#unscrambled

8.21

HEAVEN'S TO BETSY!! This has either never happened or has barely happened so I had to include it. *chef's kiss* 5 stars!!

Here’s part 3 of our thoughts on the WWDC 2016. If you haven’t read the other two parts, here are the links to those blogs:

iOS 10 update

http://unscrambledblog.tumblr.com/post/147189201894/the-emojification-of-messaging-continues-apple

WatchOS update

http://unscrambledblog.tumblr.com/post/146155026534/time-for-some-much-needed-change-apple-wwdc-2016

Among all the updates announced at the Apple WWDC 2016, macOS takes the title of being the most noteworthy. So much so that it actually begins right with the name; Apple’s laptop software platform will no longer be called OS X but macOS in keeping with the rest of their software platforms. 

Image credit: fossbytes.com

If you are a mac user, you’ll be glad to finally be able to say hello to Siri right on your laptop. You can now use Siri to search the web and your local files, add reminders and save search results to use them when required. If the use of Siri on your desktop extends to your iPhone we’ll have to see. 

Image credit: mnmcdn.com

The next major update to continuity is here too, with the ability to copy and paste across devices. It seems like a small addition, but could be especially useful for those who are constantly switching between their phones and their laptops. 

One of the key limitations of continuity was the lack of access to files and folders stored on your local system. But Apple has resolved this with the new update which provides access to your local desktop files on the cloud, provided you have the iCloud space needed to do so.

Image credit: applenapps.com

Talking about storage, macOS Sierra also optimises storage on your Mac by offloading documents, photos and videos you don’t use too often to the cloud provided, as always, that you have the iCloud space to do so. 

Image credit: mashable.com

Photos and memories also add up to the Apple software experience, with Photos gaining valuable artificial intelligence to identify faces and locations in your photos. Memories extends this intelligence to make a collection of your photos and videos with a particular person or at a particular destination. 

Image credit: theinquirer.net

Finally Apple Pay has now come to the web, trying to extend it’s reach but you will still need an iPhone to authenticate the transaction. There are also other updates like using your Apple Watch to unlock your laptop without having to enter annoying passwords. That feature might extend to your iPhones but we can only hope.

Image credit: theinquirer.net

Now, if you are wondering why there are not snippets of humour along with this blog, its because there’s really nothing to smirk at with this update. They are all meaningful changes that truly help the experience of using a Mac. Now that the software’s taken care of, Apple needs to focus on the hardware refresh for the Macs that is so long overdue. 

This is part 2 of our blog on the Apple WWDC 2016 and we take on the changes the Apple’s latest mobile operating system. If you haven’t read our take on the changes to WatchOS, you can find it here:

http://unscrambledblog.tumblr.com/post/146155026534/time-for-some-much-needed-change-apple-wwdc-2016

So what’s changed in the new iOS.

image credit: youtube.com

There’s been a major overhaul to the lock screen and notification toolbar. There’s more options to interact with notifications on the lock screen with 3D Touch. There’s also a clear all notifications option (thank heavens!). Apple has added the rise to wake feature (their version of Active Display, for all Android fans), which shows the user the entire lock screen (no ambient display mode or any of that, just plain full lock screen) as soon as the phone is raised or taken out of the pocket.

image credit: macrumours.com

You also now have the option to remove stock Apple Apps. But read this through before all you 16GB iPhone users (including me) do the Boogie. You can only hide these apps from the home screen, but they will still be installed on your iPhone. So no benefits in terms of any space.

image credit: macworld.com

The major improvements come with the opening up of Siri and a few stock Apple Apps, including Maps and Messenger to developers. You can now ask Siri for assistance with third party apps along with stock Apple ones. So you can now (finally) ask her to “Search Tumblr for the Unscrambled blog” (I know I’m pushing it here, but I hope this becomes a common thing to ask Siri for soon.). An extension of this is the integration of VOIP to your contacts. So you can call someone using services like WhatsApp or Skype right from your contacts. And also incoming calls with VOIP are received just like normal calls. Siri’s functionality now extends to these as well and you could ask her to call someone using WhatsApp. Further, and much needed, improvements come to Maps and Music. Both apps now offer more friendly and majorly overdone user interfaces. In addition to drawing locations from your calendar appointments, you can now add sub filters during map searches. This means looking for restaurants by cuisine or any other such sub filters. With Music, you now get lyrics of the songs right on the app itself. This, in addition to all the interface changes, makes Music a more realistic approach for those in the market for a music app.

image credit: wired.com

There’s a new app for all your “smart-home” devices called Home. You can use these apps to control all the devices, including your doors, lights and refrigerators.

But the biggest changes come to Apple’s messenger. Like Google’s Allo, there are now a host of new features for those really into making their messages look beautiful and feel personal. There’s now features to add effects to your messages like hiding the text, making them bounce and so on. If that’s not enough to express yourself, you also get effects for the wallpaper in your chat and you can animate that as well. There’s even a feature that lets you substitute words in your message with emojis (wait, wasn’t the whole point of emojis that you can save time not typing the words out? Now you type the word and then replace them with emojis? What is happening?)

While these changes have been in-line with most platform updates (read as Google), I believe Apple could’ve made a few added changes. One of the most awaited changes be the ability to customize quick access buttons in the control center. Also, Apple’s lack of multi-tasking features means that Google’s Android N will head in to this winter packing more of a selling feature than the new additions for Apple’s iOS 10.

Perfect weather. Perfect location. If anyone has ever dreamt of the perfect rock concert experience, it was on display. But here’s how much times have changed; the performers weren’t actually rockstars. In fact, they weren’t even professional musicians. Just the most elite bunch of nerds on the planet, all gathered in one place.

There are very few companies that can engender the kind of excitement that Google can. But, in all  fairness, there are so few companies with the power to define our future all by themselves.

There were so many features and announcements over the three days that we couldn’t possibly keep up with them all. But we did hand pick a few highlights and put them together for you.

Google are drawing the line at the end of the mobile moment and the start of the VR and AI transcendence.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a Google Keynote where Android wasn’t the showstopper. This developer conference was more about looking at the future of devices and the turn they would take in the near future. While this is in no way to say that we will never again see another revolutionary smartphone, the possibilities seem on the down low. On the other hand, VR and AI are the new kids on the block; showing immense promise and going where no man (or machine) has gone before. 

The real major product for Google (at the moment) is Google Assistant.

Google is extremely ambitious in it’s efforts to spread the use of Google Assistant across the consumer space. With Allo, Google gets another peak at your personal lives (in addition to going through your mail and queries) and makes personalised suggestions based on your chat. Restaurant suggestions, bookings, calendar appointments, reminders and much, much more can be now be done without ever having to leave the chat app. It’s much the same with Google Home; the Google Assistant is what takes this device to a whole other level when compared to the Amazon Echo. 

Google is leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else on VR and AI.

Google’s major products have already been rebuilt to accommodate, what they perceive, is the future trend. The Play Store, YouTube, Google Maps, Street View etc. are all VR ready. Add to this the fact that, with Day Dream, Google will be developing the foundations for both mobile-integrated and stand-alone VR and you have a combination much like the accession of Android we have seen over the last few years. It’s much the same story with AI; Google Assistant is the singular juggernaut voice assistant for the masses. It is constantly evolving and learning and, in the process, advancing itself almost embarrassingly ahead of all it’s contemporaries.

Project Ara is alive and well.

It’s finally showing signs of progress; we blogged about the Project Ara on our series about modular smartphones and we’re excited about what we’ve got to see. While it is true that the time for delivery to customers is delayed, Google has promised developer units by this fall. The concept of modular smartphones, not online VR and AI, has lacked leadership from a global player with LG being the only mainstream manufacturer working on an extremely scaled down concept. Google’s entry in to the modular space might just be what the world has been waiting for. I, especially, can’t wait for customisable hardware.

If you haven’t read our blogs on modular smartphones and Project Ara, you can find it at the following link:

Do you agree with Google that we are nearing the end of the mobile journey? Or do you believe that the smartphone has a few good years left? Let us know.

Also check out the podcast on a new channel titled Urban Chatter for the first edition of the Tech Talk where we talk about the Google I/O, Apple, Motorola and so much more. You can find the link to that here:

For the last few years, technology has progressed at a pace beyond anyone’s imagination. Focusing on mobile phones especially, these haven’t been incremental changes; everything from battery and camera technology to data speeds and hardware performance have increased exponentially. But this has made us take for granted that there will always be exponential technology upgrade and that the next thing is always just around the corner. But is it?

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not being a pessimist and saying all good things in the world have come to an end. But every technological advance today is a better iteration on a small scale as compared to our first jump to smartphones or to touch screens or to 3G and 4G. It begs the question: what is the next big thing for the mobile phone?

Image credit: venturebeat.com

If you’ve been following the mobile world lately, you’ve heard talk of the LG G5. It’s not just any other flagship smartphone; it is the first attempt at something we call “Modular Phone Design” by a notable smartphone maker to hit the markets. I can’t see the future, but this could be a serious contender for what is next for the mobile industry.

But before we go ahead and take a look at the LG G5, I think its important to have some context. How did we get to the LG G5 is as interesting, and as important, as where we go from here. We begin with what “Modular Smartphones” mean.

Image credit: wired.com

A modular smartphone is one with modules connected to the central chip. These modules may contain the memory (RAM and storage), battery, camera, charging ports, audio and video jacks and connectivity hardware like Bluetooth and WiFi. The key feature is that these modules can be interchanged based on requirement. So, for example, if your software platform upgrade requires a higher RAM capacity, you can simply switch out your current RAM Module for a bigger one. If you are off hiking and need a bigger battery and better camera than you generally do in day to day life, you can switch those out too. 

Image credit: thenextweb.com

In 2013, Phonebloks came up with the first concept for a Modular Smartphone that received any attention. It was created and designed by David Hakkens, a Dutch designer, who called these modules “Bloks”. They could be bought at the Blokstore and could be used to extend the functionality of the phone in a specific direction. His major target was to reduce electronic waste generated due to scrapping of old phones and buying new ones. Instead, he professed, you could make upgrades to the Bloks and own an up-to-date phone without the waste. 

As promising as the concept was (it exceeded 900,000 supporters on Thunderclap), it faced several issues. Majorly, it was too expensive to manufacture these segmented phones. Also, with no third party manufacturers currently making “Bloks”, there was limited choice of customization. There were also technical issues: the Bloks couldn’t be as well integrated to the chip as in a normal phone and this lead to breaking apart of phones and even signal loss. The pivotal reason was the extremely high level of “modularity” that Phonebloks sought to bring. 

Image credit: allaboutprojectar.com

To correct this shortcoming, David Hakkens collaborated with Motorola who were working on something similar in 2013. This new project upheld most of the concepts of Open Source Modular Design but reduced the level of modularity by making these modules sit on an endoskeleton. While Motorola is now part of Lenovo, the Advanced Technology and Projects division of Motorola Mobility that began this project and named it Project Ara stayed under it’s previous parent company - Google.

It’s only the end of March and we already have a new iPhone to talk (and crib) about. We also have a new iPad, but I think that’ll be for the footnotes. The focus is all on youngest, smallest and cheapest member of the Apple iPhone family.

Image credit: express.co.uk

Lets face it, the iPhone SE isn’t a major rethink of the iPhone. It’s more like an exercise in permutation and combination; the design (and front facing 1.2mp camera) right from the iPhone 5s with the internals from the Apple 6s. So it has 2GB of RAM, Apple’s A9 chip with the “always-on” M9 co-processor, the same (gorgeous) 12mp shooter as on the current Apple flagships all enclosed in a 4-inch chassis. It also has a relatively huge (I’m comparing it to the iPhone 5 here)(No, I’m actually just being sarcastic) 1642 mAh battery. Couple that with the smaller graphic real estate and the latest iOS version, this might just be the best battery life you get out of any iPhone, ever.

Image credit: techinsider.io

So it’s an iPhone 6s wearing the iPhone 5s’s prom dress. This seems like a pure business move by Apple; now that their sales at the high end are saturating, they are looking for new avenues for profit. Apple claim there’s a huge market waiting on a really powerful 4 inch phone and that this iPhone, at its price point, will be the first iPhone for a lot of people. But 499 USD (for the 64 GB variant, don’t get me started with the 16 GB version) is no “budget” phone pricing either and, for the same money, will have to wipe out a LOT of Android  competition. I still question the market for 4 inch phones and also the fact that the iPhone SE does not boast Apple’s 3D Touch Display (Wasn’t that supposed to be the next big thing from Apple?) You might argue that this phone was built at a price, but I believe they could’ve sacrificed elsewhere to accommodate 3D Touch if they really wanted to. 

Image credit: hulutrip.com

To make things simple, this phone is for a very particular category of people; You must really want to own an Apple device, need to really want a 4 inch display and be willing to overlook every Android phone available at about 40,000 INR. 

Image credit: indianexpress.com