Apple is set to overtake Samsung as the world’s leading smartphone manufacturer in 2025, according to industry forecasts. The company’s success will be fueled by its strategic moves in both mature and emerging markets, along with the anticipated release of its budget-friendly iPhone SE 4.

Apple Expected to become largest smartphone maker in 2025

According to data from Counterpoint, Samsung currently holds a 3% lead over Apple in global market share as of the second quarter of this year. However, the company has historically performed well in the third and fourth quarters, benefitting from the annual iPhone release cycle.

Techinsights predicts that Apple will maintain its momentum through the first half of the year. If this forecast holds, the tech giant will dethrone Samsung, a position it has held for years.

Apple’s rise to becoming the largest smartphone maker in 2025 is driven by strong sales of older iPhone models. Emerging markets like India and China are leading this trend. The upcoming budget-friendly iPhone SE 4, priced at $499, will likely boost Apple’s market share further.

The innovations, including the rumored ultra-slim iPhone 17, will play a crucial role in this growth. The advanced Apple Intelligence platform will also impact this trend. These technologies are expected to speed up the iPhone replacement cycle. This strategy encourages users to upgrade to the latest models.

Apple’s focus on AI with its Apple Intelligence platform aims to deepen its integration with iOS and macOS.

In mature markets, Apple’s growth will benefit from favorable economic conditions. Exchange rates will also play a supportive role. These factors are expected to make Apple’s high-end devices more accessible. This accessibility will likely increase sales in regions where demand for premium smartphones remains strong.

Competitive Landscape: Samsung and Huawei’s Challenges

Huawei is also facing challenges as Apple gains ground. The company has been resilient, especially in recent years, but economic pressures and manufacturing constraints in China are expected to slow its momentum. These issues could limit Huawei’s ability to compete at the same level in the global market. Apple’s rise in 2025 may further widen the gap between Huawei and its rivals.

Microsoft is expanding Xbox Cloud Gaming’s streaming capabilities to support titles that aren’t on Xbox Game Pass, reports. The company has stated its plans to let users stream games from their own libraries numerous times over the last few years, going back to the announcement of , but the feature hasn’t yet materialized. Now, Microsoft is ready to start testing it among Xbox Insiders in November, with plans to ultimately support thousands of games, according to The Verge, which cites sources “familiar with Microsoft’s plans.”

Xbox players have long been asking for the option to stream games that they’ve purchased, rather than only those that are available on Xbox Game Pass. If the testing period goes as planned, more players could soon see the ability to do this. The report comes on the heels of Xbox president Sarah Bond’s announcement on Friday that Android users will be able to starting next month.

By now, large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Claude have become an everyday word across the globe. Many people have started worrying that AI is coming for their jobs, so it is ironic to see almost all LLM-based systems flounder at a straightforward task: Counting the number of “r”s in the word “strawberry.” They are not exclusively failing at the alphabet “r”; other examples include counting “m”s in “mammal”, and “p”s in “hippopotamus.” In this article, I will break down the reason for these failures and provide a simple workaround.

LLMs are powerful AI systems trained on vast amounts of text to understand and generate human-like language. They excel at tasks like answering questions, translating languages, summarizing content and even generating creative writing by predicting and constructing coherent responses based on the input they receive. LLMs are designed to recognize patterns in text, which allows them to handle a wide range of language-related tasks with impressive accuracy.

Despite their prowess, failing at counting the number of “r”s in the word “strawberry” is a reminder that LLMs are not capable of “thinking” like humans. They do not process the information we feed them like a human would.

Almost all the current high performance LLMs are built on transformers. This deep learning architecture doesn’t directly ingest text as their input. They use a process called tokenization, which transforms the text into numerical representations, or tokens. Some tokens might be full words (like “monkey”), while others could be parts of a word (like “mon” and “key”). Each token is like a code that the model understands. By breaking everything down into tokens, the model can better predict the next token in a sentence. 

LLMs don’t memorize words; they try to understand how these tokens fit together in different ways, making them good at guessing what comes next. In the case of the word “hippopotamus,” the model might see the tokens of letters “hip,” “pop,” “o” and “tamus”, and not know that the word “hippopotamus” is made of the letters — “h”, “i”, “p”, “p”, “o”, “p”, “o”, “t”, “a”, “m”, “u”, “s”.

A model architecture that can directly look at individual letters without tokenizing them may potentially not have this problem, but for today’s transformer architectures, it is not computationally feasible.

Further, looking at how LLMs generate output text: They predict what the next word will be based on the previous input and output tokens. While this works for generating contextually aware human-like text, it is not suitable for simple tasks like counting letters. When asked to answer the number of “r”s in the word “strawberry”, LLMs are purely predicting the answer based on the structure of the input sentence.

Here’s a workaround

While LLMs might not be able to “think” or logically reason, they are adept at understanding structured text. A splendid example of structured text is computer code, of many many programming languages. If we ask ChatGPT to use Python to count the number of “r”s in “strawberry”, it will most likely get the correct answer. When there is a need for LLMs to do counting or any other task that may require logical reasoning or arithmetic computation, the broader software can be designed such that the prompts include asking the LLM to use a programming language to process the input query.

Conclusion

A simple letter counting experiment exposes a fundamental limitation of LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude. Despite their impressive capabilities in generating human-like text, writing code and answering any question thrown at them, these AI models cannot yet “think” like a human. The experiment shows the models for what they are, pattern matching predictive algorithms, and not “intelligence” capable of understanding or reasoning. However, having a prior knowledge of what type of prompts work well can alleviate the problem to some extent. As the integration of AI in our lives increases, recognizing its limitations is crucial for responsible usage and realistic expectations of these models.

 Chinmay Jog is a senior machine learning engineer at Pangiam.

The dispute between WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg and hosting provider WP Engine continues, with Mullenweg announcing that WordPress is “forking” a plugin developed by WP Engine.

Specifically, Advanced Custom Fields — a plugin making it easier for WordPress users to customize their edit screens — is being taken out of WP Engine’s hands and updated as a new plugin called Secure Custom Fields.

Mullenweg wrote that this step was necessary “to remove commercial upsells and fix a security problem.”

The Advanced Custom Fields team responded on X, describing this as a situation where a plugin “under active development” has been “unilaterally and forcibly taken away from its creator without consent,” which it said has never happened “in the 21 year history of WordPress.”

“This essential community promise has been violated, and we ask everyone to consider the ethics of such an action, and the new precedent that has been set,” the ACF team wrote.

Both Mullenweg’s blog post and a reply from WordPress claim that similar situations have, in fact, happened before, though Mullenweg added, “This is a rare and unusual situation brought on by WP Engine’s legal attacks, we do not anticipate this happening for other plugins.”

They also pointed to WordPress’ plugin guidelines, which give WordPress the right to disable or remove any plugin, remove developer access, or change a plugin “without developer consent, in the name of public safety.”

Some background: WordPress is a free, open source content management system used by many websites (including TechCrunch), while companies like WP Engine and Mullenweg’s Automattic offer hosting and other commercial services on top. 

Last month, Mullenweg published a blog post criticizing WP Engine as a “cancer to WordPress.” His criticisms covered everything from WP Engine’s lack revision history to its investor Silver Lake, but he also suggested that its “WP” branding confuses customers, making it sound like the company is officially connected to WordPress.

Cease-and-desist letters have gone both ways, with WP Engine claiming Mullenweg threatened to take a “scorched earth nuclear approach” unless the company paid to license the WordPress trademark.

WordPress banned WP Engine from accessing WordPress.org, briefly lifted the ban, then imposed it again. This essentially prevents WP Engine from updating the plugin through WordPress.org — so it can’t offer easy updates to address security issues. WP Engine has, however, published a workaround for users who want to update the plugin and continue using ACF. (It says the workaround is only necessary for ACF’s free users, as pro users will continue to receive updates from the ACF website.)

Moving forward, Mullenweg wrote that Secure Custom Fields will be available as a non-commercial plugin:
“If any developers want to get involved in maintaining and improving it, please get in touch.”

The Apple Watch has hit its first big birthday. The Apple Watch Series 10 is the 10th generation of Apple’s wearable, and it brings a host of new changes while keeping the same DNA that makes the Apple Watch special.

However, it’s still not the most affordable smartwatch, but Apple does offer the two-year-old entry-level Apple Watch SE 2. If you are on a limited budget and want to experience an Apple Watch, should you buy the Apple Watch SE2 or is it worth stretching your budget for the Apple Watch Series 10? Let’s find out.

Apple Watch Series 10 vs. Apple Watch SE 2: specs

Apple Watch Series 10 vs SE 2: design and display

The Apple Watch Series 10 was announced at Apple’s Glowtime event  and has undergone a major redesign, while the SE 2 follows the same design language as earlier versions of the Apple Watch. The result is a stark contrast between the two.

The Series 10 is 1mm thinner, slightly heavier, and slightly bigger than the Apple Watch SE 2, but it has a much larger display. Despite the bigger display, it feels better on the wrist thanks to a thinner design that makes it feel far more premium.

The Apple Watch Series 10 gets a glass front, a titanium or aluminum frame, and a ceramic and sapphire crystal back. In contrast, the Apple Watch SE 2 is far less premium as it replaces the ceramic with plastic and only comes with an aluminum frame.

The display on the Apple Watch Series 10 is also far better. It’s bigger, slightly higher in density, and features a higher peak brightness at 2,000 nits. The Apple Watch SE 2 display is no slouch as it’s still a Retina OLED with 1,000 nits peak brightness, but there’s a noticeable difference between the two. The Series 10 also features a Sapphire crystal glass front that should render it far more durable than the Ion-X strengthened glass on the Apple Watch SE 2.

Despite both displays using LTPO technology, only the Apple Watch Series 10 features an always-on display. It also has a much wider viewing angle, allowing you to see what’s on the display at a broader angle.

There’s little doubt that the Apple Watch Series 10 is just the nicer-looking watch. It is thinner, bigger, and has a much nicer display, as well as the display characteristics you’d want from a smartwatch such as an always-on display and sapphire crystal protection. This is where the differences between the two watches are most noticeable.

Winner: Apple Watch Series 10

Apple Watch Series 10 vs SE 2: health and fitness tracking

The Apple Watch Series 10 runs WatchOS 11 out of the box, while the Apple Watch SE 2 can be updated to the same platform. Although they share the same operating system version, there are a few health features that are not available on the more affordable Apple Watch.

The lack of ECG and temperature sensors means you’ll miss features like ECG recordings, advanced heart rate monitoring, and temperature sensing. Both watches offer sleep tracking, but the Apple Watch Series 10 captures more data and is also able to detect Sleep Apnea.

Both watches gain access to the Training Load and Vitals apps, with the latter offering a visual representation of stats such as heart rate, respiratory rate, and sleep duration. The Apple Watch Series 10 will also detect your wrist temperature overnight, providing a first indicator of whether you may be falling ill. The Apple Watch Series 10 can also track periods with retrospective ovulation estimates, while the Apple Watch SE 2 offers basic cycle tracking.

If you like to swim or dive, the Apple Watch SE 2 is more limited as well. It is water resistant and swi-proof to just 50 meters, while the Apple Watch Series 10 adds a water temperature sensor and a depth gauge up to six meters to provide more detailed statistics about your workout.

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It’s a close call, but the Apple Watch Series 10 offers just a few more features. However, the Apple Watch SE 2 offers all the core health features at a lower price, so you won’t be missing out on too much. If you aren’t too worried about any of the Apple Watch Series 10’s exclusive features, you can change this to a tie.

Verdict: Apple Watch Series 10

Apple Watch Series 10 vs SE 2: software and performance

The Apple Watch Series 10 is powered by the S10 SiP and comes with the double tap gesture that launched with the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 last year. Meanwhile, the Apple Watch SE 2 uses the two-year-old S8 SiP, which prevents it from offering certain features such as precision finding for the iPhone and faster charging.

There is also a noticeable difference in performance when using Siri. The S10 SiP offers a much faster Siri assistant that is on-device and can access your health data, while the S8 SiP is more limited and offers a more basic version of Siri.

However, while the S10 SiP is better, there’s little reason to upgrade solely for the processor. The Apple Watch SE 2 offers most of the same experience, doesn’t lag, and is more than capable of being updated in the future.

How many updates is the other unknown: most Apple Watches are supported for around five years, so if you buy an Apple Watch SE 2, it may only receive three more updates. The Apple Watch Series 10 is guaranteed to receive updates longer than any other current Apple Watch.

The Apple Watch Series 10 is faster, but the difference isn’t marked enough and shouldn’t be used as the sole reason to upgrade your pick.

Verdict: Tie

Apple Watch Series 10 vs SE 2: battery and charging

The Apple Watch Series 10 and Apple Watch SE 2 are both rated as offering up to 18 hours of battery life, but there are still big differences. The Apple Watch SE 2 is likely to last slightly less than the Series 10, which we’ve found lasts at least 24 hours.

This year saw Apple revamp the charging experience, with the Apple Watch Series 10 now charging much faster than any other Apple Watch. In our testing, it can charge to full in less than an hour, and a 15-minute charge gets you enough battery life for 12 hours of use. There’s no contest.

The Series 10 has the best charging experience on an Apple Watch, being almost twice as fast as the Apple Watch SE 2. Trust us, the upgraded charging makes a huge difference in day-to-day usage.

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Verdict: Apple Watch Series 10

Apple Watch Series 10 vs SE 2: price and availability

The biggest allure of the Apple Watch SE 2 is its price. A starting price of $249 makes it much less expensive than the Apple Watch Series 10, which starts at $399 and has a maximum price of $799 for the Titanium model in the biggest size with the titanium band.

If you want the Apple Watch SE 2, the 40mm GPS model costs $249, while the bigger 44mm costs an extra $30. Opting for the GPS and Cellular model will cost you an additional $50, and choosing a stainless steel Milanese loop — featuring the original design — costs an additional $50 as well. The maximum you can pay for an Apple Watch SE 2 is $379.

If you want the Apple Watch Series 10, it starts at $399 for the 42mm aluminum build and $699 for the titanium build. The former comes in either GPS or GPS and Cellular variants — the latter costs $100 extra — while the titanium build is only available with GPS and Cellular. If you want the bigger 46mm model, it costs $30 extra for the aluminum build and $50 extra with titanium.

For the lower price, you get a pared-back feature set with the Apple Watch SE 2. It’s designed to offer a first step into the Apple Watch experience, while the Apple Watch Series 10 represents the pinnacle of the non-Ultra product line. The Apple Watch Series 10 does a lot more, but it comes at a price that may be too high for some people.

Apple Watch Series 10 vs Apple Watch SE 2: verdict

The Apple Watch Series 10 is the best Apple Watch you can buy right now, but a starting price of $399 will make it far too expensive for some people. If you are one of those people and want to experience the magic of the Apple Watch, the Apple Watch SE 2 delivers 75% of the experience at less than 75% of the price.

However, if you can upgrade to the Apple Watch Series 10, the extra money is worth it. It’s the biggest display ever on an Apple Watch, the faster charging makes a big difference, and the thinner body means it’s far more comfortable on the wrist.

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It costs a premium over the Apple Watch SE 2, but the Apple Watch Series 10 is worth the premium, especially if you snag one of the best Apple Watch deals.