Major Apple supplier LG Display is reportedly investing a whopping $13.5 billion over the next three years in order to boost output of OLED panels for TVs and smartphones, which Apple is widely expected to adopt for this year's premium iPhone 8 model.
Intent on continuing the premium Note brand, Samsung is working on an eighth-generation Note with a dual-lens camera on the back, like iPhone 7 Plus, and a larger screen. The upcoming phone should be formally announced at a media event in New York City in August, Reuters reported today.
Sources familiar with the matter have described the next Note as being “marginally larger” than the 6.2-inch version of Samsung's Galaxy S8 smartphone.
The Note 8 event should be held in the second half of August, ahead of Apple's presumed iPhone 8 event the following month. Last year, Samsung held the Note 7 event a bit earlier than usual in an effort to divert attention from Apple's iPhone 7 announcement.
Watchers have speculated that Samsung, in its desire to beat Apple, made the decision to launch Note 7 earlier than usual. But the South Korean conglomerate shot itself in the foot because the issues with the device's battery have gone unnoticed with its quality assurance teams, which were not given enough time to properly test the device.
Is reviving the ill-fated Note brand a wise move on Samsun's part? Let us know your thoughts by posting a comment below.
India has offered tax concessions to Apple to expand iPhone production in the country just days after it was announced that the Cupertino giant kicked off local iPhone SE production.
This is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's plans to boost local manufacturing.
Ravi Shankar Prasad, the central minister for Electronics and IT, told Reuters this morning that Apple has already approached the Indian government regarding potential expansion of its manufacturing facility in the southern Indian technology hub of Bengaluru, operated by its Taiwanese supplier Wistron which as of recently has been assembling iPhone SE there.
According to the news gathering organization, the Indian government has offered to permit Apple to import handset components intended for use in local manufacturing tax free.
Here's an excerpt from the article:
Among a set of tax concessions, Apple had initially sought a 15-years tax holiday for all components that it would import for setting up a manufacturing facility in India.
A panel of ministries rejected that demand and has offered a phased program to increase the share of local production in the manufacturing, Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary at the Ministry of Electronics and IT said.
“We have offered them tax exemptions on those components which could not be manufactured in India,” Sundararajan told Reuters.
Local manufacturing component would have to be increased gradually, he added.
The tax concessions will be subject to the condition of increasing local value addition over a period of time, to which Apple has reportedly agreed to.
“It will be a little early to say that India and Apple have agreed on the common ground,“ cautioned a government official.
It's been speculated that Apple and Wistron began making iPhone SE in India as a way to lower the handset's price point in order to make it more affordable to Indian consumers.
As Apple is winding down its supply deal with UK-based GPU designer Imagination Technologies over the next two years, a new report alleges that the Cupertino firm is about to slash payments to Imagination to just one-third of its current royalty rate.
Reuters cited UBS analysts as predicting that Imagination could very easily become a loss-making company by fiscal 2019 without any Apple royalty contributions. The British GPU designer may even have to axe jobs and consider other potential cost-cutting moves in order to weather the storm ahead.
Citing a person with knowledge of the matter, Reuters reported Thursday that there are at least five different groups within Apple working on wireless charging technologies ahead of iPhone 8. As we reported recently, the iPhone maker has joined the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC).
Apple is set to start assembling its lower-priced iPhone SE in India in the coming months, an industry source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Friday.
All iPhone SE units will be made in a facility that Apple's contract manufacturer will set up at Peenya on the outskirts of Bengaluru. All devices will be targeted at the domestic market.
You can't make this stuff up: Reuters is reporting that a minor fire broke out at a Samsung SDI factory in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin on Wednesday. What makes this story newsworthy is the fact that the fire was reportedly caused by waste products, including faulty batteries, inside the facility.
Japanese giant Sharp is “taking the lead” on a rumored $7 billion display manufacturing plant in the United States which its parent company Foxconn recently highlighted in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Make in America” call. Citing a person with knowledge of the plan, Reuters is reporting that the forthcoming facility may break ground sometime in the first half of 2017.
John Solomon, Apple's Vice President for Enterprise and Government, has stepped down. He led sales teams charged with pushing Apple hardware and software to big companies and government agencies with large technology budgets.
Apple confirmed his departure to Reuters, but refused to comment further. Solomon wouldn't reveal why he left Apple either. It's unclear if losing a key executive for business sales might slow Apple's efforts to push its solutions to large businesses in recent years.
HomeKit, Apple's software framework for communicating with and controlling connected accessories in a user's home, currently works with about a hundred certified devices, Reuters said Friday.
By contrast, there are currently about 250 devices that are certified to work with Alexa, thanks to Amazon's open-systems approach and even financial incentives for some partners.
But HomeKit, which debuted alongside iOS 8 in September 2014, now has an agile competitor in Amazon's Alexa voice-controlled digital assistant which can also control smart accessories in the home with a few spoken words. The Reuters report outlines some of the requirements Apple imposes on device makers who wish to become HomeKit-certified.
During its press conference Monday morning, Samsung shared the findings of Note 7 investigations conducted by itself and three independent industry firms. In the aftermath of Note 7 fires, Samsung's won't be unveiling its next-generation iPhone rival at the Mobile World Congress in February as previously thought, Samsung told Reuters.
Earlier this year, Apple poached Alexander Hitzinger, the former technical director of Porsche's race car program who helped the car maker return to the Le Mans endurance race, a company source told Reuters last Friday. The move was first reported by Germany's Manager Magazin.
Volkswagen-owned Porsche officially confirmed Hitzinger had left the luxury carmaker in the spring, but didn't share any further information.