MacRumors

As stories surrounding the 2017 launch of the "iPhone 8" continue to heat up, a report from The Bell this morning has already begun rumors for next year's so-called "iPhone 9." According to the report, which centers on Apple's and Samsung's supply chain deal for the 2018 iPhone, the iPhone 9 will launch in two OLED screen sizes: 5.28-inch and 6.46-inch (via The Investor).

Apple currently sells a 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch display in its iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus smartphone devices, respectively. Later this year, the company is expected to launch new iPhones in three sizes: two "iPhone 7s" models will keep the 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch display sizes, while the major new "iPhone 8" will include a 5.8-inch OLED screen.

The report said the iPhone 9 is expected to come in two OLED models -- 5.28- and 6.46-inch display sizes. Samsung’s OLED shipment is also likely to be more than double at 180 million units.

“The two companies have recently signed a non-disclosure agreement on general conditions, including the screen size,” an industry sources was quoted as saying in the report.

The new rumor for the 2018 iPhone devices suggests a screen that would be slightly smaller than the current display of the iPhone Plus models, and then a larger option that would represent Apple's biggest smartphone display to date. Although the report doesn’t confirm the full sizes of the iPhone 9 models, the screen dimensions suggest Apple could return to a pair of device sizes similar to current generation iPhones but with full-front displays and greatly reduced bezels.

The Bell's report today doesn't mention any other rumors related to the iPhone 9, except that Samsung will be the supplier for the OLED displays and will manufacture more than 180 million units for Apple. The report did state that details such as "screen design and functions" might be adjusted down the line, considering how far away the iPhone 9 is from a launch date.

Microsoft today introduced the new Surface Pro, choosing that name over Surface Pro 5, at a media event in Shanghai, China.

Microsoft said the new Surface Pro delivers up to 13.5 hours of battery life on a single charge, a 50 percent increase over the Surface Pro 4 and 35 percent more battery life than the iPad Pro's advertised 10 hours.

The notebook-tablet hybrid features Intel's latest Kaby Lake processors, including Core m3, i5, and i7 chips depending on the model. Microsoft says the high-end Surface Pro with a Core i7 processor is 2.5× faster than the Surface Pro 3 and 1.7× faster than the iPad Pro with Apple's own A9X chip.

Surface Pro m3 and i5 models feature a new fanless cooling system, while the i7 model still has a fan with "improved hybrid cooling."

The new Surface Pro has a refined design with cleaner lines and curved edges, a "visually softer" camera, and an improved hinge with a 165º range of motion allows it to be placed in Studio Mode like its Surface Studio desktop.

It's also the lightest Surface Pro ever, starting at 1.7 lbs. By comparison, the 9.7-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro weigh 0.96 lbs and 1.57 lbs respectively.

The new Surface Pro continues to have a 12.3-inch display with 267 pixels per inch, compared to 264 PPI for both the 9.7-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Microsoft says its custom PixelSense technology means that colors on the new Surface Pro will be "more vibrant, precise, and impactful than ever before."

Other tech specs include up to a 1TB SSD, up to 16GB RAM, up to Intel Iris Plus 640 graphics, a USB 3.0 port, a microSD card reader, Mini DisplayPort, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The device runs Windows 10 Pro.

The new Surface Pro is accompanied by a new Surface Pen with over 4096 pressure points, only 21 milliseconds of latency, and new tilt functionality. Microsoft says the new Surface Pen is over two times more accurate, with four times more pressure sensitivity, than the original Surface Pen.

There's also new Signature Type Covers, now designed with Alcantara fabric for a "soft, velvety" feel. Microsoft pitches typing on the keyboards as "easier, more, comfortable, more accurate, better sounding, and easier to do without looking" than the 12-inch MacBook and iPad Pro.

The new Surface Pro and Type Covers are available to pre-order today in the United States and select other markets at the Microsoft Store, Microsoft.com, BestBuy.com, and JD.com. The new Surface Pro will ship on June 15 in 25 countries. Surface Pro pricing starts at $799.99 in the United States.

Surface Pro models with LTE Advanced will be available later this year. The new Surface Pen will be available in the coming weeks.

After posting a few images yesterday that claimed to show cases for the upcoming 10.5-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro, Benjamin Geskin has now shared a few CAD images, dummy models, and renderings of the 10.5-inch iPad model. The first set of computer-aided design drawings are based on the model that case manufacturers have received from the factory, which Geskin said is "already in mass production."

The new iPad images align with all of the port cutouts seen in yesterday's wooden accessory case, including a device that has four speakers, a Lightning port, camera with vertically-aligned flash, side volume rockers, and a Smart Connector.

Yesterday's case images also revealed a new microphone slot located at the top rear of the case, similar to where it's located on the current 9.7-inch iPad. The new images confirm that microphone slot on the 10.5-inch iPad, along with two additional microphones sitting atop the device in between the speaker grilles, pointing towards three microphones total for the 10.5-inch iPad Pro.

Last year it was rumored that the new iPad model with smaller bezels -- which fluctuated between 10.1-inch, 10.5-inch, and 10.9-inch display sizes -- could get four microphones.

Geskin has also shared a case manufacturer's dummy mockup of the 10.5-inch iPad Pro, which continues showing the same ports for volume buttons, 3.5mm headphone jack, speaker grilles, Lightning port, SIM card tray, and Smart Connector. All of the images support the rumors that the new iPad will pack in a 10.5-inch display into the same form factor and nearly identical size of the 9.7-inch iPad.

In a series of images shared with iDropNews, Geskin designed a rendering based on the recent rumors to show how the bezels on the new 10.5-inch iPad Pro might look. Since the device will keep roughly the same footprint of the 9.7-inch iPad, the rendering boasts a device with small 7mm bezels on the left and right sides of the device and around 19mm bezels on the top and bottom.

This would make the display space big enough for the new 10.5-inch screen, while allocating enough room for the traditional Home Button, which Apple isn't expected to do away with yet on the upcoming iPad Pro. The 10.5-inch device is also expected to be slightly taller than the current 9.7-inch iPad, while potentially being slightly thicker than the 9.7-inch iPad's 6.1mm thickness.

In regards to a release date, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo recently said that there is a greater than 70 percent chance of Apple debuting the 10.5-inch iPad at WWDC in June. Although WWDC keynotes are traditionally the home of software announcements, even updates to the MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air are rumored to be coming at the event this year.

Worldwide iPhone sales were flat in the first quarter of 2017, according to Gartner, causing a year-on-year drop in Apple's share of a growing smartphone industry boosted by the rise of top Chinese mobile manufacturers breaking out into neighboring markets.

Global sales of smartphones to end users totaled 380 million units in the first quarter of 2017, a 9.1 percent increase over the first quarter of 2016, reported Gartner. Of that figure, Apple sold 51.9 million units, up from 51.6 million in Q1 2016, leading to a drop in market share year over year. Samsung retained top spot with 78.6 million units sold to end users, and held on to 20.7 per cent market share, but both figures were declines on a year ago.

"Sales of iPhones were flat, which led to a drop in market share year over year," said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner. "Similar to Samsung, Apple is increasingly facing fierce competition from Chinese brands Oppo and Vivo, among others, and its performance in China is under attack."

Huawei, Oppo, and Vivo had a combined market share in the first quarter of 2017 that accounted for 24 percent, up 7 percent year on year. Huawei held third spot behind second-placed Apple, edging closer to the company with 34 million units in Q1 2017, while Oppo continued to catch up with Huawei, with a 94.7 percent increase in global sales, resulting in the best performance of the quarter and maintaining its number one position in China.

The top three Chinese smartphone manufacturers are driving sales with their competitively priced, high quality smartphones equipped with innovative features, according to Gartner, with aggressive marketing and sales promotion having further helped the brands to take share from others in markets such as India, Indonesia and Thailand. In India alone, for example, Vivo grew by 220 per cent.

In the operating system market, iOS saw continued growth, with a 0.9 percent uptick in market share year on year. But it was Android that fared best, growing its share by 2 percent, thanks to increasing acceptance of Chinese brands in global markets, led by high-quality smartphones.

Nokia and Apple announced today that they have settled all litigation related to their intellectual property dispute and agreed a multi-year patent license.

Under the collaborative agreement, Nokia said it will provide "certain network infrastructure products and services" to Apple. In turn, Apple agreed to return all health products owned by the Finnish company to Apple retail and online stores.

"This is a meaningful agreement between Nokia and Apple," said Maria Varsellona, Chief Legal Officer at Nokia, responsible for Nokia's patent licensing business. "It moves our relationship with Apple from being adversaries in court to business partners working for the benefit of our customers."

In December of last year, Nokia filed multiple complaints against Apple in several countries, accusing the Cupertino company of infringing several of its patents. In response, Apple sued Nokia in an antitrust lawsuit against several patent assertion entities which it claimed were trying to collect excessive fees for Nokia patents. Apple had established FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory) deals with Nokia, but by transferring patents to patent holding companies, additional royalties can be demanded.

Just days after the legal dispute flared up, Apple pulled all Withings-branded, Nokia-owned accessories from its online and retail stores around the world. Nokia stood its ground, however, claiming that it had not been able to reach a licensing agreement with Apple and therefore had to defend its rights.

Following the latest development, Nokia will receive an up-front cash payment from Apple with additional revenues forthcoming. The figure remains undisclosed, but net sales in Nokia patent licensing will reflect the value of the agreement, while Nokia expects related revenues to be reflected in the second quarter of 2017. No other details of the terms of the agreement have been released.

"We are pleased with this resolution of our dispute and we look forward to expanding our business relationship with Nokia," said Jeff Williams, Apple's chief operating officer.

Despite a shift towards smartphones with larger screens, the iPhone SE has topped all other smartphones in the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

Apple's four-inch smartphone received a customer satisfaction score of 87 out of 100 to finish just ahead of Samsung's 5.7-inch Galaxy S6 edge+ and the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus.

20 other smartphones, mostly including other iPhone and Galaxy models, received customer satisfaction scores of between 70 and 85, according to the ACSI results published today.

“Over the past few years, the general trend for smartphones has been toward larger screens,” says ACSI Managing Director David VanAmburg. “But apparently, consumers were craving a new iteration of a smaller, less expensive phone as the iPhone SE – Apple’s first update to a 4-inch phone since 2013 – comes in first in ACSI this year.”

ACSI said the results are based on interviews with 36,194 customers in the United States, chosen at random and contacted via email between May 2016 and April 2017. The survey data was inputted into ACSI's so-called "cause-and-effect econometric model," which in turn estimates customer satisfaction.

Apple introduced the iPhone SE in March 2016, acknowledging that some people simply love smaller phones, as evidenced by the 30 million 4-inch iPhones that it sold in 2015. The smartphone is essentially an iPhone 5s with newer tech specs, including a twice as fast A9 chip and a 12-megapixel rear camera.

Given its lower $399 starting price, the iPhone SE is also a popular smartphone in more price-sensitive markets such as India.

Apple has yet to release a second-generation iPhone SE, but it doubled the smartphone's previous 16GB and 64GB storage capacities to 32GB and 128GB a few months ago, without raising prices. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple is unlikely to refresh the iPhone SE in the first half of 2017.

Apple today debuted an overhauled webpage aimed at encouraging Android users to switch to the iPhone, introducing a simpler FAQ-style site that highlights iPhone features and makes it clear how simple it is to switch from an Android device to an iPhone.

Apple previously had a webpage dedicated to customers coming to an iPhone from Android devices, but it featured less information on the iPhone itself and focused primarily on the Move to iOS app, a dedicated app that helps Android users transfer contacts, message history, photos, mail accounts, calendars, and more.

The new site, while featuring a section on Move to iOS, also attempts to lure Android users with details on the iPhone's camera and its processor, along with information on Apple Pay, Apple's privacy policy, the Messages app, Apple's commitment to the environment, and Apple Support.

The site, which features clever animations and a simple design that's quick to scroll through, ends with an iPhone comparison chart and direct links to purchase iPhones from Apple's current lineup, including the iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 6s, and iPhone SE.

Apple continues to see a growing number of customers who are switching to the iPhone from an Android device, which Apple CEO Tim Cook covers in nearly every earnings call. During the second quarter earnings call in early May, Cook had this to say: "We saw the largest absolute number of switchers outside of Greater China that we've ever seen in the same period."

Update: To go along with the new site, Apple has uploaded a series of 16 second videos on its YouTube channel. Each video (there are five in total) highlights how easy it is to switch from Android to iPhone with the Move to iOS app or points out iPhone features like speed and privacy.

Apple is planning to make some changes to scrolling behavior in mobile Safari in a future update, making for a more unified scrolling experience.

The news comes courtesy of a Hacker News thread discussing Apple's default scrolling behavior vs. the scrolling behavior of webpages that use Google AMP, a discussion inspired by a Daring Fireball post on the subject.

Google AMP (or Accelerated Mobile Pages), for those unfamiliar, is an online publishing format created by Google that's optimized for mobile web browsing and rapid page loading. It is used by multiple news sites, including CNN, ABC, and The Washington Post. On mobile Safari, AMP uses its own scrolling behavior, making AMP pages stand out from non-AMP pages.

In the Hacker News discussion, Malte Ubl, who created Google AMP, says the AMP team filed a bug report about the scrolling discrepancy, and as a result, Apple is going to implement a change that makes all webpages scroll like AMP pages.

With respect to scrolling: We (AMP team) filed a bug with Apple about that (we didn't implement scrolling ourselves, just use a div with overflow). We asked to make the scroll inertia for that case the same as the normal scrolling.

Apple's response was (surprisingly) to make the default scrolling like the overflow scrolling. So, with the next Safari release all pages will scroll like AMP pages.

Another Hacker News responder, "Om2," who appears to work on WebKit, explains that Safari webpage scrolling is inconsistent from all other scrolling, an intentional decision implemented several years ago. Following a review of scrolling rates, Apple has decided to implement a change to introduce a more consistent scrolling experience.

In current iOS Safari, webpage scrolling is inconsistent from all other scrolling on the system. This was an intentional decision made long ago. In addition, overflow areas are consistent with the rest of the system, and thus inconsistent with top-level webpage scrolling. This is semi-accidental. In reviewing scroll rates, we concluded that the original reason was no longer a good tradeoff. Thus this change, which removed all the inconsistencies: https://trac.webkit.org/changeset/211197/webkit

Having all scrolling be consistent feels good once you get used to it.

At the current time, the difference between scrolling on an AMP page and a standard webpage is noticeable, with the AMP pages scrolling faster and more smoothly. It's not entirely clear when the scrolling change will be implemented in mobile Safari, as the new scrolling behavior is not available in the current iOS 10.3.3 beta.

For the last few weeks, Apple has been testing its autonomous driving software in three Lexus RX450h SUVs, which have been photographed around the San Francisco Bay Area. This morning, MacRumors reader Andrew was able to capture some video of one of the SUVs, giving us our closest look yet at the vehicles Apple is using to test its system.

The SUV is equipped with multiple sensors and cameras, making it easy to see when it's out on the road. It uses a top-end Velodyne 64-channel lidar, two or more radar, and several cameras to navigate. The video was captured on the 101 North, with Apple's vehicle exiting towards University Avenue in Palo Alto.

Apple received a DMV permit to test autonomous vehicles on April 14 and wasted no time getting the cars out on the road. With the SUVs, which are driven by six Apple employees with expertise in autonomous vehicles, Apple is testing a self-driving vehicle system it has in development.

The company has been working on self-driving car technology for several years and was originally rumored to be planning to introduce its own Apple-branded vehicle. That didn't pan out, however, and Apple pivoted to an autonomous driving software platform being developed under the leadership of Bob Mansfield.

Apple has reportedly given its car team until the end of 2017 to prove the feasibility of an Apple-designed autonomous driving system. Such a system could allow Apple to partner with vehicle manufacturers for something akin to a much more advanced version of CarPlay, or it could be built into a future Apple vehicle should Apple decide to revisit manufacturing its own car down the road.

While Apple is notoriously secretive, its ongoing autonomous car testing will be done under the public eye. In California, companies that participate in the Autonomous Vehicle Testing Program must file Disengagement Reports that share many details on the testing process, including miles traveled and any incidents or accidents that occur.

Apple has asked the DMV to alter the rules that govern exactly what data needs to be included in public Disengagement Reports, but it is not yet known if the DMV will comply.