People upgrading to a Samsung Galaxy S6 are mostly coming from other Samsung devices (55%) or Apple (40%)
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Not long ago, we took a look at HTC One M8 not really wanting to update to the HTC One M9 (for various reasons). Thanks to the hard work of mobile trade-in sites CompareMyMobile UK and GadgetValuer USA, we now also have statistics for the Samsung Galaxy S6 and what devices its customers are coming from. After surveying customers from April 10th, the survey has found that 18.5% of them upgraded to a Samsung Galaxy S6 – not a bad percentage seeing as how many other devices there are out there.
Of that 18.5%, CompareMyMobile and GadgetValuer say that 55.17% of those converting to a Galaxy S6 have elected to do so after owning another Samsung device, and a whopping 40.69% of them were coming from an Apple device. This is especially surprising seeing as last year, Sony and Nokia converters to the Galaxy S5 made up about 25% of trade-ins, whereas anyone not called Samsung or Apple has made up less than 5% of this year’s trade-ins to a Galaxy S6.
If you’re wondering which devices were the actual top trade-ins for the Galaxy S6, they were:
- Samsung Galaxy S4
- Apple iPhone 5
- Samsung Galaxy S5
- Apple iPhone 5C
- Apple iPhone 5S
The Galaxy S4 topping the list is no surprise at all, but I’m genuinely surprised that so many iPhone users are making the jump to the Galaxy S6 – guess Samsung’s strategy is paying off after all.
What do you think about this data about people upgrading to a Samsung Galaxy S6? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: CompareMyMobile, GadgetValuer
The post People upgrading to a Samsung Galaxy S6 are mostly coming from other Samsung devices (55%) or Apple (40%) appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Samsung reveals plans for new mirror and transparent OLED displays
Samsung has unveiled its new mirror and transparent OLED displays in Hong Kong, and from the sound of it, the company has big plans for both of them. While the event has only showcased the screens as ad billboards and as a virtual necklace stand, Samsung believes they have bigger uses in the future once they’re integrated with Intel’s RealSense technology. It plans to develop the mirror display, for instance, as a “virtual fitting room,” made possible by the Intel technology’s 3D cameras and an “automated library of stored perceptions.” Customers can use the high-tech mirror to see what jewelries, clothes or shoes look like on them before actually trying them on to make sure they fit.
On the other hand, Samsung plans to use its transparent OLEDs for interactive ads that will take advantage of RealSense’s voice and gesture control capabilities. The company claims its mirror OLED is sharper, clearer, has higher contrast and faster response times compared to mirror LCDs already available today. Its transparent OLED is apparently more colorful and clearer than similar technologies, as well. It’ll likely take Samsung some time to make these plans a reality, but we doubt the company’s slacking off either. After all, it has to compete with a lot of other companies also developing virtual fitting rooms and interactive ad displays of their own.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD, Samsung
Source: Samsung
T-Mobile to retry updating its LG G3 to Lollipop today
T-Mobile is rolling out another over-the-air update for its variant of the LG G3 today, having previously failed to bring Android 5.0 Lollipop to all of its customers earlier in the year. The update will bring handsets up to build number D85120e, states T-Mobile Senior Product Manager Des Smith.
According to the Twitter message, the update D85120e should have begun rolling out just after midnight, but it will likely be rolling out in waves so might not reach your particular handset until a few days later.
T-Mobile Software Update: The new #LGG3 SW build is D85120e and should start rolling out to customers tonight after 12:01 am Pacific
— Des (@askdes) June 9, 2015
Back in April, T-Mobile had begun rolling out an Android Lollipop update to G3 owners under the build number D85120b. This update was quickly pulled shortly following its release, leaving some users updated and others without Lollipop. The reasons for cancelling the update have not been made official, but some T-Mobile LG G3 owners have apparently been having problems with their handsets after updating.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a detailed change-log for the update online yet, so we can’t be sure of the differences between versions b and e. Although those upgrading from KitKat will finally get to play around with the changes to notifications and the recent apps menu, along with all of the under the hood Lollipop changes.
Keep an eye out for that OTA notification.
Vodafone returns to broadband with ‘Connect’
More than three years after it left the market, Vodafone has made a return to broadband. After months of teasing, the carrier has unveiled ‘Connect,’ a new internet and home phone service that will initially only be available to existing customers. Like many of its rivals, including Sky and TalkTalk, Vodafone will piggyback on BT’s Openreach infrastructure, offering 17Mbps speeds as part of its basic package, or 76Mbps fibre in its top-tier plan.
All plans all come with a minimum 18-month contract, but the carrier has made sure that pricing is competitive. The lowest-tier package costs £2.50 a month for 12 months (£10 for non-Vodafone customers), and £5 for the remaining six months of the plan, while the fibre product will cost £10 a month (£25 a month for non-Vodafone customers) for the first year, before rising to £20 thereafter. They are introductory prices, though, and Vodafone will also levy a £16.99 monthly line rental charge.
So what do you get for your money? For a start, all plans include unlimited broadband usage and inclusive evening and weekend calls to UK landlines. Vodafone Red customers will enjoy 300 Anytime & Mobile minutes on top of that. You’ll also get the Connect router, which Vodafone says offers a “richer, smarter, more responsive Wi-Fi experience.” It comes with a “Boost” feature that will let you maximise download speeds on a chosen device for up to 2 hours at a time and will also offer a separate WiFi connection for guests, letting you choose how long users are connected for (one for the kids, maybe). Vodafone has also built a dedicated mobile app that helps set up your connection, choose which devices should benefit from Boost and blocks access to nefarious websites.
Vodafone’s starting small, targeting existing customers in Manchester and selected parts of Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire. After that, the provider will extend the service to Essex, Hertfordshire and Yorkshire, before opening it to all Vodafone customers “later this year.” Everyone else will have to wait until Autumn.
Filed under: Household, Internet
Via: Vodafone Blog
Source: Vodafone Connect
YouTube has an 8K video (that almost no one can watch)
The equipment to shoot it might not exactly be widespread, and the displays needed to view it at home are even less so, but 8K video has made its way to YouTube. It’s a feature the outfit announced way back in 2010, but only just recently did a clip surface that actually uses all of those lines of resolution. The clip’s called Ghost Towns and it’s a slow-panning journey through what looks like a recently abandoned mining settlement. Mountain View told 9to5Google that the 8K label was added earlier this year, but 4320p footage has only appeared pretty recently. The video description notes that Ghost Towns was shot using a RED Epic Dragon 6K camera in portrait orientation and to hit the higher resolution, some of the footage was upscaled or stitched together with Adobe’s After Effects suite.
Very few of us will be able to watch this on our everyday machines thanks to the sheer amount of system resources it takes to handle a video of this magnitude, but those who can should be happy to know it apparently runs in Chrome and Safari. Of course, you can peep it in lesser resolutions below as well.
Filed under: Cameras, Home Entertainment, Internet, HD, Google
Via: 9to5Google
Source: Neumannfilms (YouTube)
Phil Schiller Talks 16 GB iPhones and Thinness vs Battery Life Tradeoffs
A day after the WWDC keynote address, Apple SVP of Marketing Phil Schiller joined Daring Fireball’s John Gruber on Gruber’s podcast, The Talk Show. The episode has not yet been posted, but The Verge was on hand to document the interview. Schiller addressed concerns about 16 GB iPhones, the decision between thin devices and battery life and the single USB port on the MacBook.
Gruber suggested to Schiller that the Cupertino company’s iOS devices should come with larger storage capacities on the low end, as the 16 GB of storage provided in the base iPhone 6 or 6 Plus is harder to live with with the current size of apps. Schiller countered that services like iCloud could make up the difference.
“The belief is more and more as we use iCloud services for documents and our photos and videos and music,” he said, “that perhaps the most price-conscious customers are able to live in an environment where they don’t need gobs of local storage because these services are lightening the load.”
Schiller also said that using 16 GB storage for lower-end models allows Apple to save money for use on higher-end components in other parts of the device, like the camera.
When asked about the relationship between the thickness of a phone and battery life, and whether maintaining the thickness of its devices could lead to more power-efficient internals and bigger batteries, Schiller said that Apple has the right balance with its devices. He points out that a device with a larger battery and thickness becomes heavier and takes longer to charge. Schiller notes that Apple tries to figure out the tradeoffs with every device it makes, and he thinks the company has made “great choices” in those tradeoffs.
The Apple SVP also acknowledged that the new MacBook, with its one USB-C port and new keyboard, isn’t for everyone. However, he said he believes that Apple is a company that needs to release forward-thinking products like the new MacBook, which is an effort to push the world into a place where users don’t plug things into their laptops. Schiller said he wants an Apple that’s “bold and taking risks and being aggressive.”
Apple has faced criticism for its “bold decisions” in the past, with users unsure of whether a 16 GB device is enough for a daily driver, concern about whether new devices will have improved battery life with thinner designs and products with new technology that come with heavy initial limitations.
While the episode has not yet debuted online yet, it should be available on Daring Fireball in due time.
AT&T Address Book enhancement update hitting LG G4 devices, don’t panic
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The web is all a flutter about an update that is landing on LG G4 devices on AT&T’s network. The update is a minor one, coming in at 26.5MB’s, and actually was released on June 5th, which was the official launch date for the device. Being that updates don’t always hit devices immediately, it isn’t much of a surprise that it is just now starting to grace consumers devices. Unfortunately the update isn’t anything that is all that concerning. AT&T’s software update page for the LG G4 tells the story as it being an AT&T Address Book enhancement update.
The AT&T Address Book is AT&T’s app, of sorts, to back up and sync your contacts with the carrier. It makes it easy to retrieve your contacts if you are bouncing between various devices that sport different operating systems. It is also useful for those newer to Android who have saved their contacts to their device rather than their Gmail account. Similar situation for users coming from feature phones to smartphone. Believe me, it happens more than we all might think. AT&T bundles the app with the OS build since it is more of a service than an app, and runs the first time you try to get to your contacts. Hence the need to manually push an OTA to the device. While a bit archaic in the current era, it is still how some things get done. Hopefully they can migrate it out as an app and put it in the Play Store soon to help avoid this confusion in the future.
Via: AT&T
The post AT&T Address Book enhancement update hitting LG G4 devices, don’t panic appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Noodlecake Games to launch ‘Brickies’ on June 11th; It’s like classic Brick Breaker, but flat and crazy
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Noodlecake Games, the studio behind some of my favorite titles like Super Stickman Golf 2, The Blockheads, Ready Steady Bang and League of Evil, will be bringing another title to Android that is sure to kill plenty hours in your day. The new title is called Brickies, and while not entirely new, is new to Android. Yes, those iOS users have had it available since May 21st, but we aren’t all that far behind them this time around. Brickies takes a chapter out of many gamers pasts with an approach to Brick Breaker and flattens it out, makes it colorful and gives you some double paddle action to complicate life.
Brickies will bring along over 100 crazy levels packed with stackable power-ups, boss fights, special hidden levels packed into two game modes. In the traditional game ode you progress through the levels one after another, each getting harder than the last. Noodlecake didn’t build in any silly life bars or the need to pay-to-play functions to the title. You are free to try your level over and over again until you succeed. It isn’t always easy though as the levels are timed. You can get some additional time added to the tough ones by watching a video ad if you would like. The second game mode is an endless barrage of fun. They did take out the time increase ability to keep the leader boards free from video watching addicts though. Check out the demo video of Brickies in action, I think you will want to get our hands on it. (Note, it launched on iOS May 21st, hence the video title)
Oh, did I mention that you can’t lose your ball? Yeah, if you miss hitting the ball with either paddle the ball keeps going. That doesn’t mean you can just let loose and walk away though. The levels I have played clearly make the ball a bit useless as it won’t break any of the Brickies until you hit it with the paddle again.
Be on the lookout for Brickies to launch as a free-to-play ad-supported title on June 11th in the Play Store. The tentative link is below.
The post Noodlecake Games to launch ‘Brickies’ on June 11th; It’s like classic Brick Breaker, but flat and crazy appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
NASA tests a quicker way to predict destructive solar storms
Solar geomagnetic storms could sometimes cause telecommunication disruptions and power outages — problem is, we can only predict if they’re destructive 30 to 60 minutes before they arrive. Now, galactic weatherman NASA Goddard scientist Neel Savani has started testing a new forecast model that will allow the agency to warn utility or telecommunication companies 24 hours beforehand. The agency says these damaging storms are caused by coronal mass ejections (CME), or massive bursts of gas and materials from the sun, which are aligned in the opposite direction of the Earth’s magnetic field. We unfortunately don’t have the tools to figure out a CME’s configuration until it’s close enough to the planet.
Once Savani figured out that previous models assumed CMEs come only from the most active spot on the sun, he was able to solve the issue and include other spots that also burp out solar materials into his measurements. He can now use those measurements to predict what a CME’s configuration is with help from coronographs taken by the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO. Those coronographs show how the CME moves as it makes its way to Earth. The model can also tell “which parts of the CME will have magnetic fields pointed in which direction,” according to NASA.
Savani has tested the model on eight CMEs, thus far, and will continue testing it on more to ensure it’s truly accurate. He plans to build an easy-to-use application after those tests, which will make the process a lot quicker. If successful, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) can use it coupled with the DSCOVR satellite, which has just reached orbit, to keep a close eye on space and solar weather.
Filed under: Science
Source: NASA
Android Lollipop update for 1st gen Moto X coming in the next few weeks
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Are you a 1st gen Moto X owner and feeling a bit left out in the cold? Well, your feeling of abandonment is about to come to an end after Motorola‘s David Schuster has confirmed that soak tests for the Android Lollipop update for 1st gen Moto X has started in various places this week. Schuster mentions that soak tests in France and Germany have already commenced this week and tests in the US and Brazil will start in a matter of days. The post goes on to say that the update itself will start rolling out a few after the soak tests are complete – assuming everything goes to plan.
Of course, if you have a carrier variant of the Moto X 2013, you’ll want to keep your excitement in check, because as always you’ll be at the mercy of your carrier. Still, it’s exciting to know that the update is inbound and that 1st gen Moto X’s could soon be rocking Google’s latest and greatest.
What do you think about the Android Lollipop update for 1st gen Moto X dropping soon? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Google+ via Droid-life
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