Apple starts enabling worldwide discounts on iPhone battery replacements

Further to an earlier announcement regarding discounted iPhone battery replacement services for customers of older iPhones who may be experiencing performance slowdowns, Apple has enabled the discounted replacement service globally starting today.

Canadians who bring their older iPhones for a battery replacement to Apple Retail stores will be able to benefit from the reduced fee. 

"Apple is reducing the price of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $64 — from $99 to $35 — for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be replaced, available worldwide through December 2018. Details will be provided soon on apple.com/ca," Apple said in an official statement earlier today. The initial timeframe for the discounted battery replacement was supposed to be in January 2018.

"We expected to need more time to be ready, but we are happy to offer our customers the lower pricing right away. Initial supplies of some replacement batteries may be limited," an Apple spokesperson clarified.

Samsung set to launch new Exynos chip on January 4

Just days away from CES 2018, Samsung is set to unveil the new processor that will power the upcoming Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus smartphones. Samsung Exynos Twitter account just tweeted: “Discover #TheNextExynos that goes beyond a component. Stay tuned.” It comes with an image that has the text “Beyond a Component” and the date January 4, 2018. You can’t glean much from this announcement but the said Exynos 9810 10nm processor is said to pack in an improved GPU and Category 18 LTE modem with peaked download speeds promised at up to 1.2Gbps. It’s being rumoured that Samsung is following in the footsteps of Qualcomm and Huawei and will be including a dedicated neural networking or AI processor in the 9810. We just have to wait a bit to see if there is any truth to these rumours.

Source: Android Authority

Android apps can soon run in the background on Chrome OS

Google's Pixelbook redefines the Chromebook segment

If you heavily multitask on Chrome OS, the implementation of Android apps there right now leave a lot to be desired. App activity for most apps will generally pause when you aren’t using these specific applications or games. That is about to change though as Google is testing out in the beta channel of Chrome OS 64 that lets app properly run in the background even if you’re working on something else. And if it’s made its way to beta, there is some assurance that it might make it to the public release. As 9to5Google points out, Chrome OS 64 also introduced split view recently, which puts further emphasis on the OS’s multitasking capabilities.

Nokia is bringing Android 8.1 Oreo to its low-end Nokia 2 device

This latest development will bring Android Oreo to the cheapest device to date. HMD’s Chief Product Officer Juho Sarvikas just announced that Android 8.1 is coming to the Nokia 2. We’re used to entry-level devices not getting the latest and greatest, but this is a welcome surprise. And since Android 8.1 brings with it memory management improvements of Android Go, that could bump up performance for the Nokia 2. The caveat is HMD hasn’t specified when the update would come. But it is something to look forward to.

Source: GSMArena