keyword: Apple

qualcomm’s-new-partnership-aims-to-improve-haptic-feedback-on-android-devices

Qualcomm’s new partnership aims to improve haptic feedback on Android devices

Haptic feedback on Android phones running the Snapdragon 888 chipset might get noticeably better starting in the second half of 2021. Qualcomm recently announced (via 9to5Google) that it’s working independently with a company called Lofelt to enhance haptics through software, not hardware.

That initially read as a puzzling decision, since hardware — not software — seems to play the bigger role in the quality of the vibration. But this actually sounds very clever, definitely more clever than Lofelt’s Basslet vibrating wearable that it launched on Kickstarter in 2016.

Outside of some high-end LG phones, most Android phones deliver muddy or rattling vibrations that don’t feel that great. Even the best ones can’t compete with Apple’s Taptic Engine it builds in-house and builds into iPhones and Apple Watch wearables. Tactile, punchy vibration probably isn’t high up on the list of many people in terms of must-have features, but it can go a surprisingly long way in making you feel like you’re using a quality product.

Image: Qualcomm

Lofelt has developed a framework and an open API for phone manufacturers (as well as in game controllers “and beyond” says the press release) that can convert universal haptic data into signals that are finely tuned and improved for that device’s specific hardware.

So, instead of incorporating a standard haptic actuator on the chipset that companies are required to adopt, it developed a more scalable software solution that can work on any phone running the required Snapdragon hardware. Manufacturers can keep making phones the way they want, and Lofelt’s API can help to create a more uniform haptic experience across the vast Android ecosystem.

Lofelt CEO and co-founder Daniel Büttner spoke at length on Medium in a post called “The Keys to Delivering Better Haptics on Android,” and it covers everything you’d want to know about why the gap between haptics on Android and Apple devices has been so wide in the past few years. It comes down to fragmentation, of course.

Apple could set a standard for haptics on both a hardware and software level by which its small batch of phones abide. Android, on the other hand, is the Wild West in terms of haptics, as it is in most other areas. The post illustrates that pretty much the only way forward to improve haptics in Android is through software. Hey, if you can’t reverse fragmentation at this point, you might as well lean into it.

google-maps-finally-rolls-out-dark-mode-on-android

Google Maps finally rolls out dark mode on Android

The Google Maps app is getting a true dark mode, at least on Android. The company announced today that it is finally widely releasing the dark theme option that it’s been testing in the app since September 2020.

The dark mode, which takes things much further than the previously available night mode color option, will be accessible in the app’s settings menu, under “theme.”

Google announced the dark mode rollout as part of a batch of new features coming to Android, including some updates to Android Auto. In addition to custom wallpapers, Android Auto is now going to feature games as well. Trivia Crack, Jeopardy!, Song Quiz, and Google’s own Are You Feeling Lucky? will be available. The games can be accessed through the assistant by saying “Hey Google, play a game.”

Android Auto is also getting a split-screen feature that will put Maps side by side with media controls, much like what Apple started doing in CarPlay in iOS 13 in 2019. (Though this feature will only be available in cars with wider displays.) Google is adding shortcuts to the Android Auto launch screen, too, which will allow for quick access to weather or setting your home thermostat.

The Android Auto features will be available “in the coming days” on phones running Android 6.0 and above in compatible cars. Google Maps dark mode will roll out “soon.”

social-networks-are-finally-competitive-again

Social networks are finally competitive again

Lately, the consumer internet — that set of products devoted to building and monetizing large networks of people — has started to feel rather buzzy. A space that had been largely emptied out over the past five years is once again humming with life. The products are compelling enough, and growing fast enough, that Facebook and others have begun trying to reverse-engineer and copy them.

It still doesn’t seem quite real to me, and yet everywhere I look the signs are there: social networks are competitive again.

Today, let’s tour this weird new landscape and talk about what it means — and doesn’t mean — for the tech giants and the governments trying to rein them in.

I. How competition ended

If I had to put a date on when competition ended among social networks in the United States, I’d choose August 2nd, 2016. That’s when Instagram introduced its copy of Snapchat stories, blunting the momentum of an upstart challenger and sending a chill through the startup ecosystem.

I don’t think copying features is necessarily anti-competitive — in fact, as I’ll argue below, it’s a sign that the ecosystem is working as intended — but the effect of Facebook’s copying here was dramatic. Snap fell into a long funk, and would-be entrepreneurs and investors got the message: Facebook will seek to acquire or copy any upstart social product, dramatically limiting its odds of breakout success. Investment shrunk accordingly.

The previous year, after the success of Twitter’s Periscope app, Facebook had cloned its live video features, and enthusiasm for both products seemed to broadly peter out. When live group video experienced momentary success under Houseparty, Facebook cloned that too, and Houseparty later sold to Epic Games for an undisclosed sum.

It was in this stagnant environment that many people, myself included, came to believe that it had been a mistake to let Facebook acquire Instagram and WhatsApp. The former became the breakout social network of a younger generation, and the latter cemented Facebook’s global dominance in communication. A world in which both had remained independent would have been much more competitive, even if neither had grown to the scale that they did under Facebook.

This is the basic thesis of the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against the company, which it filed in December. The government argues that Facebook “is illegally maintaining its personal social networking monopoly through a years-long course of anticompetitive conduct,” and if successful, it could force Facebook to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp. It’s a tricky case; as Ben Thompson explains here, the government’s attempt to define the market in which Facebook competes so as to prove it has a monopoly is rather tortured.

You can think the FTC’s case against Facebook is weak and also believe that the period from 2016 to 2021 saw remarkably little innovation among American social networks, at least in terms of the basic user behaviors that they inspire. The market for social products became incredibly concentrated; Facebook and Google built a duopoly in digital advertising; and their vast size and unpredictable effects helped to trigger a global backlash against American tech giants.

If, like me, you think this is all a problem, you could argue for one of two basic approaches to fixing it. The first is government intervention, in the form of an antitrust lawsuit or new regulations from Congress, that would regulate the ability of tech giants to acquire smaller companies or put up new barriers to entering the market or competing on fair terms. The second is to do basically nothing, trusting that the entropic nature of the universe and the inexorable march of time would eventually restore competition.

If the second choice sounds ridiculous, it is not without precedent. In the late 1990s, Microsoft’s dominance over the PC market led the government to pursue an antitrust case over the company’s move to bundle its Internet Explorer browser with the Windows operating system. The fear was that such bundling would grant Microsoft total power over the consumer PC market forever. In reality, of course, mobile phones were out there just waiting to be perfected, and then Apple came along and did just that, and now no one really worries too much about Microsoft’s power over the PC market.

I do wish the US government had intervened around 2016 to explore new regulations for tech giants’ mergers and acquisitions. In its absence, we could only bet on entropy — and whichever contrarian capitalists still felt like they could challenge Facebook in the market despite its many advantages.

The thing is, though, that a bunch of contrarian capitalists did. And lately they have been having a lot of success.

II. How competition began

Facebook’s biggest competitor in 2021 is, of course, TikTok, which has been siphoning usage from Facebook’s family of apps since it launched in the United States in 2018 (after merging with Musical.ly).

TikTok began by making it dramatically easier for people to make compelling videos, parceled out fame and fortune with a central feed that is incredibly compelling even if you don’t know or follow a single person, and eventually created an entire universe of audio memes, visual effects, and community in-jokes.

Eugene Wei, our best writer and thinker on TikTok, published the third part of his essay series about the app Sunday night. Among the many salient points Wei makes is that the sheer number of forces that have gone into TikTok’s success have made it difficult for Facebook (or YouTube) to clone. He writes:

People will litigate Instagram copying Snapchat’s Stories feature until the end of time, but the fact is that format wasn’t ever going to be some defensible moat. Ephemerality is a clever new dimension on which to vary social media, but it’s easily copiable.

This is why TikTok’s network effects of creativity matter. To clone TikTok, you can’t just copy any single feature. It’s all of that, and not just the features, but how users deploy them and how the resultant videos interact with each other on the FYP feed. It’s replicating all the feedback loops that are built into TikTok’s ecosystem, all of which are interconnected. Maybe you can copy some of the atoms, but the magic lives at the molecular level.

The success of TikTok is a source of real anxiety inside Facebook, where employees ask CEO Mark Zuckerberg a question about it during nearly every all-hands Q&A session. The company has deployed a competitor, called Reels, inside of Instagram, and perhaps it will find a way to succeed. But the larger point is that, whatever the odds, Facebook now has to compete against TiKTok or risk losing the next generation.

You’ve probably already considered that, though. (Unless you’re the FTC, which conspicuously avoided any mention of TikTok in its entire complaint about Facebook’s alleged monopoly position.) But when it comes to mobile short-form video, Facebook and YouTube face a real challenge.

So where else does Facebook suddenly find itself forced to compete?

For starters, there’s audio. While still available only by invitation, Clubhouse recently hit an estimated 10 million downloads. Celebrities including Tiffany Haddish, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and Zuckerberg himself have made appearances on the app, granting it a cultural cachet rare in a social startup that is still less than a year old. Clubhouse raised money last month at a valuation of $1 billion — more than Facebook ultimately paid for Instagram.

Because it’s an audio app, Clubhouse doesn’t pose quite the existential threat that TikTok does: you can still theoretically browse Instagram or message businesses on WhatsApp while listening to a Clubhouse chat. But Facebook has been sufficiently intrigued by Clubhouse’s rapid rise that it is now working out how to clone the app, according to a report this month in The New York Times. Elsewhere, Twitter already has a Clubhouse clone, called Spaces, in beta. It’s not clear that Clubhouse poses a threat to either company, exactly. But both are still taking it as a challenge.

What else?

After years of making its most prominent investments in technically challenging media involving video, augmented reality, and virtual reality, Facebook is reportedly taking a second look at text. The rise of Substack over the past year has begun to mint a growing number of millionaire, text-based creators, while also pulling millions of people away from their social feeds into the relative calm of the email inbox. (I have a personal stake in this one, of course; I started a newsletter in large part because my social feeds had come to feel like a lousy place to get my news.)

What’s interesting here is that Facebook now seems open to this possibility, too. Last month, the Times also reported that Facebook is developing newsletter tools for reporters and writers. (I’ve confirmed this with my own sources.) As with Clubhouse, newsletters hardly pose an existential threat to Facebook. But they do bleed time and attention away from the company’s apps — and in a world where news may not be even available on Facebook in some countries, it may be wise for it to have a hedge. (And Twitter clearly thinks so, too: it acquired Substack competitor Revue last month.)

That leaves Facebook competing with legitimately fast-growing, well-funded competitors across several categories. And while it’s in a much earlier stage, I think the company may soon have an interesting competitor in photography as well.

Dispo is an invite-only social photo app with a twist: you can’t see any photos you take with the app until 24 hours after you take them. (The app sends you a push notification to open them every day at 9AM local time: among other things, a nice hack to boost daily usage.) Founded by David Dobrik, one of the world’s most popular YouTubers, Dispo has been around as a basic utility for a year. But last month a beta version launched on iOS with social features including shared photo “rolls,” and it quickly hit the 10,000-person cap on Apple’s TestFlight software. It raised $4 million in seed funding in October, and assuming the buzz continues into a public launch, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dispo took off in a major way.

Audio, video, photos, and text: to some extent, Facebook has never had to stop competing across these dimensions in the company’s history. But I can’t remember the last time it was fighting so many interesting battles at the same time.

III. What it means

Here’s what I’m not saying when I argue that social networks are competitive again:

  • That Facebook has not acted in various anti-competitive ways throughout its history.
  • That Facebook should no longer be subject to antitrust scrutiny, or that the US government (and, separately, a coalition of US attorneys general) should abandon their lawsuits.
  • That, given all this new competition, Facebook should be allowed to purchase rival social networks in the future.
  • That Facebook won’t remain the world’s largest social network for a long time to come, or that its business will suffer in the short term.

In fact, I think there’s a good case to be made that antitrust pressure from the US government in particular is what has allowed competition to return to social networks in the first place. Had Clubhouse or Substack emerged in 2013 or 2014, it’s not hard to imagine Facebook racing to acquire them and knock them off the chessboard. But in 2021, when Facebook faces a formal antitrust review in the United Kingdom over its acquisition of a failing GIF search engine, the company can only sit back and try to copy what others are doing better.

If that’s the case, it suggests that the half-assed response to Facebook’s growing dominance over the past half-decade nonetheless got us, however belatedly, to a better place. Antitrust pressure made it extremely difficult for the company to make acquisitions, opening a window just big enough for new entrants to climb through. It remains to be seen how big any new challengers to Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter can grow. But for the first time in a long time, I’m optimistic about their chances.

qualcomm’s-new-ar-‘smart-viewer’-lets-you-pin-virtual-screens-to-your-walls

Qualcomm’s new AR ‘Smart Viewer’ lets you pin virtual screens to your walls

Chip maker Qualcomm has introduced a new reference design for augmented reality glasses: an AR “smart viewer” you can tether to a phone or PC via USB-C. Called the XR1 Smart Viewer, the system is meant to be lightweight and look (sort of) like sunglasses, while also enabling features like hand tracking and spatial awareness. The first glasses based on its design are set for release in mid-2021.

The XR1 is designed as a consumer-focused “must-have accessory” for phones and computers, rather than a self-contained product. It uses two 1920 x 1080 OLED displays with a 90Hz refresh rate, plus an array of cameras, to add a virtual overlay to the real world. The camera array can also support hand tracking as a control scheme, and it can detect planes in the environment, so you can do things like pin a virtual window to a wall for multiple PC displays — or place a virtual object on a table and interact with it through gesture controls. Like most AR glasses, however, they have a relatively limited field of view of 45 degrees, which is roughly similar to the Microsoft HoloLens 2.

Qualcomm

Lenovo already announced a product based on the XR1 Smart Viewer reference design: the ThinkReality A3 glasses, which it unveiled at CES earlier this year. ThinkReality A3 glasses are set for release in mid-2021 at a currently unlisted price, following up on Lenovo’s A6 business-focused headset from 2019.

The XR1 Smart Viewer is distinct from the Snapdragon XR1 or XR2 platforms — a pair of chipsets that are optimized for virtual and augmented reality glasses, including last year’s XR2-based Oculus Quest 2. It’s designed to perform some tasks using built-in electronics, but it offloads other tasks to an external computing device, allowing for a more lightweight design.

Qualcomm has spent the last couple of years pushing for AR glasses adoption, which it thinks could stimulate the nascent 5G cellular market by popularizing high-bandwidth mixed-reality apps. It’s previously partnered with Chinese company Nreal on the Nreal Light, one of the only consumer-focused AR viewers — which plugs into a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855- or 865-powered phone. The Nreal Light launched late last year in Korea and Japan, and yesterday, Nreal announced that it will arrive in the European Union and the US later this year.

So far, AR glasses have struggled to reach the mainstream. However, the ThinkReality A3 and any other XR1 Smart Viewer-based products may end up competing with a couple of major companies. Facebook announced its impending entry into AR hardware last year, and it’s planning to release a set of Ray-Ban smart glasses with limited AR-like features later in 2021. Apple is also rumored to be making a high-end AR / VR headset aimed at building a developer ecosystem.

spotify-ceo-daniel-ek-explains-how-the-company-plans-to-help-artists-(and-itself)-make-money

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek explains how the company plans to help artists (and itself) make money

Photo Illustration by Alex Castro | Photograph by Spotify

The company wants to be at the center of creator monetization

Spotify hosted an event on Monday to discuss its ambitions in audio, and one message came through loud and clear: the company wants to play a major role in helping creators make money.

During the 90-minute event, the company rattled through a series of announcements. It detailed a slew of new podcasts, including one featuring former President Barack Obama and rockstar Bruce Springsteen as co-hosts, as well as a full universe of DC Comics programming. It debuted an expanded podcast ad marketplace, bolstered by its Megaphone acquisition and Streaming Ad Insertion technology, along with a Hi-Fi subscription tier. And it teased new tools for podcasters to engage with their audiences and make money through subscriptions. Spotify obviously intends to make podcasting a real revenue driver.

But none of the announcements were groundbreaking for people in the industry. If anything, they demonstrated how far Spotify has yet to go. Crucially, Spotify announced that 7,500 musicians are making at least $100,000 per year through its platform, which isn’t much considering the service is available in 93 markets. Now, Spotify is trying to make the same pitch to podcasters as it did to musicians — that they’re all on the same side and share the same goals.

Spotify will both support its own shows and also host and sell ads for third-party programs, all with the stated goal of helping creators profit off their work. That seems like a tall order, and one that podcasters might hesitate to participate in, but Spotify CEO Daniel Ek says it’s critical to the company’s future. He tells The Verge that Spotify will incorporate a hybrid business model with three distinct parts. One will involve the typical user subscription revenue, another is advertising dollars through its podcast ad marketplace and music streaming ads, and the third is a la carte options, like helping musicians and podcasters sell merch, tour tickets, or even subscriptions to their own content.

“I think you’re going to see platforms making a distinction of not a one-size-fits-all, not just in terms of the creators or how they think about their audience, but really about how you can grow your audience, engage with them, turn them into fans, and then create new and important ways to monetize that fan base,” he says.

Following the event, The Verge chatted with Ek about the tension between launching Spotify’s own exclusive shows while also trying to sell ads, as well as how Spotify might help creators monetize. And yes, we asked about Clubhouse, too. You can read an edited version of the interview below.

Ashley Carman, senior reporter, The Verge: Today your team announced that 7,500 creators are making at least $100,000 per year on your platform. How does Spotify plan to grow that number?

Daniel Ek, CEO, Spotify: Long term, it’s really about — as I kind of outlined in the remarks, as well, during the event — we think the space is so much larger than most people realize, both in the amount of consumers that care, the minutes that will be spent in audio, and the amount of creators that ultimately will create content. So it’s in the billions of consumers, and we believe more than 50 million creators will create.

Obviously, not all of these [creators] are going to be able to support themselves full-time doing this, but our job is to create as many possibilities as possible for these creators to create, to grow, to engage, and to monetize with their fans. And I’ve talked about this in the past, but I think the future of Spotify, and really all successful media companies, is by allowing a multitude of different monetization models. In the past in the internet, you’ve seen platforms choose either to be ad-supported or to be subscription. In the future, I think you’re going to see ad-supported, subscription, and a la carte play key roles.

I think you’re going to see platforms making a distinction of not a one-size-fits-all, not just in terms of the creators or how they think about their audience, but really about how you can grow your audience, engage with them, turn them into fans, and then create new and important ways to monetize that fan base. How you monetize an average consumer the first time you have them listen to you is going to be very different than how you monetize one of your super fans. And in that future, I think Spotify will recognize all of those different abilities and allow the creator to find the best ways to monetize their fan base based on both their ability and how they think about sustaining their creative endeavors.

What timeline are you thinking about this on? Five years? Ten years?

It’s really a long, long-term goal, but the way I think about the world is really, if you think over the next 10 years for certain, what’s now radio is going to collapse and move from a linear space to an on-demand space. And all of those minutes spent, and we’re talking two to three hours a day of the average American, just to name one example, is now going to move online.

When you look at that space, which I think is just really, really interesting, all of audio as a category will grow — not just the minutes spent, but I think monetization, too — when you bring infinite level sophistication to it. So the targeting that you can imagine, the types of interactivity features you can create, and the types of monetization you can enable by having both ad-supported subscription and pay wall, so it’s really kind of the next decade that I think this will play out.

And that’s where I think we’re in this race to try to get as many people as possible to convert into streaming on demand and hopefully choose Spotify as their preferred platform.

Some musicians argue that streaming devalues their work while podcasters see the industry as not needing to be fixed or changed. How do you plan to keep the narrative positive and not like a corporate behemoth entering the space?

Community management is going to be one of the most critical things, but honestly this is part of the reason why we wanted to put this event out. Because what we realized is that we’re no longer this kind of small startup from Sweden. We’re in fact a very, very important platform for a lot of these audio creators. So rather than just telling everyone about everything that we’ve already released and then explaining them one by one, we wanted to create a narrative story that tells people about where we’re going and why we’re going there.

So I think this is exactly the type of reason why we wanted to have the event that we’re having today, and I think so much of this is going to be solved by constant communication and by also experimenting and being clear when we are experimenting. You saw that today, too. A lot of the features that we released are really tests and experiments, and the reason isn’t because we’re not committing to rolling it out if it’s successful, but it is because we want the feedback from the community so that we can iterate and improve and hopefully create something that better suits their needs and methods. So we’re really kind of changing our way of working in order to invite more of the creative ecosystem to give feedback and help us iterate and improve.

Spotify has focused a lot on launching platform-exclusive podcasts. What are the metrics of success for an exclusive show?

We have a number of different metrics that we’re internally looking at evaluating the success of this, but a huge part of it is just around can we create an awareness, can we create an audience for a creator that rivals the one that they would have been able to [make] on their own? And I think so far, we’re obviously early in our sort of exclusive efforts, but what we’re seeing is it’s very rewarding.

We are seeing that people are in fact tuning into Spotify, even though there was a creator maybe available in some other outlets before, as evidenced, for instance, by Joe Rogan being the number one podcaster on Spotify. And as they’re engaging, they’re finding more and more other podcasters, as well. And so the average listener on Spotify is now listening to a lot more podcasters than they were doing before, so that’s helping both the creator, and the consumer, and the whole creative ecosystem, as well. So we’re looking at a number of different KPIs (key performance indicators) to kind of evaluate if this is working or not, but ultimately, it’s all about creator retention and user retention. Those are the most important metrics that we track.

Are you concerned with whether you can convert listeners to paid subscribers through the exclusives?

No, not really. What I can tell you from 15 years of doing this now is, if we start with music, the reality is there wasn’t too many people that woke up in the morning thinking, “I’m going to find a music streaming subscription service to subscribe to.” That just wasn’t the case. But there were a lot of people that were looking for how can I listen to music? That turned out to be a very good amount of people.

And what we found is that as they got into Spotify and started listening, because of the platform, and because of the features, and because of the recommendations that we were offering, people started engaging a lot more. So the number of people that, from the beginning, said, “I’m never, ever going to pay for music,” because they may have come from a pirate environment that then slowly turned into, “This is just an amazing service. I’m getting so much value out of this. It’s a no-brainer to start paying.’”

My point by telling that story is that what we found so many times before is that the more people engaged, the more likely they are to pay. And the same is true with music as it is with podcasts, too. It’s really all about getting them onto the platform and starting to expose them to this entire ecosystem of creators and amazing content that we have on the platform. And once that happens, we know people eventually will convert into paying customers.

Spotify also debuted its podcast ad marketplace today, so I’m wondering how exclusives play into that. Exclusives seem to go against the point of ads — brands want to reach the largest audience possible. How might you make choices about keeping something exclusive versus letting it reach as many people as possible?

I think, overall, the main trade-off as a company is we’re all focused on growth, and growth is a function of engagement, the retention part that I talked about. So we monitor those metrics meticulously, and we’re looking at it for every single piece of content that we have on the platform and every single consumer we have on the platform, and just on an hourly basis modeling that, looking at that.

The answer, however, may be unintuitive, but I still want to share it which is, in the end, I think this whole notion about what is ads and what’s subscription, and the fact that when you look back on the internet there was this division. I just don’t believe that’s going to be true in the future. Think about television. It used to be the same way. You had broadcasting that only had ads and then you had cable that was the only subscription, but the reality is it converged because it turned out that the better consumer experience was the combination of both, and I think you’re going to find that into the future of the internet, too, is that we can deliver a great user experience with both advertising and subscription, and I think the future for us is both and a la carte, as well. So it’s really kind of three models, and that’s when you bring to bear the entire opportunity of the internet, I think, for monetizing that content.

So you don’t worry about turning off premium, paying users by having ads in your Spotify podcasts?

We’re constantly monitoring it, but I don’t think you should view it as we’re having ads or we have no ads. I think the future may be that some consumers don’t mind ads and would rather have that as something, and some people may not enjoy ads a lot. Our ad system should be able to realize that and be able to serve ads depending on who’s engaging with that content and what their propensity is to engage with that advertising, as well. And I think you’re going to see lots of different ways to monetize, I guess is what I’m trying to say.

Social audio, specifically Clubhouse, is super buzzy right now. What are your thoughts on it? Is it something Spotify would ever consider building into the app?

I think that there’s a number of different elements of what social audio or Clubhouse even is. So I think on the one end, you’re seeing the interaction between two or more people talking, and obviously if you think about podcasts today, that’s typically the format that’s working pretty well there, too. So I’m not surprised that that’s working.

I’m also not surprised that social features, users to users interacting with each other, are working. So it is an interesting space, and it’s definitely something that we’re keeping an eye on. Long-term, though, I think the broader shift that has been true with the internet has been most of the hours of consumption, we believe, will be moving from linear to on-demand. Meaning consumers should be able to consume whatever content that they want on their terms and not necessarily be beholden to someone else’s schedule. So I think it’s a really interesting format from a creation perspective, but I suspect that from the consumption perspective, most of the time consumed will still be on-demand which is what Spotify is known for today.

Do you worry about Clubhouse taking people away from the time they typically listened to podcasts?

Andy Grove, the [former] CEO of Intel, said 30 years ago, “Only the paranoid survive,” and it’s definitely something that I think he was right in assuming. But I’m paying as much attention to Clubhouse as I am looking at Fortnite, or Minecraft, or Roblox. All forms of media and entertainment is minutes that could have been spent listening to audio instead. So we’re definitely paying attention to it.

We’ve talked a lot about the creator side of things, but I want to focus on the listeners. Much of Spotify’s strategy is dependent on their data. How do you think about communicating with listeners to explain how you use their data? Do you worry about a pushback?

Obviously that’s super important for us, and being a European company with its roots in Europe, too, GDPR is a massive thing here in Europe, and so we take user’s privacy very, very seriously. It’s obviously something that we constantly think about as we’re evolving our data products, both to consumers but also to advertiser partners, and I think you will see that we’re very, very careful about how we’re using our users’ data in every aspect that we’re doing and conducting business.

Spotify announced its Hi-Fi subscription tier today with hardware partnerships to come. Amazon is making moves in the podcast space, and Apple is already established. Both those companies also offer hardware for audio playback. Is hardware something you think Spotify will need to invest in on its own?

We have something internally that we call the Ubiquity Strategy, and what you saw me talking about today is the fact that we have 2,000 [hardware] partnerships now, and, in fact, because of this network of creators that we now have — 8 million — and all the exclusive content we have, we’re seeing great success on the Google Home speakers, and the Alexa devices, Sonos, Sony PlayStation, GM cars, and just the breadth and wealth of this.

I would have been a lot more concerned if consumers were locked into just one ecosystem. If it was just an Apple, or just a Google, or just an Amazon that kind of owned the consumer across their entire ecosystem. That is a very concerning development, if it were to be true. But I think the good news is what we’re finding is that while Apple, for instance, is very strong on mobiles in many markets, we’re finding Amazon is very strong in their homes, and most of the cars today are being built on Android Auto, which is Google’s ecosystem. And the one thing that is true about Spotify is we play nice on all of them, and I believe we’re the only player that has that relationship where we’re now on 2,000 devices, and we play nice on all of them.

And that’s been our strategy from day one, and I think that would be very hard-pressed to do if we were also a hardware maker. So we think about the experience. We think about ubiquity, and we want to be everywhere where our consumers are.

fitbit-inspire-2-review:-still-inspiring-for-fitness-goals?

Fitbit Inspire 2 review: Still inspiring for fitness goals?

(Pocket-lint) – The Inspire 2 is the cheapest member of the Fitbit family – and effectively replaces the Inspire HR that launched in 2019 – aimed at those wanting to keep to the tracking basics.

The Inspire 2 sticks largely to the same formula as the Inspire HR, making welcome improvements to the design, bolstering battery life to make it last longer than any other Fitbit device, and giving you a tracking experience that just feels very easy to get to grips with.

With the likes of Samsung, Huawei, Amazfit and Xiaomi also making the budget tracker space a more competitive place, does the Fitbit Inspire 2 do enough to pull away from its more affordable rivals?

Design

  • Large and small wristband options
  • Water resistant to 50 metres (5ATM)
  • Finishes: Black, Lunar White, Desert Rose

With the Inspire 2, Fitbit isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. Put one side-by-side with an Inspire HR and you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two. The colour silicone bands can be removed and come in small and large size options.



Best Fitbit fitness tracker 2021: Which Fitbit is right for you?


By Britta O’Boyle
·

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The greyscale touchscreen display – which has a slightly curvier edged look – is now 20 per cent brighter than the previous Inspire, which is definitely a positive move. There’s now a dim mode when you don’t need that extra hit of brightness, which can be disabled when you do. It certainly offers an improvement for visibility out in bright outdoor light, but it feels like it might be time to ditch the greyscale OLED screen and go colour like a lot its competitors have done – Xiaomi, Amazfit and Samsung each offer great colour display options for less money.

To give the Inspire 2 a much cleaner look than its predecessor, it’s also removed the physical button for a setup where you can squeeze the sides of the device to do things like turn on the display or get into the band’s settings. Overall, it works well and that button isn’t hugely missed.

Around the back is where you’ll find the PurePulse heart rate sensor, which means you have the ability to continuously monitor heart rate, exercise in personalised heart rate zones, and unlock new features like Active Zone Minutes.

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The big appeal of wearing the Inspire 2 is that it’s a slim, light and comfortable band to wear all the time. As it’s water resistant up to 50 metres, it’s safe to swim and shower with. 

Features

  • 24/7 tracking
  • Connected GPS
  • Guided breathing
  • 20+ exercise modes
  • Additional health insights in Fitbit Premium

Fitness tracking is what Fitbit does best – so it’s no surprise that’s where the Inspire 2’s key features lie. 

The sensors making that happen haven’t changed from the last Inspire models. There’s an accelerometer to track steps and enable automatic sleep monitoring. You also have that optical heart rate monitor, which unlocks a range of features and is still best suited to daily monitoring as opposed to putting it to work during exercise. You still don’t get an altimeter to track elevation like floor climbs, which you also get on the Fitbit’s flagship Charge 4.

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For daily tracking, you can monitor daily steps, distance covered, calories burned, and get reminders to keep moving during the day. Fitbit has also added additional reminders to wash your hands, get your heart pumping, or to stay hydrated.

When it’s time to go to bed, you’ll be able to capture the duration of sleep and get a breakdown of sleep stages. That includes the all-important REM sleep, which is a window into the type of sleep tied to memory and learning. You’ll also get a Sleep Score to give you a clear idea if you’ve had a good night’s sleep.

When you switch to exercise tracking, there are over 20 goal-based modes with core exercises like walking, running and pool swimming. There’s also Fitbit’s SmartTrack tech to automatically recognise when you start moving and working out.

There’s connected GPS support, which means you can lean on your phone’s GPS signal to more accurately track outdoor activities. That GPS support is also useful for the Workout Intensity Maps feature, which along with monitoring your heart rate can show you where you worked hardest during a session.

With that onboard heart rate monitor you’re getting to continuously monitor and capture resting heart rate – day and night. It’s also going to let you train in heart rate zones and generate a Cardio Fitness Score to give you a better sense of your current state of fitness based on your VO2 Max (blood oxygen). Fitbit is also introducing its new Active Zone Minutes feature, which will buzz you when you hit your personalised target heart rate zones. It’s a move to get users to think more about regularly raising heart rate as well as nailing those big daily step counts.

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For that time outside of getting sweaty, the Inspire 2 will perform some useful more smartwatch-like duties. There’s notification support for both Google Android and Apple iOS devices, letting you see native and third-party app notifications. There’s a dedicated notifications menu where you can find your latest incoming messages. In addition to notifications, there’s also a collection of different watch faces to choose from.

Beyond the basics, there’s also guided breathing exercises, menstrual health tracking, and app-based features like manually tracking your food intake. You also have access to Premium, Fitbit’s subscription service, which you’ll get a year to trial before deciding whether to continue at your own cost.

  • What is Fitbit Premium, what does it offer and how much does it cost?

Performance and battery life

  • Continuous heart rate monitoring
  • Up to 10 days battery life
  • Sleep tracking

Those core fitness tracking features is what the Inspire 2 does best. Step counts are largely in line with the fitness tracking features on a Garmin Fenix 6 Pro, also offering similar distance covered and calories data. While those inactivity alerts aren’t groundbreaking, it’s a small way to make sure you keep moving during the day.

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When you switch to sleep, the slim, light design of the Inspire 2 makes it a comfortable tracker to take to bed first and foremost. Fitbit offers some of the best sleep tracking features in the business. Compared to the Fitbit Sense and the Withings Sleep Analyzer, we were pretty satisfied with the kind of data Fitbit gave us.

For exercise tracking – as long as you’re not hoping to run for miles on a regular basis and up the intensity in general – the Inspire 2 should just about cut it. The heart rate monitor is better suited to continuous monitoring than it is for strenuous workout time based on our experience. For running, and cardio blasting HIIT sessions on the Fiit home workout app, average readings could be as much as 10bpm out (compared to a Garmin HRM Pro chest strap monitor).

The connected GPS support is also better suited to shorter runs, which brings useful features like those Workout Intensity Maps into the mix.

As for battery life, the Inspire 2 offers the best battery numbers Fitbit has ever offered. It’s promising up to 10 days, which is double that of the Inspire HR. It lives up to that claim, too, as long as you’re not going too bright with that screen and not tracking exercise every day with it. The good news is that things like all-day heart rate monitoring don’t seem to have a tremendous drain, which isn’t the case on all fitness trackers.

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When you do need to charge there’s one of Fitbit’s proprietary charging cables, which clips into the charging points on the back and the top and bottom of the rear case. That ensures it stays put and doesn’t budge when you stick the Inspire 2 onto charge.

Software

Fitbit’s companion app, which is available for Android, iOS and Windows 10 devices, remains one of its key strengths – and a strong reason you’d grab one of its trackers over cheaper alternatives. 

It’s easy to use and if you want some added motivation to keep you on top of your goals, that’s available too. The main Today screen will give you a snapshot of your daily data and can be edited to show the data you actually care about.

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Discover is where you’ll find guided programmes, challenges, virtual adventures and workouts to accompany daily and nightly tracking. If you’ve signed up to Fitbit Premium, you’ll have a dedicated tab for that too. You still have all your device settings hidden away whether you need to adjust step goals, heart rate zones or how you keep closer tabs on your nutrition and weight management.

The Inspire 2 experience is similar to owning a Fitbit Versa 3, a Charge 4, or a Sense. Which is key: that consistent feeling across all devices makes it a good place if you know other Fitbit-owning people. You can delve deeper into data if you want to, but for most, what’s there when you first download it and login will be more than enough to get a sense of your progress.

  • Best Fitbit fitness tracker: Which Fitbit is right for you?

Verdict

The Fitbit Inspire 2 sticks to a known formula, covering tracking basics, while wrapping it up in a design that’s comfortable to wear all of the time.

The screen changes for this model are welcomed – extra brightness, yay – and if you care about steps, sleep and monitoring heart rate during the day and night, it will serve you well.

All that’s supported by an app that’s one of the most user-friendly if you’re starting to think about monitoring your health and fitness for the first time.

The level of smartwatch features are dictated by the slenderness of the device and while you can get more in the way of these features elsewhere for less money, what the Inspire 2 offers should be good enough for most. It’s still not quite the ready-made sportswatch replacement though.

Cheaper fitness trackers are now offering more features, arguably better displays and battery life. But if you’re looking for a fitness tracker that puts your health and tracking front and centre, then Fitbit is still one of the best.

Also consider

Pocket-lint

Fitbit Inspire HR

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If you can live without that brighter display and some of the software extras, the Inspire HR will still offer a solid tracking experience for less cash.

  • Read our review
Pocket-lint

Huawei Band 3 Pro

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Huawei’s fitness band offers one big feature you won’t find on the Inspire 2: built-in GPS. If you like the idea of a tracker a bit better built for sports, this is one worth looking at.

  • Read our review

Writing by Michael Sawh. Editing by Mike Lowe.

google-has-finally-added-ios’s-privacy-labels-to-gmail

Google has finally added iOS’s privacy labels to Gmail

Google has finally added Apple App Store privacy labels to its Gmail app, almost a month after we ran an article wondering what was taking so long (via MacRumors). The app is the second major Google app to get the labels, after they were added to YouTube when it was updated earlier this month.

So how does it look? Well, that’s up for you to decide. The app apparently shares your coarse location and user ID with advertisers, as well as information about your interaction with advertisements. According to the privacy label, though, it doesn’t collect your name, physical address, or phone number (though as an email client, Gmail obviously collects your email address). Location data is also used for analytics and there are some features of the app that will request it as well. If you want to see the full label, there’s a video below that scrolls through.

For contrast, here’s the app privacy information for another email app, Hey.

The information Hey requests fits on one page.
Screenshot: The Verge

It is worth noting that Apple’s app privacy labels are meant to show all the things that the app might access, not what information that app will access. For example, an app may only use location data when it needs to show you a map, but the privacy labels don’t make that clear — it’s just a binary used/not used. Also, the information in the labels is submitted by the company itself, and Apple doesn’t make promises about its accuracy.

Strangely, Google added the labels without actually updating the Gmail app, even though it was literally crying out for an update (because of a fun bug). The last time Google updated the iOS app was two months ago.

So far, Google’s other large apps like Maps, Photos, Docs, and Chrome haven’t gotten the labels yet. But the fact that both YouTube and Gmail have had them added indicates that Google is starting to roll them out to its bigger apps.

karma’s-new-gs-6-hybrid-is-a-cheaper-version-of-its-luxury-sports-car

Karma’s new GS-6 hybrid is a cheaper version of its luxury sports car

Electric vehicle startup Karma Automotive has fully revealed its newest hybrid car, the GS-6. While it shares the same design as the company’s ultra-luxury sedan, the Revero GT, Karma is pricing the GS-6 at nearly half the price — $83,900 — in a bid to reach a much wider set of customers.

Karma says it’s able to do that because it plans to make more cars at its California production plant, is making them more efficiently, and has streamlined its supply chain, according director of public relations Jeff Holland. “It helps that our parent company also owns our battery supplier A123 Systems, but over the past few years we have also seen a substantial reduction in the cost of lithium ion batteries and other EV-related components including other items such as motors and generators,” Holland told The Verge in an email.

If the new car is successful, Karma could finally realize its goal of becoming a small-volume manufacturer just in time to capitalize on a new wave of optimism (and funding) in the electric vehicle space.

The path to that goal has been difficult so far for Karma. The startup was born in 2014 when Chinese automotive conglomerate Wanxiang Group bought a bulk of the assets of Fisker Automotive following that company’s bankruptcy. Wanxiang named the new startup after the Fisker Karma, the defunct company’s failed hybrid sports car, and ultimately revived that vehicle as the Revero. (Henrik Fisker, who founded Fisker Automotive, now has a new company called Fisker Inc. that is also working on electric vehicles.)









  • Wirestock – stock.adobe.com



  • Wirestock – stock.adobe.com





  • kojihirano – stock.adobe.com








Karma has spent the last few years selling a small number of Revero hybrids for nearly $150,000 while struggling to really get on its feet as Wanxiang allegedly waffled on fully backing the startup, as Jalopnik’s Jason Torchinsky has reported. The startup has been accused of making prototypes that are basically just “movie props,” and may have even considered filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year. (Karma has denied both claims.) Karma has also laid off more than one hundred employees over the last two years and took a PPP loan of more than $5 million from the government in 2020.

The GS-6 is meant to help lift Karma out of that turmoil by appealing to a potentially much bigger group of buyers. It’s powered by a BMW-sourced, turbocharged three-cylinder engine and two electric motors that, altogether, generate a total of about 536 horsepower — the same powertrain found in the Revero. A 28kWh battery pack allows for up to 80 miles of driving on electricity alone.

The interior features a touchscreen in the center of the dashboard, which is compatible with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, as well as a digital instrument cluster for the driver. Karma says it’s sourcing a lot of sustainable materials for the trim and the seats, too, in an attempt to appeal to more conscientious buyers. Karma will sell a Sport and a Luxury trim of the GS-6, and an all-electric version (dubbed GSe-6) is due out later starting at $79,900.

“We are not selling PowerPoints anymore, we’re selling real cars,” Joost de Vries, Karma’s vice president of global sales, said on a conference call with reporters last week. de Vries explained that Karma hopes to target younger buyers with the lower price point, and more of them, too, with a total production capacity of 15,000 cars per year at the California factory. That said, de Vries was quick to point out that the startup has retained many of its older, existing customers whose Revero leases have expired. Karma is “starting to really feel like a more complete auto manufacturer here in the US,” he said.

While Karma has spent time and money developing autonomous technology (it even created an allegedly self-driving van last year), de Vries said that’s not expected to come to the startup’s passenger vehicles any time soon. The GS-6 lineup will have optional driver assistance features like adaptive cruise control and lane keeping, but nothing more. “We’re not seeing anything in our near future on level three or level four,” de Vries said, referring to the Society of Automotive Engineers’ designations for hands-free driving and fully driverless capability within a certain area, respectively. “It’s on the roadmap, but I think we still want to wait another decade or so before the legislative problems have been resolved, and our customers are really not asking for it.”

Karma has a hand in a lot of other advanced technologies, too. The startup has shared that it’s working on a way to use methanol and hydrogen fuel cells to power future electric vehicles. It also hopes to sell the technological platform that powers its cars to other automakers. An SUV is in the works, too.

To fund all of this, Karma announced last July that it had raised a fresh $100 million. That announcement came at the beginning of a wave of electric vehicle companies going public by merging with special purpose acquisition companies (including Fisker Inc.). But so far, Karma remains private. “Our management team is exploring all avenues for a larger financing with investment bankers. And of course, IPO has always been an aspiration for Karma when it is public company ready, but for now the key focus is on growing our business,” a spokesperson told The Verge at the time.

spotify-hifi-is-a-lossless-streaming-tier-coming-later-this-year

Spotify HiFi is a lossless streaming tier coming later this year

Spotify is going hi-fi. Well, “HiFi.” It’s taken longer than competitors like Tidal and Amazon Music, but today, the leading subscription music service announced a new lossless streaming tier that will allow listeners to get the most from their digital music library. The news came at the company’s Spotify “Stream On” virtual event.

Spotify HiFi will be available later this year and “will deliver music in CD-quality, lossless audio format to your device and Spotify Connect-enabled speakers, which means fans will be able to experience more depth and clarity while enjoying their favorite tracks.”

Spotify has done small tests of higher-quality streaming in the past, but now it’s going to launch the feature more widely — with the caveat that it’ll be available only “in select markets.” Pricing is yet to be announced. Higher-quality streaming has apparently been among the top requests from its customers; as it stands today, Spotify tops out at 320kbps audio.

Amazon rolled out Amazon Music HD in 2019. The lossless plan costs $14.99 per month (or $12.99 for Prime customers), a premium over the standard Amazon Music Unlimited service. Tidal, which has supported high-resolution audio since its very beginning, is priced slightly higher at $19.99 monthly for the “Hi-Fi” plan. Tidal offers what it calls “Tidal Masters” that go up to high-resolution 96 kHz / 24 bit audio. Smaller services like Qobuz have also sought to appeal to audiophiles with lossless streaming.

Apple Music, on the other hand, still lacks any kind of lossless streaming tier, despite Apple selling the very high-end AirPods Max headphones.

Developing…

5g-in-the-us-is-disappointing-right-now,-but-it’s-going-to-get-better

5G in the US is disappointing right now, but it’s going to get better

In the US, 5G remains a work in progress, despite carriers waving “5G Mission Accomplished” banners for years
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The fourth industrial revolution will not be televised

After an introduction from Consumer Technology Association president Gary Shapiro, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg takes the stage. He wears a simple black T-shirt with an unmistakable red check and begins delivering his keynote speech. The topic at hand is 5G, something Vestberg speaks about enthusiastically. The keynote covers the eight “currencies” of 5G, features a professional athlete, and highlights how 5G will transform the drone industry.

That was CES 2019. It was also CES 2021. Verizon hasn’t been alone in fueling the 5G hype machine; AT&T and T-Mobile have been talking up their 5G networks for years. Now, it’s showtime. With major flagship phones and a lot more budget devices supporting it, this is the year when a critical mass of phone buyers will finally see for themselves what all this talk is about.

Here’s the bad news: if they’ve been listening to the hype, they’re going to be disappointed. We’ve been promised a fourth industrial revolution with fantastical things like remote surgery and driverless cars. Instead, what we have now is widespread 5G that’s more or less the same speed as (or even slower than) 4G and super-fast mmWave 5G in some parts of some major cities with highly limited range. So where is this 5G future we’ve been promised? The truth is that it’s coming along, but it will materialize more slowly and in less obvious ways than what we’ve been led to believe.

Spectrum wars

To understand the complicated 5G situation in the US right now, you first need to know that there are low-, mid-, and high-band frequencies that carriers can use. Low-band is slower but offers widespread coverage. High-band, often called mmWave, is very fast but extremely limited in range. Mid-band sits in a sweet spot between the two, with good range and better-than-LTE speeds.

If you were building a 5G network from scratch, you’d probably want a bunch of mid-band spectrum, right? The trouble is, spectrum is a limited resource. Sascha Segan, lead mobile analyst at PCMag and a wealth of 5G knowledge, sums up part of the spectrum problem.

“Our government did not make the right channels available to the carriers,” he says. “Verizon and AT&T have basically just been using leftover odds and ends of their 4G spectrum… putting the 5G encoding on these leftover bits and bobs so they can pop a 5G icon on the screen. And the performance is meaningless.”

The technology Verizon and AT&T are using to get nationwide 5G coverage is called Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS), which allows 4G and 5G to coexist on the same spectrum. That helps carriers make the transition from one technology to the other, but it comes at a cost. Michael Thelander, president and founder of wireless industry research firm Signals Research Group, sums it up this way: “It’s kind of like having that super fast sports car and you’re stuck on the Santa Monica freeway. You can’t experience the full capabilities.”

T-Mobile, on the other hand, doesn’t need to rely on spectrum sharing as much as the other two, thanks to its acquisition of Sprint and its mid-band spectrum. That has given it an edge in its 5G offerings thus far.

By early 2022, though, we will likely see Verizon and AT&T catching up. A swath of mid-band spectrum known as C-band went up for auction in late 2020. And while we don’t know which companies won which blocks of spectrum, we know those two carriers, in particular, spent big; bidding topped out at over $80 billion.

What happens next?

The networks might not be firing on all cylinders yet, but more and more mobile devices are ready for them. In fact, by the end of the year, it may be harder to find a non-5G phone than one that supports the technology. Not only do Apple and Samsung’s flagship phones support 5G across their lineups, but it’s also making its way into more midrange and budget devices, thanks to new 5G-ready low-end processors like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 480.

More people than ever will buy a 5G phone this year — likely not because they really wanted 5G, but because the phone they were going to get anyway supports it. The good news is that there really isn’t a downside to buying a 5G phone now if it’s time to upgrade. The “5G tax” that put a higher price tag on 5G phones over the past couple of years seems to be disappearing, and we haven’t noticed any other drawbacks like excessive battery drain in our testing.

The iPhone 12 series includes 5G connectivity across the lineup.
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

So what’s the reaction like so far from, say, someone who bought an iPhone 12 — not for 5G, but because it’s the new iPhone? “They’re frustrated and angry,” says Segan. “With both Verizon and AT&T, because of what I’ll call technical difficulties, their nationwide 5G is often slower than their 4G. So people are getting these iPhones and they’re finding that frequently they have worse performance than they had before 5G.” The “technical difficulties” he refers to include DSS in Verizon’s case and the limitations of the narrow 5MHz band that AT&T often uses for its 5G.

That’s not great. But a couple of factors will make a difference over the next year. First, that C-band spectrum will start coming online around the end of the year. If you’re one of the frustrated owners of an iPhone 12 or Galaxy S21, there’s good news: your phone is already approved to use C-band, so if you’re on Verizon or AT&T, you should see speed improvements when that happens.

Not all 5G phones support C-band, though. Those that don’t will need a software update to use it, and there’s no guarantee that your phone’s manufacturer will offer one. Inexpensive 5G models, in particular, may not see a C-band update, even if they have the hardware to support it. Phone makers need to apply for Federal Communications Commission approval to enable it and may be less likely to bother with the cost of this step for phones with a shorter lifespan.

The other factor is something that will likely happen sooner than C-band becoming available: large gatherings. That’s when Segan thinks Verizon’s Ultra Wideband could really shine. “When we’re all vaccinated, I think people are going to be desperate… for all of these dense, crowded, communal experiences that we will have been missing for a year and a half. And so Verizon should be working on applications and experiences right now like the thing they did at the Super Bowl, or what they’ve talked about doing at Disney World, that you can only do on Ultra Wideband.”

Again, that will depend on your 5G phone supporting the right kind of 5G — not every 5G phone supports mmWave. The aforementioned iPhone and Samsung flagships do, and other Verizon models that support are denoted as “UW.”

Where are our jetpacks?

And what about the stuff of CES keynotes like remote surgery and self-driving cars? That’s on the way, too, but it’ll take longer. Thelander explains: “The first focus of 5G was really a feature called ‘enhanced mobile broadband’ and that’s just getting fast data speeds to the consumer on their smartphone. Things like factory automation and the functionality behind that, that was really developed afterwards, so it lags, from a standardization perspective.”

The first focus of 5G has been to boost mobile data speeds for consumers.
Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge

Getting the technology piece sorted out is only half of the equation. “Once you’ve got a certain feature or functionality defined in a standard, now a vendor has to go out and build that functionality, then you have to test it, and then you have to have the industry adopt it,” Thelander says. “The technology may be there, the standard may be there, it may work fine, but it has to be implemented and rolled out. And you have to have the business case for it. How do you make money off of it? All those types of things… it just takes time.”

Despite networks constantly waving their “5G Mission Accomplished” banners in TV commercials over the past year, 5G is very much still a work in progress. It’s going to get better, but how soon that happens for you depends on a lot of factors: which phone you have and what bands it supports, which network you’re on, where you are, and what you’re doing. It seems clear now that there never really was a “Race to 5G” — just technological progress as usual, which is often slow, confusing, and uneven. That’s a little bit harder to sell in a keynote or a commercial.

the-best-streaming-device-to-buy-in-2021

The best streaming device to buy in 2021

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Looking for a new TV gadget to stream all of your favorite entertainment? Buying an excellent streaming device is easier in 2021 than ever before — and the prices only continue to drop and get more appealing: $50 is the sweet spot if you want a streaming stick or set-top box that can do crisp 4K resolution, Dolby Vision / HDR, and immersive Dolby Atmos surround sound. Each of the picks below has its own strengths, whether it’s a snazzier interface, better voice controls, or a more comprehensive universal search for digging through all of your services. Depending on your wants, there are several good contenders, but the Chromecast with Google TV stands out as the best streaming device for most people.

Pretty much any 4K TV you buy today will come with a batch of built-in streaming apps. But they won’t always have everything. (For example, my LG OLED doesn’t have HBO Max.) So a dedicated streaming device is the best way to guarantee you’ll be able to watch that show or movie everyone’s been talking about. You can spend less money on entry-level Roku or Amazon streaming players, but you’ll be better off with one of our recommendations if you want your purchase to last.

The features and fantastic price of the Chromecast with Google TV make it the best streaming stick for most people.
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

1. Chromecast with Google TV

The best streaming stick for most people

Google has done the best job figuring out what the home screen on a streaming stick should look like. That’s really the long and short of why the Chromecast with Google TV has taken the crown of best streaming player. With its new Google TV software, the company has taken a content-first approach that feels more focused and refined than what Amazon and Apple have managed in their own attempts to aggregate popular shows and movies.

On a Roku or Fire TV, my instinct is always to head right for the app where I want to watch something. But with the Chromecast, I’m equally happy browsing through Google’s rows of recommendations. The Google TV software always clearly shows where content is coming from — you can pick which streaming apps get factored into these recs — and it also provides helpful information (like Rotten Tomatoes ratings) at the surface level when you’re hunting for that night’s entertainment.

When you actually hit play, you’re punted over to Netflix or Prime Video or HBO Max just like always, but there’s no avoiding that. In terms of app selection, Google’s got all of the main players covered. You can still cast content to the Chromecast from your phone or laptop, and Google Assistant voice searches consistently work well and showcase Google’s accurate voice recognition.

Everything about Google TV feels tasteful, from the fonts to the way the background color subtly shifts to match the artwork of whatever content is highlighted. And the universal Watchlist, which lets you put together a list of stuff you’re interested in from various streaming services, is super convenient — especially since you can add to it from the web or your phone.

But not everything about the Chromecast with Google TV is perfect. The software can slow down from time to time, and some customers have encountered significant bugs that Google has tried to iron out with software updates. More annoyingly, despite the hardware supporting both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, there are still very popular apps like Disney Plus — which delivers both on other platforms — that aren’t doing so on the Chromecast. HBO Max says it does Atmos, but that hasn’t been my experience. Why? Who knows, but these inconsistencies are a mark against Google. And as for the Watchlist, some services like Netflix have already started removing their shows from it. Again, that’s something Google has no control over, but it does lessen the feature’s usefulness.

With its easy-to-use software, the Roku Streaming Stick Plus is the best streaming device for people looking for a good, simple option.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

2. Roku Streaming Stick Plus

The best streaming device for people who want to keep it simple

It’s hard to really complain about a Roku. The company’s streaming devices are about as simple and straightforward as they come. All of your apps are laid out in a big grid, which can make the experience feel a bit siloed — but there’s no beating that ease of use. And Roku has tried to touch up and modernize the home screen a bit with new sections like “Featured Free” to highlight content you can stream without any subscriptions.

Despite some occasional spats with content companies, Roku now has pretty much all of the entertainment you could want, including (most recently) HBO Max and Peacock. And the wonderfully neutral universal search remains one of the best aspects of the platform, favoring your existing subscriptions and free-to-stream options over making you pay money to rent or buy. And the company’s Roku Channel has grown into a legitimate streaming app of its own, offering a mix of ad-sponsored movies, TV shows, and live news for those days when you’re burned out on combing through Netflix or Amazon Prime Video.

The $50 Streaming Stick Plus remains the best overall pick among Roku’s hardware when you weigh price and performance. It gives you HDR, Dolby Atmos, and speedy performance. The main thing you’ll miss out on is Dolby Vision. If that’s a must, you should look at the $100 Roku Ultra set-top box instead, which also includes an Ethernet port for optional wired connectivity and a helpful remote finder feature. Plus, the Ultra’s remote has customizable shortcut buttons and a headphone jack so you can listen privately to whatever’s on-screen if you’re trying to keep quiet at night. (Other Rokus let you do the latter with the company’s mobile app.)

If there’s one area where Roku falls flat, it’s probably voice search. Your voice queries for specific shows or movies should work well enough, but Roku lags Amazon and Google when it comes to natural language interactions. (And forget about using your voice to control smart home gadgets or look up entertainment-related facts.) Still, the company is adding other perks to offset that weakness. Late last year, it added support for Apple’s AirPlay, letting you easily send content from an iPhone, iPad, or Mac to the TV screen. Speaking of Apple…

It’s more pricey than the competition, but the Apple TV 4K offers a top-notch user experience.
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

3. Apple TV 4K

The best streaming device overall experience (for a steep price)

The Apple TV 4K is laughably overpriced compared to its competitors, but Apple’s set-top box still has its own set of appealing qualities. The interface is fantastic. It supports Dolby Vision and Atmos across a wide variety of services, has all of the important apps checked off, and also gives you add-ons like Apple Arcade and Apple Fitness Plus (if you pay for them) that you won’t find on other streaming devices.

Apps sometimes have a higher level of polish on Apple TV and are generally better about taking advantage of everything it can do. Another benefit of the Apple TV is privacy — to some extent. Apple itself isn’t obsessed with tracking your viewing data in the same way that a company like Roku is, but the streaming apps can still see what you’re doing. I generally think consumers aren’t particularly averse to sharing their streaming habits, but Apple’s privacy practices might matter to you.

Even with AirPlay now on Roku, the Apple TV still wins out for people deeply invested in Apple’s ecosystem. You can use HomePods as its speakers or connect two sets of AirPods for private listening with audio sharing. You can view the feed from HomeKit security cameras or see who is at the door if you have a HomeKit video doorbell. The Apple TV still makes it easy to tap into content on a Mac in your home, and services like Apple Music and iCloud Photo Library are right there in easy reach on the TV screen.

But there’s no forgiving the infamous remote, which is cumbersome to use and too easy to lose. And it’s more difficult than ever to recommend that you spend $180 on hardware that’s now several years old. Doing so isn’t wrong; you’ve just got to know why the Apple TV 4K is right for you.

The Fire TV Stick 4K checks off all the boxes for HDR support and costs just $50, making it the best streaming stick for people in Amazon’s ecosystem.
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

4. Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K

The best streaming stick if you’re in Amazon’s ecosystem

Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K is yet another popular pick in that $50 range of streaming gadgets. The latest model added support for Dolby Vision, which made it the only product to offer everything HDR (Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, HDR10+, HDR10) for such little money — until the new Chromecast came along.

The Fire TV Stick 4K’s software is similar to the Chromecast in that the home screen takes a content-focused approach instead of just throwing a grid of apps at you. Amazon tends to showcase its own Prime Video content more prominently than shows and movies from other services, but the newly revamped software goes a long way in improving the look and feel of the Fire TV. Alexa voice commands with the remote also work reliably, whether you’re saying “open Netflix” or asking to dim the smart lights in your living room.

Amazon offers most major streaming apps, but there are some frustrating omissions: Vudu — a good source of Dolby Vision movies — and Peacock are both still absent from the Fire TV platform.

There’s also the $120 Fire TV Cube to consider. It essentially doubles as a streaming device and small smart speaker. Rather than make you press and hold a button to speak to Alexa like with the Stick 4K, the Cube takes a hands-free approach and has beamforming mics that respond to “Alexa” prompts just like an Echo speaker would. It also features something Amazon calls Local Voice Control, which allows it to understand more spoken commands without needing help from the cloud. The Fire TV Cube has a more powerful processor than the Fire TV Stick 4K, making it the fastest of the Fire TV bunch, but the difference isn’t very noticeable.

When it comes to their streaming capabilities, the Fire TV Stick 4K and Fire TV Cube are on equal footing. And you could always put the money you save by going with the Stick toward one of those new sphere-shaped Echo Dots, which will sound far better than the Cube’s tinny built-in speaker.

Nvidia’s Shield TV is a powerful Android TV streaming box that’s popular with home theater enthusiasts.
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

5. Nvidia Shield TV

Best streaming device for home theater enthusiasts and gamers

Home theater enthusiasts, gamers, and people who like to tinker with their streaming devices have loyally stuck with Nvidia’s Shield TV and Shield TV Pro for a reason. They can serve as excellent players like any of our other picks, but you can also go more advanced and use them for cloud gaming or set up a Plex media library (in the case of the Pro). GeForce Now and Steam Link probably do more to sell gamers on the Shield lineup versus something like Apple Arcade on the Apple TV.

The Nvidia Shields currently run Android TV with Google Assistant built in, but it’s expected they’ll eventually get the same Google TV experience that’s on the Chromecast. Nvidia’s AI-powered upscaling can eke out some extra detail from the shows and movies you stream, and I’d rate the included remote control (with backlit buttons, even) as the most ergonomic of them all.

But like with the Apple TV, the main hurdle here is the price. The Nvidia Shield TV costs $150, so you’re looking at spending $100 more than devices that offer most of the same functionality. You get Ethernet and a very powerful streaming device for the added premium, and you can push the Shield TV farther and make it do more than just about any of its competitors.

silver-sparrow-malware-discovered-on-30,000-macs-with-no-detectable-payload

Silver Sparrow Malware Discovered on 30,000 Macs with No Detectable Payload

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Red Canary security researchers announced Friday that malware they dubbed Silver Sparrow was found on nearly 30,000 macOS devices. Silver Sparrow is notable for a few reasons: it already targets Apple silicon, it‘s set to remove all traces of itself when it detects a specific file, and it doesn’t seem like it actually does anything yet.

Researchers at MalwareBytes and VMWare Carbon Black contributed to Red Canary’s findings. MalwareBytes data showed that Silver Sparrow had infected 29,139 devices in the U.S., UK, Canada, France, Germany, and 148 other countries as of February 17. The actual number of infections is probably higher; MalwareBytes isn’t omniscient.

Red Canary said it discovered two versions of Silver Sparrow. The first only targeted macOS devices featuring Intel processors, but the second expanded to include the M1 chip that Apple introduced in November 2020, which means the malware’s unidentified creators are among the first to target the company’s Arm-based silicon.

But so far, Silver Sparrow doesn’t actually deliver a payload to infected devices. The first version of the malware contained a binary that simply displayed a “Hello, World!” message; the second displayed a message saying, “You did it!” Red Canary said the binaries were likely placeholders for a payload that hasn’t arrived yet.

Silver Sparrow can run a file check that leads to the removal of “all persistence mechanisms and scripts” if it finds “~/Library/._insu” on the disk. Red Canary said that particular file “does not appear present by default on macOS and we currently don’t know the circumstances under which the file appears.”

These are common traits of sophisticated attacks that find as many devices as possible, establish a presence on those devices, and await further instructions. The missing payload can be distributed when the malware’s creators are ready, and the file check can be used to exclude specific devices from the operation.

That’s why Red Canary decided to share its findings when it did. The company said:

 “Though we haven’t observed Silver Sparrow delivering additional malicious payloads yet, its forward-looking M1 chip compatibility, global reach, relatively high infection rate, and operational maturity suggest Silver Sparrow is a reasonably serious threat, uniquely positioned to deliver a potentially impactful payload at a moment’s notice.”

Red Canary shared a list of indicators that Silver Sparrow has infected a device—version 1 or version 2 alike—in its announcement. The company also shared a few signs that aren’t specific to Silver Sparrow but could also indicate whether or not other malware is present on a given device.