The government is shaming people for texting and driving

It’s a bad idea to text and drive. Beyond just being dangerous, it’s now illegal in most US states and in several countries around the world. Yet, despite the many ad campaigns telling them it’s wrong, people still do it. In fact, some of them actually brag about it on social media. Well, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will have none of that. The government agency has actually taken to Twitter to name and shame those who publicly confess to using their phone while behind the wheel:

It’s a habit worth breaking, @Ethan_WMASS. Do yourself and everyone else on the road a favor – put the phone down and #justdrive.

— NHTSA (@NHTSAgov) April 21, 2016

Um, agreed @Domie_D23. Please realize you’re putting yourself and others in danger, and a silly text isn’t worth it. #justdrive

— NHTSA (@NHTSAgov) April 22, 2016

Not really a laugh out loud matter, @_BankrollAJ. Do everyone a favor (yourself included) and get off your phone while driving. #justdrive

— NHTSA (@NHTSAgov) April 22, 2016

Who knows if it’ll actually work — one particular person seems to be a little indignant about it — but maybe a little public shaming by the feds is warranted. Better that than yet another fatal statistic.

Source: The Verge

MacHeist’s Indie Games Bundle Offers 9 Mac Games for $20

MacHeist today launched its latest software bundle, offering consumers the chance to purchase several popular indie games at a discounted price. The Awesomest Mac + Windows Indie Games Extravaganza features 9 games that are compatible with both Mac and Windows Machines.

The first three games in the list below are unlocked with a payment of as little as $1, while the full list of games can be unlocked with a payment of $20. Indie Game: The Movie is also included.

• Offspring Fling
• To the Moon
• Deponia
• Super Meat Boy
• Braid
• Gone Home
• Insurgency
• Fez
• Prison Architect

The last two games, Fez and Prison Architect, will be unlocked for all purchasers when once certain sales targets are met.

The bundle can be purchased from the MacHeist website for the next 10 days. MacHeist is also giving away prizes and other free software titles (Defend Your Life, A Bird Story, and Cloud Knights) through a mini adventure game on the website. 10% of each bundle purchased will be donated to charity, with each person who purchases a bundle able to pick the charity of their choice.

MacRumors is an affiliate partner of MacHeist.

Tag: MacHeist
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All Apple Watch Apps Must Be Native Apps Starting on June 1

Apple today informed developers that starting on June 1, 2016, all watchOS apps submitted to the App Store must be native apps built with the watchOS 2 SDK or later.

When the Apple Watch first launched, watchOS apps were reliant on the iPhone to run on the Apple Watch, but with watchOS 2, Apple introduced support for native apps. With native app support, developers can build apps that are able to run on the Apple Watch, allowing apps to open more quickly and work more smoothly.

Apple’s June 1 deadline for native apps hits two weeks before the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference, where it is expected to show off new versions of iOS, OS X, watchOS, and tvOS.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 2
Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Caution)
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WWDC 2016 Lottery Ends, Apple Starts Charging Developers Who Won Tickets

The ticket lottery for Apple’s 2016 Worldwide Developers Conference ended this morning at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, and it appears that some developers who have won tickets are seeing charges on their credit cards. Several MacRumors readers have had their cards charged, and there are reports of charges on Twitter.

Apple has said developers who win the ticket lottery will be notified on Monday, April 25 at 5:00 p.m. PDT, so some confirmation emails may not be sent until that time.

Apple’s ticket lottery started on Monday, April 18, giving all developers a chance to enter to win an opportunity to purchase a ticket for $1,599. For the last several years, Apple has distributed tickets via a lottery system as interest in the Worldwide Developers Conference far exceeds capacity.

350 WWDC scholarships are being provided to students and members of participating STEM organizations, and in 2016, Apple is also offering 125 scholarships to aspiring developers with financial limitations.

The 2016 Worldwide Developers Conference will take place on June 13 to 17 at Moscone West, but the keynote event will be held at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, a venue able to accommodate more guests. Apple is expected to announce new versions of iOS, OS X, watchOS, and tvOS at the keynote.

Throughout the rest of the week, developers will be able to interface with more than 1,500 Apple engineers and attend more than 100 technical sessions and hands-on labs. Developers who do not win a ticket will be able to watch live streams of WWDC sessions that will cover a range of topics from the iPhone and iPad to the Apple Watch and Apple TV.

(Thanks, Filipe and Leigh!)

Related Roundup: WWDC 2016
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Ulefone Power review: Smartphones need a battery this big

The big names in smartphones are always apprehensive about packing large batteries in their flagships. That’s annoying to a lot of people, because battery life is a crucial factor. Manufacturers think if their smartphones aren’t razor thin then people won’t want them, but I’ll argue all day that they’re wrong.

This leaves the opportunity open for lesser known brands to step in and do the right thing. Let me introduce the Ulefone Power.

Ulefone is a Chinese smartphone manufacturer that has been offering great bang-for-the-buck Android phones. We were given a chance to review this battery monster (the Power has a whopping 6,050mAh battery), thanks to our friends at GearBest. Let’s check out if it’s worth your hard-earned bucks.

Design

You can imagine that a phone that puts so much emphasis on practicality won’t necessarily be the most attractive. This is certainly the case with the Power. It’s a thick phone (9.5mm) and the design won’t necessarily turn heads. But that’s okay, at least your phone will keep going like the Energizer Bunny when your buddies are freaking out about their dying phones.

Ulefone does add some modern design cues, though. There’s a metal perimeter all around the sides (with shiny chamfers) and 2.5D glass on the front that curves into it.

The Power uses capacitive buttons for navigation. There’s a circle icon for the Home button and very covert Back and Recent Apps buttons (they’re barely visible dots).

The power and volume rocker are both on the right side and are also metal. You’ll find that Ulefone generously included a camera shortcut/shutter button. But that’s not all. On the top there’s an IR blaster, something we don’t see in many phone anymore.

The back cover is my least favorite part of the Power. It’s this glossy plastic that feels cheap. It’s very similar to the verykool Maverick SL5550 that I’ve reviewed, but at least that phone let you remove the back cover. The Power’s back isn’t removable, so there’s less excuse for the material decision. It does have this nice weave pattern etched into it, but it’s really subtle. Fortunately, Ulefone offers a variant with a wood back. If you don’t fancy wood, then plastic is your only other choice, in either Silver White or Dark Blue.

The Power is a phablet-sized phone, with a display at 5.5″. The size and girth make it feel substantial in the hand (in a good way). You have plenty to grip unto. But a repercussion of the extra large battery is weight: 190g. That’s not too unreasonable (the LG V10 is 192g), but worth noting.

Lastly, the Ulefone also keeps up with the times with a fingerprint scanner. It’s on the back, directly under the camera module.

I wouldn’t say that this is the best placement; it’s a reach to get to on a phone this size (sometimes causing misreads). Moving downward, you’ll see the Ulefone branding and then a long horizontal speaker grill.

Performance

Let’s take a quick look at the Power’s specs:

• Display: 5.5″ 1080P IPS LCD
• Chipset: MediaTek MTK6753 (octa-core) with Mail T720 GPU
• Memory: 3GB of RAM
• Storage: 16GB, expandable up to 64GB with microSD
• Cameras: 13MP (Sony IMX214, f/1.8) rear and 5MP front
• Battery: 6,050mAh (non-removable)
• Software: Android 5.1 Lollipop (to be upgraded to 6.0) with u-Launcher UI

It happens to be that many Chinese smartphone OEMs feel the need to include a custom UI on top of Android. Sometimes this slows performance down, depending on how heavy the interface is. Fortunately, the Power was saved from this. It does have a custom UI, but it’s light. We’ll cover the details of the software towards the end, but what’s important right now is that this phone is super responsive.

Everything in regard to navigation just flies, and feels like the processor is just asking for more. The custom UI kills a lot of the animations/transitions in Material Design (sad face), but in turn, that makes every action super snappy. I’m glad that Ulefone didn’t skimp on the memory, I think it helps greatly. 3GB of RAM is a fantastic value for a $169 smartphone.

The fingerprint scanner works well enough. It’s not the quickest at unlocking, but I was blown away that you don’t have to press the power button first. The phone wakes and unlocks with just your finger placement. Kudos, Ulefone.

Display

The Power’s display hits that sweet-spot size of 5.5″. Historically, affordable/budget phones have had pretty terrible displays, but that’s becoming a thing of the past. I was really satisfied with the quality of the Power’s IPS LCD screen. The colors are decent, viewing angles are great, and the 1080P resolution has plenty of pixels.

The panel can also get very bright. I’m typically fine with it around 50-75% brightness. Outdoors, I can see the screen clearly at max brightness.

Camera

A pain-point for me whenever I test out lower priced smartphones is the camera performance. This is the Achilles Heel of the budget smartphone world, and I believe if it weren’t so, then they would seriously give top-end smartphone a run for their money.

Unfortunately, the Power isn’t absent of this sentiment. The quality of the images and the auto-focus speed are nothing to write home about. It’s not the worst I’ve seen, but it’s no where close to where flagships are these days. When I saw the spec sheet, I was hopeful. It’s a 13MP Sony-made sensor, with a f/1.8 aperture lens (in comparison, the lens of the Galaxy S7 is f/1.7). So it sounds like it should be a lot better.

Some areas in the images look great, but I frequently get blurred spots or foggy-ness from lighting. A 13MP camera should be sharper. Auto-focusing could be hit or miss as well.

Battery

Battery life is the bread and butter of the Power (that’s why it’s called “Power” in the first place). The battery is a whopping 6,050mAh. To put that into perspective, it’s double what the Galaxy S7 and HTC 10 have, and 450mAh more than double the LG G5.

Does that translate to awesome battery life? Yes! With moderate use, I got just over two days. My screen brightness averaged around 75% and my usage consisted of common apps like Google Maps, Chrome, Camera, YouTube, Play Music, Hangouts, Google+, Twitter, and Feedly. Heavy usage should get you a day and a half (unless you’re playing games nonstop).

Two notable power saving features are a “intelligent” standby mode (the Power isn’t on Android 6.0, so no Doze) and a scheduler that can turn the phone on/off at times you set.

Software

The Power is currently on Android 5.1 Lollipop, but Ulefone is explicit that Android 6.0 Marshmallow is coming. I’ve touched on that Ulefone isn’t too invasive to the true Android experience, but there are tweaks here and there.

Some are nice additions but then others aren’t really necessary. For instance, the app drawer and persistent Google search bar overlays are different. Also, there’s redundant Ulefone apps for internet, messaging, and gallery (OEMs should just use Google’s apps).

Fortunately, performance isn’t really affected by the additions. Some of Material Design’s animations are gone, but that’s more of a preference. UI navigation doesn’t have stock’s fluidity, but it’s a snappy experience instead. I must say that actions aren’t 100% smooth. Particularly, the frame rate slightly drops when scrolling (like in the Recent Apps carousel or in the browser). But that’s more of a nitpick; the software isn’t laggy.

Ulefone’s additions in the Settings menu are a different story. They’re useful. We already talked about some of the battery saving features, but gestures are another area that Ulefone pushes. For instance, there’s a multitude of unlocking motions that you can set, as quick shortcuts when the phone is on standby. One of those is double-tap-to-wake.

What’s more, there’s a separate set of shortcuts that utilize the front camera to recognize hand waving. This lets you scroll through pictures or skip songs without touching the screen.

Final Thoughts

The Ulefone Power is a tremendous value in my eyes. No, it’s not perfect, but it’d be the wrong thinking to expect it to be. This is a $169 smartphone. From that perspective, I’m quite surprised how much it offers.

Front and center is of course the battery life. It is outstanding, and I imagine could be enticing enough to get heavy users over to Ulefone’s side. Fortunately, that’s not all it has going for it. The performance is quick, the display is well done, and there are some nice hardware and software considerations. The camera performance is the only thing that holds the Power back, and I wish it weren’t so.

If you like what you see, you can pick up the Ulefone Power from GearBest for $169 (and free shipping).

Ulefone Power product page

Huawei P9 review

Huawei is continuing its solid run that started with great smartphones long before the Nexus 6P and the Mate 8. The company is succeeding to gain international recognition and the launch of the Huawei P9, together with its  Leica partnership, means that Huawei has its sights set on the top.

Also check out:

• Huawei Mate 8 review
• Nexus 6P review

But does it deliver? Is the Huawei P9 one of the best phones Huawei has launched to date? Does it have enough to challenge today’s flagships like the Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge, HTC 10 and LG G5? Let’s find out, in this in-depth review of the Huawei P9.

Buy the Huawei P9

Design

The Huawei P9 has a full metal unibody along with chamfered edges. The design language here is very similar to that of the P8, however the P9 has a slightly smoother brushed metal than that found on the Huawei P8 or the Nexus 6P. At just 6.95 mm it’s incredibly thin while still managing to avoid any camera bump at all.

On the front you get a 5.2-inch display along with a discrete Huawei logo. There is no physical home button as all the navigation keys are on-screen. Going around the rest of the phone, the volume rocker and textured power button are on the right, while the SIM tray is on the left. At the bottom you will find the speaker grill, the headphone jack and the USB Type-C charging port for the fast-charging 3,000 mAh battery.

On the back is the dual-sensor rear facing Leica camera along with the flash and the fingerprint reader. The camera setup is contained within a black band, much like the P8, but this time with that extra sensor and the Leica logo.

Based on its looks alone, the Huawei P9 is clearly targeted at the upper end of the market and it’s hard to deny that it’s quite a good looking handset. The P9 comes in six colors: white, grey, silver plus three variations of gold: rose, haze and “prestige”. In the hand, the Huawei P9 is definitely one of the nicest on the market and Huawei has done well to pack a flagship specs list in a profile so ergonomic and svelte.

Display

The Huawei P9 comes with a Full HD 5.2-inch IPS display and 2.5D glass. According to the specs, the display is capable of 500 nits of brightness and 96% color saturation. That 1920×1080 resolution yields a very decent 423 pixels per inch.

The display is bright, and works well indoors and outdoors. The screen is vivid and saturated with some great contrast, it also has good viewing angles. The bezels are thin, and at just 1.7mm thick they almost give the display an edge to edge feel.

See also: AMOLED vs LCD – What is the difference?129

You can change the color temperature of the display in the Settings menu to a little warmer or colder to better suit your tastes, but for me the default settings were good enough. Overall, the P9 comes with a great display that will provide a good experience regardless of what you’re doing on the screen, and the thin bezels let it to really stand out.

Hardware and performance

The Huawai P9 features an in-house Kirin 955 SoC build on 16nm FinFET. It is a slightly beefed up version of the Kirin 950 that featured in the Mate 8. The chip boasts an octa-core CPU configuration built from four Cortex-A72, clocked at 2.5GHz, and four Cortex-A53 cores, clocked at 1.8GHz. The chip also features a Mali-T880 MP4 GPU, which is certainly the most powerful graphics chip in a Huawei phone to date.

There are a few variations on the specs front, depending on the particular model and region. There’s a 32 GB version with 3 GB of RAM and a 64 GB version with 4 GB of RAM. It seems that Europe will only be getting the 32 GB/3 GB version, which includes a microSD card slot. But Asian markets will get dual-SIM support plus the possibility of that extra 1GB of RAM and double the internal storage.

In terms of every day use the P9 is fast, fluid and a joy to use. The UI animations are smooth, apps open and close quickly, and multi-tasking being a breeze. Games also work well on this device and while there are handsets out there with more powerful GPU configurations, the Mali T880 is a fantastic GPU, even in this 4 core variant. Although the benchmarks show that the GPU has a lower performance than say the GPU in the Exynos 8890, for most users the 3D gaming experience on this device will be excellent.

The Cortex-A72 core is the latest, and highest performing, 64-bit core design from ARM. The use of a Cortex-A72 & Cortex-A53 octa-core SoC is reflected in the benchmarks. The Huawei P9 scored 1751 on Geekbench’s single-core test and 6583 for the multi-core test. For some context, those scores are better than the Snapdragon 810 and the Exynos 7420. Compared to the Snapdragon 820 and Exynos 8890, the Kirin 955’s single core results are lower, however the multi-core score is higher. In other words, according to Geekbench at least, this is a leading flagship processor.

For AnTuTu the P9 scored 96703, which ranks the device higher than the Samsung Galaxy Note 5, faster than the Huawei Mate 8 (as expected) and faster than the Galaxy S6. However it is slower than the latest flagships with Snapdragon 820 or Exynos 8890 processors. As for Epic Citadel the device manages a sweet 59.0 frames per second in Ultra High Quality mode, you can’t really ask for more.

The fingerprint reader on the P9 is very good. To be honest I have come to expect nothing less from Huawei. The fingerprint reader on the Mate 8 is excellent and the P9 has followed suit. Since the fingerprint reader is on the back, you can wake and unlock your phone just by putting your finger on the reader. You can also use the fingerprint reader to trigger the shutter while taking photos, as well as use it to swipe left and right when viewing photos in the gallery, or to answer a call.

The Huawei P9 features a single speaker on the bottom edge, next to the Type-C USB port. The speaker is quite loud and the sound is reasonable considering it isn’t a front facing speaker. However, as with many smartphones, music can sound a bit thin with a lack of bass. I found that at full volume some tracks tended to distort and that the sound quality improved when the volume was actually turned down a notch or two.

The P9 has a 3000 mAh battery, which is a great plus point when you consider how sleek Huawei have made the device. I ran Epic Citadel to test the battery life while playing 3D games. According to my calculations you will be able to play 3D games for around 3.5 hours from a full charge. As for simpler tasks like browsing the web, you will get at least 7 hours from a full charge, or alternatively you can watch YouTube videos (streamed over Wi-Fi) for at least 8 hours.

Overall you will be able to get through a full day without needing to reach for the charger. During my tests I got over 4.5 hours of screen-on time during a 24 hour period. Activities during that time included 3D gaming, web browsing and taking lots of photos.

When it comes to battery charging, the P9 supports fast charging, however the supplied charger is a more normal 5V/2A charger. Using the supplied charger it takes 2 hours and 15 minutes to charge the phone from empty to 100%. I took the fast charger from the Huawei Mate 8 and used it to charge the P9. When connected the phone announces that it is now using fast charging and the charge time reflects this. To go from 7% to 80% took 1 hour, which is quicker than the normal charging, but not exceptionally fast. The P9 has a USB Type-C port for charging, however Huawei has been practical in that the charging cable has a USB Type-C plug at one end and a Type-A USB port at the other for connecting to the charger or your PC.

As you would expect the P9 also includes the usual assortment of Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, and NFC connectivity options, but it is worth mentioning that the handset uses a virtual triple antenna arrangement, which according to Huawei means you don’t need to worry about your hand position under different signal conditions. The Huawei P9 also comes with a plethora of LTE bands – just like previous Huawei devices – with support for most the major GSM bands in a single variant of the handset.

Software

The Huawei P9 runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box, complete with Huawei’s Emotion UI 4.1. For some people the lack of a stock Android experience will be a stumbling block, especially since EMUI doesn’t include an app drawer.

For those of you unfamiliar with EMUI, the general look-and-feel is different to stock Android with colorful square icons, desktop folders and a re-designed settings page. However besides the UI changes there are lots of additional features that you don’t get with stock Android including motion gestures, a floating dock, voice wake-up, a one-handed mode and Huawei’s own take on a “do not disturb” mode.

Under motion gestures you can enable motions like flip to mute, raise to ear to answer calls, and a tilt motion to move icons and widgets. There is also the Knuckle gestures which allow you to take a screenshot by double tapping the screen with your knuckle, or drawing a letter to open an app. Both types of knuckle gesture can be disabled if you find they misfire. The tilt motion feature works from the home screen editing mode. If you touch and hold an icon or widget you can move it to another screen by tilting the phone to the left or right.

See Also: Upgrading from Huawei Mate 7 to Huawei Mate 817

With the built-in voice wakeup you can talk to your phone when it is nearby. Its usage limited to locating your device or placing a call but it works quite well. The default phrase is “Okay Emy,” but can be changed to anything you like. A similar feature is “Quick calling” which allows you to initiate calls when the screen is turned off. However you need to press and hold the volume down button until you hear an alert tone, then you can speak the name of the contact you want to call.

Since the P9 uses on-screen keys, Huawei as added the ability to customize the order of the navigation buttons. By default the back button is on the left and the recent apps is on the right. However this can be reversed. It is also possible to add a fourth button for opening the notification panel. Tapping the icon is the equivalent to dragging the notification shade down from the top.

There is also a theme engine that lets you easily change the look and feel of the UI to something that better suits your tastes. The theme store has a hundred or so free themes arrange in several different categories including Cool, Lovely, Creative, Cartoon and Sophisticated. Switching to a new theme is straight forward, you just need to download it and apply it, however you will need to register for a free Huawei ID.

Huawei has included a battery manager which gives you a high level of control over battery related features. For example you can set a power plan which will tweak the CPU according to your usage (and so save battery when possible). One interesting feature which I haven’t seen before is the ability to change the screen resolution from Full HD to 720p. According to the battery manager app this can help save power! Other battery related options include a whitelist function to ensure that certain apps keep running after the screen is turned off and a power usage firewall which warns you about power hungry apps.

There is also an ultra power saving mode which will disable everything except calls and messages. It also brings up a simplified monochrome interface. When running low on battery power this mode can add several more hours of usage.

Camera

One of the key features on the Huawei P9 is the camera. Huawei is betting big on its partnership with legendary German camera-maker Leica, and it promises to revolutionize smartphone photography with the dual-sensor camera on the P9.

The P9 has a 12 MP dual-lens setup on the back, one with an RGB sensor specifically for color reproduction and the other purely for capturing black and white detail. The f/2.2 dual lenses carry the Leica seal of approval. While there was some concern over how involved Leica actually was during the design phase, that has all been cleared up. The camera setup was co-engineered with Leica as part of a long-term partnership that was announced back in February. Both lenses use 1.25-micron Sony IMX286 sensors (24% larger than the P8).

The idea behind the dual-lenses is the ability to deliver better light sensitivity: with the monochrome sensor promising a 200% increase over regular sensors and a 50% bump in contrast. There are three different focus modes on board too: laser focus, depth focus and contrast focus as well as a dedicated depth measurement chip. This means that both lenses can focus individually (along with the laser focus) and the P9’s improved ISP will automatically choose the best result.

Apart from the more standard modes like HDR and Panorama there are lots of camera modes available including a full manual mode (which offers greater control over ISO, exposure and shutter speed) and a special shallow depth-of-field mode. When using the shallow depth-of-field mode you get the added ability of being able to refocus pictures post capture. From the gallery you can enter the refocusing mode and change which object is in focus and the depth-of-field, i.e. how far away (in terms of depth) another object needs to be before it goes out of focus.

Other modes include night shot, for better night time shots, time-lapse, slow-mo, and watermark. There is also a series of live filters available if you want to get a little fancy with your picture taking. Huawei also added a light painting mode, that lets you capture light trails created by things like moving cars, or the stars in the sky. The effect can be really cool, but does require very steady hands, or a tripod mount, to get the shot to look the way you might want it.

When in PRO mode you also get some extra options on the settings page, namely the ability to save images in both RAW and JPEG formats, plus an option to enable/disable the AF auxiliary light feature (which basically shines the flash LED like a torch while focusing in low-light conditions).

There are two things that detract from the overall camera experience. One is the lack of Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), something that really should have been included in a setup which is intended to “reinvent smartphone photography.” The other is the lack of 4K video recording.

The 8 MP front-facing camera is also solid enough, and should make selfie junkies happy. You will find the standard beautification mode available, plus the Perfect Selfie mode, as seen on the P8. This mode allows you to dial in a number of beauty presets that automatically get applied each and every time you take a selfie, making for a consistent look across all your self portraits, thus creating the perfect selfie!

My biggest complaint with the P9’s camera app is that it doesn’t really rotate all the UI elements when you move from portrait to landscape. Although some elements do move, the settings page remains in portrait as do the “PRO” settings.

Here are some sample photos to help you judge the camera for yourself:

I also took a number of monochrome images (one of the modes in the camera app) which I guess/hope uses the monochrome sensor:

See also: 15 best camera apps for Android90

Specifications

Display	5.2-inch LCD panel 1920×1080 resolution
SoC	HiSilicon Kirin 955
CPU	4x 2.5GHz Cortex-A72 4x 1.8GHz Cortex-A53
GPU	Mali-T880 MP4
RAM	3GB/4GB
Storage	32/64GB + microSD
Cameras	Dual-sensor 12 megapixel rear camera co-engineered with Leica. 8 megapixel front facing camera.
Battery	3,000mAh
Features	Fingerprint scanner, USB Type C
OS	Android 6.0 Marshmallow with EMUI 4.1
Dimensions	145 x 70.9 x 6.95mm
Weight	144g
Price	€599 / €649

Gallery

Wrapping up

The Huawei P9 certainly ticks a lot of the right boxes. It’s thin, has a decent sized battery, offers great performance and is a good improvement over its predecessor. The problem with the wide spread adoption of Huawei’s smartphones seems to be EMUI.

Huawei in video:

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  Huawei Mate 8 Review

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  Huawei Mate S review

Our reviews of the Huawei P8 and the Mate 8 both highlighted flaws with EMUI and Nirave went as far as to say that while the Mate 8 had “fantastic” hardware, the software was “poorly optimized.” He added that, “with so many flagship devices to choose from, EMUI may prove to be a step too far for many users.” But I am not sure that I feel the same way about the software on the Huawei P9.

Like the P8 and the Mate 8, the Huawei P9 has excellent hardware, but I also like the software. It isn’t stock Android and if you want stock Android then you aren’t going to be happy with EMUI. However, although the UI is different, it is still Android and you still get access to Google’s services, you can install the myriad of apps from the Play Store, and so on. What isn’t there to like? Huawei’s partnership with Leica means this is a great phone for photography enthusiasts, but also a good device for smartphone enthusiasts, with a range of features that are befitting of any flagship device.

The Huawei P9 is reportedly making its way to the U.S. market but we don’t have details on that just yet. The 3GB/32GB model of the P9 is available in Europe for €599, while the 4GB/64GB version costs €649. Which brings me to one final comment about the P9, is it too expensive? Given the multitude of flagship devices available from some of the world’s leading electronics companies, then it seems to me that the P9 would certainly have been a sweeter deal if it was just a fraction cheaper. I guess if you can find it for sale at a lower price than the RRP then it is certainly worth considering.

What do you think of the Huawei P9 and do you plan to buy one? Let us know your views in the comments below guys!

Buy the Huawei P9

How 60 Minutes played ‘Telephone’ with public hacking hysteria

On Sunday, 60 Minutes took a year-old segment on phone hacking it shot and aired in Australia, fluffed it up with other old hacks from last year’s DEFCON, and re-packaged it for an American audience.

Almost no one noticed those particular details.

But just about everyone panicked. “Hacking Your Phone” set off a scare that raged through headlines and social media posts all week. As the miasmic cherries on top, the episode also freaked out congressman Ted Lieu, who has called for a Congressional investigation, and the FCC is now involved.

The 13-minute segment based its hysteria on a hole in phone routing protocol SS7 (Signaling System 7) a flaw which, incidentally, isn’t easy to exploit. But perhaps thinking the combination of hacker boogeymen and SS7’s potential wouldn’t make for dramatic TV, the show blurred in a handful of different — and extremely unrelated — ways that smartphones can be hacked.

Demonstrations included listening to calls, intercepting email, and spying on users with a smartphone’s built-in camera. In one short scene reporter Sharyn Alfonsi got a demo from Australian maker of security product CryptoPhone, with the 60 Minutes segment telling viewers, “you may need a “CryptoPhone” if you want to avoid hacking.”

The SS7 network hacking bit had Alfonsi and 60 Minutes traveling to Germany to seek out “the best hackers in the world” for an SS7 hacking demo in a subterranean concrete bunker. For this, CBS provided US Rep. Ted Lieu (D–CA) with an iPhone and the researchers were filmed recording his conversations (with permission). The show cautioned viewers that they could be hacked and tracked from anywhere, concluding with a sinister warning that we now live in a world where technology can’t be trusted.

Well no shit, Sherlock.

The first version of this segment aired in August 2015 on 60 Minutes Australia and had the same baseline message: “you can be bugged, tracked and hacked from anywhere in the world.” The segment opens tragicomically cut with melodramatic phone tracking scenes from James Bond film Skyfall, as Australian 60 Minutes reporter Ross Coulthart traveled to, you guessed it, Berlin.

Coulthart descends into the same underground offices we saw in this episode’s American remake, this time identifying security researcher Luca Melette (whom Sharyn Alfonsi neglected to identify). Melette then demonstrated use of SS7 to intercept a call between Mr. Coulthart and Australian Senator Nick Xenophon, who was as predictably shocked and outraged as his American counterpart. The Australian reporter went to Las Vegas as well, where he inexplicably interviewed the maker of a security product you might’ve just heard about called CryptoPhone.

Throughout the episode, 60 Minutes Australia repeated its claim that this demo of tracking and call interception using SS7 “has never been shown before.”

If you’ve already guessed that this particular plop of kangaroo fudge isn’t true, I’d like to recommend you for the obviously unfilled fact-checking position at 60 Minutes.

The first public disclosure of research into tracking and surveilling smartphone users via SS7 was in a Black Hat 2007 talk by Philippe Langlois. But the real in-your-face presentation was in Tobias Engel’s 2008 presentation at German hacking conference CCC (25c3), called “Locating Mobile Phones using SS7.” Since then, talks on tracking people through these exact kinds of telecommunication network attacks appeared steadily at security and hacking conferences, peaking with The Carmen Sandiego Project by Don Bailey and Nick DePetrillo at Black Hat in 2010.

60 Minutes put Herculean effort into convincing viewers that at any moment they could unknowingly become victims to some dude in a dark basement tracking their location and listening to their calls, thanks to his unfettered access to SS7.

And while a hole in phone routing protocol is a serious problem, it’s an avenue of attack that’s in the realm of nation-states and espionage. It requires access to backbone phone networks. It’s the kind of hacking that is costly in many ways, and so is only used to go after specific high-profile or information-rich targets, by entities with resources and privileges. In the case of 60 Minutes Australia, Luca Melette was given access to SS7 by the German government — which renders the fear-mongering and warnings of both segments moot.

I don’t know if it’s because 60 Minutes is low on either balls or brains, or both, but the show utterly failed to tell viewers about actually scary ways SS7 is probably being abused to violate our privacy. Like in state-sponsored data collection dragnets, where authorities take advantage of the flaw to gather info, “just in case.” Or companies that have dead-serious financial motivation to track and surveil us, like Facebook, who are well known for doing things that aren’t technically illegal until they are caught.

But the American 60 Minutes didn’t stop at SS7 with its reductive game of hacker-terror “Telephone.”

For reasons that are anyone’s guess, CBS’s reporter had Lookout Security founder John Hering assemble what Alfonsi called “the all-stars, the super hackers, to be part of our demonstration.” In the 60 Minutes Overtime supplemental to the segment, Alfonsi remarked in surprise that “they just look like a bunch of regular guys.” Apparently no one wore their balaclavas and sunglasses to the all-star roundtable. With a completely straight face, Ms. Alfonsi hit Hering and the group with nail-biting questions like “is everything hackable?”

Lookout’s main man then walked Alfonsi step-by-step into connecting her iPhone to his own spoofed network, while they both pretended she had connected to some rando’s creepy malicious network all on her own. Then he read through Alfonsi’s (apparently unencrypted) CBS News email.

Hering’s next proof of his super-hacker power was to show Alfonsi that he could spy on her using the front facing camera on her phone. At the beginning of this little contrived drama, Alfonsi is using an iPhone. You know how everyone and everything these days is telling you not to click links, download files, or install applications you don’t expect to receive? Well, he told her to do exactly that — click, download, install his app — with a text message he sent her. To do this in real life, she’d need to disable the security features on her iPhone, and would receive warnings. But in the next shot, suddenly our reporter is being spied on by Hering though an Android phone propped up on her desk.

Don’t get me wrong: SS7 surveillance, network spoofing, phishing, and spurious product placement are all very real issues that consumers need to be on top of. But 60 Minutes got it all backwards in the name of drama. They might as well have told people to soak their phones in bleach before burning them after their next sext for all the uselessness and flat-out fakety-fake hysteria in “Hacking Your Phone.”

There are a million great, truly chilling, and unbelievably urgent hacking stories to be told. Ones that desperately need to be addressed by the FCC and congressional investigations. Stories that can only be all those things when they’re being told accurately.

But after this, I don’t believe we’ll see any of them on 60 Minutes.

HTC Themes, icon packs, and copyright infringement: the situation one year on

HTC’s themes get a lot of things right… and a couple of big things wrong.

HTC Themes are thoroughly customizable, which is great. They’re not all-or-nothing like the all-or-nothing kits offered by Samsung. You can choose your own colors, your own images, your own icon pack, and build the theme you want. You can even break them free of the traditional home screen grid on the new HTC 10. The problem is, an unfortunate amount of the material in the HTC Theme store wasn’t uploaded by its creator.

And when those rightful owners have come calling for their work to be taken down, they haven’t gotten much from HTC.

In Sense 7 last year, HTC introduced HTC Themes, allowing its users to customize their phones and to build and share their own themes through the store. I’m all for customization, especially allowing people to create their own when the offered themes fall short (I’m looking at you, Samsung).

Because you could build your own themes using anything you wanted, that offered much more freedom to users. In a service with user-generated content, such as Themes and icon packs, it’s impossible keep it from being abused in a few cases. We’re beyond that few at this point.

Sense Home doesn’t support icon packs from Google Play, only from HTC Themes. So users began extracting icon pack apks and uploading them to HTC Themes, without the creator’s consent. Hundreds of paid and free icon packs were put up, and downloaded tens of thousands of times. This meant that even if HTC Themes didn’t have Google Play support, users could still get all the great packs they were looking for. Materialistik. Stealth. Glim. Royale. Sense users could still use them; their developers just didn’t get paid for it.

There are still packs being uploaded today.

Now, as HTC Themes are only available on HTC phones, it took a while for some developers to notice their work had been stolen. Developers are still noticing the theft to this day, and new packs are being copied and uploaded. It’s often a matter of hours after a new pack is published in Google Play before it can wind up on the HTC Themes store.

HTC claims they have four methods for reporting IP violations. However, two of those four methods require an HTC phone: using the report button in the HTC Themes app and in the Feedback section of the same app. Lacking an HTC phone, most developers effected don’t even know there is a report button at all. The other options for making a claim are to email either HTC Themes at gp_theme@htc.com or HTC Legal at Global-Copyright@htc.com. In the communications between HTC’s social media accounts and developers, users would sometimes be directed to these emails, but were often told to other accounts instead, such as the North American Marketing Team and the HTC’s US Copyright office.

In a response to our questions about the IP violations, HTC stated that they respond to claims of copyright infringement within one week. They also claim that repeat offenders lose the ability to upload content on the HTC Themes store. Sergejj Osmakov has been responsible for hundreds of packs and dozens of claims over the last several months, and has been mentioned by name in posts by several developers bemoaning the situation. He is still actively uploading packs, including packs created as recently as last week.

@_AndroidAlex_ We’re working towards a solution. If you or anyone you know has experienced this piracy, please DM us.

— HTC (@htc) February 19, 2016

Developers have cried out about this before. Late last fall and in the beginning of 2016, developers would post and reshare their outrage over their work being stolen. And HTC would put out a tweet or a reply telling developers to email different accounts for Copyright or Marketing teams. They said we’re looking into it. There are still being packs uploaded today. PLAY, which was released by Tha PHLASH last week, was up on HTC Themes within three days. We happened to be talking with him when he found out. He was not a happy camper.

Well, it shows to me that they don’t care or protect developers, which leads to a really bad image. -Kevin Aguilar

Months of emails, tweets, and posts across several networks left developers like Tha PHLASH and Maximilian Keppeler with nothing but a few form responses and instructions to email differing accounts, emails that more often than not were not responded to. A few lucky developers managed to get icon packs taken down for a time, but they returned with determined regularity. The vast majority of inquiries and emails about improperly uploaded icon packs were not answered, and that silence told most developers enough.

Kevin Aguilar was one of the developers who didn’t even see a point in contacting HTC after seeing the response other developers got, like packs that were uploaded again and again. This view was only strengthened when he looked into the Terms of Use for HTC Themes and found this clause at the beginning of the User Content section:

HTC does not control and is not responsible or liable for any photos, information, files graphics, text, images, sounds, video, software, tools, and other materials (including metadata) that is provided by users of the Service.

This throws a few wrenches in when it comes to developers trying to get their work removed. HTC’s abdication of liability minimizes the legal recourse available to developers if/when requests to take down the work are ignored. While there are IP takedown guidelines in those same Terms of Use, they are harder to find, developers often aren’t told what pieces of information they need to supply for a takedown request, and many requests never see a response. Some have simply given up, accepting that there’s nothing to be done.

“So a few developers aren’t getting paid their 99 cents for an icon pack. So what?” Well, that one dollar may not look like much, but for packs that have been downloaded hundreds or thousands of times, that’s thousands of dollars down the drain. Remember PLAY? In less than a week, it deprived PHLASH of over 500 downloads, or roughly a thousand dollars worth of sales. Add up the revenue lost by Coastal Images, who has quite a number of packs on the site, and it is easily over $15,000. That’s assuming all of those people would have paid for it through the Play Store, of course, but it’s clear these losses aren’t nothing.

Icon pack developers already face some interesting challenges. Icon packs are, quite simply, a luxury app. You don’t need them to get anything done (except avoid looking at some of the particularly garish app icons that may have come with your phone). Getting traction for an icon pack is a serious accomplishment, imitation is flagrant, and getting someone to invest even menial amounts in the icons they’ll spend days and weeks perfecting is a hard ask to most Android users.

It’s bad enough that their apps are given away in piracy-friendly APK sites across the web. To have it happen on an app that bears HTC’s name and logo is just wrong. Better enforcing (and better informing developers of) the Copyright takedown procedure hiding in the Terms and Conditions of the HTC Themes store would be a nice start. Allowing HTC Themes to take advantage of the Google Play icon packs so users won’t turn to pirated packs as their only option in HTC Home wouldn’t hurt either.

For me personally it made the impression, that they don’t care and just used it to make the Theme store more popular by adding more awesome content. – Maximilian Keppeler

For every single developer I spoke to, they all believe it’s too late to make a difference. They’ve resigned themselves to their work being stolen and their profits being hobbled by piracy. And even as we wait for the HTC 10 to hit stores, we have to wonder if the treatment of user-generated content on Themes will be an indication of how it’s handled on HTC’s other platforms.

Buy a OnePlus 2 or OnePlus X and snag a free StyleSwap cover or case

OnePlus is looking to help you ring in the spring season with a bit of extra style. The company has announced that anyone buying a OnePlus X or OnePlus 2 can currently get a free StyleSwap cover or case with their purchase.

With the offer, you’ll be able to select from a number of different finishes, including Bamboo, Rosewood and Sandstone. To get your free case or cover, simply head to OnePlus website and select which StyleSwap cover or case you’d like on the order screen before adding the items to your cart. A discount will then be automatically applied to the cover or case of your choosing. OnePlus doesn’t make it clear how long this deal will last, so it’s worth hopping on this one earlier rather than later if you’re interested.

See at OnePlus

Android Central 284: Your questions, our answers …

You fine folks out there have been sending in your questions for weeks. And we’re dedicating this entire podcast to answering them. We talk phones. We talk tablets. And, yes, we dive once more head-first into the world of adult subject and technology. You don’t want to miss this one!!!

Audio only this week, folks!

Podcast MP3 URL: http://traffic.libsyn.com/androidcentral/androidcentral284.mp3