Here is some aggregating of the data and then throwing out some predictions:
Mobile is eating the world also in 2017. As we pass 2.5bn smartphones on earth and head towards 5bn, and mobile moves from creation to deployment.
IHS research institute of the market next year will be 139 million a flexible screens, most of which are in smartphones. Vivo and Xiaomi have already released smart phones with flexible AMOLED screens. Progress has been slowed by the capacity of the display manufacturers, but Samsung Display and LG Display are already building new factories. It is expected that in 2020 the number of flexible screens will be 417 million.
Today’s smartphones utilize a wide array of sensors (accelerometers, gyroscopes and various other). New sensors will be added in 2017. Barometric pressure sensor, which measures air pressure, is currently being integrated into premium-grade smartphones and IoT applications. Air pressure sensors in smartphones are useful in navigation and fitness tracking applications but also in weather forecasting.
Rumors surrounding the next iPhone 8 keep coming in 2017. Analysts and market researchers have also predicted a big iPhone update from Apple. Let’s wait to see if this is evolution or revolution. A brief report in The Korea Economic Daily claims that Apple is working with LG on a new dual camera module “which enables 3D photographing. I would be surprised if Apple could come up with something that really revolutionary in 2017.
Virtual Reality Will Stay Hot in 2017. VR is the heaviest heterogeneous workload we encounter in mobile—there’s a lot going on. VR requires high refresh rates with new content every frame. It also needs to calculate data from multiple sensors and respond to it with updated visuals in less than 18 ms to keep up with the viewer’s head motions. To achieve these goals, the phone needs a fast-switching AMOLED display at nearly full brightness running constantly. The skyrocketing popularity of augmented reality (Pokemon Go) and virtual reality (Google VR) may be the boost microelecromechanical systems (MEMS) projectors into the mass market. Integrating micro-lidar (3-D imaging system using invisible infrared beams) to smart phone can become feasible.
Smart phone markets will be still almost completely be in the hands of Apple (iOS) and Google (Android) also in 2017. Microsoft’s Windows phone OS is practically dead in. But that does not stop other player trying to get their spot. For example Samsung wants developers to build apps for its homegrown Tizen mobile operating system, and it is offering cash prizes to do so. Samsung will launch further Tizen-powered smartphones in 2017, but the company is unlikely to swap Android for its home-grown software on high-end devices.
Mobile Video to Grow 50% a Year also n 2017. According to Ericsson’s Mobility Report, mobile data traffic continues to grow, driven both by increased smartphone subscriptions and a continued increase in average data volume per subscription, fueled primarily by more viewing of video content. Ericsson forecasts mobile video traffic to grow by around 50% annually through 2022.
Even though smart watch market has done much worse than expected in 2016, is not forgotter in 2017. Companies need to put effort to convince consumers that wearables — smartwatches specifically — are still in demand. For this Google says it will launch two flagship OEM-branded smartwatches and Android Wear 2.0 in early 2017. The new platform brings a number of new features.
Smartphone is already widely used mobile payment, a person identifying itself and a wide range of services in place, so it is only a matter of time until the driver’s license is transferred to smart phone. In fact, the trend is already on the move, as piloted by Gemalto digital driver’s license in Colorado, Idaho, Maryland and Washington. In the early stages of the digital card functions as a conventional physical card partner.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Says ‘Mixed Reality’ Is the Future, Not VR and AR
https://www.designnews.com/design-hardware-software/microsoft-says-mixed-reality-future-not-vr-and-ar/148821410256869
It’s not VR or AR. Microsoft wants immersive headsets to be as common as a keyboard and mouse and the company is betting on a new concept, Mixed Reality (MR), to get there.
Tomi Engdahl says:
James Vincent / The Verge:
Qualcomm open sources its Neural Processing Engine SDK that adapts its mobile chips to the demands of AI, says dedicated mobile chips are in the pipeline
Qualcomm opens up its AI optimization software, says dedicated mobile chips are coming
https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/25/16024540/ai-mobile-chips-qualcomm-neural-processing-engine-sdk
The chipmaker’s SDK adapts its mobile processors to AI demands, but dedicated chips are the next step
n the race to get AI working faster on your smartphone, companies are trying all sorts of things. Some, like Microsoft and ARM, are designing new chips that are better suited to run neural networks. Others, like Facebook and Google, are working to reduce the computational demands of AI itself. But for chipmaker Qualcomm — whose processors account for 40 percent of the mobile market — the current plan is simpler: adapt the silicon that’s already in place.
To this end the company has developed what it calls its Neural Processing Engine. This is a software development kit (or SDK) that helps developers optimize their apps to run AI applications on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 600 and 800 series processors. That means that if you’re building an app that uses AI for, say, image recognition, you can integrate Qualcomm’s SDK and it will run faster on phones with compatible processors.
Qualcomm first announced the Neural Processing Engine a year ago as part of its Zeroth platform (which has since been killed off as a brand).
“Any developer big or small that has already invested in deep learning — meaning they have access to data and trained AI models — they are the target audience,”
How exactly developers will use the SDK will vary from job to job, but the basic task of the software is to allocate tasks to different parts of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipset. Depending on whether developers want to optimize for battery life or processing speed, for example, they can draw on compute resources from different parts of the chip — eg, the CPU, GPU, or DST. “It allows you choose your core of choice relative to the power performance profile you want for your user,” explains Brotman.
The SDK works with some of the most popular frameworks for developing AI systems, including Caffe, Caffe2, and Google’s TensorFlow. Qualcomm says it’s designed not just to optimize AI on mobile devices, but also in cars, drones, VR headsets, and smart home products.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Niantic CEO blames cellular data congestion for Pokémon Go Fest issues
Too many trainers tried to catch ‘em all
https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/25/16030076/niantic-ceo-john-hanke-pokemon-go-fest-cellular-data-issue
Niantic CEO John Hanke, the man in charge of the mobile app maker behind Pokémon Go, reflected on the company’s rather disastrous real-world meet-up this past weekend, writing in a blog post published today that he and his team are sorry for the issues and taking the time to detail exactly what went wrong. According to Hanke, it was not so much the lack of preparation on Niantic’s part that plagued the very first Pokémon Go Fest in Chicago — though he readily admits to it being a learning experience — but an unforeseen level of cellular data congestion that overloaded mobile network providers and made the game unplayable for a vast number of attendees.
“Technical issues with our game software caused client crashes and interfered with gameplay for some users. The gameplay issue was resolved with a server configuration change and the crashes were also addressed for many but not all users,” Hanke writes. “A more protracted problem was caused by over-saturation of the mobile data networks of some network providers. This caused many attendees to be unable to access Pokémon Go or other Internet services. Network congestion also led to a login issue which affected some users able to access the Internet.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Buhr / TechCrunch:
Apple and Cochlear partner to introduce the Nucleus 7 Sound Processor hearing implant, which works directly with iOS devices rather than via an appF
Apple and Cochlear team up to roll out the first implant made for the iPhone
https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/26/apple-and-cochlear-team-up-to-roll-out-the-first-hearing-aid-implant-made-for-the-iphone/
Apple has teamed up with Australian-based Cochlear to bring iPhone users the first made for iPhone Cochlear implant.
Approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in June, Cochlear’s Nucleus 7 Sound Processor can now stream sound directly from a compatible iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to the sound processor.
The device also allows those with a surgically embedded implant to control and customize the sound from their iPhone.
There have been other implants and hearing aids that have used iOS apps to control sound and other features and Nucleus’s own app can be downloaded to do the same. However, Cochlear’s newest processor is controlled by the phone itself and does not require an app download.
More than 50 million Americans have experienced some sort of hearing loss due to one reason or another. Apple saw the hearing loss problem and has spent a number of years developing a hearing aid program within the company.
Apple soon developed a protocol the company offered for free for hearing aid and implant manufacturers to use with their devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wall Street Journal:
Samsung posts record net profit of $9.9B in Q2, up 89% YoY boosted by strong chip and Galaxy S8 sales, revenue rose to $54.8B, up 19.8%
https://t.co/U5op3C0Ezs
https://www.wsj.com/articles/samsung-profit-jumps-to-record-high-for-quarter-1501115570
Tomi Engdahl says:
When One Screen Isn’t Enough, Try Meizu’s Two-Screen Phone
https://www.wired.com/story/when-one-screen-isnt-enough-try-meizus-two-screen-phone
Humans like instant gratification. That was true long before smartphones existed, but pocket computers have only intensified the problem. People have tried to escape the constant ping of information by developing new behaviors: They stack their phones on top of each other at restaurants and bars to see who will break first (someone always does). They flip their phones screen down when in the company of others, as if to say, “I swear, I’m listening this time.”
Screens seem to be the root of the problem. But the inanimate backside of the phone isn’t totally innocent either. That blank space only contributes to our notification FOMO, and the compulsive desire to know everything, all the time, right when it happens.
Meizu, the Chinese phone manufacturer, has an unorthodox solution to screen addiction: add another screen, this time to the back of the phone.
As far as functionality goes, Meizu’s rear screen doesn’t do anything the front screen can’t. Rather, its design follows the assumption that making information glance-able will ultimately lead to less dependence on our gadgets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wall Street Journal:
Samsung posts record net profit of $9.9B in Q2, up 89% YoY, boosted by strong chip and Galaxy S8 sales, revenue rose to $54.8B, up 19.8% — Results position the company to top Apple in quarterly profits — SEOUL—Samsung Electronics Co. delivered its biggest-ever quarter of profits …
Samsung Posts Record Profit After Tough Year
Results position the company to top Apple in quarterly profits
https://www.wsj.com/articles/samsung-profit-jumps-to-record-high-for-quarter-1501115570
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rita El Khoury / Android Police:
LG’s mobile division lost $117.2M in Q2, down from a $132M loss in Q2 2016, on $2.39B revenue; LG blames “weaker than expected” G6 sales
LG’s mobile unit loses $117 Million in Q2 2017, blames it on poor LG G6 sales
http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/07/27/lgs-mobile-unit-loses-117-million-q2-2017-blames-poor-lg-g6-sales/
LG has announced its second-quarter results for the 2017 and things don’t look too good for the mobile division, yet again. While both the Home Appliance & Air Solution unit and the Home Entertainment unit have brought in profits ($412.5M and $303.8M, respectively), thanks to strong sales of fridges, washing machines, and OLED TVs, the Mobile Communications division continues to bleed billions of Korean won.
According to LG, the mobile unit had $2.39B in revenue, but the operating margin was again a loss of $117.27M. That’s slightly less than last year’s Q2 where the unit lost $132M largely due to the G5′s mitigated reception.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bloomberg:
Behind the scenes at Samsung, as it posts record profits while being embroiled in a corruption scandal, a year after the exploding Galaxy Note7 debacle
Summer of Samsung: A Corruption Scandal, a Political Firestorm—and a Record Profit
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-07-27/summer-of-samsung-a-corruption-scandal-a-political-firestorm-and-a-record-profit
A year after the exploding phones, Samsung is embroiled in the mess that brought down South Korea’s president. How is it still thriving?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stipe / Nokiamob:
As part of patent settlement, Nokia received upfront cash payment of €1.7B from Apple, Finnish company discloses during the earnings call
#Apple agreed to pay one-time up-front €1.7 billion to #Nokia for patents *UPDATED*
http://nokiamob.net/2017/07/27/apple-agreed-to-pay-one-time-up-front-e1-7-billion-to-nokia-for-patents/
In today’s financial results, Nokia mentioned that it had increased cash inflow thanks to an “up-front cash payment of approximately EUR 1.7 billion, part of which was recognized in the second quarter 2017 results.” When Nokia announced back in May that it settled all litigation with Apple, they also said that they will update its capital structure optimization program, as one reader pointed out, which means Apple agreed to pay a big one-time amount.
We contacted Nokia to confirm if the “up-front cash payment of €1.7 billion ($2 billion) (of which a part was recognized in Q2 results)” is from Apple, and Nokia’s PR team confirmed that and invited us to join the investor webcast at 2pm CEST here for more details.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
A now-patched flaw in Broadcom WiFi chips opened 1B iPhones and Android devices to a fully remote worm attack — Wi-Fi chips used in iPhones and Android may revive worm attacks of old. — LAS VEGAS—It’s not often that a security researcher devises an attack that can unleash …
Broadcom chip bug opened 1 billion phones to a Wi-Fi-hopping worm attack
Wi-Fi chips used in iPhones and Android may revive worm attacks of old.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/07/broadcom-chip-bug-opened-1-billion-phones-to-a-wi-fi-hopping-worm-attack/
LAS VEGAS—It’s not often that a security researcher devises an attack that can unleash a self-replicating attack which, with no user interaction, threatens 1 billion smartphones. But that’s just what Nitay Artenstein of Exodus Intelligence did in a feat that affected both iOS and Android devices.
At the Black Hat security conference, Artenstein demonstrated proof-of-concept attack code that exploited a vulnerability in Wi-Fi chips manufactured by Broadcom. It fills the airwaves with probes that request connections to nearby computing devices. When the specially devised requests reach a device using the BCM43xx family of Wi-Fi chipsets, the attack rewrites the firmware that controls the chip. The compromised chip then sends the same malicious packets to other vulnerable devices, setting off a potential chain reaction. Until early July and last week—when Google and Apple issued patches respectively—an estimated 1 billion devices were vulnerable to the attack. Artenstein has dubbed the worm “Broadpwn.”
Although the flaw is now closed, the hack has important lessons as engineers continue their quest to secure mobile phones and other computing devices.
In sharp contrast to the kernels in iOS and Android, the Broadcom chips Artenstein targeted aren’t protected by ASLR or DEP. That meant he could reliably know where his malicious code would be loaded in chip memory so he could ensure it got executed. Additionally, he found a flaw across various chipset firmware versions that allowed his code to work universally rather than having to be customized for each firmware build. Making the attack even more potent, targets didn’t have to connect to the attacker’s Wi-Fi network. Simply having Wi-Fi turned on was sufficient to being hacked.
Artenstein said his attack worked on a wide range of phones, including all iPhones since the iPhone 5, Google’s Nexus 5, 6, 6X and 6P models, Samsung Notes 3 devices, and Samsung Galaxy devices from S3 to S8. After he privately reported the flaw, Google and Apple released patches that closed the underlying vulnerability that made the attack possible. Because Wi-Fi chipsets in laptop and desktop computers have more limited access to the computer’s networking functions, the researcher doesn’t believe they are vulnerable to the same attack. While Artenstein’s proof of concept didn’t spread from the Wi-Fi chip to infect the phone’s kernel, he said that additional step is well within the means of determined hackers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Honolulu targets ‘smartphone zombies’ with crosswalk ban
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-hawaii-texting-ban-idUSKBN1AD2LS?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=597cc61c04d3013bfd829237&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
A ban on pedestrians looking at mobile phones or texting while crossing the street will take effect in Hawaii’s largest city in late October, as Honolulu becomes the first major U.S. city to pass legislation aimed at reducing injuries and deaths from “distracted walking.”
The ban comes as cities around the world grapple with how to protect phone-obsessed “smartphone zombies” from injuring themselves by stepping into traffic or running into stationary objects.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Augmented-reality measuring tape unfurls on your iPhone
https://www.cnet.com/news/augmented-reality-measuring-tape-ar-measure-laan-labs-ios-11-apple-arkit/
No tape measure, no problem. An augmented-reality app built for iOS turns your smartphone into a virtual measuring device.
Soon, you’ll be able to whip out your iPhone and sort it all out using AR Measure, an augmented-reality app that rolls out an animated tape measure on your screen.
The app comes from developer Laan Labs, which plans to release it to the public when iOS 11 launches this fall.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Broadpwn – All Your Mobiles are Belong to Us
http://hackaday.com/2017/07/29/broadpwn-all-your-mobiles-are-belong-to-us/
Researchers from Exodus Intel recently published details on a flaw that exists on several Broadcom WiFi chipsets. It’s estimated to affect nearly 1 Billion devices, from Android to iPhone. Just to name a few in the top list:
Samsung Galaxy from S3 through S8, inclusive
All Samsung Notes3. Nexus 5, 6, 6X and 6P
All iPhones after iPhone 5
So how did this happen? And how does a bug affect so many different devices?
Broadpwn: Remotely Compromising Android and iOS via a Bug in Broadcom’s Wi-Fi Chipsets
https://blog.exodusintel.com/2017/07/26/broadpwn/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Former Google SVP says Android phones ‘years’ behind the iPhone in photography
https://9to5mac.com/2017/07/31/iphone-versus-android-photography/
Former Google senior vice president of Social, Vic Gundotra, has said that Android phones are literally years behind the iPhone when it comes to photography – and it’s Android’s fault.
Gundotra started by praising the quality of the iPhone 7 Plus camera in a Facebook post.
The end of the DSLR for most people has already arrived. I left my professional camera at home and took these shots at dinner with my iPhone 7 using computational photography (portrait mode as Apple calls it). Hard not to call these results (in a restaurant, taken on a mobile phone with no flash) stunning. Great job Apple.
But he went further …
In response to a comment suggesting that the Samsung S8 camera was even better, Business Insider spotted that Gundotra disagreed. He said that not only was Apple way ahead of Samsung, but Android was to blame.
I would never use an Android phone for photos!
Here is the problem: It’s Android. Android is an open source (mostly) operating system that has to be neutral to all parties. This sounds good until you get into the details.
It’s because when Samsung innovates with the underlying hardware (like a better camera) they have to convince Google to allow that innovation to be surfaced to other applications via the appropriate API. That can take YEARS.
Also the greatest innovation isn’t even happening at the hardware level – it’s happening at the computational photography level.
Apple doesn’t have all these constraints. They innovate in the underlying hardware, and just simply update the software with their latest innovations (like portrait mode) and ship it.
This theme – that Google takes an early lead and is then overtaken by Apple – appears to be happening again in another camera-related area: augmented reality.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ryne Hager / Android Police:
Android’s Nearby Connections 2.0 API, which enables offline, P2P communication between devices over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, is now available to developers
http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/07/31/google-announces-nearby-connections-api-v2-0-full-offline-functionality-bandwidth-less-latency/
Some of you might remember the Contextual App Experiences talk at I/O this year. The seemingly convoluted name actually held some pretty big news, as it was during that talk that Google revealed its plans to refresh the Nearby Connections API. That set of APIs is used to provide communication between your phone and other things in physical proximity to you, further expanding your ability to share info and data locally. Well, as of today version 2.0 that API is now available, bringing new features for developers.
Nearby Connections isn’t a new thing. Google announced the original API back in 2015, and last year the company expanded on it. Nearby Connections is a part of the overall “Nearby” package, which includes the Nearby Notifications and Nearby Messages APIs. Things can get a tiny bit confusing between the various “Nearby” names Google has for different things, but Nearby Connections is primarily peer to peer, as opposed to the beacon-based system used in Nearby Notifications, though functionality in Nearby Messages does seem to slightly overlap. This latest release of Nearby Connections, version 2.0, brings with it support for higher-bandwidth operations, lower latency, encrypted connections, and full offline support.
It might not seem like a big deal, but the potential applications of local communication from the Nearby package are quite extensive. There’s a reason we’ve called it “the genius feature no one is using.” From home automation to content consumption, and even when it comes to censorship and security, there are a ton of ways the under-utilized API can be harnessed for consumers, especially now that it is able to work entirely offline.
Announcing Nearby Connections 2.0: fully offline, high bandwidth peer to peer device communication
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/07/announcing-nearby-connections-20-fully.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple hits an all-time high and is seemingly in striking distance of being a $1 trillion company
https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/01/apple-hits-an-all-time-high-and-is-seemingly-in-striking-distance-of-being-a-1-trillion-company/?ncid=rss&utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook&sr_share=facebook
Apple had a semi-blowout quarter — though, really, the story is about what’s happening in the next quarter — sending the stock to an all-time high.
The big jump means Apple is now a company worth more than $800 billion. It seemed not too long ago that Google might have a fair shot at being a bigger company than Apple when it comes to its market cap, but now Apple is on a steady march upwards. And that continued march means the company may be a $1 trillion company before too long.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MediaTek’s Market Share Continues to Slide
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332093&
MediaTek, the second-ranked smartphone chip supplier after Qualcomm, said that its market share has continued a slide that started earlier this year due to a slowdown in product upgrades.
MediaTek’s rivals, including some in China, appear to be making headway with handset makers such as Huawei, Oppo and Vivo, which have continued to outpace the growth of the top two smartphone makers, Samsung and Apple, according to a report from market research firm Gartner.
“We are still losing market share,” said MediaTek Senior Vice President David Ku on a conference call to announce the company’s second-quarter results. “We won’t reverse that trend until the fourth quarter this year.”
The company’s second-quarter revenue of NT$72.5 billion ($2.4 billion) plunged 19.9 percent from the same period a year ago. Net income was the worst in more than five years.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon Suspends Sales of BLU Smartphones Over Security, Privacy Concerns
http://www.securityweek.com/amazon-suspends-sales-blu-smartphones-over-security-privacy-concerns
Amazon has suspended the sale of BLU Android smartphones after learning that there might be a potential security issue on select devices.
The giant online retailer has decided to make the BLU phones unavailable on its website despite their great popularity after Kryptowire security researchers revealed at the Black Hat conference last week that some devices gather a great deal of sensitive information and send it to servers in China
The root of the cause was the commercial Firmware-Over-The-Air (FOTA) update software system managed by a company named Shanghai ADUPS Technology Co. Ltd.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What are the Top Challenges Facing Smartphone Manufacturers?
Handset manufacturers are looking to the latest RF front-end (RFFE) solutions to satisfy increasingly complex requirements.
http://www.mwrf.com/systems/what-are-top-challenges-facing-smartphone-manufacturers?NL=MWRF-001&Issue=MWRF-001_20170803_MWRF-001_24&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=12317&utm_medium=email&elq2=ca2f47c6e2544b069dad013121ca09fe
Rising mobile data demand continues to create complex RF challenges for smartphone manufacturers. Globally, mobile data consumption grew 63% in 2016, and is projected to increase sevenfold by 2021, according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index.
Growth is largely being driven by video traffic, which already accounts for more than half of mobile data use, and is projected to account for more than 75% by 2021. Video consumption is also driving demand for faster networks, as well as greater network capacity. This need will become more acute as the smartphone increasingly becomes users’ primary device for streaming TV and movies, including higher-resolution 4K video. The growth of real-time video uploading, as well as new usages such as augmented and virtual reality, will drive demand for faster uplink and downlink connections.
In the long term, 5G is expected to deliver multi-gigabit data rates to the handset, but widespread 5G deployments are several years away. To support the demand in the near term, mobile network operators and handset makers are applying a combination of techniques to increase the performance of 4G networks, with a target of delivering 1 Gbps to advanced handsets
Four approaches are key to achieving this goal: advanced carrier aggregation (CA), LTE over unlicensed spectrum, higher-order modulation, and 4×4 multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO). Each of these approaches adds RF complexity to handsets, and smartphone manufacturers will need to support all four to deliver 1-Gbps data rates. Adding to the challenges, manufacturers need to squeeze this added complexity into the relatively fixed space allocated to the RF front-end (RFFE). Power management in the RFFE is also becoming even more of a priority as manufacturers seek to maximize battery life and support a new higher-power LTE standard.
Carrier Aggregation Complexity
Today, CA is the primary method that operators are using to drive higher data rates. CA combines multiple LTE carriers (called component carriers) to increase bandwidth beyond the 20-MHz single-carrier maximum and deliver data rates greater than 150 Mbps. It also enables network operators to use their fragmented spectrum holdings more efficiently. Most operators initially implemented CA only in the downlink path, to support user demand for streaming video and other applications that primarily involve data downloads rather than uploads.
Many early implementations aggregated only two component carriers. Now, however, operators are combining three, four, or even five to further increase data rates.
Because of this trend, and because spectrum allocations differ in each country, there has been an extraordinary increase in the number of different band combinations that handsets must support. This drives incredible complexity in the RF pathways within the handset, particularly in premium smartphones designed for global use.
To support simultaneous communication on multiple component carriers, the device’s RFFE must support multiple open, parallel transmit and receive paths between the transceiver and the antenna. At the same time, it must provide sufficient isolation between those paths to avoid problems (e.g., desensitizing the receiver).
Multiplexers provide a solution to this quandary. They combine all of the transmit and receive filters for multiple aggregated bands into a single component
Considering all the possible interactions, there are eight isolations required in a quadplexer (four filters, used for aggregating two FDD-LTE bands) and 18 in a hexaplexer (six filters for three bands).
Key technologies include Licensed Assisted Access (LAA), which uses CA to combine unlicensed 5-GHz spectrum (shared with Wi-Fi) with licensed LTE bands. Use of these higher-frequency bands for LTE will require highly linear front-end components and new filtering and multiplexing solutions.
For example, the increase from 64 QAM to 256 QAM in the download link provides up to 33% greater throughput. However, the higher signal-to-noise ratio needed for 256 QAM also requires higher linearity and lower insertion losses in the RFFE.
transition from 2×2 to 4×4 MIMO means smartphones must accommodate entire additional RF chains as well as more antennas.
The growing complexity of RF pathways within the smartphone increases potential losses.
Fast-expanding Chinese manufacturers have been largely responsible for driving rapid growth in mid-tier smartphones within that country—the world’s largest smartphone market. Now, those manufacturers are looking to expand from China’s domestic market to selling overseas.
The quest for gigabit speeds is creating extraordinary RF complexity in handsets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Steven Levy / Wired:
How Apple developed new Bluetooth Low Energy Audio tech to stream audio directly from iOS devices to hearing aids and cochlear implants
How Apple Is Putting Voices in Users’ Heads—Literally
https://www.wired.com/story/how-apple-is-putting-voices-in-users-headsliterally
Bahnmueller suffers from hearing loss so severe that a year ago he underwent surgery to install a cochlear implant—an electronic device in the inner ear that replaces the usual hearing mechanism. Around a million patients have undergone this increasingly mainstream form of treatment, and that’s just a fraction of those who could benefit from it. (Of the 360 million people worldwide with hearing loss, about 10 percent would qualify for the surgery.) “For those who reach a point where hearing aids no longer help, this is the only solution,” says Allison Biever, an audiologist in Englewood, CO who works with implant patients. “It’s like restoring a signal in a radio station.”
Cochlear implants bypass the usual hearing process by embedding a device in the inner ear and connecting it via electrodes to the nerve that sends audio signals to the brain. The implant gets sound from an external microphone and sound processor that usually sits behind the ear. Until now, users have had to deal with balky remote controls to adjust the settings.
The system he was using came from a collaboration between Apple and Cochlear, a company that has been involved with implant technology since the treatment’s early days. The firms announced last week that the first product based on this approach, Cochlear’s Nucleus 7 sound processor, won FDA approval in June—the first time that the agency has approved such a link between cochlear implants and phones or tablets. Those using the system can not only get phone calls directly routed inside their skulls, but also stream music, podcasts, audio books, movie soundtracks, and even Siri—all straight to the implant.
“While our devices have been built to support hearing aids for years, we found that the experience of people trying to make a phone call was not always a good one,”
“So we brought together a lot of people in different areas around the company to start investigating ways to make the process easier.”
To solve the huge problem of streaming high-quality audio without quickly draining the tiny zinc batteries in hearing aids, Apple had previously developed a new technology called Bluetooth LEA, or Low Energy Audio. The company released that (but didn’t talk about it) when the first Made for iPhone hearing aids appeared in 2014. Previously, the low-energy standard for Bluetooth—called LE—was used
Apple says that LEA is the first use of the low-energy standard to stream high-quality music and voice while preserving LE’s battery-extending properties. “We chose Bluetooth LE technology because that was the lowest power radio we had in our phones,”
the Made for iPhone work was focused on accessibility, and AirPods do not use Bluetooth LEA
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Asus ZenFone AR, which supports both Google’s Tango AR and Daydream VR platforms, now available for pre-order from Verizon for $648
Asus reveals the ZenFone AR will cost $648, and you can preorder it now at Verizon
Not a bad price for both augmented and virtual reality capabilities
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/8/2/16087732/asus-zenfone-ar-google-tango-daydream-verizon-preorder-pricing
Tomi Engdahl says:
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Strategy Analytics: Xiaomi was top wearables vendor in Q2 with 3.7M units, up 23% YoY, Fitbit was 2nd with 3.4M units, Apple was 3rd with 2.8M units, up 56% YoY — Apple shipped an estimated 2.8 million Apple Watch units in the June quarter, an increase of 56 percent from an estimated 1.8 million shipments …
Apple Watch Has Now Surpassed Estimated 30 Million Shipments Since Launching in 2015
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/08/03/apple-watch-over-30m-lifetime-shipments/
Apple shipped an estimated 2.8 million Apple Watch units in the June quarter, an increase of 56 percent from an estimated 1.8 million shipments in the year-ago quarter, according to a new report by research firm Strategy Analytics.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google says it will rank better-performing apps, like those that use less battery or crash less often, higher in the Play Store — Google today announced it’s rolling out a change to its Play Store so that better-performing apps – meaning those that experience fewer crashes and those that don’t drain …
Google Play will now downrank poorly performing apps
https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/03/google-play-will-now-downrank-poorly-performing-apps/
Google today announced it’s rolling out a change to its Play Store so that better-performing apps – meaning those that experience fewer crashes and those that don’t drain your smartphone battery – will be ranked higher than apps with bugs and other performance issues.
The goal with this new ranking algorithm is to ensure that the best apps are being promoted, which in turn leads to increased app usage and engagement, the company says.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chris Velazco / Engadget:
Moto Z2 Force review: top-tier performance, shatterproof screen works but is prone to scratches, not water-resistant, and battery life could be better
Moto Z2 Force review: One step forward, another step back
Motorola’s slim, sturdy flagship is an exercise in compromise.
https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/03/moto-z2-force-review/?sr_source=Twitter
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung’s Galaxy Note8 final specs leaked and it’s pretty much what you expected
https://www.neowin.net/news/samsungs-galaxy-note8-final-specs-leaked-and-its-pretty-much-what-you-expected
We’re just three weeks away from Samsung’s next Galaxy Unpacked event, where the company is slated to launch the Galaxy Note8. With an announcement around the corner, the phone has leaked in all its glory by Evan Blass of VentureBeat.
As you can see from the image above, the Note8 will look very similar to the Galaxy S8, with the same nearly bezel-less design on the sides. The main difference is that the corners are more ‘squared-off’, and the screen is just a bit larger than the S8+, at 6.3 inches. The resolution remains the same though, at 1440×2960, as does the 18.5:9 aspect ratio.
The chipsets will remain the same for the Galaxy Note8 as the S8 and S8+ (Snapdragon 835 in the US, Exynos 8895 elsewhere), but the handset will see a bump in RAM to 6GB. Users will also get 64GB of storage with optional expansion via microSD.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google’s Message To Developers: Fix Your App’s Performance Issues Else See Them Demoted On Play Store
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/08/03/1943221/googles-message-to-developers-fix-your-apps-performance-issues-else-see-them-demoted-on-play-store
Google today announced it’s rolling out a change to its Play Store so that better-performing apps — meaning those that experience fewer crashes and those that don’t drain your smartphone battery — will be ranked higher than apps with bugs and other performance issues.
Google Play will now downrank poorly performing apps
https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/03/google-play-will-now-downrank-poorly-performing-apps/
Google today announced it’s rolling out a change to its Play Store so that better-performing apps – meaning those that experience fewer crashes and those that don’t drain your smartphone battery – will be ranked higher than apps with bugs and other performance issues.
The goal with this new ranking algorithm is to ensure that the best apps are being promoted, which in turn leads to increased app usage and engagement, the company says.
The impetus for this change came after Google realized that around half of the 1-star reviews on the Google Play Store were about app stability problems.
Apps that don’t work well frustrate users, who often turn to the reviews to leave a complaint. Over time, a number of bad reviews and low star ratings can impact the app’s place in the charts and search results.
This ranking algorithm update will now force developers with buggy apps to address their issues, or be penalized as a result.
Google says it’s looking at a variety of “quality signals” related to an app’s performance to determine its new ranking. For example, it will take into consideration things like app crashes, battery usage, and how many uninstalls the app has, among other things. The company declined to share specifics on this signals – like how many crashes or uninstalls, for example, could cause an app to be downranked.
The company started rolling out the change this week to a very small subset of users, but it’s already seeing some notable results. Following the update, Google found that people who installed higher quality apps would then go on to use those apps more, and uninstall them less.
Tomi Engdahl says:
High Hopes for Second Half Smartphone Shipments
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332109&
The electronics supply chain is widely expected to get a lift in the second half of the year from an increase in smartphone shipments due to the launch of several next-generation flagship handsets, notably new models of Apple’s iPhone.
Smartphone shipments in the second quarter were down 1.3 percent from the second quarter of 2016 and down 0.8 percent compared to the first quarter of this year, according to market research firm International Data Corp. (IDC). But the firm — like other market watchers — expects smartphone shipments to bounce back in the second half of the year to post year-over-year growth in both the third and fourth quarters.
Market research firm TrendForce estimates that total smartphone production volume in the second half will increase by 10 percent compared to the first half of the year, reaching more than 716 million units. The firm estimated that first half smartphone production totaled about 650 million units, an increase of 7 percent compared with the first half of 2016.
Tomi Engdahl says:
RED’s Hydrogen gets the hands-on treatment
https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/02/reds-hydrogen-gets-the-hands-on-treatment/?ncid=rss&utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook&sr_share=facebook
If RED piqued your interest with its vague promises of a holographic pocket digital cinema phone (what does that even mean?!), you’ll be interested to hear that YouTuber Marques Brownlee (AKA MKBHD) has gotten his hands on a prototype and was favorably impressed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jean M. Twenge / The Atlantic:
How the omnipresence of smartphones, tablets, and internet have affected those born from mid-1990s to mid-2000s: high rates of depression, changing norms, more
Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Philip Michaels / Tom’s Guide:
After data collection “false alarm”, Amazon resumes selling some Blu smartphones
Blu’s Back: Smartphone Sales Resume at Amazon
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/blu-phones-return-to-amazon,news-25605.html
The Amazon-imposed timeout for Blu smartphones appears to be over. After the retail giant halted sales of its phones earlier this week when spyware allegations resurfaced, Blu announced today (Aug. 4) that sales had resumed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
Sources: Apple glasses prototypes include a fully autonomous AR headset and a Snapchat Spectacles-like device with no screens that connects to iPhone — As it approaches $1tn valuation, the iPhone maker is betting on augmented reality and robotics technology
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiLtojS18DVAhUorVQKHUJ7DnoQqOcBCCgwAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2Fe0d19656-78f4-11e7-90c0-90a9d1bc9691&usg=AFQjCNFEiTAOPn9gZVmd1ucwn43tVM1pjQ
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
Samsung’s Bixby excels at controlling Galaxy S8 hardware, works well with Samsung apps, but voice recognition is dodgy and lack of cloud sync is very limiting — Bixby feels unfinished and annoying, but without an ecosystem, it doesn’t really matter. — Bixby—Samsung’s voice assistant designed …
Samsung’s Bixby—A frustrating voice assistant with all the wrong features
Bixby feels unfinished and annoying, but without an ecosystem, it doesn’t really matter.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/08/samsungs-bixby-voice-assistant-feels-several-years-behind-the-competition/
Bixby—Samsung’s voice assistant designed to take on Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Google Assistant, and Microsoft’s Cortana—has finally been released. Its launch has already been a bumpy one—Bixby was supposed to launch three months ago with the Galaxy S8, and while that happened in Korea, getting Bixby to master English has resulted in delay after delay.
Normally, late software wouldn’t be a huge deal for the Galaxy S8 launch, but Samsung felt so strongly about pairing Bixby with the Galaxy S8 that it built a hardware button onto the device specifically for Bixby. During the long delay, S8 customers created apps that turned the Bixby button into a general-purpose “convenience” key—a button users can configure themselves. But Samsung didn’t like this. The company pushed out a series of updates designed to disable apps that changed the Bixby button and earned a good deal of ire from customers.
Like most voice systems, Bixby requires a bit of training when it starts up. First comes the hotword training, which works a lot like Google’s. You say “Hi Bixby” a few times, and the app records your voice. So far, so good.
Samsung has most of the basics down with Bixby. The “Hi Bixby” hotword is always on, meaning it works when the screen is off. It also works with a lock screen set—non-personal queries like “What time is it?” will work without unlocking, while queries that involve personal results like “Show me my pictures” will say “Actually, first we have to unlock the phone” and then the results will display after passing the unlock challenge. You can also set a “voice password,” which will allow you to unlock the phone with a “secret” phrase. It’s only going to stay a secret if no one is in earshot, though.
Being from hardware company Samsung, Bixby is great at controlling your phone’s hardware and Samsung’s pack-in Android apps. You can send text messages with Samsung’s texting app, open websites in Samsung’s browser, and take notes in Samsung’s note app. You can also do all sorts of hardware things—control the volume, lower the screen brightness, and even do absurdly rare things like change the system language. Generally, in a Samsung app, Bixby can press individual buttons on the screen, allowing you to navigate from screen to screen using only your voice. You can say “Hi Bixby, open the settings,” then “Hi Bixby, open display,” then “Hi Bixby, open screen mode.” While this is slow and wordy, Bixby will tap on just about anything inside a Samsung app. This doesn’t seem to work for non-Samsung apps.
Bixby does not support changing the default apps away from Samsung’s versions.
Samsung seems to understand how important other apps are with the third-party “Bixby Labs” program. Many of the apps I want to use are in the Labs program, but, unfortunately, they just don’t work. Sending commands to Google Maps, Google Music, and YouTube all respond with “looks like we’re experiencing some slight hiccups.” The apps open, but Bixby is unable to navigate past the main screen.
While using Bixby, the voice recognition was a constant source of frustration.
The transcription constantly gets words wrong and makes contextual mistakes that a smart system seems like it should catch. Bixby’s transcription will often flub words that share a pronunciation, like “they’re,” “there,” and “their.” It also has trouble recognizing commands that should be obvious from the context.
It’s all about the ecosystem
I think a secret to voice assistants is that the capabilities and recognition accuracy don’t matter as much as you might think. People don’t pick a voice assistant based on which is more accurate—they pick one based on which ecosystem it plugs into.
If you ask a voice assistant to make a calendar event, or create a reminder, or take a note, that data goes somewhere, and where it goes matters more than the occasional incorrectly recognized word or unavailable function. Ask Siri to make a reminder, and it will be saved in iOS’ reminders app, pushed up to iCloud, and synced back down to all your other iOS and MacOS devices, along with the iCloud Web interface. Ask the Google Assistant to make a reminder, and it will be saved in the Google cloud, where you can access it from the Google app, Google Inbox, and Google Calendar Android, Chrome OS, iOS, and the Web. Ask Bixby to make a reminder and it goes… in Samsung’s reminder app. And nowhere else.
A huge appeal of Google’s and Apple’s assistants are the established ecosystems. The data usually goes somewhere useful, and it’s usually accessible on all your devices. Google and Apple assistants both work on (or have concrete plans to work on) watches, phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, cars, TVs, and standalone speakers. Google and Apple are both working on totally filling out that list with options, but both are far more available than Bixby, which only works on the Galaxy S8. We keep hearing rumors that say Samsung may or may not release a Bixby speaker and Bixby earbuds. But, for now, it’s a very limited assistant.A huge appeal of Google’s and Apple’s assistants are the established ecosystems. The data usually goes somewhere useful, and it’s usually accessible on all your devices. Google and Apple assistants both work on (or have concrete plans to work on) watches, phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, cars, TVs, and standalone speakers. Google and Apple are both working on totally filling out that list with options, but both are far more available than Bixby, which only works on the Galaxy S8. We keep hearing rumors that say Samsung may or may not release a Bixby speaker and Bixby earbuds. But, for now, it’s a very limited assistant.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Matt Miesnieks / Super Ventures Blog:
A deep dive into the tech behind Apple’s ARKit, how it works, and how it is different from Google’s Tango AR platform
Why is ARKit better than the alternatives?
https://medium.com/super-ventures-blog/why-is-arkit-better-than-the-alternatives-af8871889d6a
Tomi Engdahl says:
A smartwatch won’t fix what’s broken with Fitbit
https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/06/a-smartwatch-wont-fix-whats-broken-with-fitbit/?ncid=mobilerecirc_featured
According to some new numbers, Fitbit can also no longer claim to be the world’s top wearable maker. Right after the company announced its financials, Strategy Analytics noted that Chinese handset maker Xiaomi had snapped the title away from the company. Of course, Fitbit tried to put a happy face on its recent woes by reconfirming its plan to bounce back: a smartwatch.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Research Institute IHS has completed second-quarter statistics on smartphone sales. Samsung continues to be the number one, but Apple’s second place is about to go to Chinese Huawe.
According to IHS, 350.9 million smartphones were sold in April-June, up 7 per cent on the previous year. Samsung sold 79.4 million, an increase of three percent. Apple sold 41 million iPhones, which is two percent more than a year earlier.
However, the real ascenders of the list are Chinese characters. Huawei grew by 20 percent a year. In the second quarter, it sold 38.5 million smartphones, so nowadays Huawei will overtake Apple in the current quarter.
Also the fourth largest brand, Oppo, will be swinging from Apple’s back. In the second quarter, 30.5 million OPOs were sold, which is 39 percent more than a year earlier.
Vivo and Xiaomi complement the Chinese backbone, both selling more than 23 million smartphones in the second quarter.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6628&via=n&datum=2017-08-07_14:18:19&mottagare=31202
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Report details how Apple, HP, other manufacturers influence Green Electronics Council regulators to undermine green tech standards of reusability and repair — A new report says the tech industry is using its outsized influence to combat environmental product standards
Why Apple and other tech companies are fighting to keep devices hard to repair
A new report says the tech industry is using its outsized influence to combat environmental product standards
https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/3/16087628/apple-e-waste-environmental-standards-ieee-right-to-repair
Apple is the largest company on Earth by market cap, and its success is derived from selling brand-new high-end smartphones consistently month after month. At the peak of its iPhone business, back in 2015, Apple sold a staggering 231.5 million smartphones. Though sales have begun to slow, that one device alone still accounts for more than 50 percent of Apple’s entire business. The company’s second quarter earnings results for 2017, reported on Tuesday, showed a quarterly profit of $8.7 billion, a majority of which came from the sale of 41 million iPhones.
But one of the reasons Apple can sell so many new devices is that we keep tossing aside our old ones, either because the battery life has grown worse or a new, more advanced model just came out. Advocacy groups say this is by design, and that companies like Apple are keeping supposedly neutral standards bodies from implementing environmentally friendly measures that could increase device longevity and cut down on the number of new units manufactured.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Eric Bellman / Wall Street Journal:
Tech firms rethink products, expecting the next billion internet users to prefer voice, video, and images to text given lower literacy rates in developing areas
The End of Typing: The Next Billion Mobile Users Will Rely on Video and Voice
Tech companies are rethinking products for the developing world, creating new winners and losers
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-end-of-typing-the-internets-next-billion-users-will-use-video-and-voice-1502116070
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
YouTube rolls out chat to all its Android and iOS users, includes group messaging for up to 30 users — YouTube today rolled out the ability to share videos with contacts directly in its mobile app for Android and iOS. Users can chat about shared videos using text, react with emoji …
YouTube adds mobile chat, because Google doesn’t have enough messaging apps
https://venturebeat.com/2017/08/07/youtube-adds-mobile-chat-because-google-doesnt-have-enough-messaging-apps/
YouTube today rolled out the ability to share videos with contacts directly in its mobile app for Android and iOS. Users can chat about shared videos using text, react with emoji, like messages with a heart, reply with other videos, and invite more friends to the conversation (up to a maximum of 30 people per group message).
YouTube first started testing letting groups of users share and talk about videos in May 2016.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The mobile display changes to plastic
Korean LG exasperates how its next G Flex 2 top model is the first OLED FullVision screen made on the market. The OLED display market is now growing steeply. Especially the plastic-based frames that can be freely bent at the edges are becoming a mainstream.
Research Institute DCSS predicts that AMOLED panels will be sold this year by $ 21 billion and by 2021 by $ 46 billion. At present, 86 percent of OLED panels go to smartphones and in 2021 the share remains 81 percent.
In this trend, the LG G-Flex 2 model’s six-inch plastic OLED screen is well suited. The six-inch screen is LG’s largest smartphone display for four years. At the same time, however, the phone body is smaller than the LG V20 introduced last year.
OLED technology has many advantages over the old LCD technology. It provides the screen with a better black color and a more accurate color rendering. For digital images, the OLED screen produces 148 percent of the sRGB color space and 109 percent of the DCI-P3 2 color space for digital video, LG explains.
The display of the upcoming flagship phone is based on plastic OLED (PED), so the edge of the screen can be rounded to ensure ergonomics and better handling. P-OLED is manufactured by printing pixels on a plastic substrate, which is considerably stronger than glass. The screen is also protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6641&via=n&datum=2017-08-08_14:31:14&mottagare=31202
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google: Android 8.0 OTA updates will still work even when phones have no space
Google is removing one more obstacle to installing its monthly Android security updates.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-android-8-0-ota-updates-will-still-work-even-when-phones-have-no-space/
Google is enhancing an update system for Android that will ensure devices can install new OS versions and critical patch updates even when there’s no storage space.
Ars Technica spotted the change in new Android documentation for Google’s A/B or Seamless System Updates, which Google introduced in the Pixel and Pixel XL. The system is borrowed from the update engine in ChromeOS.
This seamless system allows users to continue using the device during an update and doesn’t require the cache partition to store OTA update packages.
Android device makers can implement A/B on Android 7.1 and up, but it’s not clear any have. If they did, it could help Google improve Android’s historically poor patching record.
For example, Google notes seamless updates helped ensure Pixel owners install its monthly security updates faster. As of May, 95 percent of Pixel owners were running the latest security update after one month, compared with 87 percent of Nexus users.
Android 8.0’s “streaming OS updates” will work even if your phone is full
Android’s new OS update scheme should banish the “insufficient space” error forever.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/08/android-8-0s-streaming-os-updates-will-work-even-if-your-phone-is-full/
We’ve probably all had this happen at one point or another: it’s time for an OS update, and your phone wants to download a ~1GB brick of an update file. On Android, normally this gets downloaded to the user storage partition and flashed to the system partition. But wait—if your phone is full of pictures, or videos, or apps, there may not be enough space to store the update file. In such circumstances, the update fails, and the user is told to “free up some space.” According to the latest source.android.com documentation, Google has cooked up a scheme to make sure that an “insufficient space” error will never stop an update again.
Where the heck can Google store the update if your phone is full, though? If you remember in Android 7.0, Google introduced a new feature called “Seamless Updates.” This setup introduced a dual system partition scheme—a “System A” and “System B” partition. The idea is that, when it comes time to install an update, you can normally use your phone on the online “System A” partition while an update is being applied to the offline “System B” partition in the background. Rather than the many minutes of downtime that would normally occur from an update, all that was needed to apply the update was a quick reboot. At that point, the device would just switch from partition A to the newly updated partition B.
Tomi Engdahl says:
No, Apple. A 4G Watch is a really bad idea
Adding fail to fail
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/09/apple_4g_watch_no/
I feel the same way about my Apple Watch as I do about Twin Peaks – I love it, but I don’t go around recommending it. No, sir.
One requires a big investment in time while the other costs a lot of money.
But hey, you’re thinking: buying into Apple Watch only costs £658 and that’s only money. (For that is the price of the cheapest iPhone and the cheapest Apple Watch, at UK prices.) It’s actually more, as the titchy 38mm model makes no sense except as a contactless payment card, step counter and notification nagger – it’s too small and fiddly. So you’re looking at £400 at least, plus a strap.
Why don’t I recommend the Watch? It’s the reason world+dog has shunned “smart” wearables: it’s a nice-to-have rather than a must-have. It adds a little convenience, but that value proposition is a stretch.
As we’ve recounted many times, today’s smartwatch graveyard happened because two giant companies, Apple and Alphabet, dared not to produce one, in case the other one did, and that one was a success.
Billions have been wasted on these failed products. For a while FitBit and other activity trackers gave the wearables business some hope, but Jawbone has shut down; TomTom is reportedly pulling out; and the sole success story, FitBit, is now tanking, with sales down 40 per cent. Don’t worry, it’s pinning its hopes on a smartwatch for Christmas. That’s a great idea.
Ho, ho, ho
Now according to Mark Gurman, Apple wants to give the Watch another crank of the handle, and build LTE functionality into the third-generation Watch. The confident prediction is that the chipset will come from Intel. This will turn Apple Watch into a standalone connected computer. Maybe even a phone too.
But take it from me, I’ve tried using a 4G watch, and it’s fun… for about 10 minutes. Perhaps longer, until somebody calls you in public. LG were the first to build a SIM slot and 4G into their Android Wear phones. The Huawei Watch 2 is doughty and durable and does payments, but as a phone it was not convenient or a nice way to take calls.
But what about those useful apps which allow you “to leave the phone behind” when you take a jog or go for a swim? I think the answer is in the question. When you’re swimming or jogging you don’t want to take calls, or for that matter, play games on a watch.
And as Richard Windsor argues, it makes a hard sell harder: the product gets worse. Apple greatly improved the battery life of the Watch in recent software releases, but I can corroborate from my experience with the Huawei Watch 2 that the battery life is roughly halved with the inclusion of an LTE SIM. Even a virtual SIM – something Apple has been trying to persuade the industry to adopt for about a decade – is going to use a lot of power.
All in all, a Watch with LTE is just a bigger bundle of inconvenience.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is this the End of Typing? The Internet’s Next Billion Users Want Video and Voice
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/08/08/1722255/is-this-the-end-of-typing-the-internets-next-billion-users-want-video-and-voice
The internet’s global expansion is entering a new phase, and it looks decidedly unlike the last one. Instead of typing searches and emails, a wave of newcomers — “the next billion,” the tech industry calls them — is avoiding text, using voice activation and communicating with images. They are a swath of the world’s less-educated, online for the first time thanks to low-end smartphones, cheap data plans and intuitive apps that let them navigate despite poor literacy. Incumbent tech companies are finding they must rethink their products for these newcomers and face local competitors that have been quicker to figure them out. “We are seeing a new kind of internet user,”
Is this the end of typing? The internet’s next billion users want video and voice
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/08/07/is-this-end-typing-internets-next-billion-users-want-video-and-voice.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Roundup: Here’s everything Apple will release before the end of 2017
https://9to5mac.com/2017/08/08/iphone-7s-iphone-8-home-pod-release/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hacking a tablet to force an Android update
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/brians-brain/4458710/Hacking-a-tablet-to-force-an-Android-update-
For a while, the O/S-update negligence was little more than an annoyance … some programs wouldn’t install at all because Android was out of date, while others wouldn’t upgrade to their latest versions … and of course, I wasn’t receiving ongoing security patches and bug fixes from Google. But recently, the situation became more critical. I started getting ongoing popup messages, one every few seconds, indicating that “Unfortunately, the process android.process.acore has stopped” and effectively rendering the system unusable.
As it turns out, the issues were related. From my research, I learned that the issue seems to be a bug in this particular Android version related to third-party application (Microsoft Office apps, Facebook, etc) access to the contacts database. Sometimes, as with Facebook, I could get the problem to go away by deleting (and therefore no longer being able to use) the offending app.
Clearly, this was an untenable situation. And if I had a conventional manufacturer- and/or carrier-locked handset, I’d be out of luck. Fortunately, though, in this particular Nexus-branded case, although Verizon conventionally controls the over-the-air delivery of firmware updates, they ultimately come directly from Google. So I decided to dispense with the Verizon intermediary and “sideload” the upgrade myself via a USB cable tether to my Mac.
While it’s possible to “sideload” OTA updates via ADB (Android Debug Bridge), thereby preserving the already installed applications and data, doing so is tricky; each upgrade to the next Android iteration often needs to be done sequentially, for example, which is tedious at best
After downloading and unzipping the firmware image into a unique directory, I then downloaded and installed the Android SDK Platform-Tools package into that same directory (I also could have used the Android Studio suite to accomplish the upgrade, but that full-blown IDE would have been overkill for my specific purpose in this particular case).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Research Institute Kantar has presented its own statistics on the development of the smartphone market in March-May. Big changes in power relations did not emerge, but one trend seems to become more common: new flagship models no longer bring automatic rush to the stores.
This is reflected in Samsung, Huawei and LG sales figures. In the US, Samsung succeeds to become the market leader, but this was not based on the huge Galaxy S8 sales, but rather on the more profitable J-models.
Huawei is, in turn, a big success in Europe, but according to Kantar, the sale of the new P10 top model has been in no way devastating. The more favorable P8 and P9 Lite models, however, have gone very well.
LG, for its part, introduced its new G6 top model for the market. Despite its features, the device reached only 1.3 percent. It became the 13th best-selling phone in the yenk market.
What should be deduced from the figures? Clearly, mid-range devices start to be very good. For many, it is a much more advantageous “lite” model if you feel that a new flagship that does not cost up to EUR 1,000 will bring significantly more value.
For this reason, for example, Xiaomi has done well in China. The average price of its equipment is less than a third of the Huawein Honor brand, Kantar recalls
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/6652-alypuhelinten-lippulaivat-eivat-enaa-kiinnosta-entiseen-tapaan
Tomi Engdahl says:
This app wants you to wake up by turning your bed into a gym
https://thenextweb.com/apps/2017/08/09/this-app-wants-you-to-wake-up-by-turning-your-bed-into-a-gym/#.tnw_0pRbG2rB
Wakeout is a new app that has only one goal: to wake its users up by exercising. And yes, it’s as horrible and effective as it seems.
Upon opening the app, my half-asleep-self was (somewhat) awakened by obnoxious 80’s synthpop music. After I had come to terms with the Richard Simmons music, I started the workout.
The sixty-second circuit involved: waving my arms in the air, crunches, and my personal favorite, punching my pillow. After the mini-workout was over, my blood was rushing, and I had no trouble starting my morning routine.
The app has 80 different workouts and randomly-generates a different routine every morning. Some of the other exercises include pillow over-head raises, toe-touches, squats, and mountain climbers (not for the faint of heart).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:
Andy Rubin’s Essential Products raises $300M from Tencent, Amazon, and others, says Best Buy and Amazon will be its retail launch partners in the US
Amazon and Tencent Back Smartphone Maker Essential
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-and-tencent-back-smartphone-maker-essential-1502283648
Startup founded by Google Android’s creator has raised $300 million in funding; plans to release $699 titanium-encased smartphone
Tomi Engdahl says:
Snapchat CEO: Our dancing hot dog is “the world’s first augmented reality superstar”
https://www.fastcompany.com/40452199/snapchat-ceo-our-dancing-hot-dog-is-the-worlds-first-augmented-reality-superstar
Snap’s stock is down by nearly 16% at the moment, but there’s no stopping Snapchat’s dancing hot dog filter. During the company’s second-quarter earnings phone call today, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel announced that the popular filter—which has spawned a cavalcade of memes—had been viewed more than 1.5 billion times in Snapchat since its debut.
“Our dancing hot dog is most likely the world’s first augmented reality superstar,” Spiegel boasted. Internet fame is all well and good. Next, expect Snap to continue to look for a way to monetize that dancing dog.
Facebook currently generates $19.38 for every user in North America, while Snap makes $1.97.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chinese App Developers File Antitrust Complaint Against Apple
Complaint accuses Apple of monopolistic behavior by removing apps from App Store without detailed explanation
https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-app-developers-file-antitrust-complaint-against-apple-1502347222?mod=rss_Technology