Daily Authority: iPhone-satellite confusion 📡
Good Morning! Who watched Formula 1 for four hours yesterday … without seeing a single lap of anger? Sad times.
iPhones plus LEO?
Reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo released a new report suggesting that the iPhone 13 could use a modified Qualcomm X60 modem to support satellite connectivity for making calls and sending messages.
According to Kuo, as reported by MacRumors:
- The iPhone 13 will have satellite communications connectivity in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) – may not, or may, but will.
- Given Kuo’s status, that’s big news as the device is no more than a month or two away.
- However, it would be a surprise to get so close to an iPhone launch and launch bidirectional satellite communication so late.
- The advantages are considerable: Apple could offer satellite messaging and calling for free, which would benefit many rural residents, travelers, seafarers …
- GPS already uses satellites, of course, but it’s a one-way connection, not a communication.
- And while Kuo is respected as they come, there are questions. How will this affect battery usage? Antenna design? Would Apple risk being the first?
What it could be:
- Let’s first state a couple of things: LEO satellite broadband service providers include Starlink, Iridium, and SpaceX’s Globalstar. The report details the “most likely” vendor, Globalstar, with whom Qualcomm has worked to support the “b53 / n53 band in future X65 baseband chips”.
- Globalstar has been striving for some time to use an 11.5 MHz part of the 2.4 GHz spectrum band.
- But it is only limited to terrestrial use!
- The Qualcomm X65 supports these bands but the X60 does not, which means that modifications to this modem will further cloud the water.
- So … where that leaves us is unclear. A very risky newcomer that would affect battery life if the bandwidth range was unclear?
- It seems to be leaning quite heavily towards non-bidirectional satellites, to say the least.
- Instead, Apple could add another radio band for 4G / 5G connections, at least in the US, which can be helpful for better service.
- If Kuo didn’t report this, would it likely be dismissed?
Sum up
The Pixel 5a seems to be getting too hot. Google determined (Android authority).
Samsung Galaxy S21 FE could hit the market as early as next week (Android authority).
Windows 11 Beta Impressions: Stirred, Not Shaken (Android Authority).
Apple Watch Series 7 is said to have flat sides and bigger screens (The edge).
There’s a hint of something that went wrong with consumer SSDs: Crucial, Western Digital, and now Samsung have been caught swapping components. It’s not easy to understand, but what you sell and what you get are not necessarily the same thing (Ars-Technica).
The first hardware revision of the PS5 looks like a step backwards: 300g weight savings on the heatsink seems to be saving Sony money, not improving the console, which may now run hotter (The edge).
How to save money on your digital subscriptions: offers, start-stop, alternatives and family sharing (Wired).
Amazon moves into Sofort-Pay-Later: Some in the US will see Affirm’s checkout option before a broader roll-out on purchases of $ 50 or more that can be broken down into smaller monthly installments (New York Times, Gift link).
Some persistent but smart people have installed Google Maps on the NES. In addition, the NES and SNES designer is withdrawing from Nintendo after almost 40 years (Engage).
Speaking of maps, watch people make live changes to OpenStreetMap (Github).
NASA’s Hubble successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, is finally ready to ship (CNET).
Can artificially modified clouds save the Great Barrier Reef? (Nature).
Massive floating wind farm design has 117 turbines, but not as one might expect (Dezeen).
“What is expensive for no reason?” (r / askreddit).
Monday memes
A classic:
What reminded me of this classic Paul G tweet followed by a podcast by Jason Feifer:
- Is Boredom Good? Jason Feifer delves into the subject (hears or reads the transcript) and explores how boredom is a new word but was a subject of the classroom, the focus of the study, and how we’ve always wanted to avoid boredom – before smartphones, it was Newspapers and television, books, magazines, radio and, before that, writing letters and so on through the centuries. Boredom is discomfort.
- So it is no big deal to avoid boredom, however you do that. Phone, podcast, music, etc.
- But, as the podcast episode examines, “increasing our ability to engage mentally when the external stimulation wears off” can still be helpful, according to John Eastwood Feifer, who works at York University’s Boredom Lab.
Thank you very much,
Tristan Rayner, Managing Editor
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