Author: batteryforpc

iPhone 12 surprises keep coming (both good news, bad news and unexpected twists), but now we know perhaps the biggest problem with Apple’s new iPhones. 

Mysterious industry insider ‘Mr White’ has continued his impressive track record leaking Apple hardware, by revealing the chassis for the coming iPhone 12. While this confirms the range’s move to a more angular new design, he also confirms Face ID will be the same size and, as a consequence, the large notch introduced with the iPhone X in 2017 will not be getting any smaller in 2020. 

08/08 Update: a further image of an iPhone 12 Pro screen panel prototype has now leaked and, unfortunately, it also looks like Apple is sticking with the larger notch on its Pro models as well. The chassis again confirms the angular design Apple will introduce for the range, which takes influence from both the iPhone 4 and the current iPad Pro line-up. That said, with Apple also now all but certain to ditch fast refresh rates on all iPhone 12 models, the iPhone 12 Pro editions, in particular, are losing their shine. Especially considering their significantly higher asking prices. Given this new leaked image is a prototype, there may be some hope that Apple has made a late, more ambitious, change for the final iPhone 12 designs but the signs are not looking good.

08/09 Update: further iPhone 12 components are now leaking as the models enter mass production. Consequently, Apple reseller JinStore has now attained images of Apple’s A14 chipset, which is tipped to deliver a multi-generational leap in performance. The A14 will also be Apple’s first 5nm chip, which will bring greater power efficiency (needed with those smaller batteries), particularly when multitasking. With other iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro features falling by the wayside as we approach release, a lot of weight is going to be placed on the A14 to dazzle and it looks set to do just that. The A14 isn’t the kind of eye-catching feature Apple usually likes to sell its iPhones on, especially with the A13 in the iPhone 11 range and iPhone SE already far ahead of the competition, but expect the company to break with tradition in 2020.

Apple had been widely expected to shrink the notch for the iPhone 12 line-up and almost every render showed this would result in a significantly better design. Moreover, with recent leaks also revealing Apple will increase prices while also shrinking battery capacities, the company’s decision to stick with the same notch for the fourth successive generation may be a deal breaker for some potential upgraders. 

That said, for notch haters, there is still some cause for optimism. While Mr White did not reveal which iPhone 12 model the chassis is from, it appears to be the new 5.4-inch entry level phone. So it is possible Apple does have plans to introduce a smaller notch with the more expensive iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max. 

Beyond this, however, there remain compelling reasons to upgrade. Most notably, all iPhone 12 models will come with 5G (albeit different versions), a multi-generational performance leap, a wider range of screen sizes and faster (potentially magnetic) charging. Pro models will also add some radical new camera tech. 

All of which leaves users at a crossroads. At least with Apple officially delaying the iPhone 12 release and the possibility of a split launch increasing, you will have longer to make your mind up. 

The Intel Core i9-10910, which is believed to be an Apple-exclusive chip, has shown its face on Geekbench 5 again. Without confirmation from Intel, of course, we can’t be positive of the accuracy of the results, spotted by @Leakbench. But this allows us to do an early pseudo-assessment of the CPU’s performance. 

The Core i9-10910 in question, as well as the current Core i9-10900, belong to the 10th Generation Comet Lake-S family. The 14nm processors find their home inside the new LGA1200 CPU socket. They’re equipped with 10 CPU cores, 20 threads and 20MB of L3 cache. One theory as to the Core i9-10910’s existence is that Apple wants a custom chip for its iMac.

For context, the Core i9-10900 has a 2.8 GHz base clock and a 5.2 GHz TVB (Thermal Velocity Boost) clock. Today’s Geekbench 5 submission paints the Core i9-10910 with a 3.6 GHz base clock and a boost clock that almost hits 5 GHz. The most attractive aspect of the Core i9-10900 is the fact that the processor is rated for 65W, so it isn’t overly demanding on cooling or power delivery. The finer details of the Core i9-10910 are still unknown at this point, so we don’t know if there is a change in the TDP (thermal design power) or not.

The two Geekbench 5 results depict exactly what the specifications already hinted. The Core i9-10910 exceled in single-threaded workloads but ultimately lost to the Core i9-10900 when multi-threaded workloads are involved.

Despite the 28.6% higher base clock, the Core i9-10910 only delivered up to 6.9% higher single-core performance than the Core i9-10900 in Geekbench 5. The tables turned when it comes to multi-core performance though. The Core i9-10900 outperformed the Core i9-10910 by 9.6%.

Assuming these results are correct, it shouldn’t be hard to pick between a Core i9-10910 or Core i9-10900. You’d just have to identify the type of workloads you commonly execute on your system. The Core i9-10910 purportedly has better single-core performance, and the Core i9-10900 is expected to offer superior multi-core performance.

Today, we have for review the ASUS Radeon RX 5600 XT TUF Gaming EVO graphics card positioned a notch below the ROG STRIX Radeon RX 5600 XT TOP OC graphics card we reviewed earlier. The TUF Gaming line of PC hardware and peripherals by ASUS represents durable, high cost to performance products targeted at gamers. The brand itself, though, has had some bad press in recent times over sub-optimal cooler designs that weren’t well received by reviewers. Since then, the company worked extensively on improving the cooler and thermals of its Navi TUF Gaming graphics cards, and the culmination of that work is the TUF Gaming EVO board design, which made its debut with products based on the RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 series and has now been put onto the performance-segment RX 5600 XT. The important part in the nomenclature is the “EVO” as it denotes the new cooling solution.

AMD originally intended for the RX 5600 XT to take the performance crown unopposed by NVIDIA, as it designed the SKU to outclass the entire GeForce 16-series. With ray-tracing hardware off the table, the playing field was supposed to be level between AMD and NVIDIA; that is, until NVIDIA pulled a last-minute rabbit out of its hats with a price cut down to $299 for the GeForce RTX 2060. AMD scrambled to revise the specifications of the RX 5600 XT by increasing clock speeds and memory bandwidth in a bid to compete with the RTX 2060. Since products with the original specifications were already in circulation, the update in specifications was sloppily put out through video BIOS updates targeting only those cards that shipped with VRM and memory chips capable of the new specifications. The ASUS TUF Gaming EVO was conceived after this mess and yet only partially implements these. The default memory speed of the card is 12 Gbps, or 1500 MHz, with ASUS providing a BIOS update on their website to 14 Gbps, or 1750 MHz, to match other high-end Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics cards.

Based on the same 7 nm “Navi 10” silicon as the RX 5700 series, the Radeon RX 5600 XT is configured with 2,304 stream processors spread across 36 RDNA compute units—same as the RX 5700, but with the memory amount slashed by a third, down to 6 GB, along with the memory bus, down to 192-bit GDDR6. AMD also tinkered with the GPU clock speeds a bit. The idea behind the RX 5600 XT is to dominate the sub-$300 graphics card market, providing 1080p gaming at frame rates of around 90 FPS, or even 1440p with reasonable frame rates.

The ASUS Radeon RX 5600 XT TUF EVO in this review is based on the revised TUF Gaming EVO board design we mentioned earlier. This design sees an overhaul of the heatsink underneath the cooler shroud to make it vent out heat better, and the inclusion of ASUS’s premium Axial Tech fans that feature webbed impellers that guide all of their airflow axially (none bleeding laterally). The board draws power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector and includes a few premium touches, such as a metal backplate and an ARGB embellishment. ASUS is pricing the card at $320, a $40 premium over the $280 AMD baseline price.

Well, I picked a great time to pull the SIM card from my iPhone and plop it into a Google Pixel 4. Android devices running 6.0 or better now have a “Nearby Share” feature that’s functionally identical to Apple’s AirDrop for iOS and macOS. With it, you can wirelessly share files and photos between two devices.

I tested it on two Pixel phones I have and it works great. But that’s not a standard use case, of course.

Beaming a file from one person to another is the typical situation, and as long those two people have Android phones running a supported software version, it will work. I’m more interested in when it Nearby Share arrives on Chromebooks, which is in “the coming months”, according to Google.

And by “coming months”, I don’t expect us to have to wait too long. Last month, Chrome Story got Nearby Share working between Android and Chrome OS using the Canary channel.

I’m running Chrome OS 85 Beta Channel and already see bits of Nearby Share on my Chromebook. There’s the experimental flag to enable it, for example:

Enabling it and restarting the browser adds Nearby Share to the Settings options as well.

Unfortunately, with this version of Chrome OS 85 Beta Channel, that’s as far as I can get.

The Nearby Share option doesn’t appear in the right-click menu of Files to actually share the file. And trying to send a photo from my connected Android phone to my Chromebook doesn’t yet work either.

Perhaps I’ll drop down to the Dev Channel of Chrome OS 86, which is currently available, and have more luck.

Either way, I don’t see this feature sitting around in the Chromium Team for long.

Even if it’s just hidden behind a flag for a bit, I suspect Chrome OS 86 will deliver this functionality.

Regardless, when it does arrive, you’ll be able to share files between Android and Chrome OS, either over Bluetooth, WebRTC or peer-to-peer WiFi, whichever the system deems faster and available, making for a slightly more cohesive ecosystem.

If you’re enjoying streaming music using your Wear OS smartwatch, unfortunately those days are numbered.

Currently Google Play Music is the sole service that can play music from the wrist, but Google is preparing to shutter the service by the end of the year.

But Android Police has spotted that support for Wear OS will end a lot sooner – in fact, “in the next couple of weeks”.

“Users will no longer be able to use or download Google Play Music on their Wear OS by Google smartwatches. Google is investing heavily in improving integrated music services through all of your connected devices with YouTube Music,” reports Android Police, from a Google forum.

To those not in the know, Google is moving over to YouTube Music for its streaming service.

But there’s no sign that YouTube Music will have a Wear OS app any time soon – if at all.

That’s really frustrating for Wear OS users, and just adds more fuel to the argument that Google’s heart isn’t in its smartwatch OS.

When you consider the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 is taking the fight to Apple with features like offline Spotify playlists, ECG, fall detection, stress monitoring, Spo2 and more – Wear OS isn’t even in the picture.

With Wear OS now losing features, it’s little wonder that the company is looking to buy Fitbit to advance its wearable tech ambitions.