Technology Android

[dilla]

I may have heard of LINE, actually. I may have seen some blogs or something have a link to contact them via Line, like they also do for email and their social media accounts. I'm not sure. I just looked it up and it's not as foreign to me as I thought it was.

Still, it may have a huge following in the 100s of millions but it seems to be a big hit in the rest of the world and not the US. That's just my impression but every time I see numbers in the millions of an app or service I haven't heard of or use, it seems that it ends up being a big hit in Asia, especial with populous countries like India and China. Southeast Asia, as you said. So it still comes as a shock to me to hear of services that big that I hadn't heard of before.

About the wakes, I understand many apps use GCM, or something similar for push notifications. I'd want that in a messenger but Hangouts doesn't do the same with its wakes. It's barely registering in wakes, yet I get all my messages on time. Same with Gmail and the Email app I use for my spam Yahoo account. They don't wake nearly as often as WhatsApp does.

And it is a bit recent. Usually closing WhatsApp from the menu in the past would stop the haywire wakes. But as you said, it's something recent that has pushed it in the 1000s of wakes in a day, up from a few hundred. I may uninstall and reinstall it and see if that fixes it. I was on the WhatsApp Beta from the Play Store but unenrolled a few weeks back. Not sure I can trace the increase in wakes to that specific moment but may be a fresh install of WhatsApp will fix it.

 

[dilla]

Just rumors but exciting nonetheless.

https://www.sammobile.com/2017/11/23/rumor-galaxy-s9-screen-body-ratio-may-high-89-90-percent/

I flip flop a lot and backtrack on statements I make but I think I may upgrade whenever my phone is eligible to be upgraded on Sprint. They have done away with contracts for some time now and we are one of the last few on Sprint that still have a 2 year contract. When we upgrade, we will be forced off the contract and on to monthly payments for the phone as well as a new plan completely as Sprint doesn't offer unthrottled unlimited anymore.

But for the sake of not keeping a phone once the contract is done, but still paying the monthly contract price which includes the cost of the phone (and therefore pay 'extra' for the phone after it has been paid off) it may be time to get off the contract plan and do the monthly installments.

Might even switch networks too as T Mobile is offering better prices but still doesn't have the coverage Sprint has in my area. Which is decent, at best. But it is cheaper and getting a GSM phone would be a huge plus if I were to bring my own device.

Get that Huaweii or Xiaomi dream phone I've always wanted.

 

[Casey]

Ordered my Pixel 2 XL yesterday and it's coming on Monday. Excited!!!!

 

[THEV1LL4N]

It was a tough decision and very tempting but I decided not to get the Google Home Mini for £34 and Philips Hue smart lighting, or a tablet or the Lenovo C302 2 in 1 Chromebook/tablet with Google Play compatibility, or a 4TB portable hard drive.

I was thinking of buying these all together and haggling at Currys.

I also decided not to get this: https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/compu...n-5675-gaming-pc-recon-blue-10164631-pdt.html
or this: https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/compu...720-18asu-desktop-pc-silver-10164119-pdt.html

Hoping something with a Ryzen CPU, SSD primary Hard Drive, 2TB secondary Hard Drive and a USB-C port comes out with a similar price tag. USB-C port is not essential but would be nice.

 

[Pittsey]

I got a Google home mini

I looked at Philips hue and might get it at some point. But it's easier just to get socket control for £15 or light switch control for £24... Or a light with no hub requirement for a tenner

 

[THEV1LL4N]

I got a Google home mini

I looked at Philips hue and might get it at some point. But it's easier just to get socket control for £15 or light switch control for £24... Or a light with no hub requirement for a tenner

Send me a link to those please and I'll have a look.

Cheers.

 

[dilla]

I got a Google home mini

I looked at Philips hue and might get it at some point. But it's easier just to get socket control for £15 or light switch control for £24... Or a light with no hub requirement for a tenner

I will be doing the same. It'll be $20 for me at Target with a $10 gift card, $29 before that.

Google has said the $29 price tag will remain until the end of 2017. Seems like a better choice than the Amazon Echo Dot, which is about the same price for Black Friday. But I would just prefer Google at this point for the Assistant feature. Google Assistant >>>>>Siri and Alexa. I think Alexa is said to be better than Siri. Siri is trash.

I remember dogging you a few years back about home automation and why it was important or not. I thought it was a bit of a joke and very expensive. But times have changed and so have my opinions. The family definitely hasn't gone all out with home automation but we do have 3 smart plugs for the lights in our house. WeMo, to be exact, which plays nice with both Alexa and Google Home. We just tend to manually control the lights when we're out the house using the app, rather than putting them on timer. We do have them slotted to turn off automatically just after midnight in case we forget, but turning on is done manually depending on if we're home or not.

But they have been incredibly useful, especially since it has started to get darker earlier now for the past month. I was looking at smart LEDs but my parents don't really care about their bulbs. They use LEDs only because I flood the house with them, otherwise they'd just pick up a bulk box of CFLs if they ever ran out of bulbs and had to go to the store. So I keep LEDs at home to avoid them shopping for bulbs on their own. I think a smart bulb's effectiveness would be lost on them completely.

I doubt they move a step further and get smart blinds, but our house has tons of windows and my parents take joy in manually opening and closing the blinds daily to let light in. They seem to have no problem doing that for 6+ sets of blinds, opening them in the morning and closing at night daily, otherwise that would be the next step in automation. They're really not interested in smart switches, though we could most certainly use them for the lights outside our front door as well as our driveway/garage lights. So I've just stopped bugging them. They showed interest in a Nest thermostat but that prospect has also died. Same with the Nest camera for front door surveillance. So has the smart doorbell, which I think is Wink? There's also one by Nest too. They love to read about the crime reports in our area about people getting burgled but don't want to do anything about securing their own end lol. That's on them now.

Finally, has anyone bought a car with Android Auto?

 

[Pittsey]

Send me a link to those please and I'll have a look.

Cheers.

Wi-Fi Smart Plug, Wireless Smart Switch Socket, Works with Amazon Alexa Echo Google Home, Wireless Smart Home Remote Switch with Timing Function for A https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071SDNGW2?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf


COOSA Smart LED Light Bulb, Wifi Light Bulb, Dimmable RGB + Warm White Bulb for Lamp Base of E27, No Hub Required, Works with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and IFTTT (Silver) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B077D6ZBRZ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_bcOiAb72M5P7X



I haven't tried out the bulb yet

 

[Pittsey]

Finally, has anyone bought a car with Android Auto?

I haven't yet. Depends what car I buy next. I'll probably end up with a Mercedes with comand. But if I get something a bit older then I'll buy an aftermarket android auto head unit. But their ugliness puts me off a little


I'm looking to move house soon. Once I've gone I will be upgrading the lights in the house so that they are all automated. As will the garage door be...

 

[dilla]

I haven't yet. Depends what car I buy next. I'll probably end up with a Mercedes with comand. But if I get something a bit older then I'll buy an aftermarket android auto head unit. But their ugliness puts me off a little


I'm looking to move house soon. Once I've gone I will be upgrading the lights in the house so that they are all automated. As will the garage door be...

Yeah, the garage opener would be a good one. I believe we have a Chamberlain garage with some proprietary tech that makes it a Smart Garage or something like that. I think it's called Q tech? I dunno, but all that's missing for us is a receiver for the garage openers that connects to our network and allows for changes to be made remotely. I'm not sure my parents will be interested in that either.

But Android Auto is standard, I believe, in Audis (and other luxury manufacturers in the US) and my mom is looking at a Q7 as a replacement. We haven't been able to connect a phone when we test drove twice but since it comes with both Apple and Android Car/Auto, I'm hoping either one works well enough since our family is a house divided on phone OS.

Maybe I'll watch a YouTube video on it.

 

[dilla]

Qualcomm announces the 845: https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/5/...gon-845-android-mobile-processor-announcement

And looks like 8.1 is rolling out to all Google devices today.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Android Go is being aimed towards the low end along with a lineup of 'Go' versions of various Google applications. I think this is a very good move.

 

[masta247]

Qualcomm announces the 845: https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/5/16734224/qualcomm-snapdragon-845-android-mobile-processor-announcement

Qualcomm's marketing being below any level of logic aside, it is a great improvement. Qualcomm calls all its cores Kryo now, despite having dropped custom cores, instead using stock ARM cores like everyone else and renaming them to feel special. But that is hiding a major upgrade to ARM's stock A75 and A55 cores in the 845 - a very significant upgrade with both being bigger updates than we've seen for the past 3 years (the "small" cores are getting their first upgrade in 3 years to start with).
They also use new core hierarchy called DynamIQ, which means all cores can share cache, as opposed to having "big" and "small' separate clusters. That is all around better for performance, stability and reducing the amount of unnecessary memory operations.

While the performance is a 15-50% upgrade over the 835 alone (depending on work loads), the responsiveness for web browsing is going to get the biggest boost we've seen since Krait debuted 5 years ago. That alone gives a boost of +48% at Google Octane.
If it happened in a desktop space, Intel are yet to achieve such cumulative improvement in their CPUs since 2011 until now.

It is important to note that Qualcomm is not doing a thing here. As a matter of fact, their implementation will be a major upgrade but is quite poor compared to what it could be, with AnandTech mentioning they only used 3 power planes (less granular adjustments of frequency to workload = lost power efficiency compared to what they did back in Krait core days). But this is not a unique chip. A75 and A55 are new stock ARM cores replacing the aging A72/A73 and A53 cores that have been in use for 3 years now. Every chip maker is going to use those in their chips next year, so is DynamIQ, being ARM's technology replacing big.LITTLE.
I feel that other chip makers will be able to overtake Qualcomm by a bit with better implementations, so it's finally a good year with healthy performance boosts for 2018 flagships, especially where it matters most (web performance and more instructions per clock). The process node is a little more energy efficient at that as well, despite being merely an upgraded 10nm low power process, but Qualcomm used that to ramp up max clocks to 2.8ghz. They should get a lower power drain for background tasks that use A55 and don't ramp up clocks though, but I suspect the 845 will not use less power as a whole and all gains went into performance again. Others might tweak their cores in a more sane way getting even more out of the upgrade, but the 845 is a huge improvement over the 835 regardless, and a way bigger upgrade than 2017 chips had over 2016 chips.

This is ARM's material, they do better at communicating their upgrades:

 

[dilla]

I just hope it doesn't end up being a flub. What was the SD chip that overheat and gave people issues? I think it was the 810, or something. Something that I believe was before the SD 820 in my S7.

I think I will stay with Samsung for a third generation of smartphones and get the S9. We'll see what I think of my S7 in 3 months or so, when it's time upgrade. I just don't want the S9 to get some "game-breaking" bug with the SD variant the US will most likely get.

Also, is there a reputable source for Samsung sales by generation worldwide? I don't seem any S7s around so I was wondering what the sales numbers look like for total units bought or shipped or whatever.

 

[masta247]

I just hope it doesn't end up being a flub. What was the SD chip that overheat and gave people issues? I think it was the 810, or something. Something that I believe was before the SD 820 in my S7.



I think I will stay with Samsung for a third generation of smartphones and get the S9. We'll see what I think of my S7 in 3 months or so, when it's time upgrade. I just don't want the S9 to get some "game-breaking" bug with the SD variant the US will most likely get.



Also, is there a reputable source for Samsung sales by generation worldwide? I don't seem any S7s around so I was wondering what the sales numbers look like for total units bought or shipped or whatever.

Your worries might turn out to be true - with Qualcomm bumping the frequency of those cores to 2,8ghz. ARM's data suggests they reach higher performance "at the same efficiency", it means they offer the same performance per watt but are capable of running faster (then they also start using more power). The new 10LPP process saves the day with a ~10% efficiency improvement but the cores are clocked almost 20% higher. The performance hike isn't fully covered by the efficiency gain and the 845 will surely run hotter than the 835. The decision to chase benchmarks was clearly wrong considering the gains in power efficiency they could have had instead. Nevertheless, they will have a faster chip as a result, that might not run much hotter than the 835, which isn't anywhere as hot as the 810 was.

Well, with Qualcomm not using custom cores anymore, A75 and A55 cores being available to anyone and the likes of Huaweii and Samsung being at least as proficient in making mobile chips, I'm quite sure all of those will have chips at similar levels of performance. Samsung has the most experience at making balanced mobile chipsets, so I'd also bet on their chip above Qualcomm's even if it benched just a few percent behind. Qualcomm had its golden times in their Krait days, with Snapdragon 600, 800, 801 and 805 being amazing chips at their time - they designed cores that were ages ahead of everyone else, including ARM's newest stock cores. Then something went very wrong, both in terms of their products, marketing and business practices. From a leader in mobile chips, they allowed everyone else to catch up, including a new, Chinese, inexperienced competitor - Huaweii.

In terms of sales numbers, I believe you'd have to Google that. As the S7 is still technically being sold, there is data from varying times. The most official I've seen are from press releases.
I see some S7s in the wild, as well as a few S8s. In general I'm surprised to see that people seem to stick to older devices more than ever before. I'm sure I've been seeing more S4-S6s than S7-S8s on the streets. Heck, my friends who are fond of the Galaxy series are happily on their S5s and S6s, waiting for the next worthy successor. Partially because they're Polish and the device fee there is not included in the carrier's service fee anymore due to recent changes to the telecom law, so people started making smarter decisions about their phone upgrades. Heck, my mom is on a S4 I gave her years ago, rejecting upgrade offers yearly, saying she can't tell a difference and the new phone prices are "stupid" for the minimal gains. Frankly, if the biggest difference is slightly faster app loading times and a new Android version, those are things people like her can't even perceive. Plus, she can at least carry a spare battery with her S4. She's not taking selfies or anything, so gimmicks aside, to me it shows how little progress we've had for the last few years. I'm a geek for new technology, and even for me the last few generations of smartphones have not been exciting enough to crave, especially if you notice that we've had the highest price hikes ever and the lowest generational improvements ever.

 

[dilla]

Your worries might turn out to be true - with Qualcomm bumping the frequency of those cores to 2,8ghz. ARM's data suggests they reach higher performance "at the same efficiency", it means they offer the same performance per watt but are capable of running faster (then they also start using more power). The new 10LPP process saves the day with a ~10% efficiency improvement but the cores are clocked almost 20% higher. The performance hike isn't fully covered by the efficiency gain and the 845 will surely run hotter than the 835. The decision to chase benchmarks was clearly wrong considering the gains in power efficiency they could have had instead. Nevertheless, they will have a faster chip as a result, that might not run much hotter than the 835, which isn't anywhere as hot as the 810 was.

Well, with Qualcomm not using custom cores anymore, A75 and A55 cores being available to anyone and the likes of Huaweii and Samsung being at least as proficient in making mobile chips, I'm quite sure all of those will have chips at similar levels of performance. Samsung has the most experience at making balanced mobile chipsets, so I'd also bet on their chip above Qualcomm's even if it benched just a few percent behind. Qualcomm had its golden times in their Krait days, with Snapdragon 600, 800, 801 and 805 being amazing chips at their time - they designed cores that were ages ahead of everyone else, including ARM's newest stock cores. Then something went very wrong, both in terms of their products, marketing and business practices. From a leader in mobile chips, they allowed everyone else to catch up, including a new, Chinese, inexperienced competitor - Huaweii.

In terms of sales numbers, I believe you'd have to Google that. As the S7 is still technically being sold, there is data from varying times. The most official I've seen are from press releases.
I see some S7s in the wild, as well as a few S8s. In general I'm surprised to see that people seem to stick to older devices more than ever before. I'm sure I've been seeing more S4-S6s than S7-S8s on the streets. Heck, my friends who are fond of the Galaxy series are happily on their S5s and S6s, waiting for the next worthy successor. Partially because they're Polish and the device fee there is not included in the carrier's service fee anymore due to recent changes to the telecom law, so people started making smarter decisions about their phone upgrades. Heck, my mom is on a S4 I gave her years ago, rejecting upgrade offers yearly, saying she can't tell a difference and the new phone prices are "stupid" for the minimal gains. Frankly, if the biggest difference is slightly faster app loading times and a new Android version, those are things people like her can't even perceive. Plus, she can at least carry a spare battery with her S4. She's not taking selfies or anything, so gimmicks aside, to me it shows how little progress we've had for the last few years. I'm a geek for new technology, and even for me the last few generations of smartphones have not been exciting enough to crave, especially if you notice that we've had the highest price hikes ever and the lowest generational improvements ever.

Yeah, I think see people with both OSs that hang on their devices for a long time. Plenty of iPhone users are on the 5S or even the 5 because updates are still being pushed for those phones and they may not be power users. Same with older Android devices, though I'm sure many of them either have a Google/Nexus phone or have flashed a custom ROM with recent security patches. Or they just don't give a shit and love their S3s with JB or KK. I know I used mine until Lollipop came out.

But Samsung or tech blogs, or both, still say each generation of Samsung phones sells better than the last one. Which seems hard to imagine, at least the US where contracts were a thing until a few years ago.

 

[dilla]

S9 leaks:https://twitter.com/OnLeaks/status/942430611305877504

Legit source but surprised it's this early. That means it'll be released before March 2018, when most of us are due for upgrades from the S7 2 year mark?

I doubt it matters anymore to most people since those contracts have been done away with for some time.

 

[masta247]

S9 leaks:https://twitter.com/OnLeaks/status/942430611305877504



Legit source but surprised it's this early. That means it'll be released before March 2018, when most of us are due for upgrades from the S7 2 year mark?



I doubt it matters anymore to most people since those contracts have been done away with for some time.

It looks very much like the S8, but.. the fingerprint scanner being on the back is beyond weird, since Synapsys announced that the first flagship smartphones with its readers built in under OLED screens will be out by CES in Q1 2018. I can't help but notice the beginning of Samsung's slowdown, as again I'm not sure if the S9 will be much of an ugprade, while in the past they were by far the first ones to implement new technologies. This time they will be lagging. It is especially weird considering Samsung used the horrible location for the fingerprint scanner on the back in the S8 because it was a last minute change from the on-screen one they didn't manage to fit on time. It's really strange they still couldn't do it for the S9. It merely looks like the S8 with the scanner moved to a just a little better location but come on, they are rather useless on the back. Something's up at Samsung Mobile.

 

[dilla]

It looks very much like the S8, but.. the fingerprint scanner being on the back is beyond weird, since Synapsys announced that the first flagship smartphones with its readers built in under OLED screens will be out by CES in Q1 2018. I can't help but notice the beginning of Samsung's slowdown, as again I'm not sure if the S9 will be much of an ugprade, while in the past they were by far the first ones to implement new technologies. This time they will be lagging. It is especially weird considering Samsung used the horrible location for the fingerprint scanner on the back in the S8 because it was a last minute change from the on-screen one they didn't manage to fit on time. It's really strange they still couldn't do it for the S9. It merely looks like the S8 with the scanner moved to a just a little better location but come on, they are rather useless on the back. Something's up at Samsung Mobile.

I can agree to some extent that the S7 to S8 was marginal and S8 to 9 looks like more of the same. And Samsung may be slowing down too, but I haven't thought about that too much either.

But I do wonder which OEM you do see as on the rise and chasing Samsung. Are there other OEMs that are putting out new features that aren't just a bunch of gimmicks?

 

[masta247]

I can agree to some extent that the S7 to S8 was marginal and S8 to 9 looks like more of the same. And Samsung may be slowing down too, but I haven't thought about that too much either.



But I do wonder which OEM you do see as on the rise and chasing Samsung. Are there other OEMs that are putting out new features that aren't just a bunch of gimmicks?

I think OEMs have been getting more alike for the past few years. Pretty much everyone is putting the same stuff in their phones. I feel like flagship Android makers these days are allowing the lower end companies to catch up, while back in the days the likes of Samsung would stand out more in terms of the overall experience. For the past few years the low end makers were catching up much faster than the key makers were evolving with each generation. Heck, start-ups these days can put out a phone using pretty much the same components as Samsung, Sony, LG or HTC. Huaweii phones and Xiaomi phones are pretty much same stuff as flagships from top dogs.
Sure, I still believe that Samsung phones offer a better complete package in the end, but when you think about it if Xiaomi can use the same chipset, battery, a camera that is not that much worse etc, and when the Galaxy series are not that much of upgrades over the previous models, I consider that a slowdown.

I miss the days when we had the first Galaxy S, then the S2, then the S3, then the S4 etc, all being miles ahead of the previous model across all aspects. Will the S9 take better photos than my S6? Marginally. Will the battery last longer, or will it do anything else that my S6 does any better? Just a little bit. And that would have otherwise been on my natural upgrade cycle.
In comparison, the S4 and the S2 felt like phones from completely different decades. Same with the iPhones - the iPhone 6, 6s and 7 were pretty much same stuff, with 8 introducing wireless and quick charging, the iPhones getting waterproofing along the way and pretty much it. They even feel like pretty much the same phone.