Apple

IDC has published a report with forecast projections for global smartphone shipments in 2018 and 2022. The research company expects a drop of 3% in 2018 followed by a small increase in 2019 that will carry on through to 2022. The total units shipped for 2018 is estimated at 1.42 billion while the 2022 estimate is put at 1.57 billion. Android should maintain a comfortable lead in terms of platform used.

Although some issues that have been around for ages — such as idle players, a broken matchmaking system, and bots — have not been addressed, World of Tanks 1.3 comes with large-scale decals, a few reworked maps, a new map for the Grand Battles mode, tweaked Personal Missions, and other minor changes.

The Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court in China has granted preliminary injunctions against the import, sale, and offers for sale of various older Apple iPhone models in the country. The Court granted the injunction against Apple as it found that it infringed on two Qualcomm patents. This is being seen as a big win for Qualcomm, which has been at loggerheads with Apple over various patent infringement issues for a long time.

Less than eight years since its release, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has been turned into a free to play title. However, the best part is that the favorite first-person shooter of millions has also received a battle royale mode named Danger Zone that brings together up to 16 players in a fight to the last.

Smart fabric is a form of textile containing nano-tech threads that can form circuits and battery connections when woven together. Google has been developing its own take on this new type of electronics, in the form of 'Project Jacquard'. Its first commercial application is a jacket designed in collaboration with Levi's, with touch-sensitive sleeves that interact with a phone as a Bluetooth device might.

Apple will make minimal changes to its smartphones for the new year, according to an analyst with the bank Nomura. Therefore, they are likely to end up looking much like the iPhone X of 2017...again. The Nomura research report indicates that the new models will have little to distinguish them besides new or improved software features.

The iPhone XR made the trip over to DxOMark and shone, earning the highest score ever for a device with a single rear camera, and showing up other flagships with more complicated camera setups.

Apple has acquired A & R startup Platoon to supplement its Apple Music services for artists. In other Apple news, it has also updated its Beddit Sleep Monitor system to version 3.5.

Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft have all suffered on the stock market today amid growing concerns over US-China trade relations. While some investors have been selling stock to reduce the chance of risk, others have been nervously watching recent events such as the trade talks between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping and the arrest of a high-ranking Huawei executive.

A new official battery case for the iPhone XS or possibly the XS Max may be available soon. This possibility has arisen from clues found in the code of an Apple software beta, which has resulted in accurate predictions about upcoming products in the past. This case, should it exist, has undergone somewhat of a design update to match the new iPhone.

The Helio M70 baseband chipset was showcased at the China Mobile Global Partner Conference in Guangzhou today. This modem, unlike the Snapdragon X50, is backwards-compatible with 4G to 2G. It is also 3GPP-compatible and rated for speeds of 5 gigabits per second.

Sales-wise, Apple's current generation of devices may be the most lukewarm the company has put out in the recent past, and the fact that the cheapest device of the lot is the best-selling is unlikely to be considered a positive by the company's executives.

The Qualcomm tech summit of 2018 highlighted the company’s strength of conviction that 5G is the future of consumer electronics. It promoted the new radio standard’s ‘near-zero’ latency and increased transmission rates, and the advantages for communications, business and media these properties would bring.

Microsoft has launched a new Surface Go advert aimed at families buying the device for their children for the holiday season. Naturally, the company had a dig at Apple and the iPad too.

A new report on the wearables market shows that Xiaomi was the single biggest company in this space in the third quarter of 2018, keeping Apple as the runner-up in terms of market share. The market also grew by 21.7% in general compared to last year. This was attributed to the release of new products and increased uptake in the Asia-Pacific region.

A new article in Bloomberg substantiates earlier claims that Apple will not adopt 5G in its next-generation iPhones. In fact, the outlet's sources have suggested that this may not happen until after 2020. The company's current enmity to Qualcomm may be a factor in the apparent delay.

A new report from a Korean media outlet details Huawei's plans to introduce an in-house OS for its mobile devices. Should this prospect be realized, the Chinese company may drop its Android skin (EMUI) for completely separate software along the lines of Tizen or, well...iOS. This suggests that Huawei wants to build its own ecosystem for the use of its hardware.

Epic Games has silently enabled 60 FPS for the iPhone XR, XS and XS Max in its latest update for Fortnite on iOS, according to the Senior PR Manager at the company. The update (v. 6.31) is live now on the App Store.

Amazon Alexa is probably Google Assistant's most consistent competitor. The voice-powered software will add another feature to its set soon: Apple Music support. Amazon has announced that users will be able to play tracks associated with this streaming service from December 17, 2018.

Apple is facing a lawsuit pressed by 3 plaintiffs in the United States. It concerns a claim that the company has breached Californian advertising and representation laws in selling Macbook and iMacs. These plaintiffs assert that Apple's allusions to longevity and robustness when marketing its devices are contrary to their experiences of reduced or impaired functionality in their devices.

Microsoft has become more valuable than Apple in terms of market capitalization. At the time of writing, Microsoft’s value stood at US$846.76 billion compared to Apple’s US$844.39 billion. The Redmond-based company has passed Apple a number of times over the last few days, only for the Cupertino rival to temporarily bounce back.

Apple became the world's first trillion dollar company this past August. Since then, the Cupertino giant has struggled to hit sales targets for its latest iPhone family. Despite this, Apple VP of product marketing Greg Joswiak said that the iPhone XR has been "the most popular iPhone" since its launch. However, "most popular" does not mean "selling well."

DriveSavers, one of the world's leading data recovery companies, now offers a service for unlocking smartphones and tablets that have a locked passcode, including iPhones and iPads. DriveSavers claims to be the only company that offers this level of device unlocking and data recovery outside of law enforcement, but the service costs a staggering US$3900.

Among the Windows 10 October update's many bugs, Apple's iCloud stopped working and could not be installed on the build. Microsoft and Apple had announced that they would collaborate to resolve this bug. With iCloud's newest update, it appears that this has been achieved.

Apple has reportedly reduced orders from iPhone component suppliers again. According to DigiTimes, a "second wave" of order cuts is beginning to bring pain to some Taiwanese manufacturers. Apple is continuing to blame poor sales of the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR for the order reductions.

Microsoft has come very close to matching Apple’s market capitalization value today. At the time of writing, Microsoft’s market cap was US$817.28 billion compared to Apple’s US$828.64 billion. Earlier in the day, the two tech giants had been within around US$3 billion of each other. A comment from President Donald Trump about potential trade tariffs caused Apple’s stock price to fall.

Apple will appear before the U.S. Supreme Court today to argue that a lawsuit brought against it is invalid. Apple claims that the lawsuit, which alleges that the iOS App Store creates a monopoly for the company, could only be brought by app developers, not the end users. If Apple is successful, then the case will be dismissed. Otherwise, Apple could be taken to court for potentially monopolistic practices.

Stardew Valley is a bonafide hit, and the success keeps rolling in. In its first three weeks on iOS, the game brought in over $1 million in revenue. In total, Stardew Valley has sold over 4.6 million copies, although it's likely sold many, many more.

Whatever happened to the Apple-branded Chromecast/TV Stick competitor? What indeed; however, some sources close to Apple allege that there was a team dedicated to such a product at one time. A cheaper version of Apple TV could have benefited some groups...however, it's apparently long gone now.

Apple is looking to enhance subsidies to Japanese carriers in order to boost sales of iPhone XR in the region, according to sources familiar with the matter. Apple is also expected to resume iPhone X production, partly to boost margins and partly due to the fact that Apple needs to buy the contracted number of OLED panels from Samsung SDI Co., given that the production of iPhone XS variants has been scaled down due to low market demand.

Apple’s stock price has suffered from further decline over recent days, with the current price reported by NASDAQ standing at US$176.78. Cautious investors are apparently biding their time to see what the Cupertino-based tech giant’s next move is going to be, and some analysts expect this to be a temporary downturn in the company’s fortunes.

Valve quietly announced that once physical stock of the Steam Link streaming device sells out, they will no longer sell physical units. Instead, Valve will shift focus and support to the Steam Link mobile app, currently only available for Android. While the reasons for the discontinuation aren't entirely clear, it's likely that the Steam Link is no longer selling enough to warrant continued support.

Tumblr's disappearance from Apple's App Store finally has an official reason: what was first simply described as "an issue" was, in fact, child pornography that slipped through the filters — enough of it to make the app vanish. This is not the first time Tumblr has run into pornography-related problems — most likely not the last time, either.

Since Apple Maps often gives the same directions to pedestrians and drivers, the company's pedestrian recon teams are now back on the streets of the United States. The individuals who are part of these teams are wearing backpacks apparently filled with the same cameras and sensors as those found on Apple Maps vehicles.

The new Apple store that opened its doors for the first time last Sunday in Paris is located on one of the most famous shopping streets in the world — the Champs-Élysées — and is entirely powered using renewable energy. Apple Champs-Élysées has over 100 employees that belong to 15 nationalities and speak 17 languages.

According to some of its suppliers, Apple has cut orders for both the iPhone XS and iPhone XR. Citing a weak Chinese market and a slowdown in smartphone demand, Apple has had to pare back its supply of the new iPhones, a move that will inevitably reduce sales in the short term.

Defending Apple's decision for making Google the default search provider in Apple products, CEO Tim Cook said that Google's search is the best despite some lingering privacy concerns. Google is known to pay companies such as Apple and Samsung hefty amounts to make them set Google Search as the default search provider. Cook also touched upon other issues such as government regulations in user data privacy and gender disparity in Silicon Valley.

Users have reportedly discovered that iCloud stops working on laptops updated to the latest version of Windows (1809). This prevents syncing or uploading to the service. New installs of iCloud may also fail due to a lack of compatibility. Microsoft has announced a collaboration with Apple to fix the problem.

The Apple iPad Pro is apparently not a very durable tablet as demonstrated by Zack Nelson of the popular YouTube channel, JerryRigEverything. Zack was easily able to bend the iPad Pro with very minimal effort, which raises concerns about Apple putting build quality at stake in the quest for slimness.

T-Mobile looks like it has some great deals on some of the best smartphones released this year. Handsets like the iPhone XR and Galaxy S9 can be had for free, but reading the fine print shows a few caveats. In addition to activating two new lines and trading in an eligible device, the phones are only free because of a bill credit that is granted over a 36-month period, which effectively locks consumers into a three-year contract.

Apple’s stock price seems to have stabilized and even briefly bounced back after days of steep decline. The NASDAQ community has offered a “bullish” rating for the stock, implying there is still plenty of optimism in the company’s recovery. However, it’s unlikely Mark Zuckerberg is going to be investing in the Cupertino-based firm any time soon.

The United States and South Korea are the countries most strongly linked with the earliest widespread roll-outs of the new mobile data-transfer standard, 5G. AT&T is one of the US networks engaged in the upcoming national 5G distribution program. However, reps from the carrier have warned against getting too excited about it right now.

Apple has released new models of the 15-inch MacBook Pro with AMD Radeon Pro Vega GPUs. The new MacBook Pros can be configured with either a Radeon Pro Vega 16 or Radeon Pro Vega 20. The new GPU option is only available for the most expensive 15-inch Macbook Pro and will start at US $3,049.

It has been claimed that Apple will be releasing the successor to its AirPods product before the end of the year. There has been speculation that AirPods 2 could feature a case that can be charged wirelessly, but nothing has been confirmed from Cupertino yet. Leaked images of stacked AirPods cases have added fuel to the fire.

Noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has told investors to temper sales expectations for the iPhone XR. Citing trade disputes, consumer fatigue, and steep competition, Kuo has slashed sales expectations for the iPhone XR by 35% for 2018Q4 and 30% for 2019Q1 and 2019Q2.

TFI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo expects that the next generation of Apple iPhone could be switching to MPI antenna technology instead of the LCP antennas as in the current models. This move is expected to improve costs and production yields, and also broaden Apple's supplier base.

Apple’s new iPad Pro tablets have received largely positive reviews. One area that has come in for praise is its display. However, although claiming users can watch HDR movies on the tablet, all is not quite what it seems.

Apple has confirmed to The Verge that its T2 chip will limit the ability to repair new Macs as it feels that the chip is crucial to enabling modern security features on Mac computers. However, critics are concerned that Apple's move will greatly impact enthusiasts and third-party repair shops thereby preventing them from offering aftermarket services to Mac owners.

Stock prices for Apple have fallen again today, reaching a low of US$193.79 in the late morning. The price stood at US$204.47 at the previous close, meaning the Cupertino-based company has seen more billions of dollars wiped off its market cap. The new plunge has been attributed to an updated business outlook statement from Lumentum.