Category: Gadgets

Big foldable-focused improvements are on the way for Android, if leaked code analyzed by XDA Developers is to be believed. Previous reports have suggested that this year’s Android 12 is going to be followed by a minor revision, which is expected to be called Android 12.1 based on previous naming conventions.

XDA’s analysis suggests this update may deliver a host of improvements for how the operating system handles large foldable-sized screens, including offering a better split-screen UI, a lockscreen that makes better use of horizontal space, and a new taskbar that makes it easier to use multiple apps at once. They’re helpful additions that should reduce the need for manufacturers like Samsung to build their own foldable-focused UI improvements on top of Android for their own devices.

Image: XDA Developers

As XDA’s analysis notes, most of the improvements relate to how the operating system makes better use of more horizontal screen real estate. For example, it allows the Quick Settings and notifications panels to be displayed simultaneously side-by-side (rather than one-at-a-time), while the lock screen can now be split to show the clock on one side and notifications on the other. When it comes time to enter a PIN or password, this can now be placed on the left or right of the display (rather than centered) to allow it to be entered with one hand on a foldable.

Android 12.1 is also designed to make it easier to use apps in split-screen. There’s a new shortcut in the recent apps menu to open an app in split-screen mode, rather than having to long press an app’s icon. Meanwhile, a new taskbar on the bottom of the screen can also be used to open recent apps in split-screen mode by dragging and dropping them onto either half of the screen. XDA reports that it might eventually be possible to drag notifications to open their apps in split-screen mode. Finally, the Settings app also appears to be getting a new interface that allows top-level menu items to be displayed on the left, while its submenus open on the right half of the screen.

Image: XDA Developers

Other non-foldable focused enhancements include being able to tweak the amount of time you have to hold the power button to activate the Google Assistant, and making it easier for manufacturers other than Google to match their system colors to Android 12’s lockscreen.

Google is yet to officially announce anything resembling Android 12.1, nor has it even released Android 12 to the general public. That means the features detailed by XDA Developers could change a lot before they’re released, if they’re ever released at all. But combined with the persistent rumors about Google releasing a foldable phone this year, it’s looking increasingly likely that we’ll see some of these features arrive sooner rather than later. Be sure to check out the full list of changes over on XDA Developers.

Now that your brand-spanking-new iPhone 13 has arrived (or is on the way), it’s time to start thinking about protecting your baby. After all, it’s only a matter of time before your phone falls out of your pocket or makes contact with your keys, so it’s worth the extra investment now to prevent future damages.

Although MagSafe as an iPhone accessory standard is already a year old, Apple is off to a slow start building out its accessory ecosystem. Since its October 2020 launch event, Apple has only launched a dozen official MagSafe products: from the iconic MagSafe Charger puck to the 2021 MagSafe Leather Wallet.

Of course, third-party accessory makers are eager to make MagSafe products, too. Unfortunately, Apple is famously tight-fisted with its proprietary technology, even though its MFi program is designed to license and control these very products. So third-party accessories like battery packs and chargers can only attach to the official MagSafe products and charge at 7.5W, rather than the 15W wireless charging standard that Apple-approved accessories can achieve. But third-party accessories tend to be cheaper in price and offer more selection than the official lineup.

In case you’re on the hunt for cases that will work with your official MagSafe Charger or Battery Pack, here are the top 10 third-party iPhone 13 cases that caught my eye.

Backbone Labs has acknowledged the issue that hampers the use of its excellent iPhone gaming controller with the new iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max. As we noticed last week, the iPhone 13 Pro’s thicker camera bump means the phone doesn’t sit neatly in the Backbone One controller, either sticking out on one side or causing the bridge on the back to slightly buckle. It’s not unusable, but it’s not great.

“We spent a tremendous amount of time meticulously crafting every surface of Backbone One (both bits and atoms) and even designing universal support for the iPhones available when it was released,” a Backbone representative wrote in an official post on Reddit. “As a result, we’re disappointed in the situation at hand. Several folks on the team even upgraded to 13 Pro Max for a better gaming experience, and while the fit may be acceptable for some users, it’s not as good as we’d like it to be.”

To address this, Backbone has designed an adapter that is intended to improve the experience with the iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max. Unfortunately, the company says it isn’t able to mass-produce them right away because of supply constraints and COVID-19, so the adapter design will be released as an open-source 3D printable file. If you don’t have access to a 3D printer, Backbone says “we’ll do our best” to send an adapter to users who contact the company’s support team.

The printable files should be posted online “in a matter of days;” we’ll let you know how well the solution works when we can.

It’s Friday, it’s fall, there’s a breeze in the air (hopefully), and there’s fresh, I’d argue ridiculous, renders of Samsung’s expected Galaxy S22 Ultra to show you. The renders come courtesy of @OnLeaks and Digit, and they feature a new Samsung flagship with what looks like a Galaxy Note 20-inspired body and back that… well you should see for yourself.

Since deciding to skip the Galaxy Note in 2021 — apparently much to the chagrin of T-Mobile — Samsung’s been seeding Note features across its popular phones. Both the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra and the Galaxy Z Fold 3 offer stylus support. If these new renders are to be believed, the Galaxy S22 Ultra will go even further. According to OnLeaks and Digit, the new phone will come with the hole-punch selfie camera and candy bar shape of last year’s Note, along with stylus support and what looks like an actual stylus slot.

The render of the back of the device is where things get interesting, weird, or bad, depending on your taste. The Galaxy S22 Ultra appears to morph the camera “plateau” of the S21 Ultra into an unmistakable letter P shape. Is the P for… photos? Pictures? Maybe periscope? There certainly seems to be plenty of room. For reference, the previous Ultra included a main 108-megapixel wide-angle sensor, two 10-megapixel telephoto sensors, and a 12-megapixel ultrawide sensor on the back of the device. Who knows what the new S22 Ultra will fit?

Image: Digit, OnLeaks

There’s some reason to believe this could be Samsung’s design, beyond it fitting with a general trend of camera bumps becoming big and increasingly… visible on devices like the iPhone 13 Pro and the yet-to-be-released Pixel 6. OnLeaks has a fairly good track record of leaking phones, pretty closely matching the looks of both the Pixel 5 and the Pixel 6. This kind of refinement to a camera housing also doesn’t seem out of the picture, in many ways it’s a reduction of the S21 Ultra’s cameras: a corner has been removed. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t look strange, though.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

With all the carriers dangling sweet, sweet trade-in and upgrade offers to essentially give you a “free” iPhone 13 (or two) this year, one can’t help but wonder: which one is the best deal? In this case, that would be the offer that costs you the least money but gets you the iPhone you want. Between all the convoluted conditions and confusing industry jargon, the carriers certainly don’t make it easy to compare different offers or make clear what you’re signing up for.

Carriers might be eager to sign up new customers for their bottom lines, but you need to look out for yours too. After all, is it better to opt for a cheaper unlimited plan that requires a 36-month commitment or get instant trade-in credits to pay a little less sales tax upfront? Should you look for deals that give you instant trade-in credits or get trade-in credits in the form of bill credits over the course of your agreement? It’s sometimes hard to understand all the details until you’ve already signed the contract. To save you the trouble, I took a closer look at the fine print of these deals and did some back-of-the-napkin calculations to find out.

Sean Hollister

In this case, I wanted to figure out which deal offers the best overall value over the long term. For example, what are my upfront and long-term costs in getting the newest iPhone for as low as free? For the sake of this exercise, I pretended to be a new customer in New York City, shopping for a single phone line, who wants to trade her iPhone 11 for an iPhone 13 or an iPhone 13 Pro,

Some important caveats about the numbers I’ll be referencing: they are by no means definitive and only serve to demonstrate how these deals work. For one thing, these carrier offers are time-sensitive and may already be different by the time you read this. The specifics of your carrier plan are influenced by many personal factors, like your credit history, your local tax rate, how many lines you need, and any special discounts that you’re eligible for (e.g., military/veteran). I can only present a relatively basic set of numbers that don’t reflect all the many possible variations in the universe, so take my numbers with a grain of salt.

After comparing similar offers from AT&T, T-Mobile / Sprint, Verizon, Apple.com, I’ve noticed a few tips that would help you shop for the best deal for you.

My key takeaways…

Sean Hollister

Look at the plans, not the free phone

Most of the trade-in credits are so high that they basically cover the cost of an iPhone 13 or iPhone 13 Pro — assuming your trade-in device is from the past two years and in good condition. So when you look at these deals, you should not get distracted by the allure of a free iPhone. Instead, focus on the cost of the plan after 24 to 36 months.

Contract Length Matters Most

The duration of the contract has the biggest impact on separating the best value deal from the bad. While AT&T offers the cheapest unlimited plan among its competition ($65/month), after 36 months (the required length you need to have service for to get the best offer), it ended up costing the most money ($2,445.30). Since most of its rivals’ plans are only 24 months long, I did the math on the AT&T plan at 24 months just so that I could compare apples to apples. It turns out the $65-per-month plan is the least expensive one after 24 months ($1,630.20) and is even cheaper than the special promotion between Apple and T-Mobile / Sprint ($1,713.60), which includes an extra $500 discount on the phone when you sign up for the $85 Magenta / Sprint Max plan. It’s worth gaming out the full cost of the plan for the duration of the contract before you sign on the line because this is where you’ll be spending the majority of your money.

Instant Trade-in Credits

If you can pay for the balance of your phone in full at the time of purchase and live near an eligible Apple store, you might want to take advantage of the instant trade-in credits that Apple offers. The beauty of the instant trade-in credit is that you get the value right at the time of purchase, which lowers the sales tax you pay at checkout — unlike the online trade-in process where your device has to be mailed to a third party to be evaluated, before its actual value will be credited to your monthly bills in a few months.

The Trade-offs with Trade-ins

Although my hypothetical trade-in credit for the iPhone 11 (between $800 and $1,000) effectively renders my monthly device payments to $0, because I am required to be on a monthly device payment plan as part of any trade-in offer, I may not terminate my device plan earlier than 24 months. If I do, I would be responsible for paying for the balance of this “free” iPhone, lose the remaining value from my trade-in device, and (potentially) pay an early termination penalty. Now, if I paid for the device upfront (ideally with an instant trade-in credit), I could choose a plan that better reflects my actual data consumption.

Hidden Fees

In some cases, the carrier might require you to pay a down payment or an activation fee, and offer you different contract lengths based on your credit history. While you won’t be paying for your iPhone directly when your trade-in credit kicks in, you still have to pay the sales tax on the full price of the phone — there is no bill credit to reimburse that cost.

Overall Winner: Verizon

Out of all the carrier offers, Verizon actually had the lowest overall costs with its 24-month payment plans, even though it doesn’t have the cheapest 5G plan or the shortest agreement length. At $2,077.36 for the iPhone 13 and $2,285.36 for the iPhone 13 Pro, these totals don’t even include the $500 gift card that Verizon is offering to customers who switch providers. The most expensive carrier offer, on the other hand, is from AT&T and its extra-long 36-month contract. Not only does it cost more of your hard-earned money, but your iPhone 13 will be so out-of-date after three years that you may want to pay to end your contract early.

Correction, September 27th, 2021 at 11:59AM ET: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the trade-in value of an iPhone 11 used towards an iPhone 13 Pro from T-Mobile and Verizon. The iPhone 13 Pro chart has been updated to reflect the correct trade-in values ($800), as well as the corresponding monthly payments and total costs. The copy has also been updated with the correct total cost of the iPhone 13 Pro trade-in offer from Verizon.

Correction, September 28th, 2021 at 10:36AM ET: An earlier version of the two charts incorrectly added sales tax to T-Mobile/Sprint’s Magenta/Sprint Max plans, when in fact, T-Mobile and Sprint’s $85-per-month plan already includes the tax. The charts have been updated to reflect the correct costs of this plan and total costs of this trade-in offer.

T-Mobile confirmed Sunday that it’s looking into an online forum post that claims to be selling a large trove of its customers’ sensitive data. Motherboard reported that it was in contact with the seller of the data, who said they had taken data from T-Mobile’s servers that included Social Security numbers, names, addresses, and driver license information related to more than 100 million people. After reviewing samples of the data, Motherboard reported it appeared authentic.

“We are aware of claims made in an underground forum and have been actively investigating their validity,” a T-Mobile spokesperson said in an email to The Verge. “We do not have any additional information to share at this time.”

It’s not clear when the data may have been accessed, but T-Mobile has been the target of several data breaches in the last few years, most recently in December 2020. During that incident, call-related information and phone numbers for some of its customers may have been exposed, but the company said at the time that it did not include more sensitive info such as names or Social Security numbers.

In 2018, hackers accessed personal information for roughly 2 million T-Mobile customers that included names, addresses, and account numbers, and in 2019, some of T-Mobile’s prepaid customers were affected by a breach that also accessed names, addresses, and account numbers.

A March 2020 breach exposed some T-Mobile customers’ financial information, Social Security numbers, and other account information.

Verizon has introduced new mobile hotspot plans, with four options to choose from starting at 15GB for $20 per month up to 150GB for $80 per month. They offer standalone and unlimited plan add-on mobile hotspot data that’s ready to be taken on the road. Maybe in a Class B Winnebago Solis with a pop-up sleeping compartment, as featured on Wheel of Fortune, south through the redwoods and along the coast and then on through the painted deserts of the Southwest. What? I said that out loud? I mean, hypothetically.

Anyway, the most basic plan, Essential, offers low-band Nationwide 5G and 4G LTE connectivity. The three more expensive plans — creatively named Plus, Pro, and Premium — include Ultra Wideband 5G, which encompasses the very fast, limited-range mmWave flavor of 5G as well as upcoming mid-band spectrum that should deliver broad coverage and fast performance.

The plans promise certain monthly premium data allotments; if they’re exceeded, data will be slower for the remainder of the month. Essential and Plus are available to Verizon customers, while Pro and Premium can be either added to an unlimited plan or purchased as standalone products.

This is all well and good, but while we’re on the subject of unlimited plans, let’s not forget that some of us (me) pay for unlimited data on Verizon that inexplicably can’t be used via mobile hotspot. Let’s say (hypothetically) you’re sitting around your freezing cold house in March during a power outage waiting for the heat and the Wi-Fi to come back on and you think you’d like to get a little work done by switching on your phone’s mobile hotspot feature. Nope! Because you picked the cheapest unlimited plan, you’re stuck working on offline Google Docs until the power comes back.

Well, now I (hypothetically) have a couple of options: pay up for a premium unlimited plan (which is exactly what The Man wants us to do), or buy a mobile hotspot, load that baby up with Premium Unlimited hotspot data and take off on a dreamy #vanlife tour of the Pacific Coast in an imaginary Winnebago Solis. The white one, not the red one. Let’s not get carried away.

The US Senate recently passed critical assistance to provide military families with food, a press release stated on Friday, after years of on-duty military families going hungry. The Senate committee included in its National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) a policy that is “championed” by MAZON, an advocacy organization that works to end hunger for all who live in the United States and Israel, regardless of background or religion, the press release clarified. The organization, which is led by Jewish values, has done philanthropic work to assist military families regarding their lack of food. “We are grateful for champions like Senator Tammy Duckworth for ensuring that the NDAA includes the establishment of a basic needs allowance for low-income military families,” said Josh Protas, MAZON’s Vice President of Public Policy.  Founded in 1985, MAZON began by building relationships with synagogues across the United States as well as develop relationships with legislators to “protect and strengthen the vital federal nutrition programs that help people put food on the table each day,” the organization’s website states.   

The other day I was chatting to someone about my Jackery Solar Generator set up, and the subject got onto how much money you can save.

“I bet you could save a lot of money using that to charge up your iPhone!”

I’d never thought about it, so I decided to run the numbers.

Must read: Don’t make this common, fatal iPhone or Android mistake

The iPhone I’m using is an iPhone 11 Pro Max, and its battery has a capacity of 15.04 watt-hour.

Now let’s assume some assumptions. First, the battery has a lifespan of 500 recharge cycles, which means that over that time, it has slurped in 7,500 wh (watt-hours of power, or 7.5 kwh (kilowatt-hours) of power.

Let’s now assume that the charging system is 90 percent efficient, which means that the battery has taken in about 8.3 kwh of power.

In the US, the average cost of 1 kwh of power is about 12 cents, so over its entire lifespan, that iPhone has cost a dollar.

Let’s do the same for a MacBook Pro. The latest M1 13-inch MacBook Pro has a 58.2 wh battery and is good for 1,000 recharge cycles.

Again, assuming 90 percent efficiency in charging, and that power is the average 12 cents, that MacBook Pro will cost (assuming it’s running purely on battery power) under $8 to run.

Let’s also put this in the context of the average US residential utility customer, who uses about 900 kwh of power per month.