Apple shares turning a corner? Jim Cramer joins 'Halftime Report' to weigh in
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Digital Trends
a few seconds ago
- Digital Trends
Meta smart glasses with a built-in display might cost as much as an iPhone
Over the past few years, XR devices have exploded in popularity, and while at it, the costs have also gone up dramatically as the underlying tech keeps pushing new boundaries. For example, Apple's Vision Pro costs $3,500, while the Meta Quest Pro hit the shelves at $1,500. Smart glasses, especially those with a built-in display unit, are also slowly climbing up the price ladder. It seems Meta will buck that trend, or at least beat initial estimates for its next-gen smart glasses that are set to arrive later this year. 'Meta recently figured out a way to slash the price for consumers down to about $800, I'm told. The move stems in part from the company accepting lower margins to boost demand — a common tactic for new products,' says a report by Bloomberg. How do Meta's smart glasses work? Currently in development under the codename 'Hypernova,' Meta had initially planned to hawk the smart glasses at roughly $1,000, while some estimates put the price at $1,400. With the purported $800 asking price, it seems Meta is essentially matching the iPhone 16's sticker value in the market, and possibly, the upcoming iPhone 17, as well. It's pretty obvious that Meta will push these glasses as the next-gen personal computing device, one that is an alternative to smartphones, especially the ubiquitous iPhones in its home market. For comparison, display-equipped smart glasses made by the likes of Xreal and Viture usually fall in the $400-600 bracket, and so do next-gen AI glasses with optical projectors, such as the Even G1. Recommended Videos Meta is essentially pulling off the same formula as Google Glass. Instead of a dual-display system that you will find on smart glasses sold by RayNeo, Viture, and Xreal, Meta's 'Hypernova' smart glasses will only feature a monocular display fitted in the lower portion of the right lens. 'Information will only be displayed in front of the wearer's right eye and will appear most clearly when they are looking downward,' says a Bloomberg report. Powered by Qualcomm silicon, the upcoming Meta smart glasses will feature apps for capturing photos, viewing media, launching maps, and checking notifications. How can they stand out? For more intuitive controls, Meta will reportedly offer a neural wristband that will allow users to control the glasses using wrist gestures and hand movements. Smartwatches such as the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 have already implemented a gesture-based system for navigating the UI. Notably, the wristband will come bundled in the retail package of the 'Hypernova' smart glasses. Interestingly, the glasses will run a customized version of Android, though there might not be a dedicated app store installed on the wearable. Controls will reportedly be handled by a mix of tap and swipe inputs on the side frame. This is going to be a huge driving force for adoption if Meta and Google can somehow figure out a way to at least access and respond to app notifications coming from your connected phone. But it appears that Meta won't let Google enjoy that cake, especially with Google already working on its own AR glasses built atop the Android XR platform. 'The new version will continue to rely heavily on the Meta View phone app,' reports Bloomberg. The Hypernova smart glasses are expected to arrive in a month from now, and it would be worth waiting to see how they explore AI integration when compared to Google's Gemini on the wearable platform.
Tom's Guide
30 minutes ago
- Tom's Guide
Apple's smartphone market share plummets as Samsung surges — here's why
The rising demand for the best foldable phones is great for Samsung and not so great for Apple. Now, a new report shows Samsung is eating into Apple's market lead in the U.S. after the iPhone maker saw a rare double-digit dip last quarter. In the second quarter of 2025, Apple's market share in the U.S. fell from 56% to 49%, while Samsung's share surged from 23% to 31%, according to data from Canalys. That means Samsung managed to close the market share gap between it and Apple from 33% a year ago to 18% last quarter. Much of Samsung's second-quarter improvement hinged on its more affordable Galaxy A series, like the Galaxy A36. That just goes to show that the race for the best cheap phones is heating up alongside rising prices. Samsung's premium offerings, particularly the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7 that debuted last month, have also gained plenty of traction on social media for their surprising durability and value. Canalys credits Samsung's record Q2 growth to its strategy of "smart volume," a focus on offering a wider range of products at different price levels compared to Apple's line-up. Samsung's Galaxy and Z phone lineups start at $650 (for the Galaxy S24 FE) and go up to $2,400 (for the 1TB storage option Galaxy Z Fold 7). "That is a massive span of devices,' Canalys analyst Runar Bjorhovde told NBC News. 'There is an idea that you can target people at every single price point, and you can meet them at every spot.' Though the overall U.S. smartphone market barely grew during the same period, up to 27.1 million units compared to last year's 26.7 million, Samsung enjoyed the strongest performance of any phonemaker. The company shipped 8.3 million units in Q2 2025, a 38% increase year over year. Apple, on the other hand, saw shipments fall by 11% to 13.3 million units, down from 14.9 million a year ago. Apple still holds the crown for most smartphone sales in the U.S., but for the first time in over a decade, its position is beginning to look shaky on its home turf. The last time we saw Samsung seriously challenge Apple's top spot was back in 2014, when the Korean smartphone manufacturer embraced big-screen phones and phablets while Apple was still dragging its feet. Consumer preference isn't the only thing fueling the market share shift, though. As Canalys notes, "Samsung's performance in Q2 was boosted by frontloading of inventory into the U.S. amid tariff concerns," one of several strategies smartphone makers used to minimize the impact of Trump's tariffs. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. If Apple wants to regain its standing in the U.S. market, it'll have to pull out all the stops at its iPhone 17 event this September. This year promises a big shake-up for the iPhone lineup, with the Plus model expected to be replaced by the super-thin iPhone 17 Air. The iPhone 17 Air is a direct competitor to the Galaxy S25 Edge, Samsung's thinnest phone yet, but it may not be enough to change Apple's fortunes. Counterpoint Research, a research firm that estimates smartphone sales, found Samsung only saw a "slight year-over-year boost" in sales after the S25 Edge was released in May. If consumers are as blasé about the Air as they were about the Edge, Apple's going to be in trouble. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News to get our up-to-date news, how-tos, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
iPhone 17 vs. 17 Air, 17 Pro, 17 Pro Max: All the Rumored Specs Compared
Normally, we wait until phones are released to compare them, but Apple's next iPhone models are so eagerly awaited that we'll make an exception. We're basing our comparisons on the most credible rumors of what's coming in the iPhone 17 series, including a potential superthin iPhone 17 Air, to give readers an early sense of how the new series of phones may look. Last year's iPhone 16 series added a handful of upgrades on its predecessors, most notably the new Camera Control key. While the basic iPhone 16 and Plus models got a new ultrawide camera and bigger battery, as is typical with Apple's phones, the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max got the lion's share of the improvements with upgraded rear cameras, pro video recording modes and thinner bezels. Last year's iPhone upgrades are a template for what we expect in the iPhone 17 -- here's how we anticipate those comparisons to shake out. iPhone 17 price and release date Apple traditionally holds its iPhone announcements the first Tuesday in September after Labor Day. This year, that would be the first Tuesday of the month (Sept. 2), so we'd expect the reveal event on the next day, Sept. 3, or the following Tuesday, Sept. 9. A number of rumors point to Sept. 9 being the day Apple holds its fall event. The iPhone always goes on sale the Friday of the week after it's announced. Depending on which day it's announced, that could mean the iPhone 17 release date would be either Friday, Sept. 12 or 19. The iPhone 17 prices are up in the air, mainly due to tariffs. Increased costs of imports mean Apple could raise iPhone price tags, with Jefferies analyst Edison Lee predicting a $50 price hike across the lineup. If that's the case, then anticipated US starting prices could be as follows: iPhone 17: $829 iPhone 17 Air: $979 iPhone 17 Pro: $1,049 iPhone 17 Pro Max: $1,249 Design and display The biggest change we expect in the iPhone 17's design is in a single model potentially added to the lineup: the iPhone 17 Air. Following plenty of rumors, the Air would be a thinner model of the iPhone line akin to the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, which would focus on a thinner, lighter body that might have reduced battery life as a consequence. CNET Senior Reporter Abrar Al-Heeti found that with the S25 Edge. The Air could take the place of the larger Plus model in the iPhone 17 lineup, though whether that means the thinner phone is also bigger than the standard model is far from certain. We've also heard rumors that the iPhone 17 line could swap from the square camera block it's used for years to more of a pill-shaped camera bar that runs across the width of the phone's body. Leaker Majin Bu posted a leaked image and CAD renders on X that show a differently shaped camera setup for each phone. And case-maker Dbrand is preselling an iPhone 17 Pro Tank case that shows off the wider camera bump as well. A Bloomberg report in April affirmed that other than the camera block, the iPhone 17 lineup will look much like last year's phones, at least as far as rumors go, with the standard iPhone 17, Pro and Pro Max models largely unchanged from their iPhone 16 predecessors. Assuming Apple isn't changing the sizes of the smartphones, expect the iPhone 17 to have a 6.1-inch display, the iPhone 17 Pro to get a 6.3-inch screen and the iPhone 17 Pro Max a 6.9-inch display. The iPhone 17 Air's size is uncertain, but Apple does have a tendency to retain phone sizes for years (just look at the iPhone SE line using the same display dimensions as the iPhone 6), so if the new thin phone has the same dimensions as the iPhone 16 Plus, it could have a 6.7-inch display. Another display rumor suggests that Apple will close a feature gap between the baseline and pro models by making all phones have a maximum 120Hz refresh rate (prior lineups have kept the cheaper phones at 60Hz). Cameras While the camera bump may be changing in design, it's not clear how much the actual cameras themselves will change from last year's iPhone 16 lineup. We expect the usual feature gap to split the iPhone 17 generation, with the standard iPhone 17 having two cameras (48-megapixel main and 12-megapixel ultrawide) while the Pro and Pro Max models bump the ultrawide to 48 megapixels and also include a third telephoto camera (presumably the 12-megapixel with 5x optical zoom inherited from last year's iPhones). One of the wildest rumors is that the 17 Pro and Pro Max will have 8x telephoto cameras. The report comes from MacRumors and mentions the lens having moving elements for continuous optical zoom at various focal lengths (think Sony Xperia 1 V). Rumors suggest the fourth model -- possibly the iPhone 17 Air -- will only have one camera, which would likely be a 48-megapixel main shooter similar to the iPhone 16E. That would set it apart from last year's iPhone 16 Plus, which had the same two cameras as the standard iPhone 16. The only other significant camera rumor suggests that the front-facing shooters on all the phones will be upgrading to 24-megapixel cameras, up from 12 megapixels on last year's phones. Specs and software As is typical with the feature gap between standard and pro models, rumors suggest the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max (as well as the Air) will get the newest A19 chip, while the regular iPhone 17 will get the same A18 chip that powered last year's iPhone 16. It's unclear if the new phones will get another tech advancement -- Apple's C1 chip, the internally developed 5G modem that debuted in the iPhone 16E released earlier this year. Presumably, the company will want to bring it to the new iPhone 17 lineup, but we haven't heard rumors suggesting so. While Apple never explicitly says how much RAM its iPhones pack, most phones require 8GB of RAM to use AI features -- and given Apple Intelligence debuted on the iPhone 16 lineup, it's heavily suspected that those devices were given 8GB of RAM. Presumably, the iPhone 17 series will have the same amount. There's also no reason to believe Apple will switch up its storage options. The standard iPhone 17 will likely be offered in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB tiers, while the iPhone 17 Pro should have those and a 1TB version. The iPhone 17 Pro Max will likely only have 256GB, 512GB and 1TB options. The batteries of the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro aren't expected to change, though a leak suggests the iPhone 17 Pro Max could expand its capacity to 5,000 mAh, up from the 4,685 mAh on the iPhone 16 Pro Max. The big question will be the size of the iPhone 17 Air's battery, which will almost surely be smaller due to the thinner body; by comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge only has a 3,900 mAh capacity. All iPhones will almost surely launch with iOS 26, the next version of Apple's iPhone software that was renamed to align with the year following its release.
