HoFo Blog

It wasn't so long ago that mobile video, captured in portrait mode and uploaded to YouTube, would appear on that site sideways. That issue has since been fixed, but Instagram is taking vertical video one step further with their new video sharing platform, called IGTV.



Instagram is pitching IGTV as a mobile-first video sharing platform for "creators". Videos can be up to an hour long and uploaders can have public channel listings, just like YouTube. Besides the addressable audience of a billion Instagram users worldwide, the incentive to host videos on IGTV will be eventual monetization through the inevitable blight of inline ads.

So what to "creators" think of IGTV? Here's Marques Brownlee on that very subject:



The official IGTV app is already available for Android and iOS, and the service itself is rolling out right now to all parts of the world.

Source: Instagram

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If Mac Otakara is to be believed, this is Apple's iPhone lineup for 2018. And why should Mac Otakara be believed? Apparently that same site first broke the news that Apple was ditching the headphone jack on 2016's iPhone 7.

What we're looking at here are dummy units—that is, 3D-printed shells designed using leaks from Apple's supply chain. An updated 5.8 inch iPhone X (centre) will be joined by a 6.4 inch Plus model (right) and a 6 inch budget model with larger bezels (left). We don't yet know what the nomenclature of the phones will be, but it does appear that Apple is going all-in on the notch.

The dummy units were purchased from an unnamed seller on Alibaba. To give you a better idea of their size Mac Otakara also uploaded a video to YouTube:



From the video you'll see that the budget iPhone has only a single camera lens assembly on the back. It will apparently have an LCD display as well, whereas the other two models with have an OLED panel like the current iPhone X. According to Forbes the budget iPhone will retail for $400 USD less than the supersized Plus model.

Of course, we won't know anything for sure until September, but this leaker does have some credibility, for whatever that's worth.

Source: Mac Otakara (Japanese) via Forbes

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As of this morning Google has no less than four Android apps for music, podcasts and video, with more than a few redundancies between them. The most confounding of the lot has to be YouTube Music, but its existence is more easily understood if you know your recent Internet history. Here's a quick and dirty refresher.

Google Play Music

GPM was launched in late 2011, and was part of the reason behind the Android Market's re-branding as Google Play. Google's app store (now Google Play Apps) was joined by an ebook store (Google Play Books) a video store (Google Play Movies) and GPM, likely an answer to the growing popularity of Spotify.

Like Spotify, GPM users could pay for a premium subscription to stream specific albums and tracks on-demand, or listen for free and endure the occasional ad. Unlike Spotify, GPM users could also upload tracks from their own music collection. In 2016 GPM added podcast support, presumably to lure users (and their listening habits) away from the more popular Pocket Casts app.

YouTube

Wait a minute, YouTube isn't a music player... It is, however, the key to understanding YouTube Music. Open for uploads in 2005, YouTube predates GPM by 6 years, and during that time it became a popular practice for YouTubers to upload playlists or entire albums (legal or not) as video files, with high quality audio tracks and either a static graphic or simple animation for visuals.

In many markets and demographics YouTube is far more popular as a music platform than Google Play Music. This, along with the added pressure of rights holders angry over pirated music streams, inevitably let to the creation of—you guessed it...

YouTube Music

At Google, everything is supposedly driven by user data; in that context it makes perfect sense to apply their video brand to a music streaming service. But if the goal is to replace GPM (and it should be) Google's still got some work to do. Tracks uploaded to GPM are not yet available on YouTube Music. Even worse, unless you have a paid subscription the YTM stream on your phone will immediately stop the moment your screen goes dark.

Podcasts

Instead of focusing their efforts on a better YTM experience Google has decided instead to release a standalone podcast app. Again, if the goal is to migrate users away from GPM (and again, it should be) this makes sense. But with the current state of YTM no one is going to stop using GPM anytime soon, so a dedicated podcast app is a bit premature.

And that, in a nutshell, is Google's current music (and podcast) mess, and how I believe it came to be.

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Google's official SMS app (not that one) now supports texting from a desktop web browser. The feature started rolling out to users yesterday, so if it's not yet available to you it should be soon. Getting set up is easy enough: While signed in to your Google account head over to the Messages desktop site, where you'll be greeted with a unique QR code that you can scan with the Messages app on your phone to connect. That's pretty much it.

I haven't tried it myself, because (1) I use a different texting app, and (2) I think that a better solution for desktop SMS already exists. It's called Pushbullet; it not only lets you send and reply to texts from your computer, but also mirrors phone notifications on your computer as well.

The downside to Pushbullet is that there's a cap on the number of texts you can send unless you upgrade to a paid subscription, whereas Messages for the web won't ever cost you anything. Full support for the new RCS spec might be another reason to go with Messages. If you're already using the app on your phone then you might as well give it a try; if you do, be sure to let us know what you think!

Sources: Messages Help, Liliputing

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From The Web:

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Making good on their promise from last month, YouTube Premium is now available in Canada—and also Australia, Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, plus (obviously) the United States.

Even better, Google seems to be offering a three-month free trial of the service (one month for family plans) which also includes YouTube Music. If you're confused I don't blame you; think of it this way: YouTube Music is the equivalent to a paid subscription to Google Play Music, while YouTube Premium would be akin to YouTube Red... which also includes the upgraded Google Play Music experience... This isn't helping at all, is it?

Why don't I let the respective signup pages do the talking instead:

YouTube Music Premium
"Get Music Premium to listen ad-free, offline & with your screen off"
$9.99 CAD per month / $14.99 CAD for families (up to 6 users)

YouTube Premium
"YouTube and YouTube Music ad-free. Plus access to all YouTube Originals."
$11.99 CAD per month / $17.99 CAD for families (up to 6 users)

By the way, Google Play Music still works, is covered under the same subscriptions and also includes a decent Android podcast player. The more you know...

Source: Android Police

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Before anything else I need to make it perfectly clear that this is only a render. There has been no firm indication from Motorola that their iconic Razr, the impossibly-thin feature phone that conquered the world in the early 2000s, is making a comeback. All we have at the moment are unsubstantiated rumours.

There is, however, some hard evidence that Moto is planning some sort of foldable smartphone.



These illustrations, courtesy of the Dutch site Let's Go Digital, are from a filing submitted by Motorola to the World Intellectual Property Organization, clearly showing a device with a flexible hinge and display. Unfortunately that display bends along the device's vertical, rather than horizontal, axis. What difference does that make? Back to the render we go!



Again, this is only one fan's flight of fancy, and in no way represents any confirmed hardware designs from Motorola. But hey, we can still dream, right?

Sources: Let's Go Digital (Dutch), T3

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From The Web:

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Rebble.io, the small outfit with the lofty goal of replacing Pebble web services with their own, are taking names—literally. In a blog post yesterday they announced that accounts can now be created using an existing sign-in from either Facebook, GitHub, Google or Twitter.

It's important that interested users do this sooner rather than later, and take the additional step of connecting their existing Pebble account to Rebble. This will ensure that your Pebble data will be imported before the servers shut down on June 30th. Registering will also help the Rebble team gauge just how many Pebblers they'll be providing service to.

I myself am interested in Rebble for two critical Pebble features: voice replies and weather data. Those features may or may not be ready when the Pebble servers go dark and Rebble lights up. I'm certainly willing to give them a chance; my Amazfit Bip is currently taking a break while I'm getting reacquainted with Pebble, and its music (and podcast) controls plus the critical features mentioned above make it a better smartwatch than the Bip.

Source: Rebble Blog

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From The Web:

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One of the new features coming to iOS 12 is USB Restricted Mode, designed specifically to lock out attackers with physical access to a phone or tablet. It will be enabled by default, requiring the user's passcode when anything is connected to the device's charging and data port, starting one hour after it was last locked. For convenience sake the phone or tablet will still charge; any other accessory will require a passcode to work.

Not everyone is thrilled with this new feature. From The New York Times:

Police say they need access to phones to catch criminals; Apple argues that vulnerabilities can be exploited by good and bad actors alike.

Currently law enforcement has two paths to access an Apple device: they can ship it off to Israeli forensics firm Cellebrite, or purchase a $15-30,000 box from a U.S. startup called Grayshift and access the device in-house. One police force boasts that they've been able to crack 96 phones with a Grayshift box.

I myself am not entirely convinced that USB Restricted Mode is going to be a success. It might just prompt an attacker (police or otherwise) to change their target, either to a user's iCloud account or even data directly from their carrier. But even if not 100% foolproof, protecting a user's privacy is never a bad idea.

Source: New York Times via iPhone in Canada

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From The Web:

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Every so often we need to be reminded that smartphones, if compromised, can be effective surveillance devices. Case in point: Spanish soccer league La Liga is being investigated for their smartphone app, which helps itself to the user's microphone and location data to check for unauthorized game broadcasts.

According to the BBC this surveillance "feature" was added to the app in an update last week. La Liga maintains that its only wish is to protect both fans and teams from fraud; broadcasting games in bars and other public places without a license apparently costs the league €150 million annually in lost revenue. The league also told Bloomberg that users of its app must opt in to the collection of audio and location data, and that the app will periodically remind you that this data is being collected.

The AEPD, Spain's data protection agency, has launched a preliminary investigation into the matter. EU privacy laws give it the power to levy sanctions of up to 4% of any guilty party's annual global sales. La Liga's annual revenue has been reported at €3.6 billion; if my math is right 4% of that would be €1.44 million, plus the ire of angry fans who have had their privacy breached.

Sources: BBC, Bloomberg

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From The Web:

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Could the insane lens array of the Light L16 Camera be making its way to a future generation of smartphones? If the arms race for multiple phone cameras continues, it certainly seems possible.

With the P20 Pro Huawei has made triple smartphone cameras a thing, and rumours suggest that at least one model of this year's iPhone 9 series will also have a three-lens camera system on board. But why stop at three? In an interview with Android Headlines DxOMark is convinced that quadruple-cam smartphones are inevitable.

On the one hand, multiple lenses are an ingenious use of a large but relatively thin surface area. The Light Camera, for example, uses its 16 lenses simultaneously to capture a massive 52 megapixel image with post-capture depth of field controls. On the other hand, Google's Pixels seem to do pretty well with only a single lens.

I guess my biggest concern is copycat Android OEMs adding a whack of cheap cameras to their phones' backsides instead of one or two decent ones. That, and not being able to hold a device without smudging up multiple lenses.

Source: Android Headlines

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From The Web:

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