Wes Davis
No need to replace your Apple Polishing Cloth for the iPhone 16E.
Apple’s $19 screen-cleaning cloth is still a compatibility champion and perfectly capable of wiping your fingerprint smudges off of the newest iPhone.
iPhone
Over the past ten years, Apple’s iPhone has become the company’s most valuable —and recently, somewhat volatile— asset. Since its introduction in 2007, the iPhone helped to jumpstart the smartphone revolution, and with it came some big innovations. The App Store, touchscreen gaming, the mass adoption of social media, and protecting user data with biometrics. Its product lineup is enmeshed in Apple’s ecosystem, and the impact that it continues to have around the globe is vast.
David Pierce
Allison Johnson and Dominic Preston
Jay Peters
The iPhone 16E doesn’t support MagSafe charging.
While the phone supports wireless charging and is compatible with Qi chargers, per the iPhone 16E tech specs page, it apparently won’t magnetically snap into a MagSafe charger on its own or with one of Apple’s official cases.
The 2022 iPhone SE didn’t support MagSafe charging, either, but I was really hoping Apple would bring it to this new phone.
iPhone 16e - Technical Specifications
[apple.com]
Emma Roth
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Wes Davis
A frankenphone project turns the Nokia Lumia 1020 into an iPhone SE.
9to5Mac spotted a Hackintosh Reddit community post in which user OceanDepth95028 showed off what they say is a near-total replacement of the 2013 Windows phone with the guts of a 3rd-gen iPhone SE.
They even preserved the iPhone’s Touch ID button (now on the back) and Lightning port (subbed for the Lumai’s Micro USB).
1/2Photo: OceanDepth95028
Dominic Preston
iPhone AI aims for May launch in China.
Apple Intelligence is to be powered primarily by Alibaba, with a few features — including Visual Intelligence — handled by Baidu, according to Bloomberg. Apple’s own software will handle on-device processing, with Alibaba and Baidu stepping in for server-side tasks, including censorship.
Apple is reportedly targeting a mid-year launch, but has regulatory hurdles to clear first.
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Gemini gets profound on mobile.
The Google AI assistant’s Deep Research mode now works on both Android and iPhone, though is still exclusive to paying Gemini Advanced subscribers. The mode, which can produce relatively detailed research reports, launched as a web-only option in December. It expanded to Android last week and iOS yesterday.
ChatGPT has its own deep research feature, which we tested last week to mixed results.
Gemini Deep Research now rolling out to iPhone app
[9to5google.com]
Allison Johnson
Andrew Liszewski
David Nield
Richard Lawler
Bloomberg: iOS 18.3 added Starlink support on iPhones.
According to Bloomberg and user reports, T-Mobile’s list of eligible devices for beta testing Starlink direct-to-cell connections now includes iPhones. While only a few Samsung Galaxy devices were supported at first, now iPhone owners with the most recent update can reportedly connect, as well as some people with Android 15 devices.
That gives those owners an alternative to Apple’s Globalstar-connected service while off the grid that works without pointing their phone at the sky first.
Dominic Preston
Jay Peters
68 percent of all iPhones are already on iOS 18.
And 76 percent of iPhone introduced in the last four years are on it, too, according to Apple’s iOS adoption stats that were spotted by 9to5Mac. The figures, from Apple, are “As measured by devices that transacted on the App Store on January 21, 2025.”
App Store - Support - Apple Developer
[developer.apple.com]
Andrew Liszewski
A 3D scan captured by an iPhone helped recreate a 50-year-old Atari arcade machine.
Atari’s Space Race debuted in 1973 with a limited number of arcade machines featuring a futuristic fiberglass cabinet design.
They’re now hard to come by, so the Retro Collective recreated one from scratch using a crude 3D iPhone scan of an original unit that was refined, 3D-printed, and assembled like a giant retro gaming puzzle with some added electronics.
Wes Davis
Dbrand says it’s replaced all of the Ghost Cases with Ghost Case 2.0.
Dbrand said in November 2023 it would freely replace purchases of the Ghost Case, a clear smartphone case it claims will never yellow, but which was overly scratch-prone when released.
After manufacturing delays, Dbrand emailed The Verge to say it’s finally sent replacements to customers, who seem to be pleased with the results so far.
David Nield
Richard Lawler
Apple is number three in China’s smartphone market for Q4.
Maybe it’s the lack of Apple Intelligence in China, or maybe it’s the Mate 70 series’ performance.
Either way, MacRumors points out these Counterpoint Research stats showing iPhone sales in China put it in third place in Q4, behind both Huawei and Oppo (which includes OnePlus), and fourth place for the full year, despite its second-place finish globally.
Image: Counterpoint Research
Jay Peters
Will the next iPhone SE have a Dynamic Island?
That seems to be what Evan Blass is suggesting in an image leak about new Apple products posted to his private X account.
The leak also includes a post that appears to show parts of URLs about the upcoming products. The products include an “iPhone SE (4th Gen),” a new 11th-generation base iPad, and 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Airs with M3 chips.
Image: Evan Blass
Wes Davis
Andrew Liszewski
OK Go’s new music video plays out across 64 iPhones.
According to a behind the scenes look at its creation, it took eight days and 1,043 takes for the band to shoot the 64 one-shot videos used in the music video for “A Stone Only Rolls Downhill.”
The band is already well known for its creative music videos, but a sequence featuring 42 iPhones playing a mosaic of synchronized clips is especially mind-boggling.