Mobile World Congress was held this week, and if you’re an Apple fan, there were plenty of interesting stories that you probably missed. MWC is basically an Android show, but there are still releases and announcements that will interest iPhone users. We’ve whittled down a week’s worth of events to just five announcements Apple fans need to know:
Reality Pro is already changing AR
One of the show’s biggest surprises happened on the first day. Android phone maker Xiaomi has unveiled a prototype for a pair of AR smart glasses
Xiaomi
MagSafe is about to get better
Following the announcement at CES that the Q12 standard would be based on Apple’s “Magnetic Power Profile”, the Wireless Power Consortium showed off the first Qi2 magnetic chargers for Android phones at MWC, and lo and behold, they look a lot like MagSafe. . So much so that they work with iPhones out of the box. Given that Apple has kind of let MagSafe languish for the past two years, we may finally have some great third-party accessories.
Apple abandons Qualcomm
You’d be hard pressed to find an iPhone on the MWC floor, but that doesn’t mean people weren’t talking about it. And Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon had a lot to say, particularly about the modem he’s making for the iPhone: “We’re not making any plans for 2024, my planning assumption is that we’re not supplying [Apple] a 24 modem, but it’s their decision to make. So it looks like the next iPhone 15 will be the last to use Qualcomm’s modem, which is the same 5G modem that Android phones have had for many years. It probably doesn’t mean much to users, but it’s one more piece of the iPhone that Apple controls.
Nothing comes for iPhone
One of the hottest Android phones of 2022 was Nothing Phone, which featured a unique light back, solid specs, and aggressive pricing. The only catch was that it wasn’t available in the US. CEO Carl Pei announced at MWC that Nothing Phone 2 is coming this year and will be available in the United States. Pei has already spoken in depth about wanting to tackle Apple’s dominance, which means the iPhone 15 will have a bit more competition this year, which won’t matter much.
Foundry
iSIM is the next eSIM
Apple surprised us last year by making the iPhone 14 fully eSIM in the US. After some initial headaches, it turned out to be ideal for everyone, so much so that many Android phones are following the trend. And the next generation of SIM is already here: iSIM. Qualcomm has unveiled a modified version of its Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset for high-end Android phones with a SIM card embedded directly into the chip, making it even smaller and more power efficient than eSIM. We haven’t heard any rumors of Apple using iSIM with the new A17 chip, but it certainly sounds like the type of technological advancement that Apple would quickly jump on.
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