Samsung shipped fewer phones than Apple in 2023
Samsung has long been the biggest smartphone maker in the world, but it’s officially lost that title as, in 2023, Samsung shipped fewer phones than Apple did.
Expand Expanding CloseSamsung has long been the biggest smartphone maker in the world, but it’s officially lost that title as, in 2023, Samsung shipped fewer phones than Apple did.
Expand Expanding CloseBack in May of this year, Google announced that it would launch the “Find My Device” network for Android, which would allow for AirTag-like tracking on Android devices. But, over the summer, Google announced that it would delay the “Find My Device” network until Apple implemented tracking protection in iOS, and now, amid the busiest travel season of the year, Google is still leaving Android users at the mercy of Apple.
Expand Expanding CloseApple has made plenty of sly digs at Android over the years, but an internal presentation that has now surfaced sees the company proclaiming that Android is “a massive tracking device.”
Expand Expanding CloseApple is apparently set to ditch leather cases on the iPhone 15 series and, in its place, adopt a new “woven” fabric case as 9to5Mac reports. That’s a style of case that Google Pixel users are quite familiar with, so here are a few things to keep in mind as Apple prepares to revive the cases Google never should have killed off.
Expand Expanding CloseApple is set to host its annual WWDC event later today with huge expectations behind the company’s first mixed-reality headset. And, ahead of the big day, Apple was advertising the event through its competitor’s platform, Google TV.
Expand Expanding CloseIn the US, the biggest banks already work together on Zelle money transfers, and now they’re planning a digital wallet to compete with the likes of Apple, PayPal, and Google.
Expand Expanding CloseAfter two years, Apple just unexpectedly revived its full-size HomePod, and all I can think about is how much I want the Google Home Max to be brought back.
Expand Expanding CloseOver the past several months Google has been pushing hard for Apple to adopt the RCS standard that could greatly improve messaging between Android and iOS, and at CES 2023, Google put out huge ads for Android that further pushed that campaign.
Expand Expanding CloseGoogle has said a lot about RCS and iMessage in recent months, and the iPhone-only solution is top of mind as it starts a Pixel 7 holiday push aimed at switchers.
Expand Expanding CloseBefore Google’s “Get The Message” campaign in August, Android’s Messages app was updated with iMessage reactions at the start of this year. In a very weird turn of events, Apple appears to be taking credit for Google adding iMessage reactions on Android.
Expand Expanding CloseApple’s iPhone 14 Pro brings with it a clever new way to not only disguise the selfie camera and facial recognition cutouts, but actually make that space useful to the UI. “Dynamic Island” certainly has the attention of many, and it seems some Android manufacturers have plans to make their own version of the feature.
Expand Expanding CloseDuring an interesting session at the 2022 Code Conference with Jony Ive and Laurene Powell Jobs, Tim Cook said that Apple customers are apparently not asking for RCS support on the iPhone.
Expand Expanding CloseAt WWDC 2022 today, Apple finally announced a Weather app for the iPad but, more importantly, a detailed WeatherKit to replace the Dark Sky API that was deprecated for Android in 2020. This new weather service will allow developers to create Android apps that use the same Dark Sky back end as before.
Expand Expanding CloseFollowing Apple Music’s redesign of its widgets, Beats for Android is adding some to let you quickly manage headphones from the homescreen, while the companion app is also getting a “Locate My Beats” capability.
Expand Expanding CloseFor quite some time, there’s been demand for Apple to adopt USB-C on its iPhone, but the company has so far refused to do so in favor of its tightly controlled Lightning standard. Now, a clever engineer has successfully managed to install a Lightning port on a Samsung Galaxy device, and no, it’s not an April Fools’ Day joke.
Expand Expanding CloseBoth Google and Apple have been the target of several anti-trust suits and complaints in the past couple of years, and this week the UK is progressing further towards attempting to intervene with the two tech giants. A new report released today shows that the UK takes issue with the “duopoly” Google and Apple have over the mobile space.
Expand Expanding CloseHigh refresh rate screens are not a new trend, but after a couple of years of inexplicably avoiding the feature on its iPhone lineup, Apple has finally adopted the feature in the iPhone 13 Pro series. However, they’ve been preceded by dozens of phones in the Android camp, so let’s take a look at every Android device that had a 120Hz refresh rate before Apple’s iPhone.
Expand Expanding CloseMessaging has always been a tough point for Android phones compared to iPhones simply because iMessage is, put simply, very good both for its experience and its security. As Google finally solves that problem with expanded adoption of RCS with end-to-end encryption, the company is pushing for its rival, Apple, to do the same by pointing out that the current fallback method instantly drops security.
Expand Expanding CloseYesterday, Apple showed off an extensive suite of new software features for iOS, macOS, watchOS, iPadOS, and more. Here’s a rundown of everything Apple showed at WWDC 2021 that was already possible with Google’s apps on Android and Chrome OS.
Expand Expanding CloseAfter years of ignoring the fact that it was originally supposed to be a cross-platform standard, Apple finally announced an expansion of FaceTime to Android and Windows devices through a web app allowing users on other platforms to join iOS 15 users in their calls. To go with it, though, Apple picked a pretty ugly-looking and cheap Android phone to depict the functionality. It’s a tactic that’s sure to annoy a lot of Android fans, but the honest truth is this: it’s perfectly accurate.
Expand Expanding CloseGoogle’s biggest consumer-facing augmented reality offerings today are Lens and Live View in Maps. At WWDC 2021, Apple announced it was planning to go after those two features with iOS 15 this fall.
Expand Expanding CloseThe big battle between Epic Games and Apple comes to a head today as the court case starts. One of Apple’s key arguments in the case is that developers have choice and can distribute “apps” for iOS through the web, but a Google engineer has recently spoken out against Apple’s practices on the web, calling iOS browsers “uniquely underpowered.”
Expand Expanding CloseEpic’s lawsuit against Apple has revealed quite a bit about iMessage for Android, including how platform lock-in is one reason it doesn’t exist. New filings today revealed that Apple executive Eddy Cue made the case for iMessage on Android to stop Google from owning messaging.
Expand Expanding CloseFollowing in the footsteps of Tile and Samsung’s new Galaxy Tag, Apple unveiled its AirTag tracker this week for keeping track of your keys, wallet, or whatever else you want to attach the $29 device to. You’d be correct in assuming these are designed to work with iPhones, but Apple did include the tiniest bit of functionality for AirTags with Android.
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