AT&T BlackBerry Priv buyers can get $90 worth of free accessories until April 15

If you are interested in getting a BlackBerry Priv via AT&T, you have a chance to get some free accessories as well for the next few weeks. The latest promotion for the Android-based smartphone will last until April 15.

BlackBerry says:

With every purchase of a PRIV through our valued U.S. carrier partner AT&T, you’ll have the opportunity to receive a free Slide-Out Hard Shell Case with Kick Stand and Sync Pod, a total retail value of $90.

Those buyers will have until May 16 to claim their free case and sync pod. They will have to go to the promotion site and fill in a few bits of information, including the Priv’s IMEI number, which can be found on the outside of its box.

See at AT&T

Android N Developer Preview OTA update rolling out, new images go live

If you have a device that has the Android N Developer Preview installed, you might want to check for an update. Google is pushing out a small download for those devices that is the first such OTA update for the preview version.

It looks like the new updates are just for the Nexus 6P and 5X smartphones, and the Nexus 9 (WiFi and LTE).

Google has also posted up new images for the Android N Developer Preview. We’ve already received OTA updates for our eligible devices through the beta program, but these are handy for folks who want to do things the manual way.

We’re digging in to see just what has changed, and if we find anything cool or different, we’ll let everyone know. In the meantime, be sure to sing out if you’ve installed the update and let us know what you’re seeing.

Android N Developer Preview

The Android N Developer Preview is just that — a developer preview. It is not intended for daily use. That doesn’t mean it’s not cool, and that you shouldn’t poke around. But know that things will break. Tread carefully. (And have fun!)

• What’s new in Android N
• All Android N news
• About the Android Beta Program
• Download system images
• Android N easter egg
• Join the Discussion

Tissot is the latest Swiss Watch company to reveal smartwatch plans

For those familiar with Swiss Watch company Tissot, news of a smartwatch might not be so strange. The company has been flirting with smart functionality for some time through its T-Touch models, and has referred to them as smart in the past. 

At Baselworld 2016, however, Tissot has revealed the Smart-Touch, a model that’s aimed at taking on newer smartwatches without abandoning its time-telling heritage. It’s a watch first, but then delivers a range of functions taking it beyond the current T-Touch offerings, connecting to your smartphone and other devices. 

The design seems to be very much based on the T-Touch Solar models that are already available. It has a titanium case, topped with a ceramic bezel, with a sapphire crystal face to keep it free from scratches. It is water-resistant to 10 bar, meaning it’s good to 100m. There’s a quartz movement inside.

Pocket-lint

The battery can be charged by the sun: leave it out for a day and it will be fully charged again, although we’re not sure how much of this powers the watch and how much the smart functions, or where that balance will be struck.

Many of the functions of this smartwatch will be familiar. There are the core functions of a timer, alarms, compass, barometer and temperature, altimeter and so on. But once connected to your smartphone, you’ll be able to sync the time, get weather updates, change settings easily as well as share your experiences with friends. There’s also GPS, although it’s not clear whether this in on-board the watch, or assisted by the phone.

There are also connected accessories, including a Find-It tag to help you keep track of other items and a weather station that can give you humidity, air quality and temperature readings. When you buy the watch, as we understand it from talking to a Tissot representative, you’ll get those accessories with it. 

Tissot refers to the Smart-Touch as the next-generation of T-Touch watches. It is expected to launch in late-2016, with an estimated retail price of around CHF1000, approx. £710.

Some of the details are a little sketchy on the Smart-Touch. We get the feeling that Tissot isn’t quite ready to make the grand reveal, but it did give over a section of its Baselworld stand to an interactive display centred around the watch’s functions.

Microsoft Windows 10 Mobile rollout: Which phones get it first and how?

Microsoft has finally begun the rollout of Windows 10 Mobile to select Windows Phone 8.1 devices.

You can download an app to see if the upgrade is available for you device, which we discuss below. Microsoft said the first phones getting the upgrade include a “limited set of Windows Phone 8.1 devices and does not include some devices that are currently running Windows 10 Mobile in the Windows 10 Mobile Insider program.” It also said many older devices can’t upgrade.

To help you figure out if your phone is eligible to upgrade, as well as which app you can download to check for the update, we’ve detailed all you need to know. Also, be sure to check out Pocket-lint’s review of the mobile operating system, where we described the software as something of a mixed result. It’s a more rich platform than Windows Phone 8.1, with new options in the mix.

There’s more integration, such as Skype, and better handling with Outlook and individual Office apps, for a smartphone experience that feels more mature. But we were not taken with the design.

Windows 10 Mobile: What is it?

Windows 10 Mobile is Microsoft’s new mobile operating system. It’s a successor to Windows Phone 8.1 but is an edition of Windows 10, Microsoft’s operating system for personal computers. The idea is that Windows 10 will unify Microsoft’s platforms into a single, converged operating system.

• READ MORE: Windows 10 Mobile review: A new hope

Windows 10 Mobile: Which phones get the update first?

According to Microsoft, the following phones and devices can upgrade to Windows 10 Mobile: Lumia 1520, Lumia 930, Lumia 640, Lumia 640XL, Lumia 730, Lumia 735, Lumia 830, Lumia 532, Lumia 535, Lumia 540, Lumia 635 (1GB), Lumia 636 (1GB), Lumia 638 (1GB), Lumia 430, Lumia 435, BLU Win HD w510u, BLU Win HD LTE x150q, and MCJ Madosma Q501.

However, according to The Verge, Microsoft is initially supporting the following phones: Lumia 430, Lumia 435, Lumia 532, Lumia 535, Lumia 540, Lumia 635 (1GB), Lumia 640, Lumia 640 XL, Lumia 735, Lumia 830, and Lumia 930.

Windows 10 Mobile: How do you update your phone?

To get Windows 10 Mobile, you need to manually initiate the update.

Microsoft has created an Upgrade Advisor app that will let you know if the Windows 10 Mobile update is ready for your phone. You can download the app from the Windows Store. Although this is how the rollout is kicking off, Venture Beat claimed Microsoft will one day actively push the update to eligible devices. The rollout of course depends on when carriers make the update available.

Windows 10 Mobile: Want to know more?

Go to Pocket-lint’s Windows 10 Mobile hub for related news, reviews, and analysis, or you can read Microsoft’s announcement.

Michael Kors smartwatches announced, as Fossil wearable onslaught continues

Michael Kors is getting into the wearable biz, with a fashion-centric line of Android Wear watches.

The luxury brand is part of Fossil Group, and you might’ve heard by now that Fossil plans to launch 100 wearables in 40 countries (with support for 20 languages) all by the end of 2016. Well, today, Fossil Group confirmed those devices will come from eight specific brands: Chaps, Diesel, Emporio Armani, Fossil, Kate Spade New York, Misfit, Skagen, and Michael Kors – the latter of which has just announced its first offering.

It’s a new line of wearables called the Michael Kors Access collection. The brand is now showing off two Android Wear smartwatches as part of the collection. Keep in mind all Android Wear watches are based around the same technology, and the main differences between them come to down how they’re packaged and designed. Michael Kors said the Access watches are meant to offer a “stylish, even glamorous design”.

While at Baselworld 2016, Michael Kors revealed that one of the Access smartwatches has a gold-coloured sparkly case, while the second one is a darker, sportier model. Both watches feature faces exclusive to Michael Kors, as well as stuff like “a digital chronograph design for the gym or glittering, animated pave for night.” They also have interchangeable wristbands available in either silicone and leather options.

They’ll be priced around $395 each and sold through Kors stores. Not much else is known at the moment, though SlashGear said they won’t be available by this autumn season. Watch the video below for a closer look.

5 Lightning headphones to buy when iPhone ditches the 3.5mm jack

Apple reportedly plans to ditch the headphone jack on the next iPhone.

This is where you scream and curse at Apple. Done? Okay, now let’s move on, talk about why, and consider the alternatives, including lightning headphones. Yes. Those are thing. They’re like regular headphones or earbuds – only they plug into the lightning port instead of the 3.5mm jack.

In fact, if you browse the gallery above, we’ve picked out a few lightning headphones out now or coming soon.

Lightning headphones: Why is Apple ditching the jack?

Apple’s next flagship (presumably called the iPhone 7) might not come with a standard 3.5mm jack, because – according to the running theory of the moment – Apple will introduce 96kHz/24-bit music streaming in Apple Music.

But an analog headphone jack can only deliver CD-quality sound. The lightning port, however, allows for headphones with integrated digital-to-analog converters and amplifiers, so audio traveling through the lightning port would therefore pass into the headphones digitally, thus avoiding typical analog signal interferences and whatnot.

Lightning headphones are capable of receiving lossless stereo 48 kHz digital audio output from Apple devices and sending mono 48 kHz digital audio input. They can also draw power from an Apple device (even if the device is asleep). That means you can charge while you listen. Glorious!

Also, by using the lightning port, Apple could shave 1mm off the smartphone. It could then wrap the screen ever further around the device and phone base. Oh, and there would be space for more battery too. That’s right. Apple would be able to squeeze a bigger juice pack into your next iPhone.

All we know for sure is that Apple loves to kill old technology (floppy drive, CD drive, 30-pin connector, USB-A, etc) in favour of new stuff. And, in our opinion, that new stuff might just be certified Lightning headphones. Don’t be shocked. Apple quietly started allowing manufacturers to make them two years ago.

Lightning headphones: Are they Apple-approved?

Apple’s Made-For-iPhone/iPad/iPod (MFi) program enables manufacturers to create Apple-specified/approved goods for iOS devices, and for quite a while, manufacturers have been able to make headphones that connect to iOS devices using a Lightning connector instead of the usual 3.5mm jack.

Unfortunately, only a few companies have actually taken advantage of this golden opportunity, though if the rumour mill keeps churning out these reports about Apple ditching the jack, we’ll likely see more and more Lightning headphones popping up ahead of the iPhone 7’s expected launch.

The Audeze EL-8 Titanium Closed-Back headphones are probably the most-well known Lightning headphones. They’re marketed as the first to offer a fully integrated Lightning connector for iPhone, along with a headphone amplifier and 28-bit DAC built into the Lightning cable. But they’re not cheap.

Check out the gallery above to browse more Lightning headphones available to buy right now. Well, some of them are launching soon. But you get the point. We plan to update this piece over time – so keep coming back.

Lightning headphones: But what about Bluetooth?

Let’s not forget as well that going wireless is the future (ie wireless charging, etc). So, speaking of wireless, Apple recently became a promoter member of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. It therefore could be getting ready to push Bluetooth headphones instead of Lightning ones.

But, honestly, we’re not betting on that.

On the Brink of Greatness: Startup Culture

If you’ve been wondering what it’s like to work for a hot Silicon Valley startup, you’re in luck. Bambu’s new promo video offers a behind-the-scenes look at what makes the company tick. On this week’s episode of On the Brink of Greatness, Steve Goldbloom and the crew discuss what makes the work environment at the startup so great. They cover important topics like work/life balance, diversity, giving back, inspiration and, most importantly, the future. We’ll totally understand if you want to submit a resume after watching, because really this is the only company that matters.

DoT and Alphabet plan to battle gridlock

Department of Transportation secretary Anthony Foxx and Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs announced a transportation platform today called Flow. The system will grab data from in-the-street sensors, WiFi-enabled Kiosks and anonymized information from Google-owned apps Maps and Waze to help inform cities about traffic. It will be rolled out to the winner of the Smart City Challenge for no cost.

Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs has been working on the technology that powers Flow for two years. CEO Dan Doctoroff said that the lab has been talking to some of the finalists of the Smart City Challenge and will continue to talk to all of the final seven to better understand how to integrate the system into an urban area.

One of the ways it plans to collect date is via kiosks using LinkNYC technology. This station will not only keep track of traffic conditions and available parking, but will also offer up free WiFi.

The kiosks will be deployed in four underserved neighborhoods. There they will gather anonymized data that will be analyzed by the platform for the city. Flow will not only crunch the data about what’s happening in real time on the streets, but can be used to help make decisions on the deployment of transit solutions.

The DoT’s Smart City Challenge will award up to $40 million to a mid-sized metropolitan area to define a “Smart City” by integrating self-driving cars, smart sensors and connected vehicles into their transportation infrastructure. The seven finalists are: Austin, Columbus, Denver Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Portland and San Francisco.

Secretary Foxx has been bullish on smart cities and upgrading transportation infrastructures in cities. He recently addressed teams of college students at a Hyperloop pod competition in Texas. He’s also pushed for V2V communications between cars. Fox said in a statement, “by embracing smart technologies and concepts that eliminate the digital divide, strengthen connections to jobs and remove physical barriers to access, we can strengthen communities throughout the country.”

Samsung’s Surface Pro rival, the Galaxy TabPro S, hits US and UK

If you had your eye on the Surface Pro 4, but wanted something a little less Microsoft-branded, Samsung’s got an alternative just for you. The company’s Galaxy TabPro S is available to order in the US and UK as of today for $899 and £849, respectively. Originally unveiled at CES in January, the hybrid Windows 10 tablet packs a 12-inch Super AMOLED display (2,160 x 1,440) into a lightweight, magnesium alloy frame. It’s certainly a more premium build than Samsung’s typically known for, as we noted when we first set eyes (and hands) on the device earlier this year.

For the money, you get an Intel 6th generation dual-core Core M clocked at 2.2GHz, 4GB RAM and a 128GB solid state drive. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be an option on either online store to beef storage up to 256GB nor is there an available LTE model (that’s still TBD), meaning it’s WiFi-only for now. Powering the entire affair is a 5,200mAh battery rated for over ten hours that you’ll have to recharge using the slate’s USB Type-C port. Oh, and it comes with a pack-in keyboard so you’re at least spared that extra expense. We’ll have a review coming soon, so stay tuned and try to hold off on that impulse purchase.

Source: Samsung, (2)

The next big thing in smartphones is uncertainty

You’ve probably noticed something about smartphones. They haven’t been exciting lately.

Chances are, your current smartphone looks and works a lot like your last one. Your next will probably seem pretty familiar, too. But there are signs that smartphones, and the ways we use them, could be about to significantly change — even if no one can quite agree on exactly how.

From some perspectives, it’s inevitable that we’d be seeing a noticeable change in smartphones by now. As venture capitalist Chris Dixon noted in a recent essay, major shifts in computing tend to occur in 10- to 15-year cycles: the home PC era throughout the ’80s and early ’90s, the internet era from the mid-90s into the 2000s, and the mobile era that we’re currently in.

While you can point to single events that firmly established those new eras, they’ve each also been bookended by a more ragged edge where different technologies mixed and jockeyed for position. There was “mobile computing” before modern smartphones. Although most tend to see smartphones as an evolution of the traditional cellphone, they owe just as much to other mobile devices like personal digital assistants, pocket PCs and portable media players.

Those each did some of the things that smartphones can now do (some more than others), and it was only when smartphones were able to do enough of those tasks, with an acceptable number of trade-offs, that they went mainstream. The combination of those features — an internet-connected mobile device with a decent camera, for instance — then opened up a host of new possibilities that had been impossible.

If you accept the 10- to 15-year rule, that means we’re about a year away from the early edge of a transition to something else. Even setting it aside, you don’t have to look far to see that the tail end of the first decade of the smartphone era has some parallels to the more experimental and less certain years that preceded it.

There was some evidence on display at Mobile World Congress last month. While smartphone makers introduced plenty of the usual fare — new phones that are slightly better than last year’s — there was also a noticeable willingness to experiment, and all the uncertainty that comes along with it.

For LG, that means changing not only the way people use smartphones but also the phones themselves. Its new modular G5 not only works with other devices but can also turn into a variety of other devices. So far, that includes fairly modest changes like a module that turns the G5 into more of a full-fledged camera and one that makes it an audiophile-grade media player. LG says that additional add-ons are in the works, though, and it’s hoping other companies will diversify the range of modifications even further.

Modular components are something Google has also explored with its Project Ara smartphone, as have more DIY-oriented initiatives like Seeed’s RePhone — an open-source kit that lets you build your own smartphone or other cellular-equipped device — something that would have seemed like a wild concept a few years ago.

HP has even revived a slightly older idea for a modular smartphone of sorts with its new Elite x3 Windows phone, which promises to replace a laptop or desktop computer when connected to a monitor and keyboard.

And, of course, everyone from Apple to Samsung has already bet on smartwatches and other wearables to one degree or another — devices that, for the time being, are designed more to augment and complement smartphones than replace them.

The most complete vision of a different future for smartphones, however, may come from Sony.

It had some new smartphones to show off at MWC, but it got more attention for the other products it introduced. One, the Xperia Ear, is a tiny earpiece that promises to let you leave your phone in your pocket more often and instead interact with it using voice commands. Another, the Xperia Agent (still something of a concept, Sony says), is a stand-alone device that similarly lets you interact with an intelligent virtual assistant. It’s a lot like Amazon’s Echo but is amped up with a built-in camera and a projector for displaying information.

In a statement announcing the new devices, Sony’s Hiroki Totoki said that the company wants to “change how you access information and interact with friends and family in a closer, natural and more meaningful way.” He was more blunt in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, saying, “People have become too obsessed with smartphones,” and that Sony effectively wants to wean people off them.

If that vision sounds a little familiar, it may be because it’s a lot like the one seen in the Spike Jonze movie Her, in which the main character interacts with an artificially intelligent operating system primarily through an earpiece. The smartphone-like device in the movie is used sparingly in comparison, serving as a camera so the AI can “see,” and turned to for things like looking at photos. As far as science fiction goes, that’s not so farfetched, and many see something similar to it happening sooner rather than later.

A survey conducted by Ericsson ConsumerLab last year suggested that AI will be what finally ends the “screen age” and that this shift could happen in as soon as five years. “Smartphone users believe AI will take over many common activities, such as searching the net, getting travel guidance and as personal assistants,” the report said, noting that “these are areas already being addressed by current generation AI interfaces in smartphones.”

The survey pointed to virtual reality as another technology that could pull some tasks away from our smartphone and computer screens, and augmented reality devices like Microsoft’s HoloLens and the still-mysterious Magic Leap promise to do something similar. At the same time, as with smartphones, they could also enable far more new things that aren’t possible at all on regular screens.

Other developments suggest that the smartphone itself might be becoming less important than underlying software and services. The recently introduced Nextbit Robin smartphone isn’t all the way there, but its cloud-based storage hints at a future in which phones are less limited by hardware constraints — something that could accelerate when 5G networks finally become a reality.

And while Amazon’s Echo devices may not seem much like smartphone alternatives at first glance, they’re not so far off when you look at how people use them. Whether it’s Alexa, Siri or Google Now, we’re approaching a point where the measure of a device may not be the apps it can run but the intelligent agent to which it provides an interface and, by extension, the network of other devices and services that it interacts with.

According to Jonas Damon, the executive creative director of the design firm Frog, the influence of those and other technologies won’t make smartphones more feature-packed and complicated devices but simpler ones.

“I’m super excited about our phones becoming simpler as our environment becomes more instrumented,” he said when asked how he saw smartphones changing over the next five years.

“We’ve had to centralize so much technology into our phones because our environment is still largely analogue,” he continued.

“In the next five years, all kinds of products and structures will get sensors, machine vision will become more ubiquitous, and machine learning will start to automate things for us. We’ll be able to put our phones down and enjoy living in a heads-up, responsive environment. If phones get simpler, the devices will change as well: they will last longer because yearly hardware upgrades will become unnecessary, they will get smaller as users require less screen space, and they will become more beautiful as they become more permanent.”

Tjeerd Hoek, Frog’s vice president of software experience, further added, “Smartphones today are really just dumb connected tools, which often prioritize features few people want. Even when the features are great, they can require incomprehensible interactions to use.”

As Hoek sees it, “Smartphones have the potential to become a proactive and intelligent assistant that users can delegate tasks to easily.” He continued:

“This delegation will be underpinned by the increased diversity of sensors, and improved integration between connected devices, network analytics, processing and intelligence based on data from the connected device ecosystem. Combined with detailed contextual awareness about the user’s location, past behaviors and preferences, better feedback mechanisms will allow users to direct the device as it performs autonomous tasks for them.”

A lot of those bits and pieces are already here. At least some are bound to have an effect on smartphones. It’s the how and the when that are still uncertain, and that period of uncertainty is where things start to get a little weird.

Already, many are pointing to smart earpieces like the Xperia Ear and an AI-driven future like the one in Her as the inevitable next step in computing. We’ll still have smartphones and computers and TVs — and maybe AR or VR — but we’ll be able to easily move from one to another with an intelligent assistant bridging the gaps among them.

Companies betting on that future will adjust their smartphones accordingly. Screens may get smaller again, sensors to make the AI more aware of your environment might become a bigger priority and seamless connectivity to other devices could become more important. But not everyone sees AI as an imminent paradigm shift.

Some companies will no doubt continue to churn out familiar-looking smartphones for years to come. But, as some recent announcements have shown, many others see the present as a time to experiment and take risks. Some may make integration with VR headsets a priority as the technology advances, others may see smartphones as a module that becomes the core driver of a range of other devices and others are no doubt working on even wilder concepts that no one sees coming.

As long as there’s disagreement about how things will ultimately play out, there’s going to be more diversification among smartphones than we’ve seen during the past decade of consensus. All of that is exciting for people who have been bored with years of iterative upgrades — and undoubtedly a little unsettling for the smartphone makers betting their future on ideas that may not pan out.

[Images: LG G5, Google Project Ara, Sony Xperia Ear, Nextbit Robin, Amazon Echo / Alexa, Sony Xperia Ear]