The U.S.-weighted average retail price of Apple’s latest smartphone series rose $64 in calendar Q4, said Consumer Intelligence Research Partners Thursday. The 12 series model mix resulted in US-WARP of $873 -- the highest in CIRP's iPhone buyer survey in nearly 10 years -- compared with $809 a year earlier. The four iPhone 12 models generated 56% of Apple phone sales, despite being available for only part of the quarter, with the 12 and 12 Pro Max each having 17% share, said the researcher. It surveyed 500 U.S. Apple customers who bought an iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple Watch from October-December.

The Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security is experiencing significant delays to its Huawei licensing decisions due to telework amid the pandemic, BIS' Eileen Albanese said. Communication between agencies has been hampered, leading to lengthy license adjudications and a backlog of applications, Albanese, director of the Office of National Security and Technology Transfer Controls, told a Friday Massachusetts Export Center event. “COVID-19 really did have a significant impact on Huawei licenses, more so than any other group of licenses.” Kevin Wolf, an export controls lawyer with Akin Gump, said his clients have applications that have been “pending for months and months and months,” some to 2019. He said clients got a “flurry” of Huawei license denials. “It seemed as if the floodgates opened up" Thursday, he said. A BIS spokesperson said the agency is continuing to work through the applications. Huawei didn't comment Tuesday.

Growing use of biometrics in smartphones and tablets for authentication will help drive about 11% annual growth in the global biometric market to $11 billion in 2026, said Valuates Reports Friday. Other drivers are a growing need for surveillance amid heightened threats of terrorist attacks and increased automotive adoption of biometrics.

Aggressive trade-in and switcher offers accompanied the rollout of Samsung’s much-anticipated Galaxy S21 series 5G smartphones Thursday, led by the 6.8-inch flagship Galaxy S21 Ultra with a 120 Hz AMOLED display. The S21 Ultra phone can be used with Samsung’s S pen, allowing users to draw, take notes, edit photos and sign documents on the phone. Samsung and its carriers began taking preorders for the 5G trio Thursday, with phones due Jan. 29. Pricing starts at $1,199. Customers who order before Jan. 28 can get a $200 Samsung credit with a Galaxy S21 Ultra, said the company. For a limited time at Samsung.com, customers can get the phone for as low as $499, or $13.89 a month for 36 months, with an eligible trade-in value up to $700, said the company. At Samsung.com, a $250 instant credit on preorders includes an exclusive $50 credit.

Taiwan-based Carkit AI introduced a voice-enabled plug-and-play karaoke kit at CES that pairs with a smartphone and works with music streaming apps. The Roxie car karaoke station has a processor for vocal effects, a pitch shifter and mixer for multi-person singalongs, said the company. The Bluetooth FM pod comes with an extended-range mic that plugs into a car’s cigarette lighter for power.

Google, despite regulatory headwinds (see 2008040050), completed its $2.1 billion Fitbit buy, blogged Rick Osterloh, senior vice president-devices and services, Thursday. Google was “clear since the beginning” that it will protect Fitbit users’ privacy, he said. “We worked with global regulators on an approach which safeguards consumers' privacy expectations, including a series of binding commitments that confirm Fitbit users’ health and wellness data won't be used for Google ads and this data will be separated from other Google ads data.” Google also will continue “to allow Fitbit users to choose to connect to third-party services so you’ll still be able to sync your favorite health and fitness apps to your Fitbit account,” said Osterloh. Google will work with regulators around the world “so that they can be assured that we are living up to these commitments,” he said. Closing Google/Fitbit "will add competition to the wearable health device market," said Computer & Communications Industry Association President Matt Schruers. "This transaction stands to increase competition in wearables, which will benefit consumers on everything from prices to innovation.”

CTA wasted little time extolling the success of the virtual CES 2021 as having “made history as the largest digital tech event,” without disclosing data on attendance or user engagement. The event featured nearly 2,000 exhibitors and more than 100 hours of conference programming, said CTA Thursday, without mentioning that the vast majority of the content was prerecorded weeks ago. The physical CES 2020 event in Las Vegas drew about 4,400 exhibitors. “The all-digital CES 2021 engaged the global tech community to experience innovation, make connections and conduct business,” said CTA CEO Gary Shapiro. CES 2021 “showed how the pandemic accelerated the arc of innovation and illustrated the resilience and innovative spirit of our industry,” he said. Though Shapiro conceded last month that CTA had no way to independently audit virtual CES 2021 attendance, “the exhibitors will certainly have opinions whether the event has met their expectations or not,” he said then (see 2012170058). Thursday's announcement had no exhibitor testimonials.

Ring began rolling out an end-to-end encryption feature for camera videos Wednesday to eligible devices. The feature is launching as a “technical preview,” with customers encouraged to share feedback in the Ring app, blogged the company. By default, Ring already encrypts videos when they're uploaded to the cloud and stored on Ring’s servers, said the Amazon company. End-to-end encryption adds another lock to customer videos, which can be unlocked only by a key stored on the customer’s enrolled mobile device, it said. On timing of the feature, a Ring spokesperson emailed that the company is “always innovating and developing new Ring security devices and services, and we bring our products and features to market when we are confident they will best serve our customers.”

Sony Semiconductor Solutions of America created a lip-reading technology designed to take voice recognition in vehicles “to the next level,” said Mark Hanson, vice president-technology and business innovation, at a CES 2021 media virtual briefing Tuesday. “Voice recognition continues to be one of the most reported complaints of new vehicle owners,” said Hanson. “Cars are dynamic and noisy” in conditions where audio voice recognition “is challenged,” he said. “The goal we gave the engineering team was to make voice recognition work in a convertible, figuring it they could make it work there, they could make it work in any environment.” Sony’s “current focus” is to support the company’s Vision-S electric car initiative, which could “help people with hearing impairment,” said Hanson. The technology supports more than 200 “command words” in English, he said. “We plan to expand both the word count and language support, prioritized on the needs of our customers.”

TCL is dropping the price of a 5G smartphone to 299 euros ($363.88) for the TCL 20 5G, which is selling in some European markets before a broader rollout, a CES news conference was told Monday. The 6.67-inch phone has a 48-megapixel triple camera and 4,500 milliamp-hour battery, said Tiago Abreu, head of design innovation at TCL’s X-Lab. The 20 SE is TCL’s least expensive phone, a 6.82-inch 4G model with quad camera and high-resolution audio, at 149 euros ($181.12). It will introduce three more phones, including another 5G model, later in the year. TCL will roll out its first Google TVs in LED, 8K and QLED TVs this year, starting in the U.S., Abreu said. Google Assistant will be integrated in the Google TVs, which can also be voice-controlled by Amazon Alexa for customers with an Amazon Echo product. TCL is unveiling two tablets targeted to education, remote learning and productivity applications. More details are here.