Samsung will reportedly produce advanced digital image sensors and chips at a facility in Texas that Apple will use in next year’s iPhone 18 lineup.
Apple announced on Wednesday that it is partnering up with Samsung Electronics on “an innovative new technology for making chips, which has never been used before anywhere in the world.”
The new chipmaking technology will be utilized at Samsung’s semiconductor facility in Austin, Texas, the company said. No further details were provided but The Financial Times reported today Samsung will produce three-layer stacked image sensor for net year’s iPhone 18 models.
Apple and Samsung team up on iPhone image sensors
“By bringing this technology to the US first, this facility will supply chips that optimize power and performance of Apple products, including iPhone devices shipped all over the world,” Apple said in yesterday’s press release.
As part of the announcement, Apple CEO Tim Cook appeared alongside Trump at a White House press conference to announce Apple’s investment of $100 billion in US manufacturing.
The $100 billion investment expands Apple’s $500 billion American Manufacturing Program announced earlier this year, so the company will now invest a total of $600 billion in US manufacturing. During the presser, Cook gifted a piece of Corning glass with the Apple logo cut into it, mounted on a 24-karat gold base, to the president.
Although Trump said foreign chips will be subjected to 100 percent tariffs, the chip-making deal between Apple and Samsung might solve this problem.
The significance of this deal is even greater because Apple has traditionally used digital image sensors from Sony in iPhones for many years. However, Sony’s chips are being fabricated by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) in Kumamoto, Japan. Because Sony doesn’t have any chipmaking facilitates in the United States, its chips could be subjected to tariffs.
“We remain confident that we are advanced in providing sensor technology to our customers, and we will focus on continuing further technological advancement through larger sensor size and density,” Sony said in a statement.
There’s also another aspect to it. Apple and Samsung had been embroiled in a bitter patent dispute that lasted for years and resulted in Apple dropping Samsung Electronics as its main chip producer in favor of TSMC. With this deal, Sony will no longer be the sole supplier of iPhone image sensors while Samsung’s troubled semiconductor unit will gain a major client that could help turn its business around.
In this comprehensive guide, we show you how to back up your contacts, photos, messages, notes, 2FA codes, and other essential things without fully backing up your iPhone to iCloud or a computer.
However, many people, including me, prefer setting up the new iPhone as a fresh device, without restoring a previous backup and transferring unnecessary stuff. Instead, we like to carry over only the essentials, such as contacts, passwords, reminders, messages, and photos. I’ve created this guide for such individuals and also for those who need to erase their iPhone to troubleshoot major issues, but are unable to create full device backups due to limited space or other reasons.
Things you have to worry about backing up and things you don’t
When you’re switching to another phone or erasing your current one to troubleshoot issues, you have to ensure that contacts, calendar events, reminders, photos & videos, messages, notes, voice recordings, journal entries, account passwords, and important documents are saved to a cloud storage solution or an external drive.
You don’t have to worry about your Apple Music songs and playlists, social media posts, Netflix viewing history, emails, Amazon orders, and other such things, as these are already stored on the servers of the respective services. Once you log back in, all this data will reappear on your device like before.
Back up essentials to iCloud
Apple’s iCloud is the best place to start when you want to back up your device data. You can save contacts, reminders, Safari browsing history, notes, voice recordings, and a lot more here. Then, when you sign in to a new or erased iPhone, iPad, or Mac with the same Apple ID, all this data is synced back to the device.
1) Open the Settings app on your iPhone, tap your name at the top, and select iCloud.
2) Tap See All, and enable these switches to save those items to iCloud and merge data if prompted.
Health
iCloud Calendar
Contacts
Reminders
Safari history, bookmarks, reading list, etc.
News app data
Stocks app data
Home app configurations
Wallet app passes and other information
Game Center data
Siri daya
Freeform projects
Journal entries
Phone and FaceTime call logs
Image Playground data
After that, you can scroll down and allow stock as well as third-party apps, such as Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Shazam, and WhatsApp, to save data to iCloud.
About contacts, notes, calendars, and reminders saved to your Google or Microsoft accounts
If you have contacts, calendars, notes, and reminders in your Gmail or Outlook accounts, they are on their respective Google and Microsoft servers. Simply sign in again with these accounts on your new or erased iPhone to get back everything.
Return to iPhone’s iCloud Settings page, tap “Drive” and turn on “Sync this iPhone” if not already. Going forward, everything you save to the iCloud Drive section in the Apple Files app will upload to iCloud.
If your existing documents are in the local On My iPhone section, copy or move them to iCloud Drive so they can be backed up.
Note that files in Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, etc., are already saved to their respective servers. So, you don’t have to worry about backing them. In case you don’t have enough iCloud space, you can use drag and drop or the iOS Share Sheet to move your local On My iPhone files to these third-party services.
Back up your login passwords and 2FA codes
If you don’t use a third-party password manager like 1Password, but instead rely on Apple’s own Passwords app, then make sure “Sync this iPhone” is activated for it. This ensures your account login credentials, including two-factor authentication (2FA) codes, are available in iCloud.
Important: 2FA authenticator apps from Google and Microsoft also have their own backup feature. Make sure you sign in to their accounts and do that. If you fail to back these up, you may be permanently locked out of your various online accounts.
Back up your notes
If you use Apple’s Notes app, enable iCloud sync from iOS settings. Then, open the Notes app and copy any offline notes in the On My iPhone folder to iCloud.
Back up your SMS and iMessage
Return to iPhone iCloud Settings, tap Messages, and enable “Use on this iPhone.” In case it was already ON, tap the Sync Now button to back up any remaining texts.
Note that message attachments, such as photos, videos, and files, can consume a significant amount of iCloud space. You can reduce the overall size of the Messages app backup by deleting unneeded files in iOS Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Messages > Videos, Photos, and Other. You can also open the Messages app and delete entire conversations.
Confirm everything is backed up to iCloud
After following the above steps, log in to iCloud.com or check the respective apps (such as Contacts) on your iPad and Mac to ensure that all data from your iPhone appears there. If some contacts, photos, notes, or other data are missing, wait and let your iPhone back it up to iCloud. Make sure your device has a stable Wi-Fi or cellular data connection.
However, if you’re erasing your iPhone or want a second fallback option, back up all your WhatsApp chats to iCloud. It’s slow, and you’ll need sufficient iCloud storage to save your WhatsApp photos and videos.
Back up other local files
If you have offline data in apps like VLC, Infuse, or Documents, manually transfer it to a cloud storage solution, such as iCloud Drive, Google Drive, or Dropbox. You can also send them to your Mac or Windows PC via AirDrop or the Apple Devices app.
Check if an app backs up unfinished projects to its servers
Some apps like Canva already save all your projects to their servers, and you don’t have to worry about them. But if an app works offline or saves unfinished projects to the local app storage, look for an option to back them up to the app’s own servers or to your iCloud Drive.
What’s still missing from your backup
List of apps currently on your iPhone and your Home Screen layout. Take screenshots and see it when setting up your new/erased iPhone.
App data for iOS applications that don’t store them on their own servers or iCloud Drive.
Things you cannot back up anywhere
You’ll have to configure the following things from scratch each time you set up an iPhone:
Face ID, Touch ID, and device passcode
Apps’ permission preferences: after re-installing the app, open it and allow or disallow it to send you notifications, access your contacts, etc.
Login information for banking and many other apps. You’ll have to log in, verify via SMS, and follow the standard login procedure for nearly all apps.
I never restore device backups, but I still keep everything backed up
Even though I have enabled iCloud Backup for my iPhone and only allow selected, important apps to be part of it, I never restore an old iPhone’s backup onto a new one. This is because most of my meaningful digital assets, such as contacts, notes, voice memos, and passwords, are already in iCloud, and they appear automatically on the new device when I sign in with my Apple Account.
Secondly, whenever I buy a new iPhone, I transfer all my current iPhone photos and videos to a password-protected external SSD and start fresh on my new device.
Setting up a new iPhone has its thrills, and not restoring a previous backup ensures I don’t carry over months and years of unnecessary stuff onto the new device.
That said, software failure requiring a full device erasure or accidents like cracking the phone screen can happen at any time. So I always advise backing up all iPhone data to iCloud, a computer, or other locations as you see fit.
