Mobile Devices - Page 67

Apple has sent out warning messages to iPhone 5 users to update their iOS software, as some online services will soon be cancelled if they don't.

Apple has sent out full screen alerts that detail that some online features such as email, web browsing, App Store and iCloud services will not be available. Apple also says that apps or services that require GPS time rollover will also not be available. Users who haven't updated to iOS 10.3.4 before 12AM UTC on November 3rd will experience the lack of these online services.

Out of all the Apple users out there, Apple says that only 9% of all iOS device users are running software earlier than iOS 12 as of October 15th. If you happen to fall into this small category or aren't sure, I would recommend that you open the Setting app, tap general, tap About, and look for the number next to 'Software Version'. For more information, check out the official Apple post here.

We should expect NVIDIA to unveil its next-gen Shield TV family in the coming days, with an official reveal reportedly set to take place on October 28.

But now Reddit user Bubba_nosferatu has spotted NVIDIA's new Shield TV and Shield TV Pro at his local Best Buy, and going as far as buying one. He posted photos of both the new stick-like Shield TV that will cost $150 and the higher-end Shield TV Pro at $200.

The stick-like Shield TV is a big difference, like a super-powered Chromecast with an HDMI port and higher-end internals. Both the new Shield TV 'stick' and Shield TV Pro will have Dolby Vision Atmos technology support, 4K HDR support, and AI upscaling technology.

Google's new Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL smartphones have the option to have their OLED displays cranked up to 90Hz, but it will deplete battery life much quicker -- and now there's another issue.

Enabling the 90Hz refresh option requires the Pixel 4/Pixel 4 XL to have its screen brightness at above 75%, meaning that if the screen brightness is turned down, then the refresh rate falls back to 60Hz with it. This works when you're outside, but you won't want that super-bright OLED at maximum brightness inside.

This means that having the OLED panel cranking at 90Hz with high brightness, will deplete battery much faster than other uses. You could use it at 60Hz and enjoy longer (but still not great) battery life on the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL, but if you want to enjoy that 90Hz refresh you're going to have to trade battery life (and your eyes) for it.

Huawei will be officially launching its foldable Mate X smartphone in China on November 15, with future owners needing to slap down $2400 for the pleasure of owning it.

Huawei will be offering up some changes over the competing foldable smartphone from Samsung in the newly-tweaked Galaxy Fold, with 5G being the star here. There will be two models that Huawei will offer, with a 5G-capable Mate X, as well as a Mate X without 5G connectivity.

Both models will be powered by Huawei's in-house Kirin 980 processor, 8GB of RAM, 512GB of internal storage, and a Barong 5000 modem. It will feature a dual-cell 4500mAh battery and super-fast 55W charging. The new Mate X also has a button to open up the foldable smartphone, a noticeable tweak from its original reveal earlier in 2019.

A new study has come out and measured the amount of people that are using their mobile phone while doing this business on the toilet, the numbers pulled in are quite surprising to say the least.

According to a survey that was conducted by Bank My Cell with a sample size of 2,114 people, 80% of men and 69% of women use their phone on the toilet. It was also found that 90% of Millennial's use their phone in the bathroom while Generation X clocked in at 82%, and 57% for Baby Boomers.

The study also found that this behavior was more common in Android users than iPhone users with it being 12% more common in Android owners. The study was measured between June 1st and August 31st of 2018, and since it was a very limited sample size those numbers could of definitely increased as more and more people are picking up handsets. Interested in another cool study about phone use? Check out how smartphone typing speed is actually catching up to keyboard typing speed here.

Samsung has teased its next-gen Exynos SoC ahead of its Samsung Tech Day in San Jose, California -- posting on the official Twitter account for Samsung Exynos. The company says this new chip will see mobile intelligence "take another leap forward".

The short video clip that Samsung teased is really just a short tease, with no details at all. We should expect it to be an AI-focused chip, but how much power will it really have? Samsung uses the #NextGenPower hash tag so we should expect something beefy... but the company has just launched its re-jigged Galaxy Fold, the larger-than-life Galaxy Note 10, Note 10+, and Note 10+ 5G handsets as well as plethora of Galaxy S10 handsets.

I doubt it will have any AMD technology inside of it given the recent Samsung + AMD team up that will see Radeon GPU technology inside of Samsung-made smartphones in 2021 and beyond. We will know more in the next 24 hours, so I'll keep you posted.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that Dark Mode for iOS and Android devices was rolled out, and since then users have been wondering if using Dark Mode affects the devices battery life. Tests have been released and it seems that it does.

Tests conducted by PhoneBuff indicate that for iPhone users who have upgraded to iOS 13 and have enabled Dark Mode will be given 30% more battery life. The set of tests conducted by PhoneBuff were with robots who did a bunch of predefined tasks that included typing out messages, scrolling Twitter, using YouTube and Google Maps. The phones that were used for these tests were two iPhone XS Max's that were brought to the same level of brightness to ensure fair testing.

The tests were recorded over a two hour period and what they found that was that the light mode killed the battery that much that the testing in Google Maps couldn't even be concluded. Dark Mode on the other hand still had 30% of its battery remaining. Why does Dark Mode give better battery efficiency? Well that's actually quite simple. When an OLED display is showing black it means the tiny pixel on the display is completely off, not draining any reserved power contained in the battery. To the contrary, when an OLED display is at full brightness more power is being drained due to the pixels being powered on, you can probably see where this is going.

Qualcomm doesn't sleep, as it is on a mission to power virtually every single product you touch -- and rightfully so, they kick ass at it. What's next for the San Diego-based giant? The next-gen Snapdragon 865, that's what.

The next-gen Snapdragon 865 chip will be making its way into 8848's new Titanium M6 5G smartphone (8848 is a luxury smartphone and watchmaker in China). They've already outed Qualcomm's unannounced Snapdragon 865 SoC, which will reportedly arrive in two different varieties: one with 4G LTE and another with much faster 5G connectivity.

8848's interesting new Titanium M6 5G smartphone rolls out with a 6.01-inch AMOLED display, a huge 12GB of RAM and equally-as-large 1TB of on-board storage. Camera wise, 8848 is throwing in a 64-megapixel camera that will snap 100-megapixel photos thanks to advanced interpolation.

NVIDIA's rumored Shield TV successor has been spotted once again, this time on Amazon -- and arriving as the purported Shield TV Pro with some new features and a new Tegra processor.

NVIDIA's new Shield TV Pro will reportedly pack an upgraded Tegra X1+ processor that is up to 25% faster than the Tegra X1 found inside of the Shield TV (and other devices). It'll also feature 3GB of RAM, 16GB of storage (which is upgradeable through external storage, with NVIDIA offering 2 x USB 3.0 ports on the back of the Shield TV Pro).

There will be an HDMI 2.0 port, Gigabit Ethernet port, 4K HDR support and NVIDIA providing a big upgrade in Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Digital Plus surround sound support with the upgraded Shield TV Pro.

Samsung has only just released its foldable smartphone in the Galaxy Fold and has Chinese rival Huawei on its heels with the 5G-capable, and slightly-revised Mate X foldable smartphone, and yet... we're already hearing about the next-gen Galaxy Fold 2 smartphone.

We can expect some big changes in the Galaxy Fold 2 when it launches in 2020, but for now the rumors have Samsung reportedly moving into the world of using Ultra Thin Glass (UTG) as the protective layer to replace the transparent polyimide (PI) film that is used on the current-gen Galaxy Fold smartphone.

But the fun continues with the rumors, with Samsung reportedly set to change the actual physical function and foldability of the Galaxy Fold 2 handset over the current Galaxy Fold. Rumor has it the Galaxy Fold 2 will fold down vertically like a clam shell, instead of like a book in its current form.

I still remember getting my hands-on the original Motorola RAZR phone back in the day, my first handset was the silver model and then I upgraded to the black model and continued my smartphone obsession through to today.

But now, Motorola is about to make a huge return with the iconic RAZR phone but this time rumor has it the new Motorola RAZR will be a foldable smartphone. The company revealed a new teaser for the phone reveal, and invites to a new event on November 13 where we will be greeted by the new RAZR.

Motorola is using some interesting taglines for the event with the phrase "You're going to flip", with the company adding that it will be the "highly-anticipated unveiling of a reinvented icon". Whatever they do, I want to see it -- but the question remains: will it be as iconic and game-changing as the original RAZR?

What does $2600 buy you in a foldable smartphone? That'd be the Huawei Mate X which is being released this month, and has one small -- but very significant tweak over what we saw when the Mate X was revealed earlier this year, and then delayed.

Thanks to a new unboxing video on the Huawei Mate X, we know that the new phone will have a button on the side which opens the latch to unlock the foldable screen. It's a nice touch, something that Samsung didn't include in its foldable Galaxy Fold smartphone which is now on the market.

Huawei is charging more than Samsung for its foldable smartphone with the Mate X costing $2600 versus the Galaxy Fold at $1980 -- but Huawei provides you with 5G connectivity and its own in-house Kirin 990 chip.

Google has a history, well quite a long one with its Pixel phones at this point. They are always known for having outstanding photo capabilities as one of its strongest points. Google is also known for enabling its smartphones to have unlimited photo backup at original quality. This is offered via Google Photos, which stores to Google Drive (transitioning to Google One).

For Pixel users who value this feature, it seems to have gone to the wayside on this go around, and likely for the foreseeable future if it holds with the Pixel 4. This is not the first time that a Pixel smartphone has been omitted from the unlimited uploads feature, the Pixel 3a did not have the feature either. But, the Pixel 3a was also half the price of the flagship models.

The fact that Google Drive, Google's cloud storage solution has relaunched as Google One just a little while ago. This could be a sign of the future for Google's monetization strategy. Google offers three months of Google One (100GB) storage with a Pixel 4 purchase, and this is likely the endgame for Google nudging Pixel users into the Google One subscription model. This will ensure more ROI overall and more revenue for something that used to be free.

Google has finally unveiled its new Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL smartphones, crammed with the latest and greatest features and while the internal specs don't make the new Pixel 4 family the fastest, that has never mattered for Pixel smartphones.

Starting with the specs, Google bakes in the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC, 6GB of RAM, 64/128GB storage options, and all USB-C so once again no headphone jack and no microSD card slot. The bigger differences between the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL are in the display sizes and resolutions, and the changes between the batteries.

Google has opted for smoother 90Hz displays on both of the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL smartphones, and while the faster 90Hz refresh rate will chew down battery faster than 60Hz, you can toggle between 60/90Hz on the new handsets. As for the screen sizes, the Pixel 4 has a 5.7-inch panel while the larger Pixel 4 XL rolls out with a 6.3-inch display -- both at up to 90Hz.

Qualcomm has announced that it has teamed with over 30 OEMs to get its super-fast Snapdragon X55 modem inside of devices and your homes in 2020 and beyond, paving the way for non-5G devices to get super-fast speeds.

The new solution will see Qualcomm teaming with companies to get its 5G chip as well as Wi-Fi 6 tech to power Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) home gateways, where the Snapdragon X55 modem and Networking Pro 1200 platform will support sub 6-GHz networks and throw down the gauntlet for long-range communication with ridiculous speeds.

34 companies have signed up to use the Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 modem and RF system, with these products to make their way to market in 2020. They will be called 5G FWA CPE (because normal non-tech and non-up-to-date people will love saying that out aloud) and should replace normal wired cable modems but they will deliver when it comes to super-quick speeds.

We are hours away from the official unveiling of Google's new Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL smartphones, with leaked pricing pointing to the fact that Google will continue the same price points as the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL.

Google will kick off the Pixel 4 pricing at $799 according to the new leaks, while the larger Pixel 4 XL begins at $899. We should assume these are for the 64GB models, which I'm sure Google will offer 128GB (and hopefully beyond) models when they officially unveil the new Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL smartphones.

I'm hoping for 128GB and 256GB variants as shooting 4K video and snapping a bunch of photos all day on these beautiful new cameras chews up storage space. But in saying that, Google traditionally gives you unlimited storage for high-res photos and videos on Google Photos (which if you don't use, you really should because Google Photos is freaking awesome).

A recent Best Buy Canada listing leaked out the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL's specs, aligning with previous reports on Google's new flagship handset.

According to the listing (which has now been deleted), Google's Pixel 4 duo will use the powerful 7nm Snapdragon 855 SoC (the same found in Samsung's Galaxy S10 line) in tandem with 6GB of RAM, making for a 50% boost in system memory over the Pixel 3. Both models have dual 12MP and 16MP rear cameras that capture 4K video and will enable "studio-quality photos" wherever you go, Google says.

The main differences between the Pixel 4 and its XL model are battery and screen size/resolution. The Pixel 4 features a smaller 5.7-inch touchscreen with lower Full HD+ resolution (1920x1080p that bumps up depending on the aspect ratio) alongside a 2800mAh battery, which is slightly smaller than the base Pixel 3's 2915mAh battery capacity.

PG&E is cutting power to hundreds of thousands of residents in California, in an effort to "prevent starting a wildfire with the windy and dry conditions projected in the weather forecast".

The power shutoffs could eventually hit millions of Californians, with 513,000 residents already without power after midnight on Wednesday. The power shutoffs could eventually extend to some of the most popular cities on California including Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Riverside.

This move sees PG&E making the largest power shutdown for the company, ever -- with the company explaining its reasoning behind the power shutdown. Michael Lewis, PG&E's senior vice president of electric operations, explained: "The safety of our customers and the communities we serve is our most important responsibility, which is why PG&E has decided to turn power off to customers during this widespread, severe wind event. We understand the effects this event will have on our customers and appreciate the public's patience as we do what is necessary to keep our communities safe and reduce the risk of wildfire".

Andy Rubin, one of the co-founders of Android has posted a picture online of a brand new mobile phone that's shape looks very much like a TV remote.

If you didn't know, Rubin created the company Essential which strives towards making technology simple and easily accessible for the user. According to their Twitter post, Essential have been currently working on the above phone which has been titled "ProjectGEM". Right off the bat we can definitely see that this a peculiar looking phone, especially considering that most, if not all the phones that are being released now days are getting bigger and wider.

Judging from Rubin's pictures, we can see the phone screen is about a thumbs and a bits worth in diameter, and would most likely measure from about the base of your palm to the top of your middle finger. UI wise, Rubin shows off Google Maps, weather, Uber and Calendar, all of which seem to be in working condition. Another thing that should be noted is the gloss finish for all of the colors, when looking at the device from different angles the colors change, quite an awesome touch.

OnePlus seem to be gearing up for the announcement of the new McLaren Edition of their new flagship OnePlus 7T Pro smartphone, with the CEO of OnePlus practically unveiling it on Twitter.

OnePlus CEO Pete Lau took to his personal Twitter account with a simple image, which is definitely teasing the new OnePlus 7T Pro McLaren Edition smartphone. The previous-gen McLaren Edition handset for the 6T last year saw it with the beefiest specs of the 6T family of smartphones, with a black-and-orange McLaren-infused design, and ridiculously-fast 30W charging.

But with fast-charging taking the fast lane these days with companies like Vivo offering 120W fast-charging, and Samsung's new Galaxy Note 10+ supporting 25W out of the box and up to 45W with a specific charger, OnePlus will want to one-up the competition with the 7T Pro McLaren Edition smartphone.