I doubt that all of the new features of the Pixel 3 have already been released. I really hope not or that will make the event tomorrow a serious buzzkill. I'm sure that Google still has something up their sleeve.
It must be hard to make these events interesting when leaks are so prominent these days.
The iPhone XS and XS Max just launched and people are still high from the novelty. But, there are people who rejoiced at the launch for another reason. They were expecting last year’s iPhone X to get a massive discount. Unfortunately, Apple didn’t go the same route as before by pulling last year’s flagship from its stores at the same time with the launch of the new phones.
When Apple introduced the S-Year upgrades in the smartphone cycle, all the other manufacturers pretty much followed suit. Mainly, it’s an attempt to revive sales of flagships slowly losing steam a year after release. The iPhone 6s, for example, was released exactly a year after the iPhone 6. It looked and felt like exactly the same phone except for a couple of minor improvements. There were some spec bumps, to be sure, but for a modern flagship, the iPhone 6 had plenty of power; even today, the older phone still has enough processing power for simple every smartphone tasks. Beyond the spec bump, the 6s also had a significant hardware improvement with the 3D Touch but that didn't have a lot of real-world use anyway. Both of these, however, are features that smartphone users don’t really have much need for.
For some people, these S-Year “upgrades” don’t bring enough innovation to merit a buy. This makes S-Years are the perfect time to buy a used flagship that’s both still relatively current and still absolutely sufficient and could even be a bit of an overkill in today’s mobile computing standards.
This year is definitely an S-Year for the iPhone with the XS being pretty much exactly like an iPhone X with a small spec bump. There aren’t even new XS-exclusive features. The interest in the iPhone X, therefore, has spiked as GSM Arena points out. Realizing that the similarities between the iPhone X and XS would make it harder for them to sell the newer model, Apple decided to stop selling the older model. Apple’s decision to pull the older flagship from its stores so as not to cannibalize the XS sales leaving those hoping to get a discounted iPhone X in the dust.
There are still ways to get the iPhone X in 2018 though. If you’re looking for one, here are a couple of ways you can get yesterday’s flagship Apple handset, the iPhone X:
Pre-loved
iPhones are more than just consumer electronics these days; they’ve become luxury products like leather designer bags. Proud owners, therefore, go to great lengths to take care of their products. Most users, either have a case or a screen protector or both of them at the same time for their precious handsets. It is, therefore, a little bit more sensible to buy these phones second hand.
From a friend
This makes buying the phone off from someone you know might be worth taking a look at. This way, you know exactly how they treat their devices. It’s also easier to ask them important questions such as possible issues with the phone.
However, make sure to know everything that you need to know about the phone before buying. Any sort of miscommunication in this type of deal can cause serious damage to your friendship.
Carousell, eBay.
Or, you can also look online for a used iPhone X.
Buying big-ticket items such as the iPhone X involves quite a lot of risk. It is important to do some research on the background of the seller. eBay, for example, gives seller feedback that you can use to gauge how trustworthy the vendor is.
But you're going to have to look at a couple of things first before pulling the trigger on these phones. For example, it's important to know if it's locked to a certain carrier. The condition is also something that you might want to take a look at. With all of these said and done, you may just be able to get the iPhone X of your dreams at a huge discount.
Brand New
There is also the option of buying your iPhone X brand new, of course. But you probably won’t be getting much of a discount when you buy it brand new especially since Apple itself wouldn’t even sell it anymore.
Retailers
Official resellers often buy iPhones in bulk at a discount directly from Apple. This means that they can have leftover iPhone X stocks still in storage. You won’t get much of a discount from these sellers, however, because they have to make a profit from their sales.
Carriers
Much like retailers, carriers often have leftover stocks of the iPhone X. They can even offer it at a small discount through bundling it with your data plan. These phones are also often locked to work only with the network so if you’re not in the market for a new mobile plan, this may be something that you want to steer clear from.
Refurbished
Quality control is never a 100% accurate aspect of distribution. A few imperfections are certainly going to leak out into the world. These will be immediately returned right back to Apple. These units will then undergo a process of repairs and more quality control before being re-released into the market. These phones are called refurbished or refurbs as they’re known in the market.
Technically, they’re defective units. However, they’ve undergone the same rigors of Apple’s quality control like most of the brand new iPhones. It also helps that these units are also heavily discounted from websites such as Amazon, eBay, and other resellers.
In essence, refurbs exist in between brand new and used. They’re most probably already slightly used, but it was given back to Apple almost immediately because of whatever defect the original users found. So, regular signs of wear such as hairline scratches, scuffs, and battery wear are essentially non-existent on these units.
Verdict
The iPhone XS is, by all means, an excellent smartphone that is probably worth the money to some people; but for others who can’t seem to reconcile their use with its price, going the used iPhone X route may be the best way to get their hands on a modern Apple handset. It should cost them way less than the original retail price of the iPhone XS yet still have exactly the same luxurious feel in the hand the same premium flagship performance.
For better or worse, Apple had the audacity to break the longstanding invisible price ceiling of $800 for premium flagships with last year’s $1,000 iPhone X. In every sense of the word, the landmark smartphone had crossed the line from being just a regular consumer electronics item to a luxury product like Louis Vuitton bags and Chanel dresses. This year, they follow it up with even more opulent offerings with the iPhone XS series whose top-of-the-line XS Max crosses far beyond the already stratospheric price tag.
As such, bashers, casual fans, and even early adopters who had already forked over the $1,000 or more to Apple were united in pointing out the glaring flaws that the smartphones shipped with. The bad news trickled, at first, from the first unboxing videos that featured charging issues and eventually evolved into an avalanche of negative news from both professional gadget reviewers on YouTube and legitimate news sources such as Forbes. The complaints are no longer just confined to charging but has since branched out to include connectivity and photo capture.
Unsurprisingly, we have another set of gates on our hands. It’s what most of the biggest iPhone launch-day issues and bugs are dramatically referred to. From the iPhone 4’s antennagate to the iPhone 6S’ bend-gate, these issues are often viewed as the deathblow to the mighty smartphone line. But, they’re often just swept under the rug after Apple does its branding magic.
The way the company handles these gates should be viewed as a masterclass in branding. Looking at the way previous issues are handled, it looks like Apple is going the same route this time around - a long stretch of silence, and a statement that's eerily both an acknowledgment of the issue and a refusal to admit that it was their fault. Nonetheless, they still issue fixes through software or through free repairs.
To get you up to speed before you pull the trigger on the iPhone XS and XS Max that you’ve been salivating over for the past few weeks now, we’re listing all the current issues together with their details. An informed choice, after all, is the best choice especially when your decision involves handing over your hard earned cash to a trillion-dollar company.
Charge-gate
Some early adopters say that when you charge the phone on standby mode using the included lightning charger, the phone wouldn’t behave like how it should. Some people report that turning the screen on helps begin charge process but some claim that even that doesn’t do anything.
It’s a potentially huge issue that greatly diminishes the iPhone’s world-famous ease of use. If left unchecked for an extended period, it can potentially shift the tides of the smartphone market because it’s just so annoying. It’s a good thing that, as of the time of writing, only a couple of hundreds out of the 200+ million sold have reported to have the problem.
Workarounds include using wireless charging pads, reversing the lighting cable, and just plain old trial and error and perseverance.
Beautygate
iPhone cameras have always gotten praise for prioritizing accuracy over fancy details on captured photos. Both the XS and XS Max cameras, however, seem to have deviated from that winning formula. Users point out how, compared to last year's model, the front-facing cameras on the new ones tend to smoothen out the faces on the photos.
In this case, it doesn't seem to be a simple bug. It looks more like a new feature on the new phones because it's almost a universal observation on both the XS and XS Max front-facing cameras. Therefore, there are no workarounds or fixes available for this issue
Antennagate
In a seemingly repeat performance of the iPhone 4 antenna issues, a handful iPhone XS and XS Max owners are also complaining about the connectivity issues. Particularly, the LTE and Wi-Fi connections on the new phones seem to be significantly slower than their rivals.
While the number of the users complaining about connectivity might be few, but their experience with the phone must be undeniably excruciating because iPhones are historically exceptionally strong performers in that regard.
There’s a chance that these can be fixed with a software patch but if the iPhone 4 software patch is to be used as a template, it wouldn’t do much to fix the issue.
Bigger Questions Need to Be Asked
If we examine the history of the iPhone, we’d know that all these issues are par for the course when it comes to iPhone releases. The iPhone 3GS had sound problems, the iPhone 4 had the antennagate, iPhone 6S suffered from bendgate, and many other minor issues have come plagued the other iterations of the world's most beloved smartphone series, but they've all conquered those problems.
The fact of the matter is that each and every iteration has had issues out of the box and that’s a normal phenomenon when it comes to mass production. Quality control issues are bound to happen especially when you ship 200+ million products.
The most asked question on the internet right now, rightly so, is whether there’s a fix. But, there’s an even bigger question behind that one. It’s whether it’s permissible that the iPhone, with its luxury price point and reputation of opulence, still has these types of blunders.
The attention that the small percentage of dissatisfied customers with dysfunctional units is only a result of the $1,000 price tag. There is a spotlight now shining on Apple because of their bold foray into the luxury product field. While it’s true that the immediate question that needs to be asked is can Apple fix these. We’re almost certain that the trillion-dollar company can do it.
All of these point to the fact that this is an important period in Apple's history where they are in the spotlight for making the historic move of pricing their phones at $1,000. A wrong move especially in handling these new issues can potentially bring them a couple of steps back from their pioneering ways.
Call me old, but the last gaming phone I remember is the N-gage. Mobile gaming has come a long way since then, but so does the smartphones. Now you can play big games on regular phones as long as the processor and RAM are strong enough. Are these gaming phones going to sweep the market?
Apple's big event was a disappointment for many fans, let's see if Google can do any better. Do you plan to check it out? I'm surprised they won't be revealing a new watch.
I had no idea that this was possible but all the same, I do not see the need to connect to more than one bluetooth speaker, simultaneously. Would this apply to a scenario where you are playing music through a single device but with several speakers set at different sections of the room?
This is a great list. I haven't tried quite a few of them but I definitely agree with them about Waze and Obscura 2.
What apps do you agree with on the list? Are there any you would add?
In light of events in the US of police brutality, I think that this is an excellent app. It takes out the "he said, she said," part of the equation by bringing evidence into the equation. We need more innovative tools like this!
What kind of other Shortcuts do you think would be handy to have?
They don't seem to be fans of the pink color but I think it's kind of cool. Honestly though, colors don't matter all that much to me. I usually get black or white. My covers tend to cover up all of the colored parts anyway. Do colors matter to you?
Just like clockwork, a new Pixel event is now just around the corner. That means it is, once again, just the right time to remind people about what makes these phones a cut above the rest in the plentiful world of Android phones: the unadulterated Android experience.
The Pixel phones stand out because the OS experience comes directly from Google itself and not from the phone’s manufacturers. Samsung’s class-leading phones, for example, come with what the Korean company calls the Samsung Experience on top of Android. Xiaomi phones, another leading Android manufacturer, come with their Android interface of with the MIUI.
While some of the best Android phones out there are from manufacturers that put their own interfaces on the Android version of their handset offerings, there are Android purists who prefer a more skinned version of Android. Not having to deal with extra features added by the manufacturers, they believe, help in making a cohesive ecosystem across the entire phone.
However, there’s a cloud of confusion currently casting its shadow on unadulterated Android phones. In this case, there’s the stock Android on the premium Pixel devices, the Android One on predominantly midrange smartphones, and the Android Go on low-spec’d entry-level devices. All three of these are Google curated versions of Android but with slight differences to make way for the hardware discrepancies.
All of these muddies the water for Android a little bit more than what is necessary. To help with that issue, we’ll discuss the nuances of each of the Android versions and how Google’s philosophy intersects across each of the versions.
Stock Android
When it comes to unadulterated operating systems, stock Android takes the cake in terms of absolutely vanilla experience since both the hardware and software are Google-regulated. In all possible meanings, it is Android exactly how Google intended it to be.
The concept of the first stock Android was introduced with the launch of the Google Nexus line back in 2010 with Android FroYo right around the time when smartphone manufacturers began to introduce their own versions of the open-sourced OS. Samsung’s TouchWiz and HTC’s Sense were the dominant interface of Android back then but Google wanted to give people a taste of the untouched Android. It was successful to some extent but it never reached the heights that the other interfaces of Android reached back then. It was mostly because the hardware that Google used with these devices were relatively middle of the road when compared to its competition.
The Nexus line grew slowly but steadily from there until it was eventually rebranded into the Pixel suite of devices in 2016. This rebrand comes with a few hardware upgrades and huge spec bumps that positioned the highly efficient Stock Android inside the body of a high-performance machine. The result was a blazing-fast handset encased in a premium housing. It was, in a lot of ways, the first true flagship from Google.
Being designed by Google itself, these Pixel phones get the freshest Stock Android updates. This means that when Google releases software and security updates, these phones are the first in line.
Android One
Much like stock Android, Android One also gets its security updates directly from Google which essentially makes it tied for the first in line. However, when it comes to software updates and OS upgrades, Android One plays a little bit of a second fiddle because of the hardware differences.
In essence, Android One descends from the same design philosophy of the stock Android. It is also a skinned down version of Android that Google has total control over. The only difference is that the hardware department of Android One phones is not controlled by Google. Instead, they come from manufacturers who have to pass Google’s strict standards.
Initially, it was aimed at giving the most basic Google experience to low-spec’d smartphones so they perform without the added weight of their manufacturer’s own interface. This enables even less powerful and low-priced phones to perform extremely smoothly in basic tasks on par with the flashy flagships.
The first Android One smartphones, therefore, were not impressive devices when it comes to hardware and specs. Where they shine is in their performance and price. Because of this, they made perfect entry-level phones for emerging markets who couldn’t quite afford flagship level phones the same way that industrialized markets could.
However, the plateauing smartphone market made yesterday’s flagship level specs and hardware available for midrange prices. This created a robust midrange market that the Android One immediately jumped in on. Today, outstanding Android One phones such as Mi A series, and some versions of Motorola’s X4s are the leaders of the midrange market because of the efficient interface intended initially for budget smartphones and the midrange specs.
Android Go
Since the Android One encroached on the midrange segment of the smartphone market, there was a void left by Google at the budget market. This is where Android Go comes in.
Unlike the first two, Android Go phones do not receive updates directly from Google. Its main job is maintaining the efficiency of the system in order to keep system requirements low. As such, it doesn’t need to be updated with the latest and greatest features from Google.
To keep the phones lightweight, an Android Go exclusive Play Store installed on the phone. In it, Google apps designed for low spec’d machines are available for download.
Verdict
While the interfaces on phones such as Samsung Experience on Galaxy phones and MIUI on Xiaomi phones offer additional and often extremely useful features absent in these phones. They still take up some of the valuable resources of the phone.
What Google offers with the stock Android, Android One, and Android Go, is a basic version of the OS that is free from any potential resource-hog features and bloatware. What we’re left with is a plethora of choices in the Google-regulated OS interface space.
It’s excellent for consumers and even better for Google.
There is a rumor circulating on Twitter that Samsung S10 will come with the usual edge display and a flat display. I know flat TV screens, and I think our phone screens have been flat since the touchscreen was invented. How different is this going to be?