Apple’s LG 5K Display Store Listing Now Accepting Reviews

Last week, a reddit post accusing Apple of removing negative reviews for the LG UltraFine 5K Display started making the rounds, suggesting Apple was hiding negative feedback about the new display in its web store.

MacRumors has learned that reviews were never made available for the LG 5K Display in Apple’s online store, though the reason for that is not clear. It could be that reviews were not activated due to the long delay between when the display was announced and when it became available for purchase.

Whatever the reason behind the lack of reviews, the issue has been fixed. As of this morning, the LG 5K Display listing on Apple’s website does indeed feature a “Ratings & Reviews” section.

Looking back at archived web information from 2016 and early 2017 confirms that the LG 5K Display listing never displayed rating or review details, and if Apple were censoring reviews, the company also likely would have put an end to lukewarm reviews for the 4K LG UltraFine Display. The 4K display store listing has offered reviews since it became available for purchase.

Because Apple didn’t delete the reviews, the premise behind the original reddit post is flawed. While it’s true there’s been some negative feedback about the LG 5K Display on Apple’s Support Communities, there was no secret censoring of information on the store page.

It is not clear if Apple is looking into any of the issues that prompted the reddit post. On Apple’s Support Communities, customers complain of issues with the display suddenly shutting off, flickering, or not connecting to a Mac, ports not working, sound problems, and more.

The LG UltraFine 5K Display has been available for purchase since the middle of December. Apple is currently offering a limited time discount on the display, dropping the price from $1,299 to $974. The special pricing will be available through the end of March.

Related Roundup: Displays
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Dropcam Co-Founder Greg Duffy Joins Apple

Greg Duffy, the founder and former CEO of security camera company Dropcam, has accepted a role at Apple and will be leaving Google, reports The Information.

An Apple spokesperson confirmed that Duffy has been hired by Apple, but didn’t share details on his role at the company. The Information speculates that he could be leading a special project at Apple, given his background.

Duffy who co-founded Dropcam in 2009, led the company until it was acquired by Google-owned Nest for $555 million in mid-2014. Duffy spent several months working for Nest before departing the company in January of 2015 amid rumors of a culture clash between Nest and Dropcam.

Duffy was reportedly unhappy with the way Nest founder Tony Fadell ran the Alphabet-owned subsidiary, going as far as referring to him as a “tyrant bureaucrat.”

At any given time, Apple has multiple “special projects” going on behind the scenes, so it’s difficult to speculate on what Duffy could be working on at the company. Apple is rumored to have a range of exploratory products in the works, including the Apple Car, an Amazon Echo-style home hub, an AR product, and more.

Tags: Nest, Dropcam, Greg Duffy
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Huawei Closing in on Apple, Aims to Become World’s Largest Smartphone Maker Within Four Years

Since 2011, the worldwide smartphone market has been dominated by Apple and Samsung. The elusive third-best spot, meanwhile, has failed to be held down by one vendor for an extended period of time, changing hands between Nokia, BlackBerry, Xiaomi, and Huawei over the past six years.

In 2014, it looked like low-priced Chinese vendor Xiaomi had firmly cemented its position as the world’s third-largest smartphone maker, but fewer than three years later, it has fallen out of the top five or even six vendors, according to the latest quarterly data from research firms IDC and TrendForce.

Xiaomi’s recent decline can be attributed to a limited physical retail presence and increased competition from Huawei’s lower-end Honor brand. Xiaomi continues to avoid selling premium smartphones—its most expensive model costs around $400—and some of its Mi smartphones have received mediocre reviews.

Huawei has since dethroned Xiaomi as not only China’s largest smartphone maker, but the world’s third largest. And now, the company has its eyes set on challenging Apple and Samsung for the crown, reports Fortune.

“We want to grow into top two market share, and, in the future, top one by 2021,” Huawei’s consumer head Richard Yu told the publication.

In the first quarter of 2016, Huawei sold ten times as many smartphones as Apple in Finland, according to research firm IDC. In Europe, it is now the top-selling smartphone maker in Portugal and the Netherlands and the second biggest in Italy, Poland, Hungary, and Spain, according to the report.

But if Huawei ever wants to truly challenge Apple and Samsung, it will have to conquer a key market where it has failed to make a dent: the United States. Huawei does not even crack the list of top ten smartphone makers in the country, trailing behind smaller rivals such as BLU and OnePlus.

It doesn’t help that Huawei lacks agreements with the U.S.’s “big four” carriers, namely Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint. U.S. customers have to resort to retailers such as Best Buy or Walmart, or Huawei’s direct sales website, to purchase one of their devices, reducing the brand’s visibility in the country.

For its sake, Huawei appears to recognize it needs to take a new approach to the American market:

“The past five years we were not taking the right strategy,” Yu says. “We didn’t have the right people.” Huawei recently hired Michelle Xiong, a former Verizon wireless executive with experience negotiating with device makers, to help sell Huawei’s smartphones. But a Huawei staffer cautions that any carrier agreement is at least a year away, pushing meaningful success in the U.S. at least three years down the road.

Apple reported sales of 45.5 million iPhones in the third quarter, while IDC estimates Huawei shipped 33.6 million smartphones on the quarter, so the Chinese company is within striking range. But whether it can continue its momentum, or fall back into obscurity like Xiaomi, is something only time will tell.

Tags: Huawei, Xiaomi
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