Over the summer, Apple announced plans to buy up Intel's modem business. It was no secret that Intel was working on a 5G modem when it sold off this arm of its company, just like it was no secret why Apple was the one to purchase it. Immediately, it was clear that Apple wanted to make its own 5G modem for its mobile devices, and today we're hearing that those in-house modems might start appearing in iPhones as soon as 2022.
The Google Pixel 4 and Google Pixel 4 XL will almost certainly appear next week at Google's annual Pixel event. Today from Taipei there's a new rumor that this event won't just reveal the two smartphones, but a third, more capable device that'll launch at a date later than the Pixel 4 and 4 XL. This new device would, instead, far more likely launch at the same time as a budget-friendly version of the phone family, a device probably called Google Pixel 4a.
You'll probably only really remember the company name Jaunt XR if you've been reading about VR (and the like) for the past half-decade. They're the people that made it possible for Paul McCartney to release a "VR" experience in an app, allowing people to view a video of a song VIA a rig of cameras from onstage. It was basically like your head was attached to a pole during a live concert - sorta neat! Now Verizon owns what Jaunt XR made.
Xiaomi just revealed the Mi Mix Alpha phone but despite the buzz that it's wrap-around screen is getting, it's ultimately still an experimental and impractical phone. Fortunately, Xiaomi does have some new products coming and the 5G model of the Mi 9 Pro and a new 4K TV capable of playing 8K videos are immediately more useful for majority of the consumer market.
Verizon 5G Home, the home Internet service first announced by Verizon last year, will be available to all markets where the company offers 5G mobile service, the company revealed in a recently published investor note. The carrier's 5G rollout has been slow, meaning the majority of people interested in 5G Home aren't yet able to get the service. The good news is that things will eventually change.
After a fair amount of build up, WiFi 6 certification is rolling out today. With this certification comes the promise of better and faster WiFi, just in time for the arrival of 5G and home networks powered by it. Of course, there are a number of manufacturers who didn't wait for the WiFi Alliance to launch this certification program, but now that it's here, devices can go through the process and carry official branding afterward.
Qualcomm's IFA 2019 visit was all about the future of 5G, but it wasn't the only company with 5G announcements to make. Huawei also announced some new hardware of its own, today revealing the Kirin 990 family of SoCs. While the standard Kirin 990 will be a 4G LTE chipset, Huawei will also ship a version with integrated 5G.
As carriers are currently competing to get their 5G networks rolled out and phone manufacturers are rushing to get their 5G devices on shelves, Qualcomm is at the center of it all. This 5G rush has been great news for Qualcomm and its 5G modems, and at IFA 2019 today, the company announced what's next for its 5G strategy. Not only is Qualcomm going to give its 5G systems a consistent identity, but it's also gearing up to launch a new fixed-point 5G modem and expand its SoC platforms that support 5G.
Samsung's Exynos chips aren't exactly the easiest to remember, having four digits to each model that don't always make sense from one generation to another. Not like, say, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 series or the Kirin 980. Samsung may finally be ditching its old numbering scheme and switching to just three. And once that initial shock is over, you might finally realize that the new Exynos 980, which has no relation to the Kirin 980, has that integrated 5G silicon that the Kirin 990 is still supposed to bring to IFA 2019 in a few days.
Samsung's overall strategy when it comes to its dozens of smartphones still hasn't changed despite the numerous rebrandings and reorganizations. The higher "mid-range" Galaxy A series was recently repurposed to be its testbed for experimental new features. Whether it has run out of such experiments or has changed its mind, the Galaxy A90 5G is anything but experimental. In fact, it offers enough high-end features that could, ironically, hurt sales of the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note series, at least in markets where all three lines are made available.
Samsung may have christened its curved edge screen as an Infinity Display but other companies are going to be the ones to take it to the extreme. OPPO was rumored to be jumping on a "waterfall" type screen that Samsung was too afraid to use but now it seems that sibling and rival Vivo will beat it to the punch.. It has officially teased and shown off the Vivo NEX 3 5G's design and has now enlisted the help of YouTuber Mrwhosetheboss to tease what the phone is all about, which, at least for now, revolves around that screen.
Sprint's 5G network is ramping up with what they call "True Mobile 5G" in Phoenix Arizona. This is just one of a collection of commercial launches of 5G service for Sprint made live in cities like Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Kansas City, and Dallas-Fort Worth. Sprint currently suggests they'll soon cover approximately 2100 square miles (with approximately 11 million people expected to be covered in total) "in the coming weeks."