Pocket Casts gets updated to 5.4.1 with a slew of bug fixes

Pocket Casts — one of our favorite podcast apps — has picked up an update to version 5.4.1, bringing several bug fixes in tow. The app introduced a Material Design refresh earlier this year, and has steadily added new features, like audio effects, the ability to auto-download podcasts, playback sync between devices, and much more.

We know why you’re here. Here’s the changelog:

Build 324! Our most exciting build yet. Chamfered edges. Thinner. Lighter. Less Ports. Improved Camera. Comes in one new colour (yeah you spell it with a ‘u’ America). Now hand over your money, plz. K thx bye. [Engages Reality Distortion Field].

What…that didn’t work? Odd it works for Apple all the time! Honestly though we fixed a truck load of things in this build, and we hope you like that it’s now the best build of Pocket Casts ever, marketing be damned 🙂

Pocket Casts costs $3.99 on Android, and is worth every cent. Grab it from the Play Store. There’s a web player as well, which is priced at $9.99. If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to the Android Central podcast.

Samsung invests $1.2 billion to develop ‘human-centered’ IoT applications

Samsung is doubling down on the Internet of Things. The company acquired U.S. cloud service provider Joyent earlier this month to power its IoT platform, and the vendor announced today that it will spend $1.2 billion over the course of four years in developing IoT applications, with the money evenly split between internal R&D and investing in other startups.

The investment will include a chip fabrication lab in Austin, as well as a research center in Palo Alto. Samsung is looking to get a headstart in the IoT segment, and as such the vendor is launching the National IoT Strategy Dialogue, through which it will “inform policy makers on enabling the technology to deliver benefits for individuals, communities, innovators and the U.S. economy.”

Samsung Shows Dedication to IoT with $1.2 Billion Investment and R&D

World’s largest manufacturer of consumer electronics pledges to work collaboratively with industry and government to bring IoT to scale and improve quality of life for people everywhere

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman & CEO Dr. Oh-Hyun Kwon unveiled today Samsung’s vision for ‘Human-Centered IoT,’ including a strategy to spend $1.2 billion over 4 years for U.S.-based Internet of Things (IoT) R&D and investments. This will be led by the Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center, Global Innovation Center and Samsung Research America, part of Samsung’s U.S. footprint of more than 15,000 employees across the country.

Vice Chairman Kwon delivered this news in a speech as part of a Samsung-hosted forum in Washington, D.C. The event, entitled Internet of Things: Transforming the Future, brought together technology industry leaders with policymakers and influencers to discuss the many ways IoT can benefit society, and how to tackle the challenges that remain in bringing it to scale.

Vice Chairman Kwon called for his peers to “start talking and thinking differently about IoT,” with a human-centered approach, embracing the life-changing possibilities of the technology and working together to bring these benefits to society at-large.

“I am excited to show how we are moving IoT to the center of our strategy and am delighted to announce that Samsung is planning to spend $1.2 Billion in U.S.-centered IoT investments and R&D over the next 4 years,” said Vice Chairman Kwon.

“At Samsung, putting people at the center of everything we do is our highest value,” said Kwon. “The same must be true for IoT if we want to realize its full transformative power. Today, IoT is changing individual lives – helping people to age in their own homes. But tomorrow, using IoT, we can give the same independence to millions of Americans. We can keep people out of hospitals and nursing homes. As our populations live longer, these benefits and cost savings for society cannot be ignored.”

In his keynote Vice Chairman Kwon offered industry and policymakers two principles in addition to a ‘human-centered’ approach: to be open and collaborative.

“If we want innovators everywhere to make use of IoT, we must make sure all tools are open to them. This means technologies that connect to each other, because we know that boundaries around technologies hold back innovation and scale,” the Vice Chairman said.

He also warned that sector-specific regulations would inherently fragment the development of IoT, impeding devices and platforms from connecting to each other.

As the IoT ecosystem is by nature connected and interwoven, collaboration is vital to promoting this level of openness and interconnection. In this vein, Vice Chairman Kwon urged attendees to pursue cross-sector dialogue and partnerships, and announced Samsung’s role as a co-founder of the newly launched National IoT Strategy Dialogue.

The Dialogue, to be hosted by the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), will design a National IoT Strategy as a tool to inform policy makers on enabling the technology to deliver benefits for individuals, communities, innovators and the U.S. economy.

This announcement, Vice Chairman Kwon reinforced, “is not about the first steps – that’s because IoT is already happening all around us. It’s time to imagine the transformative potential of IoT for our societies – and learn how to achieve its human, social benefits at scale.”

The event is part of Vision for Tomorrow, Samsung’s recently launched public affairs platform for cross-sector collaboration around issues affecting the policy dialogue in the U.S. and around the world.

Former HTC CEO Peter Chou retires from company

Peter Chou, who was HTC’s CEO through its dramatic rise and fall in the smartphone world, has departed the company. An HTC spokesperson provided Android Central with the following statement:

“HTC can confirm that Peter Chou retired from the Company after assuming the chairmanship of Digital Domain in September 2015, although he was retained as an Advisor to enable HTC to leverage his extensive experience. We thank Peter for his long-term commitment to the business and wish him well in his retirement.”

So that’s that. Chairwoman Cher Wang took over the top job at HTC after Chou’s departure, after which he briefly headed up HTC’s Future Development Lab in a more product-focused role. Late last year he took up a new leadership role at Digital Domain, the visual effects studio co-founded by director James Cameron.

Since then, despite HTC’s expansion into VR and connected devices, and the arrival of the critically praised HTC 10, the phone maker’s financial position has remained precarious.

The Moto G4 makes its way to India for ₹12,499

The Moto G4 Plus was unveiled in India in May, and now Lenovo is introducing a more affordable Moto G4 option for ₹12,499. The main difference between the two models is that the latter does not come with a fingerprint sensor, and has reduced memory: 2GB of RAM and 16GB storage instead of 3GB of RAM and 32GB internal storage on the Moto G4 Plus.

The camera is also a 13MP offering instead of a 16MP unit. That said, the Moto G4 does include the same 5.5-inch Full HD screen as the Plus variant, and you also get Turbo Charging, a 3000mAh battery, Dual-SIM connectivity with a dedicated microSD slot, 5MP front shooter, LTE, and the same 1.5GHz Snapdragon 617 SoC.

The Moto G4 will similarly be exclusive to Amazon in India, and will be available starting later today for ₹12,499. Given the ₹2,500 price difference, you’re better off buying the Moto G4 Plus for ₹14,999.

Wileyfox has new phones coming June 28

Second-gen ‘foxes set for unveiling at London event.

British startup Wileyfox turned heads late last year with two Cyanogen OS-powered smartphones at competitive price points. The Wileyfox Swift and Storm — selling for £129 and 199 respectively — were part of the broader trend in 2015 towards really affordable Android phones that actually delivered a decent user experience.

And now the company is preparing to launch a new round of handsets.

An invite sent out to press reveals that the next generation of Wileyfox phones will land at an event in London next Tuesday, June 28. The invite refers to a “handset range,” suggesting that once again there’ll be multiple ‘foxes dropping simultaneously. It’s also likely the company’s software partnership with Cyanogen will continue, though this isn’t specifically mentioned.

Last year’s Wileyfox Swift impressed with decent performance, impressive build and a quality software experience thanks to Cyanogen. Meanwhile the more expensive Storm left us lukewarm thanks to its mediocre battery life.

We’ll be on the ground in London next Tuesday to bring you full coverage of Wileyfox’s latest phones. In the meantime, hit the comments and let us know what you’d like to see from Wileyfox.

The Samsung Gear 360 will cost $349 when it eventually goes on sale

VidCon attendees get first dibs paying for the racquetball-sized 360 camera as Samsung opens its VR platform to user-generated content.

It’s been about four months since Samsung announced the Gear 360 camera — its entry into the growing market of 360-degree cameras. In that time we’ve seen LG release its 360 CAM, and the excellent Ricoh Theta S has gained steam as well. But we’ve been waiting in earnest for the Gear 360 because, well, it’s Samsung. Meanwhile, the company has given out scores of Gera 360s to attendees of its annual developer conference, and we’ve been able to import them from Korea for some time now. (Which we did.)

Finally, though, we’ve got more official information for those of us in North America. The Gear 360 will retail for $349 (that’s right in line with the Theta S, by the way) and go on sale … well, we’re not really sure when.

Samsung’s making the Gear 360 available this week — “on a limited basis” — if you’re attending the VidCon conference in Anaheim, Calif., outside Los Angeles. “Details about additional availability will follow later in the year,” Samsung said in its press release.

The Gear 360 sports two 15-megapixel wide-angle lenses that stitch together two images for near-360-degree photos and video. It works with Samsung’s current generation of smartphones — the Galaxy S6 and GS7, and Galaxy Note 5, but the camera also is self-contained enough that you can use it without an accompanying smartphone if necessary. (But it’s a lot easier if you’ve got a phone alongside.)

In addition to this early availability news, Samsung has announced that it’s rebranding its Milk VR service to just “Samsung VR” and is launching “Samsung Creators” as part of VidCon — “a new initiative that empowers storytellers, partnering with them to generate content across a variety of audiences and channels to show everyday creators what’s possible with Samsung VR technology.”

Samsung Launches Samsung Creators to Democratize and Accelerate Next Generation Storytelling Program to Encourage Exploration of New Transformative, 360 and VR Medium

Samsung’s End-to-End VR Ecosystem Fuels User Generated Content with Advanced Services and High Quality Products

NEW YORK – June 22, 2016 – Today Samsung Electronics America, Inc. launched Samsung Creators, a new initiative that empowers storytellers, partnering with them to generate content across a variety of audiences and channels to show everyday creators what’s possible with Samsung VR technology.

“We want to bring the power of VR technology directly to the people,” said Samsung Electronics America’s Chief Marketing Officer Marc Mathieu. “To help creators learn and perfect the art of VR storytelling, we’ve built an entire VR ecosystem that pushes beyond the frame and empowers them to develop unforgettable, immersive stories, and inspires us all to do the same.”

At VidCon—and, beyond—Samsung Creators will provide seminars and classes, putting VR capabilities in the hands of filmmakers and influencers, further accelerating this new medium. Leading into VidCon, Samsung Creators is working with Casey Neistat to spotlight emerging creators from YouTube and push the creative boundaries of 360 video storytelling. This special curation of content will premiere at VidCon.

In July, Samsung Creators will launch a competition, challenging aspiring, indie filmmakers and creators to develop VR / 360 content, using Samsung’s VR products. Ten winners will be chosen, one from each of the following ten categories: Music, Auto, Science and tech, Gaming, Travel, Fashion, Culinary, Cause-related, 4D and Sports.

For more information about Samsung Creators, please visit http://www.samsungcreators.com.

Samsung VR and Samsung Gear 360 Updates

In addition, today Samsung launched Samsung VR– formerly known as Samsung Milk VR – which now supports user generated content. Creators can load their own 360-degree videos to the Samsung VR platform for sharing and for the first time view them in Samsung Gear VR. For more information about uploading content to Samsung VR, please visit https://samsungvr.com.

Samsung Gear 360 also launched in the U.S. today, an affordable, high-resolution camera developed for storytellers to create their own 360-degree videos for mobile viewing and VR content for Samsung Gear VR, powered by Oculus. The Gear 360 is priced at $349.99 in the United States and will be available for purchase on a limited basis during VidCon in Anaheim, California. Details about additional availability will follow later in the year. For more information about Gear 360, please visit http://www.androidcentral.com/e?link=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kqzyfj.com%2Fclick-7293382-12001245-1428599469000%3Fsid%3Dd_ac%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.samsung.com%252Fgear360.&token=YYV-87mP

With these announcements, Samsung delivers the first end-to-end VR ecosystem that enables creators to shoot, stitch and share like never before.

Best gadget concept images of 2016: iPhone 7, Galaxy S8, PlayStation Neo and more

This year has seen plenty of impressive gadgets revealed, yet some of the best are still to come. Rumours and leaks aside, we feel it’s the amateur designers and fans who create mock-ups of what’s to come that provide some of the greatest gadget anticipation.

This year we’ve had on that list Apple’s iPhone 7, Sony’s PlayStation Neo (PS4K), Samsung’s Galaxy S8 and Note 7, Nintendo’s NX, the next Nexus and of course that OLED panel-toting MacBook Pro. Specs have leaked along with potential design changes but very few, or even no official images have surfaced.

Therefore, it is up to the online community to show us what future gadget releases might look like. The designers of the world have been hard at work interpreting leaks and rumours to create images of what may be to come. Some are based in fact and on current models, while others are flights of fancy. Lots are impressively rendered to look near real, some might come from less skilled designers but still show off cool ideas.

READ: Apple iPhone 7: What’s the story so far?

The thing they have in common is they’re all aspirational. Even if the gadgets don’t look this way when finished, it shows companies what could be and what the fans really want.

We’ve compiled the best concept design renders out there for gadgets that are yet to come. This list will be constantly updated as new designs become available.

Check out the gallery above to see the best gadget concepts the internet has to offer right now.

READ: Sony PlayStation 4K: What is PS4.5/Neo, when is it coming and what will it offer?

Announcing the 13th Pocket-lint Gadget Awards

The Pocket-lint Gadget Awards are now in their 13th year, coming together annually to celebrate everything great about gadgets and tech.

We’re kicking off things a little earlier this year with a bigger, bolder, and even better plans for the Pocket-lint Gadget Awards.

Each year, the Pocket-lint Gadget Awards looks to reward those devices that are the best in class throughout the year, and the rules are simple: firstly, we have to have seen and used the device in question; secondly, it has to have been launched since the close of the 2015 Awards in November. 

That’s where you come in. We need to know what you think are the best phones, cameras, cars, televisions, and gadgets of 2016 have been, so we can make sure we get them in for review to be considered for an award.

Today marks the start of that journey.

The deadline for all nominations for the Pocket-lint Gadget Awards longlist is 21 September, with the shortlist being announced on 11 October before we move into the voting stages of the awards.

The award categories

Pocket-lint

This year there are 15 categories in the Pocket-lint Gadget Awards plus the coveted Product of the Year 2016 award. 

Those categories are:

•  Best game

•  Best camera

•  Best phone

•  Best tablet / 2-in-1

•  Best laptop 

•  Best home entertainment device

•  Best headphones

•  Best TV

•  Best smarthome device

•  Best speaker

•  Best VR Device (inc 360 cameras)

•  Best fitness gadget

•  Best smartwatch

•  Best car

We then have a final category for the Product of the Year, the highest honour reserved for the device that’s had the biggest impact in 2016.

Getting involved

Shutterstock

All you have to do is contact us through the normal channels via email, Twitter, or Facebook, or nominate your favourite gadgets via our nomination form on our Pocket-lint Gadget Awards mini-site.

The winners will be announced at an awards dinner on the 23 November at Shoreditch Town Hall.

We will be confirming further details, like the elite panel of judges, longlist nominations and more, in due course.

Book tickets

This year we are selling tickets on a first come first served basis. If you would like to reserve your place at the awards you can book tickets now. 

Oppo F1 Plus review: A flagship at half the price

Oppo is a Chinese smartphone brand that isn’t especially familiar to UK customers. Yet on a global scale it was one of 2015’s fastest growers. That’s for one very good reason: it’s been making decent phones at competitive prices, and everyone loves a bargain.

Its latest premium but affordable smartphone is the Oppo F1 Plus, which costs £299 and comes with a great set of specifications packed into a fashionable metal and glass design. It’s a proven design, similar to that of the smaller-scale original Oppo F1, which we reviewed four months previous, albeit at a larger scale with a 5.5-inch screen and some spec tweaks (that we’ll get into later).

The ultimate question with the F1 Plus, then, is whether or not Oppo is capable of making a mid-range phone that competes with the biggest and best out there at this price point. Can it win appeal in the UK market?

Oppo F1 Plus review: Design

Like its smaller sibling, the Oppo F1 Plus features a sleek metal chassis, but without any of the plastic trim. To the untrained eye — heck, even to the trained eye — this phone looks suspiciously like an iPhone clone. At least, it does on the back and from the bottom edge.

Pocket-lint

It has the parallel antenna bands running along the top and bottom, with a protruding round camera in the top left corner. The bottom edge features the Micro-USB port, a 3.5mm jack, plus seven holes for the loudspeaker. There’s some iPhone differences, of course, including the microSD card slot, which can be used to expand the based 64GB on-board storage.

The gold-coloured metal casing on the back rounds towards the edges, where a shiny, angled chamfered edge surrounds the slightly protruding front panel — which is covered entirely in glass and comes equipped with a factory-applied screen protector.

You should definitely keep this protector on if you value a pristine display. Having foolishly removed ours, the display was scratched within a matter of days, without any unreasonable treatment. Looking at it, you’d think we’d purposefully scratched it with keys or a knife, and in all likelihood, it picked up the marks just by being in a pocket. That’s kind of concerning, especially given the fact that it’s advertised as having Gorilla Glass 4, but it’s not uncommon: we’ve had an LG G5 for months that looks like it’s been through the wars.

Pocket-lint

The Oppo F1 Plus also has capacitive back and recent apps soft buttons on either side of the metal-surrounded fingerprint sensor, but they’re barely illuminated which makes them frustrating to see.

Oppo F1 Plus review: Screen

From a specifications viewpoint, the F1 Plus’s 5.5-inch display — which boasts a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels (otherwise known as Full HD) — is plenty sharp enough for a phone that costs a whisker under £300.

Unlike plenty of other devices at similar prices and with the same screen size and resolution, Oppo has gone with an AMOLED-based panel, which means it looks great in terms of contrast and colour.

Pocket-lint

Blacks are ultra deep and colours are really vibrant, and with the ultra-slim bezel on either side it’s an aesthetic treat to look at. Watching movies, videos and gaming are all a pleasure.

Oppo F1 Plus review: Software

Like all Oppo phones, the F1 Plus has the company’s own custom ColorOS software, built on top of Android. That means you don’t get the standard Google-designed app drawer, so instead you’ll have to wrestle with app and folder placement.

On the plus side, this is the latest version of ColorOS, in v3.0, and comes with some very useful features and some which, as we alluded to with the design, will feel very familiar to iPhone users. Apps like the calculator, camera, phone dialler, weather and even the card-based multitasking screen look almost like they were directly ripped right out of iOS.

We found using the pre-installed TouchPal keyboard made it very easy to type, thanks to virtual keys being well spaced. With its plethora customisation options, including downloadable themes, fonts, adjustable keyboard size, the option to add a separate number row and gesture-based Swype-like typing, plus a lot more, it has many strings to its bow. If you don’t like the default setup, it’s unlikely that you’ll fail in making it match your preferences.

Because the software is so unlike regular Android, many basic tasks and functions aren’t accessed in the usual way. For instance, pressing and holding the home screen wallpaper doesn’t take you to the usual customisation screen for adding widgets, arranging home screens or choosing wallpapers. Instead, you have to go into the settings menu. It’s all a bit longer-winded, really. But if you’re not an Android geek then this is unlikely to really matter.

Our advice: if you like the hardware of the Oppo smartphone, then install something like the Google Now Launcher from the Play Store which offers a much more traditional Android look and feel.

Oppo F1 Plus review: Performance

There’s no two ways about it, the F1 Plus phone is fast. In fact, pretty much everything on this device is geared to be quick.

You’d be hard pushed to find a fingerprint scanner on a phone that’s as zippy as the phone’s front-loaded scanner. From experience, only Huawei is on par, but thanks to Oppo’s lack of an onscreen animation when unlocking it seems much faster.

Pocket-lint

Then we get to the manufacturer’s proprietary charging technology, VOOC. Imagine a Quick Charge-capable phone, then imagine it doesn’t slow down much after 80 per cent charge. Then imagine it charges just as quickly when being used as when it’s in standby, and then imagine it doesn’t get overly warm doing it. You don’t need to imagine any more: that’s VOOC flash-charging. And it’s fan-bloomin-tastic. Even when constantly streaming video the battery would charge from dead to full in just over an hour.

Using the device is generally fast and fluid too. There’s very little (if any) lag or stuttering when switching between apps, swiping through homescreens or opening apps. That’s mostly thanks to the Helio P10 processor inside paired with a generous 4GB of RAM. Gaming on the other hand wasn’t spectacular: frame rates aren’t always smooth during some fast-moving games, given the Mali-T860MP2 graphics.

Oppo F1 Plus review: Battery Life

Even with heavy use, the Oppo F1 Plus can easily make it through a full day on a single charge. That’s thanks to a few things.

Firstly, there’s the 1080p display which — because it doesn’t contain as many pixels — doesn’t use as much power as a Quad HD screen (2,560 x 1,440 pixels, as you’ll find in many flagship devices these days).

Pocket-lint

Secondly, there’s the software factor. Oppo ColorOS 3.0 has built-in battery-management as standard which, at times, is a little over-aggressive. It essentially kills apps from using power in the background if they haven’t actually been used onscreen for a little while. Almost all the time, this is a genuinely useful feature and saves unnecessary battery drain. On the other hand it can be incredibly frustrating. And because the device runs Android 5.1 Lollipop rather than 6.0 Marshmallow, it doesn’t have Google’s own baked-in Doze battery saving technology which is far less aggressive and granular.

Using Strava, for example, to track a run or bike ride and having the software just kill the app within the first five minutes of exercise means most of the sessions end up not being recorded. Likewise, with an app like Pebble’s program which is necessary for pushing notifications to the smartwatch, you can end up not getting any notifications at all. There is a an option within the settings to whitelist specific apps, but that doesn’t work consistently, and it’s a pain to access (go to settings > battery > others > select app, then toggle “freeze when in background”… talk about a faff, eh?).

Pocket-lint

Oppo F1 Plus review: Camera

As cameras go, the main 13-megapixel one on the back has some real plus points. With an f/2.2 aperture it’s not the most impressive for a smartphone camera, but that opening can still let in lots of light and create great background blur.

In good daylight, images often come out sharp, with nice tones and detail. It really shines when used outdoors, although greens can be a little over-saturated. Detail is sharp, especially when you get close-up to a subject. However, it does sometimes struggle to focus.

In low-light it does struggle a little, and once lighting is less than optimal, you will notice some noise and graininess creeping in. Sadly, unlike a lot of phones out nowadays, there’s no manual camera mode to adjust the shutter speed to compensate either.

Although the F1 Plus’s camera isn’t perfect, it still has a selection of features most buyers will find really useful. You can record timelapse videos, regular videos in 1080p resolution, plus there are Panorama and the ever-more-standard “Beauty” mode — the last of which smoothes out your pores to make your skin tone rosier or fairer and all that “good” stuff (we don’t like it, it’s too fake). You can also choose to fire the shutter by tapping the screen, pressing the round virtual shutter button or by using your voice.

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As a bonus, you can take pictures or shoot video with a number of preset filters, create GIF animations, or double-expose shots. The last of these is a lot of fun, as it gives you the creative freedom to make “ghost” photos, providing you have a very steady hand or a tripod on which to mount your phone.

Verdict

The Oppo F1 Plus has its quirks and irritations, but as an overall package it’s hard to be critically damning.

The F1 Plus looks and feels good, has an impressively sharp and colourful display and acts as a slick upsized brother for the original F1 model. The Plus’s two key features that make the biggest difference in daily use are its superfast fingerprint recognition, and VOOC charging technology.

On the downside, Oppo ColorOS software really needs a lot of work. Its over-aggressive battery saving capabilities mean that some apps you want running in the background get killed, even when you’ve marked them to stay active. That kind of annoyance almost cost this handset a half star on the score sheet.

So is the Oppo F1 Plus set to win appeal in the UK market? As we said at the beginning of this review, price is a key factor. At £299 it’s affordable for the mid-range, but there’s a lot of competition — particularly from the likes of the OnePlus 3, which is just a tenner more, or the Vodafone Smart Platinum, which is a fiver less.