Technology Android

[masta247]

I think I might be misinformed on eGPUs and how GPUs are sold. I see something like the Vega 56/64 being sold as a card and from my understanding, you buy a card and an enclosure and that's it. A lot like ten years ago when you bought a hard drive and then an enclosure and then you just used it.

Why am I seeing companies like MSI putting their names in addition to the "Vega 64" model name when selling the card? And is that important when buying both a GPU and an enclosure to put it in? This also seems to change the price of the card, so a Vega 64 is different prices based on what company is attached to the GPU description.

While you would usually install the GPU directly into your desktop computer and save yourself a lot of hassle, if you have a laptop, you can also put them in an enclosure. The eGPU enclosure is much more complicated than a hard drive enclosure and is more akin to a whole separate device with its own power supply, "motherboard", connectivity, cooling, and a bunch of other electronics (which is also why they are so expensive), but you can connect it to your laptop through a Thunderbolt port. You are limited by the port's speed, however, so you won't get the exact same performance you would get from installing the GPU straight into your desktop, but if your setup is well thought out, it's not going to be that far off.

Due to the mobile CPUs and RAM usually being significantly slower than their often cheaper desktop counterparts, it is usually a better value and performance to just get a gaming/workspace desktop PC.


Now for GPU brands, almost all sales are through OEMs like EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI, Asus etc.
It works like this: you have AMD/Nvidia making the chip and basic board, but on release date they usually also have a so-called "reference" GPU, which is a barebones sample unit, which they use to showcase the performance of the chips, and so the reviewers can get it and the OEMs can use for tests to know what performance they should be getting under different settings. They are usually very barebones and potato compared to OEM units, which come with better and quieter cooling, are factory tweaked, higher clocked and are of better quality, since reference cards are usually pretty much engineering-quality cards. Recently Nvidia increased the quality of their reference cards and started calling them the "Founders Edition" cards to get more direct sales, although they are just overpriced and slightly less bad reference cards. You are almost always better off getting a card from EVGA, Gigabyte or MSI, especially if it comes with an open-air (dual or triple cooler) design - they are much quieter and cooler.

As of why they do that, they get multiple partners who will market and sell the cards for them on many markets where those OEMs have been present for decades. Plus the OEMs have perfected their electronics and cooling systems over the years, as well as quality control, retail channels and distributor deals. It is just convenient, as Nvidia and AMD can just deliver the chips to the OEMs and have the rest handled by the OEMs, so they can focus on R&D and manufacturing of the chips themselves. The OEMs are also responsible for applying mutual quality standards and taking care of any potential RMAs too.
There's also plenty of differentiation, as you can pick from so many different cards that will cater to your needs better. They vary in size, power, clocks, cooling, potentially RGB etc.

 

[dilla]

While you would usually install the GPU directly into your desktop computer and save yourself a lot of hassle, if you have a laptop, you can also put them in an enclosure. The eGPU enclosure is much more complicated than a hard drive enclosure and is more akin to a whole separate device with its own power supply, "motherboard", connectivity, cooling, and a bunch of other electronics (which is also why they are so expensive), but you can connect it to your laptop through a Thunderbolt port. You are limited by the port's speed, however, so you won't get the exact same performance you would get from installing the GPU straight into your desktop, but if your setup is well thought out, it's not going to be that far off.

Due to the mobile CPUs and RAM usually being significantly slower than their often cheaper desktop counterparts, it is usually a better value and performance to just get a gaming/workspace desktop PC.


Now for GPU brands, almost all sales are through OEMs like EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI, Asus etc.
It works like this: you have AMD/Nvidia making the chip and basic board, but on release date they usually also have a so-called "reference" GPU, which is a barebones sample unit, which they use to showcase the performance of the chips, and so the reviewers can get it and the OEMs can use for tests to know what performance they should be getting under different settings. They are usually very barebones and potato compared to OEM units, which come with better and quieter cooling, are factory tweaked, higher clocked and are of better quality, since reference cards are usually pretty much engineering-quality cards. Recently Nvidia increased the quality of their reference cards and started calling them the "Founders Edition" cards to get more direct sales, although they are just overpriced and slightly less bad reference cards. You are almost always better off getting a card from EVGA, Gigabyte or MSI, especially if it comes with an open-air (dual or triple cooler) design - they are much quieter and cooler.

As of why they do that, they get multiple partners who will market and sell the cards for them on many markets where those OEMs have been present for decades. Plus the OEMs have perfected their electronics and cooling systems over the years, as well as quality control, retail channels and distributor deals. It is just convenient, as Nvidia and AMD can just deliver the chips to the OEMs and have the rest handled by the OEMs, so they can focus on R&D and manufacturing of the chips themselves. The OEMs are also responsible for applying mutual quality standards and taking care of any potential RMAs too.
There's also plenty of differentiation, as you can pick from so many different cards that will cater to your needs better. They vary in size, power, clocks, cooling, potentially RGB etc.

Wow, I didn't realize it was that complicated. I always assumed that a GPU simply worked when put in to an enclosure, which had the components like the fan and the pins/plugs/interface to connect via TB and that was it. So there are other companies like MSI that are altering the design of the components between the GPU and the enclosure output to get tweak performance and efficiency?

As for eGPU use on a notebook, I've heard that some monitors come with TB and the eGPU connects directly to the monitor so that there is no bottleneck like when connecting through the notebook.

And yeah, the price of an eGPU is definitely close to a decent desktop for gaming, especially for someone as casual as me. I certainly wouldn't be bringing my eGPU, if I had one, out of my house or even off my desk with my monitor. So a desktop would be just fine for that.

Maybe when a macOS compatible/approved complete eGPU set up is under $300 or something, I'll look in to getting one. Right now I'm just keeping an eye for deals to see where the trend is going in regards to pricing and it seems the crypto shit has cooled off a ton and prices are coming back down. But I still think I'm a year or two away from wading in to that territory.

 

[masta247]

I think in ~98% of cases you'd be better off with a separate desktop. The only exception I can think of is if you play games that run well on your laptop away from your desk and you use eGPU only for extra performance when you are by your desk. If most of the gaming is happening by the desk, or your laptop is too weak to run those games well anyway, you're better off with a separate desktop computer, as it will simply perform better and be a better value.

MSI and others make the cards themselves (the card consists of its own cooling fans, custom boards with the GPU chip on it, power etc. for the card itself), using the GPU chips provided by Nvidia/AMD. The enclosure is a separate thing, and its cooling is more related to cooling the air inside of the enclosure that the card itself removes from its chip using its own fans.

There's no way you can connect it directly to a monitor to increase performance. You can connect it to the monitor to use an external monitor rather than your laptop's screen, but the eGPU needs a fast and direct link to your laptop, as this is where the CPU and RAM are, which is what feeds the GPU the data that it renders into image. The speed and latency of that link between your laptop and the enclosure is what is the bottleneck, even with the fastest Thunderbolt.

On a Mac with the fastest Thunderbolt 3, you will be losing ~25% (up to ~50% in some tasks) of the performance of an upper mid-range GPU compared to if it was directly in a desktop, all things being equal:
https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/pcie-slot-dgpu-vs-thunderbolt-3-egpu-internal-display-test/

That said, a gaming/rendering desktop will usually also be much faster than a laptop in other regards, such as the CPU speed, which would further increase the gap.

 

[dilla]

I think in ~98% of cases you'd be better off with a separate desktop. The only exception I can think of is if you play games that run well on your laptop away from your desk and you use eGPU only for extra performance when you are by your desk. If most of the gaming is happening by the desk, or your laptop is too weak to run those games well anyway, you're better off with a separate desktop computer, as it will simply perform better and be a better value.

MSI and others make the cards themselves (the card consists of its own cooling fans, custom boards with the GPU chip on it, power etc. for the card itself), using the GPU chips provided by Nvidia/AMD. The enclosure is a separate thing, and its cooling is more related to cooling the air inside of the enclosure that the card itself removes from its chip using its own fans.

There's no way you can connect it directly to a monitor to increase performance. You can connect it to the monitor to use an external monitor rather than your laptop's screen, but the eGPU needs a fast and direct link to your laptop, as this is where the CPU and RAM are, which is what feeds the GPU the data that it renders into image. The speed and latency of that link between your laptop and the enclosure is what is the bottleneck, even with the fastest Thunderbolt.

On a Mac with the fastest Thunderbolt 3, you will be losing ~25% (up to ~50% in some tasks) of the performance of an upper mid-range GPU compared to if it was directly in a desktop, all things being equal:
https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/pcie-slot-dgpu-vs-thunderbolt-3-egpu-internal-display-test/

That said, a gaming/rendering desktop will usually also be much faster than a laptop in other regards, such as the CPU speed, which would further increase the gap.

Yeah I thought the LG UltraFine displays had the TB ports for the eGPU to reduce that latency. But maybe I read it incorrectly before.

I just play DOTA and it runs decently on my MBP. When using Vulkan, I get about 60 FPS when using my MBP screen. Low 40s when using my external monitor and both are on ultra settings with everything at max.

I don’t plan on picking up another game anytime soon so I’m good for now. But you never know in the future.

 

[dilla]

LG G7 One. Kind of a big deal or nah?

 

[masta247]

LG G7 One. Kind of a big deal or nah?

Some people will surely like it, and it can become somewhat popular if priced right. LG is touting "exceptional price" for it, but the fact that they added that it's a "high-end device" is troubling, as it's an upper mid-ranger.
Adding to it the last year's chip, the pricing will make it or break it, as LG's understanding of exceptional pricing can mean anything from a Nexus level sweet-spot price all the way to the LG G6 price, where they thought 70$ less than the newest Galaxy S was a great price for a much weaker phone.
If it's up to $399 and the reviews are good, that could become a very good choice for a lot of people. Anything more than that and you're already having better options, as even the all-around superior Galaxy S8 can be had directly from Samsung for less than $500.

No LG software is certainly a major positive.

 

[masta247]

A personal update and PSA:

My S6 died on me all suddenly after 3 years. I was waiting at a restaurant browsing its menu on my phone, the phone froze mid-way loading a Chrome tab, I did a soft-reset and all I could see since was a white LED, and later nothing. No way to enter recovery or make it respond in any way. Logic board went to shit, replacing it costs more than a new phone does. I found out the hard way how reliant I was on that thing when I had to ask people for directions to get back home, and my friend thought I was dead.

The PSA part: back up your data. I had my photos and videos synced, and data synced through the Samsung account and Google account. I manually updated them 4 days prior. That saved me around 300$, even if the data would be recoverable.

The personal part: I needed an immediate replacement so I snatched an open box Galaxy S8 for 570 CAD (~440 USD). Wanted the S9 but it's just way more than that, and the technical difference is too small. So far happy with it, mostly with the screen and the design upgrade to be exact. The performance is a bit more smooth as well for sure - no wonder, they were 2 generations apart. Not fully sold on the edges and the aspect ratio, but at least the display is significantly bigger and the phone is just a little bit longer, so I can live with that.

 

[dilla]

A personal update and PSA:

My S6 died on me all suddenly after 3 years. I was waiting at a restaurant browsing its menu on my phone, the phone froze mid-way loading a Chrome tab, I did a soft-reset and all I could see since was a white LED, and later nothing. No way to enter recovery or make it respond in any way. Logic board went to shit, replacing it costs more than a new phone does.

The PSA part: back up your data. I had my photos and videos synced, and data synced through the Samsung account and Google account. I manually updated them 4 days prior. That saved me around 300$, even if the data would be recoverable.

The personal part: I needed an immediate replacement so I snatched an open box Galaxy S8 for 570 CAD (~440 USD). Wanted the S9 but it's just way more than that, and the technical difference is too small. So far happy with it, mostly with the screen and the design upgrade to be exact. The performance is a bit more smooth as well for sure - no wonder, they were 2 generations apart. Not fully sold on the edges and the aspect ratio, but at least the display is significantly bigger and the phone is just a little bit longer, so I can live with that.

Nice. If you frequent r/Android, you'll see a post made recently about phone fanatics upgrading so often as the reason why updates to phones are so tiny from year to year. Or even 2 years. I know we talked about it here a lot but that thread is a good read as people discuss how they use their phones and for how long before upgrading.


In other news, Apple set the date for its event on 9/12:https://9to5mac.com/2018/08/30/apple-iphone-event-announced/amp/

I'm sure we'll all be paying attention because it's always interesting regardless of what OS we use. I think this event will really focus on the Watch more than the iPhone XS, but we'll see. Supposed to be an updated iPad Pro too.

I bought a USB C-Lightning cable the other day to use for my iPad Pro with my MBP charger. It enables Quick Charging and while I don't know just how much faster it is, it is still much faster than before. I didn't need it but it was frustrating to wait 2+ hours to get to 100% from the teens-percent, even if I was just charging it over night, every two days. Sucks Apple made it in such a way that you need to buy a separate cable and adapter, unless you already own a post-2015 MBP or MB, which has the USB-C connection, but it's OK, I've got it now.

Also, I think the Apple event will finally unveil Mojave for macOS officially to the public. I guess they already did in June at WWDC but this would be the official release. This is the first OSX/macOS version for which I did not use the beta at all. My 2010 MBP shipped with Snow Leopard and since then I've always gotten the beta. But after the issues with High Sierra last year, I decided to wait this one out and not deal with compatibility issues or just bugs in general. I didn't hear of anything major in the betas but why take a chance? I did use a beta profile for my iPad Pro for iOS 12 and that works just fine, but my MBP is more critical for use than my iPad.

We'll see if Apple can really wow us with this event. 2018 so far has been pretty boring for Android phones and the OS. Maybe a big feature from iOS will kickstart Android feature development and we see something good by year's end, in terms of features.

 

[masta247]

Nice. If you frequent r/Android, you'll see a post made recently about phone fanatics upgrading so often as the reason why updates to phones are so tiny from year to year. Or even 2 years. I know we talked about it here a lot but that thread is a good read as people discuss how they use their phones and for how long before upgrading.

I think that's a very limited perspective of an extremely niche group of users who are having upgrade addiction issues. It is actually a form of Compulsive buying disorder, and it doesn't get discouraged enough amongst the tech communities. I can sympathize to some extent, as those people are constantly looking for the next best thing even after they get the current best thing - they are never satisfied. That said, that's an extremely tiny niche that the manufacturers wouldn't even consider when planning their product life cycles.

The fact is that people are overwhelmingly upgrading less and less frequently. There's hardly anyone still upgrading on a 2-year upgrade cycle like they used to. Otherwise, the S8 would be the OLDEST popular Android phone we'd see, since it and the S9 would be had by almost everyone on a 24-month cycle by now. Clearly that is not the case, and even in the countries where phones are the cheapest, there's probably more 3 year and older devices than there are newer models.

The higher prices for smaller upgrades are additionally fueling the cycle, as they allow the manufacturers to make as much money as they would have if people upgraded more frequently but paid less, but as a downside, they are making people upgrade even less frequently.

When you think about it, it is perfectly fine and normal to have an iPhone 6/6s or the Galaxy S6/S7. Even if you're wealthy and into tech and in the US or Canada, who would traditionally spend the most on phone upgrades (through their plans or outright).
The aforementioned phones are 3, sometimes 4 years old now. They still aren't considered old by any means. Many of my friends in Europe are still on the S4, some on the iPhone 5/5s, and they just don't see the need to spend money on something just because it's new when their devices do everything they need them to do.

Back in the day having the Galaxy S1 when the S3 was a thing would be considered "having an old phone", and having a phone that was more than 4 years old could be considered almost embarrassing in some circles. That changed to the point that upgrading every 2 years isn't even considered reasonable, and that's slowly even affecting 3-year upgrade cycles. Is jumping from the iPhone 6 to 8 worth it? Only for some people, as most wouldn't even benefit much while spending a lot of money in the process. Heck, I'd bet a casual user wouldn't even notice a difference in a blind experiment.

I was happy with the S6. I'm happy with the S8. Do I notice a difference? Sure, it looks nicer and it's noticeably faster, although it's less convenient to use due to the edges and much more inconvenient unlocking mechanisms. Same story if I jumped to the S9. Can I do anything with the S8 that I couldn't with the S6? Nope. After I set it up and the novelty wore off and I stopped being excited about the larger screen, 0.2s faster app loading speeds and more fluid transition animations, now I feel like I have a similar phone, just slightly flashier and with a different charging port.. and more annoying to pick up from the desk and unlock.
There are no major software improvements, the photos are a wee bit nicer (which I only notice when pixel peeping) and the battery life is a bit better. That's about it, you don't really feel the benchmark scores if your previous phone was already fast enough to launch the apps almost as fast as it gets, and played your favorite games at 60 frames per second. You don't feel the upgrade like you used to back in the days when the upgrades were actually meaningful in the real-life usage, and these days going from the S6 to a virtually bezel-less S8 is as large as it gets in that regard.

I see the SD slot and waterproofing as nice extras, but even if the new phones were 30-35% cheaper like they used to when I got the S6, there's no way it'd be worth the upgrade if my S6 was working well, and I'm a power user. I like the S8, it's a great phone and I'm happy I have it, but I only got it because the S6 I was also happy with stopped working.

 

[dilla]

I think that's a very limited perspective of an extremely niche group of users who are having upgrade addiction issues. It is actually a form of Compulsive buying disorder, and it doesn't get discouraged enough amongst the tech communities. I can sympathize to some extent, as those people are constantly looking for the next best thing even after they get the current best thing - they are never satisfied. That said, that's an extremely tiny niche that the manufacturers wouldn't even consider when planning their product life cycles.

The fact is that people are overwhelmingly upgrading less and less frequently. There's hardly anyone still upgrading on a 2-year upgrade cycle like they used to. Otherwise, the S8 would be the OLDEST popular Android phone we'd see, since it and the S9 would be had by almost everyone on a 24-month cycle by now. Clearly that is not the case, and even in the countries where phones are the cheapest, there's probably more 3 year and older devices than there are newer models.

The higher prices for smaller upgrades are additionally fueling the cycle, as they allow the manufacturers to make as much money as they would have if people upgraded more frequently but paid less, but as a downside, they are making people upgrade even less frequently.

When you think about it, it is perfectly fine and normal to have an iPhone 6/6s or the Galaxy S6/S7. Even if you're wealthy and into tech and in the US or Canada, who would traditionally spend the most on phone upgrades (through their plans or outright).
The aforementioned phones are 3, sometimes 4 years old now. They still aren't considered old by any means. Many of my friends in Europe are still on the S4, some on the iPhone 5/5s, and they just don't see the need to spend money on something just because it's new when their devices do everything they need them to do.

Back in the day having the Galaxy S1 when the S3 was a thing would be considered "having an old phone", and having a phone that was more than 4 years old could be considered almost embarrassing in some circles. That changed to the point that upgrading every 2 years isn't even considered reasonable, and that's slowly even affecting 3-year upgrade cycles. Is jumping from the iPhone 6 to 8 worth it? Only for some people, as most wouldn't even benefit much while spending a lot of money in the process. Heck, I'd bet a casual user wouldn't even notice a difference in a blind experiment.

I was happy with the S6. I'm happy with the S8. Do I notice a difference? Sure, it looks nicer and it's noticeably faster, although it's less convenient to use due to the edges and much more inconvenient unlocking mechanisms. Same story if I jumped to the S9. Can I do anything with the S8 that I couldn't with the S6? Nope. After I set it up and the novelty wore off and I stopped being excited about the larger screen, 0.2s faster app loading speeds and more fluid transition animations, now I feel like I have a similar phone, just slightly flashier and with a different charging port.. and more annoying to pick up from the desk and unlock.
There are no major software improvements, the photos are a wee bit nicer (which I only notice when pixel peeping) and the battery life is a bit better. That's about it, you don't really feel the benchmark scores if your previous phone was already fast enough to launch the apps almost as fast as it gets, and played your favorite games at 60 frames per second. You don't feel the upgrade like you used to back in the days when the upgrades were actually meaningful in the real-life usage, and these days going from the S6 to a virtually bezel-less S8 is as large as it gets in that regard.

I see the SD slot and waterproofing as nice extras, but even if the new phones were 30-35% cheaper like they used to when I got the S6, there's no way it'd be worth the upgrade if my S6 was working well, and I'm a power user. I like the S8, it's a great phone and I'm happy I have it, but I only got it because the S6 I was also happy with stopped working.

Yeah but keep in mind that the US only got rid of contracts in the last two or three years. Otherwise, the major carriers were all on 2 year contracts. I believe it was three year contracts in Canada, which is insane to me, in terms of payment and being on the hook for those payments and being tied to a carrier for that long.

So it really has only been about 3 years, tops, for people in the US to not have a contract but also not be a month-to-month user. So an S6 or S7 user might still be using their phone now despite the S9 being out, but I'd wait another year to see the adoption rate of the newer phones in the US. I feel like despite being free from contracts, people in the US still have the habit of upgrading every two years. This dates back to the flip phone days in 2003-forward.

Europe is a different story, as always, and Asia too probably. But the US still has an issue with people upgrading, like clockwork, every two years. It's made worse now because there are lease plans that expire in 12, 15, or 18 months, so the update cycles. So contracts are gone in a way, but the upgrade schedule is more or less the same

 

[Rukas]

Random question. Can I use android smart watches with iOS? And what’s the best one. I want something round. Preferable gold.

Thanks.

 

[masta247]

Random question. Can I use android smart watches with iOS? And what’s the best one. I want something round. Preferable gold.

Thanks.

They do, although it's a bit more clumsy, as you need to have the Android Wear app running, and the functionality is rather limited.

Personally, I wouldn't bother. There aren't any really decent Android Wear watches, there aren't many coming out, and there's not much software support for them even on Android.

The Android smartwatch market is rather tiny, and the by far most successful "Android camp" watch - the Samsung Gear S3 Classic doesn't even run Android - it runs Tizen. It technically works with iOS, but I heard it's somewhat problematic, as it's limited to displaying notifications and such, but you can't really respond or control your phone in any way with it.

For Android Wear, if you really wanted one and you'd like it to be gold, I think the Asus ZenWatch 3 would be your only reasonable option. It's consistently not as good as the Gear S3 (which runs Tizen) though. In general Android Wear isn't too popular and it just doesn't work too well at this point, and on iOS you'd be getting a fraction of that already limited experience. You won't get the same experience you would get running Gear S3 on a Samsung phone or running the Apple watch with you iPhone.

 

[Rukas]

Fine. I’ll get an Apple Watch. Just hate the square face.

 

[masta247]

Fine. I’ll get an Apple Watch. Just hate the square face.

The square face doesn't look good, but it actually is a bit more convenient to use with the "smart" features.
You get more text, larger image previews, the content isn't "squished", and it just feels more like a real, tiny display. Surely it doesn't look as classy as a watch though.

A new one might come out in less than 2 weeks, it looks just a tiny bit better thanks to the (apparently) smaller bezels:
https://9to5mac.com/2018/08/30/exclusive-apple-watch-series-4/

I think Apple will be trying to 'fix' this too:
https://bgr.com/2018/09/02/apple-watch-best-selling-smartwatch-series-1/

 

[masta247]

I believe it was three year contracts in Canada, which is insane to me, in terms of payment and being on the hook for those payments and being tied to a carrier for that long.

Canada used to be 24, with very few plans being 36-month long, but they abolished the system. Now the plans have to be month-to-month and are usually separate from the "tabs" (installments for the phone, which can be on 24-month terms).

I'm quite sure people upgrade less frequently, and they frequently pick older devices because they're cheaper and almost as good too. Some people I met here would wait with signing for a new "Tab" until they needed a replacement, as there's no pressure to sign a new one after your previous one runs its 24-month course. With many carriers, you can apply for a tab at any time and it's not tied to the plan, so you can change your plan anytime without having to sign any new contracts. Back in the days, the motivation was that you would sign a new contract with a new plan with a new phone, but now that's gone.

Pretty much half of the phones purchased here are iPhones though, which would be crazy back where I'm from. But the iPhone X is not that common yet. Most people are on older iPhones, or choose the iPhone 8 over the X.

I think we will see a cheaper and better X in just 2 weeks though. It might drastically increase the number of Xes in the wild.

Personally, I'm actually on a pre-paid brand of a large carrier here, so I pay less for the same service on the same LTE Advanced network and don't have to bother with potential extra charges. I bought my phone outright, as it's significantly cheaper and unlocked (with no carrier bloatware and faster updates). I'm a happy camper that way. Most people sign up for plans with the big carriers and pay twice as much for the exact same service. They also got carrier-modified software on their phones as a "thank you" when getting the phones from their carriers. Until last year they were also network-locked. I don't really get that. If I needed installments, I'd much rather just get a phone from Best Buy on their installment plan, which costs about the same, but comes with clean software, gets updates straight from the OEM and can be used anywhere.
Btw. I got the Snapdragon 835 version of the S8. Never thought that would happen.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

I heard from a reliable source that Apple are going to unveil an AI project that can beat human players at Snakes and Ladders.

 

[Jon]

The new Wear OS just launched. I'm considering it...

 

[masta247]

The new Wear OS just launched. I'm considering it...

The way I see it, they noticed that not much could be done with Google Wear, and there wasn't much developer support from third-party app makers (as the market for those watches is rather small), so they streamlined it around their own services, like Assistant and Fit.

I find the Assistant to be not that useful yet, and I think it is not growing fast enough. If you're mostly in it for the fitness tracker and message notifications, then the Gear series do that better and last longer.

I see Gear Wear as reasonable only if you care about having Google Assistant on your watch.

 

[Jon]

@masta247 That's a fair assessment. I have the Google Pixel so I use the assistant extensively, everything from setting appointments to turning on my TV. I've been looking at getting a Fit Bit for the health tracking, so for me the OS while streamlined does exactly what I need it to.

 

[masta247]

@masta247 That's a fair assessment. I have the Google Pixel so I use the assistant extensively, everything from setting appointments to turning on my TV. I've been looking at getting a Fit Bit for the health tracking, so for me the OS while streamlined does exactly what I need it to.

Then it looks like Google nailed it as far as your needs are concerned.