Week 42 in review: Apple’s M3 chip is here, Galaxy S23 gets Android 14

Samsung’s announcement of the Galaxy Z Flip5 Reto – an ode to the Samsung E700 from 2003 – was the most popular story of this week. Flip5 Retro features the same iconic indigo blue and silver colors as the E700 and comes with some nostalgic pixel graphics UI tweaks and cityscape animation on its Flex Window cover screen. The phone is available in limited quantities in South Korea from November 1 as well as in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Australia from November 2.

Samsung started rolling the One UI 6 update to select Galaxy S23 series along with Android 14. There’s a new design with a new default font, new icons, simpler icon labels, and a way to make the lockscreen clock bigger or reposition it. The Quick Panel has a new button layout – the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth have their own places at the top, followed by the usual quick toggles and the brightness has moved to the bottom. The update may take its time to reach everyone and is coming to other high-end Galaxies in the coming weeks.

The iQOO 12 series appeared in hands-on photos, as well as Geekbench tests. The Pro packs a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, while both phones will have 120W charging.

Tecno announced a new imaging technology called Universal Tone. Leveraging AI, it promises to enhance skin tones in photos so people from all colors are correctly captured. The essence of Tecno Universal Tone is recognizing multiple faces in one photo, along with their facial complexities, and then applying appropriate filters that encompass a vast range of skin tones to eliminate bias within the image processing.

Apple announced the M3 chip this week. The M3 Pro and M3 Max are now in the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBooks, while the baseline M3 is now inside the 13-inch MacBook Pro, which lost the touchbar. There’s also a new 24-inch iMac with the M3 chip.

Those were the highlights of the week but you can find all the hot articles below.