HTC Launches UH OH Protection, Mocks Stingy Competitors
HTC is basically the mobile phone manufacturing equivalent of a cult television show. She is the Parks and Recreation of this space, with avid users merrily touting the quality and reliability of the product, even if not many others are taking part.
But this isn’t NBC, where low-rated critical darlings survived despite all ostensible logic. The mobile industry is hyper-competitive, and HTC does not have the luxury of awards and fan campaigns to keep it afloat. It needs actual users.
It’s latest effort to court consumers away from defending champ Samsung and reborn hotshot LG is the all-new, cheekily named “UH OH” protection service that comes free with the purchase of a One M9 or a new One M8. A letter from HTC president Jason Mackenzie elaborates on UH OHs offerings, including a complete phone replacement within the first 12 months of ownership if a M9 or M8 suffers water damage, gets a cracked screen, or if the owner decides to switch carriers. No questions asked.
Also, if one goes 12 months without exploiting these services, HTC will give you $100 toward the purchase of one’s next HTC One. No word on if that means unlocked, full-price phones or carrier-subsidized ones. Also, I’m inferring that HTC intends to keep the One brand around for some time, based on the money offered to buy the “next” One. So if you had your money on a One M10, place said money down.
Mackenzie takes a few potshots at competitors, saying:
“Other OEMs view “protection” as another thing to sell consumers. In our opinion, that isn’t taking care of your customers. It is profiting from their misfortune. In addition to actually paying for their “Elite” protection plans, they also expect you to pay additional service fees to use the service – and, you don’t get anything back if you don’t use it. Some competitors are just offering coverage for some types of damage covered by HTC UH OH Protection but not others. HTC is making sure our customers are taken care of without additional costs because we believe that if you purchase a premium phone it should stay that way.”
Now what’s not clear is if this is an either/or scenario when it comes to phone protection, as in if you happen to have the apocalyptic misfortune of cracking a screen, suffering water damage, and opting to switch carriers, it is unclear whether HTC would cover all of that or just one of these instances.
Also, UH OH users are only given one free phone replacement and one year of service. It’s free, so who really cares, but if you damage your phone on month 13, you’re out of luck. By comparison, Samsung’s Plus Mobile Elite protection package costs $99 for a Galaxy S4, S5, or S6, and while it does not cover a carrier switch, its length of protection is two years and allows for up to three claims, though each claim costs $79. LG’s free support is mostly limited to screen replacements.
Still, UH OH is free, requires no registration, and is offered in the US and Mexico (curiously, no Canada – take that, NAFTA). It also offers next-day air service. Check out the full breakdown in the table below.
Does this sort of peace of mind swing you into the HTC camp? It will be interesting to see if warranty wars help garner HTC more market share. It certainly needs it.
Source: HTC
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GE announces HomeKit enabled lights that’ll help you sleep
Turns out it’s not just our addiction to smartphones that messes with our sleep patterns, it’s also the lighting in our homes that keeps us up at night. To alleviate all that tossing and turning, GE announced an Intelligent LED lighting system that not only works with HomeKit, Apple’s slow-to-rollout home automation system, but also features GE Align to set the color of the lights to the “body’s natural sleep circadian rhythm.” The Philips Hue line currently does the same thing via “recipes” and is also integrated with HomeKit. GE’s lighting system, on the other hand, won’t be out until later this year. Of course being first to integrate with Apple’s home automation system is a bit of a moot point since it currently doesn’t have an official launch date.
Filed under: Household, Wireless, Apple
Source: GE
Sharing app Droplr wants to woo you back with a ‘free’ tier
In case you dropped Droplr when the sharing app went from free to paid-only the company has a plan to potentially woo you back. How’s that? It’s going freemium starting tomorrow. Links and files you spread around with the free plan will have a week-long lifespan before evaporating. Should you want any long-term storage or whatnot, TechCrunch reports that you’ll have to shell out basically double the price from before for Droplr Pro: $9.99 per month now versus the previous $4.99 action. Refreshed iOS and Mac apps are en route as well and the outfit has a few promotions going on to help take the sting out of the increased monthly price.
For starters there’s a referral program that’ll get you a $10 credit for a friend signing up, and it’s applicable to either a monthly or yearly subscription. And speaking of the latter, by upgrading to an annual plan via an in-app purchase on iOS you can save 40 percent off your subscription through June 5th. If you need a quick, free sharing system and aren’t worried about permanent storage or links, Droplr’s free tier could be for you — especially if Jing or Skitch aren’t doing it for you currently.
Filed under: Cellphones, Desktops, Software, Mobile
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Droplr blog
First details of HTC One M9e suggest powerful plastic flagship
Coming to us thanks to China’s TENAA certification database via Engadget is news of the HTC One M9e, a plastic variant of the One M9+.
It shares the same specifications of the One M9+ minus the Duo camera: a 5.2-inch Quad HD display, 2.2GHz octa-core processor, 3GB of RAM, 20MP rear-facing camera with dual-tone flash, Ultrapixel front-facing camera, microSD card, and fingerprint reader.
We do not yet know if an IR blaster will be included in the device. However, Engadget believes the M9e will be offered at a more affordable price, just like with the E9+.
The post First details of HTC One M9e suggest powerful plastic flagship appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Apple Hires New General Contractor for Apple Campus 2, Sparking Delay Speculation
As construction on its “spaceship” campus in Cupertino continues, Apple has hired a new general contractor, sparking rumors questioning whether the new campus will be finished by the company’s prospective 2016 completion date.
According to the Silicon Valley Business Journal, Silicon Valley company Rudolph & Sletten Inc. will take on the buildout of the Campus 2’s interior structure, a job that was previously thought to be going to DPR Construction Co. and Skanska USA, the two companies heading up the construction project.
Most recent image of the ongoing construction of Apple Campus 2, from the City of Cupertino.
It’s unclear why Rudolph & Sletten is being brought in and exactly what DPR/Skanska’s involvement will be going forward. Two sources said the DPR-Skanska joint venture would still complete the core and shell — or the basic structure — of the circular building. It’s also possible that DPR and Skanska never intended to do more than the core and shell.
Neither Apple nor the three companies involved in the construction of the main ring-shaped building would comment on the involvement of a new general contractor for the interior of the building, but sources in the local construction industry that spoke to the Silicon Valley Business Journal believe the new addition could potentially point towards delays.
Campus 2 delays could potentially end up causing the cost of constructing the massive structure to skyrocket beyond its current $5 billion estimation. Prior budgeting issues caused Apple to revise its Campus 2 plans, splitting construction into two phases to save money. Phase 1 includes the main Apple campus and several buildings like an auditorium and fitness center, while phase 2 focuses on the Tantau Development, a 600,000 square foot area housing research facilities. Plans for the second phase of construction were submitted to the city back in October of 2014.
The Tantau development area
In Cupertino, the base structure for the main ring-shaped campus has been completed, and walls have been going up for the last several months. Construction is also continuing on an underground parking garage and several ancillary buildings
Apple’s second campus will feature a massive 2.8 million square foot ring-shaped main building, an underground parking facility capable of accommodating 2,400 cars, a 100,000 square foot fitness center, and a 120,000 square foot auditorium. The entire campus will be outfitted with hundreds of trees for 80 percent green space, along with a central garden with outdoor dining areas.
Thus far, city officials have not received word of a potential delay from Apple, suggesting construction may still be on track. Apple plans to complete its new campus by the end of 2016.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8.0 and Tab S2 9.7 announcement in June
Samsung’s successor to their Tab S line is expected to be announced in June and will be dubbed as the Galaxy Tab S2 (Tab S2 8.0 and Tab S2 9.7 respectively). There will be a total of 4 variants of their new Tab S2, with the 8.0 and 9.7 each receiving both a W-Fi only version and an LTE version. Samsung is expected to ship these new tablets to various countries including the US, Canada, several European markets, China, Latin America, Hong Kong, Korea, and India. As for specs, here’s what you can expect:
- 64-bit Exynos processor
- 3GB RAM; 32GB ROM with microSD card slot
- Android 5.0.2 Lollipop
- Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels
- Samsung’s in-house modem with Cat. 6 LTE (300Mbps)
- 8-megapixel primary camera, and 2.1-megapixel front facing camera
What are your guys’ thoughts on Samsung’s tablets?
source: Samobile
Come comment on this article: Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8.0 and Tab S2 9.7 announcement in June
Google brings “Collections” to its G+ application
Google’s in the midst of pushing out an update for its official Google+ application via the Play Store. In terms of added functionality, this upgrade carries a handful of bug fixes as well as support for “Collections”, which allows users to group their posts by topic instead of posting at random.
In short, Collections allow you to do the following three main things:
- Create – Start collections for your interests. Post videos, photos, and more.
- Get Found – People can follow all of your public collections, or just the ones they like.
- Customize – Make your collection pop with custom names and cover photos and cover photos.
To install the update, simply open up the Play Store on your device, toggle the hamburger menu by swiping in from the left-hand side of the screen, select ‘My Apps’ and click on ‘Google+’. Next, hit the update button, and the application will instantly start to download and install the upgrade from the Google Play servers. Alternatively, you can scan the QR code below to initiate the procedure.
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Google announces aquisition of Timeful
Google has announced that it’s now acquired Timeful and is looking to bring more intelligent scheduling together with better organization methods to its range of productivity applications, such as Calendar, Drive and Gmail.
Here’s what Google had to say about Timeful’s integration with its software suite:
The Timeful team has built an impressive system that helps you organize your life by understanding your schedule, habits and needs. You can tell Timeful you want to exercise three times a week or that you need to call the bank by next Tuesday, and their system will make sure you get it done based on an understanding of both your schedule and your priorities. We’re excited about all the ways Timeful’s technology can be applied across products like Inbox, Calendar and beyond, so we can do more of the work for you and let you focus on being creative, having fun and spending time with the people you care about.
Obviously, we won’t see these changes right away, and many of them will take place behind the scenes, but it’s great to know that they’re on the way.
Source: Google
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Samsung now rolling out Lollipop OTA for all LTE variants of the Galaxy S5 in China
Samsung has at last started pushing out the much-anticipated Android 5.0.1 update to all LTE variants of the Galaxy S5 located in China. In terms of added functionality, this upgrade transports the latest build of Lollipop to the handset, in addition to a multitude of bug fixes and stability improvements.
All the changes you’d expect to find are bundled into this upgrade, including support for multiple accounts, improved notifications, a smoother multitasking experience and the recently-announced Material Design guidelines.
As is customary with all manufacturer updates, the upgrade is being rolled out in stages, but if you don’t feel like waiting for a notification confirming that it’s ready for your device, you can search for the update manually.
Come comment on this article: Samsung now rolling out Lollipop OTA for all LTE variants of the Galaxy S5 in China
Google’s latest acquisition will help make Calendar, Inbox and other apps ‘smarter’
Google recently introduced Inbox by Gmail with the ambitious goal of making our email experience smarter than ever before. Now it seems this is only the beginning of Google’s plans for helping its users stay better organized. In an official blog post, Google has now announced the acquisition of the Timeful app and the team behind it.
For those who haven’t heard of Timeful, the iOS-only app aims to make its users lives easier by putting scheduling, to-do lists, and the calendar all in one place while helping users make better use of their time by acting as an intelligent assistant that can help schedule their days based on deadlines, time available, and much more.
you tell Timeful what you want to accomplish, and it helps you fit these things into your hectic schedule.
What exactly does that mean? Basically, you tell Timeful what you want to accomplish, and it helps you fit these things into your hectic schedule. For example, you inform the app that you want to lift weights at least three times a week, that you need to buy an anniversary gift for your wife by Thursday, and that you want to at least get thirty minutes of cardio in every day. Timeful than examines your schedule and helps you figure out how to squeeze it all in. While the Timeful app will continue to be offered for the time being, Timeful’s team will be focusing its attention on “new projects at Google”. Google specifically mentions Inbox, Calendar and ‘beyond’ as some of the products that will benefit from the Timeful acquisition.
While the Timeful app will continue to be offered for now, Timeful’s team will be focusing its attention on “new projects at Google”. Google specifically mentions Inbox, Calendar and ‘beyond’ as some of the products that will benefit from the Timeful acquisition. We are certainly excited to see how Google utilizes the technology behind Timeful in the (hopefully) not too distant future.
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