Tag: Smartphones

Apple Inc will manufacture iPhone 14 in India

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NEW DELHI (AP) — Apple Inc. will make its iPhone 14 in India, the company said on Monday, as manufacturers shift production from China amid geopolitical tensions and pandemic restrictions that have disrupted supply chains for many industries.

“The new iPhone 14 lineup introduces groundbreaking new technologies and important safety capabilities. We’re excited to be manufacturing iPhone 14 in India,” Apple said in a statement.

Apple unveiled its latest line-up of iPhones earlier this month. They will have improved cameras, faster processors and longer lasting batteries at the same prices as last year’s models.

India is the world’s second-largest smartphone market after China but Apple iPhone sales have struggled to capture a large share of the market against cheaper smartphones from competitors.

The announcement from the Cupertino, California-based company dovetails with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push for local manufacturing, which has been a key goal for his government ever since he took office in 2014.

The tech company has bet big on India, where it first began manufacturing its iPhone SE in 2017 and has since continued to assemble a number of iPhone models there. Apple opened its online store for India two years ago, but the pandemic has delayed plans for a flagship store in India, according to local media reports.

The latest model will be shipped out by Foxconn, a major iPhone assembler, whose facilities are on the outskirts of Chennai, a city in southern India.

Apple is likely to shift about 5% of its iPhone 14 production to India from later this year, raising it to 25% by 2025, according to a JP Morgan report quoted by the Press Trust of India news agency.

The analysts expect that nearly a quarter of all Apple products to be manufactured outside China by 2025, compared to about 5% now. Supply chain risks like the stringent COVID-19 lockdowns seen in China are likely the trigger for such relocation efforts that will continue over the next two or three years, the report said.

“Apple has been trying to diversify its supply chain for a while, but these efforts have grown in the last two years over trade sanctions between the U.S. and China,” said Sanyam Chaurasia, an analyst at Canalys.

Last year, the tech giant manufactured around 7 million iPhones in India. This news is likely to significantly increase India-made Apple smartphones, he added.

He said the plan to make more iPhones in India may also lead Apple to drop its prices for the Indian market, making it more competitive. “You can adopt a more aggressive pricing strategy if you manufacture locally,” Chaurasia said.

Most of Apple Inc.’s smartphones and tablets are assembled by contractors with factories in China, but the company started asking them in 2020 to look at the possibility of moving some production to Southeast Asia or other places after repeated shutdowns to fight COVID-19 disrupted its global flow of products.

Apple hasn’t released details, but news reports say the company planned to set up assembly of tablet computers and wireless earphones in Vietnam.

Other companies are keeping or expanding manufacturing in China to serve the domestic market while shifting export-oriented work to other countries due to rising wages and other costs, as well as the difficulty for foreign executives to visit China due to anti-COVID-19 travel restrictions.

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AP Business Writer Joe McDonald in Beijing contributed.

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September 26, 2022
A foldable phone, new tablet and lots of AI: What Google unveiled at its big developer event | CNN Business

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CNN
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Google on Wednesday unveiled its latest lineup of hardware products, including its first foldable phone and a new tablet, as well as plans to roll out new AI features to its search engine and productivity tools.

The updates, announced at its annual Google I/O developer conference, come as the company is simultaneously trying to push beyond its core advertising business with new devices while also racing to defend its search engine from the threat posed by a wave of new AI-powered tools.

In a sign of where Google’s focus currently lies, the company spent more than 90 minutes teasing a long list of new AI features before mentioning hardware updates.

Here’s what Google announced at the event.

Google became the latest tech company to unveil a foldable smartphone. Like other foldables, the $1799 Pixel Fold features a vertical hinge that can be opened to reveal a tablet-like display. But Google calls the Fold the thinnest foldable on the market.

“It took some clever engineering work redesigning components like our speakers, our battery and haptics,” said George Hwang, a product manager at Google, on a call ahead of the announcement. The company packed a Pixel phone into a less than 6 mm body – about two thirds of the thickness of its other Pixel phones.

The Pixel Fold is very much a phone first: when it’s unfolded, it opens up into a 7.6-inch screen, and moves on Google’s custom-built 180-degree hinge. That hinge mechanism is moved out entirely from under the display to improve its dust resistance and decrease the device’s overall thickness, according to the company.

The Google Fold includes features you’d find on a Pixel, such as long exposure, unblur, magic eraser, which lets users remove unwanted or distracting object. It also has Pixel Fold-specific tools such as dual-screen live translate, which lets a user communicate in another language with the help of fast audio and text translations on the outer screen.

Google said it optimized its top apps to take advantage of the larger screen but “there’s still work to be done” because “optimizing for a new foldable form factor takes time,” Hwang said. “It’s a process that we’re committed to and it requires steep investment with our developer partners across Android,” Hwang added.

Google is far from the first to embrace foldables, but it’s possible it waited to launch its own version until the technology became more advanced. Early versions of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold, for example, had issues with the screen and most apps were not well optimized for the design.

But even now, the future for foldables remains uncertain. Most apps are still not optimized for foldable devices; prices remain very high; and Google’s chief rival, Apple, has yet to embrace the option.

Despite great consumer interest in foldable phones — and a resurgence in 90s-style flip phones among celebrities and TikTok influencers — the foldable market is relatively small, with Samsung dominating the category, followed by others including Motorola, Lenovo, Oppo, and Huawei. According to ABI Research, foldable and flexible displays made up about 0.7% of the smartphone market in 2021, and in 2022 expected to fall just shy of 2%.

The Pixel Fold will be available in the US, UK, Germany and Japan. The company said the device will start shipping next month.

On the surface, the 7a looks similar to the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro, with the same pixel camera bar along the back. It comes with the typical advancements you’d expect to find with any smartphone upgrade – better display, advanced camera and longer-lasting battery. But the 7a now boasts a Tensor G2 processor and a TItan M2 security chip, which brings advanced processing and new artificial intelligence features. It also offers wireless charging for the first time on an A model.

The Pixel lineup has long been known for its cameras, and the 7a is no exception. It’s packed with upgrades, including a 64-megapixel main camera – the largest sensor on a Pixel A series to date, which will help with improved image quality, low light performance and other features. It also offers a new 13-megapixel ultra-wide camera for capturing even wider shots and a new 13-megapixel front camera. For the first time, each camera enables 4K video.

The 7a also supports many significant Pixel features, including unblur, magic eraser and an improved Night Sight that’s two times faster and sharper than its predecessor. It also allows users to capture long exposure and enhanced zoom.

The Pixel comes in several colors, including charcoal, snow, sea and coral, and starts at $499 via the Google Store on May 10.

The Pixel Series A line has long been aimed at the cost conscious who want good features at a reasonable price, but its reach is limited. Google sells between eight to 10 million of the Pixel devices each year, according to ABI Research.

“Generally, the smartphones were really meant for Google to showcase how software, and now AI capabilities, could be effectively optimized on hardware and improve the Android user experience,” said David McQueen, an analyst at ABI Research. “Google has purposely kept volume sales limited as it also has to be mindful of its relationship with other smartphone manufacturers that use the Android OS.”

While phones were a key focus at the event, Google also refreshed other parts of its hardware lineup.

Google introduced the Pixel Tablet, which is intended for use around the house, from turning off the lights off in the house to setting the thermostat without getting off the couch.

The tablet, which has rounded edges and corners, comes in three colors: porcelain, hazel and rose, and starts at $499. It will be available on June 20.

Under the hood, the 11-inch tablet is powered by Google’s Tensor G2 chips, which bring long-lasting battery life and AI features to the device. It also offers a front-facing camera, an 8-megapixel rear camera, and a charging dock.

Google is also moving forward with plans to bring AI chat features to its core search engine amid a renewed arms race over the technology in Silicon Valley.

The company said it is introducing the next evolution of Google Search, which will use an AI-powered chatbot to answer questions “you never thought Search could answer” and to help get users the information they want quicker than ever.

With the update, the look and feel of Google Search results will be noticeably different. When users type a query into the main search bar, they will automatically see a pop-up an AI-generated response in addition to displaying traditional results.

Users can now sign up for the new Google Search, which will first launch in the United States, via the Google app or Chrome’s desktop browser. A limited number of users will have access to it in the weeks ahead, according to the company, before it scales upward.

Google is expanding access to its existing chatbot Bard, which operates outside the search engine and can help users do tasks such as outline and write essay drafts, plan a friend’s baby shower, and get lunch ideas based on what’s in the fridge.

The tool, which was previously available to early users via a waitlist only in the US, will soon be available for all users in 120 countries and 40 languages.

Google is also launching extensions for Bard from its own services, such as Gmail, Sheets and Docs, allowing users to ask questions and collaborate with the chatbot within the apps they’re using.

Google also announced PaLM 2, its latest large language model to rival ChatGPT-creator OpenAI’s GPT-4.

The move marks a big step forward for the technology that powers the company’s AI products and promises to be better at logic, common sense reasoning and mathematics. It can also generate specialized code in different programming languages.

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April 12, 2021
Apple got rich in China. Other Asian markets offer the next ‘golden opportunity’ | CNN Business

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Hong Kong
CNN
—

Apple launched an online store in Vietnam this week, in another nod to the growing importance of emerging markets for the iPhone maker.

The opening on Thursday, which followed the high-profile launch of its first physical shops in India, means consumers in the fast-growing Southeast Asian economy will be able to buy any Apple product directly for the first time.

Markets like Vietnam, India and Indonesia are becoming more important for Apple as its growth in developed markets, including China, slows down, prompting the company to focus on places where it’s traditionally been less active.

For decades, China was central to Apple’s extraordinary ascent to become the most valuable company on Earth, serving as a backbone for both its production and consumption. While the country remains key to Apple’s operations, the tech giant is now hedging its bets.

Apple

(AAPL) CEO Tim Cook has pointed to the company’s prospects in emerging economies, calling them bright spots in the company’s financial results. On an earnings call this month, Cook said he was “particularly pleased” with the performance in these markets during the first three months of the year.

Apple “achieved all-time records in Mexico, Indonesia, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE, as well as a number of March quarter records, including in Brazil, Malaysia and India,” he told analysts.

That came as the California-based giant also reported its second straight drop in overall quarterly revenue, prompting concerns about a broader slowdown in demand amid economic uncertainty.

“Clearly, growth has slowed globally and thus put more pressure [on Apple] to aggressively go after emerging markets,” said Daniel Ives, managing director of Wedbush Securities.

Ives predicts that “over the coming years, Indonesia, Malaysia and India will comprise a bigger piece of the pie for Apple, given its efforts in these countries.”

The start of online sales in a country usually precedes the launch of brick-and-mortar stores for Apple, he told CNN. This was true of India, for instance, which got its first physical outlets last month and a pledge from Cook to further invest in the country.

Thursday’s launch showed how Apple was “further cementing” its presence in emerging markets, according to Chiew Le Xuan, a research analyst who covers smartphones in Southeast Asia for Canalys.

He said the tech giant had been “actively increasing” its presence in the region in recent months, ramping up its distribution and network of authorized resellers, especially in Malaysia.

Apple has ample room to run in these markets.

Currently, the company only operates its own stores in more developed regional economies, such as Thailand and Singapore, according to Canalys.

Even Indonesia, a vast archipelago that is the world’s sixth-biggest smartphone market, doesn’t have a physical Apple store yet, said Chiew. Apple’s market share there is tiny, at just 1% in 2022, according to Canalys data.

“We’re putting efforts in a number of these markets and really see, particularly given our low share and the dynamics of the demographics … a great opportunity for us,” Cook said during Apple’s results call.

Apple joins a growing list of global businesses that have become bullish on Southeast Asia, where more investment is being poured into manufacturing.

The region’s consumer base also holds promise, with the number of middle-income and affluent households in economies such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines projected to grow by around 5% annually through 2030, according to the Boston Consulting Group.

The consultancy has called this group of consumers “the next mega-market.”

The allure of Southeast Asia’s rising middle class “has changed the dynamic in these countries, which previously Apple stayed away from,” according to Ives.

“This is a golden opportunity for Apple,” he said.

For years, premium brands like Apple have have struggled to compete in emerging markets because of the price of their products, choosing instead to rely on local resellers.

iPhones, which cost between $470 and $1,100, are expensive for consumers in less developed Southeast Asian economies, where the bulk of smartphone shipments are priced under $200, according to Chiew.

He said Apple’s absence from places like Cambodia or Vietnam was typically more apparent around the launch of a new iPhone, as buyers from those countries often flew to Singapore or Malaysia to purchase devices and take them back for resale.

This could change in the coming years, particularly as Apple continues to increase its firepower in the region.

Ives predicted that Apple could “further expand its ecosystem and tentacles to emerging markets using its China playbook,” meaning it could try to hook customers through “various pricing strategies and building out from there.”

Once those users have converted to Apple’s operating system, iOS, they tend to stick around and become loyal customers, he added.

This has “been the core part of its success in China that now can be replicated in India, Indonesia, and Vietnam, among others,” said Ives.

But Apple may face hurdles in Southeast Asia, where several countries have placed stringent requirements on foreign businesses, according to Chiew.

For example, at least 35% of the components of electronic goods sold in Indonesia must made locally, a threshold Apple has had to meet by working with partners, he added. Similar rules prevented Apple from setting up shop in India for years until the relaxation of regulations in 2019.

And while consumers are becoming more affluent, the company’s price points are still considered high in many emerging markets, noted Ives. “Growth will be choppy we believe.”

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April 12, 2021
This could be Apple’s biggest product launch since the Apple Watch | CNN Business

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CNN
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Apple may be just one day away from unveiling its most ambitious new hardware product in years.

At its Worldwide Developers Conference, which kicks off Monday at its Cupertino, California, campus, Apple

(AAPL) is widely expected to introduce a “mixed reality” headset that offers both virtual reality and augmented reality, a technology that overlays virtual images on live video of the real world.

The highly anticipated release of an AR/VR headset would be Apple’s biggest hardware product launch since the debut of the Apple Watch in 2015. It could signal a new era for the company and potentially revolutionize how millions interact with computers and the world around them.

But the headset is just one of many announcements expected at the developers event. Apple will also show off a long list of software updates that will shape how people use its most popular devices, including the iPhone and Apple Watch.

Apple may also tease how it plans to incorporate AI into more of its products and services, and keep pace with a renewed arms race over the technology in Silicon Valley.

The event will be livestreamed on Apple’s website and YouTube. It is set to start at 10:00 a.m. PT/1:00 p.m. ET.

Here’s a closer look at what to expect:

For years, Apple CEO Tim Cook has expressed interest in augmented reality. Now Apple finally appears ready to show off what it’s been working on.

According to Bloomberg, the new headset, which could be called Reality One or Reality Pro, will have an iOS-like interface, display immersive video and include cameras and sensors to allow users to control it via their hands, eye movements and with Siri. The device is also rumored to have an outward-facing display that will show eye movements and facial expressions, allowing onlookers to interact with the person wearing the headset without feeling as though they’re talking to a robot.

Apple’s new headset is expected to pack apps for gaming, fitness and meditation, and offer access to iOS apps such as Messages, FaceTime and Safari, according to Bloomberg. With the FaceTime option, for example, the headset will “render a user’s face and full body in virtual reality,” to create the feeling that both are “in the same room.”

The decision to unveil it at WWDC suggests Apple wants to encourage developers to build apps and experiences for the product in order to make it more compelling for customers and worth the hefty price tag.

The company is reportedly considering a $3,000 price tag for the device, far more than most of its products and testing potential buyers at a time of lingering uncertainty in the global economy. Other tech companies have struggled to find mainstream traction for headsets. And in the years that Apple has been rumored to be working on the product, the tech community has shifted its focus from VR to another buzzy technology: artificial intelligence.

But if any company can prove skeptics wrong, it’s Apple. The company’s entry into the market combined with its vast customer base has the potential to breathe new life into the world of headsets.

A mixed reality headset may not be the only piece of hardware to get stage time this year.

Apple is expected to launch a new 15-inch MacBook Air packing the company’s M2 processor. The current size of the MacBook Air is 13 inches.

Previously, users who wanted a larger-sized Apple laptop would need to buy a higher-end MacBook Pro.

Considering WWDC is traditionally a software event, Apple executives will likely spend much of the time highlighting the changes and upgrades coming to its next-generation mobile operating systems, iOS 17 and iPadOS 17.

While last year’s updates included a major design overhaul of the lock screen and iMessage, only minor changes are expected this year.

With iOS 17, Apple is expected to double down on its efforts around health tracking by adding the ability to monitor everything from a user’s mood to keeping tabs on how their vision may change over time. According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple will also launch a journaling app not only as a way for users to log their thoughts but also activity levels, which can then be analyzed to reveal how much time someone spends at home or out of the house.

The new iOS 17 is also said to get a lock screen refresh: When positioned in horizontal mode, the display will highlight widgets tied to the calendar, weather and other apps, serving as a digital hub. (iPadOS 17 is also expected to get some of the same lock screen capabilities and health features.)

Other anticipated upgrades include an Apple Watch OS update that would focus on quick glances at widgets, and more details about its next-generation CarPlay platform, which it initially teased last year.

While much of the focus of the event may be on VR, Apple may also attempt to show how it’s keeping pace with Silicon Valley’s current obsession: artificial intelligence.

Apple reportedly plans to preview an AI-powered digital coaching service, which will encourage people to exercise and improve their sleeping and eating habits. It’s unclear how it could work, but the effort comes at a time when Big Tech companies are racing to introduce AI-powered technologies in the wake of ChatGPT’s viral success.

Apple may also demo and expand on some of its recently teased accessibility tools for the iPhone and iPad, including a feature that promises to replicate a user’s voice for phone calls after only 15 minutes of training.

Most of the other Big Tech companies have recently outlined their AI strategies. This event may be Apple’s chance to do the same.

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April 12, 2021
How your phone learned to see in the dark | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
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Open up Instagram at any given moment and it probably won’t take long to find crisp pictures of the night sky, a skyline after dark or a dimly lit restaurant. While shots like these used to require advanced cameras, they’re now often possible from the phone you already carry around in your pocket.

Tech companies such as Apple, Samsung and Google are investing resources to improve their night photography options at a time when camera features have increasingly become a key selling point for smartphones that otherwise largely all look and feel the same from one year to the next.

Earlier this month, Google brought a faster version of its Night Sight mode, which uses AI algorithms to lighten or brighten images in dark environments, to more of its Pixel models. Apple’s Night mode, which is available on models as far back as the iPhone 11, was touted as a premier feature on its iPhone 14 lineup last year thanks to its improved camera system.

These tools have come a long way in just the past few years, thanks to significant advancements in artificial intelligence technology as well as image processing that has become sharper, quicker, and more resilient to challenging photography situations. And smartphone makers aren’t done yet.

“People increasingly rely on their smartphones to take photos, record videos, and create content,” said Lian Jye Su, an artificial intelligence analyst at ABI Research. “[This] will only fuel the smartphone companies to up their games in AI-enhanced image and video processing.”

While there has been much focus lately on Silicon Valley’s renewed AI arms race over chatbots, the push to develop more sophisticated AI tools could also help further improve night photography and bring our smartphones closer to being able to see in the dark.

Samsung’s Night mode feature, which is available on various Galaxy models but optimized for its premium S23 Ultra smartphone, promises to do what would have seemed unthinkable just five to 10 years ago: enable phones to take clearer pictures with little light.

The feature is designed to minimize what’s called “noise,” a term in photography that typically refers to poor lighting conditions, long exposure times, and other elements that can take away from the quality of an image.

The secret to reducing noise, according to the company, is a combination of the S23 Ultra’s adaptive 200M pixel sensor. After the shutter button is pressed, Samsung uses advanced multi-frame processing to combine multiple images into a single picture and AI to automatically adjust the photo as necessary.

“When a user takes a photo in low or dark lighting conditions, the processor helps remove noise through multi-frame processing,” said Joshua Cho, executive vice president of Samsung’s Visual Solution Team. “Instantaneously, the Galaxy S23 Ultra detects the detail that should be kept, and the noise that should be removed.”

For Samsung and other tech companies, AI algorithms are crucial to delivering photos taken in the dark. “The AI training process is based on a large number of images tuned and annotated by experts, and AI learns the parameters to adjust for every photo taken in low-light situations,” Su explained.

For example, algorithms identify the right level of exposure, determine the correct color pallet and gradient under certain lighting conditions, sharpen blurred faces or objects artificially, and then makes those changes. The final result, however, can look quite different from what the person taking the picture saw in real time, in what some might argue is a technical sleight-of-hand trick.

Google is also focused on reducing noise in photography. Its AI-powered Night Sight feature captures a burst of longer-exposure frames. It then uses something called HDR+ Bracketing, which creates several photos with different settings. After a picture is taken, the images are combined together to create “sharper photos” even in dark environments “that are still incredibly bright and detailed,” said Alex Schiffhauer, a group product manager at Google.

While effective, there can be a slight but noticeable delay before the image is ready. But Schiffhauer said Google intends to speed up this process more on future Pixel iterations. “We’d love a world in which customers can get the quality of Night Sight without needing to hold still for a few seconds,” Schiffhauer said.

Google also has an astrophotography feature which allows people to take shots of the night sky without needing to tweak the exposure or other settings. The algorithms detect details in the sky and enhances them to stand out, according to the company.

Apple has long been rumored to be working on an astrophotography feature, but some iPhone 14 Pro Max users have successfully been able to capture pictures of the sky through its existing Night Mode tool. When a device detects a low-light environment, Night mode turns on to capture details and brighten shots. (The company did not respond to a request to elaborate on how the algorithms work.)

AI can make a difference in the image, but the end results for each of these features also depend on the phone’s lenses, said Gartner analyst Bill Ray. A traditional camera will have the lens several centimeters from the sensor, but the limited space on a phone often requires squeezing things together, which can result in a more shallow depth of field and reduced image quality, especially in darker environments.

“The quality of the lens is still a big deal, and how the phone addresses the lack of depth,” Ray said.

While night photography on phones has come a long way, a buzzy new technology could push it ahead even more.

Generative AI, the technology that powers the viral chatbot ChatGPT, has earned plenty of attention for its ability to create compelling essays and images in response to user prompts. But these AI systems, which are trained on vast troves of online data, also have potential to edit and process images.

“In recent years, generative AI models have also been used in photo-editing functions like background removal or replacement,” Su said. If this technology is added to smartphone photo systems, it could eventually make night modes even more powerful, Su said.

Big Tech companies, including Google, are already fully embracing this technology in other parts of their business. Meanwhile, smartphone chipset vendors like Qualcomm and MediaTek are looking to support more generative AI applications natively on consumer devices, Su said. These include image and video augmentation.

“But this is still about two to three years away from limited versions of this showing up on smartphones,” he said.

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April 12, 2021
I tried Apple’s new headset. Here’s what it’s like to use | CNN Business

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CNN
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It’s rare to find a new technology that feels groundbreaking. But last night, while sitting on a couch in a private demo room at Apple’s campus wearing its newly announced Vision Pro mixed reality headset, it felt like I’d seen the future — or at least an early and very pricey prototype of it.

In the demo, which lasted 30 minutes, a virtual butterfly landed on my finger; a dinosaur with detailed scales tried to bite me; and I stood inches away from Alicia Keys’ piano as she serenaded me in a recording studio. When a small bear cub swam by me on a quiet lake during another immersive video, it felt so real that it reminded me of an experience with a loved one who recently passed away. I couldn’t wipe the tears inside my headset.

Apple unveiled the headset, its most ambitious and riskiest new hardware offering in years, at a developer event earlier in the day. The headset blends both virtual reality and augmented reality, a technology that overlays virtual images on live video of the real world. At the event, Apple CEO Tim Cook touted the Vision Pro as a “revolutionary product,” with the potential to change how users interact with technology, each other and the world around them. He called it “the first product you look through, not at.”

But it’s clearly a work in progress. The apps and experiences remain limited; users must stay tethered to a battery pack the size of an iPhone with just two hours of battery life; and the first minutes using the device can be off-putting. Apple also plans to charge $3,499 for the device when it goes on sale early next year – more than had been rumored and far more than other headsets on the market that have previously struggled to gain wide adoption.

With its loyal following and impressive track record on hardware, Apple may be able to convince developers, early adopters and some enterprise customers to pay up for the device. But if it wants to attract a more mainstream audience, it will need a “killer app,” as the industry often refers to it -— or several.

Based on my demo, Apple still has a long way to go, but it’s off to a compelling start.

Hours after the keynote event, I arrived at a building on Apple’s sprawling Cupertino, California, campus specifically constructed to stage demos and briefings for the new headset.

I was met by an Apple employee who scanned my face to help customize the fit of the headset. Then I entered a small room where an optometrist asked if I wore glasses or corrective lenses. I had gotten Lasik surgery years ago, but others around me had their glasses scanned so the headset could present their specific prescription. It’s an incredible feat that differentiates Apple from competitors and ensures no frames need to be squeezed into the headset. But it’s unclear how the company plans to handle this process at scale if millions buy the device.

The initial setup process was somewhat unpleasant: I felt a little nauseous and claustrophobic as I adjusted to the device. It tracked my eyes, scanned my hands and mapped the room to better tailor the augmented reality experience.

But Apple has also taken steps to reduce the motion sickness problem that has plagued other headsets. The headset uses an R1 processor, a custom chip that cuts down on the latency issue found in similar products that can result in nausea.

As many viewers were quick to point out on Monday, the headset itself looks like a pair of designer ski goggles. It features a soft adjustable strap on the top, a “digital crown” on the back – a bigger version than what you’d find on an Apple Watch – and another digital crown on the top that serves as a kind of home button. There’s also a wire connecting to an external battery pack.

The headset itself felt light enough in the beginning, but even with Apple’s considerable design chops, I never shook the idea that there was a computer on my face. Fortunately, unlike other computing products, the headset did remain cool on my face throughout the experience, thanks largely to a quiet fan and airflow running through the system

Unlike other headsets, the new mixed reality headset also displays the eyes of its users on the outside, so “you’re never isolated from the people around you, you can see them and they can see you,” Alan Dye, vice president of human interface, said during the keynote.

Sadly, I never got to see how my own eyes or anyone else’s looked through the headset during the demo.

After putting on the device, I saw an iOS-like interface. I could easily hop in and out of apps, such as Messages, FaceTime, Safari and Photos, using just my eye movements and touching my thumb and pointer finger together to act as the “select” button. This was more intuitive than expected and worked even when my hands rested on my lap.

Some app experiences were better than others, however. It was beautiful to see images in the Photos app presented before me in a larger than life manner, but it’s hard to imagine feeling the need to do this often on a couch back home. Vision Pro also offers a spatial photo option, which lets users view images and videos in 3D so you feel like you’re directly in the scene. Again, cool but unnecessary.

During another demo, an Apple employee wearing a Vision Pro headset FaceTimed me from the other side of campus. Her “persona” – a digital representation which did not show her wearing the Vision Pro – appeared in front of me as we chatted about the event earlier in the day. She seemed real but it was clear she was not; she was a sort of pseudo-human. (Apple did not scan my face to create my own persona, which would otherwise be done through its OpticID security feature during the setup phase.)

The Apple employee then shared a virtual whiteboard – dragging, dropping and highlighting interior design images. Cook has focused on AR’s potential to foster collaboration, and it’s clear how this tool could be used in meetings to fulfill that promise. What’s less clear is why most employers would spend $3,499 per device per employee to make this happen rather than simply use Zoom.

Like so much else about the product unveiling, this pitch felt mistimed. Earlier in the pandemic, more people might have jumped at the chance to create these virtual experiences while we worked and socialized almost entirely from home. Now, with more employees back in the office and companies looking to cut costs amid broader economic uncertainty, the justification for this pricey device seemed less clear.

The real magic of the Vision Pro, however, is in the immersive videos. Watching an underwater scene from Avatar 2 in 3D, for example, was surreal, seemingly placing me right in the ocean with these fictional creatures. It’s easy to imagine buy-in from Hollywood filmmakers to create experiences just for the headset.

Apple is also uniquely positioned here to supercharge the device with these experiences. It has close relationships in the entertainment industry, including with former Apple board member and Disney CEO Bob Iger, who announced in a pre-recorded video during the event that Disney+ will be available on the headset at launch. Apple teased new National Geographic, Marvel and ESPN experiences for the headset, too.

Almost every new Apple product, from the iPhone to the Apple Watch, promises to use screens of varying sizes to change how we live, work and interact with the world. The Vision Pro has the potential to do all of that in an even more striking way. But unlike the first time I picked up an iPhone or a smartatch, after 30 minutes of using Vision Pro, I was very content to put it down and return to the real world.

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April 12, 2021
The iPhone’s ducking autocorrect problem finally gets fixed | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
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Your iPhone’s autocorrect is getting a big ducking upgrade.

Currently, when you enter a typo or key in an unrecognized word, Apple’s iOS uses some onboard machine learning and references a library of frequent misspellings to automatically correct your mistake. But, as anyone who has ever been seriously annoyed has learned, sometimes your correctly spelled salty language will get changed to something else entirely.

In the new iOS 17, announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference Monday, a new kind of AI-powered autocorrect could solve that problem.

Apple’s new iOS keyboard will learn your habits over time, fixing words that you frequently misspell – and leaving words alone that you intentionally thumbed in. It will also use AI to better predict your next word and provide improved autofill suggestions.

“In those moments where you just want to type a ducking word, well, the keyboard will learn it, too,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s head of software, during Apple’s presentation.

Using a so-called transformer language model, similar to the technology that powers ChatGPT, Federighi said the new iOS will be able to fix entire sentences based on context. For example, Apple will know to change “your” to “you’re” when you’ve completed a sentence using the incorrect word.

The new iOS will also allow you to revert to the original word you typed by tapping on the change, and it will learn from your habits over time.

Predictive text is also getting better, allowing people to tap the spacebar to fill in words and complete entire sentences in some cases. Dictation is also getting some improvements, as Apple’s new keyboard engine will learn your voice over time.

Apple is banking on its in-house processor, also announced at the conference, to power the language model each time a user interacts with the keyboard.

The makeover to the keyboard and autocorrect will be in the new iOS 17 slated for later this year.

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April 12, 2021
Apple’s Weather app briefly went down and rained on everyone’s morning | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
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Anyone using their iPhone to check the weather on Tuesday may have had better luck just looking out the window.

Apple’s default Weather app briefly went down for many users on Tuesday morning, showing blank screens with no data. The result: many users felt clueless about what was happening outside.

“The Apple Weather app has been down all morning and I never imagined how much disruption that would cause,” wrote one Twitter user. Another tweeted an apparent “Top Gun” reference: “Biggest storm of the season is about to hit Fargo and the Apple weather app is down. I’m flying blind, Goose.”

There are numerous other sources one could use to determine the weather, including various apps, websites, local news reports and, of course, one’s own eyes. But the apparent disruption from the outage highlights how reliant some have grown on certain popular applications.

Apple confirmed the outage in a Twitter reply to a frustrated user, noting that some app users may be experiencing a “temporary outage.” The company’s

System Status page also flagged the Weather app as facing an ongoing issue.

Apple did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

One CNN reporter saw only a handful of cities on the Weather app home screen load with full data, while most cities remained completely blank. The app usually displays information including hourly forecast, 10-day forecast, air quality index, precipitation, UV index and more.

The app was revamped as part of the iOS 16 release in September after Apple bought popular weather service Dark Sky in 2020 and fully integrated its features into the newest operating system.

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April 12, 2021
Apple commits to investing across India as Tim Cook opens second store | CNN Business

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New Delhi
CNN
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Apple CEO Tim Cook met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, pledging to invest further in the fast-growing economy as his company ramps up retail and manufacturing activities.

The visit underscores how the world’s most valuable company is continuing to pivot to India, eyeing its potential as both a consumer market and production hub. India is set to surpass China as the world’s most populous nation by the middle of this year, according to data released by the United Nations.

“From education and developers to manufacturing and the environment, we’re committed to growing and investing across the country,” Cook wrote on Twitter following the meeting.

Modi said on Twitter that the two had exchanged views on a range of topics, including “the tech-powered transformations taking place in India.”

An absolute delight to meet you, @tim_cook! Glad to exchange views on diverse topics and highlight the tech-powered transformations taking place in India. https://t.co/hetLIjEQEU

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 19, 2023

Apple

(AAPL)’s CEO is in India this week to open its first physical stores in the country, marking a milestone for the iPhone maker in the world’s second largest smartphone market after China.

Cook presided over the company’s second store opening in the capital of New Delhi on Thursday, after launching Apple’s first outlet in Mumbai earlier this week, greeting customers and taking selfies with employees.

Cook also met other officials including IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who tweeted afterward that the pair had “discussed deepening Apple’s engagement in India across manufacturing, electronics exports, [the] app economy, skilling, sustainability and job creation especially for women.”

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, India’s deputy minister for information technology, said he was optimistic about how much Apple could expand its footprint in the country.

“I am very confident that this Apple-India partnership has a lot of headroom for investments, growth, exports and jobs — doubling and tripling over coming years,” he told Reuters.

Apple declined to comment, while India’s IT ministry did not immediately respond to a request for details.

Apple’s expansion in India coincides with its 25th year of operating in the country.

The California-based giant is the world’s second biggest smartphone maker behind Samsung

(SSNLF), but its 6% share of the Indian market remains small.

Apple, which is considered too expensive by many consumers in the country, is dwarfed by India’s top five mobile vendors, led by Samsung and Chinese smartphone makers Xiaomi and Vivo.

The US firm’s share is expected to grow, however, as it continues to build out its retail presence in the country and more customers turn to high-end smartphones.

Apple has also been ramping up its manufacturing in India, where it first began making iPhones in 2017.

In recent months, it has expanded production there after suffering supply chain snags in mainland China, which accounts for the bulk of its smartphone manufacturing.

Two of Apple’s top suppliers, Foxconn and Wistron, were the fastest-growing manufacturers in India during the last quarter of 2022, according to Counterpoint Research.

Last month, Foxconn CEO Young Liu also spent a week in the country and met with Modi.

In a statement this week, Apple said it was working with suppliers to “produce a growing number of components.”

The company’s “work with Indian suppliers of all sizes supports hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country,” it added.

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April 12, 2021
Samsung profits plunge 95% | CNN Business

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Samsung Electronics flagged a gradual recovery for chips in the second half of the year after its semiconductor business reported a record loss on Thursday, driven by weak demand for tech devices.

A global downturn in semiconductor purchases amid an economic slowdown and weak customer spending sent chip prices plummeting in the first quarter, triggering production cuts across the sector.

Samsung

(SSNLF) said its chip business would focus on high-capacity server and mobile products “based on expectations of a gradual market recovery and a rebound in global demand” in the second half.

For the current quarter, Samsung said it expected limited recovery for memory chips as major data center firms invested more conservatively in servers.

The world’s biggest memory chipmaker said operating profit fell to 640 billion won ($478.6 million) for the January-March quarter, down 95% from 14.12 trillion won a year earlier and the lowest profit for any quarter in 14 years.

Revenue fell 18% to 63.7 trillion won.

The South Korean tech giant’s chip division — normally its most reliable cash cow — reported a 4.58 trillion won loss compared to an 8.45 trillion won profit a year earlier.

Shoppers around the world have cut back on purchases due to rising inflation. As a result, smartphone, personal computer and server companies have run down inventories, causing chip prices to plunge by about 70% over the previous nine months.

Samsung made a rare announcement of a chip production cut earlier this month, joining smaller rivals.

Although this could help chip prices recover slightly, analysts said Samsung’s profit in the current quarter may be similar to Q1 without a fundamental recovery in demand for devices that use chips.

By the second half of the year, customers will have run down inventory and gradually start buying chips again, Samsung said.

Despite the record loss in chips, Samsung said it spent 10.7 trillion won in capital expenditures during Q1, the highest for the first quarter of any year.

Out of that, 9.8 trillion won was spent on chips as Samsung sets up production in its Taylor, Texas and Pyeongtaek, South Korea factories.

“Samsung Electronics will continue to invest in memory semiconductors at a similar level to the previous year … to secure mid- to long-term competitiveness,” it said.

Samsung’s mobile business was a brighter spot, reporting 3.94 trillion won profit in Q1, up from 3.82 trillion won a year earlier.

“Samsung is focusing on profit rather than shipments” as it meets more resilient demand for premium smartphones rather than volume, said Jene Park, senior analyst at Counterpoint.

In the second half, Samsung forecast the smartphone market would increase in both shipments and revenue as the global economy recovers.

Shares in Samsung fell 0.5% in morning trade, in line with the wider market.

Samsung shares have risen about 16% year-to-date as investors anticipate a memory chip recovery in the second half of this year.

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April 12, 2021
This is Google’s new folding phone | CNN Business

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CNN
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Just a few days ahead of its product launch, Google unveiled an early look at its first foldable smartphone.

In a video posted to Twitter and YouTube, the company teased a Pixel phone with a vertical hinge that can be opened to reveal a tablet-like display.

The company will host its annual developer conference at its Mountain View, California, headquarters next week, where it’s rumored to also introduce a Pixel 7a budget phone, its latest Android operating system and advancements to its AI-powered Bard chatbot.

Although the company didn’t reveal specs for the Pixel Fold, it’s become increasingly common for companies to show off products leading up to their own events in an effort to drum up excitement and set expectations at a time when it’s difficult to surprise onlookers with something unexpected.

Despite great interest in foldable phones — and a resurgence in 90s-style flip phones among celebrities and TikTok influencers — the foldable market is relatively small; with Samsung dominating the category, followed by others including Motorola/Lenovo, Oppo, and Huawei. According to ABI Research, foldable and flexible displays made up about 0.7% of the smartphone market in 2021, and in 2022 expected to fall just shy of 2%.

High price points have limited consumer adoption, too. The Pixel Fold is rumored to start at $1,700.

It’s not surprising Google is dipping its toes into the world of foldables but it’s possible it waited to launch its own version until the technology became more advanced. Early versions of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold, for example, had issues with the screen and most apps were not well optimized for the design.

“Google has been working on bringing better user experiences to foldable devices from a software perspective, so when coupled with improvements on the hardware side the market conditions are at a state now where it makes sense for a Pixel Fold,” said Michael Inouye, an analyst at ABI Research.

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April 12, 2021