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 Google raised the price of its latest smartphones compared to last year, and the increase may hint at what Apple will do with the iPhone 18 Pro models.
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 Google today introduced the Pixel Tag, its answer to Apple's AirTag. Pixel Tag is Google's first item tracker, even though Google implemented an item tracking network two years ago that's been used by third-party devices.
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Google's most powerful flagships take aim at Samsung's crown.
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Apple is in the process of tweaking its business models to cope with the unyielding memory price and availability crisis. Its response is now emerging across multiple fronts.
Finance or lease
The company's recently-introduced Apple Upgrade scheme in partnership with Klarna is a smart response to the reality that as devices inevitably become more expensive, consumers will shift from outright ownership to flexible lease and financing arrangements. With its partnership, Apple continues to generate revenue while also maximizing the likelihood customers will return the product at EOL, more about which later.
Samsung and Google have introduced similar schemes. "Financing models already dominant in India and Africa are now poised to reshape the US and European markets," said CCS Insight in a presentation exploring the consequences of the memory shortage.
Downgrade
Apple has seen a lot of success with the iPhone 17 this year. That success wasn't entirely because it's such a good smartphone; it also reflects consumers making the decision to purchase lower-specced devices to stay within budget. Apple continues to see
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 Image Credit: GoogleGoogle has been publicly building tiny radar chips since 2015. They can tell you how well you sleep, control a smartwatch, count sheets of paper, and have you play the world's smallest violin. But the company's Soli radar hasn't necessarily seen commercial success, primarily in an ill-fated Pixel phone. Now Google has launched an open source API standard called Ripple that could theoretically bring the technology to additional devices outside of Google, possibly even a car, as Ford is one of the participants in the new standard.
Technically, Ripple is under the auspices of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the same industry body that h
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