Author: batteryforpc

Developer beta 6 of iOS 13 has been released. Here are all the changes found this time around including tweaks to folders, Control Center, and more.

Several apps have new splash screens upon launch after updating. The App Store touts the new update location —as well as Apple Arcade. Photos teases the new video editing and immersive experience. Game Center also has a splash screen when launching an app that utilizes it.

Dark mode now has its own top-level toggle inside of Control Center. This avoids the annoyance of having to 3D Touch on the brightness toggle. It can be enabled within the Control Center settings.

Folders now have a more saturated background that reflects the wallpaper behind them. This looks good in places like a dark background, but odd in others. We aren’t sure if this is a bug or a purposeful design choice.

There are a few other changes including screenshots returning to rectangular corners instead of being cropped to curves, URL previews can now be hidden on a per-app basis, and the signal bar designator for cellular is back to its smaller size.

ETA sharing in Maps seems to be gone at this time. Hopefully it returns before the full release. (Thanks Jason!)

Once again, Apple has made shivers run down my spine—but not in a good way. Today, as part of its “Shot on iPhone” campaign, Apple released a series of four ASMR videos to its YouTube channel. There’s some lady whisperingabout weird shit, a dude carving wood, crunching noises on a hike, and what’s supposed to be soothing rainfall.

ASMR is big on YouTube, with categories ranging from nerdy cosplay to glamorous baking channels. Some fans say the amplified sounds give them relaxing, tingling sensations—a sort of eargasm if you will. For me, ASMR feels like I’m a ghost and someone’s poured ice-cold gasoline over my grave. I listened to each of Apple’s four videos, and now I feel like I’ve died and some Baba Yaga has lightly run her crusty nails over my spine over and over again.

I guess you could say my reaction means Apple’s done a pretty good job with these videos, even if the intense reaction it invokes in me is cringing instead of pleasure. The video descriptions say they were shot by Anson Fogel, who’s done other Apple ads. Each was shot on iPhone XS and XS Max, but it’s a bit misleading to think you’ll get the same results with just an iPhone. The video descriptions note that additional software and professional hardware were used.

The videos were also described as “Season 1″, meaning it’s possible we’ll see more from Apple in the future. But for the love of god, Apple, please, please, please don’t do a cooking one. If my editors ask me to listen to wet ingredients squelching as they mix with dry, I may just have to chuck my computer out a window.

Samsung usually schedules several events throughout the year, but the most interesting, by far, are the “Unpacked” events for its updates to the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note lines. The latest Unpacked, on Aug. 7, focused entirely on the Galaxy Note 10.

Also: Galaxy Note 10: Rumours, features, and release date

As with many smartphone launches, you were able to stream the show online. Although the live stream itself has now concluded, Samsung kept it available so that people can tune in and watch or re-watch whenever they have time.

How to watch Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10 event

On Wednesday, Aug. 7, Samsung hosted Unpacked in New York to announce the Galaxy Note 10. This event happened a couple weeks after Samsung announced its Galaxy Fold would finally launch in September. It also followed two rather quiet product launches for the new Samsung Galaxy Active 2 smartwatch and Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 tablet.

WHAT TIME WAS THE EVENT?

Samsung uses the name “Unpacked” for all its smartphone launches, and this year was no different. The Galaxy Note 10 Unpacked event took place on Wednesday, Aug. 7 at 4pm ET/1pm PT at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. It’s the same time and place that the Galaxy Note 9 was launched last year.

Samsung’s summer Unpacked event, traditionally the company’s annual unveiling of its big-screen Galaxy Note line of phones, brought us the Galaxy Note 10. We went into the event with some big expectations for it.

The event took place just weeks after the company announced that the Galaxy Fold will relaunch sometime in September after fixing problems with the screen. But the Note, which used to be the flagship in which Samsung debuted the latest and greatest technologies, has some work to do to get out of the shadow of the Fold. And as frequently happens when newer, pricier models are announced, it may make the Note 9 more attractive to some people. 

Google may lean on considerably more than touch-free gestures to reel in would-be Pixel 4 buyers. Sources for 9to5Google claim that both the base Pixel 4 and the larger Pixel 4 XL will include fast 90Hz OLED displays marketed under a “Smooth Display” name. Much like the OnePlus 7 Proand a few other devices, you’d get a silkier, more responsive screen that could be ideal for playing games and watching high frame rate videos.

There might also be more camera tricks in store. It’s no secret that the Pixel 4 line will have dual rear cameras (a 12MP standard shooter and a 16MP telephoto, according to this leak), but the sources also talk of work on a “DSLR-like attachment” for the phones. It’s not certain if this is simply an add-on lens or something more sophisticated.

Both Pixels will reportedly have stereo speakers as well as Google Assistant features that are (initially, at least) exclusive to the lineup. Other specs are relatively familiar. The two would run on Snapdragon 855 chips with 6GB of RAM, carry at least 64GB of storage and ditch the display notch for the sake of both the gesture radar and face detection sensors.

There’s a chance Google might confirm the 90Hz display soon given that it has been willing to tease Pixel 4 features as they leak. If it’s real, it further reflects the sharp change in strategy for the Pixel line. As a rule, Pixel phones haven’t had much more than their cameras and software to help distinguish them from the pack. A Pixel 4 with a 90Hz display, secure face detection and hands-off gestures would be another story. While you’ve seen variants of those features before, having them all in one device could make the Pixel more alluring even if you don’t particularly care about Google’s usual software tricks.

Not once during Samsung’s Unpacked event for the new Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plusdid anyone on stage say the word “Bixby.” Samsung’s virtual assistant — positioned as an alternative to Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri — was never directly brought up over the course of the Note’s introduction and several other product sequences featuring the Galaxy Watch Active 2, Galaxy Tab S6, and other devices. Bixby wasn’t included in any demonstrations of the Note 10’s many new software tricks, productivity enhancements, and features designed with convenience in mind.

It was a remarkable exclusion from Samsung after years of trying to establish Bixby as central to Samsung’s in-house software efforts and AI advancements. The absence was particularly noticeable since at this time last year, Samsung was showcasing Bixby 2.0 on stage in the very same room, listing off all the improvements it had made to the assistant’s smarts and voice command processing. Surely a “Hey Bixby” voice command could’ve been squeezed into the presentation somewhere, right? It never came.

There are other signs that Bixby might be less of a priority for Samsung in 2019. Unlike its last several flagship phones, the Galaxy Note 10 does not include a dedicated Bixby button. Instead, users will be able to trigger Bixby with the power button. But you wouldn’t know it, because this was never shown on stage.

By default, pressing and holding the power button will bring up Bixby — no matter how long you hold it down for. If you thought a standalone Bixby button was annoying before, this out-of-box behavior could be considered even worse. If you want to use the power button to, you know, turn the phone off, you’ll have to disable Bixby altogether. There might be a power/volume button combo that lets you turn off the phone more easily (Apple does this on the iPhone X and later), but Samsung’s default is going to result in more unwanted Bixby interactions and customer frustration.

So Bixby is still alive and well on phones. It’s also on Samsung smartwatches, TVs, and refrigerators. But the Galaxy Home (a Bixby-powered smart speaker similar to the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod) remained absent from the keynote a year after being introduced at Barclays Center in 2018. Samsung missed the Home’s April release target, and most recently the company has claimed it will ship sometime in the third quarterof this year. Maybe so, but this product is taking a long time to the point that it risks turning into Samsung’s AirPower. Having remained a no-show at the Note event, it’s possible we’ll finally hear more about the Galaxy Home at next month’s IFA conference in Berlin. If nothing more is known by then, well…

Bixby was featured during the pre-event videos that were running in the arena even if it didn’t earn a keynote mention. And in fairness, Samsung had a lot of ground to cover: in addition to hardware and buzzy industry topics like 5G, the company discussed a number of partnerships with Microsoft, Under Armour, Discord, and even the UN.

Does a lack of stage time mean Bixby is going anywhere? No, not at all. But it might indicate that Samsung’s assistant is taking a back seat and will become something that’s just sort of there — once you free your Note 10’s power button from it, that is. The people who actually enjoy using Bixby for its deep integration with phone settings and multi-step actions will still have it at their disposal. But for everyone else, Bixby has always felt disposable. Today, it felt like Samsung got the message.

Other things Samsung didn’t mention on stage today:

Why it got rid of the headphone jack on the Note 10. Apple’s “courage” explanation didn’t go over very well, so maybe it’s best to just avoid the subject under the stage lights.

The aforementioned Galaxy Home.

An exact release date for the Galaxy Fold.

“Android.”