Google’s latest flagship smartphones have been revealed with the monikers Pixel (5″ version) and Pixel XL (5.5″ version). Nexus is officially dead. You heard it here first folks. The Nexus team will still be providing support; however, these phones note the end of an era of vanilla Android goodness and Pixel will take it’s place.
Features:
Google Assistant built in with Android 7.1, first device with this software addition.
Camera bump gone with a unique tapered design.
Best scoring camera of any smartphone….ever.
Newly designed Pixel launcher to getting to your favorite apps quickly and accessing Google Assistant in a moment.
Bottom line: The new Pixel devices from Google seem promising. Another step at taking back Android from OEMs and making a solid entry into doing that. With phones made by Google, users can expect a lot more from their devices such as quality support, updates when they are released and non-crippled experience that wouldn’t be bogged down by carrier and manufacturer bloat.
The new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are IP 67 water resistant; however, this does NOT mean they are waterproof. There is a difference here. What does this mean? Your precious new iPhone can still get water damage if you’re “testing” it’s resistance to water.
iPhone under running water.
What is ok? Splashes, rain, accidental spills into a shallow depth of water and getting it out quickly. What isn’t ok? Submerging your device for 30 minutes to an hour in an attempt to show how resistant to water it is. These are $700 and above prices devices, treat them as investments, especially when the new devices are hard to come by in these early weeks after the release.
Bottom line: The iPhone’s IP 67 rating is there to protect the device and your investment, water damage can still occur on the device and can be detected by Apple, so be careful and don’t put your shiny new device in harms way because you want to “test” it’s resistance.
Fear, stutter and shake at the big bad Google, Apple, Yahoo and others — these companies are here to invade your privacy, steal your data and give you no way of understanding and seeing what they are doing. False — at least not for all of these companies that are in the public eye.
This is how companies make their money
First, all companies that provide a free service are not out to get you. Your data is NOT more important or special than anyone else’s. But…. Your data is how you pay for a free service. Let me explain. Companies like Google make their money off of ads and serving those relevant ads to you. In fact, 89% of Google’s revenue comes from serving ads. Where do those ads come from? Typically, search results that you enter and things that you click.
Companies are matched to a user based off of what they have entered into the search bar and pay for being promoted. This type of promotion is called Google AdWords, learn more here.
Since more and more queries are being pushed into search this model tells companies that having an online ad would be value — making them pay top dollar to be placed in that section. Additionally, there is a publisher program called Google AdSense and it allow webmasters to make money by displaying relevant ads on websites and blogs, learn more here.
Data Collection
Companies collect data off of you that you willingly provide. Yes, I said willingly. Terms of Service is one of the biggest “gotchas” in the industry, primarily because people don’t take the time to read them and wonder why company XYZ suddenly has their email address. If you take the time to browse through you can easily see exactly what information the company will give away and what will not be given away. If we continue to look at Google, they benefit off of not selling your data, instead they house that data to be used in-house between other connecting Google services, which in turn makes YOUR overall user-experience that much better. If you need to know more information, check out Google’s privacy policy for yourself here.
Source: Quora
Bottom line: If there is an ad you don’t like from Google an email you don’t appreciate getting, go through the necessary channels and stop it from happening. Google’s My Account dashboard will give you a bird’s eye view into your account — that is something that 99% of other companies that collect data will not do. This page will allow you to tailor the experience that you get and change the types of ads that you see.
Most importantly, just remember that these options are there rather than complaining that a company is stealing your data. First, look into the company and their privacy policy, it may just surprise you. All of these companies are not evil and out to get you; yet, they are trying to make money just like you. There are services in this world that can truly make your life easier and if you are afraid of typing something into a search box — then you deserve to miss out.
We’ve been waiting for an announcement that we knew was coming and it is now confirmed since the invites are out. The question is, is the cat out of the bag or does Apple have something up it’s sleeve at this point?
iPhone 7/7Plus
The iPhone has been a staple device in the lives on many for nearly 10 years and this year is no different. With subtle changes expected to be coming to the exterior and a new A10 chip powering it to make iOS even faster, this is surely going to be a spectacular decice. Additionally, rumors suggest that the iPhone 7 Plus model will contain a dual camera setup to be able to capture depth information similar to that of modern DSLR cameras — this is a big deal. A very big deal. Lastly, let’s talk about the elephant in the room….the lack of a headphone jack. Sorry kids, this is nothing to write home about. Supposedly the device is shipping with wireless “air pods” instead of the cabled mess that you’d normally receive.
I will not miss the 3.5mm jack.
Preview iOS 10 here:
Mac
The bustle has been “new MacBook Pros, new MacBook Pros” since Apple’s WWDC event where they were not released to the surprise of many. According to many sources, Apple was waiting on the Kaby Lake processors from Intel. There should be large changes to the MacBook Pro line with faster processors and a new macOS Sierra to power them.
Preview macOS Sierra here:
Watch
Apple Watch 2 is the buzz. Thinner, lighter and a bigger battery should power watchOS 3. Take a look at highlights of watchOS 3 here here (Source: iMore).
Google’s newest messaging and video chat platforms, Allo and Duo respectively are poised to potentially fail — hard.
Google has Hangouts already, which is almost a complete product;yet, they’ve invested time, development dollars and more on two new separate apps (that are end-to-end encrypted, by the the way). The company is also touting the fact that these apps are “specialized” with the fact that they do one thing. Certainly an interesting notion.
The real issue here is that Google is confusing consumers, they don’t know if they should use Messaging, Hangouts or the new combination of Allo and Duo. Furthermore, we certainly do not know what OEMs will include on the devices that they ship once these apps are live. Will they include the apps made my Google or will they make their own terrible emulations of them (cue Samsung)? THAT is the issue. We need clear direction of where Google and Android want to take messaging as it has been a mess for years with many consumers simply sticking to whatever app is thrown on their device.
With the rollout officially underway, download these from the Play Store or App Store when they are available and give them a try.
Bottom line: Google, make your intentions clear!
Tech for the masses, meant to empower, educate and inform by Dexter Johnson.
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