hat man sich hier auf jeden Fall am Vorgänger ROG Phone 8 orientiert und bleibt
Damit man beim Zocken nicht vom unteren USB-C-Kabel gestört wird, gibt es wieder einen USB-C Port an der Seite. Dieses ist auch interessant für das Zubehör wie den Controller, der auch vorgestellt wurde. Damit wird das ROG Phone zum waschechten Gaming-Handheld.
Erstes Hands-on Video
Natürlich habe ich auch ein erstes Hands-on Video mit dem 9. ROG Phone machen können. Wer also bereits einen ersten Blick auf das Smartphone werfen möchte, kann sich hier gerne mein Hands-on Video anschauen.
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Offiziell wurden abgesehen vom SoC noch keine weiteren technischen Daten bekanntgegeben. Im Netz kursiert aber bereits ein Leak der die technischen Daten offenbart.
So soll das neueste ROG Phone laut 91Mobiles über ein 6,78-Zoll AMOLED mit einer Bildwiederholrate von 165 Hz und einer Auflösung von 2.400 x 1.080 Pixel verfügen. Es soll eine 32-Megapixel Frontkamera und eine 50-Megapixel Hauptkamera, eine 32-Megapixel Telekamera und eine 5-Megapixel Makrokamera haben. Der Akku soll 5.800 mAh Kapazität bieten und man soll es mit 65 Watt schnelladen können.
Preis & Verfügbarkeit
Das neue ROG Phone wird am 19. November offiziell vorgestellt. Dann erfahren wir auch mehr zu den offiziellen technischen Daten, denn so ein Leak kann ja auch mal falsch liegen. Dann erfahren wir auch mehr zu Preis & Verfügbarkeit in Deutschland.
.Qualcomm President & CEO Cristiano Amon hatte es bereits auf dem Snapdragon Summit 2023 angekündigt, die Oryon CPU die im Snapdragon X Elite für die Leistung sorgt, wird auch in Smartphones kommen. Nun auf dem Snapdragon Summit 2024 ist es endlich soweit und mit dem Snapdragon 8 Elite wurde der leistungsstärkste Smartphone SoC vorgestellt.
Der Nachfolger des Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 ist nicht wie vermutet der Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, sondern der Snapdragon 8 Elite. In der Eröffnungskeynote am ersten Tag des Snapdragon Summit 2024 auf Maui wurde der neue Smartphone SoC vorgestellt.
Die Besonderheit ist wie bereits erwähnt die leistungsstarke Oryon CPU, die hier nun zum Einsatz kommt. Diese hat bereits letztes Jahr gezeigt was in ihr steckt und was sie leisten kann.
Verbaut ist hier nun die zweite Generation der Oryon CPU, die von Cristiano Amon, President & CEO von Qualcomm auf der Bühne vorgestellt wurde.
Der im 3 nm Verfahren bei TSMC gefertigte SoC verzichtet auf Effizienzkerne. Stattdessen setzt er nun auf zwei Prime-Kerne und sechs Performance-Kerne. Die beiden Prime-Kerne takten mit eindrucksvollen 4,32 GHz und die Performance-Kerne mit 3,53 GHz. Zum Vergleich, der Vorgänger erreichte eine Taktrate von 3,3 GHz.
Sie setzen pro Kern-Cluster auf 12MB L2-Cache, also insgesamt 24MB. Zum Einsatz kommt auch 5,3 GHz schneller LPDDR5x Arbeitsspeicher. Das sind bereits eindrucksvoller Zahlen. Wenn wir uns aber den Leistungszuwachs im Vergleich zum Vorgänger anschauen, dann wird es noch eindrucksvoller. In der Single-Core- und Multi-Core-Performance erreichen wir 45% mehr Leistung, bei der Grafikleistung sind es 40% und das bei 44% höherer Energieeffizienz!
Schnelleres Webbrowsing wird oft unterschätzt
Beim Webbrowsing ist er sogar 62% schneller. Das ist besonders dann interessant, wenn man bedenkt, dass viele Smartphone-Apps im Hintergrund eigentlich nur den Browser nutzen. In einer Browser-Demo konnte ich mich von der Leistung überzeugen. Und ich bin schon sehr gespannt wie Apps auf den Snapdragon 8 Elite Smartphones performen werden.
Oryon schneller als manche Desktop-CPU
Damit haben wir einen wirklich extrem schnellen Smartphone-SoC. Aber was wirklich besonders beeindruckend ist, sind natürlich auch die Benchmarkergebnisse im Vergleich mit Desktop-CPUs, wie von Intel.
So verkündete Cristiano Amon sehr stolz wie schnell sich die zweite Generation der Oryon CPU gegen die Mitbewerber von AMD und Intel schlägt. Und ganz ehrlich, das ist wirklich äusserst eindrucksvoll wie eine Smartphone-CPU sich hier gegen eine Desktop-CPU behaupten kann.
Erste Snapdragon 8 Elite Smartphones noch im Oktober
Am ersten Tag des Snapdragon Summit 2024 gaben sich die Hardwarepartner von Qualcomm die Klinke in die Hand und so gab es auch hochrangigen Besuch. Von Samsung war es kein Geringerer als Dr. TM Roh, Samsung Mobile Chef. Somit können wir also so ziemlich sicher beim kommenden Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra den Snapdragon 8 Elite erwarten. Aber auch Xiaomi teaserte sein kommendes Xiaomi 15 an, welches das offiziell erste Snapdragon 8 Elite Smartphone wird. Dicht gefolgt vom Honor Magic 7, welches auch bereits auf der Keynote angeteasert wurde. Zu guter Letzt war auch ASUS vertreten, die ihr ROG Phone 9 mit im Gepäck hatten.
Aber auch weitere Smartphonehersteller haben angekündigt ein Smartphone mit Snapdragon 8 Elite auf den Markt zu bringen, darunter iQOO, Motorola, Nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, RedMagic, redmi, realme, Vivo und ZTE.
Video
Wer noch einmal kurz & knapp die Infos zum neuen Snapdragon SoC sehen möchte, hier ist mein Short Video zum neuen leistungsfähigen Smartphone-Chip.
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Hands-on mit dem faszinierenden Huawei Mate XT Doppelfaltphone
Ich hatte die Möglichkeit mir das neue Huawei Mate XT anzuschauen, das erste Smartphone dass man doppelt falten kann. Für mich ist es auf jeden Fall das Smartphone des Jahres!
Während andere Hersteller wie Apple ihre Innovationen etwas schleifen lassen, gibt Huawei ordentlich Gas und stellt eine richtige Innovation vor. In meinem ersten Hands-on Video bekommt ihr erste Eindrücke des neuen und besonderen Smartphones und seht wie es sich doppelt falten lässt.
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Faltphones sind ja schon eine coole Sache und seitdem Samsung das erste faltbare Smartphone vorgestellt hat, haben einige Hersteller nachgezogen und ebenfalls Smartphones im Fold- und Flip-Design vorgestellt. Huawei geht nun einen Schritt weiter und stellt mit dem Huawei Mate XT ein Smartphone vor, welches nicht einmal aufgefaltet werden kann, sondern gleich zweimal. Dadurch ist es komplett aufgefaltet nicht quadratisch, sondern rechteckig und nun auch wirklich als Tablet nutzbar.
Das Display des Mate XT misst komplett zugeklappt 6,4-Zoll. Wenn wir es einmal traditionell aufklappen, bekommen wir ein quadratisches Display mit einer Diagonalen von 7,9-Zoll. Wenn wir es dann nochmal aufklappen gibt es ein rechteckiges Display mit einer Diagonalen von 10,2-Zoll. Damit ist es wirklich vielseitig einsetzbar, vom Smartphone bis zum Tablet.
Auch wenn es ursprünglich nicht für den europäischen Markt gedacht war, die Resonanz in China war so groß, es gab 3 Millionen Vorbestellungen, weshalb man sich nun dazu entschieden hat das Smartphone im nächsten Jahr doch nach Europa zu bringen. Preislich wird es allerdings kein Schnäppchen werden. Normale Faltphones kosten ja schon fast 2.000 Euro, das Mate XT wird wahrscheinlich an der 3.000 Euro Grenze kratzen oder sie sogar überschreiten. Aber lassen wir uns Anfang nächsten Jahres überraschen, denn es soll auf dem Mobile World Congress Ende Februar für Europa vorgestellt werden.
Das Problem von Huawei hierzulande besteht aber leider weiterhin, durch die US-Sanktionen gegen Huawei gibt es keine Google Dienste auf dem Smartphone, zumindest nicht von Werk aus. Mit ein paar Tricks und Kniffen kann man allerdings auch jetzt noch die Google Dienste installieren, wie man auch in meinem Video sehen kann. Dass dies aber nicht gerade die ideale Lösung ist, dürfte klar sein. Wem dies aber nichts ausmacht, der bekommt hier ein Smartphone der Extraklasse. Für mich ist es definitiv das Smartphone des Jahres 2024.
Apple unveiled its new iPhone 16 at the tech giant’s “It’s Glowtime” event Monday, at which it touted upgraded capabilities and designs for its new phones and other devices. The event, held at Apple’s Cupertino, California, headquarters, also marked the tech giant’s foray in earnest into generative AI.
Called Apple Intelligence, Apple’s AI is designed to help simplify everyday tasks, like taking notes, composing emails, and sorting photos.
“The next generation of iPhone has been designed for Apple Intelligence from the ground up,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said. “It marks the beginning of an exciting new era. iPhone 16 raises the bar for what an iPhone can do.”
The new iPhone 16 is water and dust resistant, and comes in five different colors, Apple said. Among the upgrades from the last generation are a bigger battery and larger display sizes — the iPhone 16’s display measures 6.1 inches, while the iPhone 16 Plus measures 6.7 inches.
The new iPhone models also feature a new and improved camera and control button that makes it easier to capture photos. These and other upgrades are powered by the new A18 chip, Apple said. The chip is capable of running large generative AI models, like Apple Intelligence, which is integrated across multiple apps.
The iPhone 16 starts at $799 while the iPhone Plus costs $899 and up.
The iPhone 16 Pro, the more premium model, features a 6.3 inch display, while the Pro Plus measures 6.9 inches. The phones come in four titanium finishes: black, white, natural and a new desert shade. The devices will be available for pre-order beginning on Friday and will hit store shelves on September 20. The iPhone 16 Pro starts at $999, while the iPhone 16 Pro Max starts at $1,199, Apple said.
Apple said its iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Plus models comes in four titanium finishes: black, white, natural and a new desert shade.
Apple
Apple Intelligence will be available via a software update, iOS 18, set to arrive by October, the company previously said.
The iPhone 16 Pro models revealed at the Apple event have 48 megapixel fusion cameras that allow users to capture high-resolution images with ease through a redesigned capture button, Apple said.
Apple provided a sample image taken with its new iPhone 16 Pro phone’s camera.
Apple
Apple Intelligence also adds new camera capabilities, including what the company calls Visual Intelligence. For example, a new feature lets users point their camera at a dog, click and hold the control button, and Apple Intelligence will provide information about its breed. Use the same tool to point at a restaurant for information about its opening hours and menu.
It’s similar to what the Shazam app does with music — users open the app, which listens to songs playing in the background, and identifies them.
Consumer Reports tech expert Nicholas De Leon told CBS MoneyWatch that the first consumers to get their hands on the new iPhone 16 models and test Apple Intelligence features will be the real judges of whether these functions add significant value.
“If nothing else, it’s a big deal because this is the first iPhone of the generative AI era,” he told CBS MoneyWatch.
But the new iPhone launch also comes as many consumers appear content to keep their older phones, given the costs of upgrading, and amid ongoing debate over the impact of technologies such as mobile devices and social media on our health.
“We are on our phones 24/7, and people are examining their relationship with these tools,” De Leon said.
New watches
Cook kicked off the event by presenting new base and “Ultra” Apple Watch models, which start at $399 and $799, respectively. The new series 10 watch can be pre-ordered immediately and will be available on September 10. The Ultra can also be pre-ordered for delivery September 20.
The Apple Watch Series 10 features the company’s biggest display and thinnest design to-date.Cook called them “the most beautiful and capable watches we’ve ever created.”
Notably, the new watch has a tool that can detect sleep apnea, a condition that often goes undiagnosed and that can cause fatigue and irritability. It has the ability to measure a metric that detects breathing disturbances, when users wear it during their sleep.
Cook also pulled back the curtain on the company’s latest ear buds — the AirPods 4, plus AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods Max 2, with some models featuring health tech tools.
Apple presents the new Apple Watch Series 10 at an event on Sept.9, 2024, at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.
Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images
AirPods Pro 2 incorporate an over-the-counter, professional grade hearing aid, Apple said.
The event marks what Wedbush Securities technology analyst Dan Ives called Apple’s “biggest upgrade cycle in its history.”
“It’s a historic event that kicks off the consumer AI revolution, now coming to Apple,” he told CBS MoneyWatch. “About 20% of the world will ultimately interact with AI through an Apple device, and it all starts today.”
Ives predicts it will take until the end of the year for Apple Intelligence to fully function on phones. He also says the AI will compel Apple customers who haven’t upgraded their iPhones in some time to purchase the latest model.
The iPhone accounted for roughly 60% of Apple’s $39 billion in sales last quarter.
“Three-hundred-millions iPhones haven’t upgraded in four years, so that creates what we believe is going to be the strongest iPhone unit year in Apple’s history,” Ives said. He added that consumers with an aversion to AI can just turn the features off. Still, not all experts see the need for users with older iPhones to upgrade just yet, even with the advent of Apple Intelligence.
“While I agree that Apple Intelligence has long-term potential, I’m not convinced that its first iteration will deliver the game-changing usability that many anticipate,” wrote Jason Perlow, senior contributing writer at ZDNet in a recent article.
Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.
Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you’ll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners.
You have to be reachable while running your business. Staying connected is non-negotiable for everyone, whether you’re hopping from one meeting to the next or navigating through airports. But with all the hustle, the last thing you need is to be weighed down by bulky gadgets.
Meet the NanoPhone, a credit-card-sized smartphone that’s all about simplifying your travel experience while keeping your digital life fully functional. It is designed for those of us who want to take a step back from all the devices we carry but still stay connected to home, work, and all of our favorite apps—and it’s on sale for just $109.99 (reg. $199).
It’s equipped with dual SIM support, allowing you to manage personal and business calls on one device or easily switch between two numbers while traveling. With 4G and Wi-Fi connectivity, you can browse the web, stream content, and stay in touch with colleagues and clients via apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, and YouTube—all from the palm of your hand. However, the SIM card and data plan are not included.
Traveling with a smartphone doesn’t have to mean carrying around a cumbersome device. The NanoPhone offers a streamlined solution that focuses on what truly matters: staying connected and productive on the go.
Whether you’re attending a conference, a wedding, exploring a new city, or just need a reliable backup phone, the NanoPhone is your go-to tool for simplifying your tech while keeping all the essential features you rely on. It even has built-in cameras (front and back) to capture your important moments.
Downsizing your smartphone doesn’t mean downsizing your capabilities. The NanoPhone is the perfect example of how less can truly be more—offering all the essential functions you need in a portable, easy-to-carry design.
