Every iPhone 14 model might get two big selfie camera improvements
Front-facing cameras on smartphones can often feel a bit neglected, and the iPhone is no exception, as Apple hasn’t significantly upgraded the selfie cameras on these since the iPhone 11. But another big upgrade could be on the way.
According to Ming-Chi Kuo – an analyst with a good track record for Apple information – writing on Medium, Apple is planning to add autofocus to the front-facing camera on the iPhone 14 line.
This isn’t actually the first time they’ve said this, but in reiterating it now it shows they’re still confident of it. It’s something that we’ve also previously heard from other sources, so it seems likely.
That’s not the only upgrade the selfie camera might be getting though, as Kuo also claims that Apple is going to use a six-element lens, up from five elements on the iPhone 13 lens.
That refers to the number of individual glass parts within the lens, and while more isn’t necessarily better, it certainly can be, and likely would be in this case – especially as Kuo describes this change as an upgrade.
So it’s likely that the selfie camera on the iPhone 14 and its siblings will offer significantly improved performance over previous iPhones if this information is right.
Kuo also shared information on the suppliers tapped by Apple to build this new camera, which isn’t of much interest except that if Kuo has those details then it’s all the more believable that they’d know about any planned upgrades.
From Techradar
Apple Headset closer to reality as LG Display aims to supply MicroOLED panel
The Apple Headset is coming. The Mixed Reality project is expected to launch next year, and suppliers are readying to take a big stake in Apple’s new bet. While the company will use Sony’s MicroOLED display for the first units, LG Display is aiming to also be a supplier of the inner panel for this product.
According to a report by The Elec, LG Display is expected to order deposition equipment to make MicroOLED from Sunic System. With that, LG would develop and manufacture this MicroOLED panel to supply the Apple Headset focused on AR/VR capabilities.
Apple has been working closely with Sony for this panel for at least a couple of years. The Elec says the Apple Headset is expected to use Sony’s MicroOLED panel for its screen, while the outer screen “or an indicator, which will be a regular OLED panel,” will be provided by LG Display.
With that in mind, LG doesn’t want only the outer display, but also a stake in the inner panel as well.
The publication explains that the MicroOLED technology mounts the OLED on a silicon substrate, unlike conventional panels that mount them on glasses. Also called OLED on Silicon, or OLEDoS, the technology is expected to be used more widely for virtual, augments, and mixed reality devices, such as the Apple Headset.
From 9to5Mac
Samsung Galaxy Fit3 coming later this year or early 2023
While the Galaxy Watch series gets most of the glory, Samsung does make smart bands too. Well, occasionally. The Galaxy Fit2 was announced in September 2020 alongside the Galaxy Tab A7 and there hasn’t been a new one since. That will change, soon-ish.
This info comes from the Korean branch of the Samsung Community forum. One user was asking about the Samsung Galaxy Fit3 and when it might come out. The answer is either in the second half of this year or (if there is a delay in the schedule) in the first half of next year.
The band will apparently cost around KRW 49,000-50,000. Not surprising, that is the same price as the Fit2 (KRW 49,500), so the new one should launch at the same price as the old one in your region, e.g. $60 in the US, €50 in Europe.
From Gsmarena
Galaxy Watch 5 makes its way through the FCC
As per recent reports, Samsung should unveil its redesigned Galaxy Watch 5 series within the next couple of months. And sure enough, the company is taking the necessary steps to acquire regulatory approvals before bringing these devices to the market.
The Galaxy Watch 5 trio of smartwatches has passed through the FCC. The applications reconfirm model numbers: SM-900, SM-910, and SM-920.
As you may recall, the SM-900 and SM-910 model numbers are associated with the codenames Heart-S and Heart-L, respectively, indicating that they should be similar in terms of capabilities but different in size.
The third model number, SM-920, is a bit more interesting, as it was previously associated with the codename Heart-Pro. This should be Samsung’s top-tier smartwatch for 2022 and might hit the market as the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro.
From Sammobile
Intel Core i9-13900 leak shows a 24-core CPU that could scare the hell out of AMD
Intel’s Raptor Lake CPUs are set to arrive later in 2022, and we’ve just caught a glimpse of the potential power of the top dog 13th-gen processor – which could frighten AMD’s engineers, at least with the apparent gains in some respects.
The Core i9-13900 has appeared in multiple results in the SiSoftware Sandra database, as VideoCardz reports, with SiSoftware rounding up those benchmarks as a ‘performance preview’ in an article which also summarizes the purported specs for the flagship CPU (view all this with a skeptical eye, naturally).
As previously rumored, the Core i9-13900 will run with eight performance cores backed with 16 efficiency cores, meaning it’s a 24-core CPU (though it’ll only have 32-threads, as the efficiency cores don’t feature hyper-threading). In other words, the performance cores will remain the same in number as Alder Lake, but Intel is doubling up on the efficiency cores – a big jump indeed.
We’re supposedly looking at a 20% larger L3 cache with Raptor Lake compared to Alder Lake, too, and L2 cache is twice the size for both performance and efficiency cores (2MB per core for the former, and 4MB per cluster of four cores for the latter).
We’ll apparently also see support for faster DDR5 system RAM (5600MT/s, which is a 16% increase compared to Intel’s current 12th-gen chips), if the details provided by SiSoftware are correct, of course (again, let’s remain skeptical).
So, what about those performance findings which are based on several SiSoftware Sandra benchmarks of a sample Core i9-13900 chip?
In ALU/FPU (arithmetic) testing, the Raptor Lake flagship managed a huge improvement of between 33% to 50% over the current Core i9-12900’s benchmark results provided for comparison. Furthermore, this was at pre-release clocks for the Raptor Lake sample, namely 3.7GHz for the performance cores and 2.76GHz for the efficiency ones (compared to 5GHz and 3.8GHz for the Alder Lake flagship).
With vectorized/SIMD tests, the Core i9-13900 made gains to the tune of around 5% to 8% over the Alder Lake flagship.
From Techradar
Samsung has reportedly started mass production of the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro
Since the launch of the Galaxy Buds Pro in January of last year, Samsung’s premium earbuds haven’t seen a new version, but that could change soon. The tech giant has reportedly begun mass production of the Buds Pro’s successor.
The Galaxy Buds 2 Pro (or Galaxy Buds Pro 2) have entered mass production, according to reliable leaker Max Jambor (via SamMobile). Another tipster, SnoopyTech, also revealed on Twitter the supposed color variants of the new earbuds, namely Zenith White, Zenith Bora Purple, and Zenith Graphite.
There’s no official word, however, on when Samsung will unveil the next-generation Galaxy Buds Pro. SamMobile notes that the earbuds could make their debut in July. This implies that the Buds 2 Pro may come out ahead of the expected announcement of Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4 in August.
While the Buds 2 Pro’s unveiling is obviously behind schedule if its predecessor’s launch is anything to go by, the audio accessories are expected to ship with improved battery life and ergonomics.
There hasn’t been much information leaked about the upcoming earbuds, but they’re likely to look similar to the Galaxy Buds 2. Improvements to its active noise cancellation capabilities should not be ruled out either.
Hopefully, Samsung’s next challenger to the best wireless earbuds won’t be infectious like the Galaxy Buds Pro.
From Android Central
Chrome OS may soon get Partial Split windows
Chrome OS may not be as powerful and feature-packed as Windows or macOS, but it has certainly come a long way from its early days — when it was no more than a glorified web browser running on a laptop. It has gotten better over time with new features and improvements. Now, it’s preparing to add a nifty way to arrange split windows.
According to a new commit spotted on the Chromium Gerrit, Google is working on adding a new option for the split view that will let users snap windows into thirds. Chrome OS has long offered the ability to open two apps or browser windows side by side in equally-sized windows. But this upcoming Partial Split feature will add a new configuration that will let you open windows into two-thirds or one-third.
The feature will be hidden behind a new flag called Partial Split, and its description states:
“Enables the option to snap two windows into 2/3 and 1/3 for split view.”
You’ll still be restricted to opening two apps. When you enter the Partial Split mode, one window will take up 2/3 of the screen while the other will use a narrower layout and take up 1/3 of the space. Here’s a mockup of what the Partial Split feature may look like once it goes live.
From XDA
Photos of Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4 batteries reveal larger than expected capacity
Rumor has it that the Galaxy Z Flip4 will receive another battery upgrade – the charging speed will be raised up to 25W (from 15W on the Z Flip3). This too matches the S22.
Live photos of the new Flip leaked earlier today showing the larger cover display and the redesigned hinge. The Galaxy Z Flip4 and Z Fold4 are expected to be announced in early August, but Samsung has already begun the process of mass production, which has led to these leaks.
From Gsmarena
Early OnePlus 10T leak suggests OnePlus hasn’t forgotten its flagship phones
It’s been a quiet year for OnePlus’ flagship line of phones, with the OnePlus 10 Pro the only device we’ve seen so far, but it sounds like that could be changing in the next few months.
Sure, there was no ‘vanilla’ OnePlus 10 nor the rumored Ultra version, but a leak has finally detailed the OnePlus 10T, a budget spin-off that’s likely coming towards the end of the year. This comes in the form of renders of the phone, shared by a site called OnSiteGo – that’s not exactly the biggest site in the world so take this with a pinch of salt.
Apparently these pictures were based on prototype versions of the phone, so they might not line up completely with the finished product, but they give us a good idea as to what OnePlus is focusing on with the new device. Plus, some specs were leaked alongside the images.
From Techradar
A Sony Xperia 5 IV leak suggests the phone is still coming – and with big upgrades
We’d thought there might not be a Sony Xperia 5 IV, given that the phone wasn’t announced alongside the Sony Xperia 1 IV, but a new leak suggests Sony’s compact flagship line will continue after all.
Sumahodigest has spotted a post on Weibo (a Chinese social network) which contains a partial specs list for the Sony Xperia 5 IV. The presence of such a specs list suggests the phone is still in the works, and the content of the list is promising.
Apparently the Xperia 5 IV has the same cameras as the Sony Xperia 1 IV, meaning a 12MP wide snapper, a 12MP ultrawide one and – perhaps most excitingly – a 12MP telephoto one, which can seamlessly move between 85mm and 125mm optical zoom ranges. That equates to between 3.5x and 5.2x zoom relative to the focal length of the main lens.
On top of that, the Sony Xperia 5 IV is also said to come in both 8GB and 12GB RAM configurations – with the latter being 4GB more than you can get in the Sony Xperia 5 III, and a match for the Xperia 1 IV.
The battery could match the Xperia 1 IV too at 5,000mAh, and it apparently supports wireless charging, which the previous model doesn’t.
A Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset is also listed, as is a 6.1-inch screen, and a choice of 128GB or 256GB of storage. Interestingly, Android 13 is mentioned as well, but that has a question mark next to it, so presumably the source isn’t sure of that.
We’d take all of this with a helping of salt, especially as the source hasn’t leaked anything in the past, so they don’t have a track record yet. Another red flag is that this post has seemingly been deleted – however they’ve made another post saying that the Sony Xperia 5 IV does exist, but that another Sony phone will probably be released before it.
From Techradar
