This week Warner Media announced they'd be bringing HBO Max to a whole bunch of Amazon devices. Included in the mix are not only Amazon Fire tablets, but Amazon Fire TV streaming devices and Fire TV Edition smart TVs, too. This expansion to Amazon devices should be a massive win for HBO and the HBO Max brand as the world launches into the holiday gift-giving season 2020.
Although it was a pioneer in the smartphone photography field, it seemed for a time that Apple was slipping off the charts, at least DxOMark's charts. It has steadily been trying to regain ground in the past generations and its iPhone 12 Pro duo this year marks its biggest attempt to reclaim its position. As far as DxOMark's reviewers are concerned, it nearly succeeded in doing exactly that but still comes up short against the market leader Huawei.
No product can claim to be perfect the day it launches and that's true especially for software where bugs don't always get caught in testing. When you combine new software with new hardware, however, the possibility of issues popping up increases. That seems to be the case for Apple's latest smartphones, whose users are reporting a variety of problems on different iPhone 12 models. Hopefully, however, these are just software bugs that could be more easily squashed by an update.
Apple has definitely come a long way since the early years of the iPhone, back when it launched at most just two models per year. This year, it went all out and launched not just three like last year but four iPhone 12 options, including what was formally named the iPhone 12 mini. It is, however, mini only in comparison to the other three but, despite the size, Apple still managed to cram almost all the basic features but not without compromising on at least one important spec.
There is still no official confirmation but there have been several reports that key companies have been granted licenses to export their products to Huawei. If true, things could be looking up for the Chinese tech giant, especially if Qualcomm is part of that list. It might have been too early to break out in celebration, though, as more information is surfacing on the terms of that exception. It turns out that while Huawei might not be running out of smartphone processors, it still won't be able to make smartphones that will be able to compete in an increasingly 5G market.
The Galaxy S21 will be an interesting release, though not exactly for the best reasons. It will be launching more than a month earlier than normal and some early whispers hint at a very incremental upgrade compared to the Galaxy Note 20. Now a few more pieces of the puzzle are falling into place, almost completing the picture. The Galaxy S21 trio will definitely be a mixed bag and the Galaxy S21 Ultra's features could make the other two sound a bit disappointing.
As we approach the 2020 holiday shopping season, Apple's AirPods appear to be a likely target for the "has everything" gift-getters of the world. A tip this week from TFI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggested that Apple will begin manufacturing AirPods 3 in early 2021. The big question here is: Should you wait to buy a new pair of AirPods now?
The Samsung Galaxy S21 and Samsung Galaxy S21+ were shown in a leak of components overnight. Details of the features included with the Samsung Galaxy S21 family appeared here, courtesy of the way in which these images appear - as guides for accessory makers and/or display covers. In these images, we see that the Samsung Galaxy S21 family pushes the display punch hole to the limits of the top of the display - nearly reverting back to a notch.
In the tech services world year it became clear that the free ride is over. We're talking about everything from email to music streaming, photos to files. That which seemed too good to be true was indeed too good to be free. Now is the point at which you'll do well to consider which services you cannot do without, and which services you should end - before they start burning a hole in your pocket.
Google reminded us again of the terrible, inevitable truth of cloud storage and services. You cannot depend on any one company to hold your data forever. Allowing your photos and videos and whatever other files you've got resting in Google's servers, be it in Google Drive, Google Photos, or even Gmail - Google holds the keys. Google made the case for downloading and/or keeping your files to yourself multiple times over the past year - now's the time to exit.
Apple is not one to divulge too many technical details or engage in tech babble, preferring to paint features and numbers in ways consumers can more easily understand. That also makes it a bit harder to make comparisons between different device models and some rely on teardowns to confirm what Apple has really packed inside. That's what makes this initial and brief iPhone 12 Pro Max inside scoop interesting, revealing the changes Apple has made, most of them in the name of 5G.
HMD Global didn't just revive Nokia's smartphone business, it revived the Finnish legend's name in the feature phone market as well. The company has brought back from the dead some of Nokia's most iconic designs to the point that it might also end up with the same dozens of not so memorable phones. Its latest batch tries to bring the candy bar phone design back into fashion by adding some 4G chops that at least make the Nokia 6300 4G and Nokia 8000 4G usable as social media handsets.