About Apple Watch and other 'smart' watches, an improved version of HTC One (M9), a smartphone with six official firmwares, an international Moto Maker announcement and freedom of choice.
Before getting into the main news, I would like to tell you about one funny coincidence.
Just the other day, another 'Enthusiast Contest' ended in our blog, in which readers were invited to tell about the ideal, in their opinion, external battery. There were many interesting comments, but most of all I remember the commentary of Alexander Noskov, to which he was not too lazy to attach a sketch:
Carrying a large power bank in your pocket when you don't need it is wrong. To achieve a balance between convenience and functionality, you still have to divide into segments. I would conditionally divide power banks into three categories:
- Urban (to last until the evening) ~ 1000 mAh.
- Travel (3-4 charges) ~ 7-9000 mAh
- Hiking-field (from 5 charges and above)
The design a la a protected phone is important here – a waterproof and shockproof case, bumpers, etc.
I would like to dwell on the first option in more detail, because design is important there as nowhere else. It appears to be a flat semicircle with a protruding USB connector. Nothing extra, minimal size, simple charge indicator strip. Production costs are minimal, an excellent choice for every day. You can safely give to friends and family, without risking bankruptcy. The design is universal, suitable for any smartphone, does not interfere with making calls. That's all I need, as a city dweller, to be happy.
Probably, the same ideas do often come at once to a bunch of different people. Anyway, at the beginning of the week I came across news about an external battery for the Galaxy S6, which perfectly fits Alexander's description.
And even if this time he did not win the competition, but now with a clear conscience he can say that PhoneSuit most impudently stole the idea of such a battery from him personally.
Link to news
Foreword
Once covered from head to toe with wool, a caveman learned to make clothes from skins and to warm a cave with a fire. And since then he has become much less hairy. Then a man learned to build a fence from pointed stakes, raise livestock and store food for future use. The ability to run quickly and swing a heavy club ceased to be vital – and smart, but not very well developed physically personalities began to appear in the tribe. Over time, people have come up with many different mechanisms and devices that made their work easier. There was more free time, and philosophers, musicians, and writers appeared among people.
Many millennia later, humans have invented computers, the Internet, and smartphones. But for some reason he decided that this time the changes in his life would not affect him in any way.
But in vain.
Delegation of authority
For centuries, people have been looking for a way to shift their affairs to someone else. Pets, slaves, machinery and even nature itself. And as soon as they succeeded, they tried to get rid of the 'extra' function, replacing it with something else. Until now, it was mainly about physical labor, on which a person spent most of his time. In fact, computers were invented precisely for this purpose – to automate the production process, to reduce the amount of manual labor. But gradually computers took over another 'function' of man – the need to think.
Why bother trying to get to the answer yourself when you just need to type a question into Google? Why be able to count when every smartphone has a calculator? Why teach dozens of subjects at school and institute, if in our enlightened age you can contact a specialist from almost anywhere on the planet who is ready to advise in detail on a problem that has arisen? Why think at all when the answers appear even before the questions themselves arise?
This issue has been investigated by various specialists for several years now, and the results are not yet very comforting. And it's not only about the ability to make complex calculations in the mind, but also about much more global things – the ability to independently work with a large amount of information, draw conclusions based on available facts, and so on. Another thing is that they prefer to brush them off and ignore them with all their might.
An example is the results of a recent study by the University of Waterloo, which involved 660 people. Gordon Penitswick, co-author of the study and Ph.D., said of the study: “Our study demonstrates a link between heavy smartphone use and declining intelligence. Whether smartphones actually reduce intelligence is an important question that needs further research. '
Link to news
Needless to say, the wording is rather streamlined. But definitely alarming.
Mobile phone selection
If we digress from the universal problems and return to mobile devices, then we can see a funny picture. All buyers want the 'best' device, but they don't want to figure out what the 'best' means in practice. And is it really the best.
Some buyers actually trust the sales consultants to make the choice for them, silently agreeing with any of their decisions, if only they can be assured that this is indeed the 'best choice'. Another part focuses on what friends, relatives and colleagues use. Since everyone uses an X-brand smartphone, why bother thinking about anything else? You have to go and buy. Perhaps the most reasonable behavior is now a search query in your favorite search engine, and the author of such a query will be ready to pay attention only to short, clear and clear answers. Few people are ready to read long articles, to understand all the pros and cons of devices – even more so. The key is to determine as quickly as possible which option is 'correct', and memorize one or two killer arguments to support that choice. Trying to understand how and what the competitors have is already superfluous, the less you know – you sleep better.
Of course, I am exaggerating a little. What does the existence of MR itself and thousands of its readers already say? However, the essence is really something like this.
In this regard, the announcement of the latter iPhone was very indicative. iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are fundamentally different devices, which is immediately visible from at least one diagonal of the screen. The choice between these two models should not be difficult, you just have to come to the store and take both devices in your hands. The vast majority of people will immediately understand which phone is convenient for them now and which one they are not ready to buy yet.
Nevertheless, a genuine hysteria broke out among some of the brand's fans. Previously, everything was simple and clear – you need to take the last one iPhone with the amount of memory for which you do not mind the money. Now everything was not clear. After all, there are two flagships this year, so which one is better? Which device is the “real flagship” and which is “not the most flagship”? Which choice is right here? What to do with all this and who is to blame?
In words, the possibility of not thinking people is very scary – perhaps just out of habit. But in practice it turns out to be very attractive. And a huge number of people prefer not to burden the brain with work wherever possible. Because of this, really interesting devices often remain in the shadows, since few of the buyers thought that they were really worth paying attention to. But typical announcements, the content of which is known months before the start of the presentation, from year to year collect a lot of enthusiastic exclamations. Sometimes it seems to me that you will release Apple or Samsung 'dialer' from the 90s, but in a modern case, with a slot for nano-SIM and the inscription 'Galaxy S / iPhone', it would have sold itself to itself at the level of last year's flagships. Just because buying it would seem right to most fans of the brand. And nobody would have bothered to understand the details. They would quickly declare all this a new revolution, and that's the end of it.
Unfortunately, companies are not yet ready for such experiments. A pity, it would be funny.
Apple Watch and other 'smart' watches
I'm not a big fan of mobile technology Apple. It just so happened that I personally find it more convenient Android than iOS, and the choice of devices there is many times greater. Any characteristics, any design, any money. Of course, all this does not prevent me from following the announcements with interest Apple and reading reviews of all Apple devices. It is far from necessary to strive to possess everything that you are fond of. And perhaps for the first time in my memory, the announcement turned out to be so boring.
Everything that, in my opinion, you need to know about Apple Watch, Sergei Kuzmin said at the very beginning of the review: 'Samsung or Sony watches are designed for devices with Android. Apple Watch – hours for iPhone '. Although in an amicable way it is worth mentioning many more different devices from less famous brands that get along well with any smartphone, like the Pebble Watch. But these are already details.
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Presentation Apple: Dragons, Watches and Medicine |
A smart watch itself is a rather dubious thing now. Missed event notifications and interchangeable watch faces are great, but why all their other 'smart' features are needed I don't really understand. Moreover, I will not undertake to judge how convenient Apple Watch will be in real life. The simple fact is that there are already hundreds of such devices on the market, they could not say anything new in this genre in Apple. Instead of the controversial, but certainly revolutionary iPhone, we were shown a solid analogue of a push-button Nokia. Which, perhaps, is not bad, but does not even come close to revolution. The device as a device, everything is at the level of competitors, nothing particularly interesting.
I don't know, maybe someone considers them to be an insanely beautiful accessory or some kind of elite status item. But what I see in the photo is a completely ordinary device, suitable for the role of a toy for geeks rather than a fashionable piece of jewelry. The same Moto 360 looks more interesting, and I'm not talking about the classic watch at all.
Separately, I note that the company did not hesitate to immediately announce the Watch in a gold case. That, strictly speaking, is already the first bell. Yes, to iPhone there have always been a lot of expensive cases, there have been converted versions of devices in expensive cases with Swarovski crystals, and so on. But this was a consequence of the popularity of the devices Apple, and not the reason. Many businessmen successfully warmed their hands on someone else's success, but the company itself Apple did not need to produce iPhone with a gold case to somehow prove that this device was fashionable. At one time iPhone was plastic, and this did not interfere with its popularity. Moreover, both students and top managers.
Someone out of habit tries to drag on an old song: 'you all didn’t believe in success iPhone, and iPad was called a photo frame, so with Apple Watch in a puddle sit down. ' I don't know, anything can happen. Predicting something about this company is really a thankless job. But we are not talking about profit Apple, but about the market itself.
In addition, I have little doubt that Apple will be able to draw beautiful sales figures in quarterly reports. Even Samsung succeeded with the very first version of their “smart” watch, which at that time was frankly scary and raw, and even worked with only a couple of phone models. And Apple Watch is still a product of a completely different class, which was long and diligently brought to mind. And they will have no less advertising support. And watches will be bought in millions, which was clear long before the presentation. The only problem is that the wearable electronics market will not receive any impetus from this announcement. As the 'smart' watch was a kind of 'thing in itself', it will remain so for now. And what OS they work on and what kind of logo they have is the tenth thing.
Fans of the brand can offer a little experiment. For fun, try to imagine that instead of a bitten apple, there is a Samsung logo on the watch case. And the OS they run on was named 'Android Wear' with the 'TouchWiz' shell. Well, do they still seem unique and revolutionary to you? Do you have any desire to comment on the fact that Samsung (the manufacturer of this watch) does not understand anything either in design, or in convenience, or in innovation? That all this is already the last century, but company A is about to come and show everyone? Or, say, a joke about battery life and life at the outlet?
The forecasts about the imminent demise of pedometers and fitness bracelets are especially surprising. Say, before Apple Watch they were used by all and sundry, but now everyone will stop at once. Although, with the same success, you can begin to fear for the fate of wall clocks or, for example, televisions. After all, the first also show the time, and the second also has a screen. However, for the rest, these are completely different products, well, it's not scary.
Certainly, in a detached perspective, smartwatches will cause significant damage to the fitness bracelet market. For example, the proliferation of smartphones has affected the sales of cheap “soap boxes” and simple players. But, first of all, smart watches still have to live up to those times, and not sink into oblivion, like the same pagers. And secondly, the announcement Apple Watch itself did not bring this time much closer – if you wanted to replace the pedometer with a smartwatch, it was possible for a very long time, some even took advantage of this opportunity. But for now, the manufacturers of all kinds of 'smart' bracelets are suffering more from competition among themselves, especially since at some point the market was clearly oversaturated with all these pedometers.
I emphasize once again – by itself Apple Watch will certainly turn out to be a quality product. And someone will definitely like it. Especially for those who are not ready to look towards the products of other companies from the principle. But they will definitely not become the beginning of a new era, and this is exactly what we expected from Apple.
The reaction to the announcement Apple Watch of other manufacturers is also interesting. There are usually two main slogans: “We are cheaper” and “From a technical point of view, our products are cooler.” We saw exactly the same thing after the announcements of iPhone, iPod and iPad. And it is already clear to everyone that these slogans do not work in this form. Those who were not going to switch to 'apple' products are, of course, delighted with all this, but the target audience Apple does not touch all these cries at all. iPhone or iMacs are clearly not being bought to save money. And the label 'killer iPhone' has long been perceived as not the best joke and does not add points to yet another failed 'killer company'. But no, the PR departments of competitors still cannot get off the beaten track and either come up with something more original that will really catch customers, or remain silent.
Link to news
Perhaps, the company did the best in this regard Huawei. Instead of loud slogans, they simply announced the cost of the 'gold' version of their new smartwatch. In Germany it will be 400 euros, exactly the same as the basic version Apple Watch. At the same time, in appearance, they (in my subjective opinion) are at least not inferior to them.
Link to news
However, the price itself plays a much smaller role than is commonly thought. The buyer must understand (or think as if he understands) what exactly he gets for his money. For a device that is unique and revolutionary, from his point of view, he will pay even more than he intended. And on a typical, unremarkable, even a useful device, he prefers to save money.
Another thing is that everyone has their own idea of beauty. Someone primarily looks at the fashion brand, someone at the technical characteristics, someone at the design. The same Apple Watch is considered by many to be a revolution simply because this is the first watch from Apple. It doesn't matter that all this has already been on the market and so – anyway, it used to be 'wrong', but now it will suddenly become 'right'. And even though this approach is not very close to me personally, it also has the right to life.
Personally, I was much more interested in the rumor about Oppo smartwatches. They say that the company managed to develop a unique charging system in which the watch battery will be charged in literally 5 minutes. If that's really the case, that's great. And it negates the main problem of smart watches on Android Wear and iOS – low battery life.
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On the one hand, it sounds like outright fantasy. On the other hand, the company has been working in the field of fast charging for a very long time. The same Oppo Find 7 supported the proprietary VOOC technology, thanks to which the battery was charged by 3/4 in just half an hour.
Link to news
HTC
All week, rumors and leaks about new smartphones from this company have been circulating around the network. It would seem that HTC One (M9) has just been shown, what else to expect? But there is every reason to believe that soon HTC will present an improved version of its flagship. Perhaps in different versions for different countries.
It's funny that at one time in HTC they already stepped on the same rake. At a time when the company was at its peak, it began to announce several flagships in a row. Moreover, they had a similar design, more or less comparable price and almost identical names. The users did not like it – they had to compare the devices with each other, read the specifications, read the reviews … and be afraid that a huge amount of money was wasted on the 'not the most relevant' flagship of the entire line.
At the moment, we can assume that the new flagship will receive two versions. One of them will be for China (code name – HTC One E9) and the second version will be international (code name – HTC One M9 Plus).
In a recent interview, the US Branch Director HTC stated something like this:
Looking at the HTC One (M9), I can say with a clear conscience that we have released the best premium device on the market. But we do not intend to dwell on this. Towards the end of the month we will show you something extremely interesting that will be very different from both Samsung smartphones and iPhone.
Sounds intriguing. But I would not particularly trust all these loud words – no matter how things really are, and leaders of such a rank are simply obliged to put on a good face at any game. And the same M9, with all its advantages, is more an evolution than a revolution.
From the available 'live' photographs, nothing really can be understood. It is not even clear how many cameras will be in which version – some of the images show the proprietary 'dual' HTC Dual Camera, but others do not. Also in some photos you can see a physical button under the display, similar to the one in SGS.
If you believe the rumors, the smartphone will receive a 5.2-inch screen with a resolution of 2560×1440, a Snapdragon 810 processor and 3 GB of RAM.
Link to news
Motorola
Against the background of announcements Apple, the news that the Moto Maker branded service would soon be available worldwide was almost unnoticed. The official launch of the international version of the service will take place this month, but in which countries it will be available immediately, and in which later, is not reported.
In my opinion, Moto Maker is one of the most interesting, but also the most underrated ideas of recent times. Alas, for most buyers it turned out to be too complicated and unusual. How is it, hundreds of variants of the same smartphone? And it would be fine it was just about the colors – but no, there is also a bunch of incomprehensible materials, from bamboo to Kevlar. No, we never play. We just need the best smartphone, not the choice. In this case, it only interferes. What if I somehow choose the wrong one?
Link to news
Elephone P5000
I don't know how the fate of this project will turn out. On the one hand, he has an interesting idea. On the other hand, everything again depends on the need for choice. What the modern buyer loves only in words, but not in deeds. Rather than dealing with the peculiarities of different shells, it will be easier for him to come to terms with all the shortcomings of the one that is already on his phone. And in a year or two to buy a new phone from the same company.
Let me remind you that we are talking about a special smartphone for which many different shells will be available officially. In this respect, it is somewhat reminiscent of a PC, on which no one bothers to install any version Windows, as well as some distribution kit Linux or some other OS.
There are six officially available firmwares at the moment: MIUI, CyanogenMod, EMUI, TouchWiz, YunOS, Android 4.4.2 KitKat and Android 5.0 Lollipop.
As for the characteristics of the smartphone, they are quite decent. Even if not the most top ones.
- 5-inch screen with 1920 x 1080 resolution
- Octa-core processor MediaTek MT6592 (1.7GHz)
- 2 GB of RAM
- 16 GB internal memory, microSD slot
- Main camera 16 MP, front camera 8 MP
- Battery 5 350mAh
Link to news
Instead of an afterword
Life is such an amazing thing in which you have to constantly make choices. And be able to at least roughly calculate its consequences – using logic, intuition, or whatever else. It is very difficult at first, but it starts to work out with age. Practice is a great thing.
In this regard, the choice of a mobile device is no different from any other solution. Even if you delegate your authority to someone else (a sales consultant, a journalist who wrote a review, a geek friend, the opinion of the crowd), you still have to deal with the consequences. It will be possible to endlessly look for the extreme, but the situation will not change from this. And if this is at least somewhat important for you, then wouldn't it be better to try to figure out what you choose and why, and not just blindly follow fashion? And is it worth being afraid to act not like everyone else, if you buy the device not for these very 'all', but for yourself personally?
Links to past issues:
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News digest №42. Major events of the MWC |
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News digest №41. What could be easier than time? |
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News digest №40. Mad Tea Party |
