HoFo Blog

In an unexpected blog post late last week the Rebble team kind of blew my mind.

Based on my previous research I had thought that the project was to be a replacement for Pebble OS, the operating system on Pebble hardware. This never really made sense to me; full ROMs for each Pebble model are freely available for download, and it seems to me that what Pebblers are going to be missing most when Fitbit shuts down the Pebble servers this summer are the services that they currently provide to users—voice dictation and weather complications are the two that immediately spring to mind.

What Rebble is actually planning is a complete end-to-end solution, including an app and watch face store, a phone app for Android and iOS and (eventually) a new operating system for the watch. Here's the TL;DR from their blog post:

You can read the finer details of Rebble's grand plan at the first link below, and the ensuing discussion from the Pebble reddit community at the second. Comments posted there so far suggest that Pebblers are happy to pay for continuing access to voice dictation and weather; if Rebble can get everything up and running in time then that June 30th deadline might not turn out to be such a big deal after all.

Source: Rebble via r/pebble

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From The Web:

OLED panel glut looms as Apple slashes iPhone X production

Apple releases iOS 11.2.6 and macOS 10.13.3, fixes Telugu character crash

Telus to thank for Canada’s LTE ‘speed boost,’ according to OpenSignal LTE report

CCTS received more than 1600 complaints over Public Mobile $40/4GB price hike

FCC Broadband Availability Data Derided As Inaccurate, 'Shameful'

From The Forums:

PdaNet+ on Cricket

Which would you choose: Samsung J7 (32 GB version) or the LG Stylo 3 Pro?

Problems sending SMS's while on LTE vs 3G?

Sponsored Data changes (read: mobley owners)

Meeting with Iphone seller from Craigslist. How do I check if it is stolen??

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OpenSignal has just released a new report on LTE networks around the world. Data was gathered in Q4 of 2017 but was just published this week, using more than 50 billion measurements from some 3.8 million smartphones and tablets in 88 countries. Notably absent is any data from the People's Republic of China. Anyway, you probably want to know which of the included countries has the fastest download speeds, so here are the top ten, plus a few more:

01. Singapore - 44.31 Mbps
02. Netherlands - 42.12
03. Norway - 41.20
04. South Korea - 40.44
05. Hungary - 39.18
06. Belgium - 36.13
07. Australia - 36.08
08. New Zealand - 33.52
09. Bulgaria - 33.34
10. Denmark - 33.09

11. Canada - 32.90 Mbps
34. Japan - 25.39
41. United Kingdom - 23.11
62. USA - 16.31
88. India - 6.07

According to OpenSignal's analysis, global LTE speeds seem to have plateaued. The bigger story is improved LTE availability, so here are those rankings:

01. South Korea - 97.49% availability
02. Japan - 94.70%
03. Norway - 92.16%
04. Hong Kong - 90.34%
05. USA - 90.32%
06. Netherlands - 89.64%
07. Hungary - 89.26%
08. Kuwait - 88.40%
09. Lithuania - 88.40%
10. Czech Republic - 87.37%

13. Australia - 86.48% availability
14. India - 86.26%
19. Singapore - 84.43%
26. Canada - 82.38%
36. United Kingdom - 77.28%

You can read the full report at the first link directly below. And if you want your device added to the test pool for the next report, be sure to download the OpenSignal app for either Android or iOS.

Source: OpenSignal via XDA

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From The Web:

USB-C audio: Everything you need to know

Everything we think we know about the Samsung Galaxy S9

Nokia 8 Pro with penta-lens ZEISS camera may be coming this year

The Pixel 2 charges much more slowly below certain temperatures, but it doesn't tell you that

AirPods Continue to Rank as the World’s Best Truly Wireless Earbuds

From The Forums:

Red Pocket Mobile yearly plan questions

Is this goodbye? 91320

BBB100-1 keyone black edition

Not autoconnecting to my home network suddenly

Can I call forward a post paid ONE line to a foreign number?

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Last week a Red Flag Deals user obtained this flyer at the Freedom Mobile outlet in the Aberdeen Centre, a Chinese shopping mall in Richmond, BC. The store was offering a lifetime discount of 25% on all plans priced at $40/month or more. For example, a user on the Big Gig + Everywhere Canada 60 plan could save $15/month, forever.

Apparently this store (and possibly others) hands out codes with new activations; the user can have their unique code applied to their account by calling customer service. The availability of these codes, and whether or not stores are willing to give them out to existing customers, isn't 100% clear in the fourteen pages of replies to the OP. Some RFDers have reported success mentioning an ad on Fairchild Radio, but many more are reporting that their local store has no idea that the promotion even exists.

At this point it might be too late, but if you were going to activate a line on FM anyway, it couldn't hurt to ask. Let us know what they say...!

Sources: iPhone in Canada, Mobile Syrup via Red Flag Deals

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From The Web:

An Obscure MediaTek Phone with no Kernel Source can run AOSP Android Oreo thanks to Project Treble

Huawei Watch 2's Oreo update disables Android Pay for users outside the US and UK

Apple will require all new apps to natively support iPhone X display from April

How to File a CCTS Complaint Over Public Mobile’s $40/4GB Price Increase

Stephen Elop and the fall of Nokia revisited

From The Forums:

As usual, I'm indebted to the folks here - THANKS

Public Mobile $120 - $150

3,300 Shaw Employees Accept Buyouts

Why Verizon Prepaid over Total Wireless?

Since 2/12. Disconnects every 7 hours, on the dot.

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Probably the worst news this week for mobile users in Canada comes from Public Mobile. iPhone in Canada is confirming what subscribers here already know—the once-upstart carrier (now owned by Telus) is raising the rate of its most popular deal. Here is the text of the offer that PM subscribers are receiving by SMS:

Hang on, though... aren't plans like this generally grandfathered? Didn't PM once say that rates on this plan were locked in? You bet they did. Here's the proof, and here's the relevant text:

Surprise!

Customers calling out the carrier on social media are being directed to the terms of service document, which grants Public Mobile the right to change anything at any time. So much for empty promises, but why the sudden and arbitrary push to move customers from one Telus-owned carrier to another? Data overages is the likely answer; Public Mobile doesn't have them by design, but Koodo certainly does.

Source: iPhone in Canada

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From The Web:

The remarkable resurgence of Nokia phones

Nokia 7+ and Nokia 1 Renders Show Dual Zeiss Cameras, 18:9 Display, and More

CRTC denies PIAC request to look into unsavoury telecom sales practices

German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

FCC Boss Ajit Pai’s Own Agency Is Investigating Him For Potential Corruption

From The Forums:

Tracfone Chat not available?

Govt warning about Chinese phones!

Windows alerts for missed google voice calls (or voicemail)

Cheap smartphones to use hotspot on Unlimited 2 plan?

TracFone refusing to honor triple minutes???

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There is a new entry in the navigation menu of the Facebook app for smartphones and tablets; clicking through on "Protect" will redirect to a listing for an app called Onavo Protect—which, at first glance, appears to be a VPN client. Except that it's not. Rather than protecting your data from third parties the app will phone home to Facebook and report on what you're doing on your device... whether you're currently using the Facebook app or not.

The proof that this title is basically corporate spyware is hiding in plain sight on its App Store listing:

As TechCrunch reports, the Onavo app has already been used to spy on SnapChat users, and to copy that platform's popular features for Instagram, its Facebook-owned competitor.

Clawing back at least some of your privacy is as easy as uninstalling Onavo Protect—or better yet, never installing it in the first place.

Sources: 9to5Mac via TechCrunch

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From The Web:

Wearable brand Huami goes public; raises $110M

Apple sold more watches than Rolex, Swatch, and the rest of the Swiss watch industry combined

Fossil's big bet on smartwatches is helping turn the company around

The Snapdragon 845 Performance Preview: Setting the Stage for Flagship Android 2018

Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro preview: Possibly the best budget phone of 2018

From The Forums:

MetroPCS giving away iphones to switchers

upgrade to 7.1 ?

Cricket new unlimited plan for $40 per month

Charged Roaming

How Does Freedompop Hotspot Service Work?

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Yesterday this Canadian received his Amazfit Bip from a grey-market reseller. With shipping, taxes and duties the final cost was about $100 CAD—pretty much the same price that I paid Amazon for the Pebble 2 SE on the left. How do the two compare? Let's break it down...

Buttons / UI

Every late model Pebble has four buttons with four programmable long press actions. The Bip has only a single button on its right side. A short press unlocks the screen; a long press can start or stop the workout of your choice, or turn the watch off. The Bip does have a touch screen, though, and while there are no fancy animated transitions it's still likely to be a more intuitive UI for most users.

Advantage: Draw

Notifications

The two devices handle notifications very differently. Once granted access through your phone (on Android anyway) a Pebble will send through all notifications by default, with the option of blocking certain ones through the Pebble app on your phone.

With the Bip notifications are opt-in, meaning that you have to manually enable notifications on a per-app basis through the Mi Fit app on your phone. Perhaps more importantly, you can't take any action when a notification comes through on a Bip. You can't even customize the vibrations on the watch.

Even without the Pebble servers you can still use Gadgetbridge to build a list of customized canned responses for incoming messages. Advantage: Pebble.

Watch Faces



The Bip has 10 built-in watch faces, and room for one more that can be sideloaded from the Mi Fit app—the included selections are shown above. Just don't expect anywhere near the breadth or depth of what's available for download (or to archive) from the Pebble app store. Advantage: Pebble.

Fitness Tracking



Here's where the Bip pulls ahead. With its long battery life, built-in heart rate sensor and GPS, plus an easy shortcut to start and stop your workout, the Bip makes a compelling case for a cheap and cheerful exercise companion. The Mi Fit app is no slouch, either; it was able to chart all the above data from an hour-long walk yesterday afternoon. Advantage: Bip

As a fitness tracker I think the Bip is a fantastic buy. But if it's a Pebble replacement that you were looking for then I'm sorry to say that you might have to keep looking.

Link: Amazfit Bip on geekbuying

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From The Web:

Nokia-Branded Phones Reportedly Outsold Phones from Google, HTC, Sony, Lenovo, and OnePlus in Q4 2017

Google is good at building phones but terrible at selling them

Essential shipped 88,000 phones in 2017: IDC

Huawei solicited 100+ fake Mate 10 Pro reviews on Best Buy to entice ‘beta testers’

Hacker uncovers Freedom Mobile customer login vulnerability

From The Forums:

T-Mobile seeing 5-10x increase in speeds thanks to LAA

MMS downloads won't work

Seeking T-Mo HSPA+ "faux-G" service

Ios 11.3 ui comparison to 10.3.3

Cricket deprioritization confimred

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There's no custom Android ROM out there that's more dependable than LineageOS. It's actually the only custom ROM that I know of with a working built-in updater—flash it once (with the optional root binary) and you can take OTA updates as they come without ever having to flash a full ROM again.

Over the weekend the first page in a Public Charter was published on the LineageOS github, detailing the requirements for device support. The list is long, exhaustive and impressive. Here are a few highlights:

I think it's pretty great to see a custom ROM so dedicated to user experience and transparency. You can read more about the charter—and see the actual document for yourself—at the links immediately below.

Source: LineageOS Charter via XDA

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From The Web:

Google’s Next Android Overhaul Will Embrace iPhone’s ‘Notch’

Verizon to stop honoring FCC restriction on not SIM-locking phones because nothing matters anymore

Canada Testing ‘Digital ID’ Border Security App for Screening Travellers

Smartphone data tracking is even creepier than you think

‘I Lived a Nightmare:’ SIM Hijacking Victims Share Their Stories

From The Forums:

Verizon locking phones this spring

Verizon promotion and coverage question

Anyone still successfully receiving AT&T's "4G"?

Dominican Republic (Punta Cana)

WWOR TV My9 (NYC) to move March 5, 2018. Hello Band 71 in NYC

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While out for dinner with my brother and his family over the weekend I got to play HQ Trivia for the first time. To call HQ a phenomenon is no lie—at 8:55pm our party of seven looked like any other large group in a busy uptown restaurant; five minutes later every iPhone at the table was connected to a headset and playing the game.

Plus one Android phone.

If you've been to a trivia night at your local pub then you've already got the gist of HQ—just imagine that experience scaled up to reach a global (English-speaking) audience through their smartphones. What pulls it all together is an entertaining video-streamed host, powered by the same technology behind Vine, Twitter's failed attempt at a new six-second video format.

HQ's official Android app had, until very recently, been listed in the Play Store as an unreleased beta. I'd love to tell you that you'll get the exact same experience on Android as on iOS, but on my OnePlus 5T the 1.0 release still looks very much like a beta product. The gameplay is the same but the video streaming quality is just bad.

I guess it's much harder for software developers to fully support the multitude of screen sizes and resolutions available on the Android platform. In the case of HQ trivia it certainly doesn't seem like a lot of effort was put in. If you've yet to experience the game my advice would be to check it out on somebody's iPhone. HQ doesn't care about us.

If you still want to be disappointed, here's the link: HQ Trivia on Google Play

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From The Web:

Qualcomm is killing the Android smartwatch market by not updating chips

Google isn’t honoring Pixel’s warranty, so we’re suing, customers say

Samsung releases Oreo kernel source code for the Galaxy S8/S8+

British Columbia Pushing Ride-Sharing Services in the Province

Ajit Pai's FCC Can't Stop Lying About Net Neutrality

From The Forums:

Rootmetrics: And 4th Place Goes To..............

Targeting 325 Million People Covered with LTE in 2018

Best alternative to Verizon prepaid? Pathetic speeds.

Cricket Wirless HD voice or wifi calling from Unlocked devices?

T-Mobile Reports Record Financial Results FY 2017

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All through Android's early years, old guard smartphone enthusiasts like myself secretly dreamed of a Nokia-powered Android phone. And in 2017 that dream came true; HMD Global resurrected the brand and gave the world a range of devices running pure Android. The best part is that I can even buy one of them right now from Amazon. Amazon Canada. On Prime.

So why haven't I? For the simple reason that the new Nokia does not appear to be in the business of selling modding-friendly hardware.

In a September 29th tweet an HMD exec seemed open to the idea of shipping a phone with an unlockable bootloader; more than four months later this basic requirement for flashing a custom recovery and gaining root access is still nowhere in sight for any North American Nokia device. HMD has also failed to release any kernel sources for their Android builds—which aids in the development of custom ROMs, but more importantly is a legal obligation under the GPL v2.

The company did a brisk business in 2017, in Asia and Europe at least. Tomi Ahonen estimates year-end handset sales to be around 8.5 million units, or 1% of the global smartphone market. But to win the hearts and minds of the XDA crowd—and for basic compliance with Android's open source license—HMD clearly needs to do better.

Sources: Tomi Ahonen, XDA

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Watch for the bonus HoFo shout-out...!

From The Web:

Galaxy S8 Android 8.0 Oreo update now rolling out

Key iPhone Source Code Gets Posted Online in 'Biggest Leak in History'

Bell won the $60/10GB promo pricing wars

RootMetrics Ranks Verizon Wireless the Top Network (Again)

Mysterious missed calls on cellphones part of worldwide scam

From The Forums:

What to do with Old TracFones? Unlock-able?

New Cricket Breeze-thru setup

Tracfone Newbie- looking for help

Sprint VoLTE active in Mobile, Alabama.

Telus tops Bell and Rogers in LTE speed, says OpenSignal report

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