On testing early versions Android 7, the future of smartwatches, the passion boiling over the 6GB RAM version of the Galaxy Note 7, and more …
Since the specs of the Galaxy Note 7 became known, rumors have circulated around the network about its exclusive super version, which will receive 6 GB of RAM. At the end of last week, it turned out that they did not arise from scratch and Samsung is really planning to release an improved version of Note 7 for the Chinese market.
Many users expectedly received this news with hostility. Talk began that the company had to save on components due to an inflated advertising budget, that an excellent start of sales of a new product was proof of the superiority of marketing over the common sense of buyers, and so on. Comments of this kind are the lot of any flagship, and for most commentators, the controversy around the Note 7 is nothing more than a warm-up before the announcement iPhone. The funny thing is that the marketing gimmick here is the 'advanced' version of the Note 7 rather than the other way around, but most commentators did not care about these subtleties.
The head of Samsung's mobile division, Dong-jin Koh, said that the release of a special version of Note 7 is due to the aggressive behavior of Chinese smartphone manufacturers, which are actively increasing the amount of RAM in their devices. Against their background, Samsung simply cannot lose face and release a device that will lose to them in terms of technical characteristics. This a priori puts the company in a disadvantageous position. What these same gigabytes will give the user in practice and whether the Note 7 would really be worse than its Chinese counterparts without them, nobody cares here. The decision was originally made for marketing reasons, not engineering necessity. The main thing is that the box has the number '6', and then at least the grass does not grow.
More is not always better. But many people still determine the quality of images by the number of megapixels in the camera module, the real battery life – by the declared battery capacity, and the smoothness of the interface – by the number of processor cores. Someone 'checkers', someone 'go'.
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By the way, this is not the first time that Samsung has released improved versions of flagships with more 'advanced' hardware for Asian markets. An example is the same Samsung Galaxy S3 that was sold in Korea with 2GB of RAM.
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On the other hand, quite often technology manufacturers themselves are not able to clearly answer the question of who needs their invention and why. A classic example of such a problem is the current situation with smartwatches in general and watches on Android Wear in particular. The IFA exhibition is just around the corner, and we can already say that many companies are announcing new models of 'smart' watches there. And so they can't really explain what is their significant difference from the old versions, which turned out to be practically uninteresting and unnecessary to anyone.
And the question here is not even so much to the manufacturers of smart watches as to Google. After all, according to the idea, the basis for everything was to be the Google Now service with its intelligent prompts, which would make a 'smart' watch a necessary and extremely useful mobile device. But in fact, all these 'intellectual tips' turned out to be a big puff and don't really work in their current form. And the main benefit of a smart watch is counting steps and notifications about incoming messages. And this despite the fact that all this can be done by ordinary fitness bracelets like some Xiaomi mi Band, which costs ten times cheaper, and works twenty times longer, and no Android Wear and not nearly required.
At first glance, it might seem that the problems with the popularity of Android Wear are a chain of annoying accidents in which no one is to blame. When it comes to a new type of device, the risk is higher than ever, and it is not surprising that this time Google failed to create a truly successful OS. In the end, competitors represented by the same Apple also cannot boast of much success. So is it worth blaming Google for anything?
Just take a closer look, as it turns out that this case did not smell of chance. The situation with Android Wear and smartwatches is painfully reminiscent of the story with the first tablets and Android 3.x. After the announcement iPad, Google realized that they could miss out on a whole market of new devices. And even though at that time no one really understood who needed these 'large photo frames' and why, the interest of users in them was more than obvious. The search giant hastily started preparing a new version of its OS, adapted for tablets. I counted literally every day, there was no time to think about what and how best to do, and as a result Android 3.x was literally blinded from what it was.
It was a separate branch Android, in which no one even bothered about compatibility with smartphones. A quick patch, an evolutionary dead end that made no sense in the long run. I don't even want to remember the first tablets on Android, only Motorola Xoom, which came out in a frankly raw and unfinished form, which is worth it. But here and now all this was unimportant – the main thing was that Google had time to jump on the train that was already leaving the platform. In any other situation, such a number would not have worked and such a hack would not have ended in anything good. But on the wave of popularity Apple iPad, the interest of buyers in the new type of devices was such that, if desired, they could sell almost anything.
With Android Wear and smartwatches, everything should have gone the same way. Announcement of Apple Watch, which everyone knew about for at least a year, a surge of interest in wearable electronics and a scattering of smart watches on Android Wear, which would have found its buyer at least at the expense of prices. And at this time, Google would calmly 'finish' their OS to a more or less serious state in which this OS would be of interest to buyers in itself. But it didn't work out. The announcement came too early, when a similar product from Apple was not even close on the market. Nobody really was able to explain to users why they need these strange things that do not really pull either an expensive accessory or a useful mobile device. And later, when Apple Watch were still announced, they did not make any special furor. How long it will now take to turn devices on Android Wear into something really necessary is not clear. And without a clear concept and a debugged OS, it is practically pointless to improve the hardware.
The question whether it was worth it to rush to present Android Wear if the main 'feature' of the system does not really work, remains open. Apparently Google thought that the winners are not judged. But there are no winners in this segment at all and it is not clear when they will be. Nobody wants to give that niche to competitors just like that, but what to do with wearable electronics is also unclear. A lot of watch announcements are expected at IFA, but so far it looks like the focus will be on design. In particular, there will be many watches with round dials, expensive straps and so on.
First, a teaser appeared on the network, and then a live photograph of the watch Meizu. There is no other information about the device yet.
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Lenovo teases fans with a video that talks about the development of mobile technology. I would not count on the fact that flexible smartphones will be announced at IFA, most likely, it will again be about prototypes. But we will almost certainly see the 'smart' watch.
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Photos of the new Asus ZenWatch 3 have also leaked to the network. The date of the announcement is not yet known, but most likely it is again about IFA.
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While Google is not doing very well with the OS for wearable electronics, the company has no problems with the classic version Android. The announcement of the new Android will take place this fall (presumably in early October), but some enthusiasts will be able to familiarize themselves with the new version of the OS in advance. And we are talking about the owners of not only Nexus devices, but also other brands.
For example, select Sony Xperia X Performance users have been able to get an early build Android 7.0 on their smartphone now. And although at the moment we are talking about a beta version of the firmware, which has a number of bugs, it is quite possible to make an impression of the OS from it.
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The company LG decided to keep up with the fashion trends and provided access to the beta version of the firmware based on Android 7 approximately 2000 users LG G5 in Korea. When the global beta test will be launched (and whether there will be at all) is still unknown.
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Firmware based on Android 7.0 Nougat and proprietary shell EMUI 5.0 is available for owners of Huawei P9. However, this time we are talking about leaks, and not about official testing. You can download the firmware from the XDA resource.
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The news inspires optimism, I want to believe that the speed of updating smartphones to new versions of the OS will finally increase.
For many years now, users have been complaining that both iOS and Android practically do not develop and are already tired of it. True, for some reason most commentators are in no hurry to buy smartphones on little-known operating systems. But if you want to find an alternative is not difficult.
For example, the announcement of Samsung Z2 running on Tizen OS is clearly not far off. A teaser video was even leaked to the network, which many considered official.
To be honest, I still don't understand who and why might need such a smartphone, but the choice is a blessing anyway.
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