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Apple giveth and Apple taketh away. While there's really no contesting Apple's right to take back the Developer Transition Kits or DTKs it sold to developers last year, developers were a bit taken aback by what Apple was giving them in return. Apple did finally reconsider but it seems that its higher offer for returning the historic DTK wasn't going to be applied equally in all countries where the kits were distributed.

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Although Apple has embraced USB-C in Macs and iPads, it still clings to its proprietary Lightning technology on the iPhone. If the never-ending rumors finally come to pass, Apple's smartphone might skip USB-C altogether. Year after year have seen talk about an iPhone without any port whatsoever but, according to one Apple news site, Apple is laying the foundations for addressing the most critical problem that a portless design would have.

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Apple has so far enjoyed great success with its own silicon. Even before the Apple Silicon and its first M1 iteration, Apple's A chips have been running circles around their Qualcomm rivals, at least in some benchmarks. With the Apple M1 for Macs, Apple took it to the next level but it definitely won't be stopping there. Apple might be launching the new iPad Pros really soon and at least one industry analyst claims that it could rival even the M1 Mac in terms of processor performance.

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When Google launched its Google Photos cloud storage, not to be confused with the app of the same name, it was hailed as the ultimate way to save space on your phone and preserve your digital memories almost forever. It came with a rather generous offer of nearly unlimited photo storage space, provided they uploaded only in High Quality. Nothing lasts forever, as they say, and it seems that Google is revising its earlier statements in favor of taking up more space towards a Google One subscription.

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Although it almost sounds like something from the distant past, Motorola has actually been an important part of the mobile industry's history that goes beyond just smartphones. Despite its much-ridiculed "flat tire" design, the Moto 360 was the first smartwatch to dare to have a circular body instead of the easier square chassis. Like other smartphone makers, Motorola stepped back from making wearables but it seems it is now coming back with not one but three smartwatches this year.

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Although it is Qualcomm's best bet for 2021, very few phones so far carry its Snapdragon 888 chipset. Those that do also have rather high price tags, including the Xiaomi Mi 11 to some extent. The Chinese smartphone superstar, however, isn't done with the Snapdragon 888 just yet and, at least for certain markets, it may have an even better offer in the guise of the Redmi K40 Pro and Redmi K40 Pro+.

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Final Fantasy VII, abbreviated to FF7 or FFVII at times, is perhaps one of the most iconic games in a franchise that spans decades and generations of consoles. After decades of waiting, fans are getting their dreamed remake but, almost cruelly, they still have to wait again for the subsequent parts of the saga. In the meantime, however, Square Enix wants to distract fans with mobile spin-offs, including one that could perhaps be considered "spoilery" for the entire game.

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Almost all the Big Tech companies have smart assistants these days except for Facebook. There have been rumors and signs that the social media giant would be coming out with its own but nothing has materialized so far. It might, however, be taking another step in that direction by pushing its own trigger phrase to activate voice commands not only on its Portal smart display but even on the Oculus Quest 2 VR headset.

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There has been perhaps an overabundance of focus on activity trackers, most of them targeting, well, activities. While movement and exercise are, of course, important, they aren't the only measures of a healthy lifestyle. Sleep is just as important, perhaps even more so these days. In an effort to help app developers and, consequently, users develop better sleeping habits, Google is launching its new Sleep API to empower better low-power sleep tracking on all Android devices.

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Samsung is definitely no longer the Samsung we knew from years ago, at least as far as Android updates are concerned. In addition to pushing out more or less regular monthly security fixes and being quick with the major Android upgrades, it also committed to supporting its phones with up to four years of security updates. That may still be in the future but Samsung is now busy rolling out its latest One UI 3.1 experience that is now landing on its 2019 flagships.

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Stadia definitely took a PR hit when Google announced the shutdown of its in-house, first-party Stadia Games and Experiences studio (SGE). Its rivals seem to be taking the opportunity to remind people that Stadia isn't the only game in town, no pun intended. As if to prove its commitment to gaming, both for its own Amazon Game Studios as well as its nascent game streaming service, Amazon is announcing the arrival of Amazon Luna to all Fire TV owners, even those who haven't received an invite.

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Almost all of Elon Musk's endeavors and dreams have proven to be controversial but most of them prove themselves in the long run. While The Boring Company has still to bear any usable fruit and Neuralink is still too early in its infancy, SpaceX's Starlink Internet satellite constellation continues to split people up. It still has to reach its full potential, both in number of satellites and promised speeds, but Elon Musk says that there might be a speed bump on the way.

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