Phone Scoop

Apple just released the first non-beta version of iOS 15 as a free update for iPhone models 6s and newer. First announced in June, the update includes revamped notifications, Focus Mode, Live Text, and support for stats ID cards in Wallet.

Older versions of Android will soon gain the Permissions Auto-Reset feature that Google introduced in Android 11. The feature will automatically revoke permissions from apps that haven't been used in "a few months". If the app is launched again, it will need…

Verizon today launched the TCL Flip Pro for prepaid customers. The same phone launched recently on US Cellular as the TCL Flip, and earlier this week as the Alcatel Go Flip 4 on T-Mobile. (Alcatel is a brand of TCL.) TCL says the Go Flip 4 is also coming to…

T-Mobile has started selling the CAT S22 Flip, a unique phone that blurs the line between smartphone and flip phone. The S22 Flip has the size and design of a typical rugged flip phone, but its 2.8-inch main display is a touch screen that provides access to…

The Unicode Consortium has finalized and released version 14.0 of Unicode Standard for multi-lingual text, including 37 new emoji characters. New versions of Unicode are usually incorporated into updated versions of iOS and Android. The new emoji include: face…

T-Mobile phones will soon display a new icon in the status bar to indicate when they are connected to 5G in a higher frequency band that offers faster data speeds. The icon will appear first on the newest iPhones, and the company is working with phone makers…

Apple today announced the iPhone 13 series. All models feature improved battery life, display, cameras, and processor. Although the model options and designs are similar to the iPhone 12 series, the notch for the TrueDepth camera system that powers Face ID is…

Apple today announced the Apple Watch Series 7, which features a display with 20% more screen area, in roughly the same size case as previous models. The bezels are now just 1.7mm wide. Apple has tweaked watchOS to take advantage of the larger display,…

Apple today released a set of urgent security updates for iOS, watchOS, macOS, and Safari for Mac. The updates fix a previously-unknown zero-day security flaw that enabled "arbitrary code execution" when viewing a maliciously crafted PDF file, which could be…

Sonim's newest rugged flip phone is the XP3plus, launching today with T-Mobile. This new model is a significant upgrade over the original XP3 from 2019, featuring larger displays and a battery that's over 50% larger (2,300 vs. 1,500 mAh). It introduces a new…

Vimeo now lets iPhone users both upload and view videos recorded with Dolby Vision. The iPhone 12 Pro introduced the ability to capture video in the HDR format, but there have been few ways to share the content in its full glory until now.

AT&T Prepaid and Cricket are offering a new, white-label 5G phone for as low as $90, a new milestone for affordability of 5G phones. AT&T Prepaid is offering the phone as the AT&T Radiant Max 5G. AT&T's web site shows a list price of $180, but is currently…

A US Federal Judge has ruled that Apple must allow app developers to "steer" customers away from Apple's App Store payment service, which collects a fee of up to 30%. The ruling was part of Fortnite maker Epic Games' lawsuit against Apple for anti-competitive…

Facebook and Ray-Ban have collaborated to create Ray-Ban Stories, "smart" glasses similar to the Spectacles 3 from Snap. Ray-Ban Stories feature dual 5-megapixel cameras that capture photos with depth as well as videos up to 30 seconds. They also include…

LG Chem has developed a new top layer for flexible displays that it claims is both "hard as glass" and "flexible as plastic", while offering several key advantages over materials currently used in folding displays. LG calls the new material Real Folding…

Apple will "take additional time to make improvements" before launching its technology to detect and report known child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in users's iCloud photos. The tools, first revealed a month ago, are designed to preserve user privacy by using…

Samsung's new Isocell HP1 camera sensor features 200 megapixel resolution. That unprecedented number of pixels enables several specific new capabilities. The most important is variable pixel binning, which Samsung calls "ChameleonCell". While existing high-res…

Starting early next year, Apple will allow media player apps like Spotify and Netflix to direct new users to subscribe via their own web sites and third-party payment systems. Previously, Apple required such apps to use Apple's payment system, where Apples…

Qualcomm today announced aptX Lossless, a technology designed to deliver CD-quality 16-bit 44.1kHz lossless audio quality over Bluetooth. As part of Snapdragon Sound, aptX Lossless automatically kicks in when a phone detects the user listening to a lossless…

Residents of Arizona and Georgia will soon be able to add a secure digital version of their driver's license or state ID to the Wallet app on their iPhone and/or Apple Watch. Connecticut, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Utah have also announced plans…