Apple iPhone X, Day 1: The future is surprisingly familiar

Look back at Apple’s decade of iPhones and you’ll see that, minor plastic surgery aside, they all basically stick to the same design formula. Even the company’s relatively new, larger, Plus phones kept faithful to the traditional iPhone look. Those days are numbered. The iPhone X officially launches this Friday, and I’m not being hyperbolic when I say it drastically redefines the iPhone as we know it. You’ll have to wait a little longer for our full review — we’ve only been testing the phone for about a day — but there’s already plenty to get into.

The iPhone X shares a several fundamentals with the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. They all use Apple’s A11 Bionic chipsets, so performance seems the same, and they’re all available with either 64GB or 256GB of storage. The rounded rectangular design also remains, though this is where the X’s path starts to diverge.

As you’ve already heard, the classic home button is gone and the space that it used to take up is now all screen. It’s the most radical visual change the iPhone line has ever seen, and I sort of love it. Aesthetics aside, the iPhone X feels fantastic, with a level of fit and finish that’s highly impressive even by Apple’s standards. I particularly like the phone’s stainless steel frame — it adds just the right amount of heft, and the glass covering the X’s front and back melts into it seamlessly. Just look at the screen: the 5.8-inch OLED panel stretches almost completely over the phone’s face, ensuring iOS dominates your interaction with the iPhone X.

That screen, by the way, is easily among the most impressive I’ve ever seen in a phone. Apple says it tuned for accuracy over sheer punchiness, and the effect is unmistakable. While the Galaxy Note 8 delivers much more vivid colors, the iPhone X is more subdued and natural. The question of which one is “better” is ultimately a subjective one. I’ve grown used to Samsung’s lurid screens, but the iPhone X definitely punches in the same weight class, even if it seems a little dimmer.

Chris Velazco/Engadget

Yes, a fine but noticeable bezel runs around the display, and yes, the notch above the screen that contains the elaborate camera cluster is a little strange. The latter is there for a reason, though: it packs a 7-megapixel front-facing camera, a speaker, the infrared camera and the dot projector that serves as the heart of the phone’s Face ID authentication system. The notch seemed like a clumsy design compromise at first, but after a few hours of using the phone, I naturally stopped paying attention to it. After all, most of the important stuff — especially in videos — tends to happen toward the middle of the screen.

Other than the notch, the rest of the phone sort of melts into the background. I’m told Apple wanted to build a device that made you feel like you’re holding software in the palm of your hand, and the X is a strong step in that direction. (Here’s hoping for smaller bezels next year, though.)

Chris Velazco/Engadget

The screen isn’t just pretty, it’s a little more than twice as tall as it is wide. And a surprising number of the apps I use regularly have adapted to fill that extra space just fine. Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, Bear, Dark Sky, Yelp, WSJ… the list goes on. Apple says it generally takes a few hours of work to make an existing app fully iPhone X-compatible, and I sincerely hope that wasn’t just some marketing fluff because jumping into a non-optimized, letterboxed app was more jarring than I expected. When you fire up, say, Gmail, it’s bounded on the top and bottom by empty expanses that frankly make the X look a little silly. Not exactly the experience you’d expect out of a $1,000 iPhone, but I suspect the App Store will be full of updated software by the time the X is widely available.

So yeah, some app experiences are a little less than elegant right now. Thankfully, navigating through the iPhone X’s interface is generally a breeze. Since there’s no home button, cruising through iOS happens with a series of swiping gestures. Slide a finger across a bar at the bottom to switch between running apps, swipe up from the bottom of the screen and hold for a moment (you’ll feel a haptic pulse) to display all of your currently running apps, or simply swipe up to go back to the home screen. Despite hitting the reset button on almost a decade of iPhone behavior, Apple has built a version of iOS that handily proves home buttons aren’t necessary anymore.

That said, it’s not perfect. Using the new app switcher seems just a hair slower than double-tapping the home button, and trying to close an app takes a little more effort than it should. Instead of swiping up on an app window to dismiss it, you have to press and hold the window, then tap a close button on the corner. The move was necessary since the swipe up does something else, but the process now takes an extra, mildly annoying step. The stock iOS keyboard also has a lot of empty space beneath it, and while Apple uses it for buttons that switch layouts and fire up voice dictation, it’s pretty ugly.

In addition to all the stuff that’s baked into iOS 11, the iPhone X packs two features that people haven’t been able to stop talking about: Face ID and Animoji. In case you somehow haven’t heard: the former replaces the standard iPhone fingerprint sensor with a clever infrared camera array that basically turns your face into your password. The latter uses the same camera system to map your face’s movements to one of nine emojis so you can, y’know, make pandas say cuss words and send them to friends.

Chris Velazco/Engadget

Once my face was enrolled in Face ID — a process that took less than 20 seconds — unlocking the phone worked damn near perfectly every time. You still have to swipe up to view your home screen after unlocked the X with your mug, but the whole process is very nearly as fast as using a Touch ID sensor in a recent iPhone. Even better, Face ID works for verifying logins stored in your keychain, and every app I’ve tried that used Touch ID for identification now used my face without trouble. Since recent reports have called Face ID’s security into question, you’d better believe I’m going to spend this week trying to fool it.

And Animoji? Well, they exist, they work well, and they’re going to be unavoidable very soon. I don’t love having to say this, but I’ve accepted it: the age of talking poos is here. Oh, and fair warning: The longer you spend trying to see how those cutesy faces mirror your own, the warmer the phone gets. This theoretically shouldn’t be a problem after your initial curiosity wears off, but we’ll see how it goes.

(This, sadly, is a pretty good approximation of what my face actually does.)

Imaging-wise, the dual-camera around back is almost identical to the one in the iPhone 8 Plus. The only real difference is that the 12-megapixel telephoto camera has a wider aperture and optical image stabilization, so zoomed shots in the dark should look at least a little better. I didn’t get to test this very much, so you’ll have to have come back for the full review.

So far, what’s been most notable about the iPhone X isn’t how different it is from the models that came before it, but how soon all of the changes start to feel totally normal. Tim Cook has made clear that the X is the future of Apple’s smartphones, but the future doesn’t feel foreign at all — it feels surprisingly natural, surprisingly quickly.

Skype for desktop offers all-new design for Windows, Mac, and Linux

Why it matters to you

If you use Skype on your PC, there’s a new updated version of the software waiting for you.

It’s been available in preview for several months but today Microsoft is rolling out its new-look Skype desktop app for everyone that still uses the software to keep in touch with friends and family.

Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and coming exactly a year after the team introduced an overhauled version for mobile, the revamped version aims to make the user experience smoother while throwing in a few new features.

Anyone who engages with Skype regularly and across multiple machines will be pleased to learn that the software will now sync between them. In others words, you’ll find your messages and content available anywhere you have Skype installed, whether it’s your smartphone, tablet, desktop, Xbox, smart speakers, and more.

You’ll also find customizable themes to make the experience easier on the eye, themes that apparently “reflect your mood, personality, or time of day,” according to a post announcing the revamped software.

There’s a “chat list,” too, that lets you organize your contact list by time, unread, or status, and you can pin people or groups for quick access. You’ll find more versatile display options as well, so you can switch the view from standard to compact, or simply collapse the chat list to focus more on your content.

In an effort to improve your productivity, the team has introduced a new notification panel, a hub that holds all of your incoming messages and @mentions in group conversations, while it also lets you know if someone has quoted you. You can jump straight to a conversation by clicking on any of the messages showing in the notification panel.

Skype made its name all those years ago through its video calling features, and this of course is still central to the Skype experience. Playing catch-up with competing apps, it’s jazzing up the experience with a new reactions button to let you express how you’re feeling during a conversation. There’s also a mentions feature for group conversations where you can hit the “@” mark and then type a person’s name to quickly send a message only to them.

That’s just a brief overview of what’s new with the latest version of Skype for desktop. It’ll arrive as an automatic download for users who have that setting enabled, otherwise you can download it manually via Skype’s website.

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Kobo’s limited-edition Aura One offers extra storage for a crazy number of books

Why it matters to you

If you really must have enough space on your ebook reader for 28,000 books, then Kobo’s limited-edition Aura One is the device for you.

With the holiday season pretty much upon us, Kobo is offering a limited edition of its well-received Aura One ebook reader featuring four times the usual amount of storage.

With the existing Aura One device already packing a very useful 8GB of storage — enough for about 7,000 books — you might wonder who on earth needs to have as many as 28,000 titles on their ebook reader.

In truth, the vast majority of people will be able to get by with very little storage on their ebook reader, though Kobo describes its 32GB model as the “perfect solution for fans looking to hold their entire digital manga or graphic novel collections.”

Ah, yes. Manga fans. That explains why Kobo’s limited-edition device is heading to Japan, though the company is also making it available to bookworms in one other country — the U.S.

“We have many customers who are comics- and manga-enthusiasts, and they have told us they need more space to hold their vast collections, especially in markets like Japan, but really anywhere that manga fans are found,” said Michael Tamblyn, CEO of Rakuten Kobo. The company says the 32GB Aura One can hold up to 700 graphics-heavy ebooks.

Tamblyn added that the limited-edition device is also great for ebook fans “who just have thousands and thousands of ebooks and want them all available all the time.”

OK, let’s get down to the nitty gritty — how much is this thing going to cost and when is it available?

Offered in soft black, the 32GB Aura One will retail for $280, that’s $50 more than the existing 8GB version. Pre-orders will be available to Kobo Super Points VIP members from November 29 through December 5, with everyone else able to order it from December 6 from Kobo’s online store.

Kobo launched the high-end, Wi-Fi connected Aura One to favorable reviews in 2016. The regular 8GB version costs $250, and both that one and the limited-edition version feature a 7.8-inch E Ink HD touchscreen. The Aura One supports any ebook format, comes with a night-mode that eliminates blue light, and is waterproof, too.

Competition comes from Amazon’s newest Kindle Oasis, which started shipping in October, 2017. The waterproof device comes with a 7-inch display, 8GB of storage, and costs $250. There’s also a 32GB configuration of the Oasis with cellular connectivity for $350.

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HMD Global unveils the €99 Nokia 2 with Snapdragon 212 and 4100mAh battery

The Nokia 2 is the first device to be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 212 platform.

HMD Global unveiled the Nokia 8 a few months ago and more recently the Nokia 7, but the Finnish manufacturer is once again turning its attention to the entry-level segment with the Nokia 2. The Nokia 2 is positioned below the Nokia 3, and is the most affordable Android-based handset rolled out by HMD yet.

The phone will be available in global markets starting mid-November for an average selling price of €99.

Before we get started with the device, a quick look at HMD Global’s journey: after licensing the Nokia brand eleven months ago, HMD released eleven phones globally (including five feature phones), and the brand is active in over 80 countries.

Coming to the Indian market, HMD is assembling devices locally thanks to its partnership with Foxconn. By the end of the year, HMD is looking to get its phones into 100,000 stores. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that should be achievable given Nokia’s brand cachet in the country.

HMD Global’s focus has been predominantly in the budget segment, a category the manufacturer feels is underserved. That’s the premise of the Nokia 2 — a phone with Nokia’s unique design language backed by a huge battery that promises two-battery life.

The Nokia 2 is the first Android phone to be powered by the Snapdragon 212 platform. The chipset is built on the 28nm node, and offers four 1.3GHz Cortex A7 cores. Qualcomm says that there are two billion feature phone in the world, with the Snapdragon 212 aimed at those looking to make the switch to a smartphone for the first time.

The Nokia 2 doesn’t look particularly strong when it comes to the specs, offering just 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. That said, HMD Global has shown that it is great at optimizing its budget devices, so we’ll reserve judgement until we use the Nokia 2 for an extended duration of time.

Other details include a massive 4100mAh battery, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, and dual SIM connectivity along with LTE and VoLTE.

While the Nokia 2 doesn’t have a lot going for it in terms of raw hardware, the design is a cut above what you’d normally find in this segment. The phone is milled out of 6000 series aluminum, just like its costlier siblings. HMD says that the 5-inch 720p panel is the best in this category.

On the software front, the Nokia 2 is running Android 7.1.2 Nougat, and HMD says Oreo will be rolling out to the device “shortly.”

What do you guys think of the Nokia 2?

Nokia 2 specs: 1GB RAM, 8GB storage, and 4100mAh battery

The Nokia 2 is a €99 phone with a huge battery.

After weeks of leaks and rumors, HMD Global unveiled its latest entry-level handset, the Nokia 2. The phone is now official in India, and will be heading to other markets shortly. The Nokia 2 is positioned below the Nokia 3, and is aimed at the entry-level segment.

The highlight of the Nokia 2 is the huge 4100mAh battery, with HMD stating that the phone will deliver a two-day battery life. Here’s what’s on offer with the device:

With the Nokia 2, HMD Global is continuing its strategy of delivering phones with a great design aesthetic. The phone isn’t quite as robust when seen against other offerings in this segment, but HMD is relying on effective memory management and pure Android as the differentiators.

What are your thoughts on the Nokia 2?

Square’s full-fledged cash register will cost $999

Square’s existing point-of-sale systems were designed with smaller businesses in mind, those that would have no issues selling with the help of an iPad or a phone. But the setup might not always be ideal for bigger businesses, so Square has launched a full-fledged payment register. Square Register features the company’s point of sale software embedded in two pieces of hardware: one is an iMac-like seller display and the other is a detachable display where customers can see images of the items they want to buy. Customers can also swipe their cards or tap their phones on the detachable component to pay for their purchases.

Square (and Twitter) chief Jack Dorsey said its new product was custom-built for larger clients who feel that the Stand — its point-of-sale system that turns an iPad into a cash register — is too consumer-focused. Larger businesses have apparently been requesting a more professional system with a second screen where customers can see their orders.

Since this device caters specifically to larger customers, Square won’t be retiring any of its older products anytime soon. Dorsey said Register was never meant to replace them, only to serve as an option for those who need it. “We can’t be a service that says, ‘Oh, you’re too big for us,’” he explained.

The full-fledged point-of-sale system will set businesses back $999 or $49 per month for two years. While that’s over thrice the price of a Stand, it already comes with everything it needs to work and doesn’t need a separate iPad or phone anymore.

Source: Square Register (1), (2)

The only Sony division to lose money this quarter was Mobile

Kaz Hirai’s slimmer, fitter Sony hasn’t just turned a corner, it’s well on its way to earning its highest annual profit in years. The latest update on the company’s financial health revealed that it pulled in $18.25 billion in revenue and squeezed out a quarterly net profit of $1.15 billion. As usual, it’s Sony’s two most prized businesses that stand out on the balance sheet: PlayStation and smartphone image sensors.

Hirai’s goals for Sony’s future was to make it a powerhouse in gaming, imaging and mobile, but the third on the list hasn’t been a winner. Mobile is the only Sony division to make a loss this quarter, burning off $22.1 million, although executives can console themselves that LG mobile lost $331 million in the same period. The cause for the loss is the usual poor device sales, combined with a surge in the prices of raw materials.

PlayStation, on the other hand, continues to shine thanks to a sale in both games and consoles, and helped push the division to rake in $484.3 million. Around 4.2 million PS4s were pushed out the door, increasing the number of digital storefronts in people’s homes into which Sony can sell games at a low price. TVs, meanwhile, saw a small boost thanks to Sony’s emphasis on pricier, premium models.

The other big Sony business is its semiconductor division, which builds the image sensors for all the smartphones worth talking about. The company has neglected its own imaging business to push mobile image sensors, and that seems to have been the right decision. The arm alone pulled in an operating income of $436.6 million, not to mention the prestige of being at the heart of so many flagships.

Sony can also begin breaking out the champagne at its movie division, since partnering with Marvel to revive Spider-Man has proven to be a big deal. Sony Pictures saw a huge spike in earnings specifically tied to the success of Spider-Man: Homecoming, which helped the division rake in $68.8 million.

Source: Sony (.PDF)

Apple might build its next iPhone without Qualcomm chips

In the midst of its intensifying legal battle with Qualcomm, Apple is designing iPhones and iPads without its long-time partner’s chipsets, reports The Wall Street Journal. Instead, it’s eyeing Intel and MediaTek’s modem chips as a replacement, according to WSJ‘s sources. They add that Qualcomm has been withholding software for testing in prototypes of Apple’s flagship devices, which will likely further dent relations between the two firms.

After years of using Qualcomm’s chips in its hardware, Apple began embracing Intel in the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. And, both companies’ components again made the cut on the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. Yet, there’s still time for Apple to change its mind and make amends with Qualcomm — it has until until three months prior to the expected September launch of next year’s iPhone to switch suppliers. The release of the next iPad Pro, on the other hand, could be as soon as mid-year 2018.

For its part, Qualcomm said that its modem for the next-gen iPhone has “already been fully tested and released to Apple.” It added that it’s “committed to supporting Apple’s new devices.” But, the reassuring words don’t match the company’s actions.

The spat between the tech titans has been escalating since the onset of 2017. Back then, Apple kicked things off by filing a $1 billion lawsuit claiming Qualcomm ordered it to pay unfair licensing royalties for tech “they have nothing to do with.” Things turned nastier still when Apple stopped making payments to the chipmaker — the fallout from which saw Qualcomm drop its Q3 2017 revenue estimate by half a billion dollars.

Qualcomm responded with its own suit, and several patent infringements that essentially sought to block sales of select iPhone models in the US. The latest chapter in the legal feud saw the battleground switch to China, with Qualcomm requesting a ban on iPhones in the country.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

WhatsApp Starts Letting Users Delete Messages After They’ve Been Sent

WhatsApp is currently rolling out the ability to delete and revoke messages after they’ve been sent. The function has been in testing as a hidden feature in several earlier versions of the mobile chat app, but is officially going live this week.

Going forward, WhatsApp users will be able delete messages from conversations and group chats up to seven minutes after they’ve tapped the send button, as long as both sender and receiver have updated to the latest version of the app.

The new option, called “Delete for everyone” will appear in addition to “Delete for me”, and is already showing up for some users when they select a message to trash.

In a published support article, WhatsApp notes that recipients “may see your messages before it’s deleted or if deletion was not successful”, so the feature isn’t guaranteed to work all the time. It’s also possible that some users may still see the messages in notifications before they’re deleted.

Users aren’t notified if a delete request fails, but messages that have been successfully deleted for everyone will be replaced with “This message was deleted” in recipients’ chat threads.

According to WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is currently testing group voice calls internally, so it’s likely this feature will also turn up in a forthcoming update.

WhatsApp is a free download for iPhone from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Tag: WhatsApp
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‘Dota 2’ Dueling Fates update includes extensive gameplay changes

Dota 2 is set to receive some major gameplay changes, according to Valve’s newly released Dueling Fates patch notes. The update will arrive on 1st November, bringing with it the new characters teased at Valve’s International esports tournament in August. They now have names: Donté Panlin, the Pangolier, is a swashbuckling melee hero with the ability to fully negate armor, while Dark Willow Mireska Sunbreeze is a ranged fairy with magical powers that can stun and inflict fear.

Dueling Fates will include a revamped matchmaking rating for both ranked and unranked players, switching to a six-month seasonal system. This will ensure “MMR is both recent and accurate…which will lead to better quality games for everyone,” wrote valve. Players will also get a profile medal based on their peak MMR in each season, with the first ranked season kicking off in two weeks.

In addition, a new Turbo Mode serves up more gold and experience, weakens defensive towers, and reduces respawn time, making it ideal for experimenting with new heroes or strategies. The Ability Draft is also getting a new interface, and the Guide system will be more easily accessible. Plus, there’s a boatload of new items, talents, and drafting rules on the way, which you can read about on the Dota 2 site.

Source: Dota 2