Your weekly look at the world of smartphones and mobile technology, this is the Phone Buzz on Friday 12th February 2021.

This Week’s Top Story

• There’s a chip crunch going on right now which is going to impact the supply and the price of consumer products across the board. From automobiles, through laptops, to smartphones, everyone will be affected. The rush of new hardware and the rise of working from home outstripped the expected demand on the chip industry; after all how can a process that plans years in advance account for a worldwide pandemic? You also have companies such as Apple and Huawei stockpiling chips for later use – with Huawei especially trying to lock up as much supply as possible before the US sanctions prevented any further purchases.And there’s no sign that things are going to get back to normal during 2021. (Bloomberg).

Apple Headlines

• The move to ARM-based Apple Silicon in the new MacBook and mac Mini machines had to deal with the vast majority of apps compile under Intel’s x86 architecture rather than macOS’ new ARM architecture. The Rosetta 2 emulation layer has helped with this as Apple pushes developers to make the transition. Apple insider decided to find out how well that is going in a survey of 100 of the top mainstream macOS apps. As it stands “…close to half of the apps we selected have yet to make the move”. (Apple Insider).
• How will Apple redesign the MacBook? The first ARM-based machines stayed very much with the older design to create a sense of familiarity around the change of chip architecture.Will Apple make some radical design choices and echo the new iPhone 12 styling, or will it remain with the tried-and-tested formula? While I’d love to see the former, i suspect the latter will win out (MacRumors).
• Ed Hardy argues that Apple should be embarrassed over the iPhone 12 Mini and never make another small iPhone again because of the low sales. I’m not so sure this stands up when you consider the success of 2020’s iPhone SE, but it’s a good point for debate (Cult of Mac).
• Apple’s Siri can now default to music streaming services that are not Apple Music. This is clearly going to positively impact the Spotify crowd, of course other streaming services are available. It still has some issues, but its presence is welcome and I’m sure Apple will work to make the use of third-party services as smooth as first-party services (The 8-Bit).
• Developer Kosta Eleftheriou is behind a damn smart app for the Apple Watch (FlickType, which is a keyboard/text input for the wearable), but Eleftheriou has been fighting scam apps trading on the popularity of the app. He’s not alone, and his efforts have been documented by Chance Miller to expose the multi-million dollar scam apps that infect the Apple Store (9to5Mac).
• Previously on Phone Buzz, I noted on Dan Riccio’s internal move away from Head of Hardware Engineering to a new project. Mark Gurman and his team are reporting that the move is to head up the AR and VR headset project (Bloomberg).
• The classic ’sources close to the matter’ are reporting Apple is working with TSMC on micro OLED displays, technology that would be very well suited to use in wearable tech such as an AR headset (Nikkei Asia).
• Meanwhile the flurry of news around Hyundai and Apple working together on the Apple Car has turned out to be premature, with the South Korean manufacturer confirming it is no longer in talks with Apple (Reuters).

Android Headlines

• SamMobile has reviewed the ‘middle child’ of the S21 family, with the Galaxy S21+ being put through its paces by Abhijeet Mishra (SamMobile).
• With Samsung choosing both SnapDragon and Exynos CPUs for the Galaxy S21 family, Andrei Fromusanu has compared the power analysis on the SnapDragon 888 and Exynos 2100 variants of the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra (Anandtech).
• Meanwhile, if you are looking for the latest Galaxy features but not the ultimate power, last years Galaxy S20 Fan Edition has picked up the OneUI 3.1 software update, bringing with it a number of key features previously limited to the S21 (Android Police).
• Another interesting review this week is on the Google Pixel 5; it’s a long-term review that takes place four months after its release, and it has matured surprisingly well (GSM Arena).
• Following the Chinese launch on January 1st, Xiaomi has launched the global variant of its flagship Mi 11. It’s putting a lot of emphasis on the video capture and playback technology, as well as the usual game of Top Trumps on performance numbers which is helped immensely by being the first handset to ship with Qualcomm’s SnapDragon 888 (Forbes).
• Huawei has filed a lawsuit against the FCC in regards to the later’s decision to label the Chinese manufacturer as a national security threat. This action follows an unsuccessful attempt to have its inclusion on the US Entities list ruled unconstitutional (ZDNet).
• While the ‘must have’ camera feature of 2021 appears to be putting the forward camera ‘under the screen’, OnePlus’ latest published patent suggests it is looking at a another location… embedded in the bezel (Let’s Go Digital).
• That said, with the OnePlus 9 family potentially being launched in March its the moree practical leaks and hints that are likely to be seen. This week saw details on the battery come out, with both the 9 and the 9 Pro expected to sport a 4500 mAh battery; no doubt with OnePlus’ fast charge system included as well (9to5Google).
• Following its launch in the US last year, Microsoft’ dual-screened Android-powered Surface Duo is going on sale in the UK and France. With six months of user feedback, along with a number of software updates, the Duo is maturing as the market for foldable grows ever larger (Engadget).
• Dhruv Bhutani reviews the latest Poco smartphone, the M3. The entry level handset sports the SnapDragon 662, 4 GB of RAM, and either 64 GB or 128 GB of storage. But it’s the emphasis on design, with a curiously huge camera island, helping the handset stand out in the competitive 150 Euro market space (Android Authority).
• A wave of Android-powered phones have been added to Google’s ARCore ’supported devices’ list, including the Samsung Galaxy S21, HTC Desire 21 Pro 5G, OnePlus Nord N10 5G, Xiaomi Mi 11, and Sony Xperia Pro (9to5Google).
• Android 12 will be launched later this year, and naturally major partners have an advance look at the code and the tweaks to the UI. Naturally the designs have leaked so we can all get the same early look, including a new navigation panel, privacy features, changes to the home screen widgets system (XDA Developers).

And Finally…

• Alizeh Kohari has a fascinating long read on developer Mudassir Azeemi’s quest to make Urdu visible online. Thanks to its unique typeface, the language lacked representation in the digital world. Azeemi set out to get the system-level support required to display the language (RestofWorld).

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.