HoFo Blog

From The Web:

Smartphone patent wars redux: Nokia sues Apple, big time

Tim Cook confirms: tech met with Trump to ask for billions in tax breaks

Locked iPhone 4s recovered from man who killed Russian ambassador in Turkey

China Bans all 'User Generated' Video

Encrypted messengers: Why Riot (and not Signal) is the future

From The Forums:

Verizon Iphone SE issue

Sprint reception: is 50% (3 circles) good?

T-Mobile ONE Plus Now Starts at $15 Per Month Extra

Will an old flip phone still work on T-Mobile prepaid?

Placing your phone face down on a table

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You're not alone.

There is a growing number of reports by users on reddit about some sort of bug in the Huawei-made Nexus 6P, causing devices to shut down prematurely before their batteries are fully drained. The exact cause of the bug remains unclear, even to the clever folks at XDA:

If you were wondering, Google has set the status of the issue to "assigned" but its priority to "small", which isn't exactly encouraging.

Though they're no longer sold by Google directly there are still new, unlocked 6Ps on the market; if you were thinking of purchasing one you might want to hold off.

And if you're stuck with an affected model this might be a good opportunity to delve into the wonderful world of Android modding—if nothing else, rolling back to Marshmallow might help.

Sources: AOSP Issue Tracker, reddit, XDA

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From The Web:

U.S. wearables market is doing much worse than expected

Where smartwatches are going wrong

Android Wear by the numbers

Bell-MTS deal moves forward with CRTC broadcasting approval

T-Mobile has become America's most consumer-unfriendly carrier

From The Forums:

Need a New Phone for Mom, she's never used a Smart Phone...

Digital Compass is it needed for Google Maps? Or is GPS enough?

Loyalty plan offers not follow through.

Bands/Frequencies For T-Mo Using Moto G (1st) XT1032 vs (4th) XT1607

Are MVNO T-Mobile users eligible for a free cellspot with a $25 deposit?

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Here's Michael Fisher with his video review of Samsung's Gear S3, Frontier Edition. If my YouTube feed is any indication, this is the most sought-after smartwatch of the holiday season. It's also a great time to buy, with both Amazon.com and Best Buy Canada currently selling the Frontier Edition of the watch at discounted prices—$299 USD and $400 CAD, respectively.

A standout among the Gear S3's tricks (and there are a lot of them) is the ability to tap and pay with your watch, even when paired to a non-Samsung phone and even at an olde-tyme magnetic stripe terminal. And here's where I've got some bad news for you: If you're in Canada and want to use a Gear S3 for wrist-based payments you'd better have one of the select few CIBC credit cards currently supported by Samsung Pay.

Samsung phone owners with root will already know that Samsung Pay doesn't work anywhere—at least that's what I gather from this Change.org petition. What's not so clear to me is whether or not Samsung Pay will work on a Samsung watch that's paired to a rooted phone; I guess it would depend if the Samsung Gear Manager app has the ability to detect root.

Are there any Gear owners with rooted phones able to weigh in on this?

Links: Amazon.com, Best Buy Canada, Change.org, Samsung Canada

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From The Web:

Apple AirPods review: wireless that wows, earbuds that don't

Apple’s AirPods Get iFixit Teardown, Garner 0/10 Repairability Score

Not dead yet: Report says number of in-use Galaxy Note7s still vastly exceeds all LG V20s

The sad reality of Canadian cellphone prices in one chart

2016 Year in Review: The Worst Year for Your Privacy, ever.

From The Forums:

Finally! Added minutes from feature phone to smartphone

Looking for suggestions

Better Radio and modem

PPC automatic plan renewal not working for the 3rd time this year

Is Verizon just America's version of Vodafone?

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So this cheerleader for Team Android has done the unthinkable: he's broken up his Nexus collection with an eBay auction that ended Sunday night. Out the door yesterday was shamu, an all-too appropriate codename for the gargantuan Moto-made Nexus 6.

I never really liked the Moto Nexus. In one of my more popular contributions here I wrote that Google had jumped the shark—that is, that the recipe that made 2013's LG Nexus 5 so great was thrown out the window in favour of something else that was clearly never meant to be a Nexus in the first place.

You'll recall that 2013 also saw the release of the OnePlus One. That phone was much more the spiritual successor of the Nexus 5—for me, anyway—and was my sidearm of choice until the following summer when its disappointing follow-up, the OnePlus 2, was announced. Seeing no other available upgrade I reluctantly purchased a Moto Nexus, regretting the decision before I even opened the box.

Through that fall and winter I tried as best I could to fit the oversized phone into my life. The killing blow for our relationship was dealt when I visited Japan to ring in 2016, only to find that, for whatever reason, the Moto Nexus wouldn't give me LTE data with a local SIM card. When we got home and I eventually bought the Huawei 6P (I am a Nexus fanboy, after all) I tried pawning the Moto off on my girlfriend but she would have none of it, being perfectly content with her OnePlus One. So into a drawer went shamu, never again to see light of day, until its recent eBay photo shoot. But it's infamous legacy lives on in these Howard Forums posts:

Moto Nexus: The Story of Shamu in 90 Seconds
Nexus Jumps The Shark
Hell Freezes Over, Currie Gets a Moto Nexus.
Just How Big is the Nexus 6?
I Hate This Phone, All of You and Myself Most of All

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From The Web:

Anticipating the iPhone – how manufacturers misjudged the future (2006)

Android trends for 2017

Samsung reportedly considering LG batteries for Galaxy Note 8

TCL Continues its World Domination Plan, now adds Blackberry to its Brands

Super Mario Run reviews hit Nintendo share price

From The Forums:

ISO New PAYG Smartphone for $$/mo. Must buy by 11:59 on 12/18!!

Account Overcharged for Data/Verizon Mifi

Looking for another plan, help

New sim card same phone

Suspicious Data usage .... how do i figure out whats going on?

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If you've about twenty minutes to spare and can stand subtitles, this documentary by a Dutch film school student is very much worth your time.

It's called Find my Phone but the star of the story is not, as you might think, the built-in phone-finding apps on Android and iOS—but rather a more stealthy third-party root app for Android called Cerberus, which I've written about on these forums before. With the app installed, the filmmaker was able to spy on a phone theif for a full two weeks, remotely capturing photos, video, SMS Messages, and even topping up phone credits for fear of the device going offline.

Two things you can learn from watching the documentary: (1) It can be comically difficult to have your phone stolen in The Netherlands—the film student's rooted HTC One doesn't get nicked until six-and-a-half minutes in. And (2) the kid makes the very bad decision to seek out the phone thief in person—and immediately regrets it.

If nothing else, Find my Phone is an effective endorsement for Cerberus, which you can download from the Play Store here. For redditors' thoughts on the film, see the source link directly below.

Source: reddit

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With bonus MKBHD video!

From The Web:

Super Mario Run was downloaded 2.85 million times in its first day

Don't fall for fake versions of Super Mario Run on Android

Capcom to bring entire Mega Man NES series to Android

Team Win Releases their first Official TWRP App in the Play Store

BlackBerry stops making phones, licenses the BlackBerry name to TCL for Android phones

From The Forums:

Really only 15 days left till GSM Shutdown

T-Mobile’s Ray: We’ll match Verizon’s LTE coverage this year

Will any of this phones work in PP

Cheapest tmo plan

Which phone to buy?

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I don't think I ever got around to reporting on Amazon's Prime Edition of the BLU R1 HD; thanks to Brad Linder at Liliputing for reminding me of its existence. It is indeed a $50 USD unlocked Android phone—some specs:

5 inch HD display with Gorilla Glass 3
1.3 GHz quad-core MediaTek 6735 ARM Cortex processor
Android 6.0 Marshmallow
8GB storage / 1GB RAM
8MP rear camera / 5MP front camera with LED flash
Dual SIM and MicroSD support for up to 64 GB of expandable storage
4G LTE plus GSM

The catch? Lock screen ads from Amazon. And even worse, it was found that the phone was secretly sending text messages and other personal information to a server in China. Amazon actually stopped selling the R1 HD until the spyware was removed. With assurances from BLU's CEO that the backdoor is gone, the phone is now back in stock.

So about the lock screen ads... those l33t [email protected] over at XDA have figured out a way to unlock the device's bootloader and install a custom recovery—paving the way for SuperSU and AdAway or, if you prefer, a custom ROM.

The ad-supported R1 HD unfortunately won't ship to Canada; otherwise I would gladly have a go and report my findings for you all here. Any of our American friends up for the challenge?

Sources: Liliputing (1) (2), XDA (1) (2)

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From The Web:

Android everywhere: If it has a screen, it will probably run Android soon

The Moto Z Quietly Flew under the Radar, but it Transformed Smartphone Modularity

Google teams up with Rogers to bring Jibe RCS texting to Canada

Freedom Mobile’s LTE network is now actually live in Toronto and Vancouver

Apple will charge $69 to replace a lost AirPod

From The Forums:

would you switch?

Zero rating data

International data roaming disable on iPhone/iOS - fails to completely shut off data

Target $5 gift cards half-off today with Cricket Rewards (6,250 points each)

Free year of Directv NOW when you switch to T-Mobile?

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Yesterday what is arguably the best Android launcher on the market celebrated its 5th birthday with a major update—appropriately enough, to version 5.0

I myself marked the event with a return to the app. Since last summer I've been using Nokia's Z Launcher, an innovative and intuitive take on the traditional Android launcher. But to find what I'm looking for, fast, nothing beats Nova; at this point I have too many years of muscle memory invested in it.

Here's a quick list of new features in the update, from the developer's Google+ page:

• Swipe to open drawer (à la Pixel Launcher)
  
• New Pixel style search bar
  
• New search view, with tabs for Frequent, Recent and New/Updated apps
  
• New "Timeout" screen lock method
  
• New double-tap-swipe gestures
  
• Android 7.1 launcher shortcuts
  
• Dock backgrounds to draw under navbar
  
• Quick start to easily change major settings (Nova Settings > Backup > Quick start)

If you haven't yet had the pleasure of experiencing Nova Launcher you can download the app here and, if you'd like, upgrade to the Prime version here.

Source: Google+

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From The Web:

Google doesn't care about Android Wear so why should you?

Google acquires smartwatch company Cronologics to work on Android Wear

How it Works: Casio Smart Outdoor Watch WSD-F10

The Inside Story Behind Pebble’s Demise

What You Need to Know About Super Mario Run on iPhone

From The Forums:

Ring Plus Truly Free gone?

Cricket changed their unlock policy slightly.

thoughts on idol 4?

ex-RingPlus user, looking for good pay as you go plan

referral credits for $30 plan

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From The Web:

Google Keyboard rebrands as Gboard with integrated Google Search

Apple’s AirPods wireless headphones now available for $159

AirPods ship dates now pushed back to 2017, stores to receive ‘regular shipments’ starting next week

Google's iMessage competitor isn't Allo, it's texting

RCS messaging is now available to some Rogers and Fido customers

From The Forums:

RingPlus General Discussion v.2

$50 Gamestop Gift Card for porting-in a new line to Cricket

Does Metro/T-Mobile capped you @ 28 GB?

Ordering

Do they still charge a activation fee?

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Hey everybody, check this out... The OnePlus 3T smokes the much more expensive Google Pixel XL in a real-world side-by-side speed test. HAH!

There's just one problem: according to this sober editorial on XDA, "real-world" side-by-side comparisons like these are inconclusive at best. The author, Daniel Marchena, likens them to an episode of Top Gear—or rather, The Grand Tour—that is, entertaining to watch, but not at all instructive:

To illustrate his point, Daniel ran five separate side-by-side comparisons between the Pixel and the LG V20. To see the wildly-varying results, check out the link immediately below. And to see more side-by-side videos, I'm afraid that you'll have to look elsewhere from now on.

Source: XDA Developers

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From The Web:

Most-Wanted: The top (Android) smartphones of 2016

Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid when Samsung does it too

Apple Rejects 'Samsung Pay Mini' on App Store Ahead of January Launch

(U.S.) Government Ponders Ban on In-Flight Phone Calls

No, there really is no gadgetapocalypse

From The Forums:

USA Roaming

Upgrade from 2G - transferring minutes from two phones to one new phone

WiFi calling - Tracfone LG Rebel GSM (LGL43AL)

What happens when RingPlus cancels your line for non-use

Check your balance - logged in vs not logged in

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Do you know someone who regularly overshares personal information on social media? If so, you might want to direct them to this post.

Russian Art School Student Egor Tsvetkov completed a project earlier this year; he called it "Your Face Is Big Data". For the project, he took 100 photographs of random people who happened to sit across from him on the subway. Then he used an Android app called Find Face to see if he could match the strangers with their accounts on Russia's version of Facebook, VKontakte.

The result? He was easily able to identify about 70% of his subjects, even if their morning commute face bore little resemblance to their staged profile pic. As for the purpose of this privacy invasion, here's Tsvetkov himself to justify what he did:

For a gallery of Egor's subway and social media matches, check out the first link directly below. The second link has more information about Tsvetkov and his project.

Sources: Imgur, PC World

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From The Web:

Samsung confirms it will render the US Note 7 useless with next update

Verizon says it will NOT push out the update (essentially) bricking remaining Note 7's on it's network

The best Pebble smartwatch alternatives

Phone encryption: Police 'mug' suspect to get data

Super Mario Run requires a persistent internet connection to play, no offline mode due to piracy concerns

From The Forums:

Cricket iPhone 5s Price Drop Now $79.99

Using a Boost Mobile R850 WiFi Hotspot

Conference calling

Quick question...on swapping numbers between phones

Confessions of a Verizon Employee

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