During what was a very short-lived relationship between the two companies, Samsung had been the sole supplier of the Qualcomm 835 chips which were being made on Samsung's 10nm FinFET process. While the latest and greatest Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC may be the product of the partnership in-between Samsung and Qualcomm, all that is over now. Qualcomm has decided to ditch Samsung and move forward with TSMC and their 7nm process for 2018. However, a latest report from Weibo is stating that Samsung too might ditch the semiconductor manufacturer's Snapdragon series of chips in 2018.

Due to incompatibility with the CDMA networks in the US and in certain other parts of the world, Samsung usually reserves its Exynos chips for the international version, while the flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon chips are usually what the US variants get every year. The report from Weibo suggests that Samsung will remove that dependency with their Exynos 9810 SoC, which will come with CDMA network support. Reportedly, this is also the chip which will be powering the Galaxy S9 next year. It looks like the Samsung-Qualcomm partnership is truly about to come to an end for the most part.

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)

There have been a lot speculations about Apple's plan to get rid of the headphone port in the next smartphone - the iPhone 7. Recently in China there was an announcement of three devices without any headphone port and they all run on Android.

LeEco, previously LeTV, yesterday unveiled the new Le 2 series, showcasing the Le 2, Le 2Pro and Le Max2, none of which feature the widely used 3.5mm headphone jack. All of these devices will come with USB Type-C digital headphones via the charging port.

This would result in improved audio quality, as digital headphones are based on lossless technology. The negative point is that it won't be possible for anyone to listen to music while the phone is getting charged (something that most of the folks do while working). That means although the USB Type-C headphones are nice to have feature, consumers might end up paying for a pair of Bluetooth headphones.

Until the introduction of LeEco's two new pairs of USB Type-C headphones - an in-ear variant and over-ear set - the JBL Reflect Aware C sports earbuds made it official alongside the HTC 10 that they were the only USB Type-C headphones available (till now they are not in the market). To conclude we can safely say that this trend might set the direction for next gen smartphones.