Saturday, 15 February 2014

Review TechRadar: Phone and communications news 02-15-2014

TechRadar: Phone and communications news
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HTC vows to update Android on all new flagship phones for two years
Feb 15th 2014, 01:03, by Matt Swider

HTC vows to update Android on all new flagship phones for two years

HTC has been able to build attractive smartphones like our editor's choice HTC One, but its support of post-launch Android updates haven't been as solid. That's about to change.

The company has promised to support "all new flagship devices going forward with all major Android updates for two years," according to the HTC US product team in a Reddit thread.

So far, this ambitious goal only applies to its North America phones and we put in an inquiry into HTC to see whether or not it'll make a similar global commitment.

Steady Android updates certainly haven't been the case with the HTC One X and HTC One X+.

They're stuck with Android 4.2.2, unable to be upgraded to Android 4.4 KitKat, even though X+ came out 14 months ago.

Select upgrades possible for HTC One X

HTC blames the lack of HTC One X and X+ updates on chip maker Nvidia. It no longer supports the Tegra 3 and is instead focusing on its newer Tegra 4 and Tegra K1 processors.

However, the Taiwanese phone manufacturer does have one possible contingency plan for its US customers: it's actively "exploring" an update to Android KitKat 4.4 for the HTC One since it has a Qualcomm processor instead.

HTC also mentioned that US customers will continue to receive Android 4.4 upgrades on its newer flagship smartphone, the HTC One. Next up is T-Mobile, which should have the new firmware in a matter of days.

Windows Phone Blue update too?

HTC refuted a question as to whether or not it's "done with Windows Phone," calling itself a strong partner of Microsoft.

In fact, the company confirmed that it's working with Microsoft to bring the Windows Phone Blue update to its existing Windows Phone 8X smartphone.

Windows Phone 8X is almost a year and a half old, so it may be getting the same prolonged updates treatment as Android.

HTC also refused to talk about the possibility of a new Windows Phone in its future, but said it will continue to take new products into consideration. The Blue update is a good start.


    






T-Mobile Jump early upgrade will soon offer more frequent device changes
Feb 14th 2014, 22:58, by Michael Rougeau

T-Mobile Jump early upgrade will soon offer more frequent device changes

The carrier war continues to heat up, as T-Mobile has confirmed that its Jump plans are about to see some critical changes.

T-Mobile Jump customers will now be able to upgrade as many times and as often as they want, with no limits or waiting periods.

Jump users who have already paid off half of their devices' value will be able to upgrade for free. Those who haven't will need to pay off half their devices' total cost in order to upgrade.

T-Mobile's Jump plans will also include tablets, and these changes go into effect February 23.

For the better

Previously T-Mobile Jump plans required subscribers to wait six months after signing up to be eligible for their first upgrade, then a further six months in between upgrades.

The Jump program still costs $10 per month in addition to customers' normal subscription fees.

These changes were first reported as a rumor by TmoNews, but the carrier soon confirmed them with Fierce Wireless.

The carrier war continues

The Jump improvements are T-Mobile's latest tactic in the ongoing war between the big four US carriers (T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon and Sprint). But unlike most wars, the battle between carriers usually benefits smartphone users.

Previously, T-Mobile offered to pay off contract termination fees with other carriers if they switch to T-Mobile and trade in a device.

Verizon, meanwhile, just introduced new "More Everything" plans to replace its "Share Everything" plans.

In January Sprint introduced new "Framily" plans and changed its "One Up" upgrade program into the superior "Easy Pay."

And AT&T began offering new Mobile Share Value plans in December.


    






National smartphone kill switch bill finds itself on the table
Feb 14th 2014, 20:07, by Michael Rougeau

National smartphone kill switch bill finds itself on the table

Four Democratic Senators this week have proposed a bill to require all smartphones in the US to feature a kill switch that would allow for remote deactivation.

The feature is intended to deter thieves, though opponents to the bill worry that it would in reality enable them to have more leverages over victims.

The bill would require any device with a cellular connection to come with a remote kill switch feature built in.

It would also require all smartphones to come with a feature that would let users wipe them of all data remotely in the event they are stolen.

Reservations

But critics like industry trade group CTIA fear criminals might gain access to such measures illegally and then hold users' phones for ransom.

When Samsung proposed a similar kill switch on its own devices in November 2013, the CTIA suggested the measure might be used to coerce US officials in dangerous positions, like in the defense department or law enforcement.

US carriers rejected Samsung's proposal back in 2013.

The CTIA, meanwhile, is still focused on the stolen phone database that the FCC helped build in 2012.

A difference of methods

"While Senator [Amy] Klobuchar and CTIA are of like mind when it comes to wanting to prevent the theft of wireless devices, we clearly disagree on how to accomplish that goal," CTIA Vice President of Government Affairs Jot Carpenter said in a statement. Klobuchar is one of the bill's sponsors.

"Rather than impose technology mandates, a better approach would be to enact Senator [Charles] Schumer's legislation to criminalize tampering with mobile device identifiers," the statement continued.

"This would build on the industry's efforts to create the stolen device databases, give law enforcement another tool to combat criminal behavior, and leave carriers, manufacturers, and software developers free to create new, innovative loss and theft prevention tools for consumers who want them."

The Senate proposal, targeting only devices with a cellular connection, is much more specific than a similar but broader bill tabled in California earlier this month.

Apple's iOS devices feature some remote anti-theft measures, but nothing as drastic as a full-on kill switch.

  • Here's everything TechRadar knows about the iPhone 6.

    






LG G3 may flash eye scanning or fingerprint reading security features
Feb 14th 2014, 18:03, by JR Bookwalter

LG G3 may flash eye scanning or fingerprint reading security features

Korean consumer electronics giant LG is seeking to reclaim some of its former glory worldwide, which will apparently include devices with some kind of biometric security measures on board.

ZDNet Korea was on hand in Seoul February 13 to cover the launch of the LG G Pro 2, a handset the manufacturer plans to introduce in the US and Europe soon after its Asian launch next month.

During the press conference, LG Mobile executives were asked about the possibility of biometric authentication technology being implemented into the company's future flagship phones.

Although no firm plans were unveiled, LG officials claimed to be "considering all possibilities," which could include eye or fingerprint recognition such as what's currently offered in the iPhone 5S or competing Android devices from Samsung.

Not-so-distant third?

According to Softpedia, LG's interest in biometrics could first be introduced with the LG G3. The G3 is expected to debut by early summer as the successor to the company's big-screen LG G2.

That could give LG the advantage of seeing what Samsung has in store for at the upcoming Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona later this month. It's there Samsung is expected to debut its Galaxy S5 smartphone.

For now, LG executives appear unfazed by any potential threats from Samsung or Lenovo's acquisition of Motorola, instead keeping their eye on becoming third place in the global smartphone market after Samsung and Apple.

"We have a plan to reclaim third place in the global market by the end of the year and have no intention to react on each moves our competitors make," one product manager with LG Mobile told ZDNet Korea, planning to pit "product competitiveness" against all rivals.

  • Put a little twist in your day with our review of the LG G Flex!

    






Updated: Android 5 release date, news and rumors
Feb 14th 2014, 17:01, by Gareth Beavis and John McCann

Updated: Android 5 release date, news and rumors

Android 5.0 news and rumors

Android 5 is going to be exciting, there's no doubt about that. Google saves the change to a new number for the big things, with both Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich making big alterations to the way we use our Android phones.

We thought it would have been Key Lime Pie that showed off the next level, but on 31 October 2013, Google officially revealed its next minor update, Android 4.4 KitKat, which now clears the road for Android 5.

Cut to the chase
What is it? The next major upgrade for Android, to follow on from Android 4.4
When is it out? We're thinking mid-2014
What will it cost? Nothing, it'll be a free upgrade

The dessert-themed code name that we assume will begin with L is anyone's guess at this stage. Android 5.0 Lemon Cheesecake or Android 5.0 Lemon Meringue Pie, anyone?

As we wait on official news of that name, we're constantly combing the web to see what's going to be happening with this L-powered update, so check back to see what we've uncovered and the level of likelihood each rumour brings.

Android 5.0 release date

Until Android 4.4 was announced we had expected the Android 5.0 release date to be some time in October 2013. We instead saw Android 4.4 KitKat launch on 31 October, so now we're expecting to see Android 5.0 shown off in mid-2014, quite possibly at Google IO, Google's annual two-day developer conference in San Francisco.

That's a year on from when we had originally expected to see Android 5.0, which was at Google IO 2013, which took place from May 15 to May 17 2013. Given that Google announced Android 4.1 Jelly Bean at 2012's IO conference, we're now desperate for the next iteration of the code.

Sundar Pichai, Google's new head of Android told Wired that 2013's IO was "not a time when we have much in the way of launches of new products or a new operating system"," which makes us wonder when the new software will be coming.

Our take: Android updates are still coming too slowly for our liking, as while each 0.1-numbered upgrade is good, it's not enough to make us want the native experience.

We're expecting Google to make Android 5 rather special indeed, which means it can only wait a maximum of 6-7 months after KitKat was announced to show it off - so mid-2014 has to happen, in our opinion.

Android 5.0 phones

The first handset to run Android 5 will either be a Nexus phone or tablet, and given the timing of the announcement we think it might be the latter. The Google Nexus 5 launched Android 4.4 at the tail end of next year, and we reckon the Nexus 10 (2014) will appear soon - meaning a tablet launch for the new OS.

HTC looks like the front runner to bring this tablet to the market, so we're thinking that this could happen mid-2014, which puts it firmly on course to be made soon.

Will it be known as a Nexus? The scheme is reportedly under threat, although in no way confirmed by Google. It does have the Play Editions of its devices, so we could see Android 5 side-launched on other devices - but we can't see that happening.

Google IO 2012

Samsung's Android 5.0 upgrades

Although Samsung is yet to officially confirm its Android 5.0 schedule, a SamMobile source is claiming to know which phones and tablets will be getting the upgrade. According to the source, the devices set to receive the upgrade are the Galaxy S4, Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note 2, Galaxy Note 8.0 and Galaxy Note 10.1. Do note that this claim was made before Google announced Android 4.4, so if it was ever correct, it's probably a lot less correct now.

Samsung Galaxy S4

Android 5.0 features

Android Geeks reported that Google Babble would debut on Android 5.0. Babble was the code name for Google's cross-platform service and app with the aim of unifying its various chat services which include Talk, Hangout, Voice, Messenger, Chat for Google Drive and Chat on Google+.

A screenshot that we were sent from a Google employee on 8 April confirmed that not only was this unified chat service on the way, but that it was called Google Babel not Babble. On 10 May, we discovered that Babel would launch as Google Hangouts, and on 15 May we saw it come to life for devices running Android 2.3 and up. So much for it debuting on Android 5.

Google Babel

A more recent idea is that Google's next version of Android will have more fitness smarts built in - and this is an idea we think has legs, if you'll pardon the sort-of pun.

Apple is set to go big in this area with the iWatch and iOS 8, and other brands, such as Samsung and LG, are making strides too.

The idea is future versions of Android will allow the software to harness "fitness data from sensors on your Android device."

These could be built into future Android phones and tablets, but it's also likely that the API will play nicely with Android-based smartwatches and even Google Glass.

Some have speculated that Android 5.0 will be actually Chrome OS, Google's high power operating system for its Chromebooks - that it would use Android for low- to mid-level handsets and put Chrome on the high end.

However, this makes little sense given the effort that would be needed for app integration, so like Microsoft and Windows Phone the mobile OS will very likely continue as is.

Android 5.0 interface

While this is pure speculation, we're wondering whether Android 5.0 might bring with it a brighter interface, moving away from the Holo Dark theme that came with Android 4.0.

Google Play 4

On 6 August 2013, we learned that Google had applied to patent a rather cool piece of functionality whereby an Android user would be able to launch different apps by drawing different patterns on the lock screen.

If this feature makes it into Android 5, we could be able to launch the camera app by drawing one pattern and Twitter by drawing another.

Our Android 5.0 wishlist

While we wait on more Android 5 features to be revealed and scour the web for more Android 5.0 news, TechRadar writer Gary Cutlack has been thinking about what we want to see in Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie. Hopefully the new mobile OS will feature some of these things...

1. Performance Profiles

It's bit of a fuss managing your mobile before bed time. Switching off the sound, turning off data, activating airplane mode and so on, so what Android 5.0 really needs is a simple way of managing performance, and therefore power use, automatically.

We've been given a taste of this with Blocking Mode in Samsung's Jelly Bean update on the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the Note 2 but we'd like to see the functionality expanded.

Something like a Gaming mode for max power delivery, an Overnight low-power state for slumbering on minimal power and maybe a Reading mode for no bothersome data connections and a super-low backlight.

Some hardware makers put their own little automated tools in, such as the excellent Smart Actions found within Motorola's RAZR interface, but it'd be great to see Google give us a simple way to manage states.

Another little power strip style widget for phone performance profiles would be an easy way to do it.

android 5

2. Better multiple device support

Google already does quite a good job of supporting serious Android nerds who own several phones and tablets, but there are some holes in its coverage that are rather frustrating.

Take the Videos app which manages your film downloads through the Play Store. Start watching a film on one Android device and you're limited to resuming your film session on that same unit, making it impossible to switch from phone to tablet mid-film.

You can switch between phone and web site players to resume watching, but surely Google ought to understand its fans often have a couple of phones and tabs on the go and fix this for Android Key Lime Pie?

3. Enhanced social network support

Android doesn't really do much for social network users out of the box, with most of the fancy social widgets and features coming from the hardware makers through their own custom skins.

Sony integrates Facebook brilliantly in its phones, and even LG makes a great social network aggregator widget that incorporates Facebook and Twitter - so why are there no cool aggregator apps as part of the standard Android setup?

Yes, Google does a great job of pushing Google+, but, no offence, there are many other more widely used networks that ought to be a little better "baked in" to Android.

4. Line-drawing keyboard options

Another area where the manufacturers have taken a big leap ahead of Google is in integrating clever alternate text entry options in their keyboards. HTC and Sony both offer their own takes on the Swype style of line-drawing text input, which is a nice option to have for getting your words onto a telephone. Get it into Android 5.0 and give us the choice.

UPDATE: Google heard us and this feature appeared in Android 4.2.

Android 5 keyboard

5. A video chat app

How odd is it that Google's put a front-facing camera on the Nexus 7 and most hardware manufacturers do the same on their phones and tablets, yet most ship without any form of common video chat app?

You have to download Skype and hope it works, or find some other downloadable app solution. Why isn't there a Google Live See My Face Chat app of some sort as part of Android? Is it because we're too ugly? Is that what you're saying, Google?

6. Multi-select in the contacts

The Android contacts section is pretty useful, but it could be managed a little better. What if you have the idea of emailing or texting a handful of your friends? The way that's currently done is by emailing one, then adding the rest individually. Some sort of checkbox system that let users scroll through names and create a mailing list on the fly through the contacts listing in Android Key Lime Pie would make this much easier.

Android 5 contacts

7. Cross-device SMS sync

If you're a constant SIM swapper with more than one phone on the go, chances are you've lost track of your text messages at some point. Google stores these on the phone rather than the SIM card, so it'd be nice if our texts could be either backed up to the SIM, the SD card, or beamed up to the magical invisible cloud of data, for easy and consistent access across multiple devices.

8. A "Never Update" option

This would annoy developers so is unlikely to happen, but it'd be nice if we could refuse app updates permanently in Android 5.0, just in case we'd rather stick with a current version of a tool than be forced to upgrade.

Sure, you can set apps to manual update and then just ignore the update prompt forever, but it'd be nice to know we can keep a favoured version of an app without accidentally updating it. Some of us are still using the beta Times app, for example, which has given free access for a year.

Android 5 apps

9. App preview/freebie codes

Something Apple's been doing for ages and ages is using a promo code system to distribute free or review versions of apps. It even makes doing little competitions to drum up publicity for apps much easier, so why's there no similar scheme for Android?

It might encourage developers to stop going down the ad-covered/freemium route if they could charge for an app but still give it away to friends and fans through a promo code system.

10. Final whinges and requests...

It's be nice to be able to sort the Settings screen by alphabetical order, too, or by most commonly used or personal preference, as Android's so packed with a huge list of options these days it's a big old list to scroll through and pick out what you need.

Plus could we have a percentage count for the battery in the Notifications bar for Android 5.0? Just so we know a bit more info than the vague emptying battery icon.


    






Galaxy Note 4 could let you call mom by writing 'call mom'
Feb 14th 2014, 16:24, by John McCann

Galaxy Note 4 could let you call mom by writing 'call mom'

Sure, tapping, dragging or holding down an app icon on your smartphone's lockscreen may be handy, but it's apparently not good enough for Samsung.

According to a patent application spotted at the US Patent and Trademark Office, Samsung has filed a feature which "verifies a user and executes applications via handwriting recognition."

You can already unlock the Galaxy Note 2 and Galaxy Note 3 by scribbling your signature on the lockscreen, but with patent US 20140038557 A1 Samsung wants to use your handwriting to directly launch applications.

Doodle to launch

In accompanying images filed with the patent application, examples of how the feature may work are shown, with a S Pen stylus writing the phrase "Call mom" on the lockscreen, which in turn will jump you straight into the call.

Samsung Handwriting patent

There's no guarantee that this feature will make it to the Galaxy Note 4, or even subsequent Note smartphones and tablets, but it's certainly something we'll be keeping an eye on.

  • Before we get ahead of ourselves, let's see what the Samsung Galaxy S5 has in store for us

    






New battery tech could mean the end of exploding iPhones
Feb 14th 2014, 16:00, by Kate Solomon

New battery tech could mean the end of exploding iPhones

The days of phones exploding could be behind us as researchers have developed the first non-flammable lithium-ion battery.

That could mean an end to exploding iPhones, exploding iPods, red-hot Galaxy Notes and the rest.

The scientists at the University of North Carolina say they've replaced the flammable solvent used in Li-ion batteries with a non-flammable alternative, and that it could result in longer battery life too. Score!

But...

The only downside is that the researchers aren't yet sure that the new style batteries can handle constant charging and recharging.

Until they figure that out, you'll have to keep the fire extinguisher on stand by.

Via PhoneArena


    






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