Category Archives: Mobile

iOS, Mobile, News

[WWDC 2021] Apple iOS 15 is Coming – Even Bigger

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iOS 14.6 just arrived barely a two weeks ago and WWDC 2021 has already happened to excite iOS fans even more. On the big stage that is YouTube last night, Apple’s WWDC 2021 keynote introduces iOS 15, the next generation operating system to power your iPhone. If Apple said the 14.5 and 14.6 were big updates, you can consider 15 a complete change.

It is not much of a facelift though. You still get the same visuals, art styles, and even the same sort of interface to interact with. It is still very much an iOS that you are used to. At the same time, there are so much new features, this might as well be a new operating system.

FaceTime – Apple’s Best, Even Better

Source: Apple

FaceTime has been one of Apple’s best invention to the video conferencing and calling world. There are plenty of competitors to the platform out there, but if you and your friends have iPhones, FaceTime will be the best video calling experience you can get out there. Video calling is also important at this unprecedented time in the world.

How could Apple make FaceTime better? 4k Resolution? Maybe in 5 years’ time. Audio it is. You can now have a clear, uninterrupted conversation with your friends with FaceTime with Voice Isolation, a tool that cancels noise around you and transmit only your crisp voice. At the same time, you can also ensure that everyone can hear everything from your end with Wide Spectrum mode. In group calls, you even get a sort of spread-out voice just to give your group calls a little bit of spatial dynamic.

There is a new Grid View in FaceTime group calls now too. That means you get to see everyone in the call in equally sized windows. To take a group photo in FaceTime too, you get to have portrait mode that gives you Bokeh in your own tiny grid. But FaceTime is now more than just a video call.

SharePlay

  • Source: Apple
  • Source: Apple
  • Source: Apple

You can now share contents across FaceTime calls. You can share music via Apple Music, watch a TV show or Movie together via Disney+, or even share an app screen with your friends. SharePlay works across iOS, iPadOS and MacOS too, so it is not like you are limited to iPhones only.

Everyone in the session gets control of SharePlay’s contents, including music and movies. If you are accessing other apps while watching the show with your friends, SharePlay can play on top of the app in Picture-in-Picture (PIP) mode. If you want to watch the shows on a bigger display, you can extend the experience on Apple TV Too. So even if you are separated from your friends, you can watch shows together too.

FaceTime Links with Other People Too

Source: Apple

No, that is not what I meant. FaceTime needs to be used with another person at least, we understand that. Now though, that other person does not need to own an iPhone, or iPad, or even a Mac. They could be on Android and Windows and they can jump into calls with you on FaceTime if you create a link for them.

You can use the links created to be shared through emails, calendars, or even messages to schedule a call with your friends, or even colleagues if you need to. The best part is that the end-to-end encryption remains a feature even if you are on a FaceTime calls with an Android user or a Windows user.

Focusing on the Right Things at the Right Time

  • Source: Apple
  • Source: Apple
  • Source: Apple

They put a big emphasis on mindfulness and focus on iOS 15. Mental health and work life balance is becoming an increasingly big issue in the modern world we know today. It is especially true in the current pandemic situation.

Users on iOS 15 can create focus situations to limit notifications and allow notifications from certain apps and contacts surface in different times, your colleagues’ texts and emails at works hours, for example. You can get iOS 15 also to summarise your notification feed to see what surfaced when you were not looking at your smartphone in your chosen time of day. This setting will also sync across your Apple platforms just to ensure that all your devices know how they should behave in different times and situations.

Of course, you can just turn all your notification off with “Do Not Disturb” mode. Do Not Disturb mode will also trigger a notification your contacts who are trying to contact you though. They can see that you want complete silence from them and will create silent notifications for you for when you have the time to respond. You can also silent certain messaging apps for the next hour or the entire day if you want to.

On-Device Intelligence

Source: Apple

There are downsides to having intelligence built right into your device. For one, it is a little more taxing on your smartphone’s hardware. To ensure that it has enough data to run on your device natively too, it would take up more storage space in your device.

Thankfully the benefits outweigh the downsides though. Your on-device command is faster than ever now. It is also a lot more secure on your device.

Live text for example uses Apple’s clever neural processor to recognise texts in a photo or to something that you point to using your iPhone’s camera. You can easily take a photo of your lecture notes on the board for example and convert the photo into texts for you to copy in your own digital note for safe keeping and future reference.

They have also included something called Visual Look Up. From the camera app, users can point to certain objects or landmarks to get more information regarding the landmark, or an object, or even an animal. This feature kind of reminds us of Google Lens, to be honest.

Photos and Spotlights

Source: Apple

Apple introduced Memories in Photos in the last major iOS update. In iOS 15, Memories is made even better with on-board intelligence. Instead of just a photo collage slideshow and video playback, Photos can now include music to go along with your photo collage. You can even choose the song you want to go with your collage and Memories will cleverly alter your photos and tailor the slideshow according to the songs.

But the intelligence does not just stop there. You can now find photos and contents with the intelligence. They call this Spotlight and deservingly so. With Spotlight, your device can recognise texts or handwriting in your photos and pull them up for you. Spotlight also works as a web image search.

Everything You Need in the Wallet

  • Source: Apple
  • Source: Apple
  • Source: Apple

Apple’s Wallet is one of the world’s best cashless payment platforms. It has also evolved to be something of a one-stop-shop for all your credit cards and your loyalty membership cards. Later this year though your iPhone can be your keys to everything from your home to your cars with Ultra-Wide-Band signal enabled. You can even use your iPhone to store your ID.

On top of that you can share all these information with your family members via Wallets. On the subject of sharing information on your ID across different spaces, you can now choose to disclose only the required information from your ID instead of showing a whole ID card to whoever that is requesting your ID.

New Weather App Design

They have also redesigned their Weather app to look even better than before. They have included more animations too to properly and accurately reflect the current weather situation outside of your window. The backgrounds also accurately shows you the sun’s position through the day.

Apple Maps with Even More Details

Source: Apple

Apple Maps gets a slight overhaul too, this is on top of being available in more regions now. 3D view on Apple Maps is also more detailed than ever on iOS 15. On top of that, you get elevation data with landmark highlights on Apple Maps.

Visually, Apple Maps looks better than ever with Night Mode and its photorealistic lighting effects on 3D objects. Getting lost with Apple Maps can also be a thing of the past with a more detailed view of the road, especially when you are navigating an expressway. When you are driving in town, newly added details like crosswalks, traffic lights, bike and bus lanes help you understand the road better and drive safer. The new Apple Maps will also be coming to Apple CarPlay.

If you prefer commuting on foot, Apple Maps now shows public transportation schedules. In that case, you can use Apple Maps to navigate your commute to anywhere with public transportations. Once you come out of the train station, you can use Apple Maps’ Augmented Reality (AR) function to find your way around and get a bearing of where you are. This function is now only available in select cities in the United States though.

AirPods – Better with iOS 15

Noise cancelling algorithms gets better with iOS 15 too. Apple’s AirPods now can enhance your conversations with the person in front directly in front of you by focusing on the person’s voice. You can be completely handsfree too with notifications read out to you via AirPods. If you misplaced your AirPods, you iPhone now can locate your earbuds.

Siri and Security

  • Source: Apple

Siri also benefit from on-device intelligence. You can now control your smartphone or smart home functions via Siri even without internet connection or data. At the same time, your voice data never leaves your device in this case.

On top of that, iOS 15 now gives you more control than ever on the sort of information and hardware access is being accessed by the apps you use and work with. You can also ensure that your emails do not track you with IP Address hiding on iOS 15. Security and privacy does not stop there too.

Your iCloud account can also now be recovered even if you forgot your recovery answers and password. All you need to do is add your trusted contact and retrieve a recovery pin from them to recover your iCloud account. They’ve also added Digital Legacy function, in case you need to pass your iCloud data forward.

iCloud+

  • Source: Apple
  • Source: Apple

For the same price you paid for iCloud, there is iCloud+ that adds a layer of security here. iCloud+ adds a layer of protection to Safari now. Safari is now encrypted with iOS 15. Browsing on Safari with iCloud+ also means that your IP address do not get tracked. Whatever data that you share on the websites are also encrypted on-device. At the same time, when you need to share email information on any websites too, your iPhone will spoof randomise a spoof email. Any emails sent to the spoof email will be forwarded to your actual email.

Computers, Mobile, News

Samsung’s Galaxy Book Go and Galaxy Book Go 5G Brings Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Compute Platform to Windows.

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Qualcomm has been teasing their Snapdragon platform to run on PC and Windows for a while now. To be fair, the possibility of having a Snapdragon SoC running Windows is not such a far-fetched idea. The processing chips that have been staple for Android, at least on the flagships, are already as powerful, if not more powerful than a regular CPU made by Intel and AMD. They are also a lot more power efficient, which also means that it runs cooler and benefits battery life.

While they have been teasing, there are no notable products to put the concept into practice. The closest we got to a modern Qualcomm Snapdragon compute platform on Windows is the JOI Book SK3000, an attempt at creating an affordable notebook by a Malaysian firm. To be fair, we see a lot of potential from that attempt, even if they are using a somewhat dated System on a Chip (SoC) that was not even made for Windows.

 Today though, all that is about to change with Samsung’s introduction of the Samsung Galaxy Book Go. The new Galaxy Book Go comes in three variants too, for good measure. The regular Galaxy Book Go can be fitted with LTE connectivity, but there is a 5G variant. Naturally, two variants also mean two different SoCs. The standard Galaxy Book Pro with or without LTE comes with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7c  Gen 2 platform and the Galaxy Book Pro 5G comes with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 platform.

Source: Samsung

Again, because the power consumption requirements are lower than before, the notebook is touted to have an all-day battery life. Even if you need to plug it into a wall socket, your 25W charger should be larger than a smartphone charger. Thanks to USB Type-C too, you can charge your smartphone using the same charger. All of that also, while remaining constantly connected to the internet.

It features a 14-inch Full HD display with slim bezels to fit a body that is likened to an old 13-inch notebook. eUFS memory (up to 128GB) also means that you get instant boot and load speeds from the Galaxy Book Go. With up to 8GB of RAM, Windows 10 should be running nicely without too much strain. On top of all of that is Dolby Atmos certified speakers for all kinds of entertainment needs.

All of that power is packed into a body that is 14.9mm thick, or thin, depending on how you look at it. It could be thinner, but they do need a little bit of space to fit a full-sized USB Type-A port on the side of the Galaxy Book Go. Still, it only weighs 1.38kg and it does not need a fan to run a whole day.

Source: Samsung

It is very much a Samsung product though with Galaxy ecosystem a part of the Samsung Galaxy Book Go. The Galaxy Book Go works nicely with Link to Windows and Microsoft’s Your Phone app on your Android device. With Smart Switch also, you can easily transfer settings from your old PC to the Galaxy Book Go quickly and easily. There is even SmartThings built into the Galaxy Book Go for all kinds of IoT use at home.

The Samsung Galaxy Book Go Wi-Fi and LTE will be available in select market June 2021 onward. The selected markets does not include Malaysia at this time though. If you are in a market where the Samsung Galaxy Book Go with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 platform is available, it starts at US$ 349 (MYR 1,439*). The Samsung Galaxy Book Go 5G variant will be available sometime later in the year 2021. For more information on the Samsung Galaxy Book Go and other Samsung products, you can visit their website.

*Based on approximate exchange rate of US$ 1 = MYR 4.12 as of 03/06/2021 on xe.com

Mobile, News

Xiaomi Introduces 200W “HyperCharge” to Charge Your Smartphones in 8 minutes.

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Xiaomi just had their own tech demo on Twitter, and it is amazing. It was more like Xiaomi showing off their latest charging technology. In the video, Xiaomi charged a Mi 11 Pro with 4,0000mAh battery in 8 minutes. They also announced that they also have a new more powerful wireless charging technology that can charge the Mi 11 Pro in 15 minutes with 120W.

To be fair, fast charging technology has received plenty of attention in recent years. Modern flagships have to charge faster every year. The charging speed race technically was kicked off by most of the Chinese manufacturers like OPPO and Xiaomi. OPPO, of course relies on their own VOOC charge technology. Their commercially fastest charging products charge at 125W at the maximum.

In some sense, the charging speed race has been an exciting one to say the least. The wonders of fast charging technology have given us users the freedom of leaving your device on the charger for two hours or less and get going for the rest of the day. It has also freed us from sitting near a wall socket for long hours at a time. With Xiaomi’s demo, you probably can expect to charge a similar smartphone within a minute in a few years’ time.

Here is the thing though, that much displacement of electricity at one go is going to generate a lot of heat. While the speed at which the battery is being charged will cause more wear to the battery itself, the heat produced could also cause extra wear on the battery. More heat will also lead to less stability and in some cases, fire or explosion. In that case, there could be safety and durability problems that manufacturers will soon have to work with before they can push battery charging speeds to 200W and above.

Xiaomi’s tech demo is not an indication of when they will equip devices with 200W charging capabilities. 120W wireless charging mentioned does not also have an implementation date at this time. By the looks of it though, the charger technology is ready for prime time. That also means that we can expect Xiaomi to launch charger products that will charge faster than 120W and fast wireless charging at more than 80W.

Android, Mobile, News

ASUS Zenfone 8 & Zenfone 8 Flip Make Malaysian Debut

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It’s been quite a while since Malaysia saw a Zenfone. The last Zenfone officially launched in Malaysia was the Zenfone 5 – which, to be honest, was a stellar device. However, since then, ASUS hasn’t brought any of their smartphones – aside from the ROG Phone – to Malaysia. This year, it seems like ASUS will be kicking into gear bringing in not one but both of their Zenfone 8 offerings to Malaysia.

The Zenfone 8 series launched internationally earlier this month. The series brings two new Zenfones into ASUS’s portfolio – the Zenfone 8 and the Zenfone 8 Flip. The Zenfone 8 marks a new approach for ASUS when it comes to smartphones. The company is committing to creating smaller, palmable devices with killer specifications. Of course, to do this, they leave behind some of the defining features of the Zenfone including the flipping camera. That’s where the Zenfone 8 Flip comes in. With a larger body, it brings along the now signature flip camera of the Zenfone series.

Palmable Performance with the Zenfone 8

The Zenfone 8 still carries the honour of being the ASUS flagship. ASUS is packing a top of the line Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor into the smartphone with the Adreno 660 GPU. IT’s coming with up to 16GB of RAM and up to 256GB of internal storage. The Zenfone 8 also packs a 5.9-inch, Samsung AMOLED display with Full HD+ resolution and a 120HZ refresh rate.

Of course, being equipped with a flagship processor, it comes with support for WiFi 6 connectivity and Tri-band WiFi support on 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6GHz. It also supports Bluetooth 5.2 and Qualcomm’s aptX, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive and NFC. It is also 5G ready.

On the camera front, the smartphone comes with a 64-megapixel Sony IMX686 sensor with 1/1.7-inch sensor size and 0.8μm pixel size equipped with Quad Bayer technology. The sensor has an f/1.8 aperture, with a 78.3° field of view and a 26.6mm focal length. This sensor is complemented by a Sony IMX363 12-megapixel ultra-wide, dual pixel sensor. It comes with 1/2.55-inch sensor size and 1.4 μm pixel size and f/2.2 aperture. This sensor supports dual phase detection autofocus and has real-time distortion correction. It also supports 4cm macro shots. On the front is a Sony IMX663 12-megapixel sensor with a 1/2.93-inch sensor with 1.22μm pixel size and 76.5° field of view. It supports Dual Phase Detection autofocus.

The smartphone also comes with an under-display fingerprint sensor. It runs on Android 11 with ZenUI 8. All of this runs on the Zenfone 8’s 4,000 mAh battery which is charged via a USB-C port. The hallmark is that all of these specifications and features are housed within a compact body measuring only 148mm x 68.5mm x8.9mm.

Zenfone 8 Flip – Flipping Bigger than its Flagship

The Zenfone 8 Flip shares most of the same specifications as its flagship brother. However, it comes with a larger 6.67-inch FHD+, AMOLED display with a 90Hz refresh rate. It comes with only 8GB of RAM and only 256GB of internal storage. It’s also powered by a larger 5,000mAh battery.

The biggest difference comes in the form of the flipping camera. ASUS has imbued the Flip with a triple camera setup which functions as both the main and selfie cameras. The setup comes with the same sensors as the back camera on the Zenfone 8 but is further complemented by an 8-megapixel telephoto sensor with 3x optical zoom and 12x hybrid zoom.

Pricing & Availability

The Zenfone 8 will be available starting from 28th May 2021 at all authorized dealers and ASUS Digital Stores. It will come in two configurations; one with 8GB RAM and 128GB onboard memory which retails for MYR2,699 and a 16GB RAM with 256GB onboard memory retailing for MYR3,299. The latter will be available exclusively on Shopee. It comes in Obsidian Black or Horizon Silver.

The Zenfone 8 Flip will retail for MYR2,999 for the 8GB and 256GB version in Malaysia. It will be available in Galactic Black and Glacier Silver.

Purchases made on ASUS’s Shopee Mall front will be entitled to early bird promos from 28 May to 11 June 2021. Purchases made within this period will be entitled to a SolidSuit Case. ASUS is also offering a trade-in deal where customers are able to trade in their old Zenfones for an MYR200 rebate on the Zenfone 8 series. However, this trade-in offer is only available at physical retail stores from 28 May until 25 June 2021.

Android, Editorial, Lifestyle, Mobile, News, Podcast, Video

Tech & Tonic S02 Episode 13 – Our Google I/O 2021 Highlights!

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Google I/O happened last week and there was a lot to take in and dissect even from the two-hour long keynote to kick the Google’s 2021 developers conference off. We highlighted our favourite moments and things that we learned from Google I/O 2021. What caught our attention this year was their WearOS partnership with Samsung announcement. Android 12 is getting a huge visual revamp too this year. At the end of the show, something else caught our attention, and that was the Project Starline.

Google’s Wear OS is about to get a revamp and overhaul thanks to their new formed partnership with Samsung. This also means that Samsung will be ditching their Tizen OS development and focus on developing Wear OS with Google. Funnily enough Fitbit is not really getting involved. While they spent a very small amount of time making the announcement, there is more to Wear OS and Samsung’s involvement than Google made it out to be though. Fitbit is also not entirely out of the picture at this point.

We also saw the new Android 12 with Material You design language. The UI is cleaner, more intuitive, and even more customisable now. It is technically more YOU, more personal. You can change your theme colours to fit YOU. You can tune certain UI features to YOU. It is even more personal too with a Privacy Dashboard. You can even turn off your camera and mic completely if you want to; even your camera app will not be able to access both functions.

Project Starline was amazing. In brought to life a concept that we though will never see the light of day until way later. The whole pandemic situation has isolated us even more, and with conditions expected to take a turn for the worse in the coming year, physical connection to other human beings is sorely missed. Project Starline is as close as you can get to a physical touch and interaction to others at this point of time. To be fair, the technology is still in its early development stage and brings 3D and holographic telecommunications to life. It was encouraging and exciting to see, but we wonder how practical it would be if you want to bring that kind of technology to your homes or offices. 

Accessories, Computers, iOS, Mobile, News

Apple Releases iOS 14.6, iPadOS 14.6, macOS Big Sur 11.4, watchOS 7.5, and tvOS 14.6

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Just about a month after Apple releases the biggest update to iOS in recent history, Apple releases yet another update to the platform alongside their other products like the iPad, mac OS, watch OS, and even tvOS. To be fair, tvOS 14.6 is a minor update that is supposed to improve the general stability and performance of the interface for Apple TV devices. That is at least according to their release notes for the tvOS 14.6. For everything else, the updates are more than just bug fixes despite what the numbers suggest.

iOS 14.6 & iPadOS

iOS 14.6 is not as big as 14.5 in terms of updates. It is also partly a bug fix that fixes issues found on iOS 14.5 such as issues with unlocking your iPhone via your Apple Watch. Some users were reporting that reminders show up as blank lines now even when they have keyed in their information. The new update on both iOS and iPadOS should also improve Bluetooth connections with Bluetooth enabled hardware. Users should also see improvements in device performance with the update.

There are some added features too on iOS 14.6 and iPadOS 14.6. While fixing some early issues with AirTag, the UI now allows users to use their email address for tracking purposes instead of phone numbers. There are added support in Apple Podcast too allowing users on iOS and iPadOS to opt for subscriptions to shows and get extra exclusive contents. There is an added Apple Card support too in the sense that you can now share your Apple Card with up to five members of your family via Apple Card Family. The new function also allows you to keep track of expenses and manage limits. Users can also now unlock their iPhone or iPad for the first time after a restart via their voice.

iOS 14.6 is now available for Apple iPhone 6s and newer. iPadOS 14.6 is also now available for iPad Air 2 and later, 5th Generation Apple iPad and later, iPad Mini 4 and newer, and the 7th generation iPod Touch.

watchOS 7.5

Apple’s WatchOS 7.5 received a minor update when Apple released iOS 14.5 too. That minor update that updated WatchOS devices from Apple Watch Series 3 and later to WatchOS 7.4.1 was mostly a security update for the Watch. WatchOS 7.5, in contrast to the iOS and iPadOS updates is more of a feature update.

The Apple WatchOS 7.5 now allows access to subscribed content in the Podcast app for one. You can even manage and track your Apple Card expenses from your Apple Watch. Malaysia is getting some added love in the new WatchOS 7.5 too. Apple Watch Series 4 and later will get ECG app support now in Malaysia. Users of Apple Watch in Malaysia will also now get support for irregular heart rhythm notifications.

The Apple WatchOS 7.5 is now available for Apple Watch Series 3 and later.

macOS Big Sur 11.4

The new macOS Big Sur 11.4 update is also one of Apple’s largest since 11.3 just about a month ago. The update for macOS is more bug fixing than anything else. The new update fixes keyword exclusions when exporting photos from the Photos app. It also fixes certain website viewing issues with Mac devices. It also fixes certain stability issues with PDF documents on macOS 11.3.

On top of the bug fixes, macOS Big Sur 11.4 brings paid subscriptions to Apple Podcast app. You can now pay subscriptions for Podcasts within the ecosystem and get exclusive contents or early access to additional contents from creators. Apple Podcast also introduces channels to group shows from podcast creators. 

macOS Big Sur 11.4 is now available on devices running on mac OS Big Sur 11.

Android, Business, Mobile, News

Honor Devices Confirmed to Ship with Google Play Services

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It’s been quite a journey for Honor in its recent emancipation from Huawei. However, it looks like the emancipation is coming with significant benefits. If you need a little refresher, Honor started off as a subsidiary brand of Huawei to address the growing Millennial and Gen-Z segment who were looking for affordable, power-packed devices. Honor had a big European debut with one of their first ambassadors being Brooklyn Beckham, son of Football Star, David Beckham and Spice Girl, Victoria Beckham. However, with the sanctions from the U.S. on Huawei, the brand began to ship their devices without Google Play Services and with Huawei’s AppGallery.

Earlier this year, the brand was spun off into its own company and it looks like that has been a boon to it. In a tweet from the Official Honor Germany account the brand confirmed that their latest flagship, the Honor 50 will be coming with Google Play Services. (The tweets have since been deleted.) This is a big win for the brand as we’re beginning to see Huawei slip from the top of the list of smartphone vendors. Most recently, the company noted a 41% year on year decline in smartphone shipments.

Source: Android Authority
Source: Android Authority

That said, with the sale of Honor to a Chinese consortium of companies, Honor is seeing positive momentum. In fact, the company has confirmed that their upcoming Honor 50 will be coming with the recently announced, Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G. The partnership wasn’t possible under Huawei due to the U.S. sanctions. In addition to this, the company has also revealed that an upcoming Honor Magic device will be coming with the “most premium Qualcomm chipset”. The current SoC which fits that description is the Snapdragon 888 unless Qualcomm has another chipset up its sleeves.

The last Honor Magic device was released way back in 2018. The line up is being reintroduced as part of the new portfolio. Previously, the Magic line up was Honor’s most premium line up with power-packed specifications and top of the line features. It looks like that isn’t changing with the company touting the upcoming device as a “premium flagship product featuring superb imaging quality”.

Android, Editorial, Lifestyle, Mobile, News

[Google I/O 2021] Android 12 is a Big Visual Change for You

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Android is currently the most popular mobile operating system (OS) in the world. At least 72% of the entire smartphone market in 2021 runs on Android. That is also mostly because there are so many Android offerings out in the market that fits almost all sorts of budget.

There is also another good reason why Android becomes the OS of choice for plenty of enthusiasts. The fact that no two Android devices looks and feels the same is one of them. You could put a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra beside another similar device with similar colour option but when you pick them up, they could feel completely different in terms of its interactions and layout. If you are its owner, you know which one of the smartphones is which the moment you pick it up. Of course, there is the fact that you cannot unlock the other smartphone.

#Android12: Designed for you

Android 12 is not the largest update in terms of added feature on the user interface (UI), technically. It is the largest though in terms of visuals. The concept for the 12th major iteration of Android, as Google puts it, centers around You.

They call the new design language Material You. That also means that the design language is not entirely different from before. It is technically an evolution of the older Material design language. Thing is, it is not like the old Material design felt dated in 2021. Its simplistic and minimalistic language still does well enough in 2021, and we think beyond.

Still, Android 12 is coming and here are the major changes we think you might like; at least we like the changes.

More Personalisation

Source: Google

Colours turn out to be everything in our lives, and that includes our smartphones. We all wanted dark mode at some point in the past two years. Admittedly, Dark Mode looks sick and made our smartphones look extra sleek. But it does get a little boring when everyone starts doing the same things.

Adding some colours is a way to go to make your device even more unique to you other than having different home screen layouts. That is what Android 12 is, colours for your life. The UI can cleverly extract dominant colours and determine complementing colours from your wallpaper and turn your whole theme around that chosen colour. That extends even to the new widgets Material You is introducing. Of course, you can change those colours as well in the settings, if you want to have a different colour scheme for your theme. You technically can decide how thick you want your on-screen volume control knob to be too.

Better, Faster, More Sensible Animations

Source: Google

The UI is designed to be more intuitive and allow certain things to come up front and center for you. For example, picking up the device can turn your screen on, but the fluid animations can flash up according to how you pick up your device. The display might come to life from the bottom of the device up, or vice versa. It responds to touch and gestures too, apparently.

The most visible change on Android 12 in terms of animations though is on your lock screen. On Any Android device, you can view your notifications via your lock screen. You can close the notifications from your lock screen too. Once you cleared out your notifications though, Android 12 brings out your clock front and center to let you know that you are all caught up and tell you the time, obviously.

With Material You as well, Google have supposedly improved animation load times and speed by up to 22%. The development team somehow found a way to cut back on CPU loads for animations which both sped up the animations and extend battery life in the process. On top of that, the cut back in CPU reliance also means that older and lower-end devices can benefit the full animations of Android 12.

Bigger Means Better

Source: Google

A part of system designs in Material design is making things more compact, cleaner, simpler, and more minimalistic. A lof of quick access spaces and buttons are made smaller, more rounded, and take up so little space you could cram a million of them on your large 6-inch display. They sort of rolled back on that for the sack of intuitiveness and better-looking spaces though.

In Material You the notification is a much cleaner space to look at. Gone re the clutter that you might see in the current iteration of Material design. The notification page is much easier on the eyes to navigate and work with as well with a slightly larger interaction space.

You see the biggest change in Quick Settings though. Instead of little round balls that you are used to, they are now bigger buttons to work with. This not only prevents clutter, but also wrong presses when you use your device one-handed. The have added Google Pay and Home Controls button too for you to quickly access your ewallet payment gateway and even quickly control your Home IoT devices just through a couple of taps.

Privacy Dashboard

Source: Google

Transparency over data collection and sharing has been one of the most important features we look for in our smartphones today. Apple’s iOS now allows you to track each app and what they do with your data. For Android, it is a little different.

Instead of implementing app specific algorithm to identify what data is being used by each app and how, Android 12 gives you a one stop shop to understand what apps are using what and when. The dashboard allows to check also the kinds of permissions you give each app. You even can revoke access of the apps too from one Privacy Dashboard.

At the same time, Android 12 tells you when an app is using your camera or microphone. In some ways, Android 12 can help you track which apps use the two items when it does not need to as well. You can either revoke camera or mic privileges from apps via Privacy Dashboard in that sense.

There is more to that, however. You can revoke the entire systems access to both microphone and camera. All you have to do is pull down the notification bar, and then pull down again to quick access and turn off camera, or microphone access, or both. In that case, even if you launch your camera app, you are not going to see anything.

Regarding location, sometimes apps do not need to know where you are precisely. In that case, Android 12 allows you to set “approximate location” sharing with some of the apps that you feel might not need your precise location. An example of that kind of app is the weather app, to tell you what the weather is like in your general area.

And More…

Source: Google

There are more subtle changes in Android 12. To be really honest, we have not had our hands-on with the Android 12 Beta just yet, because we do not own devices that supports Android 12 Beta at this time. We are hoping that the list might expand a little more soon though. If you want to get your hands on Android 12 Beta, you can check if your devices are supported at the Android 12 Beta page.

Android, Business, Computers, Consumer Electronics, Editorial, Health, Lifestyle, Mobile, News

Google I/O 2021: Everything You Need to Know

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Google I/O 2021 is happening right now. The three-day conference kicked off with a bang though. To put it bluntly, Google I/O 2021 kicked off with a two-hour keynote highlighting everything coming from Google in 2021. While two hours do sound like a lot of drag, the announcements do sound mighty interesting though.

Google Workspace for Everyone

Source: Google

They kick off with something that everyone is concerned about in the period of pandemic, working from home. For that Google has something called Google Workspace. Google Workspace has been one of the most popular and thriving services since the world has gone into isolation with the looming pandemic situation. In 2021, the suite is updated with something called Smart Canvas.

Smart Canvas is a collaborative workspace within Google Workspace built for project management and keeping track of a project with your team members. It is kind of like a private chat or conversation within the larger organisation, but much cleaner. You can create and share Google Docs, Sheets, and even Slides within the group and work on the files together in real time.

Workspace is also now integrated with Google Meet, Google Doc, Google Sheet, and Google Slides. That also means that you can have a meeting on Google Meet within Google Workspace, share your files across the chat, and even edit the files together with your team in the Meets room. It is all about making remote collaborative work as seamless and organised as possible. Google also said Google Workspace will be available for free later in the year.

More in Google Search

Source: Google

Google search can also bring contents or search results that comes from other parts of the world in different languages with the integration of Google Translate algorithm and Google Lens as well. On top of that, Google is improving their language understanding and processing algorithm that should benefit more than just Google Translate, Google Lens, and regular Google Search.

They developed something called Wavenet, to make Google Assistant sound more natural and more contextual. They put that together with something they call Multitask Unified Model (MUM). All these makes Google Search and Google Lens the most powerful search and item identification tool ever.

The technologies that got mashed together means that Google search is not just single words anymore. It could be a sentence, a photo, and even both. The results can turn to be more than just web suggestions too. The result can turn out to be top suggestions, a place, and even connect you to merchants to buy what you need. If you set up your Google wallet correctly with all your merchant memberships as well, Google can connect you directly to deals that might be tied to your memberships too. There is a bit more to that too with Google Chrome, where you can track back your shopping carts on various sites even after you close the page.

Cleverer Google Maps

Source: Google

Google Maps is technically the most popular navigation app in the world. But that does not mean the app is flawless. There is always room for improvements.

Eco and Safe Driving

For example, Google introduces an ‘Eco Mode’ into the app. That basically means Google will take you through the most fuel efficient and economical route to get you to where you want and need to be. It may not be necessarily the fastest though, just keep that in mind.

They also introduced ‘safer driving’ routes for Google Maps. Obviously, that is what we call it, not what Google calls it. The idea is to navigate you to routes that might avoid traffic with sudden braking points and overall a smoother, clearer ride. All these are obviously done with Google’s navigation algorithm, traffic analysis, and GPS data such as speed or acceleration that Google Maps itself can see and work with in real-time.

Better Live View

Source: Google

They have expanded on Live View too in this case. Google Maps Live View does not just include navigation data in Augmented Reality anymore. It now shows you street names so that you can navigate better. It also now includes points of interest, landmarks, and you can pull up information regarding a place including its reviews directly from Maps app itself. Google Maps is also introducing Live View indoors now. It starts with the major train stations and airport in Zurich for now. The feature will be introduced to Tokyo also next month.

More Details

If you are getting yourself around by driving though, Google Maps is also a lot more detailed. Major intersections with road crossings and traffic lights will now show on maps so that you are better prepared. With Google’s understanding on your behaviour, your routine, and your usual routes, Google can also highlight relevant information, landmarks, or points of interest for you. A breakfast takeaway for example, on a Monday morning drive to work.

On top of all of that, Google Maps can now be a tool to help you plan your day not just on the road. Google Maps can track or predict how busy and packed an area will be at certain times just so you do not have to squeeze into the area at that time. You could plan to go another day for example, or just not go at all if it is not important. This is important in this day and age where social distancing is a recommended practice.

LaMDA

Source: Google

LaMDA is meant to be a conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI). Google says they have been using and testing it internally and it is powered by everything great about Google’s search engine and linguistic programming. In its demo, it sounds like an amazing piece of tech that could keep you having conversations with it from day to night.

It is programmed to know everything there is to know about our current world and situation. But it is not built to answer you with data necessarily. It is built to have natural conversations about the weather in general terms like “you might want to bring an umbrella in the afternoon”, rather than “there is a 78% chance of a light rain at 2.00 p.m.”.

While the answers that we saw from the demo does sound a little metallic and robotic at times, we cannot wait for LaMDA to be introduced into things like Workspace, YouTube, or even Google Maps. It is like having your own version of Iron Man’s JARVIS in your smartphone, or PC, or whatever you fancy.

More Organised Google Photos

Source: Google

Google Photos is a little bit more than just your photo gallery now though. It is now something you can use to create photo collages, to understand yourself better, and sort of your memory bank. Google’s image recognition recognises your photo patterns and puts all of them together to tell you that you tend to take photos of a certain context or a certain look. It tells you that you might be attracted to a certain sort of colour for example.

With Machine Learning (ML) as well, Google Photos can stitch multiple similar photos taken in succession to create a moving photo or video for you, even if there are gaps. Organisation and searching for your photos are even more intuitive too when you can find photos associated to certain celebrations for example.

Android 12 and Wear OS

Source: Google

Trust us when we say Android 12 is a huge overhaul of the Android OS. There is nearly no difference in terms of function, to be fair. Most of the changes are in the way things look and gets organised, and even customised. They call all this Material You design.

In terms of looks, things are a lot more intuitive, most organised, bigger, and a lot less cluttered. You get more control in how your User Interface (UI) looks in total as well. There are supposedly about 22% faster animation, they say.

You get more control over your own security and even privacy, and they are easier to access and understand with Privacy Dashboard. With the new UI as well, IoT controls are more front and center than before. There is a new improved remote app for your Android TV too.

Wear OS is getting a fresh lease of life too, thankfully. They want to make Wear OS a major smartwatch platform competitor to Apple’s WatchOS. To do that they managed to strike a partnership with their long-time partner, Samsung to bring Tizen and Wear OS together to make a more robust wearable operating system (OS) for everyone to use. Fitbit will also be introducing their own Wear OS later in the year and lend their expertise and know how in health and fitness into the upcoming Wear OS.

Your Safety, Privacy, and Protection Matters

Source: Google

Google has also improved their Google Password Manager. While the app still functions the same as before, you can now transfer password information from older devices. That also means that your passwords can be stored on-device instead of on-cloud. With Android’s on-device encryption nature, saving your managed passwords on your device could be a more secure option. With compromise alerts, you know when your accounts are accessed, and you can easily change passwords for whatever you have quickly via Password Manager.

Privacy Core

Google also introduced something called their Privacy Core. It is Google’s effort in giving control over information shared with Google back to its users. Supposedly as well, thanks to Privacy Core, you Live Caption sessions or translations will not be shared back to Google.

But security and privacy are more than that as well. It spreads to your search history, and even browsing history. Google is including an option now to delete ‘recent history’ on your Google Chrome.

Even in Google Maps, you can tell the app to not track your location history just so that the app does not collect your location data. You can allow Google Maps to track you accurately, or just give Google access to your approximate location now, in different apps. Not allowing Maps to track your data and build a history data also means that you are not going to get recommendations or suggestions from Google though. A worthy trade off, we think, for more privacy.

Better Health, Better Quality of Life

Source: Google

Since Google’s expansion and changing their own corporate name to Alphabet, they have been hugely involved in medical research. One of the places they have been pushing on is in the field of Mammograms. Google’s AI push into the platform means that screening for breast cancer is more accurate than ever. Their AI also helps doctors in understanding Mammograms and the severity in the diagnosis helping the health institutes prioritise different cases.

That is not all though. Dermatology is one huge field that could be expanded even using your own devices. Because this field has more to do with skin conditions, Google Lens can be an early diagnosis tool. You can take a photo of your skin conditions and Google can possibly identify what you have to a certain degree. Of course, nothing replaces a doctor in matters of treatments and full diagnosis, so Google can direct you towards a dermatologist near you via your browser. This feature will be available in the EU region by the end of the year 2021.

Project Starline

Source: Google

Speaking of health, we cannot ignore the current pandemic situation. We are all recommended to stay at home as much as possible and avoid as much human interaction as possible. The COVID-19 pandemic, while has brought humanity together more than ever, ironically has isolated us even more too.

Project Starline is a video chat tool that uses multiple cameras to create a 3D image model and project that 3D image to another part of the world. While that means that the file packages from that implementation are so bug that our regular internet speeds will not be able to cope, Google is working to compress the image files to a more sensible package size so that the images can be transferred using our regular internet connection.

The function of that is to implement a 3D video chat experience. While regular video chat today has progressed further than before, nothing replaces a physical presence and interaction. The idea with 3D projection calls looks to bridge that gap a little. Although you cannot touch the person still, having a 3D representation of a person is as close as you can get in having a physical presence in today’s world.

Google I/O 2021

Source: Google

To wrap up, Google announced that they are committing to shift their entire operation to carbon free energy sources by 2030. While Google has been proud of operating entirely on renewable energy, they are taking the first steps in relying on clean energy that does not leave any footprints. The commitment has led them to invest into Geothermal energy currently.

As promised by Google, the Google I/O 2021 is the largest ever. It is not just based on attendance though. It is also about the number of things that Google is introducing for 2021. It is also about Google’s commitments for the future, and we are excited, especially for Wear OS. For more information on what happened in Google I/O, you can check out Google’s Blog.

Android, Mobile, News

OPPO A74 Makes Malaysian Debut While the Reno5 Gets A Price Cut

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OPPO is getting really busy with more and more devices coming into the Malaysian market. Just a few weeks back, the company launched their most affordable 5G smartphone, the OPPO A74 5G. The 4G variant of the OPPO A74 is now set to make its debut on May 20, 2021. It will be coming as an exclusive to LAZADA. It will be retailing for MYR899 and will be available with freebies for its first sale.

Source: OPPO Malaysia

The OPPO A74 comes packed with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 processor complemented with 6GB of RAM. It will also have 128GB of UFS 2.1 memory and support for up to 512GB of extra memory via a microSD card. It supports 33W fast charging through a USB-C port. On the camera front, it has a triple sensor setup with a 48-megapixel main camera sensor with an f/1.7 aperture, a 2-megapixel macro sensor with f/2.4 aperture and a 2-megapixel depth sensor with an f/2.4 aperture. The OPPO A74 supports 4K video recording at 30 fps. The front camera is a 16-megapixel sensor with an f/2.1 aperture. The phone is powered by a 5,000mAh battery.

The affordable option from OPPO also comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack and an under-screen fingerprint sensor. To complete the media experience, the smartphone comes with a 6.43-inch FHD+ AMOLED screen with a 1080×2400 pixel resolution and 60Hz refresh rate. It will be running ColorOS 11 atop Android 11.

Source: OPPO Malaysia

Together with the new smartphone, OPPO is also repricing the OPPO Reno5 5G. The mid-range offering will now be priced at MYR1,699, MYR200 cheaper than its launch price. The new pricing makes the smartphone one of the more affordable 5G devices available on the market now. It also comes with OPPO’s VOOC Charge 2.0 and a camera setup that brings all of OPPO’s signature camera features.