Kuo: Apple's culty iPhone SE is not getting any big changes in 2018

Kuo: Apple’s culty iPhone SE is not getting any big changes

By Bill Roberson January 30, 2018

Still Elegant

With all the attention the iPhone X and the other “new” iPhones get, you wouldn’t think changes to the lowly iPhone SE would be newsworthy. But according to Apple soothsayer Ming Chi Kuo of KGI securities, the big news around the littlest iPhone… is that there’s no news really at all. While the iPhone X and the other new iPhones are all the rage, there is a solid fan base following around the retro iPhone SE, which is also known as the “Steve Edition.”

Based on the iPhone 5, the SE is the last iPhone form factor rolled out by Apple’s co-founder, Steve Jobs, initially as the nearly identical iPhone 4, before he passed away. And for many Apple fans, the SE is the just-right iPhone: It’s small, light, inexpensive and packs essentially the same internals and camera as the 6S. Rumors earlier this year suggested it could get a makeover as the SE 2 with wireless charging, a glass back and the A10 chip. But Kuo says not so fast, and he thinks no big changes are coming.

The SE did get a bump in memory options to 128gb recently, but other than that, it’s unchanged from two years ago, and for many iPhone fans, that’s just fine. If the SE does get eventually an upgrade, it probably won’t happen until this fall.

No way for Huawei?

In the past couple of years, Chinese tech firm Huawei has been pushing hard to crack the US market with their Android phones, TVs and internet networking gear.

But just when it looked like they were about to break it big in the phone market, AT&T abruptly cancelled plans to carry its phones, and now Verizon has followed suit. What happened? According to Bloomberg, pressure from the US Government is closing the doors on Huawei. Apparently, the Trump administration is concerned over the security aspect of Huawei and other phones from Chinese brands.

The thinking goes that if Huawei were cooperating with the Chinese government, the phones could be used as a sort of spybot while in the hands of US military personnel at military bases or other sensitive locations. Following the revelation that some fitness bands could be storing location details about military bases in foreign countries as part of their route-tracing capabilities, security concerns are at a fever pitch, especially with 5G tech on the horizon.

Huawei was sued by Cisco back in 2003 over claims it was stealing router tech and sending the data back to China, and both Huawei and ZTE landed on a national tech security blacklist in 2012. You can still BUY an unlocked Huawei handset and use it on AT&T and Verizon’s networks, but don’t look for the phones in their showrooms anytime soon.

High score? Blown

And now for today’s most pressing breaking news: Todd Roger’s world record time for playing Dragster on the Atari 2600 back in 1982…. has been rescinded due to cheating allegations. That’s right, the longest-standing video game high score in recorded history is no more after computer engineer Eric Koziel broke the game down and said there was no possible way the score of 5.51 seconds could be achieved. And indeed, it’s never been equaled.

Rogers cemented his claim to fame by sending a Polaroid of his score into Activision back when people knew what Polaroids actually were, and it’s stood ever since – along with a whole bunch of other high scores Rogers claims from back in the day. But on Monday, it all came crashing down as high score repository Twin Galaxies wiped the scores away. Rogers didn’t take the move lightly, and claimed his score was on the level, and he even had the backing of the game’s creator.

We suggest Rogers and Kozeil meet at the drag strip in 1982 Honda Civics and have it out for real.

We’ve got more news on our Facebook page and YouTube channel, and be sure to tune in to this week’s DT podcasts: Trends with Benefits (general tech shenanigans) on Thursdays, and Between the Streams (movie and TV topics) every Friday.

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