iPhone

As first rumored late last year, Apple’s manufacturing partners are full steam ahead on setting up production facilities in India, to make current generation iPhones. Domestic manufacturing is key to avoiding India’s hefty import taxes on foreign goods, allowing Apple to lower prices in the country.

Today, India’s IT ministry signed off on plans for a new $1m Wistron factory in India. It is expected that the factory will produce iPhone 8 phones whilst an ongoing factory proposal from Foxconn will manufacture ‘Made in India’ iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max models.

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Yesterday we reported on the news that Apple recently started performing repairs on iPhones with third-party batteries. Now we’ve gotten a look at the official repair guide that details how Apple will handle repairs with non-original batteries.

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If you want an iPhone or other iDevice in a custom finish or color, you normally have to pay a third-party company a significant premium for the privilege. But one French company is offering refurbished iPhones in custom colors for less than Apple charges for a brand new phone in a stock color – and not much more than a standard refurb.

For example, the iPhone 6 and 7 are available in green, blue, raspberry, and yellow …

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Weakness in Chinese smartphone sales in the holiday quarter led Apple to report its first guidance miss in 16 years. Both Tim Cook and external analysts have tentatively said that market conditions are slowly improving.

In January, major Apple Chinese resellers cut the price of iPhone XR models. This week, the same resellers are pushing iPhone XS with price promotions, as first reported by the Taipei Central News Agency.

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A new report today from Bloomberg looks at the tricky situation Apple may be in as it looks into sourcing 5G modems for its 2020 iPhone lineup. While using Intel may be the company’s first choice, there could be a major downside in using those chips. Meanwhile, Apple’s other 5G modem supplier options are also less than ideal.

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Foxconn salaries and benefits have reportedly been dramatically cut in response to lower iPhone orders.

Salaries were reduced by fewer working hours being available, with one worker saying that the peak production season for iPhones – which normally lasts 4-5 months – lasted for only around 20 days for the 2018 models …

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Nearly two years ago former Twitter for iOS tech lead Ben Sandofsky and ex-Apple designer Sebastiaan de With launched Halide, the beautiful pro camera app for iPhone that’s proven both popular and powerful. Today the duo is launching their second app, a companion camera called Spectre that focuses on intelligent long exposure photography.

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A folding iPhone patent application shows how Apple might solve one of the problems posed by a foldable display.

The application was published at a time when several Android manufacturers have announced folding smartphones, and there’s much speculation about Apple’s plans …

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UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri is out with a new investor note taking a look at Apple’s performance as we enter the month of March. In the note, obtained by Business Insider, UBS outlines why it believes the “worst of the bad news” for iPhone sales is over in China and more.

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Apple has today announced the winning photographers, and their photos, of its Shot on iPhone contest that it ran at the end of January. The winning images will be featured on Apple billboards, in Apple retail, and as part of online Shot on iPhone features.

The ten shots were chosen by a panel of judges, including photographer Austin Mann and Apple’s own Phil Schiller. The shots were taken on a variety of models, from iPhone 7 through iPhone XS Max …

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Apple has long been the undisputed profit king of the smartphone industry, taking by far the largest slice of the total profit pie. Indeed, at one point Apple was – by one admittedly eccentric measure – taking more than 100% of the profits, when factoring in loss-making brands.

iPhones have also consistently been the most expensive smartphones, discounting tacky bejewelled specials like Vertu. Even when Samsung theoretically matched or exceeded Apple’s pricing for its flagships, its offerings were usually steeply discounted 2-3 months after launch.

But all that is changing …

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Global smartphone revenue continued to grow last year despite falling sales. That’s according to the latest GfK data, which showed revenue growing 5% in 2018 to hit $522B.

This is despite smartphone unit sales declining by 3% the same year …

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Several reports have suggested that the iPhone won’t feature support for true 5G until 2020, and now Intel itself has addressed those concerns. As reported by Reuters, Intel executives have said they don’t expect 5G modem chips to be ready for consumer phones until 2020.

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Samsung showed off its new Galaxy Fold this week – a two thousand dollar foldable smartphone due to go on sale in April. While it’s more of a proof-of-concept product than anything most people would want to buy, it inevitably raised questions about when Apple would launch a folding iPhone.

Goldman Sachs described the Galaxy Fold as ‘the main potential challenge‘ for Apple, and suggested that even if the Cupertino company wants to make a folding iPhone, it may struggle to do so …

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