Meizu Pro 6 Plus review

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Meizu Pro 6 Plus

The Pro 6 Plus is Meizu’s range-topping, flagship smartphone. It’s the one that’s supposed to beat them all, and the one to buy if you’re after the best of the best when it comes to Meizu phones. But the real questions remain: Is the Pro 6 Plus all it’s cracked up to be, and can it beat the tough competition?

At this point, it’s rather tempting to just reuse the intro to our Meizu Pro 6 or Meizu MX6 review. Why? Because Meizu seems determined to make it really hard to visually differentiate between all three. However, we’ve been taught not to judge a book by its cover. The Pro 6 Plus may look like other Meizu phones, but does it act like them, too? We’ve been finding out.

It looks just like an iPhone

To the untrained eye, picking out the Pro 6 Plus in a lineup alongside the Pro 6 and the MX6 is quite a challenge. Put the iPhone 7 and the 7 Plus alongside each other, and it’s pretty obvious which is which. Not so with these three, as although the sizes are different — the Pro 6 has a 5.2-inch screen, the MX6 a 5.5-inch, and the Pro 6 Plus a massive 5.7-inch screen — the design is very, very similar.

More: A watched pot never boils, but Meizu just fully charged a phone before our eyes

That means not only does it stick closely to the iPhone’s basic look, with curved antenna bands running across the very top and bottom of the anodized aluminum back, but it also has the same problem as the MX6 — it’s a slippery thing. Its extra weight does make it a little more holdable than the MX6, but the Pro 6 Plus still slipped out of my hand more than once.

Slips never resulted in any damage, but the smartphone did manage to pick up a nasty scratch solely from being in my bag, raising questions over the durability of the anodized coating.

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

It’s not all bad news, though. Meizu worked some real magic to make the Pro 6 Plus an astonishingly compact device, despite the large screen size. Its footprint is actually smaller than the iPhone 7 Plus, which has a 5.5-inch screen. A stadium-shaped fingerprint sensor is set just below the screen, but don’t go looking for any other physical or software Android buttons, because they’re not there. Flip the phone over and the camera lens is mounted inside an oversize hump, above a large, circular, dual-tone flash unit.

We’ve never had any complaints about how Meizu phones look, outside of being a little derivative. It’s the same story with the Pro 6 Plus. Yes, it repeatedly gets mistaken for an iPhone, but that’s a bit like getting personally mistaken for your choice of attractive celebrity. No one’s going to be upset about it.

Sharp screen and very outdated software

Want the first reason to choose the Pro 6 Plus over any other Meizu phone? It’s the screen. The resolution is 2,560 x 1,440 pixels, and they’re all shown on a Super AMOLED panel. This means dark blacks and high-contrast colors, and it looks brilliant. The Pro 6 Plus has Android 6.0.1 installed with Meizu’s Flyme 5.2 installed over the top. Flyme is a pretty user interface, and Meizu’s minimalist icons look superb on the Pro 6 Plus’s beautiful screen.

Meizu worked some real magic to make the Pro 6 Plus an astonishingly compact device.

Meizu has also added a pressure sensitive layer — which it calls 3D Press — to Flyme and the Pro 6 Plus, giving standard apps little pop-out menus, just like iOS on the iPhone. Hard press the camera icon and you get a choice of shortcuts to video or selfie mode, while the Meizu browser icon gives several choices, including opening a new tab or a bookmark. Most of Meizu’s apps have some kind of shortcut, but third-party apps don’t support the feature.

This does cut down on its usefulness. We love how 3D Touch on iOS integrates with other apps, such as a one-touch shortcut to the activity page on Instagram. Meizu’s shortcuts sometimes won’t save you much more time either. The Music app shortcut, for example, only takes a two-tap action down to one-tap.

Flyme is also very different to standard Android in the way it deals with the menu and back buttons — there aren’t any. It’s gesture based instead. Swipe up the home screen to show open apps, and tap the fingerprint sensor to go back. Press it all the way down to leave an app or menu and return to the home screen. It can be a little jarring, particularly if you’re coming to a Meizu phone from just about any other Android device in existence.

Andy Boxall/Digital Trends

It’s change for change’s sake because it’s not fixing a problem — just doing it differently from everyone else. There’s no clear benefit, so we question whether it’s really needed. At least give us the choice to use the usual Android navigation buttons if we want.

More: Xiaomi Mi Mix review

Android purists may not like the lack of app drawer, either, but the notification shade is close to standard Android, and the settings menu is laid out as you’d expect, too. We don’t have any complaints about the speed, either. Flyme zips along and is generally very pleasant to use.

Our review phone didn’t come with Google Play installed, but it and the Google Play Services suite of apps are all found in Meizu’s Hot Apps app store. Installation was quick and easy, and went without a hitch. Still, it’s annoying not to have Google Play onboard.

Flyme is inoffensive, often pleasing to look at, and presented no compatibility or performance problems. However, we’d rather all phones came with not only plain, stock Android, but also the latest version. Unfortunately, the Pro 6 Plus is running outdated Android 6.0 and an ancient security patch from January 2016. Software that’s more than a year out of date isn’t just bad, it’s unacceptable. Flyme’s presence means updates to Android can often be delayed, regardless of whether Meizu updates Flyme or not.

A decent camera, but no stunner

Sony’s IMX386 12-megapixel camera sensor is found on the back of the Pro 6 Plus, which is the same one used on the MX6, but with the crucial addition of optical image stabilization. Both share a f/2.0 aperture, 1.25-micron pixel size, and six-layer lens. Plus, Meizu says the camera software and image processor have been improved on the Pro 6 Plus.

More: Huawei Honor 6X review

We’re happy to say the changes, and addition of OIS, have made the Pro 6 Plus a much better camera phone than the MX6. The odd focus issues that plagued the MX6 have gone, leaving pleasant photos that reveal plenty of detail, and in the right environment, some pretty colors. There are still some exposure niggles, but on far fewer occasions than the MX6.

Taking photos on a sunny winter day showed off its ability to capture stunning blue skies, and some low-light images taken at night impressed, although they still have a lot of noise.

Tap the mode button in the camera app, and you’ll find settings for a manual mode, panorama shots, slow-motion video, and our personal favorite: A macro mode. Activate this, and you can get in really close to a small subject, take a picture, and the background blurs very effectively, giving you a desirable bokeh-effect shot with an up-close subject captured in detail. It’s fun to use, produces some lovely pictures, and is suitably different from other camera phones.

Flip the camera to the front, and selfies are captured with a 5-megapixel lens, which appears to be very similar to the MX6. That’s not a bad thing, and selfies come out well on the Pro 6 Plus

After the disappointment of the MX6’s camera, the Pro 6 Plus is a huge improvement, but it can’t match the excellent iPhone 7 or Google Pixel cameras, nor more reasonably priced phones like the OnePlus 3T, the ZTE Axon 7, or the Huawei P9.

Solid performance

You’ll find 4GB of RAM and Samsung’s Exynos 8890 octa-core processor inside the Pro 6 Plus, a chip also used in some versions of the Galaxy Note 7 and the Galaxy S7, as an alternative to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820.

The Pro 6 Plus’ camera is a huge improvement, but it can’t match the competition.

We ran some benchmark tests on the Pro 6 Plus, but we don’t want to pay the results too much attention, due to some concerns the phone is tweaked to perform better under these tests than at other times. For the curious, AnTuTu gave it 113,513, while 3DMark returned 1,976 on the Slingshot Extreme test. Compared to Meizu’s other phones, this is a strong (if predictable) result, and singles it out as the highest performing model in the range. Still, it doesn’t match Snapdragon 820-powered phones like the OnePlus 3 or the ZTE Axon 7.

At no point did we want more power from the Pro 6 Plus, and it was happy playing games like Crossy Road, and Hill Climb Racing. Reckless Racing 3, with the advanced graphics mode activated and running at 60 frames-per-second, proved more challenging due to stuttering evident during gameplay. It didn’t ruin the experience, though. Turning the graphics up to maximum on Riptide GP 2 didn’t produce similar slowdown, though, and played well.

Putting the Pro 6 Plus through its paces like this did increase the temperature of the phone, not to the point where it was uncomfortable to hold, but certainly enough to give me sweaty palms while I played games. This is a recognized complaint with the processor, with reports of the chip getting hot inside Samsung phones.

Battery, audio, and fingerprint sensor

The 3,400mAh battery is welcome in such a slim phone, and gave us nearly two days of use when testing the phone, but push it hard, and that time will drop. Charging using the supplied adaptor and USB Type-C cable saw it reach maximum capacity in about 90 minutes.

The Pro 6 Plus’ camera is a huge improvement, but it can’t match the competition.

Meizu has given the Pro 6 Plus enough audio prowess to make you want to run the battery down, too. The ESS Sabre ES9018K2M DAC, commonly found in many Meizu’s and other manufacturers’ smartphones, provides a very balanced pleasant musical experience. Meizu’s own Hi-Fi equalizer works not only in its pre-installed music app, but also system-wide — meaning it can be used when streaming music through Google Play Music, for example. The 64GB of internal storage should help if you want to store music on your phone, but it’s a shame there’s no MicroSD card slot to really take advantage of the Pro 6 Plus’s audio ability.

If you’re browsing Meizu’s website and see the fingerprint sensor advertised as featuring a heart rate monitor, don’t get too excited. It may very well do so in a future software update, but there was no option to activate the feature on our review phone. Otherwise, the fingerprint sensor is fast and really accurate, plus it can store multiple prints to secure files, lock apps, or enable a guest mode.

Warranty, price, and availability

The Pro 6 Plus, according to Meizu, will go on sale in various regions around the world from late February into March, with prices still to be finalized. In China, the phone is set to cost the equivalent of $435. This isn’t fixed for international buyers, and rarely is a phone’s price ever a direct conversion, so expect some fluctuation either way.

Whatever happens with the price, you’ll have to pick up the Pro 6 Plus through an importer like GearBest, a popular online retailer specializing in Chinese electronics. You get a comprehensive one-year repair warranty, a three-day arrival guarantee, and a 45-day money back offer if the phone suddenly stops working.

Meizu Pro 6 Plus Compared To

Xiaomi Mi5S Plus

Xiaomi Mi Mix

Huawei Mate 9

ASUS Zenfone 3 Deluxe Special…

Samsung Galaxy Note 7

LG X Power

LG V20

Lenovo Moto Z

Samsung Galaxy Note 5

Fairphone 2

Huawei Nexus 6P

LG V10

Motorola Moto X Style Pure Edition

Samsung Galaxy Note 4

Samsung Galaxy Note 3

Like many other Meizu phones, you should be aware it won’t support 4G LTE bands in the U.S., so you’ll have to make do with 3G. That’s a crappy experience, and we don’t recommend it. We tested the Pro 6 Plus in the U.K., on the O2 network, and it regularly connected to HSDPA+ and 3G signals. If you’re considering importing this phone, be ready for very slow speeds. Although that’s common for Chinese phones, it’s not ideal for international buyers.

Our Take

Power, beauty, and brains: The Pro 6 Plus is the best Meizu phone we’ve tested, but it still doesn’t hold up against the competition. The lack of 4G LTE connectivity is a deal breaker when you can get a similarly specced phone for the same or less in the States.

Is there a better alternative?

Yes. The Meizu Pro 6 Plus is what we commonly refer to as a phablet, although its overall size isn’t so gigantic it can’t be held in one hand. It’s in the same company as the LG V20, the Huawei Mate 9, and other import phones like the Xiaomi Mi5S Plus. The high-res screen is great, but the lack of expandable storage, and slightly disappointing camera can’t match other phones, regardless of screen size.

The DT Accessory Pack

Fossil Q Crewmaster Gen 2 smartwatch

$175

Anker PowerCore 10000 battery

$24

Getron waterproof bike mount holder

$22

The Google Pixel XL is really your best option for a big-screen phone that gets immediate software updates and security patches. We’re also fans of both the LG V20 and the Huawei Mate 9, and recommend them both to anyone wanting a big-screen phone with strong specifications, and very impressive cameras. However, those alternatives are considerably more expensive than the Pro 6 Plus. For a more similarly priced option, take a look at the OnePlus 3T, and the ZTE Axon 7. You could save even more and look at the Honor 6X, too.

How long will it last?

Meizu is behind with its software. The Pro 6 Plus has Android 6.0 with its own Flyme user interface, and an outdated Android security update. The Huawei Mate 9, by comparison, has Android 7.0, the most recent Android security update, and its EMUI user interface is a vast improvement over previous versions. The Google Pixel XL is even further ahead, because it gets instant updates from Google. In terms of software longevity, the Pixel XL would be the best choice, because the Pro 6 Plus is already out of date.

We’re also a little concerned about the build quality. The phone feels superb, but the scratched anodized finish is highly unusual. We’d recommend a case to keep the phone looking factory fresh. The Pro 6 Plus doesn’t have water resistance, so if you drop it on the wet stuff, it’s unlikely to survive.

Should you buy it?

No. You can get better phones for about the same price, and they’ll be fully functional in the U.S. If you want a Meizu phone and nothing else will do, then the Pro 6 Plus is the one to buy. It’s by far the best phone we’ve tested from the manufacturer, in terms of specification, performance, and usability. Obviously, we can’t recommend you buy a phone that doesn’t connect to 4G LTE networks in the United States. High-speed data allows you to do a lot more with your phone, so we would recommend the similarly priced OnePlus 3T, the ZTE Axon 7, or the Honor 6X instead.

Google’s plan to speed up mobile webpages is just getting started

The acronym “AMP” may not be familiar to you, but chances are you’ve encountered it more than once. It stands for “accelerated mobile pages,” and it’s a Google-led initiative to speed up mobile webpages. The search giant claims that AMP-enabled pages load in less than a second so you can get reading faster.

But there’s a little more to it than that.

Humble beginnings

Google launched AMP in 2015 with a select group of publishers, and the first few — among them The Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Tribune Media Group — came principally from a news and publishing background. That’s a decision Google made consciously, AMP Product Manager Rudy Galifi told Digital Trends. “AMP grew out of a very specific use case: news publishing,” he said. “It helped us to define the spec.”

“Studies show that purchases are tied to page load time.”

Since then, AMP has grown into something more. Baidu, China’s largest search engine, and Sogou, another Chinese search engine, announced support for AMP at Google’s AMP Conference in New York City. In Japan, Yahoo Japan, one of the country’s most visited websites, pledged to show AMP pages. Yahoo-owned social network Tumblr will begin rolling out AMP in the coming months.

The new partners join recent adopters like Squarespace, Reddit, Flipkart, TripAdvisor, Disney, Drugs.com, the NFL, the New York Times, BuzzFeed, Food Network, Parse, Vox Media, Conde Nast, CBS Interactive, Tumblr, Bing, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and hundreds of others. Google said that as of August 2016, AMP-enabled sites have created more than 150 million AMP documents across 232 locales and 104 languages.

More: Google is giving preferential treatment to fast-loading AMP articles in Google News

The scope has broadened far beyond news and publishing, a progression that Galifi said was a natural one. “AMP was an opportunity to collaborate with other companies, platforms, and publishers, and to help tackle some of their biggest pain points, [but we] thought there was something interesting we could do with it.”

It’s all about making the mobile web faster

To that end, Google Vice President of Engineering David Besbis demonstrated an AMP-enabled messaging application at Google’s AMP Conference in New York City. In a follow-up demonstration, eBay Principle Web Engineer Senthil Padmanabhan highlighted the ways AMP has helped improve eBay users’ buying and selling experience.

“We want to give people coming from Google a good transition,” Padmanabhan told Digital Trends in a sit-down interview after the presentation, “with all the benefits they get within eBay.”

eBay, an early partner, adopted the AMP standard in 2015 to help “improve the experience for users coming from [a] Google [search.]” Now, most of the digital bazaar’s product pages are AMP-enabled, Padmanabhan said, a switch that’s resulted in measurable performance improvements. “All of the pages are getting faster,” he said.

More: Google begins highlighting speedy, AMP-enabled news articles in search

Speed remains the most important — and most appealing — of AMP’s benefits.

The AMP Cache, one of the half-dozen utilities in the AMP library, stores slimmed-down webpages on Google servers. Meanwhile, AMP Lite, an optimized version of AMP, kicks in over slower internet connections and on low-end smartphones.

Furthermore, AMP intelligently compresses images when it detects that network conditions are poor. It optimizes external fonts, for example, so that they can be displayed immediately regardless of whether they were previously cached. It also compresses images dynamically, as needed.

Deliver faster, more secure, and even more beautiful ads today. Join the AMP Ads project: https://t.co/iR9xlInfa3 pic.twitter.com/zmaAbf9xFf

— AMP Project (@AMPhtml) January 30, 2017

In tandem, those techniques make a difference. Google said that AMP Lite alone, which began rolling out to Vietnam, Malaysia, and other “bandwidth-constrained” countries late last year, results in a 40 percent reduction in data transfer. The search giant said that on average, AMP-enabled pages use 10 times less data than non-AMP pages.

That’s especially relevant to e-commerce sites like eBay, where speed often correlates with conversion rates and sales. “Speed is a really great brand message,” Galifi said. “When you’re dealing with e-commerce specifically — conversions and purchases — studies show that purchases are tied to page load time.”

But speed isn’t everything

Speed can only get you so far, of course, and to that end, Google’s introducing new AMP toolsets that make it easier for publishers to customize the look and feel of pages. One, called AMP Bind, will allow internet retailers like Gap.com to build product pages with interactive elements like color and size selectors.

More: Google begins highlighting speedy, AMP-enabled news articles in search

In addition, Google’s working to improve the advertising experience on AMP-enabled pages. Now, advertisements will load faster, and advertisers will have more formats and options to choose from when they’re purchasing campaigns on AMP-enabled pages. In addition, Google’s introducing AMP analytics that’ll help publishers track users across pages.

The code’s available on Github, and Google doesn’t impose restrictions on publishers and websites which decide to adopt it.

“We’ve made no secret that we’re [introducing] these features,” Galifit said. “But users should be oblivious to the technical implementation. With cases like eBay, we’ve gotten really tremendous feedback.”

That’s not to suggest AMP’s rollout is all sunshine and rainbows. Google’s been accused of coercing publishers into a walled garden. In February 2016, the Mountain View company began prioritizing pages built with AMP in Google News, the Google Search subsection that aggregates trending topics. It designated AMP-enabled pages with a lighting bolt-shaped icon, and excluded non-AMP pages from the carousel of stories at the top of News results.

Galifi insisted that the issue was technical rather than editorial. He explained that the carousel’s zoom-in feature, which expands articles to a full-screen view, requires AMP in order to animate properly. “We’re taking advantage of AMP to upgrade experiences,” Galifi said. “It’s a cumulative block.” And he stressed that AMP doesn’t affect search rankings. “The ranking underpinning is consistent — we’re just looking to serve the user as best we can.”

Galifi contrasted AMP’s approach with that of Facebook and Apple news, both of which provide speedy caches to content creators at the cost of publisher control and revenue. Instant Articles and Apple News leverage a 30-percent fee on publishers that opt not to sell ads within them.

AMP, by comparison, is open source. The code’s available on Github, and Google doesn’t impose restrictions on publishers and websites which decide to adopt it. “We’re very transparent, and we’re continuously collaborating with AMP partners,” Galifi said. “The community is going to weigh in.”

AMD’s latest Radeon graphics driver is optimized for ‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’

Why it matters to you

AMD says the new driver for Radeon graphics cards will boost the performance of Mass Effect: Andromeda by up to 12 percent.

The latest driver for AMD’s Radeon-branded graphics cards is out, bringing the version number up to 17.3.2. It’s optimized for Mass Effect: Andromeda that is slated to arrive on Tuesday. AMD says customers will see up to 12 percent in performance gains on the Radeon RX 480 card than if the previous v17.3.1 driver is installed. The driver also provides an optimized Tessellation Profile for the upcoming game as well.

As for the resolved issues provided by this new driver, it only addresses two PC games:

The Division:
Corrupted textures appeared on some surfaces when the game relied on DirectX 12.
For Honor:
In a system with four Radeon GPUs, task switching or game menus presented flickering textures or a black screen.

That is it for fixes, which isn’t surprising given that AMD released v17.3.1 a week ago. As for the outstanding issues that still need to be addressed, there are seven specifically tied to PC games spanning Ghost Recon Wildlands, Battlefield 1, Sniper Elite 4, Shadow Warrior 2, and a few more. There are also three non-game-related issues including a problem with Radeon Settings, AMD CrossFire, and running Borderless Fullscreen with AMD FreeSync enabled.

Here are the eight game-specific problems to look out for:

Ghost Recon Wildlands:
The game may fail to launch on systems with three or four Radeon GPUs installed.
Ghost Recon Wildlands:
Players using multiple Radeon GPUs in one system may see flickering when changing the graphics settings or performing a task switch.
Battlefield 1:
If the game has an enabled profile in the Radeon Settings Game Manager, it may not launch using Origin or Radeon Settings.
Sniper Elite 4:
The game may not function with AMD FreeSync enabled.
Sniper Elite 4:
Players may see image cropping with supersampling enabled.
Shadow Warrior 2:
A missing application profile in Radeon Settings may prevent the game from using multiple Radeon GPUs at launch.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
and World of Warcraft:
Flickering or performance issues may be experienced in these games the first time they are launched with AMD FreeSync enabled.

That all said, AMD is still working on specific issues related to its new Radeon ReLive feature. This is AMD’s tool for capturing, streaming, and sharing gameplay footage that made its first appearance in Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 16.12.1 in December. That was slightly over three months ago, so it’s understandable that AMD still has bugs to iron out given the nearly infinite number of hardware configurations it needs to support.

More: AMD presses its advantage, will release affordable Ryzen 5 processors April 11

A good chunk of AMD’s ReLive to-do list still includes a conflict with Xbox DVR, a failure to install on the company’s APU chips, problems when hot unplugging a second display, game hangs when Vulkan is in use, the inability to notify the user of low disk space, and more. AMD even notes that recordings may be corrupt when capturing Microsoft Office applications.

To grab the new driver, choose your operating system below:

Windows 10:
64-bit
32-bit
Windows 8.1:
64-bit
N/A
Windows 7:
64-bit
32-bit

WhatsApp brings back the classic Status feature after complaints about the new one

WhatsApp is now calling status update About because Stories is actually Status. Got all that?

The new About feature is actually the old Status feature.

If you’re a WhatsApp veteran you’ll know that until recently the service used the passive and often unwieldy (but extremely popular) status update to give friends and family an idea of what its users were up to. That changed with the proliferating Snapchatification of all of Facebook’s properties when WhatsApp added a new Status, lifting Stories straight from the popular ephemeral messaging platform.

But after considerable pushback, WhatsApp has announced that it is adding the original status update back, calling it ‘About’, since Status is already taken. Beta users can access the new About feature through Settings —> Profile, which will then show in the chat window just as it did before. The feature is meant to live alongside Stories Status, and only happened because thousands of people submitted complaints to the company.

Despite the complaints, WhatsApp continues to be one of the most popular messaging apps in the world, with over 1.2 billion people using it every month.

HTC teases 20 March spring event, likely for HTC Ocean/HTC 11 flagship

It looks like the HTC U Ultra and HTC U Play aren’t the only smartphones HTC plans to announce this year.

The company has posted an interesting teaser to its Taiwanese Facebook page. In the post, first spotted by TechRadar, we can see a photo with the caption “spring is coming”, while a comment above the post hinted HTC will give us an (translated) “unexpected surprise” on 20 March. So, what can we expect from the Taiwan-based phone manufacturer? HTC’s 2017 flagship, of course.

• HTC U Ultra review: Are two displays better than one?
• HTC Ocean leak suggests phone will offer ‘Edge Sense’ display feature

Although the HTC U Ultra has flagship specs, it’s not actually HTC’s flagship device for 2017. A higher-spec device is expected this year. It will be the successor to the HTC 10. It’s currently known by the codename HTC Ocean as well as the name HTC 11. Keep in mind HTC’s Chia-Lin Chang said in January that HTC plans to unveil its new flagship when the latest mobile CPU technologies become available.

You can read more about the HTC 11 from Pocket-lint’s rumour round-up. If HTC doesn’t unveil a phone next month, you should expect the company’s tether-free HTC Vive mobile device.

What is Google Family Link and how do the parental controls work?

If you have kids, you probably care about they do on a mobile device.

Don’t get us wrong. You want them to explore, tinker around, and aspire to be Mark Zuckerberg 2.0, but at the same time, there are just some things kids maybe shouldn’t do on an internet-connected phone or tablet. So, what happens when your child asks for an Android device? You can either say no right from the get-go, or you can use Family Link, a new service from Google that offers several parental controls.

What is Google Family Link?

Family Link is a new Android app lets you create a specific Google Account for your kid. This account is a lot like your own account – only it lets you set ground rules, such as dictating which apps your kid can use and for how long. You can even set a bedtime on your kid’s device.

What parental controls does it offer?

You can approve or block the apps your kid wants to download from the Google Play Store. You can also monitor their screen time, including checking out how much time your kid spends on their favourite apps, thanks to weekly or monthly activity reports. And, as we already said, you can set daily screen time limits for their device as well as a device bedtime. You can even remotely lock a device at any time.

Keep in mind Family Link does not claim to block inappropriate content, though some apps do offer their own filtering options.

How does Google Family Link work?

First, make sure your kid has a new mobile device that runs Android Nougat (7.0) or higher. Google leaves it up up to you to decide when your kid is old enough for an Android phone or tablet. Next, you’ll need to download the Family Link for Android app onto your mobile device and then create a Google Account for your kid through the app. Go here for more information on how to create an account.

Family Link can only manage Google accounts for kids under 13. When your kid turns 13, he or she will have the option to graduate to a normal Google Account. Once you’ve created an account for your kid, sign him or her onto their new device. You can also create a family group with up to six people, but then you’d become the family manager. Go here for more information about family groups.

Now, once you’ve set up Family Link for you and your family, you can start adjusting preferences:

• See Google’s FAQ page on how to change your kid’s Google Account settings
• See Google’s FAQ page on how to manage your kid’s Android apps
• See Google’s FAQ page on how to manage your kid’s device screen time
• See Google’s FAQ page on how to check your kid’s device location
• See Google’s FAQ page on how to restrict mature content on Google Play

When can you use Google Family Link?

Starting 15 March, you can request an invite to the early access program. After receiving an invite, parents with kids under 13 years old can download the Family Link app. Go here to request an invite.

Where is Google Family Link available?

Family Link initially launched in just the US, though Google said it plans to make the app more broadly available.

Want to know more?

See the Google Family Link site and FAQ hub for more details. Google also offers these tips for families.

GoPro cuts another 270 jobs

Despite a disappointing earnings report at the end of 2016, GoPro now expects to land “in the upper end” of its revenue goals for the first quarter of 2017 — somewhere in the neighborhood of $190 million to $210 million. That’s the good news. The bad news, according to an announcement distributed to investors Wednesday, is that the company will lay off or eliminate another 270 jobs or open roles as it continues to look for ways to reduce operating expenses.

The cuts include “program costs, headcount and open positions,” the announcement states, and the company expects to spend a total of $10 million this quarter on the restructuring effort. This round of layoffs comes just four months after the company announced it would eliminate 200 positions back in November and had a tough time getting its Karma drone off the ground in time for the holiday season. According to founder and CEO Nick Woodman, however, the company is still on track to turn a profit in 2017 and the hardware roadmap won’t be affected, so we can still expect to see a new Hero 6 action camera sometime this year.

Via: Reuters

Source: GoPro Newsroom

Federal judge temporarily suspends the revised travel ban

A federal judge in Hawaii has halted President Donald Trump’s immigration ban targeting six majority-Muslim nations, just one day before the order was scheduled to take effect. The technology industry has been a leading voice of opposition to a proposed travel ban, and this morning 58 companies signed an amicus brief in support of Hawaii’s lawsuit.

The executive order bars citizens of Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Yemen and Syria from traveling to the United States, though this does not apply to green card holders or those with visas. The administration says these are “countries of concern due to the national security risks associated with their instability and the prevalence of terrorist fighters in their territories.”

The travel ban also suspends the US refugee program for 120 days, and reduces the number of refugees allowed to enter the country this year from 110,000 to 50,000. Trump signed the order on March 6th and it was due to be enacted on March 16th.

The state of Hawaii claims the travel ban hurts the state’s tourism industry while damaging its ability to recruit students, employees and faculty members from the named countries. Hawaii also argues the ban violates the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which prohibits the government from favoring one religion. The state says the travel ban is essentially a ban on Muslims, something that Trump called for specifically during the campaign.

This is the Trump administration’s second attempt at implementing an immigration ban, and the second time a lawsuit has halted its progress. Trump signed the first executive order on January 27th and it went into effect immediately, causing chaos and confusion at many airports nationwide. Protesters and volunteer immigration lawyers flocked to airports, and lawsuits challenging the ban popped up across the country.

One of these original lawsuits, brought by the state of Washington, led to the ban being frozen. A federal appeals court upheld the stay in a unanimous decision on February 9th.

Meahwhile, leaders in the technology industry expressed their outrage at the ban, hosting walk-outs and speaking publicly about its negative impact on Silicon Valley. More than 120 tech companies signed an amicus brief against the original executive order. A number of companies that signed the first amicus brief — including Google, Apple, Microsoft, Spotify and Netflix — haven’t signed the second in support of Hawaii’s efforts, though big names including Lyft, Airbnb and Dropbox have.

Hawaii’s lawsuit draws from Washington’s original legal challenge, which asserted there was “shocking evidence of intent to discriminate against Muslims” by the Trump administration, including public statements from the president and his aides. It also argued the state could sue on behalf of its citizens, who would suffer financial and emotional harm under the ban, and on behalf of universities that would lose access to students and faculty.

Hawaii argues similarly.

“Plaintiffs allege that the Executive Order subjects portions of the State’s population… to discrimination in violation of both the Constitution and the INA, denying them their right, among other things, to associate with family members overseas on the basis of their religion and national origin,” Hawaii’s argument reads. “The State purports that the Executive Order has injured its institutions, economy, and sovereign interest in maintaining the separation between church and state.”

Today, US District Judge Derrick K. Watson froze the executive order nationwide.

Via: Washington Post

Source: US Courts

‘Family Link’ app gives kids their own child-safe Google accounts

For some time, child-proofing your tech meant using kid-specific login profiles to wall-off your progeny into the most harmless corners of your tablet. That’s hardly a delicate or complex safety setup. Google has released an app, Family Link, that lets parents create dedicated accounts for their children. Want to toggle your kid’s app permissions, limit their screen time and set a bedtime capping how late they can use their device? This one’s for you.

It’s still in early access, so you’ll have to request an invite, and only families with children under 13 years old qualify at the moment. The app only works on devices running Android Nougat, so make sure your child has one before signing up.

Enabling adults to toggle permissions from afar is pretty cool, there’s something odd about deliberately bringing your kid into an ecosystem where Google is mining their activity. To their credit, the search giant is open about what data they will collect, and point out that third-party apps might snag even more, which is how the seemingly innocuous Pokemon Go was revealed to have access to Android users’ accounts last year. But it’s definitely more versatile to purchase a standard device and load up Family Link than buying a tablet with kid-friendly limitations hardwired in.

Source: Google Blog

Apple Sees Success With Efforts to Protect Working Forests in North Carolina

Apple’s partnership with The Conservation Fund to protect working forests has begun to show returns for both Apple and the state of North Carolina, according to information the organization shared with the Triangle Business Journal.

Apple vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives Lisa Jackson shared the article covering Apple’s conservation efforts on Twitter this afternoon.

Environmental protection = good for the planet & economy. Yet another example through our work with @ConservationFnd https://t.co/XUMRMybdfy

— Lisa P. Jackson (@lisapjackson) March 15, 2017

Jena Thompson Meredith, vice president of business partnerships at The Conservation Fund, says Apple’s purchase of forest land in North Carolina and Maine has protected 36,000 acres of sustainable forest.

In 2016, the group harvested more than 13,000 metric tons of wood between the two forests, she says, though she did not break that number down by state.

She says the collective annual production from the forests in North Carolina and Maine was equivalent to about 30 percent of the virgin fiber used in Apple’s product packaging for 2015.

With survey work, site prep, and harvesting and planting, the Brunswick Forest portion of the project has employed more than 30 people in logging operations in North Carolina, resulting in more than 10 jobs per 1,000 acres.

The effort has also protected North Carolina’s Green Swamp Preserve, which is home to six rare species, including the Venus flytrap. Across 300 of the the 3,600 acres Apple purchased in North Carolina, The Conservation Fund has planted an additional 185,000 trees. 40 acres of those include the native longleaf pine and the Atlantic white cedar, both of which provide a home to a rare butterfly.

Apple first partnered with The Conservation Fund in April of 2015, purchasing thousands of acres of working forest for its paper supplies.

At the time, Apple said it was aiming to use paper more efficiently by increasing recycled paper content, sourcing paper sustainably, and conserving acreage of working forests around the world equivalent to its virgin paper footprint.

More than 99 percent of Apple’s product packaging in 2015 came from paper that was recycled or sourced from sustainably managed forests, according to the company’s 2016 environmental report.

Tags: The Conservation Fund, Environmental Responsibility, Apple environment
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