While most of the big news at WWDC comes during the keynote, there are always newsworthy bits that follow over the next couple of days. Here is s roundup of some of those newsworthy items
Read MoreApple Announces New iPhones
Apple today held its annual iPhone event. The event, usually held in September, was in October this year likely due to supply and manufacturing issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, it was believed there would be 4 new iPhones, and that turned out to be true, but there were still a few surprises on board.
Read MoreTech News Roundup for October 5, 2020
Here are a few of the tech stories I found interesting over the last few days. This was written early Monday morning, so anything from Monday during the day will not be included.
Apple Sues Canadian Company for Selling iPhones it was Paid to Recycle
Apple makes a big deal about how old iPhones that are traded in or returned to Apple are recycled. It has been a big part of the environmentally friendly image that company has tried to paint over the past several years. Apple doesn’t do all that recycling itself, it contracts at least some of the work out. Apple is alleging that a Canadian company it has paid to recycle iPhones has instead been reselling them back into the consumer channels. If this is true, it would be a breach of contract, and potentially putting sub-par or defective devices back into the world.
This is an interesting story about the sustainability of the electronics industry, and what happens to devices when we are done with them, or they no longer work.
Nest Audio Reviews
Google’s newest smart speaker has been reviewed by several outlets, and it appears to be a winner. It is touted as having much better sound than the now 4 year old Google Home, and infinitely better than the Google Nest Mini. At $130, it is also cheaper than the original Google Home’s launch price. If you want a smart speaker, this appears to be the one to get.
https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/10/05/google-nest-audio-review/
Galaxy S20 FE 5G Review
A phone I didn’t highlight when it was announced was the Galaxy S20 FE 5G. (The ”FE” stands for Fan Edition. Phone names are terrible this year). This is Samsung’s newest phone and is meant to fill the price gap between the standard S20 line and the highest end A series model, the A71. It achieves this by cutting back in a few places, but nothing most people would miss. The back is made of plastic instead of glass, which may actually be a plus for some people, the camera’s aren’t *quite* as good as the other S20 models, and the screen isn’t quite as good, but still very good. It has a huge 4500 mAH battery that is actually larger than the more expensive S20, and matches the even more expensive S20+
The reviews of this phone have been universally positive. With the highest end phones getting a significant price increase this year, thanks largely because of the expense of the 5G technology that most people can’t even really use, less expensive phones are becoming more and more interesting.
At $950, this is still an expensive phone, but it is much cheaper than the $1200 starting price for the arguably less capable S20.
With the caveat that I haven’t held it myself, the S20 FE 5G appears to be the phone to buy if you don’t want to spend the money the true high end phones demand, but want a phone that is nearly as good while making sensible sacrifices.
The Software That Runs On Spaceships Definitely Isn’t Windows
Not a lot to add here, just to say that this is a really neat read about the software that runs on spaceships and satellites, and how different it is from the software we run on our simple Earth computers. Space is hard.
A $6,000 Zeiss Camera With Android…. For Some Reason
I personally just enjoy the absurdity of this. Pre-orders have gone up in the US for a Zeiss full frame camera with a fixed 35mm lens that runs a variant of Android with built in apps for photo editing on device.
No one should buy this, it sounds absurd. But it’s hilarious and I’d love to get my hands on it because of it.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/5/21501940/zeiss-zx1-camera-preorder-price-date
Tech News Roundup for July 31, 2020
There has been a lot of news over the past few days. To much to talk about it all, but here are the things I’ve chosen to highlight from the last couple days.
Read MoreThe Apple Ecosystem
With Apple’s announcement to move to their own custom designed processors for Mac computers, the company is realizing a vision that has been coming for many years. With the Mac, iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, and Apple TV all on the same platform, Apple has unprecedented control over the ecosystem of products it makes, and even with everything they have shown off, I’m sure we haven’t even fully seen the fruits of those labours.
Read MoreTech News Roundup for June 22, 2020
Today is Apple’s WWDC Day, normal tech news will resume another day, but here is a quick summary of the big things Apple announced at WWDC, at least to me.
Read MoreTech News Roundup for June 5, 2020
Here are a few things that caught my interest over the last couple days.
Supreme Court of Canada resumes hearings… via Zoom
The year of 2020 is weird. Many institutions that have done things a certain way for a long time, sometimes literally centuries, must adapt. The Supreme Court of Canada is no different, and this week began having official hearings virtually via Zoom.
https://mobilesyrup.com/2020/06/03/supreme-court-virtual-hearings-for-the-first-time-ever-via-zoom/
iPhones stolen from Apple stores during the protests and looting in the United States are being tracked.
A good reminder of how many modern electronic devices can work. One of the very unfortunate part of the protests in the US has been the widespread looting of stores in various cities. Apple is now saying that iPhones looted from their stores are all being remotely disabled and tracked. This makes reselling them impossible and could potentially help law enforcement in apprehending those who were looting.
This also serves as a warning on buying used newer model iPhones from the US for the next few months. There is a chance you could be buying one of these devices.
Germany will require gas stations to provide charging for electric vehicles.
Electric vehicles are the future, but the infrastructure to charge them on long duration trips remains a hurdle, though not as big of one as many people realize. But, the EV charging situation can always improve, and as part of a COVID-19 stimulus package Germany will be requiring gas stations within the country to install and provide EV charging. This will greatly help with range anxiety on EV’s with more plentiful options for charging on the go, which should help adoption of those vehicles.
Instagram requires users to obtain permission before embedding posts.
Have you ever seen embedded posts from Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc? They’re used all over the place on the internet, basically a fancier way of linking to posts that show it inline. These posts show the post, any text or media, as well as a link to the post and the user’s profile. The Twitter embed directly shows the author of the post. You can see an example of both Twitter and Instagram embeds below.
Welcome back to Instagram. Sign in to check out what your friends, family & interests have been capturing & sharing around the world.
Since no one actually reads terms of service, it has been discovered that Instagram actually requires someone who plans to embed an Instagram post elsewhere to obtain explicit permission from the person who originally posted the photo.
This is a very bad precedent for the web. Embeds do not “steal” content. But Instagram is treating it like they do. This has the potential to have serious negative consequences for content creators trying to build and expand an audience.
Instagram needs to fix this. They should either improve their embeds to have better, clearer attribution, or get rid of embeds altogether. But if this is how Instagram wants to continue, it is not sustainable.
Note: The instagram photo is one of mine, so I have given myself permission to use my photo.