Google is working hard, already bringing improvements to Android 13 with today’s QPR1 Beta 1 release. While numerous fixes are outlined in the notes, it appears that a developer has discovered some hidden gems scattered throughout the code that could give us clues about upcoming and unannounced devices codenamed “felix” and “lynx.”
According to Kuba Wojciechowski on Twitter, the developer has dug into the code of the recent QPR1 Beta 1 and has found some interesting details that weren’t available in the release notes. First, there are references to “felix,” which is a code name that has surfaced before, along with the code name “lynx.” Previous reports indicate that the codenames are attached to an unannounced Pixel 7a and a long-rumored foldable Pixel device. The developer goes further by stating that the felix could actually be a foldable, with its camera hardware abstraction layer (HAL) including references to folded and unfolded states, as well as possessing inner and outer cameras. Additionally, there appear to be references to camera units with the rear array featuring a Sony IMX787 main sensor, a Sony IMX386 sensor for the ultra-wide, and a Samsung S5K3J1 sensor for the telephoto lens. The front-facing or inner camera features a Sony IMX355 sensor.
The developer also noticed in the QPR1 Beta 1 release there is a reference to the aforementioned lynx device. While details are slim with regard to the unit, it has been reported that this could be an ultra high-end Pixel handset that is positioned over the current Pixel 7 Pro model. Apparently, the code shows that the cameras have been updated since it was last mentioned, with references to a dual camera setup using two Sony IMX712 sensors.
The developer also shared that there are references to a higher-end tablet referred to in the code as “T6Pro” or “tangorpro.” Unfortunately, there is little information about this. Of course, all of this is just information found in the code and could mean everything or nothing. But, it’s good to keep these things in mind, as someday, we could see these devices arrive at retail, and these kinds of clues will show us how far some of the devices have come since their initial inception.
With pre-orders set to open for the Apple Watch Series 8, many will most likely be debating whether to stick with the traditional model or go all in with the Apple Watch Ultra. With a $799 price tag, it’s a pretty big investment, but if it can perform the way Apple claims, it should be a sound decision. Whether you’re going to take the Apple Watch Ultra for a deep dive in the ocean or hike the tallest peaks, there is a chance that the watch might get damaged at some point, and it looks like the repair on the Ultra could end up being quite costly.
The folks over at MacRumors did a little digging on the Apple support website and found some repair prices for the Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch Ultra. Let’s start with the Apple Watch Series 8, as its repair costs seem slightly less than the Apple Watch Ultra. If you’re going to replace the battery on your Apple Watch Series 8, which can be any of the models, you’re looking at $79 for a battery replacement. Thankfully, replacing the battery on the Apple Watch Ultra doesn’t cost too much more coming in at $99.
Now, when it comes to physical damage, the prices will vary depending on the model, with the standard 41mm and 45mm models having a service fee of $299. The Series 8 with cellular will cost a tad more with its fee coming in at $349, and the stainless steel and Hermès models at $399. The Apple Watch Ultra will have a slightly higher fee than the stainless steel and Hermès devices, coming in at $499. Remember that all of these numbers for physical repairs are just estimates, with Apple determining the final service fee after inspection.
Apple does offer some options when it comes to repairs with its additional service plan. For its Apple Watch devices, it offers Apple Care Plus, which does cost an additional fee but does cover battery replacements as long as the battery holds less than 80% of its original capacity. The service plan also covers physical damage, requiring a fee of $69 to $79 for the Apple Watch Series 8 for each repair and a $79 fee for the Apple Watch Ultra. All in all, if you plan to be rough with your device, it might be a good idea to invest in a service plan.
As mentioned before, the pre-orders for the Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch Ultra will start tomorrow. You can head to the link below to pre-order the Apple Watch Ultra from Amazon or Best Buy.
It was about a month ago when Samsung announced its latest device, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4. In addition to the highly anticipated devices, the firm also debuted the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro. The wireless earbuds have received high praise and are an excellent option if you use a Samsung or Android device. While its $229.99 price point seems warranted, some might not be willing to shell out that much money for a pair of earbuds. Thankfully, the earbuds have received a hefty discount, knocking $75 off of its original price.
The Galaxy Buds 2 Pro are a compact set of wireless earbuds that offer many features in a small package. The earbuds offer a slightly different design from its predecessor and come with improved audio performance. Furthermore, the earbuds uses three signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) microphones that greatly improve call quality. In addition, the device offers support for 24-bit Hi-Fi audio, which can offer an immersive and more robust listening experience.
The earbuds also offer active noise canceling and intelligent ambient sound support that allows the device to automatically detect when a user is speaking, automatically reducing media sound and activating the Ambient Sound mode. As far as connectivity is concerned, it connects using Bluetooth 5.3 and offers LE Audio support. The earbuds can also automatically switch between devices when transitioning from one paired device to another. On a single charge, the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro offer up to eight hours of use, with the charging case offering up to 29 more hours of use. The numbers drop slightly when using ANC, with five hours of use, and up to 18 hours with the charging case.
Now, if this sounds like something you might be interested in, you can purchase the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro for $154.99 from Amazon, which is a savings of 33 percent from its retail price. While three colors are available, the Graphite model is the only one that is currently on sale.
YouTube has evolved over the past decade, going from a place to just find entertainment to a platform where you can learn about nearly anything. Now, YouTube is investing in the educational segment by catering to the educators on its platform by introducing YouTube Player for Education. The new feature will keep educational environments free of ads, external links, or recommendations. Before it rolls out to all educators on its platform, YouTube will first partner with educational technology companies in the United States like EDpuzzle, Purdue University, Purdue Global, and more.
The goal of YouTube Player for Education is to eliminate distractions from educational videos, giving learners a better experience. Going forward, it will also enhance the experience it offers in Google Classroom. Furthermore, qualified creators will be able to offer courses starting next year. The courses can be free or paid and will give educators a new space to provide a structured learning environment. The courses will first be available to those in the United States and South Korea as a beta, with the service expanding to more regions later. If this kind of learning platform sounds familiar, it’s because it already exists with services like MasterClass, Skillshare, or Coursera.
In addition to the new changes, YouTube will implement Quizzes. It will allow creators to create quizzes to test viewers. This service could help viewers to better understand what they learned and also what they might need more work on. Quizzes will roll out to users as a beta in the next few months. Creators with access to the Community tab will have access to this feature starting next year. While it is great to see YouTube making new tools for educational creators on its platform, it will be interesting to see how courses on the platform will work.
Budget-friendly Android devices with less than 2GB RAM and 16GB storage might soon become a thing of the past. With Android 13, Google has updated the minimum hardware requirements that devices must meet to bundle Google Mobile Services (GMS). The company now requires OEMs to offer at least 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage if they wish to bundle GMS on a device running Android 13 or later.
According to Android Enterprise expert Jason Bayton (via Mishaal Rahman), OEMs can no longer preload GMS on new devices with less than 2GB RAM. Google also requires all new Android Go devices to have at least 16GB of storage. In addition, existing devices that do not meet these requirements will not receive the Android 13 update.
Small bit of news here: Google is upping the minimum hardware requirements that handheld devices must meet in order to be able to bundle GMS.
Now, all handheld devices launching with Android 13+ must have at least 2GB of RAM and 16GB of flash storage in order to preload GMS. https://t.co/fDppuhlfoW
This isn’t the first time Google is preventing OEMs from preloading GMS on low RAM devices. Following the launch of Android 11 back in 2020, the company announced that devices with less than 512GB RAM would no longer qualify for preloading GMS. At the time, it also specified that all phones launching with Android 11 or later must launch as an Android Go device if they featured 2GB RAM or less.
With the updated requirements in place, Android OEMs will now have to offer a minimum of 2GB RAM and 16GB storage if they wish to bundle GMS on devices running Android 13 or later. However, OEMs will still be able to bundle GMS on Android 12 devices with less than 2GB RAM. Since budget-friendly Android devices typically do not launch with the latest version of Android, it might be a while before OEMs stop selling devices that do not meet these requirements.
In addition to the iPhone 14 and the Pro models, Apple also announced a trio of new watches at its “Far Out” event. As expected, we got the latest Apple Watch Series 8, a more rugged-looking Apple Watch Ultra, and a new affordable model dubbed the Apple Watch SE. All these watches look great on paper, but we’ll find out soon if they deserve a spot in our best Apple watch collection.
Unlike the new iPhones, the new smartwatches are already up for grabs, meaning you can order one right now and be one of the first ones to receive it. In this post, we’ll take a quick look at the best Apple Watch Series 8 deals for those who are interested in buying the regular variant of the watch:
The new Apple Watch Series 8 is available to purchase in two sizes — 41mm and 45mm, both of which come with either aluminum or stainless steel finish. The new watch starts at $399 for the GPS and $499 for the cellular version. You can visit the links mentioned below to find the best prices for this watch online right now:
Apple Store
Apple’s online store continues to remain one of the best places to buy all Apple products. The new Apple Watch Series 8 is also available to purchase from Apple’s online store in all sizes and finishes. The best thing about buying it directly from Apple is that you can either it delivered to your doorstep or pick it up yourself from the nearest Apple store. Apple is currently offering three months of Apple Fitness+ with each purchase of Series 8 smartwatches. Additionally, you can also trade in your existing Apple Watch to get up to $150 in credit.
While purchasing the new Apple Watch Series 8 directly from the company's online store, you can choose to either pay the full amount upfront or opt for a 24-months installment.
The new Apple Watch Series 8 is also available on Amazon. You can pre-order the watch right now and get it delivered when it goes on sale on September 16. Amazon isn’t offering any discounts on the new watch but we suggest you keep an eye on this listing as Amazon products are frequently discounted throughout the year.
Best Buy is also carrying the new Apple Watch Series 8 smartwatch. In fact, this particular retailer has a lot of finishes on offer for both the GPS as well as Cellular models. Unlike Amazon, Best Buy is offering a free Apple Fitness+ subscription with each purchase of this watch. In fact, you get four months of Apple Fitness+, which is better than Apple’s three months bundle on its online store. You also get the option to trade in your existing Apple Watch to save some money on your purchase.
You can choose to pay the full price for the Apple Watch Series 8 upfront or get 12-month financing for the watch, starting at $33.25/month instead while purchasing from Best Buy.
We’ll continue to scout the market for more deals and add them to this post once they are made available. In the meantime, you can browse through some of the best bands and cases to figure out ways to customize your Apple Watch.
Apple unveiled the iPhone 14 series at its “Far Out” launch event on the 7th of September. Alongside it came a selection of other products too, including the next generation of AirPods, the Apple Watch Series 8, and the Apple Watch Ultra. However, one of the biggest surprises of the event is one that actively harms U.S. consumers, and that’s the courageous removal of the SIM tray.
Apple is no stranger to anti-consumer practices (and for that matter, nor are any of the other Fortune 500 companies), but this is a new low for the Cupertino-based firm. The company has offered eSIM as a just-as-good alternative for bewildered consumers who aren’t sure what to do next. The problem is that eSIM isn’t necessarily the bastion of standardization that Apple would want you to believe that it is.
The problem with eSIM
There are carriers in the United States that don't actually support eSIM yet
eSIM is, in theory, a great solution to the digitization of physical SIM cards. It allows a carrier to instantly share connectivity details to your smartphone, it stops your SIM card from being lost or stolen, and you can quickly and easily change mobile operators — in a perfect world. The problem is that every carrier has its own hoops to jump through, and what’s more, there are a ton of carriers in the United States that don’t actually support eSIM yet.
Like seriously. Go look at the list of all the MVNOs in the US and then compare it to Apple’s list of supported eSIM carriers. It’s not perfect, since Apple is missing a few, but a *lot* of carriers don’t support eSIM.https://t.co/byFxayccoihttps://t.co/EipQs3Dgj3
So, if you want to use a newer iPhone on your current carrier, and your current carrier happens to be one of the MVNOs listed above, you’re screwed. You’ll either need to push your carrier to introduce eSIM support or, more likely, you’ll have to switch carriers. Some carriers even only reserve eSIM support for higher-tier plans. If you break your phone, you also won’t be able to just quickly take the SIM card and stick it in an older phone. Your older phone mightn’t support eSIM, and even if it does, you’ll often need to wait on your carrier to distribute a new eSIM to you. What’s more, Ting has also been pretty transparent in the past that they aren’t being allowed support eSIM.
If it seems like this is a change that benefits the carriers with little-to-no consumer benefit, then you’ve seen nothing yet.
International roaming will be a pain with eSIM
The bigger problem with eSIM, and one that anyone who travels abroad will have realized very quickly, is that it’s going to be a lot harder to get a local data SIM card when traveling. Before the days of free EU roaming, when I traveled, I would pick up a local data SIM card and stick it in my smartphone as a means of accessing mobile data without paying crazy-high roaming fees. I picked up a local SIM card in Latvia a few years ago for about €4, and it had a month of unlimited data. A U.S. consumer no longer has that luxury.
Funny how it seems this change only benefits the carriers
Are there local eSIM options in many countries around the world? Absolutely! Apple even has a list. However, I know from experience in the Irish carrier market that while there is a listed option, it’s not quite as it seems. Vodafone is the only provider in Ireland that offers eSIM, but Vodafone is also significantly more expensive than any other carrier here. An American arriving in Ireland could pick up a local SIM card for €10 for unlimited data for a month here, but if you need an eSIM, you’re looking at a €20 minimum and potentially more hoops to jump through in a foreign country.
Nothing stopped Apple from keeping single SIM plus eSIM support, as you know, it still does for the rest of the world. If you wanted to use eSIM you could, and if your carrier supported it, you could gain from all of the benefits of eSIM without being locked into a particular kind of carrier. This instead acts as another roadblock to using a local SIM card, and for many, the hassle of jumping to another local carrier when on vacation won’t be worth it. This in turn will kick roaming fee profits back to the carriers. It even makes the phone difficult to import from the U.S. to some regions, which people may want to do as the prices have risen in Europe, India and so many other markets.
Funny how it seems this change only benefits the carriers.
It takes courage
What I found most peculiar about this ordeal is how there are essentially no tangible benefits to consumers. Every single anti-consumer action that Apple takes will generally have a consumer-positive spin on top of it. The removal of the headphone jack for example was touted as a way to increase the space available inside of the phone for other components, and it just so happens to be able to sell you the solution in the form of AirPods. The removal of the charging brick in the box was described as an eco-friendly change, yet consumers just end up paying more for a charging brick. Apple is a company, companies want to make money, and companies are not your friends.
There are essentially no tangible benefits to consumers
Having said that, the courageous move of removing the SIM tray still completely boggles my mind. There is no consumer-positive slant. I haven’t seen any argumentation from fervent Apple defenders that makes even a modicum of sense, as I saw with the removal of the headphone jack or the removal of the charging brick from the box. U.S. consumers will stick to their carriers, or jump through multiple arduous hoops trying to get away from them when roaming.
Even weirder is that this means Apple is producing three separate variants of the iPhone 14 series. There’s an eSIM-only version for the United States, an eSIM plus physical SIM version for most of the world, and a dual physical SIM version for China. U.S. travelers will know that the iPhone is arguably the best phone for roaming thanks to its support of a wide berth of 5G and other network bands, but now it’s both simultaneously the best and the worst.
If this is a move towards the long-rumored portless iPhone, then it’s a jump that I think comes too soon. I also hate what this signals for the Android community — we all know how it will eventually turn out to be. Android OEMs will mock Apple in the beginning, and then soon adopt the very same practices. In the end, its the consumer who loses.
(@Wander1236)