Originally published at: https://appletalk.com.au/2018/09/tuesday-morning-news110918/
Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is back with predictions regarding upcoming Apple products, and seeing as still have a little time before Apple’s event on early Thursday morning, we might as well entertain his ideas. While Keuo doesn’t have anything new or particularly exciting about iPhones, he claims new iPad Pros will replace Lightning with USB-C and have an 18W USB-C power adapter in the box, while the Apple Watch Series 4 will have come with a built-in ECG and all-ceramic back on all models.
The rest of the Apple rumour-sphere is still deciding what the name of Apple’s next iPhone will be. While the 5.8 and 6.5-inch OLED successors to the iPhone X will likely be named the iPhone “Xs”, everyone’s still up in arms over the name of the 6.1-inch LCD iPhone, which Bloomberg says will be called the iPhone “Xr”, although we’ve also seen “Xc” pitched as a possible name.
MacRumors has a roundup of everything we’ve heard so far about the iPhone whatever-it-will-be-called. If you haven’t read any iPhone rumours so far and want to get up to speed, it’s a good starting point, including everything from naming speculation, spec discussion, and all the part leaks so far, although it’s been pretty light this time around - very few individual components have leaked compared to previous years.
In the second leak from a Chinese telco in as many days, Chinese carriers have leaked a marketing image of what appears to be an iPhone with dual-SIM card slots. China Telecom shared an iPhone-like device with a SIM card tray capable of taking two SIM cards to Facebook, with China Mobile turning up the subtlety with their image of an apple with two SIM cards in it. I guess the writing’s on the (Facebook) wall for this one, but we’ll find out in a few days.
Speaking of China, TechCrunch says the region may become an important consideration for Apple in their decision on adopting 5G tech in a future iPhone. To be clear, no one has claimed we’ll be seeing 5G tech from Apple in this year’s iPhone or the next, but with Apple traditionally lagging behind adopting faster mobile connection standards and China putting 5G at the top of the pile for its telecommunications strategy, it’ll be interesting to see how many carriers adopt 5G for that extra edge in the China market.
I don’t know why The Verge needed five things to put in their list on what to expect at Apple’s event on Thursday, but I’m not entirely sure we’ll see all five. Indeed, their list is made up of iPhones, Apple Watch, AirPower (and new AirPods and other accessories), and then software updates for iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS, but their fifth is an unknown “one more thing” that was pulled out the last time Apple announced the iPhone X.
A writer from Macworld wants features from Fitbit in the upcoming Apple Watch, but besides obvious ones like multi-day battery life and sleep tracking, they’re rest are low-hanging fruit that could be be done in software. Even Android support, however unlikely that is to happen.
Apple’s latest acquisitions for its streaming video service are a documentary about migrating elephants and an animated film about wolf-hunters set in Ireland. Meanwhile, Apple’s series of Carpool Karaoke must have been something of a hit with critics, as it won a Primetime Emmy award for Outstanding Short Form Variety Series at this year’s Emmy Awards.
Over a Reckoner, Raj Deut says he’s mostly OK with the fact he doesn’t own the latest iPhone. Although the pull for a shiny new device is strong, the somewhat exorbitant price of Apple’s latest and greatest is an equally strong detractor, and you’ll likely fall somewhere on the scale of “I have never purchased a new iPhone” to “slammin’ that buy button at 5:01pm”.
For some reason Apple ranked number 11 in a list of the world’s most creative companies, although the criteria was companies that were issued the most patents last year, and even then, multiple patents for very similar inventions may have inflated other higher-ranking companies.