Every iPhone Gets ‘the Notch’ Next Year; Google Files Go! is Live; Tesla Behind Global Battery Shortage?

Latest word is that Apple will again have 3 iPhones next year. One will be a freshened iPhone X, another a super-sized iPhone X with OLED display, and a third phone…which will have an LCD display, but still sport ‘the notch’ at the top. Bgr.com reports that Apple may offer up to 512 gigs of storage, and the iPhone X Plus (or whatever it will be called) will have TWO SIM card slots. The updated X will still be a 5.8 inch screen, and the Plus 6.5”. The LCD screen model will run somewhere between $650 and $900, and will have the TrueDepth camera for 3D facial recognition, but it won’t have 3D Touch and will have a single lens camera on the back. Apparently, 3D sensing abilities on the rear camera won’t make it into next year’s iPhones.

Google Files Go! is out of beta and available if you are running Android 5.0 or higher, and also with Oreo 8.1 (Go Edition.) According to engadget.com, the Go Edition runs in a slimmed down version on less powerful Android phones. Files Go! gives direct access to downloads, files, apps, pix, video and audio, and will be handy for freeing up space. You can either offload to an SD card or to the cloud. Files Go! lets you backup to Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, and other apps. Files Go! uses Bluetooth for device discovery, and it allows file sharing across devices over WiFi, which is super handy.

There’s apparently a worldwide shortage of cylindrical batteries caused by Tesla scooping them up for the Gigafactory in order to ramp up car production. Engadget.com says Panasonic has given most of its Japanese supply to Tesla to jump start production, leaving everyone else needing the power packs to scrap for whatever Samsung, LG, and Murata (previously Sony) can spare…which is not much. IT, electric vehicle, and home appliance companies may be scrambling to cover the shortages through the 1st half of 2018.