Your weekly look at the world of smartphones and mobile technology, this is the Phone Buzz on Friday 22nd January 2021.

Android Headlines

• Samsung Display trademarks “Under Panel Camera”, presumably in preparation for the oft-discussed hidden selfie camera (SamMobile).
• Qualcomm announces the SnapDragon 870, the effective replacement to last year’s SnapDragon 865 which will sit under the premium SnapDragon 88 revealed last week (The Verge).
• Honor announces the Honor View40, its first post-Huawei handset (Engadget).
• With the OnePlus 8 family sporting the Android 11 powered version of Oxygen OS, it has started work on porting the latest OS version to 2019’s OnePlus family (OnePlus Forum).

Apple Headlines

• This year’s new iPhone is expected to adopt ‘vapour chamber cooling’, which allows excess heat to be quickly drawn away from vital components to radiators elsewhere in the hardware (Apple Insider).
• Given the superstition around ‘thirteen’, it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that Apple would consider dodging the iPhone 13. Jon Prosser suggests that this year will be the year of the iPhone 12S (Front Page News).
• Morgan Stanley reports production on the iPhone 12 Pro is increasing, with the iPhone 12 Mini production dropping by a similar number. It’s an obvious move given the stock levels of the 12 Pro, but I can’t help thinking this is going to mean ‘the small phone’ is going back into its niche (via PED30).

Mobile Technology

• A new Microsoft device has passed through BlueTooth certification, suggesting that an update to the Surface Laptop family is being prepared for release (Windows Latest).

Ewan Spence

Ewan is the editor at Phone Buzz News. For over 30 years he has been covering the worlds of media and technology, from the early days of the first smartphone through to their essential role in today's society.