Samsung removes its name from smartphone cases, the Japanese choose Asus ZenFone, LG offers to roll phones into a tube, and Microsoft concludes an alliance with Cyanogen …
Google News
First, a few small news about Google and Android.
Apparently, the company has taken seriously the improvement of the ink system. Android recently added support for handwriting recognition in 82 languages, and there is reason to believe that this is just the beginning.
When discussing the president's famous phrase Microsoft that the ballpoint pen would disappear in the next decade, people fell into two camps. Someone considered these words not a very good joke, sincerely believing that as long as there is paper in the world, writing instruments will exist. On the other side of the barricades, there are people who use a ballpoint pen at best a couple of times a year, signing some important documents. That, with all the desire, can hardly be called a full-fledged letter. In their world, the ballpoint pen has died long ago and irrevocably, and it does not even occur to them that this rarity may be needed by someone else.
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As you can see, there is a third option – replacing a ballpoint pen with an electronic one. In its simplest form, it is a stylus that can be used to write on a smartphone screen. Or even just a finger, because the convenience of writing here depends not so much on the 'pen' as on the 'paper'.
True, this input method is not yet popular. Still, writing is more pleasant with a normal pen on normal paper, and it is much more convenient to just type on a smartphone. In any case, if you don't have to use hieroglyphs and special characters. How convenient is this input method for you?
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The second piece of news concerns the new features of the Google search engine. In the near future, he will learn to understand the phrase 'find my phone' (find my phone) and will be able to immediately show the location of your smartphone on the map. Of course, if you are logged in in advance with your account.
The very ability to track the location of the phone is nothing new, such a service has been working for a very long time. Another thing is that the overwhelming majority of smartphone owners Android do not know about it, and the integration of such functions into a world famous search engine is definitely a good undertaking.
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Everything goes to the fact that the user will only need to open the Google search box and ask a question – and then he will immediately receive the desired answer, and not a bunch of links to various sites. For wearable electronics like smart watches or glasses, this is extremely important – no one will be able to view dozens of links on a tiny screen, the system should immediately give a ready answer to any question. In this case – show the location of the smartphone, and not offer to switch to the web version of the corresponding service.
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Freudian clauses
At the beginning of the month, many companies had fun with might and main, coming up with a variety of raffles for April 1. They made some of them smile, and some just shrug their shoulders in bewilderment. But few people thought that in every joke there is some truth, and slips of the tongue often happen according to Freud.
For example, we can take the company Cyanogen, which on April 1st sent out to users of its Android shell a proposal to update the phone to Windows Phone. At first glance – the most common joke, and far from the most witty.
There is only one 'but' in this whole story – less than a month later, it became known that the company Microsoft began to officially cooperate with Cyanogen, thus forming a kind of alliance against Google. First of all, we are talking about services that are analogous to Google Apps – the Bing search engine, OneDrive cloud storage, Outlook mail and others. As planned by the developers, all of them will be deeply integrated into the firmware itself and will completely replace the solutions from the search giant.
I don't know what will come of this whole venture. And there is a great suspicion that this is more a PR move than a real attempt to unite efforts. In any case, I really want to believe that while fighting the “dictatorship of Google”, Cyanogen will not sell itself and its users into the slavery of MS.
In general, there are more and more people who want to actually test the scenario of Krylov's fable and declare war on the oak on which delicious acorns grow. Either Yandex is not satisfied with such 'unfair competition', then Cyanogen with Microsoft are trying to prove something to someone.
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Another April Fool's joke is the video Motorola about a special selfie stick with wood, leather and other materials trim. The craftsman working on the leather version of the device tells very soulfully what a wonderful and noble material it is.
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The joke was really a success, in one short video the company was able to beat its Moto Maker service, the selfie epidemic, and the desire of some people to stand out from the crowd at any cost. But, as you know, the one who laughs last laughs well.
This time, the last laugh will be the company LG, which took this video as a guide to action. In any case, the other day the company officially confirmed that one of the versions LG of the G4 will indeed receive a case with leather trim.
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The era of Malevich
It seems to me that the time of the same type of plastic bricks and black rectangles is coming to an end. More and more interesting devices appear on the market, and each time they become more and more popular. Customers are gradually beginning to remember what a unique design is and to think again that a smartphone is not just a big screen and a cool processor.
An example is the Galaxy S6 / Galaxy S6 Edge smartphones. It's no joke, according to the results of the first pre-orders, the image version of the flagship turned out to be twice as popular as its classic version.
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Of course, the first pre-orders were made by the most loyal fans of the brand, and one cannot draw any serious conclusions based on them. But all the same, no one expected such a result even close. The story repeats itself with the Galaxy Note, which unexpectedly for everyone has gone beyond the niche device that is interesting only for the 'geeks'.
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It should be remembered that all these smartphones with rounded edges are nothing more than the first try of the pen. And if everything goes as planned, then in a couple of years we will have much more amazing devices.
Take at least the same company LG, which has not been shy about daring experiments lately. One of the company's latest patents describes a flexible smartphone that can be rolled up to be worn on the wrist instead of a watch.
However, given the size of modern devices, we are talking more about a bracelet or some kind of 'smart' bandage on the forearm. It is still difficult to judge how comfortable this way of wearing will be … but as a 'feature' of the next flagship, this opportunity will definitely be taken with a bang. Unless, of course, for this you have to sacrifice the rest of the characteristics.
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Smartphones through the looking glass
On the other hand, it is very often impossible to predict the reaction of buyers in advance. Moreover, in each country it may be slightly different.
For example, there is one country in the world that can be safely called the Looking Glass. If we talk about mobile technology, then everything is turned upside down, and the laws in force all over the world simply do not work there. It's about Japan.
You can treat Samsung in different ways, but the fact is that it is the world leader Android, which has gained immense popularity all over the world. In everything except the Land of the Rising Sun. At the moment, Samsung has only 5% of the market in this country and even has to shyly hide the name of its company, releasing the flagship S6 and S6 Edge under the 'Galaxy' brand instead of 'Samsung Galaxy'.
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And one of the most popular smartphones in this country turned out to be ASUS ZenFone 5. According to BCN, last year 43% of all sales of smartphones without a contract fell on this smartphone.
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I don’t know if the Japanese often buy smartphones without a contract (I suspect not very much), but the numbers are still very curious. In our country, this smartphone was also received quite warmly, but nothing of the kind is even discussed.
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Sturgeon of the second freshness
When it comes to Japan, we cannot fail to mention Sony. Or what is still left of her.
I don't even know how to justify the existence of such a Sony Xperia Z4 (Z3 +). There is a feeling that the company itself does not believe in success and is releasing smartphones simply by inertia, without even leaving a coma. I think that if all employees of the company had been announced in advance that immediately after the announcement of the developed smartphone, they would all be thrown out into the street without severance pay, the result would not have become worse.
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Sony is starting to resemble Nokia more and more in its last years. Outside – a big name, bright colors, familiar design of the devices. And inside there is a complete emptiness. A zombie still able to walk, but no longer able to live. Why and for whom was this smartphone created? It seems to me that the company themselves do not know this. Apparently, they just want to get the most out of the brand, playing on the feelings of the brand's fans and nostalgia for Sony Style to the last, spending a minimum of money and effort on it.
How many words were there about the transition to an annual production cycle of flagships, how many concepts were leaked into the network, how many big words were said about the bright future of the mobile unit. And here it is – the Xperia Z4, which the company gave its own mark – three plus.
Below are a few photos in which the new product is compared with last year's model. The rest of the photos can be viewed by clicking on the link.
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And here are some early concepts of the device, which were leaked to the network a week before the announcement:
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What is Sony Style? Own outlook on things, fresh design, unique style, unique mixture of beauty and innovation. These are devices that you just don't want to let go of your hands even if you don't really need them. This is not something that can be patented once and then replicated on an industrial scale indefinitely. Otherwise, it turns out the same stupidity, and like sturgeon of the second freshness.
Maybe I'm not fair to the company. But it seems to me that in any standard 'Chinese' this very Sony Style is now more than in Sony itself.
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For example, I will give a video recently leaked to the network, which shows the Oppo R7. An ordinary Chinese smartphone with thin frames – but even in it, in my opinion, the spirit of the old Sony is now greater than in the new Japanese flagship.
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