Month: March 2023

An old FaceTime upgrade comes to voice calls.

If you’ve downloaded iOS 16.4 to your iPhone, one new feature can help make your phone calls sound more clear. The update expands Voice Isolation to phone calls now, expanding the feature from FaceTime calls. Apple introduced Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum to FaceTime calls with the release of iOS 15 in 2021. However, only Voice Isolation is available for phone calls at this time.

When enabled, Voice Isolation muffles distracting background noises that interrupt your phone call. That way, if you’re on a business call or catching up with friends, you won’t be interrupted by your dog’s barking or construction outside your home.

To enable Voice Isolation, you have to be on a phone call, and you won’t find the feature in Settings. But once you turn Voice Isolation on, it will stay on for all subsequent phone calls until it’s turned off.

Here’s how to activate and disable Voice Isolation for phone calls.

How to enable Voice Isolation

1. Start or answer a phone call.
2. Swipe down from the top-right corner of your screen to access your Control Center.
3. Tap Mic Mode near the top-right corner of your screen.
4. Tap Voice Isolation.

Pro tip: Instead of turning this feature on during a call with someone else, you can call yourself and enable Voice Isolation by following the steps above.

To disable Voice Isolation, follow the same steps above and tap Standard in Mic Mode. This will return your microphone back to its default setting.

What’s Wide Spectrum?
Alongside Voice Isolation in Mic Mode is Wide Spectrum. Unlike Voice Isolation — which muffles background sounds — Wide Spectrum amplifies background sounds without affecting your voice.

Wide Spectrum is useful for calls with multiple people on one phone line. That way, everyone can be heard, not just the person holding the phone.

Currently, Wide Spectrum is only available for FaceTime calls, not phone calls. But, since the feature is still present in Mic Mode when accessed during a phone call, this feature might become available for phone calls in the future.

Select users can now quickly finance purchases up to $1,000.

Apple has thrown its hat into the buy now, pay later ring. Its long-awaited Apple Pay Later service was “prereleased” this week, but only for “select users.”

Originally, Apple Pay Later was supposed to roll out at the end of 2022, after it was announced at Apple’s WWDC event last year. However, the product’s launch was delayed due to “significant technical and engineering challenges,” per Bloomberg.

Apple’s new payment service comes at a time when many retailers are accepting payments from BNPL apps such as Affirm, Klarna and Afterpay. Here’s what you need to know about the payment plan, how it works and when it will be open to all iPhone users.

For more on iPhones, learn all the cool new features in iOS 16.4 and 22 iPhone settings you should change right now.

How do I use Apple Pay Later?
Apple Pay Later lets you break the cost of purchases into four equal payments spread over six weeks. The first payment is due when you make your purchase, and the remaining payments are due every two weeks after that.

Once Apple Pay Later is set up on your phone, you have two options when completing a purchase: Pay in Full and Pay Later. Selecting the latter option will bring up a payment schedule displaying the amount of each of the four payments and when they’ll be due.

Stores and merchants don’t have to implement any changes in order to accept payments through Apple Pay Later. Transactions occur as they did before — the only difference will lie in how back-end payments are made. Apple Pay Later will work with any merchants who accept Apple Pay.

MasterCard Installments, the credit card company’s white-label BNPL service, is providing the merchant payments for Apple Pay Later. Apple has created its own financial subsidiary — Apple Financing — that handles loan approvals and credit checks. Banking partner Goldman Sachs is the official loan issuer.

Payments for Apple Pay Later must be made with a debit card; you can’t use a credit card. You can set up automatic payments or make additional payments at any time. Each BNPL purchase will be reviewed and approved or rejected using a soft credit check.

Apple Pay Later has no plan to charge fees for late payments, though it may use late payments as an excuse to reject future BNPL loans. The minimum purchase for Apple Pay Later is $50; the maximum is $1,000.

When can I use Apple Pay Later on my iPhone?
If you’re one of the “select users” to receive an invite from Apple, you can start using Apple Pay Later now. For the rest of us, based on the wording in Apple’s press release, Apple Pay Later will likely be enabled for all Apple Wallet users in a future update to iOS.

Apple has already released four point upgrades since iOS 16 launched in September 2022. The first update — iOS 16.1 — came in October 2022; the second — iOS 16.2 in December 2022; the third — iOS 16.3 — in January 2023; and the fourth — iOS 16.4 — in March 2023.

Based on that bimonthly release schedule, all Apple Wallet users can probably expect access to Apple Pay Later some time in May 2023.

How is Apple Pay Later different from Apple Card Monthly Installments?
Apple Card Monthly Installments is an Apple program that lets you finance the purchase of certain Apple products when using the Apple Card credit card. The length of the 0% APR period for these purchases depends on the product. Installment plans range from six months to two years.

Apple Pay Later isn’t restricted to Apple products, nor does it require the use of the Apple Card. With Apple Pay Later, you can finance any purchases from $50 to $1,000 using a debit card, as long as it’s connected to Apple Wallet. Also, the interest-free installment period for Apple Pay Later — six weeks — is much shorter than the payment plans offered by Apple Card Monthly Installments.

What other Apple Wallet features were added in iOS 16?
One new Apple Wallet feature that launched with iOS 16 is Apple Pay Order Tracking, which adds the ability for merchants to provide detailed receipts and delivery statuses for purchased products to customers via Apple Wallet.

Apple also expanded support in Apple Wallet for driver’s licenses and identification cards. Following IDs from Colorado and Arizona, Apple Wallet plans to add support for 11 more states.

These driver’s licenses can be used at select Transportation Security Agency checkpoints. They can also be shared with other apps that require identification, such as alcohol purchases through Uber Eats.

Apple Wallet has also added support for sharing keys for locations such as hotels, offices or automobiles. New features let users share keys with friends or associates using email, text messaging or other messaging apps.

What other online services let you buy now and pay later?
Some existing online payment systems provide buy now, pay later short-term financing similar to what Apple Pay Later is offering. PayPal’s Pay in 4 program works very much like Apple Pay Later, except that purchases are limited to between $300 and $1,500.

BNPL app Sezzle also uses a system of four payments over six weeks, but permits users to reschedule one payment for up to two weeks later at no cost and postpone further payments for an additional fee.

Other BNPL apps such as Affirm and Klarna offer interest-free installment plans for short periods, or longer installment plans that add a variable interest rate.

The update brings new emoji, voice isolation in phone calls, and more to your iPhone.

The wait for iOS 16.4 is over. Apple rolled out iOS 16.4 on Monday, about a week after the company let developers and beta testers try the iOS 16.4 release candidate.

The update comes with a handful of bug and security fixes, as well as some new features. Some of the new features include new emoji, voice isolation for cellular calls, and more.

Here are some of the new features your iPhone gains with iOS 16.4.

31 new emoji
The iOS 16.4 update brings 31 new emoji to your iOS device. The new emoji include a new smiley; new animals, like a moose and a goose; and new heart colors, like pink and light blue.

Voice isolation comes to cellular calls
Voice isolation was introduced with iOS 15 in 2021, and at the time it worked only on FaceTime calls. Now with iOS 16.4, you can use the feature on your cellular calls too.

When enabled, voice isolation can help the person you’re on a call with hear you more clearly by muffling background sounds, like kids playing in the other room or construction outside your window. It could therefore cut back on the number of times you have to repeat yourself in a phone call because the other person can’t hear you.

Easily find photo duplicates across shared albums
In iOS 16.4, you can easily find duplicate photos in shared albums in Photos. If you share photos with family or friends via iCloud, iOS 16.4 will show you all the duplicates across albums. You can also Merge these duplicate photos.

Support for PlayStation 5 controller
According to MacRumors, iOS 16.4 adds support for the PlayStation 5 DualSense Edge Wireless Controller. You can use the controller to play controller-enabled games from services like Apple Arcade — a CNET Editors’ Choice award pick — on your iPhone.

Apple Books update
The page-turn curl animation is back in Apple Books with iOS 16.4, after it was removed in a previous iOS update. Before, when you turned a page in an ebook on your iPhone, the page would slide to one side of your screen or it would vanish and be replaced by the next page. You can still choose these other page-turn animations in addition to the curl animation.

Music app changes
The Kid Cudi album Man On the Moon artwork with the track list below
A small banner appears at the bottom of the screen when you choose to play a song next in Apple Music in iOS 16.4

Zach McAuliffe/CNET
The Music interface has been slightly modified in iOS 16.4. When you add a song to your queue, a small banner appears near the bottom of your screen instead of a full-screen pop-up like in previous iOS versions.

Also, if you go into your Library in Music, you can organize your Library by Artist and tap into an artist, across the top of your page you will see an icon for that artist. A search bar used to be at the top of this page. Tap the artist’s icon and you will be taken to that artist’s Music page.

Apple Podcasts updates
Apple Podcasts also gets an update with iOS 16.4. Now you can access a Channels tab in your Library, which shows you different networks you follow. Tap into each channel and you see can the shows you subscribe to and other shows that channel produces.

See who and what is covered under AppleCare
With iOS 16.4, you can go to Settings > General > About > Coverage to check who and what devices are covered on your AppleCare plan. That way, if your AirPods break, you can easily check whther they are covered. You can manage your coverage from here too.

Focus Mode filters added
If you have an iPhone 14 Pro or Pro Max, iOS 16.4 lets you enable or disable the always-on display option with certain Focus Modes. When creating a new filter, scroll down to the bottom of the edit page, tap Focus Filter, then tap Always-On Display to enable or disable the display for that Focus Mode.

New Apple Wallet features
You can add three new order-tracking widgets for Apple Wallet to your home screen with iOS 16.4. Each widget displays your tracking information on active orders, but the widgets are different sizes: small, medium and large.

More accessibility options
The update also adds new accessibility options. One new option is called Dim Flashing Lights, and it can be found in the Motion menu in Settings. The option’s description says video content that depicts repeated flashing or strobing lights will automatically be dimmed. Video timelines will also show when flashing lights will occur. VoiceOver support has also been expanded to the maps and Weather apps.

Apple ID and beta software updates
Text that reads You can sign in with a different Apple ID that is enrolled in the Apple Beta Software Program or the Apple Developer Program
The latest iOS update lets you sign into another Apple ID to access other beta software.

Zach McAuliffe/CNET
With iOS 16.4, developers and beta testers can check whether their Apple ID is associated with the developer beta, public beta or both. If you have a different Apple ID, like one for your job, that has access to beta updates, iOS 16.4 also lets you switch to that account from your device.

New keyboards, Siri voices and language updates
This iOS 16.4 update also adds keyboards for the Choctaw and Chickasaw languages, and there are new Siri voices for Arabic and Hebrew. Language updates have also come to Korean, Ukrainian, Gujarati, Punjabi and Urdu.

Here are Apple’s release notes for iOS 16.4.

This update includes the following enhancements and bug fixes:
• 21 new emoji including animals, hand gestures, and objects are now available in emoji keyboard
• Notifications for web apps added to the Home Screen
• Voice Isolation for cellular calls prioritizes your voice and blocks out ambient noise around you
• Duplicates album in Photos expands support to detect duplicate photos and videos in an iCloud Shared Photo
Library
• VoiceOver support for maps in the Weather app
• Accessibility setting to automatically dim video when flashes of light or strobe effects are detected
• Fixes an issue where Ask to Buy requests from children may fail to appear on the parent’s device
• Addresses issues where Matter-compatible thermostats could become unresponsive when paired to Apple Home
• Crash Detection optimizations on iPhone 14 and iPhone
14 Pro models

For more, check out what was included in iOS 16.3.1 and features you may have missed in iOS 16.3.

The device might be unveiled to the public soon, according to Bloomberg.

Some of Apple’s top executives gathered in Cupertino, California, recently for a special demonstration of the company’s unreleased AR/VR headset, according to a report from Bloomberg.

“The demonstrations were polished, glitzy and exciting,” Mark Gurman, Bloomberg’s Apple reporter, wrote.

Gurman noted that the demonstration took place in the Steve Jobs Theater, Apple’s largest venue. According to Gurman, this might suggest the headset is close to a public unveiling.

The headset will have a starting price around $3,000, and it will have an external battery that’ll need to be replaced after a few hours of use, Gurman wrote. The headset is also reportedly uncomfortable and would lack a standout app upon release.

According to the report, some Apple executives are aware of the challenges the headset and company might face, and they are trying to set realistic expectations. But executives expect interest in the headset to grow over time.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Gurman also reported in his Power On newsletter that Apple’s iOS 17 will likely be a larger release than expected. Initially, iOS 17 was thought to focus on bug fixes and performance improvements. But Gurman wrote that the goal of iOS 17 now will be to bring some of users’ most requested features to iPhones.

For more on Apple, check out what else to expect from Apple’s AR/VR headset and iOS 16.4 beta features testers can try now.

Apple has been transitioning away from the Lightning port over the past few years.

Your next pair of AirPods could have a USB-C charging case. The company is planning to launch a version of its second-generation AirPods Pro with a USB-C charging case later this year, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, a highly respected industry watcher.

“I think this is likely the USB-C version of the AirPods Pro 2, with mass shipments expected in 2Q23-3Q23,” Kuo said in a tweet on Friday, referring to a report of new AirPod and charging case model numbers referenced in iOS 16.4, the next version of Apple’s iPhone software.

The company has been transitioning away from its proprietary Lightning charging port, which the current AirPods Pro 2 case includes, over the past few years. There has been speculation that the next iPhone could have a USB-C charging port instead of Lightning.

The move from Lightning to USB-C has been encouraged by the European Union. In November, the EU passed legislation that will force Apple to include USB-C charging ports in its products if it wants to sell devices in the region. The law was intended to decrease the number of cables consumers collect with their various devices and prevent e-waste.

Apple does not plan to include a USB-C charging case with the second- or third-generation (non-Pro) AirPods, Kuo said.

Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Mate X3, Huawei’s latest book-style foldable, was just unveiled in China.

Huawei’s newest foldable phone, the Mate X3, is an impressively thin and light book-style foldable phone. It was unveiled Thursday alongside the non-foldable flagship P60 series.

The Mate X3 has a 6.4-inch cover screen that unfolds to make way for a 7.85-inch inner screen. Despite the presence of two screens, the Mate XS weighs 239 grams and it’s 5.3 mm thick, making it thinner and lighter than the iPhone 14 Pro Max when unfolded. This also means the Mate X3 is the lightest commercially available foldable phone — a title Huawei clinched previously with the Mate XS 2. For reference, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 weighs 263 grams and has a width of 6.3mm when unfolded.

The Mate X3 also has a free-stop hinge, the company says, allowing the phone to fold in a variety of positions, which lends the device to Flex-mode style features. Speaking of the camera, the Mate X3 has a circular camera bump housing a 50-megapixel main camera, a 13-megapixel ultrawide camera and a 12-megapixel periscope-style telephoto camera, which is capable of 5x optical zoom.

Although the slick hardware of the Mate X3 is commendable, one of the biggest upgrades to the Mate X3 is the IPX8 rating, which remains uncommon in the foldable phone segment. Only Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4 series has the same rating, which means the means the device can withstand immersion in over 1 meter (3.2 feet) of water.

The Mate X3 marks Huawei’s return to the book-style foldable. Last year, Huawei ran with the single-screen wraparound design of the Mate XS 2 instead of launching a successor to 2021’s Mate X2. The return to inward-folding design, which Samsung first introduced, seems to indicate that book-style designs are the future for Huawei foldable phones.

Last year’s free baseball deal will not carry over to 2023.

Apple will once again be airing Friday baseball games this season, but this time expect to pay for it. After its inaugural 2022 campaign, the iPhone-maker will kick off its 2023 Major League Baseball streaming season on April 7 with a doubleheader featuring the Texas Rangers at the Chicago Cubs on Friday afternoon, followed by the San Diego Padres at the Atlanta Braves on Friday night.

The Friday games will continue throughout the season, though this year you’ll need to pay $7 per month for Apple TV Plus if you want to watch. Last year Apple made the games available for free for the entirety of the 2022 season.

Apple’s baseball coverage will continue to include access to MLB Big Inning, a live weeknight show offering look-ins and highlights of games in progress, as well as daily shows like MLB Daily Recap. While the live games will be stuck behind a paywall, Apple is making condensed games and highlights available for free after the contests air.

As before, the Friday Apple games are exclusive to Apple TV Plus and not available on traditional cable or satellite providers, even in teams’ local markets. This year, however, Apple is working with DirecTV to make the games more readily available in bars, restaurants, hotel lounges and other locations around the US over the latter’s satellite service.

Like last year, Apple will be streaming the games in its Apple TV app in 1080p resolution with 5.1 audio, as well as spatial audio if your setup supports it. The Apple TV app is available on a variety of devices, including Apple’s own iPhones (running iOS 16.2 or later), iPads (running iPadOS 16.2 or later) and Apple TVs (running TVOS 16.2 or later), as well as in the Apple TV app that’s available on many modern smart TVs, game consoles, streaming devices and platforms like Roku, Amazon Fire, Google TV or Android TV.

There is still no Android app for phones or tablets, with users of those devices — as well as Apple users who haven’t updated their device’s software — needing to watch via the web at tv.apple.com.

Apple’s MLB deal was the company’s first foray into streaming live sports. It since has expanded to become the exclusive home of Major League Soccer and is rumored to be interested in acquiring more sports rights, including the English Premier League and the NBA.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates says the development of artificial intelligence (AI) is the most important technological advance in decades.

In a blog post on Tuesday, he called it as fundamental as the creation of the microprocessor, the personal computer, the Internet, and the mobile phone.

“It will change the way people work, learn, travel, get health care, and communicate with each other,” he said.

He was writing about the technology used by tools such as chatbot ChatGPT.

Developed by OpenAI, ChatGPT is an AI chatbot which is programmed to answer questions online using natural, human-like language.

The team behind it in January 2023 received a multibillion dollar investment from Microsoft – where Mr Gates still serves as an advisor.

But it is not the only AI-powered chatbot available, with Google recently introducing rival Bard.

I was one of the first people to get access to Bard and my colleagues and I are trying to put it through its paces.

So far it’s given me a philosophical answer to the meaning of life.

It gave a competent potted history of Russia-China relations to a colleague covering the meeting between President Putin and Xi Jinping – unlike ChatGPT, Bard can access current affairs.

A programme editor asked it for a good running order for her news show. Start with the biggest story of the day, Bard suggested, and end with a musician or comedian. It also did a decent if generic job of a poem about trees and blossom.

I haven’t yet started trying to get it to be rude to me, or about others. I’ll report back on that…

You can read more about it here.

2px presentational grey line
Mr Gates said he had been meeting with OpenAI – the team behind the artificial intelligence that powers chatbot ChatGPT – since 2016.

In his blog, Mr Gates said he challenged the OpenAI team in 2022 to train an AI that can pass an Advanced Placement (AP) Biology exam – roughly equivalent to an A-level exam – with the strict rule that the AI could not be specifically trained to answer Biology questions.

A few months later they revealed the results – a near perfect score, he said, missing only one mark out of 50.

After the exam, Mr Gates said he asked the AI to write a response to a father with a sick child.

“It wrote a thoughtful answer that was probably better than most of us in the room would have given,” he said.

“I knew I had just seen the most important advance in technology since the graphical user interface (GUI).”

A GUI is a visual display – allowing a person to interact with images and icons, rather than a display that shows only text and requires typed commands.

Its development led to the Windows and Mac OS operating systems in the 1980s, and remains a key part of computing.

And Mr Gates says he believes AI tech will lead to similar advancements.

The Future of AI
Mr Gates, who co-chairs the charitable Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, called on governments to work with industry to “limit the risks” of AI, but said the technology could be used to save lives.

“AI-driven improvements will be especially important for poor countries, where the vast majority of under-5 deaths happen,” he wrote.

“Many people in those countries never get to see a doctor, and AIs will help the health workers they do see be more productive.”

Some examples of this he gave include completing repetitive tasks such as insurance claims, paperwork, and note-taking.

But in order for this to happen, Mr Gates called on a targeted approach to AI technology in the future.

“Market forces won’t naturally produce AI products and service that help the poorest,” he said. “The opposite is more likely.

“With reliable funding and the right policies, governments and philanthropy can ensure that AIs are used to reduce inequity.

“Just as the world needs its brightest people focused on its biggest problems, we will need to focus the world’s best AIs on its biggest problems.”

The next Apple Watch is likely on the way. Here’s all the buzz about its release date, price and new features.

The iPhone 15 isn’t the only new device we’re expecting to see this year. The successor to the Apple Watch Series 8 is also likely to hit shelves in 2023. Apple is the king of smartwatches, and it’s been reigning supreme for years now despite a slow start. With 2023 underway, we’re looking forward to the next generation of the company’s iconic timepiece, the Apple Watch Series 9.

Over the years, Apple has made a steady stream of upgrades to the Apple Watch, adding an always-on display in 2019, blood oxygen monitoring in 2020, a bigger display in 2021 and temperature sensing in 2022.

This year, however, an incremental upgrade is more likely to materialize, considering Apple shook up its smartwatch lineup last year with the introduction of the luxurious Apple Watch Ultra and the second-gen Apple Watch SE. Currently, there are few rumors to run with for the Watch Series 9 (unlike for the iPhone 15 series), but we’ll be sure to update this article as we get a whiff of any credible buzz.

New sensors
The major new health feature expected to arrive on the Apple Watch is noninvasive and continuous blood glucose monitoring, according to a Bloomberg report published in February. Currently, testing for blood glucose requires pricking the skin for blood. To test glucose levels without blood, Apple is said to be investigating an approach that involves using a silicon photonics chip for a measurement process called optical absorption spectroscopy. This technique shines light from a laser under the skin to determine the amount of glucose in the body, the report says. While major progress has reportedly been made in bringing this feature to life, the technology needs to be miniaturized to fit in a wearable device. If Apple pulls this off, it has the potential to make the Apple Watch essential in millions of diabetic households.

MicroLED display?
The Apple Watch received an OLED screen years before the iPhone, and now the rumor mill suggests the Apple Watch could adopt another display upgrade before Apple’s smartphones. According to a Bloomberg report, MicroLED displays produced in house are set to appear on the next Apple Watch Ultra model, which could arrive in 2024 at the earliest. Previous rumors had pointed to 2023 as the year for a MicroLED Apple Watch. This represents yet another effort by Apple to reduce its reliance on external tech partners – in this case Samsung and LG – as it strives to build more components on its own.

Not to be confused with Mini-LED, MicroLED is touted as the next major leap forward for display tech from OLED. It gets its name from the millions of teeny tiny pixels that create the image directly. The main hurdle facing mass adoption is getting those pixels (and screens) small enough. MicroLED is brighter than OLED with similarly perfect black levels and no danger of burn-in.

Release date and price
Apple has released a new generation of the Apple Watch every year since its debut. This year, unless the company breaks tradition, the Apple Watch Series 9 will likely arrive in the fall of 2023 alongside the iPhone 15 series.

There are no leaks either on the starting price of the Apple Watch Series 9. However, the price has remained the same for several years now, at least in the US, and we expect prices to remain the same in 2023. The Apple Watch Series 8 starts at $399.

What we expect
We expect the Apple Watch Series 9 to have everything the Watch Series 8 has. Those features include an always-on display and various size options and finishes. We also expect the Watch Series 9 to receive an upgraded processor (probably the S9) and support for the next software version, WatchOS 10. Hopefully we’ll see an improvement in battery life too, which the Watch 8 didn’t receive.

Attackers could compromise some phones with Samsung Exynos modems, just by knowing a phone number.

Google is warning owners of some Samsung, Vivo and Pixel phones that a series of exploits could let bad actors compromise devices simply by knowing basic phone numbers — and the device owners wouldn’t notice a thing.

Project Zero, Google’s in-house team of cybersecurity experts and analysts, described in a blog post 18 different potential exploits that could be used to hack into select phones that use Samsung’s Exynos modems. These exploits are so severe that they should be treated as zero-day vulnerabilities (indicating they should be fixed immediately). With four of these exploits, an attacker has to have only the right phone number to get access to data flowing in and out of a device’s modem, like phone calls and text messages.

The other 14 exploits are less worrisome, since they require more effort to expose their vulnerability — attackers would need access to the device locally or to a cell carrier’s systems, as TechCrunch noted.

Samsung acknowledged the vulnerabilities and said it’s released security updates for devices that could be affected, advising owners to update to the latest software to stay protected.

“After determining 6 vulnerabilities may potentially impact select Galaxy devices, of which none were ‘severe’, Samsung released security patches for 5 of these in March,” reads a Samsung statement sent to CNET. “Another security patch will be released in April to address the remaining vulnerability.”

Owners of affected devices should install upcoming security updates as soon as possible, though it’s up to the phone makers to decide when a software patch will come out for each device. In the meantime, Google says device owners can avoid being targeted by these exploits by turning off Wi-Fi calling and Voice-over-LTE, or VoLTE, in their device settings.

In the blog post, Google listed which phones use the Exynos modems — inadvertently admitting that its premium Pixel phones have been using Samsung’s modems for years. The list also includes a handful of wearables and cars that use specific modems.

Phones from Samsung, including those in the premium Galaxy S22 series, the midrange M33, M13, M12, A71 and A53 series, and the affordable A33, A21, A13, A12 and A04 series.
Mobile devices from Vivo, including those in the S16, S15, S6, X70, X60 and X30 series.
The premium Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 series of phones from Google (at least one of the four most severe vulnerabilities was patched out in the March security update).
Any wearables that use the Exynos W920 chipset.
Any vehicles that use the Exynos Auto T5123 chipset.
Google reported these exploit discoveries to affected phone manufacturers in late 2022 and early 2023, the blog post said. But the Project Zero team has chosen not to disclose four other vulnerabilities out of caution due to their ongoing severity, breaking with its usual practice of disclosing all exploits a set period of time after reporting them to affected companies.