According to a tip this afternoon, Nokia is about to go - or has already gone - the way of Nokia in the smartphone business. The tip suggests that HTC might begin using ODM for smartphone manufacturing. That'd mean that HTC would continue to be the brand, and HTC would continue to design phones, but HTC wouldn't be manufacturing the phones themselves.
Assuming you've got a paid Google cloud storage account, you've now got Google One. Google One is the name for a service which adds features to what was previously just known as Google cloud storage, or paying for Google Drive expanded storage. Now, with a brand, Google One provides a renewed push for people to buy cloud storage from Google - because they'll be privy to certain benefits.
The Lotus by Seam is a small button with a microphone, a speaker, and a bluetooth connection. Lotus can be attached to a person's clothing, a necklace, a backpack, or whatever else the user might consider handy. The button works with the user's smartphone and an app called Seam Personal Security. This app connects the user to up to 5 contacts with which GPS, video, and audio information can be shared at a tap.
The Huawei Mate 20 was listed for sale well before its official announcement. This device was listed by a smartphone sales website we've not been able to confirm much about, so we're not going to link directly to it. But it would appear that they've all the info we've seen about the Mate 20 plus a little bit extra we've not yet seen listed anywhere. Take everything here with a grain of salt.
It’s that time of year again. New Android version, new guessing and then waiting game for which phones will get the update and, just as importantly, when. Things have gotten better over the years, in no small part thanks to high-profile security scares and Apple gloating, but it’s far from being ideal. Ideally, that would be when lists like this will be superfluous. But until that glorious day, here are some of the smartphone makers who have gone public about their love for Pie and those that have been unsurprisingly yet annoyingly silent for the past weeks.
Google giveth and Google taketh away. New software versions are often expected to bring in new features and remove bugs but it isn’t unheard of for things to happen the other way around. There are some cases that features presumed to be there forever are suddenly yanked out without as much a warning. That definitely feels like the case with the sudden inability of non-root call recording apps to work in Android 9 Pie. That said, it probably shouldn’t come as surprise despite being an unfortunate “regression”.
Some manufacturers have wholeheartedly embraced the notch. Others, like Samsung, continue to ignore it. Still others have tried to come up with different ways to compromise. Like Vivo before it, OPPO played with an elevating mechanism in the Find X to mixed results, only to return to a notch. But this is no Apple notch in the OPPO F9. It is a notch that is barely there but might, ironically, irk notch haters even more.
Microsoft has been giving Insiders a foretaste of features and changes that are coming in the next Windows 10 version. Naturally, it is presumed that those features won’t actually be arriving until that version rolls out later this year. That was definitely the presumption for the “Your Phone” app that promises a seamless connection between Windows 10 and, at least initially, Android smartphones. It turns out, though, that the app is now generally available to all, even on the current 1803 version of Windows 10.
Despite the fanciness and versatility of smartwatches, fitness trackers still outnumber and outsell them for various reasons. Those include price, function, and battery life. The two different but related worlds, however, are close to colliding, especially with the likes of Fitbit having a foot down in both worlds. While the Ionic and the Versa try to bridge the gap from the smartwatch side, the upcoming Charge 3 will seemingly reach out from the fitness tracker side. That said, all the improvements it brings may come at a heavy price, figuratively.
A connected speaker, smart or not, is only as good as the number of things you can stream through it. In some cases, owners are limited to an OEMs own music service. Google, however, opts for giving users choice. That choice expands today with the addition of two more services, letting users access Pandora and Deezer on their Google Assistant devices. Provided they have a premium subscription to those services, of course.
Following news that some 2016 Pixel XL owners are experiencing issues with fast charging following the Android Pie update, Google has confirmed that it is working on a fix for the problem. According to impacted device owners, their Pixel XL smartphones no longer fast charge after installing the latest Android update, forcing them to charge at normal or slow speeds.
The Huawei Mate 20 suffered a bit of a leak this week in the form of a couple of front panels. If the leak's contents be entirely legitimate, it would suggest that the company were delivering the smartphone with a 3D camera setup. This would not be a giant shock, as the only 3D camera setup on the market thus far is the Xiaomi Mi 8, a device that's just about as blatant a copycat as the latest Motorola phone leak - but, back to the subject.