Report: The Galaxy Note 5 will not have an auto-eject stylus
About a month ago, we published a piece reminding everyone not to get their hearts too set on any given leak or rumor. After all, sometimes even the most notorious of sources can be wrong. For some weeks now, the tech world has been inundated with talk that Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Note 5 will make use of the “auto eject” patent its maker was granted earlier this year. New reports from Korean media, however, suggest otherwise.
According to anonymous sources that spoke with Korean media outlet DDaily, there are three pieces of pertinent news:
1. The Note 5 will employ the same stylus-removal method that has been used in the past 4 models.
2. The Note 5 will have a sealed back and thus a non user-removable battery.
3. The Note 5 will also retain the same design of the S6: glass, sandwiched by an aluminum frame.
Obviously the stylus issue doesn’t stand to affect as many users should it pan out to be true, but there was some excitement in the idea that Samsung would waste no time in making use of its new patent protection.
Samsung is expected to launch the Galaxy Note 5 at an unprecedented early date, August 13th, due to pressure from Apple’s upcoming iPhone 6s offerings. The device was originally expected to be launching in September, a period which is prime PR time for Cupertino’s annual smartphone extravaganza.
The Galaxy Note 5 has also been widely viewed as a highly decisive, polarizing product based on reports it will forgo the user replaceable battery and microSD support in favor of the same design as seen in the Galaxy S6. One claim however, about the the Sprint variant, suggests at least its offering will still include microSD. Indeed we suggested as much; carriers can make Samsung bend to their will.
The Galaxy Note 5 is expected to have a 5.6-inch Super AMOLED display, an Exynos or Snapdragon SoC (possibly an Exynos 7420 or Snapdragon 808), 3GB of RAM, 32/64/128GB on-board storage option, a 16-megapixel rear camera with 3840×2160 resolution video capabilities, a 5 megapixel front facing camera, and Android 5.1.
It is purported to be launching along side of the Galaxy S6 Edge+ Samsung’s clear attempt to counter Apple’s iPhone 6S Plus, along with the first circular smartwatch, the Gear A (previously referred to as Project Orbis).
A look at PowerVR’s Ray Tracing GR6500 GPU
Last week, Imagination Technologies announced that its GR6500 ray tracing GPU taped out on a test chip, a major milestone on its way into a mobile product. The GR6500 is unique, as this is Imagination’s first ray tracing GPU based on its latest PowerVR Wizard architecture. A series of articles released this week explain exactly what’s behind this technology, so let’s delve into the key points.
Ray tracing, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a method of modelling lighting in a virtual 3D space, which aims to closely mimic the actual physics of light. The method is in the name, the technique “traces” the path of light rays through the 3D space to simulate the effects of its encounters with virtual objects and collects this data for the pixels displayed on screen. It can produce highly realistic looking lighting, shadows, reflection and refraction effects, and is sometimes used in 3D animated movies.
As you can probably imagine, there can be a ton of different light sources to calculate using this method, and figuring them all about is extremely computationally and memory expensive, so games developers opt for cheaper simulations like rasterized rendering. However, you can severely cut down on ray tracing processing time by using dedicated hardware, which is what Imagination Technologies has done with its PowerVR Wizard GPU.
The GR6500 features a dedicated Ray Tracing Unit (RTU), which calculates and keeps track of all the data. As for what the RTU actually does, it first creates a database representation of the 3D space and tracks where the rays intersect with the geometry.
“We approached the problem differently. While others in the industry were focused on solving ray tracing using GPU compute, we came up with a new approach leveraging on our prior expertise in rasterized graphics”– Luke Peterson, Imagination’s director of research for PowerVR Ray Tracing
When running the shader for each pixel, the RTU searches the databased to find the closest intersecting triangle in order to figure out the color of the pixel. This process can also cast additional rays to simulate reflective properties, which in turn will affect the color of other pixels. Keeping track of the secondary rays is hugely important too and it’s all kept in the RTU to improve performance.
Ok, so what does this actually mean in terms of performance, graphics and games?
Ultimately, reaching closer to photorealistic graphics is the aim of the game, but this can take a number of forms, from accurate reflections to lighting and shadows. Compared with GPU compute or software based ray tracing approaches, the use of dedicated hardware makes the GR6500 up to 100 times more efficient. Hence why traditional GPUs depend on different approaches. This huge reduction in processing costs opens up new avenues for optimized ray tracing based graphics effects in mobile titles.
Imagination Technologies gives an example comparison of ray traced vs traditional cascaded shadow maps. You can read all about the technical details in the official blog post, but the short of it is that the ray tracing and penumbra simulation method produces much more accurate shadows than the rougher approximation technique of cascaded shadow maps. This is essentially because of the way ray tracing simulates light passages accurately regardless of the distance, while shadow mapping is limited to a more finite resolution and distance scaling to maintain performance.
Furthermore, using the hardware based technique reduces memory traffic compared with cascaded shadows. In one test, a single scene used up 233MB of memory for cascaded shadows compared with 164MB for ray tracing. Subtract the “G Buffer” setup cost of the scene and ray tracing can result in a 50 percent reduction in memory traffic. Given that memory bandwidth is a limiting factor in mobile GPUs, especially when compared with desktop GPUs, this reduction can give quite a nice boost to performance as well.
In terms of frame time, Imagination Technologies’ example shows an average reduction of close to 50 percent. So not only do ray traced shadows look better, but they can also be implemented with a higher frame rate than cascaded shadows, thanks to the use of dedicated hardware.
There is one point worth noting though and that is that it’s up to developers to implement these type of effects in their games. With only a small selection of compatible hardware heading to the market any time soon, we probably won’t see the benefits for a while yet.
However, someone has to take the first step, and Imagination Technologies GR6500 GPU may be the starting point for some much more visually impressive mobile graphics a little way down the line.
Meerkat adds support for streaming GoPro video
Live video streaming app Meerkat announced they are bringing the ability to stream video from a GoPro directly to the Meerkat service. The move is the latest step for Meerkat as they are in a heated competition with Periscope, from Twitter, in the live-streaming video app space. The update was announced at the VidCon online video convention.
Initially Meerkat is only making the new feature available for the iOS app, but support for the Android version should be following soon if Meerkat wants to tap into the larger market for live video streaming. The other limitation for the initial release will be the GoPro cameras supported. For now, Meerkat will only support the GoPro 3 with support for the GoPro 4 promised for the next update.
Meerkat has been steadily adding new features since it was released in an effort to stave off Periscope. Along with this latest move to add support for GoPro cameras, Meerkat has added support for Facebook, “mobbing” which adds a video to Meerkat’s syndicated feed once it reaches a certain number of views, and Cameo to encourage collaboration between users.
You can now stream from @GoPro!! 🏄🏂🚵 Video by @SaundersCB #ShakeIt https://t.co/pFRCojK5la
— Meerkat (@AppMeerkat) July 24, 2015
source: Meerkat (Twitter)
via: CNET
Come comment on this article: Meerkat adds support for streaming GoPro video
‘Half-Life’ barely runs on a smartwatch
We were getting a little tired of playing Doom on every household appliance known to man, office printers and even inside the game itself. That’s why it’s a nice change to see that it’s now possible to play Half-Life on your Android smartwatch, thanks to software modder extraordinaire Dave Bennett. He’s been able to squeeze SDLash3D, an open-source emulator for some of Valve’s early titles, onto the LG’s first generation G Watch. Unfortunately, playing the title from your wrist is problematic, since the frame rate can dip down pretty low and the small screen doesn’t leave you a lot of room to use the soft controls. Still, anything’s better than having to bum around Knee-Deep in the Dead for the millionth time when we’re bored on a bus.
Filed under: Gaming, Wearables, Software
Via: Kotaku
Source: Dave Bennett
Ubuntu Phone review: a light-year away from being consumer-ready
The smartphone arena is dominated by two operating systems. Gartner’s latest figures show that during the first three months of 2015, iOS and Android devices accounted for almost 97 percent of global smartphone sales. With established alternatives from Microsoft and BlackBerry already fighting for the leftovers, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of opportunity for new players. Canonical, maker of the popular Linux distro Ubuntu, is taking on the challenge regardless. With a version of Ubuntu built specifically for mobile, it’s hoping to shake up the current duopoly with a fresh approach to content consumption. That’s the plan, anyway, but after spending some time getting to know the OS, it’s clear Canonical has a lot of work to do if Ubuntu Phone is ever going to be a viable option for even casual smartphone users.
Ubuntu Phone is still very much under development. As such, we’ve decided not to assign a score to this review since it only represents a snapshot in time.
A brief history
Canonical’s desire to put Ubuntu on smartphones was revealed several years ago, but originally, the company was toying with shoehorning the OS onto Android handsets. It wasn’t intended to be used on the phone itself; rather, Ubuntu lay dormant on the device, with the full desktop version only coming to life when the Android phone was hooked up to a monitor via a docking station.
Nearly a year after Ubuntu for Android was announced, Canonical debuted the first build of its OS designed to actually run on smartphones. A few months later, a crowdfunding campaign for the first Ubuntu handset was launched. The Ubuntu Edge promised to be a high-end device that ran both Android and Ubuntu Phone, as well as offer the full desktop experience when docked. The campaign ended $19 million shy of its ambitious $32 million target, and Canonical scrapped plans for the extravagant device to quietly focus on the Ubuntu Phone experience.
In October 2013, the first stable build of Ubuntu for smartphones (version 13.10) was released with support for Google’s Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4. The following year was a relatively slow one. While developers and advanced tinkerers were poking around subsequent iterations of the OS on repurposed phones, Canonical announced its first hardware partners, and quietly killed off the Ubuntu for Android project. It wasn’t until early this year, though, that the first dedicated Ubuntu phone was released. Which brings us to right now, with me sitting here holding a BQ Aquaris E4.5 running Ubuntu 15.04.
The user interface
The lock screen
Let’s start at the beginning. Press the power button and up pops the Ubuntu lock screen. At first glance, there’s nothing of particular note here; just the time, the date and a circular dial with little dots just within its border. It’s not immediately obvious, but each of these dots denotes a day of the current month. The blocked-out dots are days passed; the hollow dots signify those still to come; and the focal dot is today. Within the dial, it tells you how many text messages you’ve received that day, but double-tap it and the information it displays will change. It’ll tell you how many songs you’ve listened to, for instance, or how many pictures you’ve taken.
The different stats are also displayed in visual form, with colored bubbles that sit behind the dots. The larger the bubble, the higher the level of activity on that particular day. You may have five consecutive days — a working week, say — where you didn’t take a single picture. Behind those dots, you won’t see a circle. But, if you went to a party over the weekend and were a bit snap-happy, the bubble for that day would be large, since your camera activity was relatively high.
It’s an interesting way to show your mobile usage for the month, but it’s not much more than a novelty. Since you can’t really do or learn anything from this info, it feels more like an exercise in graphical data representation, rather than a useful feature. By the way, you can turn this feature off if you’d rather your mobile activity wasn’t accessible on the lock screen.
Swipe the lock screen away and you get to the passcode/passphrase entry screen, should you have one set, and then you’re in.
The status bar
Before I talk about Ubuntu proper, a quick note on the status bar. It’s one of only a few things that will be familiar to every smartphone user, and it sits at the top of the screen showing the time, battery life, WiFi status: that kind of stuff. As you’d expect, you drag this down to view notifications and various quick settings, all arranged along a horizontal bar.
For some reason, the notification icon in the status bar is permanent, though it turns from dull gray to bright green when something new comes in. There are a couple of other quirks to this status bar. Plant your thumb right over the network status indicator, swipe down and the drawer will descend with that quick-settings menu selected. The same goes for notifications, Bluetooth status, time, and anything else that has its own little icon. Also, as you pull the drawer down, you can scroll through the different options by sliding your thumb toward either side of the screen, which is pretty neat.
The pull-down has a major flaw, however, in that it’s accessible at any time, even on the lock screen. It doesn’t matter if you have a passcode set; anyone can pick up the device, check your unread notifications and change any of the quick settings without having access to the phone. Not ideal if you are security-/privacy-conscious.
Scopes
When you unlock an iOS device, you get a simple grid of apps. On Android, you typically get the home screen carousel (depending on manufacturer customizations), which you can fill with app shortcuts and widgets. Unlock an Ubuntu phone, and you get “Scopes,” which define the user interface. Scopes are cards filled with content pulled from various sources. Take the “Today” card, for example, which is the default home screen. It shows today’s date with sunrise and sunset times, weather reports for the next couple of days, a note of the next public holiday, what events are in your calendar for the day, your recent call history and what’s trending on Twitter. That’s how I have mine set up anyway, but Scopes are, to a certain extent, customizable. If I had a FitBit activity tracker, for example, I could include data from that in the Today Scope, and if I used Telegram, I could see recent messages I’d received through that service.
There are several multi-purpose Scopes. In the “NearBy” card, you tell the phone your current mood: bored, hungry, thirsty, stressed, etc. If you’re hungry, the Scope will pull nearby restaurant info from Yelp. Tell it you’re bored, and the scope will suggest nearby landmarks (also sourced from Yelp), show Flickr images taken close to your location, display relevant Wikipedia articles and suggest upcoming concerts (courtesy of Songkick). The “Music” Scope shows on-device tracks, what’s new on 7digital, popular tunes on SoundCloud, concert tickets available on Songkick and what’s hot on YouTube. The “News” Scope gives you the latest headlines from popular sources, and the “Video” Scope shows on-device clips, as well as featured videos on YouTube and Vimeo. There are also more mundane Scopes, like one that only shows your recent call history. Even the app menu is a Scope. All of them include a discovery feature that lets you search the content within. The idea is you get curated results, not a search-engine dump littered with irrelevant material.
As I mentioned, Scopes are customizable. You can choose how many cards you have in the deck, what order they’re arranged in and what sources they pull from. Not interested in live music? Well, you can hide Songkick listings from any Scope in which they appear. Don’t care about business news? That’s fine, you can simply take Yahoo Finance updates out of the News Scope. Multi-purpose Scopes are integral to the Ubuntu interface, but there are several dedicated to individual sources. There’s quite a lot of overlap with these, though. A dedicated BBC News Scope doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when you can include the BBC in your main News feed. Nor does the “My Photos” Scope, when on-device images appear in the main “Photos” Scope anyway.
Scopes are a major departure from the isolated, app-based user experience. Canonical didn’t see any point in building another app ecosystem, since it doesn’t believe there’s any incentive for people to switch to Ubuntu if it was just the same as every other OS. It wanted to do something different, putting content and services first. The idea is the user has access to all the content they want directly within the Scopes interface, and doesn’t need to jump in and out of individual apps to get at it. And to a certain extent, Scopes achieves that goal.
The best way I can describe it is that Scopes blur the line between apps and widgets. The dedicated Amazon Scope, for example, is almost like an app in its own right, but you can only go so far before you’re sent to Amazon’s mobile site to, say, complete a purchase. Scopes surface just some of the content available on various services, but they aren’t as feature-rich as dedicated apps. Many Scopes have multiple levels, though. Tapping on the YouTube section of the “Video” Scope, for example, will take you to the dedicated YouTube Scope (even if this isn’t part of your home screen deck). Most major services have these secondary levels of interactivity, but inevitably you end up in a web app or, worse, looking at a mobile website.
I get the idea of Scopes, kind of. They are supposed to give the user a personal experience, remove their reliance on walled apps and bring content to the forefront. I just don’t think Scopes deliver, or maybe I’m just so used to the app-first experience that I’m having trouble adapting to the Scope way of doing things. And if that’s the case, then most people will be in the same boat. My main problem with Scopes is that I feel I’m being bombarded with content. If I want to check out upcoming concerts on an iOS/Android device, I’d load up the Songkick app. But when that’s not what I’m looking for, I don’t really want to see Songkick listings permanently displayed on my phone, like I’m being advertised to. You could argue the solution is to remove the Songkick feed from the Scopes it populates. But, if I was constantly adding and removing sources from Scopes when they are or aren’t relevant, I don’t see how that’s preferable to having dedicated apps that offer a better experience.
Sure, having so much information available at a glance sounds great, but I spend more time thumbing through Scopes looking for what I want than I do hopping in and out of apps on Android/iOS devices (where I know the relevant information/functionality is). Multi-purpose Scopes feel cluttered, almost like I have several apps running in parallel on the same screen. I doubt the widget-like user interface will work for the majority of people, especially with the limited amount of sources currently available.
Furthermore, Scopes are intensely boring. The multi-purpose Scopes, particularly, are basically white and gray cards with lists of information and the odd visual identifier, like an album cover. Even dedicated Scopes that allow for a bit more color and branding are like spreadsheets for content, and a far cry from the feature-rich and visually pleasing apps on major smartphone platforms. I can’t have a custom background; I can’t really alter the layout of Ubuntu to any great degree. All I can do is change the order of Scopes and what information is displayed on these dull cards. Ironically, Canonical has developed Ubuntu with the personal experience in mind, but apart from what content is being pumped at me, I can’t actually personalize a thing.
The user experience
Navigation
Getting around Ubuntu Phone relies heavily on swiping gestures. As I’ve already mentioned, swiping down from the top bezel expands the status bar for notifications/quick settings. As for the other bezels, dragging up from below the screen brings up contextual menus within apps and Scopes — you can see what other tabs you have open in the browser with this gesture, for example. Both the left and right bezels have multiple functions. Swiping in from the left bezel brings up a vertical app tray that’s populated with your core services, like the dialer, contacts app, gallery and camera. Any recently used app will also show up in this tray, and an Ubuntu button always sits at the bottom of it, waiting to take you back to your home screen Scope. Annoyingly, this vertical app tray persists over the lock screen. You can’t access anything from this menu without unlocking the handset, though, so it’s not as broken as the notification/quick settings drawer.
Swiping in from the left doesn’t just bring up these icons; it also sends any app currently running to the background, and returns you to your home screen Scope. Swiping in from the right bezel lets you jump straight into the last used app. Exaggerate this gesture, though, and instead you’re sent into the multitasking menu. This shows you everything that’s running in the background in a 3D carousel, which has a pleasant accordion effect as you move through it. Like other operating systems, you swipe apps off-screen to close them.
I don’t have any problem with these swiping gestures per se, but the left and right bezel commands are way too sensitive. If your thumb strays anywhere near either bezel, you’re bound to execute a gesture when you didn’t mean to. This happens extremely often, because most of the time you’re swiping left and right, going back and forth between Scopes. That’s what you’re trying to do, anyway, but chances are you end up in the multitasking menu all of a sudden, or close an app unintentionally. This can be really disorienting, and when you’ve got 10 Scopes in your deck, you’ll be lucky to make it through all of them before an errant gesture ruins your plan.
This means you have to be overly vigilant with your swipes, and limit your thumb to a safe section in the middle of the screen when going between Scopes — which isn’t easy on a 4.5-inch display. But moving through your Scope deck presents its own issue. If even the slightest bit of vertical movement is detected, Ubuntu assumes you want to scroll down that Scope, so it becomes anchored in place. To get to the next Scope, you have to try again and hope you can pull off the perfect horizontal swipe. Combined with the bezel-sensitivity problem, it makes navigating Ubuntu a bit of a chore, and it needs a ton of refinement before it can be called user-friendly.
Forever loading
There are a handful of positive things to say about the general user experience. The 3D multitasking panel and notification/quick-settings drawer are really slick, for instance. A minor point, but the main settings menu is also refreshingly simple and well-designed. Within this menu, there’s also a handy search field that lets you track down specific settings without going into each subcategory.
That’s about where the praise ends, though, because everything else about Ubuntu Phone is often slow and clunky in comparison. Even simple, core apps like the dialer and contacts list take several seconds to load up. I’d expect the Aquaris E4.5’s 1.3GHz quad-core processor to be able to handle these basic requests with ease, but on several occasions, I’ve had to wait upward of 10 seconds for something as straightforward as the calculator to load. Even the app drawer can take a few seconds to populate.
I’m convinced the reason Ubuntu Phone is on the slow side is because it’s so data-intensive. The constantly refreshing nature of Scopes means the phone tends to hang while they update. It freezes; it doesn’t register swipes; and it takes a relative age to get anything done. When your Scopes are up to date, the phone settles down into a usable state. But, if you leave it untouched for half an hour and then pick it up again, you may find yourself back at square one. It can be infuriating, and I’ve spent more time waiting on Ubuntu to complete its perpetual to-do list than I care to admit.
Recently, a more powerful Ubuntu phone has become available that might offer an improved experience to the Aquaris E4.5, but since the most graphically intensive features of Ubuntu run fine on my handset, I don’t imagine a faster processor is going to address the data issue to any great degree.
Ubuntu Phone just isn’t very polished, either, and you’re met with frustration at every turn. Gmail push notifications, for example, simply don’t show up the majority of the time. I can’t integrate my Instagram account with the relevant Scopes, even though the authorization process appears to complete successfully. Additionally, location services don’t work on my handset, which makes the NearBy Scope redundant. These are a few examples of major failings of the user experience, but there are plenty of minor oversights that make the OS painful to use. Text-entry fields in websites don’t center when you tap on them, meaning the on-screen keyboard pops up and hides what you’re typing. And the list goes on.
Apps, or ‘apps’
There are very few native apps available on Ubuntu Phone, with the focus being on Scopes. The dialer, calculator, media player and the like are, of course, and my handset even came with a few preinstalled games (Cut The Rope and Pathwind) that run natively. The Ubuntu browser is nice and fast, although it’s simple and doesn’t even support bookmarks at this point. The camera app is relatively basic, too, although I prefer having only a few settings to think about. When you’re shooting in landscape, however, you can’t actually get at this settings menu, since the bezel gestures override this request.
Beyond the bare necessities and a couple of games, I haven’t come across much you could call an actual app. Some of the icons in the main app menu are actually Scopes, and others are merely links to web apps.
The Ubuntu Store is where you get additional apps and Scopes, but there isn’t a whole lot available to you. In fact, I could go through each category and count up exactly how many there are in total, which tells you it’s pretty barren. Furthermore, there are plenty of “apps” that are just links to mobile websites, further confusing the definition between Scopes, native apps, web apps and hyperlinks. You don’t really know what you’re going to get. I downloaded a OneDrive “app,” made by a random developer, but all it does is send me to the OneDrive mobile site.
I don’t even use OneDrive very much, but it was one of the few things I spotted in the store with a familiar logo, which is a rarity. And that’s a problem. Name any service you use regularly, and there almost certainly isn’t a Scope or “app” for it in the Ubuntu Store. Instagram, Vine, Periscope, Meerkat, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and so on. Canonical has made sure that Gmail, Facebook and Twitter are accessible, but only via web apps, which offer graphically bland and cumbersome access to these important services. Funnily enough, I tracked down a third-party Gmail Scope that was 10 times better than the web app alternative. And someone probably threw that together in an evening.
I’m not entirely surprised by the lack of “apps” on Ubuntu, because every fledgling OS has the same chicken-and-egg problem. A limited user base means there’s little incentive for developers to work with the platform; and when popular apps are lacking, you can’t expect the user base to grow. But I also feel Canonical is trying too hard to ignore the traditional app model. In my opinion, Ubuntu is never going to be able to compete with more established operating systems if it only offers Scopes and web apps; native apps are essential to a robust user experience. Scopes can continue to offer quick access to content and services, but at the end of the chain, there needs to be an app, not a mobile website.
A work in progress
I simply couldn’t get by with the BQ Aquaris E4.5 as my primary phone for more than 24 hours. WhatsApp, for one, is absolutely essential to me, and I have to deal with far too much email to be poking around a slow web app. Even if native clients were available, I still wouldn’t want to use Ubuntu Phone anyway. The idea of Scopes, where at-a-glance content takes center stage, is somewhat novel, but I don’t feel there’s a great deal of value in it for the user. I could easily get by with one or two Scopes that show me pertinent information about my day, and then rely on apps for specific services/functionality. Placing such a heavy emphasis on volume of information means Scopes can be overwhelming, and it’s easy to get lost in the noise. With limited sources for Scopes to pull from currently, they also have a faint whiff of advertising about them. Content from the likes of YouTube, Songkick and Yelp is permanently on display, but I don’t care about nearby restaurants on a normal working day, and maybe I could find a cheaper concert ticket elsewhere. But thanks to Scopes, these services are constantly getting my attention in the absence of alternatives.
Aside from the app void and the questionable value of Scopes, Ubuntu Phone is a bit of a nightmare to use the majority of the time. Something’s often refreshing in the background, causing the phone to slow down. Apps take longer to load than they should, and even then you’re probably waiting on a web app. The gesture-based navigation is unrefined; there are bugs and glitches all over the place; and in general, many core experiences are severely lacking in polish. Despite years of development, Ubuntu Phone still feels like an early beta, and I think Canonical needs to think long and hard about the implementation of Scopes and bump native apps up the agenda. There’s nothing wrong with trying to be different, but there’s a reason Android/iOS are so popular. Ignoring the headway they’ve made in refining the mobile experience is, in my mind, setting yourself up for failure.
For all my criticism of Ubuntu Phone, I have to bear in mind it’s still a work in progress. OTA updates are being issued every month, and Canonical is relying on the current user base for feedback and ideas. There are only three phones currently on the European market that come with Ubuntu as standard, and they range from €170 to €299 (roughly $186 to $328). Early adopters are required to seek these out online, so it’s not like Ubuntu is being promoted as a legitimate alternative to the big two. Not yet, anyway. The company tells me the end goal is to have a retail presence, but it’s under no illusion that that will be a viable option anytime soon. Canonical doesn’t just want to create another app ecosystem, but it knows that for Ubuntu to succeed, it has to have all the key apps available in one form or another.
Canonical hopes that by creating an easy development environment, it can bring more partners onto the platform to help flesh it out. Scopes, it tells me, are extremely easy to develop, and don’t require a lot of maintenance. For various screen sizes and form factors, Ubuntu will simply lay out the Scope differently, no extra development required. Canonical expects that in the future, events will have their own Scopes. A major sporting tournament, for example, could quickly build a Scope and then remove it from the Ubuntu Store when it’s no longer relevant. The company also hopes to make Scopes more interactive, so you don’t need to leave the interface to see a social media notification or post an update. Carriers and handset manufacturers are able to own the Scope experience, too. They can integrate their own services and promote them in a way that’s more visible to the user than a bloatware app would be, and switch out the default messaging client, camera app and whatever else for their preferred alternatives.
First, though, Canonical has to sell partners on the value of the platform, while also refining the user experience greatly. For now, Ubuntu Phone is just about good enough for serious enthusiasts and developers to play with, but it can in no way compete with the major mobile operating systems. And given we’re a couple of years into development already, I expected something that was at least verging on being consumer-ready. I was wrong.
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile
Beloved London arcade rescued by gamer donations after burglary
Earlier this week, the independent London arcade Heart of Gaming was burgled. Thieves took over £5,000 worth of consoles, games and accessories, leaving the owners understandably crestfallen. The arcade is best-known for its retro cabinets, but those responsible were interested in the latest hardware and software instead. Police are now investigating, but instead of dwelling on their misfortune staff have been asking the community for help. And boy, are they helping. A GoFundMe campaign looking to raise the lost £5,000 has already smashed its target after a single day. In an age where UK arcades are a rarity, it’s nice to see players banding together to help one during its time of need.
[Image Credit: Will Ireland/Edge Magazine via Getty Images]
Filed under: Gaming
Via: Motherboard
Source: GoFundMe
‘Pixels’ is somehow even worse than I thought it could be
When the first trailer for Pixels hit I was worried that the movie was going to be a “steaming pile of cinematic garbage.” Now that I’ve actually seen the Adam Sandler and Kevin James vehicle, I can say that was still far too generous a prediction; it’s actually much, much worse. Pixels‘ real villains aren’t the admittedly gorgeous renderings of giant-sized Pac-Man and Donkey Kong hell-bent on destroying Earth — they’re the toxic tropes that Hollywood keeps perpetuating.
The number of negative stereotypes Sandler and his cronies fit into the movie’s 105-minute runtime would be impressive if they weren’t so damaging. First up we have Sandler’s character Sam Brenner. He’s a self-described “loser who’s just good at old video games” — who works as an A/V installer after being beaten at the 1982 Worldwide Video Arcade Championships as a kid. Then there’s the grandma’s-basement-dwelling, socially awkward man-child, Ludlow Lamonsoff (Josh Gad). Oh, and Peter Dinklage’s Eddie Plant rocks a mullet, talks like the Kool-Aid Man (“Oh yeah!”) and asks for a threesome with Martha Stewart and Serena Williams in the White House’s Lincoln Bedroom in exchange for helping save the world.
If none of that sounds bad enough, rest assured that it gets worse. One lazy joke involves the president of the United States (Kevin James) visiting the United Kingdom’s prime minister and not being able to decipher her Britishisms. They’re English words, but they aren’t! Ignorance is funny! Get it?! At almost every turn, women are condescended to or ignored, especially Michelle Monaghan’s DARPA scientist Violet van Patten. What do they know about end-of-the-world scenarios or classic arcade games anyway, am I right, boys?
And despite Brenner treating van Patten like crap for half the movie because she rebuffed him when he tried taking advantage of her vulnerability, she falls for him at the end anyway. See, even if you totally insult a lady repeatedly, it doesn’t matter so long as you’re good at video games. Brenner also twice reminds us that he’s an amazing kisser (as all nerds are) because he appreciates it more. Sure.
This is an Adam Sandler movie so of course not even Q-bert is safe from being reduced to the butt of an excrement joke.
Oh, and how do we know that Ludlow really plays video games? He’s a chubby virgin who’s lusting after a pixel vixen, wears a T-shirt with an 8-bit Mario on it, spends time on 4chan and spouts crackpot conspiracy theories at every turn. He also takes a lot of pleasure slapping troops on the ass and calling them “little girl maggots” at one point.
Amid the insipid dialog and boring action sequences — a real-life game of Centipede set unironically to “Workin’ for the Weekend” is an early offender — there’s a lone bright spot. It’s roughly three feet tall, stands on two legs, is orange and has a trumpet’s bell for a mouth. Of course, I’m talking about Q-bert. For every game that the humans beat the aliens at, they get a trophy. One is the dog from Duck Hunt; the other is our orange pal.
Q-bert is adorable. When Brenner takes some downtime between missions and checks out The Last of Us: Remastered, he’s shocked by how violent it is. The camera cuts to Q-bert trembling and distressed watching the Sony TV screen (it’s a Sony movie, hence the free product placement). It’s okay, though, because a few minutes later the creature’s bouncing and laughing on a trampoline. In another scene, it’s wearing a tuxedo and ohmygosh it’s the cutest thing ever.
The humans and Q-bert, moments before the alien soils itself.
But this is an Adam Sandler movie so of course not even Q-bert is safe from being reduced to the butt of an excrement joke. And just when I thought the filmmakers couldn’t degrade the little bugger any further, ‘Bert sacrifices itself to become a trophy of a different kind. When the humans defeat the aliens once and for all (spoiler alert), the pixelated Paperboy, Frogger and other attackers wreaking havoc on the streets of Washington, DC, start disappearing. Even the buxom blonde — the one Ludlow has a multi-decade crush on; who inexplicably turns from pixel to flesh mid-battle and starts fighting alongside the humans — fades away.
A tearful Ludlow asks why Q-bert gets to stay and not Lady Lisa. “Q-bert is a trophy,” van Patten says. “We get to keep trophies.” That’s when the little orange alien turns itself into the platinum-coiffed object of Ludlow’s affection. His dream girl is now a trophy he owns forever. Seriously. The prologue is a shot of a crib full of little Q-berts. I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.
Pixels is in an abusive relationship with its audience from the word “go.”
And that’s the problem here: Pixels is in an abusive relationship with its audience from the word “go.” There are jokes made at the expense of modern games in an effort to win over the fans who grew up in the arcades. At the same time, classic songs familiar with that same group, like Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” are destroyed so Ludlow’s character can sing a horrific karaoke set that ends with him drunkenly humping the floor and crying. Practically every negative stereotype about video-game fans is repeated ad nauseam for more than 90 minutes.
Unlike Disney’s cute Wreck-It Ralph, Pixels isn’t using nostalgia in an attempt to charm its audience and tell a heartwarming story. No, Pixels is holding a distorted mirror up to the crowd and laughing at them instead of with them. This is what Hollywood thinks geeks are.
Filed under: Misc, Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Sony
The Watch just made Apple over $1 billion. Why hasn’t Android Wear been as successful?
As good as gold: the Apple Watch has earned its maker as much as $1,000,000,000 in the span of three months.
It’s official: Apple has a license to print money. In what may be the most unprecedented financial return ever for a new product category, the company’s quarterly guidance report has numerous analysts concluding it may have sold over $1 billion worth of Apple Watch devices in the three months the wearable has been on sale.
Despite what some might call success, the figure is ironically well below the almost $2 billion+ that some had expected, a issue that was likely fostered by supply shortages or long waits. Still, this approximated figure means the wearable earned more money than either the iPad did, or the original iPhone, when they first launched.
The earnings come at a period of absolute prosperity for Apple, which for Q1 2015 reported the most profitable financial earnings in history for a publicly traded company. More recently, The Wall Street Journal published a piece that took a deeper look into those results and found that, while Apple sells only 20% of the world’s smartphones, in Q1 2015, it managed to earn 92% of the profits.
All about Apple (and Google)
Watch out not to fall: Investors will no doubt be eager to see how the Apple Watch performs in Q3.
Apple itself is not giving specifics. The figure everyone is throwing around has been deduced from reported earnings on “Other Products” sold, and assumes there was no growth with respect to iPod, Beats, or other items. Additionally, because Apple has deliberately chosen not to provide any information about which models of the Apple Watch sold what numbers, we can only speculate. For reference, some had initially predicted the wearable would have sold 3 or 4 million units by this point.
For the sake of argument, if Apple sold nothing but Watch Sport devices (each roughly $400), that would mean approximately 2.5 million units were sold. In reality there are countless factors involved given that the device comes in two sizes (each having a slightly different price) and arguably the more desirable of the “cheaper” two versions (“Apple Watch”) does, itself, come in several different band offerings that separate the price in terms of hundreds of dollars. And then of course the Apple Watch Edition is present, for those customers which ASUS has determined must be insane.
For the sake of argument, if Apple sold nothing but Watch Sport devices, that would be approximately 2,500,000 units, far FAR more than the meager 750,000 Android Wear saw in all of 2014.
For the sake of this piece, and for the sentiment it seeks to share on the whole, it ultimately doesn’t matter how many of which model Apple sold. Any way you run the figures, Tim Cook & Co. have indisputably eclipsed the roughly 720,000 Android Wear devices that estimates say Google managed to ship in all of 2015. For reference, Android Wear launched on June 25th, which means that figure takes into account 6 months and six different products: the Samsung Gear Live, the LG G Watch, the Sony Smartwartch 3, the Motorola Moto 360, the Asus ZenWatch, and the LG G Watch R. And Samsung’s Tizen-based Gear S for reference? First day sales were just 10,000 units whereas Apple managed to net over 1,000,000 for its Watch on the first day of pre-orders, a number that didn’t even take into account non-US based figures.
Android Wear
.rvs_wrapper
width: 350px;
.rvs_wrapper.align_left
float: left;
.rvs_wrapper.align_right
float: right;
.rvs_wrapper.align_center,
.rvs_wrapper.align_none
width: 100%;
.rvs_wrapper.align_center
text-align: center;
.rvs_wrapper.align_center.cbc-latest-videos ul li
float: none;
display: inline-block;
vertical-align: top;
.rvs_wrapper.cbc-latest-videos:not(.align_none) ul li:nth-child(2n+1)
clear: both;
.rvs_title
font-weight: 600 !important;
margin: 0 !important;
font-size: 24px !important;
.rvs_wrapper.align_right .rvs_title
padding-left: 20px;
.rvs_title a
font-family: ‘Roboto Condensed’;
color: #3a3a3a;
.rvs_wrapper.cbc-latest-videos ul
padding-top: 10px;
.rvs_wrapper.align_left.cbc-latest-videos ul li,
.rvs_wrapper.align_none.cbc-latest-videos ul li
padding: 0 15px 0 0;
.rvs_wrapper.align_right.cbc-latest-videos ul li
padding: 0 0 0 15px;
float: right;
.rvs_wrapper.align_center.cbc-latest-videos ul li
padding: 0 7px;
.rvs_wrapper.cbc-latest-videos ul li > a
font-weight: 400;
.rvs_wrapper.cbc-latest-videos ul li > a .yt-thumbnail
margin-bottom: 0;
@media only screen and (min-width : 480px)
body #page .rvs_wrapper.cbc-latest-videos ul
width: 100% !important;
@media only screen and (max-width : 480px)
body #page .rvs_wrapper.cbc-latest-videos
width: 100%;
float: none !important;
overflow-x: auto;
overflow-y: hidden;
body #page .rvs_wrapper.cbc-latest-videos ul
overflow: auto;
max-height: none;
body .rvs_wrapper.cbc-latest-videos ul li
float: left !important;
clear: none !important;
Apple’s offensive
The Apple Watch represents Tim Cook’s first big initiative, and he must be quite happy that it has proven successful.
To understand why the Apple Watch has been seemingly so successful, naturally it has less to do with the product itself than it does the lifestyle it represents. To understand the sentiment, one need only to look at the endless number of professional reviews of the Apple Watch, very few of which were actually glowing or implying the device – as it stands today – is somehow going to change one’s existence. Even with a novel user interface and creative use of the “digital crown” to achieve zoom functionality, there is very little the Apple Watch does that existing Android-compatible products didn’t already offer. Granted as more apps become available this has the potential to change, as it does with software updates, but looking at even Samsung’s Tizen-based Gear S, it has several novel features that are impossible on the Apple Watch, the most obvious being SIM card support.
Apple sold its Watch in no small part because its user base responds well to marketing, to cachet, to social factors, and to image. As is often argued, Apple customers tend to have more money, or are willing to spend more of it, hence the large profits the company enjoys and greater app-generated revenue than Google’s Android. These customers are more likely to want to show off their new trinket, and more likely to want it to begin with even if they don’t know how or why they would use it. Apple is, in a sense, “cool”, and most everyone wants to be cool. Apple esentially found a way to get people to buy a time piece for wrist, even when their phone already serves the same purpose.
Google’s main problem is… Google
Unfortunately Android Wear is nowhere near as “sweet” on open source as its big brother (seen here, with Lollipop in hand).
Indeed the problem here, if one exists, is really one of Google’s subdued, almost apathetic consideration of the wearable market as a whole. Given how much brouhaha was made about Glass when it was first announced, it’s all the more surprising, though it’s also likely the ultimate fate of the expensive wearable also served as a wake up call: general consumer interest is hardly present at best, and even among the more tech-oriented price is still a factor for a product that is still “unfinished.” These days, talk of its successor refer to a product that will have a much more niche, much more focused use rather than the mainstream consumer device that was once envisioned.
When Android first stepped into the market, arguably the biggest need Google had was getting vendors and OEMs alike to accept the fledgling OS while the world was smitten with a certain Cupertino-cropped crop. Android has certainly taken off, but the same can not be said about Android Wear, a platform that has seen substantial improvements in the year since its release, yet severely lacks the momentum and attention that Apple has garnished. Google has, in a sense, failed to “sell” the idea that consumers need to wear a watch to complete their lives whereas Apple has.
There are many reasons for such a conundrum, though arguably decisions to lock down the wearable OS in a manner (and fashion) that couldn’t be further from the mainstay Android device ecosystem is certainly at the top of the list.
Instead of allowing for choice and creativity, Google has opted for a divisive strategy not unlike that which Microsoft attempted with Windows Phone 7. WP7 phones were unable to include things such as fast CPUs, or even large or high resolution displays, a feature that wasn’t added until Windows Phone 8 Update 3. One of the core mistakes Microsoft eventually realized was that it couldn’t keep up the charade, and one need only look at the non-existent line-up of Windows Phone 10 launch devices to see what’s become of this sordid situation.
The man with the iron fist
Regardless of how many people actually want the extra features, products like the LG Watch Urbane LTE (seen here) or the Samsung Gear S have key functions that Android Wear can never hope to compete with as it currently exists today.
Perhaps the largest reason Android Wear has truly failed to excite or take off with the mainstream is due to the way Google has exerted complete control over its functionality and form. No cameras. No cellular modems. No modifications. You can literally buy any random Android Wear product and be met with the same experience across the board.
What’s the end result then? Maybe one has a few extra watch faces. That’s about the limit to which OEMs can “work their magic” and instead are confronted with making the most out of the outside. First we had square faces, now round is sound. But just how different does the Huawei Watch actually look from the LG Watch Urbane? There are only so many ways you can make a watch, and due to the way Google has stymied development the choices are even fewer.
The point really hits home when taking a look at just why it is customers needs are better met when there are choices. If someone wants a smartphone with a great camera, Sony is usually mentioned among the top choices. If someone wants a smartphone with a beautiful, vibrant display, Samsung is usually the first choice. If someone wants a low price, perhaps Huawei or ZTE. With the sheer diversity among Android devices, there is truly something for everyone. With Android Wear however, there is not.
Variety is the zest that’s missing
ASUS is quick to diagnose insanity yet can’t see the “madness” in Android Wear’s current condition.
Those customers who want to make calls on their wrist a la Dick Tracy must run to Samsung. People who want a robust fitness experience might look to Fitbit. And what about design; time pieces are all about design, and what then, for those customers on Android who do have cash to burn, and who would be willing to pay “Apple Watch money”? Well at the moment, they are flat out of luck. This is truly bizarre when considering just how outlandish some of the Android devices of the past have been: Google the company that once encouraged thinking outside the box is now living in it?
With the sheer diversity among Android devices, there is truly something for everyone. With Android Wear however, there is not.
It makes sense why a company like Samsung has made dedicated efforts to provide Gear wearables that offer experiences which can not be had with Android Wear. Take the Gear Fit, which has a curved, rectangular display. Doesn’t meet Google’s requirements. What about the Gear S which has an embedded cellular antenna for voice calls? No go for Android Wear. And what of its upcoming Gear A, once known as “Project Orbis“? It’s allegedly going to use a ring-based navigational system and that is definitely not kosher with Google.
Still, trouble is abound when you look around: to date Samsung has six different Gear Watches, only one of which uses Android Wear. LG has three that support it, but has already released the Urbane LTE which runs WebOS instead, and has far more form and functionality with three working hard buttons on the side and an embedded cellular radio. Perhaps most importantly, it doesn’t require formatting the device to pair it with another phone. Are these devices making a killing? Obviously not, but they indicate their respective OEMs are willing to make concerted efforts to break out of Google’s shadow.
Price competition
Another issue to consider is that of Android at-large, namely the lack of profitability for basically anyone but Samsung and Google itself:
Last week’s report by The Wall Street Journal pointed out just how profitable Apple is, and how irrelevant 99% of Android OEMs are when it comes to profits.
As mentioned earlier in this piece, and as covered last week, Apple is the undisputed winner when it comes to earning money. Despite selling just 20% of the world’s smartphones in Q1 of this year, it managed to capture 92% of the profits. Samsung, in turn, the largest Android OEM, had but 15% (because the research takes losses into account, the total of the shares is higher than 100%).
Of course, there is a company who is making cash hand-over-fist with Android: Google. Every single one of the billions of Android products in the market that have access to Google Play Services means that Google earns money from ad revenue and data mining framework. Of course Android OEMs are keen on using the OS because it alleviates them from having to create their own mobile OS and fuss around with developers and support. Samsung is no stranger to this problem, as can be readily seen with the trials and tribulations associated with its Tizen platform.
At the end of the day, this lack of profits means potentially less resources to actually develop and release Android Wear devices. HTC for example, has been having financial troubles off-and-on for years now, and the fact that budget-friendly products are selling so well means it will continue to in the future. If said company is having enough trouble as is selling flagships like the One M9, where is it supposed to find the cash to spare on a wrist-worn-wearable? The sheer amount of money needed for a project like this, even on a small budget, is immense: the R&D costs, the labor costs, the manufacturing costs, the marketing costs… when dealing with products that are aimed at developed countries and markets where you have Apple or Samsung to contend with, it’s just not possible to go small, you just don’t go at all.
Fragmentation, perhaps in part
To an extent, the tired-and-true claim of fragmentation can be addressed, though the true nature of its fostering this situation is arguably a small one at best. Android Wear is only compatible with Jelly Bean 4.3 and up, and unfortunately there is still a large minority of the population that is unable to use it, even if they wanted to. Consider the following:
As added emphasis, consider this as well:
Android Jelly Bean (4.3) launched on July 24, 2013 and it – or any build released after – is required for Android Wear compatibility. As the first visual mentions, at the time of the wearable platform’s launch on June 25, 2014, “only 24% of Android devices were compatible”. This is a major limiting factor, especially when compared to the 50% of iOS phones that were compatible a week before Apple Watch hit stores.
The second visual would serve to indicate Jelly Bean itself is running on almost half of all Android smartphones, but with respect to Android Wear the situation is more complicated. Jelly Bean was the name given to three different builds: 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3, and as the first visual indicates, 33.7% of JB’s 39.2% share is not compatible. When you combine this with percentages running even earlier versions of Android, you arrive at 45%. Of the billions of devices running Android in the world today, 45% of them can not, and arguably will never be able to, run Android Wear. In the case of Gingerbread in particular, it has been almost half a decade since the OS became outdated yet lo and behold 5.7% of the world is still using it.
While it is easy to argue that customers who want wearables would be the same ones who have the latest-and-greatest devices at all times, this is not necessarily the case. Consider the situation with the LG G Flex and Japan, for example, wherein the one carrier that sold it, KDDI au, utterly failed to update the device past Android 4.2 despite LG itself having long since made 4.4 KitKat available for the model elsewhere. Thus for anyone who bought this phone, which released about less than 18 months ago, they are squat out of luck. Consider this situation on a global scale and it becomes quite clear just why so many devices are still running pre-4.3 builds of Android.
Going back to the Microsoft/Windows parallel discussed earlier, this parrots the very same conundrum that existed with Windows 8’s native “Metro” apps: There was, and has never been, any incentive for developers to make “Modern UI” programs simply because only those running Windows 8 or 8.1 can even use them. What’s the point when the vast majority of the world is still on Windows 7, XP, or even Vista? This is arguably the exact reason Apple has never deemed it worthwhile to make a “modern” iTunes.
Let’s reason it out
While it’s easy to attack Google for “heavy-handedly” managing Android Wear, there are a number of very clear reasons why it has chosen to.
Fragmentation
This. Is. Literally. Fragmentation: a visual look at just why Google doesn’t want Android Wear to be open source.
Arguably the largest reason Google doesn’t want Android Wear to be an open free-for-all lies in the very nature of what Android-proper is: a teeming, tangled mess of fragmentation, though ironically almost none of it is Google’s doing. The very core of Android’s existence allowed for companies like Samsung, HTC, LG or Motorola to skin everything in the old days. It is the issue that allows the new wave of OEMs, Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo and others to continue to “mess with” the user experience even now, as companies like Samsung finally got the hint.
By holding the keys to the castle, Google is able to exercise total control over what goes on in its courtyard, and in doing so can make sure that certain standards are adhered to. While Google has more recently taken to moving functionality to the Play Services framework, instead of relying on OS updates – which may never come depending on the OEM – the same can’t be said about third party developers. Truth be told it is a major burden for software engineers, to manually check each and every build and possible configuration of Android to ensure their software will work on the device of your choice. This has become even more pronounced given that budget products might still be running on Jelly Bean, Ice Cream Sandwich, or even Gingerbread.
Open Signal This chart shows Samsung’s 47.5% share of Android.
By locking down Android Wear to Google’s Android and not AOSP, it also ensures that all wearables make full use of Google Play Services, something that cannot be said of smartphones released in China. Android Wear is heavily dependent on Google Now, and thus by requiring KitKat, it thereby ensures all compatible handsets will support it.
China trouble
The very fact that Google Play Services are still banned in China is another reason to lock down Android Wear. As we saw with the Chinese Galaxy Note 4, products designed for China ship without Google apps installed and are unable to use any of the framework that makes them run. Of course there are ways around this, but for the general public who will never miss their presence, it only furthers China’s agenda.
If Android Wear were to be open, and if it were to catch on in China’s rapidly expanding mobile market, it would mean that countless local OEMs could be creating products, and that is downright infuriating for Google, who is thus not able to earn any money from use of its infrastructure, services, and advertising models. China has over a billion people, and yet as things stand now, Google is – in theory – not getting a single yuan from any of them. In a sense, it would be tantamount to thousands of Kindle Fire variants. Google worked hard to create the OS, and it definitely wants to get something back in return.
Quality control
Another key benefit, Google can ensure quality control standards, even if only indirectly. Think for a moment just how many Android devices there are. Consider all the budget ones that are sold at extremely low prices. There is no guarantee of anything whatsoever. Apple, paradoxically, is able to justify it’s high price point for the Apple Watch in part because consumers trust Apple, and because Apple itself has brand value. When one considers the current crop of Android Wear offerings, they are all sold by legitimate, established companies that have their own sense of trust among consumers. Just imagine what would happen if “random brand x” were to start selling an Android Wear smartwatch.
With Android you can put the OS on everything, from a price-defiant Vertu to a bottom-barrel budget product, and the differences couldn’t be more astounding. One phone might have support for a specific sensor, yet another doesn’t. One device might have insufficient RAM to properly run its skin, yet the other has too much. Apple has never had to deal with qualms about consistency and cohesiveness with its devices, but Google (inadvertently) has. By standardizing everything and specifying the exact requirements, Google is therefore ensuring all users regardless of price or product, that the experience will be uniform. Think of it as a Starbucks that must adhere to a specific company-wide recipe for mocha coffee as opposed to hundreds of different restaurants that may blend the beverage differently.
Conclusion: mad money to be made
While Apple’s success might be good news for the folks over in Cupertino, it’s of a far more mixed blessing to those working with Android. Google’s own wearable OS has been available for over a year now, yet there is not a shred of evidence from the company’s own PR team to suggest it’s even successful.
Google is essentially taking a very careful, leisurely approach to Android Wear. This might be in part because the market for wearables is in and of itself limited in scope. It might be a result of the general consensus that Glass was a failed experiment. It might be a desire to keep things under stricter control to prevent OEMs from going crazy with the functionality. Whatever the true reason is, be it one, several, or all of the possibilities above, Google is once again going to play second fiddle to Apple, something that is decidedly uncomfortable, given that Android Wear launched almost an entire year before Apple Watch. Google should be calling the shots, not dodging the bullets.
The Bad
In one sense, Google’s wearable OS can be considered a failure as far as widespread adoption goes. Unlike its smartphone and tablet platform which has devices of all shapes, sizes, and prices from almost a thousand OEMs, Android Wear has been a platform key manufacturers have either deliberately ignored (see Samsung’s Gear S), chosen to start ignoring (see LG’s “test” device the Urbane LTE), or else ignore entirely (see HTC for example). Meanwhile, Motorola drew attention last year with the Moto 360 but has yet to announce a followup, and Huawei’s eye catching offering has yet to materialize months after it was announced.
The Good
Despite the general malaise confronting Android Wear, there is a potential silver lining: if Apple can sell over $1 billion worth of smartwatches in a scant three months, there is an untold amount of money it can make within a year, or with a new, updated product. By that reasoning, Google itself, along with partner OEMs, are also poised to earn major money with Android Wear. Despite the rather humble beginnings, now that the cash cow is out in the field, one would hope that Team Android gets its act together and starts putting some serious effort into the wearable platform.
Now that we have weighed in, we want to hear from you! What’s your take on the whole Android Wear situation? Is Google doing enough? Is the wearable platform just not worth the effort? Leave your comments below!// <![CDATA[ (function () var opst = document.createElement('script'); var os_host = document.location.protocol == "https:" ? "https:" : "http:"; opst.type = 'text/javascript'; opst.async = true; opst.src = os_host + '//' + 'www.opinionstage.com/polls/2284393/embed.js'; (document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] ()); // ]]>
Motorola Moto G 2015 stars in hands-on ahead of launch
Just yesterday, specifications were leaked for the upcoming Moto G 2015 model and now a fully working handset has landed into the hands of reviewers over at LaptopMedia, all ahead of the smartphone’s official launch in just a few days.
The overall look is relatively familiar to previous generation Moto G handsets, with the exception of the strip on the back. The reviewers also pointed out that the build quality is apparently up to par with other more expensive flagship smartphones on the market. Let’s hope that this bold claim is accurate and not just a result of a little over-excitement, as it would be impressive if Motorola can improve the build quality while still retaining a roughly $200 price tag.
Unfortunately, the hands-on doesn’t reveal anything about the Moto G’s internal hardware. The latest leak that we have to go on suggests that the phone will come equipped with a 5.0-inch 720p resolution display, 4G LTE connectivity, Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, a quad-core 1.4GHz Snapdragon 410 processor, 8GB or 16GB of on-board storage, a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP front-facing camera.
There has also been several mentions of an IPX7 certification for water resistance up to one meter, which is a nice addition and may explain the better feeling build quality.
The Moto G 2015 is scheduled to launch on July 28th at an event taking place in New York, so there isn’t long left to wait for all of the official details.
LG TONE Active Bluetooth headphones available this month
Today, LG announced the global roll-out of its new TONE Active Bluetooth headset. The headphones will go on sale in North American and South Korea beginning this month, with launches in the rest of the world scheduled for the third quarter of the year.
The TONE Active’s big selling point is its durability, as LG says that it is designed to suit an active life style, hence the name. The headset is water and sweat resistant, so you can wear it during your intense workout sessions. LG has also removed the annoying dangling chords usually associated with in-ear headphones, by allowing the earbuds to retract inside the frame.
To keep the headset completely wire free, the LG TONE Active is also powered by Bluetooth technology, so customers can pair it up to their smartphone to stream music. There is also a little microphone enclosed in the frame to make and take calls hands-free.
Pricing information and an exact launch date have not been given, but we’ll probably spot additional details when the headset hits the shelves in the next few days. The LG TONE Active will be available in lime, orange, blue and pink color options.
LG INTRODUCES THE PERFECT WORKOUT PARTNER WITH TONE ACTIVE
Durable and Rugged with Vibrant Colors, Wearable Bluetooth Headset Designed for Maximum Mobility
SEOUL, July 24, 2015 ― LG Electronics (LG) will begin the global rollout of the LG TONE Active, a new sporty Bluetooth headset in its award-winning TONE series. The LG TONE Active will go on sale starting this month in North America and Korea, to be followed by key markets in Europe, CIS, Asia and Latin America throughout the third quarter.
Perfect for both music listening and conversation and compatible with any Bluetooth-enabled smartphone, the LG TONE Active is water and sweat resistant with earbuds that retract fully into the headset to eliminate tangled cords. Designed with durability in mind to support the most active lifestyles, the LG TONE Active with its contoured design fits snugly around the neck for a secure fit even when running or jogging.
Standout features of the LG TONE Active include:
- Water and Sweat Resistance ― Compatible for life’s toughest workouts to handle even the hottest conditions in the gym or out on the trail.
- Durable and Rugged ― Durable yet lightweight with a contoured, around-the-neck design.
- Retractable Earbuds ― Customized fit with two earbud sizes for a more secure and comfortable fit and a simple, effective solution for cord management
- Bluetooth Wireless Technology ― Hassle-free device connectivity, compatible with any Bluetooth-enabled smartphone.
- Quad-Layer Speaker Technology™ and Digital MEMS Microphone ― Robust bass, crisp treble, less distortion on high frequencies and exceptional voice clarity for hassle-free conversations.
“Our designers saw an opportunity to expand on the LG TONE Series with a headset that will pair perfectly with people’s daily, active routines,” said Seo Young-jae, vice president in charge of Innovative Personal Devices at LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “Our newest TONE Active isn’t just for exercising, they’re perfect for anyone who’s constantly on the move, whether at home, work or at the gym. TONE Active was designed to be the ultimate wireless solution to withstand any and all activities.”
The LG TONE Active comes in four colors: Lime, Orange, Blue and Pink. Details of price and availability will be announced locally at the time of launch.
AIVAnet 