Michael Simon, staff writer for PC World, discusses Apple's 11.3 iOS announcement, as well as the HomePod which is now available for pre-order. He also explores what China's first ever annual decline in phone shipments could mean.
Simon says iOS 11.3 will finally allow users to check the health of their batteries, a growing issue for customers. The iOS 11.3 will also offer new Animojis. Apple says the update is due out this spring.
Simon also discusses Apple's new HomePod, now available for pre-order. While the company has a loyal following of people who will definitely purchase the product, he doesn't see most people paying $349 when Amazon's Echo is just $99. Concerning China's decline in phone shipments, Simon says Americans will always buy new phones for new features, but China is a different market and Apple will need to learn how to adjust.
Luke Larsen, senior editor at Digital Trends, joins Cheddar News to discuss the largest tech convention in the world, CES, kicking off in Las Vegas this week.
Renewable energy company Heliogen has gone public via a SPAC merger with blank check company Athena Technology Acquisition Corp. on the NYSE. Joining Cheddar, founder and CEO Bill Gross went into why he felt the end of 2021 was the best time to get into the public markets. "If you think of the Industrial Revolution and the digital revolution, this renewable revolution is probably going to be as big or larger than that," he said. "So we're going to use this capital to scale our business, to meet more customer demand, to do more projects in parallel, and to scale our research and development to continue to drive down the price to be competitive with fossil fuels."
