Samsung beats Apple in smartphone activations during the first quarter

Samsung has taken the number one spot for mobile phone activations in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2018, according to the latest consumer report by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP). Apple, on the other hand, kept first place for brand loyalty among customers.

CIRP bases its findings on its survey of 500 U.S. customers that activated a new or used phone between January and March. Of those 500 customers, Samsung accounted for 39 percent of activations — earning the title of most popular smartphone manufacturer this quarter.

Apple wasn’t too far behind as it took the second place spot with 31 percent — which is lower than the 40 percent of activations it had in last year’s fourth quarter. Meanwhile, LG came in third with 14 percent, and all brands accounted for 17 percent of activations.

But the report attributes Apple’s higher number last year to the launch of the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X. But with the launch of the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus back in February, Samsung managed to snag the top spot while also returning to numbers it has seen in recent quarters.

As for brand loyalty, Samsung, Motorola, and LG have all increased loyalty rates within the past five quarters. Meanwhile, Apple has maintained its loyalty rate — with 80 to 90 percent or more of customers upgrading from their current iPhone to another. Samsung’s loyalty rates have reached over 70 percent for the last year, while LG and Motorola both increased several percentage points.

The report claims that while Android users remained loyal to Android, they would often switch brands because it didn’t require learning a new operating system — until now. “As fewer unique features are added to flagship phones, and brands have developed personalities with consistent user interfaces, consumers have fewer reasons to change brands, and more reasons not to when they upgrade phones,” Mike Levin, partner and co-founder of CIRP, said in a press release.

The report also notes that Samsung has been improving its share throughout recent quarters — specifically over the March and December 2017 quarters. This time last year, the company had actually lost share in comparison to the December 2016 quarter. With the anticipated release of the Galaxy Note 9, it will be interesting to see whether Samsung can keep its numbers high within the upcoming quarters.

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How to fix drift problems with Daydream View

Having your controller drift off while you’re in the middle of a game can be frustrating, but it is fixable.

Google Daydream offers a new way to interact with your world while in VR. With the use of the remote, you are given are a greater degree of ability to easily zip from one menu to another with aplomb and ease. At least, when the remote is working properly that how it seems. While controller drift during a video can be distracting, if it crops up during a game it can seriously throw you off of your stride. Thankfully, there are a few different ways to troubleshoot this problem so that it doesn’t ruin your VR gaming experience.

Update your software

If your controller is acting funky from the first time you jump into Daydream mode, then there might be a ridiculously easy fix for you. Open up Google Daydream inside of Google Play Store. From here make sure that your Daydream app is completely up to date.

If it needs an update, install the update and then check back in to see if the controller is now working properly. If it’s still acting up, head into your settings menu and ensure that your Android software is up to date. While it doesn’t work in every case, a number of users have reported that updating their software has eliminated drift problems.

Tap your controller

One of the easiest ways to troubleshoot your problem requires you to troubleshoot the controller directly. While it seems a bit weird, it seems that tapping the back of the controller firmly can fix many issues with drift. It doesn’t require much force, and it’s easy enough that you can do it without ever taking your Daydream headset off your face.

What you want to do is turn it over and place the controller in your hand with the touchpad facing down. From there you’ll want to gently tap the back of the controller where the touchpad is. You don’t want to whack the controller when you do this. Rather you should aim for a solid tap.

Recalibrate the controller on a solid surface

In certain cases, the problem was solved by recalibrating the Daydream remote. You’re always able to recalibrate from within VR by hitting a button on your controller and having it recenter both your view and your controller. However, recalibrating on a firm, solid surface appears to help in some cases.

For this method, you’ll want a solid surface like a table or the arm of your couch. Sit your remote down on the surface, and from there calibrate it several times. While this seems like a strange fix, it has worked for some folks. That’s because for some reason calibrating the remote while it is sitting on a stable surface seems to make it steadier afterwards.

Charge the controller, and let Daydream View cool down

While the 2017 Daydream View comes with a built-in heatsink, this wasn’t the case for the original 2016 model, and there were issues with overheating. If your problems with controller drift start to crop up after you’ve been playing for a while, and you haven’t upgraded your headset, then it might be time to take a break.

If your phone has started to heat up inside of Daydream, then it’s entirely possible that is what is causing your problem. Remove your phone from the headset, and let it cool down. If your phone hadn’t heated up, then it may be that your controller needs to charge. Drift apparently seems to crop up more with the remote when it’s battery is near dead. Plug your controller in, and let it get a decent charge before you try to jump into VR again.

Contact Google Support for a replacement

If none of these solutions have solved your problem, then it may be time to contact Google Support. Users who have troubleshot their Daydream View and not found any fix have had luck by contacting Google Support.

Now, when you call they may ask you to go through some of the troubleshooting methods that we have outlined above. Don’t get frustrated, just go through everything with them. If none of their tips solve the problem, you can request an exchange and have a new remote sent out. For a few people, a malfunctioning remote was causing the overall problem.

Conclusion

Right now there a variety of fixes for remote drift, but none of them seem to work in every case. For now, it’s a matter of trial and error in order to find a solution to this problem, but it may well become easier as time goes along. Did any of these fixes solve your problem? Do you have another fix that we didn’t have here? Be sure to drop us a line in the comments and let us know about it!

April 2018: We’ve updated this post to ensure you have all of the information you need to troubleshoot your issues with drift while using Daydream!

Google Daydream

• Daydream View review
• The ultimate guide to Daydream
• These phones support Daydream VR
• Every Daydream app you can download
• Catch up with Daydream in the forums!

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First-timers can try out three months of Kindle Unlimited for only $2

Exclusively for Prime members, Amazon is offering 3 months of Kindle Unlimited for only $1.99. This would typically cost $30. The deal is only valid if you haven’t used Kindle Unlimited before.

This recurring subscription will cost $9.99 per month after your trial ends, so remember to cancel if you don’t want to continue your membership.

Kindle Unlimited gives you unfettered access to over 1,000,000 books. There are also popular magazines and audiobooks available with your subscription. You don’t need a Kindle, either; Amazon has a ton of free Kindle reading apps.

See at Amazon

Here’s what’s new in the big 3D Creator 2.0 update for Xperia phones

The update includes selfie scans, 4K textures, and more.

During MWC 2018, Sony announced a laundry list of new features coming to its 3D Creator app that was first introduced on the Xperia XZ1 and XZ1 Compact last August. Those features are now arriving on Xperia devices thanks to the big 2.0 update rolling out to the Play Store now, and there’s a lot to check out.

The most notable addition to 3D Creator 2.0 is the ability to create 3D models of your face using only your phone’s selfie camera. You previously needed to have someone scan a model of your head using the rear camera, but now you can do it yourself while cutting down on time and the need for a helping hand.

You can still go back to the old method if you prefer, and no matter which way you create your 3D model, the update now allows you to share it directly to Facebook or order a physical copy of it that Sony will 3D-print for you.

Last but certainly not least, 3D Creator now uses “post-scan cloud processing” to create your models with 4K textures for enhanced detail and realism.

3D Creator 2.0 is available on the Play Store now, and it’s compatible with the Xperia XZ1, XZ1 Compact, and XZ Premium.

Download: 3D Creator

Today’s best deals you won’t want to miss

Whether you’re looking for new tech gear or household items, we’ve got you covered.

Today you can get big discounts on the hydroponic AeroGardens, Bluetooth sound bars, headphone stands, and more! Don’t pass these up.

View the rest of the deals

If you want to know about the deals as soon as they are happening, you’ll want to follow Thrifter on Twitter, and sign up for the newsletter, because missing out on a great deal stinks!

PUBG’s furious arcade mode comes to mobile

The developers of Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) has been adding features to their popular battle royale game since launch, with a roadmap that includes new maps and more stable gameplay. A new map, Savage, started testing a few weeks back, and a brand new war mode shakes up the game play in custom matches. Now, mobile players will see some cool new tweaks, according to Pocket-Lint, including a fast-paced Arcade mode that’s out on Android and likely headed to iOS soon.

The mobile update, currently only on Google Play, includes a training area where you can try out all the weapons and practice your shooting skills. There’s a new setting for dusk, as well. The big deal, though, is a new Arcade Mode, which drops 28 players (instead of the more typical 100) into a smaller space to fight it out in a faster, more furious scrum. There will be more weapons on the ground, but they’ll be limited to one of six types per game: Shotguns, Sniper Rifles, All Weapons, Melee Only, Pistols and Item Heaven.

Finally, there’s a “follow” option in the game lobby, according to Pocket-Lint, which gives one squad member control of the time and speed of the dive at the start of each match, meaning you’ll all land together as a team, which could make squad games more focused.

As for the desktop addition, adding a map selector to PUBG matches wasn’t easy, according to a developer blog on Steam. The team wanted to make sure any changes wouldn’t increase matchmaking times, and that players in different regions would be served well, too. The developers gathered feedback from all over the globe and analyzed tens of millions of matches to make sure map selection wouldn’t break things for anyone.

When you see it in-game, you’ll just need to select the map or maps you want to play. If you choose more than one, the game will randomly select a map to drop you into; you won’t get onto any maps you don’t select, either. The feature is almost complete, said the developer, and will release soon once it’s been implemented on the test servers.

Source: PUBG Corp/Steam, Pocket-Lint

Don’t expect Apple to combine macOS and iOS anytime soon

At the end of 2017, Bloomberg reported that Apple will merge its Mac and iOS software codebases. This would enable designers to create a single version that works on both platforms — and it was rumored to come as early as this year. But the tech giant’s CEO Tim Cook denied this, stating that a merger would inevitably require diluting one operating system to make software compatible with the other. The compromises wouldn’t be what users actually want.

Cook made the remarks to journalist Peter Wells of the Sydney Morning Herald, saying:

“We don’t believe in sort of watering down one for the other. Both [The Mac and iPad] are incredible. One of the reasons that both of them are incredible is because we pushed them to do what they do well. And if you begin to merge the two … you begin to make trade offs and compromises.”

Perhaps that would make the company more efficient at the end of the day, Cook mused, but that’s not what the merger discussion is really about. ” You know it’s about giving people things that they can then use to help them change the world or express their passion or express their creativity. So this merger thing that some folks are fixated on, I don’t think that’s what users want.”

Cook’s words seemingly dowse Bloomberg’s report last December, in which sources confirmed a project codenamed ‘Marzipan’ that would unify software to be usable on both Mac computers and iOS devices. A single application could use either be controlled with a mouse with the former or touch controls on the latter. But as the Sydney Morning Herald’s Wells pointed out, this could just mean that future Macs could just run iOS software instead. And with Apple reportedly making its own new chips for Macs under another rumored project (‘Kalamata’), there could be a hardware solution to run mobile software on desktops.

Via: Apple Insider

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Verizon adds location tracking to its parental control app

Verizon announced today that it’s revamping its parental controls, introducing more capabilities and giving the app a new look. What was known as FamilyBase will now be called Verizon Smart Family and it lets parents set content filters, manage screen time, pause internet access, check the battery status of their kids’ phones and get a summary of their children’s call and text history. Among the new tools are the ability to block certain apps and location tracking, which can provide alerts when a child enters a predetermined area, like when they come home or get to school, for example.

Apple announced earlier this year that it would soon introduce tools that will give parents more control over their kids’ phone usage and screen time.

A basic Verizon Smart Family subscription costs $5 per month and it will get you the majority of the capability offerings. But if you want to use the location tracking feature and the alerts that come with it, you’ll have to spring for the $10 per month premium subscription. “Being a parent in today’s digital world can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be,” Verizon Senior Product Manager Susie Fernandes said in a statement. “We created Verizon Smart Family to give parents the tools they need to help them raise tech savvy kids with a healthy and responsible approach to screen time and content viewing.” You can learn more about the tools here.

Via: The Verge

Source: Verizon

Silicon Valley’s scooter scourge is coming to an end

San Francisco is a city where companies frequently like to try out new ideas. Uber had its start here many years ago, as did success stories like Twitter and Airbnb. So it’s no surprise that San Francisco happens to be one of many cities currently experiencing a new form of transportation: shareable electric scooters. They appeared in downtown SF seemingly out of nowhere, taking over sidewalks and pedestrian paths. But what was marketed as a low-cost, eco-friendly way to get around town, soon became a public nuisance.

It all started in late March when three companies — Bird, Spin and LimeBike — debuted their scooter sharing solutions in San Francisco. All three work the same way: you unlock the scooter with an app, pay a nominal amount — $1 to unlock and 15 cents per minute thereafter. When you’re done, simply lock them with the app and they’ll be ready for the next person to hop on.

Unlike docked bicycles, like the Ford GoBikes in San Francisco or New York City’s Citi Bikes, you don’t have to park them in designated spaces; they can be left anywhere. These scooters are then rounded up and collected every night for any necessary repairs or charging and then redistributed the next day.

In the meantime, though, they’re often strewn aside carelessly, blocking the public right-of-way, thus making it especially difficult for wheelchairs and those with disabilities to move past them. Further, scooter riders are using them on the sidewalk, which is not only illegal but also dangerous. I’ve personally had scooter riders zoom up past me, yelling “Watch out!” as they whizzed by. According to California state law, motorized scooters must be used in the bike lane or on the road. This means it’s also against the law to ride them without a helmet and without a driver’s license (and therefore must be 16 years or older).

All three scooter companies do give sufficient warning to their riders about these rules in their apps and on the scooters — only Bird requires you to scan your driver’s license barcode prior to the ride. If you request a helmet from any of the three, you’ll get one for free. LimeBike also offers educational videos for riders to watch and learn safety tips and rules of the road. But clearly, people still aren’t following them.

So, San Francisco is cracking down. Not only is the city working on legislating the scooters, but on April 16th, the City Attorney sent cease-and-desist letters to all three companies to end operations until regulations are in place. The city also passed a law, demanding that all scooters have permits. Scooters found without permits will be subject to impoundment. San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) hopes to open up the permitting process starting May 1st.

This is not the only time these companies have faced public pushback — Bird paid the city of Santa Monica $300,000 for operating without business licenses, and other cities like Austin and San Diego have faced similar demands for regulation.

Proponents say that the scooters are a good thing. One of the core ideas behind them is to solve the so-called “last mile” problem, where commuters need a way to get to their destination from the train or bus stop, but without having to call an Uber or Lyft. After all, Uber and Lyft can be pricey, and an electric scooter burns a whole lot less fossil fuel than gas-guzzling cars.

To see what all the fuss was about, I decided to try out a few for myself. Each app has a map that shows you where the closest scooters are. At first, I didn’t think I would be able to find one since San Francisco had sent a cease and desist letter to all three companies just the day before. But a quick look at the apps showed there were still plenty of scooters around.

All three apps have pretty similar interfaces, though I notice that Bird is the only one that shows you the battery level of each scooter as well. For all three scooter brands, you scan a QR code on the vehicle in order to unlock it. Then you pay the initial fee — either through Apple Pay or a credit card in my case — agree to the rules, and away you go. The one big difference appears to be with the Bird app, which is the only one that required me to scan my driver’s license barcode.

On my first try with a Bird scooter, I received an error alerting me that the vehicle was damaged and needed repair. I tried again with the scooter right next to it, and got the same error. This would turn out to be a recurring problem throughout the day — I encountered broken and damaged scooters with both LimeBike and Spin as well, even though they showed up on the app as ready and available for use.

Thankfully, it doesn’t take long to find a backup. All I needed to do was cross the street to find five more Bird scooters leaning against a wall. I went ahead and unlocked one, and the Bird app gave me instructions on how to ride — you push along a few times to kick-start the scooter, and then press the throttle on the right handlebar to trigger the electric motor; there’s a brake on the left.

Spin and Bird scooters are built by Xiaomi, and then reconfigured to be used in a sharing program, while LimeBike works with an unnamed manufacturing partner in China to make their own. Specifically designed for sharing, LimeBike’s scooters are noticeably much larger, with bigger batteries that can last 37 miles between charges. Bird and Spin’s scooters are smaller and lighter, but only last about 18 miles before they have to be charged again. All scooters have a 15 MPH speed restriction.

Here’s where I’ll admit that I personally found the scooters too difficult to ride. As soon as the scooter got any kind of speed from the throttle, I instinctively jumped off due to insufficient balance and just not feeling safe enough to be going at such high speeds. I would definitely encourage using a helmet (I didn’t because I had no intention of actually riding for any real distance). Still, my colleagues seem to have no problems with it, and I can see its appeal from getting one place to another fast.

Of course, other “last mile” solutions exist — the aforementioned docked bicycles are an example of that, as well as dockless bicycles like the Uber-acquired Jump. Spin and LimeBikes have their own dockless bicycles too.

So why scooters? Well, they’re easier to ride than bikes and, also, they’re just more fun. Bird CEO Travis VanderZanden told Business Insider that riding scooters reminds people of “when they were kids.” The companies also told us that they simply wanted to provide an “alternative” mode of transportation.

But the other reason why scooters have proliferated at such a rapid pace in San Francisco is because there were no laws regulating it, thus allowing the scooter companies to quite literally roll in without notice. All three companies told us they did have talks with the city of San Francisco prior to deploying their scooters, but according to the SFMTA, they weren’t given enough warning. “While we were aware of the companies’ interest in eventually launching these scooters in San Francisco, they did not notify us they would begin operating when they did,” said SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose.

This go-in-and-apologize-later approach is similar to how Uber and Lyft started out their businesses in San Francisco too. Which is why it’s more than a little eyebrow-raising that the founders of two of the three companies hail from Uber and Lyft as well. VanderZanden is a former executive of both companies, while Spin’s team is led by Uber, Lyft, Disqus and Y Combinator alumni. LimeBike is the only one that does not have tech startup roots.

Both Spin and LimeBike started out as bike-sharing businesses but branched out recently into scooters, while Bird is scooter-only. VanderZanden also told Business Insider that since Bird skipped bikes and went straight to scooters, they “invented” the scooter sharing industry.

Regardless of whether that’s true, Bird is certainly the most dominant brand in San Francisco at the moment, with more than 175 scooters in the Bay Area. Spin reportedly has less than 50 and though LimeBike has not reported numbers, it told us that it’s still in a relatively limited rollout period. Aside from San Francisco, Bird has its scooters in Santa Monica, San Diego, San Jose, Los Angeles, Austin and Washington DC, while LimeBike has scooters in Austin, San Diego and DC. Spin’s scooters are only in San Francisco right now, though it plans to roll them out in Seattle, DC and Dallas in the future.

“Working with cities to introduce electric mobility can be a potential barrier,” said Spin co-founder and president Euwyn Poon. “But we have the policy expertise to partner with cities and create regulations that benefit cities and their communities.” Poon also emphasizes that Spin has been in conversation with SFMTA from the beginning, explaining that its current rollout is only a pilot. “We only moved once we were informed that our operations would not conflict with existing state or local laws. Since then, we’ve provided multiple updates on how the pilot is going, including sharing preliminary usage data.”

LimeBike has done its share of community outreach too. It actually started testing out its scooters at local street fairs and in further out neighborhoods like Bayview and the Excelsior, where there aren’t as many transit options. “We’ve done proactive community outreach,” said Caen Contee, LimeBike’s VP of marketing and partnerships, adding that, unlike the competition, LimeBike has been in discussions with bike coalitions and local neighborhood groups. It’s also currently working with the city to come up with designated parking spots for the scooters, to avoid the sidewalk clutter.

In order to comply with new regulations in San Francisco, LimeBike, along with Bird, are going to start requiring their users to upload photos of their parked vehicles after they’re done riding, to make sure they’re not obstructing the sidewalk. Bird also started a “Save Our Sidewalk” pledge a while ago, that asks signatories to promise not to leave their scooters on the sidewalk, to increase the number of vehicles only if each vehicle has at least three trips a day, and give $1 to city government for each vehicle deployed.

Still, it’s clear that the relationship between the scooter companies and the city is strained. Last week, Bird spread the news of an emergency ban on scooters, when the city had no plans for that. According to Bird, it was simply a misunderstanding, but it didn’t leave a very good impression on city officials. In an interview with the San Jose Mercury, San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who co-wrote the bill to require scooter permits, called the company executives “a bunch of spoiled brats.”

“San Francisco has learned from the earlier experience of Airbnb and Uber that we should be at the table from the beginning and not after the fact,” he told the newspaper. At the scooter hearing in City Hall, Peskin expressed this sentiment again: “It would be very nice if the tech bros could come in and ask in a collaborative fashion for permission rather than after the fact forgiveness.”

In fact, Peskin dug deeper into the Uber comparison. “We’re told somehow that Uber is a public transit alternative that has decongested our streets even as we have hard data prepared by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority that shows, at peak in some parts of the city they are adding 26 percent of the congestion,” he said at the hearing.

In the end, the problem isn’t the scooters; it’s how they’re implemented. The concept of the scooters themselves are fine — who doesn’t want an affordable and more eco-friendly way to get around? But the issue is with how these companies seemingly invaded the city without sufficient collaboration on the details and scope of the scooter rollout. Seeing as cities across the world have been blindsided before by companies like Uber and Airbnb rolling in without regulation with the aim to “disrupt” the status quo, it’s clear that San Francisco is finally tired of being a guinea pig to tech company whims.

Puerto Rico restores 70 percent of its power following blackout

Just one day after the beleaguered US territory suffered another island-wide blackout, Reuters reports that Puerto Rico’s power company has restored power to more than 1.1 million homes and businesses.

The Puerto Rican Electric Power Authority (PREPA) says that it is working to provide power to the less than 30 percent of customers still without power. It hasn’t been an easy road for the utility, which struggled to manage its power grid during a high-profile power outage in the wake of Hurricane Maria seven months ago.

The latest blackout was reportedly caused by an excavator that accidentally took out a transmission line between power plants in Puerto Rican cities Salinas and Guayama. PREPA estimated a 24 – 36 hour period to restore power to all the people that had power before the recent accident; still, some 40,000 customers are still without power since the hurricane, said Reuters.

Source: Reuters