Noted hardware detective @Apisak has dug up another benchmark in a public database, and this time Intel’s latest Core i5-11400H mobile Tiger Lake processor makes an appearance. Intel has officially launched the Core i5-11400H but these chips have yet to land in our labs, so this test result gives us the first taste of the new battle. It does appear that the AMD Ryzen 5 5600H, built on the Zen 3 architecture, is still faster than Intel’s latest and greatest in some types of work, but we have to take the results with a pinch of salt as we could see better performance from the Intel chip in bulkier laptop designs.
The Core i5-11400H is one of Intel’s first hexa-core CPUs to finally be built on the latest Tiger Lake architecture featuring the 10nm SuperFin node and will be a direct replacement for Comet Lake mobile Core i5 parts from Intel. The 11400H is equipped with a rather low 2.4GHz base clock but makes up for that with a respectable 4.6GHz max turbo frequency. Configurable TDPs range from 35W to 45W.
Based on the CPU-Z benchmark, the i5-11400H scores 528 points in the single-threaded test and 3301 points in the multi-threaded test.
CPU-Z Benchmark Results
Single-Threaded
Multi-Threaded
Intel Core i5-11400H
528
3301
AMD Ryzen 5 5600H
547
4228
To put these results in perspective, Intel’s new 11400H matches the single-threaded performance of AMD’s best Zen 2 CPUs like the Ryzen 7 3800XT. However, it falls short in the multi-threaded test, barely beating an old-school desktop Core i7-6800K and is strangely slower than Intel’s previous-generation Core i5-10500H by a few percentage points.
AMD’s current competitor to the Core i5 is the Ryzen 5 5600H, which weighs in with a CPU-Z score of 547 for the single-threaded score and 4228 for the multi-threaded test. That means that the Ryzen 5 5600H could be roughly ~4% faster than the Core i5-11400H in single-threaded work and ~28% faster in threaded work.
Beware that this is an early CPU-Z benchmark and we don’t know the exact specifications of each laptop used to conduct the CPU-Z tests, so take these results with a grain of salt. However, if these results are anywhere close to being accurate, then Intel still has some catching up to do, especially with AMD prepping to release the new Zen 4 architecture sometime next year.
Microsoft teased the potential for an Xbox handheld-like experience with the Surface Duo during its unveiling nearly two years ago, and it’s finally appearing today. Microsoft is updating its Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) app for Android, and it includes dual-screen support for the Surface Duo.
The app update allows Surface Duo owners to use a virtual gamepad on one screen of their device and games on the other. It makes the Surface Duo look more like a Nintendo 3DS than a mobile phone, with touch controls for a variety of games.
Microsoft has been steadily adding Xbox Touch Controls to more than 50 games in recent months, including titles like Sea of Thieves, Gears 5, and Minecraft Dungeons. The full list of touch-compatible games is available here, and you can of course just use a regular Bluetooth or Xbox controller to stream games to the Surface Duo.
Microsoft is turning its Surface Duo into a handheld Xbox today. The latest app update for Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) let’s you use one screen for touch controls and the other for the game. It’s like a Nintendo 3DS with Xbox games. Details here: https://t.co/ubbsEAW3r8 pic.twitter.com/aP94t9xgzC
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) May 24, 2021
The benefits of a dual-screen device for this type of mobile experience are obvious. You no longer have touch controls over the top of the game, and your thumbs don’t get in the way of seeing important action on-screen. If dual-screen or foldable devices ever catch on, this is a far superior way to play Xbox games without a dedicated controller.
Microsoft has also tweaked the rest of the Xbox Cloud Gaming to work better on the Surface Duo. Improvements include making it easier to view content, move through menus, and the addition of columned layouts. The updated app is available now in Google Play Store.
(Pocket-lint) – Lockdowns around the world led to a boom in indoor cycling, with training and virtual racing taking off. For many this has meant buying a smart turbo trainer – such as the excellent Wahoo Kickr or Tacx Neo 2T Smart – and hooking your bike up to it before riding off into the virtual sunset.
However, if you have the space and the money there’s another option: the indoor smart bike. This is where the Wattbike Atom – here the 2020 model, described as the ‘Next Generation’ product by the maker – comes into play. But, at 10 times to price of a ‘dumb’ exercise bike, is it worth the outlay?
Much like mobile phones, there’s a big difference between budget and flagship. The Wattbike Atom 2020 uses top-of-the-range internal components, while it looks like a thing of relative beauty compared to a clunky budget spin bike. But more important than that, it’s designed to integrate seamlessly with third-party apps such as Zwift to allow training, social riding and racing in the virtual world.
So how does the Wattbike Atom ‘Next-Generation’ stack up in the world of dedicated indoor trainers?
Design & Setup
Footprint: 1.24 x 0.5m (4′ x 1’7″) / Weight: 40kg (88lbs)
Connectivity: Bluetooth, ANT+, FTMS
This is the second-generation Atom, arriving 3 years after Wattbike’s first foray into the smart bike home market. Out of the box the Atom is pretty much ready to go, which is not the case for its competitors that require a larger degree of assembly.
Pocket-lint
The only things you need to do are attach the pedals – a flat pair are included, but you’ll most likely be installing your own – clip in the aerobars (which double as a tablet holder) and, if you’re so inclined, add the aerobar resting pads. Once you’ve heaved it into position (it’s very heavy, but has two small carriage wheels at the front which are helpful when you need to move it), you’ll need to fit the bike to your geometry.
Anyone who’s had a professional bike fit will be a step ahead of the game here, but Wattbike’s website will take you through what you need to do if you haven’t. The saddle and handlebar height and forward/backward position are fully adjustable, as is the tilt of the saddle, meaning that the vast majority of riders will be able to replicate their road bike position.
However, it’s not possible to adjust the crank length at all, so you’re stuck with 170mm – which for most people won’t be a major issue, but it won’t please everyone (as typical setups are usually 172.5mm or 175mm – both of which you can match on the Tacx Neo Bike Smart, for example).
As we’ve already mentioned, the Wattbike Atom comes complete with aerobars that double as a tablet holder. They’re fairly rudimentary, but they provide a snug fit for your tablet and there’s no worry that it’s going to slide out mid ride.
Pocket-lint
Rather frustratingly, there is no USB port at the front of the bike to be able to plug your screen into though, which is an annoying oversight on Wattbike’s part and means you end up trailing an extension socket to the front of the bike when you need a power boost.
On the frame there are two water bottle cages, which is practical given how hot riding indoors can get.
Under the hood
Resistance: electromagnetic
Gears: 22
The mechanics of the Wattbike Atom are where the major upgrades over the previous version have happened. In particular the electromagnetic drivetrain that allows for super-quick gear changes and smoother variations in resistance to simulate climbing/descending or interval training.
Linked to this are the electronic gear shifters that you press to simulate changing gear by changing the resistance to the motor. The gear shifters are battery operated by a coin cell, which of course means you’ll have to change these periodically, but more irritatingly it means they don’t offer any vibrating feedback when you change gear – which we felt would have improved the overall experience.
Pocket-lint
Coupled to this, there is no way of telling which gear you’re in when you’re on the bike – except in compatible apps, of which there are few – and an LED display of this would be useful.
All in all, it feels as though there have been some compromises made with the gear system, perhaps as a consequence of trying to achieve the relatively low price point of the Next Generation Atom. Go up the ranks to the priciest-of-the-lot Wahoo Kickr Bike and you get a much more true-to-life (well, Shimano) gear shifter setup.
On the (virtual) road
Maximum power: 2500W
Power accuracy: +/-1%
Our time on the Atom started well. Wattbike provided us an iPad with Zwift, Sufferfest and the Wattbike app all preinstalled and ready to go – and we found our first ride on Zwift, a gentle noodle around Watopia, to be as smooth as we would hope. The Bluetooth setup worked flawlessly.
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The resistance changes as we hit the slopes felt good, gear changes were near instantaneous, and there was a useful gear indicator shown in the top corner of the Zwift screen. Similarly, we found Wattbike’s own app to be seamless, providing a range of interesting and helpful data on pedalling dynamics, as well as a range of interval training workouts.
Pocket-lint
The power data was accurate and consistent when we compared it to our Garmin Vector 3 pedals, as was the cadence.
But the Atom isn’t a bike for gently cruising around the great indoors on, it’s a thoroughbred racing machine, so we decided to put it through its paces in a Zwift race. As you might expect, race conditions expose the differences between the Atom and the turbo trainer/bike setup that we’re used to using.
The first thing we noticed was that finding the correct gear was not as intuitive or easy as we would have liked, particularly in situations where you might want to drop a few gears in quick succession. That lack of feedback from the button press gear changers is noticeable.
Pocket-lint
There is an option to change from the standard 22 gear set up to 11 gears, but rather than recreating a well mapped out 1×11 set up, the Atom just gives you every other gear from the 22 gear set up. This is disappointing, as is the fact that you can’t customise the gears through Wattbike’s app to create your own ratios – we would like to see Wattbike make customisation an option through firmware update.
The other thing that became more obvious as we pushed the bike hard was that it’s rock-solid stability was, well, rather too rock solid in some ways. The bike was literally rooted to the spot and, try as we might, it didn’t offer even the slightest feedback during all out sprints. On the one hand this is reassuring – we don’t want to be wobbling or worrying about stability during a race – but on the other, many riders want a little side-to-side movement to give a more realistic ride feel, to relieve fatigue, and to avoid a numb rear!
To some extent this is about personal preference, but we found that this rigidity made the Wattbike Atom better suited for jumping on and doing a 30 minute or hour-long interval session, rather than anything longer. A bit like a spin bike session, really.
Furthermore, we found that the Wattbike wasn’t quite as quiet as we had expected. Compared to the whisper quiet high-end turbo trainers we’ve tested, the Atom is definitely a little more noisy, giving a similar level of hum as a washing machine on a mid-speed spin.
Pocket-lint
Another niggle that that we found with the Atom – and this must be a huge frustration for Wattbike – is its integration with third-party apps. When we linked the bike up to our own Zwift account on our laptop, rather than using Wattbike’s pre-loaded iPad version, the Bluetooth kept dropping out, meaning we’d repeatedly lose power for 20-30 seconds every few minutes. Then something went very wrong and the bike wouldn’t connect properly to anything on the laptop or the iPad, which was only solved when we reinstalled the Wattbike app on a third device.
When speaking to the people at Wattbike about this they explained that resolving these problems is a priority, but they are also reliant on the app developers to work with them to do this. So it should happen, but it’s a bit of a waiting game.
From then on we stuck to using the iPad, but still some minor issues remained. Using both the Trainer Road and Sufferfest apps, we found that at the beginning of each interval the Atom would “surge” – demanding more watts from us for a couple of seconds, then drop below the target, before it started to stabilise. This same effect happened when riding in Road Grand Tours, with the start of every incline feeling tougher than it should, which, combined with the slightly difficult-to-master gear shifting, could be frustrating.
Verdict
At first glance the idea of paying the price of a mid-level road bike for one that goes nowhere might seem a little indulgent, but the market for this technology is growing, and Wattbike has put out a really solid offering at a price point quite a bit below the competition.
This means there are a few compromises – but nothing that would stop us seriously considering the Atom from a hardware point of view. There are some software integration issues with third-party apps, though, which we’ve found frustrating.
Overall, the smart bike market is continuing to grow and evolve. Some people may think that a smart turbo trainer is still the better option for indoor training at the moment, whereas others will see the benefits of a dedicated training bike like this one.
Wattbike has created a good offering in the Atom and it’s priced a fair bit less than the key competition, which certainly makes it a contender if you want to take this next step in your indoor training.
Also consider
Pocket-lint
Tacx Neo Bike Smart
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The Tacx Neo Bike Smart is an obvious rival to the Wattbike Atom. It’s more expensive, and you’ll encounter similar shifting and rigidity issues with it. But third-party software integration is no problem at all, which makes it a more stable offering.
In the US, COVID-19 vaccines are free, but it turns out that money is still a big barrier to vaccination.
See, even though the vaccines don’t cost a thing, it still takes time to go and get a shot and potentially recover from any side effects. For working adults, that may mean taking time off work — and that isn’t something that everyone can afford to do.
Black and Hispanic people are particularly concerned about the tradeoff between missing work and getting the vaccine, according to new results from research published by the Kaiser Family Foundation this week. People in both demographics are more likely than their white counterparts to work lower-paying jobs, which may not offer as much paid leave for things like illness.
Those results provide a pretty clear way forward for pushing the vaccination rate up. If businesses want their employees to get vaccinated, they should pay them for it. Or states can require businesses to provide paid leave — like New York, which now guarantees employees up to four hours paid leave to get vaccinated.
Employees, unsurprisingly, like this idea. Among unvaccinated employed adults, a decent percentage of people said they’d be more likely to get a vaccine if their employer offered a bonus or paid time off. Some also said they’d be more likely to get the vaccine if employers brought the vaccine to work. These methods would especially be effective among Hispanic employees, the researchers found.
That’s a vitally important demographic for public health workers to reach. People who identify as Hispanic or Latino are three times more likely to be hospitalized compared to white, non-Hispanic people, according to the CDC. They are more than twice as likely to die of the disease.
Now, some companies are already offering incentives, handing out vaccine bonuses, and bringing in mobile clinics for their employees. That’s great, and similar efforts, whether by private companies, community groups, or governments, could actually make a difference in getting people in the US vaccinated.
The pace of vaccinations has slowed down, as most people who really want a vaccine already have at least one dose. That leaves people who either really don’t want a vaccine, and the ones that are stuck in a “wait and see” limbo. Overall, the number of people who are in the “wait and see” category has shrunk since December, when the first vaccines started to be delivered in the US. It now stands at about 15 percent.
Reaching that 15 percent could help the US get a whole lot closer to its goal of having 70 percent of its population vaccinated by July 4th — an achievement that could ward off future surges of COVID-19, health experts say.
That means reaching people where they are is now even more important, even if where they are right now is hard at work.
Here’s what else is happening this week.
PS(A): Just to re-emphasize this: the vaccines are free. If you have been charged for a vaccine, the government would really like to know about it. If you are charged, you should be able to get that money back.
Research
New coronavirus detected in patients at Malaysian hospital; the source may be dogs In 2017 and 2018, a virus was detected in some pneumonia patients in a Malaysian hospital. It appears now that this might be a new coronavirus that spent time in dogs. This virus is not classified as a human pathogen yet, but researchers are keeping an eye on this coronavirus, and others that might emerge around the world. (Michaeleen Doucleff / NPR)
Numbers won’t tell us when the pandemic is over This pandemic has been messy, and its end will be too. As we learn to live with the disease and vaccinations increase, our relationship to the virus will gradually change too. Here’s how. (Nicole Wetsman / The Verge)
Mix-and-match COVID vaccines trigger potent immune response It doesn’t happen often, but some people have gotten two doses of different vaccines. Now, early results from a study shown that these mix-and-match cases can still produce a strong immune response. (Ewen Callaway / Nature)
Development
People are uncomfortable with digital health tools used to control COVID-19 Tech tools have been touted as a way to control the pandemic, but a recent study found that a lot of people are still uncomfortable with their personal data being used for public health.(Nicole Wetsman / The Verge)
Vaccine waivers alone can’t solve India’s vaccine crisis You might have heard a lot about vaccine waivers lately. Here’s a look at why they aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution to India’s current crisis. (Sawgata Yadavar / The Verge)
NY launches ‘Vax & Scratch’ lottery, $5 million prize for COVID vaccine takers Ohio started it. After the midwestern state started a lottery for people vaccinated in the state, offering a chance at a million dollars every week for five weeks, the state saw its vaccination rates soar by 53 percent. Now, New York is trying its own version. (Jen Chung / Gothamist)
Perspectives
Other people in their 70s can get a vaccine passport, but I may not be able to. And I do not know how long I am protected for.
—Journalist Francis Beckett writes for The Guardianabout the limbo he and other participants in the Novavax trials find themselves in. The vaccine is not yet approved or authorized.
Zero patients with #COVID19 at San Francisco General Hospital today.
For first time since March 5th 2020, over 14 months ago.
Overwhelming gratitude to the physicians, nurses, & staff of SF General for their incredible, tireless work that has undoubtedly saved countless lives.
— Matt Haney (@MattHaneySF) May 20, 2021
Kristen Hawley pulled up to the airport terminal, and Dwight Borden leaped into the passenger seat of her Toyota Scion. They threw their arms around each other and held on for so long, people in the cars behind them started honking. Neither of them cared.
“They can wait a second; they can drive around us,” Borden thought. “This is our minute.”
—One poignant story from The Washington Post’s touchingmultimedia display of reunions.
More than numbers
To the people who have received the 1.6 billion vaccine doses distributed so far — thank you.
To the more than 165,705,287 people worldwide who have tested positive, may your road to recovery be smooth.
To the families and friends of the 3,434,082 people who have died worldwide — 589,096 of those in the US — your loved ones are not forgotten.
Android has been around for over a decade at this point and has grown tremendously during that time. Google’s mobile operating system has now set a new record, with Android being used on over 3 billion active devices.
Since Android is open source, smartphone makers have been free to adopt it and even make changes to help differentiate their devices. This has been a successful approach, with the vast majority of major smartphone makers using Android instead of their own custom operating system.
Back in 2014, Google reached 1 billion active Android devices for the first time and by 2019, that number had grown to 2.5 billion. Now, the number of active Android devices has surpassed the 3 billion milestone.
Google I/O returned this week after a break in 2020. During the event, Google’s Vice President of Product Management, Sameer Samat, announced the new milestone. With three billion devices actively used, Android’s user base now dwarfs Apple’s iOS platform, which has an active device base of 1 billion as of this year.
Breaking down the numbers, this means that an additional 500 million Android devices have been activated since 2019 and 1 billion since 2017.
KitGuru Says: Android has come a long way over the years. What was the first Android device that you owned?
After ‘Z Roll’, Samsung also files a European trademark for the name ‘Z Slide’ Are there multiple rollable / slider smartphones from Samsung on the way?
Samsung Electronics successfully introduced the Galaxy Z Fold 2 and Galaxy Z Flip foldable smartphones last year. Meanwhile, the South Korean manufacturer seems to be preparing for the arrival of a new type of smartphone, one with a retractable screen. Three days ago, LetsGoDigital unveiled a European trademark for the name “Samsung Z Roll“, presumably meant for the first Samsung smartphone with a rollable display. Perhaps it is a slideable smartphone such as Samsung Display showed earlier this week, we concluded at the time.
In the mean time, new information has been released as the South Korean manufacturer has filed another trademark with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO).
Samsung Galaxy Z Slide smartphone
On May 21, 2021, Samsung Electronics filed a trademark with the EUIPO for the name “Z Slide”. The application is categorized as Class 9 and comes with the same description as “Z Roll”.
Samsung Z Slide trademark description: ‘Smartphones; mobile telephones; tablet computers; telecommunication apparatus; electronic pens for smartphones and tablet computers’.
The description also makes mention of the S Pen. It is expected that the Galaxy Z Fold 3 will be Samsung’s first foldable smartphone to offer S Pen support. Samsung is probably planning to release more foldable, bendable and slideable models met S Pen support in the future.
The names Samsung Galaxy Z Slide and Z Roll are very close to each other. “Roll” stands for rollable, while “Slide” implies that it is a slideable smartphone with a rollable display. For the time being, it remains unclear whether Samsung refers to one and the same device with these names or whether the company has several new smartphone models in development.
Samsung Electronics may have simply not yet determined the final name. Personally, however, I have my doubts about this. The company is not known for applying multiple trademarks for one and the same product – unlike some other brands, such as LG Electronics. Almost all of Samsung’s trademarks result in an end product.
One of the possibilities is that, in addition to a horizontal slider display, Samsung Electronics is also working on a model with a vertical slider screen. Thus, the same differentiation can be made between “Z Roll” and “Z Slide” as between the “Z Fold” and “Z Flip” devices. The company has already filed several patents for such a type of slider smartphone.
Here you can take a look at the application for Samsung Z Slide.
Ilse is a Dutch journalist and joined LetsGoDigital more than 15 years ago. She is highly educated and speaks four languages. Ilse is a true tech-girl and loves to write about the future of consumer electronics. She has a special interest for smartphones, digital cameras, gaming and VR.
Solid-state drives have a number of advantages when compared to hard drives, which include performance, dimensions, and reliability. Yet, for quite a while, HDDs offered a better balance between capacity, performance, and cost, which is why they outsold SSDs in terms of unit sales. Things have certainly changed for client PCs as 60% of new computers sold in Q1 2021 used SSDs instead of HDDs. That said, it’s not surprising that SSDs outsold HDDs almost 3:2 in the first quarter in terms of unit sales as, in 2020, SSDs outsold hard drives (by units not GBs), by 28 perecent.
Unit Sales: SSDs Win 3:2
Three makers of hard drives shipped as many as 64.17 million HDDs in Q1 2021, according to Trendfocus. Meanwhile, less than a dozen SSD suppliers, including those featured in our list of best SSDs, shipped 99.438 million solid-state drives in the first quarter, the same company claims (via StorageNewsletter).
(Image credit: Trendfocus/StorageNewsletter)
Keeping in mind that many modern notebooks cannot accommodate a hard drive (and many desktops are shipped with an SSD by default), it is not particularly surprising that sales of SSDs are high. Furthermore, nowadays users want their PCs to be very responsive and that more or less requires an SSD. All in all, the majority of new PCs use SSDs as boot drives, some are also equipped with hard drives and much fewer use HDDs as boot drives.
Exabyte Sales: HDDs Win 4.5:1
But while many modern PCs do not host a lot of data, NAS, on-prem servers, and cloud datacenters do and this is where high-capacity NAS and nearline HDDs come into play. These hard drives can store up to 18TB of data and an average capacity of a 3.5-inch enterprise/nearline HDD is about 12TB these days nowadays. Thus, HDD sales in terms of exabytes vastly exceed those of SSDs (288.3EB vs 61.5EB).
Meanwhile, it should be noted that the vast majority of datacenters use SSDs for caching and HDDs for bulk storage, so it is impossible to build a datacenter purely based on solid-state storage (3D NAND) or hard drives.
Anyhow, as far as exabytes shipments are concerned, HDDs win. Total capacity of hard drives shipped in the first quarter 2021 was 288.28 EB, whereas SSDs sold in Q1 could store ‘only’ 66 EB s of data.
Since adoption of SSDs both by clients and servers is increasing, dollar sales of solid-state drives are strong too. Research and Markets values SSD market in 2020 at $34.86 billion and forecasts that it will total $80.34 billion by 2026. To put the numbers into context, Gartner estimated sales of HDDs to reach $20.7 billion in 2020 and expected them to grow to $22.6 billion in 2022.
Samsung Leads the Pack
(Image credit: Trendfocus/StorageNewsletter)
When it comes to SSD market frontrunners, Samsung is an indisputable champion both in terms of unit and exabytes shipments. Samsung sold its HDD division to Seagate in 2011, a rather surprising move then. Yet, the rationale behind the move has always been there for the company that is the No. 1 supplier of NAND flash memory. Today, the move looks obvious.
Right now, Samsung challenges other SSD makers both in terms of unit (a 25.3% market share) and exabyte (a 34.3% chunk of the market) shipments. Such results are logical to expect as the company sells loads of drives to PC OEMs, and high-capacity drives to server makers and cloud giants.
Still, not everything is rosy for the SSD market in general and Samsung in particular due to shortage of SSD controllers. The company had to shut down its chip manufacturing facility that produces its SSD and NAND controllers in Austin, Texas, earlier this year, which forced it to consider outsourcing of such components. Potentially, shortage of may affect sales of SSDs by Samsung and other companies.
“Shortages of controllers and other NAND sub-components are causing supply chain uncertainty, putting upwards pressure on ASPs,” said Walt Coon, VP of NAND and Memory Research at Yole Développement. “The recent shutdown of Samsung’s manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas, USA, which manufactures NAND controllers for its SSDs, further amplifies this situation and will likely accelerate the NAND pricing recovery, particularly in the PC SSD and mobile markets, where impacts from the controller shortages are most pronounced.”
Storage Bosses Still Lead the Game
(Image credit: Trendfocus/StorageNewsletter)
Western Digital follows Samsung in terms of SSD units (18.2%) and capacity (15.8%) share to a large degree because it sells loads of drives for applications previously served by HDDs and (perhaps we are speculating here) mission-critical hard drives supplied by Western Digital, HGST (as well as Hitachi and IBM before that).
The number three SSD supplier is Kioxia (formerly Toshiba Memory) with a 13.3% unit market share and a 9.4% exabyte market share, according to TrendFocus. Kioxia has inherited many shipment contracts (particularly in the business/mission-critical space) from Toshiba. Kioxia’s unit shipments (a 13.3% market share) are way lower when compared to those of its partner Western Digital (to some degree because the company is more aimed at the spot 3D NAND and retail SSD markets).
Being aimed primarily at high-capacity server and workstation applications, Intel is the number three SSD supplier in terms of capacity with an 11.5% market share, but when it comes to unit sales, Intel controls only 5% of the market. This situation is not particularly unexpected as Intel has always positioned its storage business as a part of its datacenter platform division, which is why the company has always been focused on high-capacity NAND ICs (unlike its former partner Micron) for advanced server-grade SSDs.
Speaking of Micron, its SSD unit market share is at an 8.4%, whereas its exabytes share is at 7.9%, which is an indicator that the company is balancing between the client and enterprise. SK Hynix also ships quite a lot of consumer drives (an 11.8% market share), but quite some higher-end enterprise-grade SSDs (as its exabytes share is 9.1%).
Seagate is perhaps one exception — among the historical storage bosses — that controls a 0.7% of the exabyte SSD market and only 0.3% of unit shipments. The company serves its loyal clientele and has yet to gain significant share in the SSD market.
Branded Client SSDs
One interesting thing about the SSD market is that while there are loads of consumer-oriented brands that sell flash-powered drives, they do not control a significant part of the market either in terms of units nor in terms of exabytes, according to Trendfocus.
Companies like Kingston, Lite-On, and a number of others make it to the headlines, yet in terms of volume, they control about 18% of the market, a significant, but not a definitive chunk. In terms of exabytes, their share is about 11.3%, which is quite high considering the fact that most of their drives are aimed at client PCs.
Summary
Client storage is going solid state in terms of unit shipments due to performance, dimensions, and power reasons. Datacenters continue to adopt SSDs for caching as well as business and mission-critical applications.
Being the largest supplier of 3D NAND (V-NAND in Samsung’s nomenclature), Samsung continues to be the leading supplier of SSDs both in terms of volumes and in terms of capacity shipments. Meanwhile, shortage of SSD controllers may have an impact on the company’s SSD sales.
Based on current trends, SSDs are set to continue taking unit market share from HDDs. Yet hard drives are not set to give up bulk storage.
Microsoft is outlining its vision for the future of meetings today. After a year that’s seen more people dialing into the office remotely, the company is once again banging the drum for hybrid work: a model that combines remote access with in-person work.
While the company has been teasing new concepts for Microsoft Teams in recent months, it’s now starting to bring to life an updated interface for the communications software that will help blend remote colleagues into physical meeting rooms.
A new video details Microsoft’s plans, which include larger screens that help facilitate face-to-face meetings with life-sized remote colleagues. Microsoft imagines meeting rooms where cameras are placed at eye level to improve eye contact, and spatial audio that will help you hear colleagues’ voices when they’re dialed in. This spatial audio will also supposedly make it feel like a remote colleague is more present in a room.
A new Microsoft Teams interface for remote meetings.Image: Microsoft
This meeting room of the future looks like it’ll require a lot of hardware, though. Customers will need new intelligent video cameras that can detect who’s talking and bring them into view, speakers capable of spatial audio, and even microphones embedded into the ceilings. Microsoft itself might deliver some of this hardware: the company started selling Intelligent Speakers for Teams recently, which will help bring this future meeting room scenario to life.
This meeting room of the future is all part of a broader push by Microsoft to get ready for what it sees as a hybrid approach to work, where more employees will be working remotely or dipping in and out of the office.
“Hybrid work represents the biggest shift to how we work in our generation,” says Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, in a LinkedIn post outlining the company’s approach. “And it will require a new operating model, spanning people, places, and processes.” Microsoft is releasing a playbook for businesses looking to adopt a hybrid model, with data and research it has conducted during the pandemic.
Microsoft has been gradually opening up its campus in Redmond, Washington in recent months, and remote meetings have become a big focus point. “In fact, at Microsoft, meeting recordings are the fastest-growing content type,” reveals Nadella. “Employees now expect all meeting information — whether that’s recordings, transcripts, or highlights — to be available on demand, and on double speed, at a time that works for them.”
Microsoft’s meeting rooms of the future will require more hardware.
The push toward hybrid work also opens up security challenges for organizations. Microsoft is embracing this new era by removing its own employees from corporate networks and taking an internet-first approach instead. That means ditching the old era of corporate domains and intranets you need VPNs for and having all data in the cloud. Of course, Microsoft also happens to own Azure, so that makes it both easier for the company to switch and an incentive to promote its cloud business. For other businesses, it’s not always an easy task to embrace the cloud fully.
Microsoft is also asking its own employees who work from home to “run a test of their home networks to ensure they are secure,” and requiring that every mobile device that accesses corporate information is managed. We’ve seen a variety of ransomware attacks and increases in phishing attempts during the pandemic, and Microsoft says the threats keep on increasing.
“The threat landscape has never been more complex or challenging, and security has never been more critical,” explains Nadella. “We intercepted and thwarted a record 30 billion email threats last year and are currently tracking 40-plus active nation-state actors and over 140 threat groups.”
Microsoft is finally adding a dark mode to its Office app for Android. While the Office app has been available on iOS and Android for more than a year, only the iOS version has included built-in dark mode support until now.
“It’s been a highly requested feature by many of our customers,” admits Sourab Nagpal, a product manager at Microsoft. “Many people prefer using Dark Mode as they find it provides a more comfortable visual experience for reading and working on mobile devices.”
The latest Office app for Android will now automatically enable dark mode if you’ve set that as a system preference on your Android device. Dark mode can also be toggled from the home tab in the Office app. Microsoft says it’s rolling out dark mode for Office on Android over the coming weeks, so it might not appear for all users instantly.
Microsoft’s Office app for Android combines Word, Excel, and PowerPoint into a single application. It also includes quick actions like scanning PDFs, or even capturing whiteboards, text, and tables into digital versions. You can download Microsoft’s Office app for Android from the Google Play Store.
Snap’s new Spectacles glasses are its most ambitious yet. But there’s a big catch: you can’t buy them.
On Thursday, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel unveiled the company’s first true augmented reality glasses, technology that he and rivals like Facebook think will one day be as ubiquitous as mobile phones. A demo showed virtual butterflies fluttering over colorful plants and landing in Spiegel’s extended hand.
The new Spectacles have dual waveguide displays capable of superimposing AR effects made with Snapchat’s software tools. The frame features four built-in microphones, two stereo speakers, and a built-in touchpad. Front-facing cameras help the glasses detect objects and surfaces you’re looking at so that graphics more naturally interact with the world around you.
These Spectacles, however, aren’t ready for the mass market. Unlike past models, Snap isn’t selling them. Instead, it’s giving them directly to an undisclosed number of AR effects creators through an application program online. (Another indication they aren’t ready for everyday use: the battery only lasts 30 minutes.)
The idea is to encourage a small portion of the 200,000 people who already make AR effects in Snapchat to experiment with creating experiences for the new Spectacles, according to Spiegel. Like the bright yellow vending machines Snap used to sell the first version of Spectacles several years ago, the approach could end up being a clever way to build buzz for the glasses ahead of their wide release. Spiegel has said that AR glasses will take roughly a decade to reach mainstream adoption.
“I don’t believe the phone is going away,” he told The Verge in an interview this week. “I just think that the next generation of Spectacles can help unlock a new way to use AR hands-free, and the ability to really roam around with your eyes looking up at the horizon, out at the world.”
The first two generations of Spectacles, released in 2016 and 2018, looked like sunglasses with a single camera in the corner of the frame. They let you snap videos (and later photos) in a unique, spherical format that could then be transferred to your phone and posted to Snapchat or another social network.
Above: Snap’s new fourth-generation Spectacles. Lower: the Spectacles in their case, and a side-view showing their touch panel. Images: Snap
Snap, which calls itself a camera company, started moving more toward AR in 2019 with the launch of its third-generation Spectacles. That model added a second camera to detect depth in videos, allowing for more advanced effects to be applied afterward. But they lacked displays. You had to shoot a video, import it to Snapchat, and then apply AR effects — which Snap calls Lenses — later.
The new fourth generation of Spectacles come from a secretive hardware division of the company called Snap Lab, which is also working on a camera drone. They weigh 134 grams, more than double the weight of the previous version but far less than Microsoft’s Hololens AR headset. They’re designed to be worn indoors or outdoors with up to 2,000 nits of display brightness, a tradeoff the company clearly made to favor display richness at the expense of battery life.
Two front-facing cameras use the software Snap built for its mobile phone Lenses to automatically detect physical surfaces and place effects in a way that doesn’t obstruct the real world. Two stereo speakers capture audio and allow for the wearer to control them by voice. A touchpad on the side of the frame operates an interface in the displays that Snap calls the Lens Carousel, allowing the wearer to switch AR effects they’re seeing.
Above: two images show AR effects as seen through the new glasses. Lower: the lens carousel interface lets you select different AR effects. Images: Snap
The new Spectacles were announced Thursday at Snap’s virtual Partner Summit for developers, where the company previewed a number of new augmented reality features for Snapchat. Its AR clothing try-on tech can now handle watches and glasses, and businesses will be able to more easily add AR versions of their online catalogs for Snapchat’s 500 million monthly users to try and purchase.
A new feature, called Connected Lenses, allows multiple people to see and interact with the same scene in AR. Snap is also launching an AR “innovation lab” called Ghost and is committing $3.5 million to support creators making effects, with another $1 million in funding with Verizon to fund AR experiences used over 5G.
While Snap is known primarily for the Snapchat app now, these Spectacles indicate how the company’s ambition is to be a major player in the race to build AR glasses. Facebook, Apple, and other tech giants are currently working on their competing devices. Facebook plans to debut its own pair of smart glasses in partnership with RayBan later this year, though they won’t feature AR displays.
According to Spiegel, head-worn devices like these new Spectacles will create a big shift in how we interact with computers. While Snap is betting that millions of people will eventually want to wear Spectacles, the company is content for now to build in public alongside its creators.
“You have to invent a whole new way of interacting with computing when it’s volumetric and integrated with the space around you,” Spiegel said. “So I don’t see Snapchat transitioning to wearables that directly, but one of the things that’s really fun is to think about what the new interaction paradigms can look like.”
Its ambition is to be applauded, but Deezer falls between the two stools of Spotify and Tidal and struggles to justify itself over either
For
Vast catalogue and device support
CD-quality HiFi tier
Envelope-pushing 3D audio
Against
No hi-res streaming
Spotify does discovery better
Tidal does hi-fi better
Deezer appears to be stuck with a bit of an identity crisis. When we first reviewed the music streaming service in 2015, it clearly saw itself as a Spotify rival, bringing a vast library of music to a mainstream audience as efficiently as possible.
By the time of our re-review, in early 2018, Deezer had begun courting the hi-fi crowd with a comprehensive catalogue of CD-quality tracks and murmurings of hi-res MQA support to come.
In 2020, with hi-res yet to appear on the platform, Deezer hopped into bed with Sony and started offering 360 Reality Audio streaming to subscribers to its HiFi tier.
And now here we are in 2021 and 16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC files (ie. CD quality) is still the pinnacle of Deezer’s HiFi offering. Yes, it is a solid step up from the 128kbps MP3 files of “standard streaming services”, but those are now few and far between. As both Apple (with Apple Music Lossless) and Spotify (with Spotify HiFi) become well and truly embroiled in a hi-res music war and Amazon Music quietly drops its premium tier by £5 per month to just £7.99 if you’re a Prime Member, where does that leave Deezer?
Clearly, the French streaming service is trying its best to find a USP, and that’s to be applauded, but the result is that it falls short of matching Spotify’s mainstream appeal and Tidal’s hi-fi credentials.
Features
(Image credit: Apple / Deezer)
While Spotify held on resolutely to its compressed music streams until its 2021 HiFi tier announcement, Deezer has offered ‘CD quality’ tracks in the 16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC format since 2017.
These tracks are available to those who subscribe to the £14.99 ($14.99) per-month HiFi tier – which used to cost £19.99 until roughly a year ago – and while initially you also needed to own one of a handful of specific devices, they can now be enjoyed on almost any device that supports the core Deezer experience. In fact, Deezer now comes pre-loaded in kit such as Mobee-K’s new smart USB-C headphones while Apple’s own HomePod and HomePod Mini support Deezer voice control, and Deezer tracks can be downloaded to enjoy offline on your Apple watch, too.
It once looked likely that Deezer would add hi-res streaming to its repertoire, but the company has since decided to go down the 360 Reality Audio route. Think of this as a Dolby Atmos rival but specifically for streamed music, and you’ve got the idea.
Deezer was the first music streaming service to offer 360 Reality Audio, but it has since been joined by Tidal, Amazon Music HD and nugs.net (for the uninitiated, that is a streaming service dedicated to live concerts). Back to Deezer and the tracks available in the format are included as part of its HiFi subscription. You will need to download a different app, called 360 by Deezer, if you want to listen to them all, but this extra app also gives access to all of the non-360 tracks of the standard app so you don’t have to constantly switch between the two.
The bad news is that 360 by Deezer is only available on iOS and Android devices. There are eight playlists, including ‘New on 360 by Deezer’ that can be enjoyed on a computer or hi-fi via the desktop app as teasers – but not the full package.
Pricing
(Image credit: Apple / Deezer)
Below Deezer HiFi there are three tiers. Premium (£9.99/$9.99 per month) shares features with HiFi – no ads, unlimited streaming and control on mobile apps, and offline access – but limits sound quality to 320kbps.
Deezer Family (£14.99/$14.99 per month) gets you everything on Premium for up to six profiles. There’s also a free, ad-supported tier with 128kbps streaming and limited mobile app use.
Compatibility
(Image credit: Apple / Deezer)
As well as smartphones and computers, the Deezer app is also available on many other devices: TVs from the likes of Samsung, Sony and LG; wireless speakers by Sonos, Amazon, Bluesound and Bose; and even cars via Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. And that’s far from an exhaustive list.
What’s more, Chromecast and AirPlay allow you to send tunes to yet more devices. Deezer might not quite match Spotify’s ubiquity (it’s missing from Cambridge Audio’s streamers, for example), but it’s close.
Regardless of the device used, subscribers can access a catalogue of over 56 million songs, more than 52 million of which it claims are in the CD-quality FLAC format. It’s an impressive figure, but with all music streaming services making similarly huge claims, the numbers game is rendered a little academic.
What matters is whether the tracks you’re looking for are available and, in our experience, Deezer produces the fewest blanks after Spotify. It’s very rare to find a song in Spotify’s catalogue that isn’t also available in Deezer’s – and usually in that higher-quality format. One nil to Deezer.
We find Deezer stocks pretty much every track of the diverse range we search for, and all in CD quality too. Just be aware that, unlike Apple Music and Tidal, Deezer doesn’t have artist or album window ‘exclusives’, although it does occasionally release its own live sessions with big artists.
Ease of use
(Image credit: Apple / Deezer)
As HiFi subscribers, we mostly use the desktop and iOS mobile apps, and the ability to flick from one to the other is made easy by the fact each platform offers a very similar interface.
Deezer’s appearance is perhaps best described as stripped-back – almost brutally so. The interface is clean and clear, but also a bit bare, particularly on desktop. Music streaming services are generally similar in layout, with a bottom playback bar and a few left-hand side tabs bordering the centralised chunk of content – and Deezer doesn’t stray too far from this template.
Since our last review update, things have been slightly tweaked. ‘Home’ has been replaced by ‘Music’, although it does the same job as before: presenting users with personalised playlists as well as the opportunity to browse music by charts, new releases, popularity and various moods. Radio stations still appear at the bottom of this page, but podcasts now have their own tab.
‘Favorites’ has replaced ‘My music’, but again, the purpose is unchanged: it’s a gateway to your saved playlists and ‘favourite’ tracks, albums and podcasts.
Performance
(Image credit: Apple / Deezer)
We play the What Hi-Fi? January 2021 playlist, and are pleased to hear Deezer HiFi (CD-quality) streams are clear, full-bodied and, perhaps most importantly, an upgrade from the ‘Better’ (320kbps) quality streams. It’s worth noting sound quality can be changed between ‘Standard’ (128kbps), ‘Better’ (320kbps on wi-fi and 128kbps on mobile data), and ‘High Fidelity’ (1411kbps).
The HiFi streams cling more committedly to the textures of the ‘80s-style keys, percussion and synths underpinning Chaka Khan’s Pallion (aka Hot Butterfly), and those of the affected backing track and vocals in Dua Lipa’s Levitating.
However, we find Tidal’s CD-quality streams a little crisper, cleaner and more precise. There’s more fuel driving Tiny Giant’s Draw Me a Line, and greater space around the instrumental and vocal accompaniment. Timing of the drumbeats and underlying cymbal rhythm is noticeably more accurate, too, with Tidal’s version of Donald Fagen’s I.G.Y. springing into life with a touch more bite.
That said, listening through Grado SR325e headphones plugged into a MacBook Air, the differences are admittedly subtle. And it’s only when we up the transparency of our set-up with a Chord Hugo 2 DAC that these discrepancies become really significant, helped by Tidal’s fancy options for taking exclusive control of the DAC and bypassing the MacBook’s audio processing and volume control. Deezer has no such options.
Of course, the ace up Deezer’s sleeve is 360 Reality Audio, which isn’t offered by any other streaming service. 360 Reality Audio offers a 3D sound space by creating multiple virtual speakers and can be listened to via most standard headphones – although the experience has been optimised for Sony’s range.
At its best, it’s really rather impressive, immersing you in the music and surrounding you with spatially distinct instruments in a way not previously experienced. As a technological showcase it’s very effective, and gives you fresh insight into some of your favourite tracks (although the selection is fairly limited at this point).
But whether the 360 version of a track will replace the stereo version in your affections is debatable. For one, even the best tracks sound comparatively lacking in punch and weight when compared to their stereo equivalents, and some other tracks just don’t seem to have made the transition to 3D particularly well, coming across as rather flat and compressed in terms of detail and dynamics.
It’s worth remembering that 360 Reality Audio is still in its infancy and there’s already so much to like. In time it could be absolutely brilliant – it’s just not a hugely persuasive reason to opt for Deezer over Tidal right now.
Verdict
(Image credit: Apple / Deezer)
While we prefer Tidal’s comprehensive layout and slightly superior sound quality, the main chink in Deezer’s armour is its current lack of hi-res audio.
After all, subscribers to Tidal’s HiFi tier get access to over a million (typically 24-bit/96kHz) hi-res Masters in addition to CD-quality streaming – although they have to pay a little more for it at £19.99 ($19.99) per month – and Amazon Music HD delivers hi-res tracks for £7.99 ($7.99) per month for Prime members and £9.99 ($9.99) per month if you don’t have an Amazon Prime account.
Deezer may still have hi-res in its sights, but all has gone quiet on that front since the announcement of its partnership with MQA back in September 2017. And until it comes as part of a competitive package, it doesn’t shine brightly enough to be the leading light in music streaming.
Its core, non-HiFi subscription, meanwhile, falls just a whisker short of Spotify when it comes to ubiquity, discovery and presentation.
But, while Deezer rather falls between the two pillars of Tidal and Spotify right now, the addition of hi-res streams (and some of the hi-fi-focused features of Tidal) could actually one day see it become the best of both worlds.
SCORES
Performance 4
Features 4
Ease of use 4
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Apple’s software engineering head Craig Federighi had a tricky task in the Epic v. Apple trial: explaining why the Mac’s security wasn’t good enough for the iPhone.
Mac computers have an official Apple App Store, but they also allow downloading software from the internet or a third-party store. Apple has never opened up iOS this way, but it’s long touted the privacy and security of both platforms. Then Epic Games sued Apple to force its hand, saying that if an open model is good enough for macOS, Apple’s claims about iOS ring hollow. On the stand yesterday, Federighi tried to resolve this problem by portraying iPhones and Macs as dramatically different devices — and in the process, threw macOS under the bus.
Federighi outlined three main differences between iOS and macOS. The first is scale. Far more people use iPhones than Macs, and the more users a platform gets, the more enticing that audience becomes to malware developers. Federighi argued iOS users are also much more casual about downloading software, giving attackers better odds of luring them into a download. “iOS users are just accustomed to getting apps all the time,” he said, citing Apple’s old catchphrase: “There’s an app for that.”
The second difference is data sensitivity. “iPhones are very attractive targets. They are very personal devices that are with you all the time. They have some of your most personal information — of course your contacts, your photos, but also other things,” he said. Mobile devices put a camera, microphone, and GPS tracker in your pocket. “All of these things make access or control of these devices potentially incredibly valuable to an attacker.”
That may undersell private interactions with Macs; Epic’s counsel Yonatan Even noted that many telemedicine calls and other virtual interactions happen on desktop. Still, it’s fair to say phones have become many people’s all-purpose digital lockboxes.
The third difference is more conceptual. Federighi basically says iOS users need to be more protected because the Mac is a specialist tool for people who know how to navigate the complexities of a powerful system, while the iPhone and iPad are — literally — for babies.
As Federighi put it:
The Mac from the beginning has been part of a generation of systems where the expectation is you can get software from wherever — you can hand it to your friend on a floppy disk and run it, that’s part of the expectation. But Mac users also expect a degree of flexibility that is useful to what they do. Some of them are software developers, some of them are pros running their unique tools, and having that power is part of it.
I think of it is as if the Mac is a car — that you can take it off-road if you want, you can drive wherever you want. And that comes with as a driver, you gotta be trained, there’s a certain level of responsibility in doing that, but that’s what you wanted to buy. You wanted to buy a car. With iOS, we were able to create something where children — heck, even infants — can operate an iOS device, and be safe in doing so. So it’s a really different product.
Federighi expanded on the metaphor a little later, when Apple’s counsel asked if macOS was “safe.”
Safe if operated correctly, much like that car. If you know how to operate a car, and you obey the rules of the road and are very cautious, yes. If you’re not — I’ve had a couple of family members who’ve gotten some malware on their Mac. But ultimately, I think the Mac can be operated safely.
I find the mental image of slowly, cautiously “driving” a Mac around the internet hilarious, because cars are deadly two-ton metal boxes that crush obstacles at superhuman speeds, while my MacBook starts losing keys if I type on it too hard.
If you pair these comments with some earlier statements about macOS, though, it’s a bit less funny. Federighi was bluntly critical of macOS security, saying Apple saw “a level of malware on the Mac that we don’t find acceptable.” If you used the Mac’s security model on the iPhone, “with all those devices, all that value, it would get run over to a degree dramatically worse than is already happening on the Mac,” Federighi said. “iOS has established a dramatically higher bar for customer protection. The Mac is not meeting that bar today.” It’s a distinctly negative evaluation of open computing systems, implying onlya relatively small platform could afford that openness without disaster.
Federighi took a far broader view of security than Epic’s own expert witness James Mickens. Mickens testified earlier that iOS wasn’t meaningfully more secure than Android, but he analyzed mostly technical threats to the platforms. Federighi focused on scams, phishing, and other apps that target human psychology instead of computer code — many of which pose serious dangers.
Sometimes, though, the protectiveness felt patronizing. When Federighi explained Apple’s restrictions on cloud gaming, he focused partly on tangible security issues, like how to grant device permissions for different titles on a single gaming app. But he slipped seamlessly into discussing how the concept would be simply too confusing — that iPhone and iPad owners would be befuddled by the notion of launching a separate game catalog. Apple wants iOS devices to feel trustworthy, but at times like that, it seems more like Apple just doesn’t trust its own users.
You can now download Deezer playlists to your Apple Watch. That means you can leave your iPhone 12 at home while you go for a run without missing out on your favourite tunes.
The new feature comes as part of an update to the Apple Watch app. It lets you download all playlist content to your timepiece – that includes your favourite tracks playlists, editorial playlists, and any personal playlists you have created.
To get your Deezer playlists onto your Apple Watch, you’ll have to use your mobile network or the same wi-fi network as your phone or tablet.
If your phone is nearby, your mobile network will automatically handle the download and transfer the data to your watch via Bluetooth or wi-fi. If it isn’t, or it’s in airplane mode or turned off, your Apple Watch can handle the download itself providing it’s connected to wi-fi, or it has a mobile connection of its own.
According to Deezer, you can store “several gigabytes” of tracks on your Apple Watch, though that will depend on which Apple Watch model you have and how much space it has free.
To use the new feature, you’ll need an Apple Watch Series 3 (or newer) running at least Watch OS6.
The update gives the app a new look and feel. Plus it lets Deezer Free customers listen to tracks, albums, and playlists in shuffle mode and access their Queue list, all from their Apple Watch.
This is a shot across the bow of arch-rival Spotify, which currently doesn’t let you download playlists to the Apple Watch. Earlier this month, Deezer added support for Apple’s Siri voice assistant to the HomePod and HomePod Mini smart speakers.
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When Tidal began offering hi-res audio streaming in 2017, becoming only the second streaming service to do so after Qobuz broke that ground the year before, we didn’t expect hi-res streaming to be a two-player game for quite so long.
Now though, not only have their rivals caught up but they are attempting to leapfrog the established players. And this could change the game significantly.
Higher audio quality, lower subscription prices
Apple Music has just embraced hi-res streaming with open arms – and isn’t asking people to pay a penny more for it. Its all-encompassing individual subscription plan is sticking at £10 ($10, AU$12) per month, significantly cheaper than the monthly hi-res tiers from Tidal (£20, $20, AU$24) and Qobuz (£15, $15, AU$25).
In response to Apple, Amazon has now bundled its Music HD hi-res tier, which arrived in 2019, into its standard plans rather than asking a £5 ($5) premium. That means the monthly subscription has dropped from £13 ($13) to £8 ($8) for Prime customers, and from £15 ($15) to £10 ($10) for everyone else.
Meanwhile, Deezer offers CD-quality for £15 ($15, AU$20) per month, and Spotify plans to begin offering CD-quality – no mention of hi-res so far – later this year for a fee expected to be equal to or perhaps even higher than its current £10 ($10, AU$12) per month asking price.
Maybe Apple’s bold move means that Spotify won’t ask a premium price or shun hi-res audio for its imminent Spotify HiFi tier. Realistically, Spotify’s popularity and class-leading usability mean it can probably afford not to match or undercut its rivals and still remain competitive. Even ‘only’ CD quality may be enough to keep its loyal subscribers onboard.
The wider adoption of hi-res audio streaming by big players such as Apple and Amazon has brought better sound quality into the mainstream. The fact you can have unlimited access to it for as little as £8 ($8) per month is great news for those who care for sound quality.
With Apple offering hi-res at no extra charge, and Amazon readjusting its offering accordingly, the streaming service competition has reached a crossroads, with all ways potentially pointing to tier simplicity and affordability.
Do USPs justify premium prices?
So how will the competition justify charging extra – in Tidal’s case, double? Perhaps rivals will now have to reconsider their current monthly fees, and if they don’t, hope that their unique selling points are enough.
Tidal, for example, uses MQA to power its hi-res audio streams. It’s a technology that arrived as a handy enabler for hi-res streaming back when; a method of efficiently packaging and transporting high-resolution (and therefore large) files without lossy compression.
Now that Amazon and Apple have used other methods to do this (Amazon doesn’t disclose specifics, while Apple uses its ALAC format), MQA isn’t quite as fundamental to hi-res streaming as it once seemed. However, as it is now licensed to many hi-fi brands, MQA-powered Tidal Masters tracks can be played through an increasing amount of audio hardware, via app support or Tidal Connect. If you own a compatible device that doesn’t play ball with Amazon Music HD or Apple Music, you may well be swayed to stick with Tidal.
Naturally, device support will play a part in people’s subscription decisions. While desktop and mobile apps are par for the course as far as lossless support is concerned, some services also have their own quirks. For example, Qobuz has recently become the first to bring 24-bit hi-res streaming to Sonos speakers, and its vast hi-res catalogue is also accessible via the widely supported Chromecast (which supports transmission up to 24-bit/96kHz).
Apple Music is only an attractive proposition for owners of Apple devices – and even then, its hi-res implementation isn’t without its frustrations. We wonder whether Apple Music’s hi-res streaming will be supported by AirPlay 2 (or 3!) in the future to open up the device ecosystem, or even by some new Apple-developed Bluetooth codec for inter-Apple device wireless transmission.
You can bet that Spotify HiFi will have almost universal support upon, or soon after, launch, too.
Tidal also has a burgeoning catalogue of immersive 3D tracks, thanks to its support for Dolby Atmos Music and Sony 360 Reality Audio. That said, Amazon Music HD also supports these two formats, Deezer supports the latter, and Apple will have its Dolby Atmos-powered Spatial Audio catalogue. Who knows whether Spotify has any immersive audio plans up its sleeve for its HiFi tier?
Qobuz is the audiophile’s choice for its hi-res catalogue, as well as the fact its most premium tier (Sublime) also includes discounts on hi-res downloads. But it has a comparatively limited catalogue and has long been a more niche option compared to its rivals.
Over to you, Spotify et al
Right now, Apple Music appears to offer the best-value hi-res streaming proposition for iOS users, while Amazon Music HD does that for everyone else, especially Prime members. It’s the service we’d pick right now for mobile and desktop listening.
Spotify could, of course, outdo all of them with an excellent value, hi-res HiFi tier, but even if it doesn’t, the likes of Tidal, Deezer and Qobuz are still being significantly undercut by their competition.
So will the latest moves by the streaming giants be nails in their coffins or a necessary force for change? We very much hope it’s the latter.
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Haptic feedback on Android phones is usually terrible, at least compared to devices that have Apple’s Taptic Engine. You know it, I know it, and a haptics company called Lofelt apparently knows it, too. Today, though, Lofelt, in partnership with Qualcomm, announced that it’s making its VTX haptic framework available to OEMs, with the hope that these manufacturers will start putting better haptics into more Android devices.
The framework will allow OEMs to utilize high-definition haptic vibration on phones running the latest Snapdragon 8-series and 7-series without any hardware tweaks. The system is “tightly integrated with Snapdragon and fully validated by Qualcomm,” according to Lofelt. While the framework is technically compatible with older phones that have a Snapdragon 7-series and 8-series chipset, it’s at the discretion of each OEM whether to add support. It seems more likely that companies will make the big effort to implement improved haptics in upcoming phones than adding it to older models. As for which newer models will feature the framework, none have been announced yet.
Ahead of this announcement, I got to actually feel the difference myself that Lofelt’s improved haptics can make on a phone through software tweaks only. The company sent over a custom Google Pixel 4 packed with demos that show off how its vibrations feel compared to the stock Android implementation (the same setup can’t be duplicated on other devices). Compared to phones designed to take full advantage of Lofelt VTX’s integration with the chipset, this Pixel 4 was running the haptics tricks through the application layer as a proof of concept.
Lofelt’s app let me feel the difference between stock Android vibrations and the company’s own — and the difference was noticeable.
Each of the demos featured a toggle that lets you switch between the stock Android vibration and Lofelt’s refined haptics, as shown in the bottom right of the picture above. One instance ran through a few scenarios in Call of Duty: Mobile. The vibrations varied in strength and duration depending on the kind of gun being shot, and I was able to feel distinct pulsations of a helicopter soaring through the sky. A demo for Asphalt 9: Legends let me feel the roar of an engine through haptics, as well as the fast, crunchy pulsing of the vibration motor when the car ran over a dirt median. Even though the Pixel 4 and earlier models don’t natively support VTX, these demos were far more expressive than standard Android phone vibrations. If you’re someone who takes mobile gaming seriously, to the point of owning something like a Razer Kishi controller, haptics could make your favorite games feel more immersive.
The big challenge for Lofelt isn’t in proving that these sorts of immersive haptic experiences are worth building (give the Lofelt Studio app for iOS a try if you need convincing yourself). The real work is ensuring that as many phones as possible can eventually get them, and that it won’t take too much effort for developers. That’s where Lofelt’s AX (adaptive experience) signal processing tech built into VTX comes into play.
According to Lofelt, AX converts a universal haptic signal into vibrations that play to the strengths of each individual phone, taking into consideration its haptics driver, actuator hardware, and control algorithms from the manufacturer. The goal is for Android devices to catch up to Apple’s excellent Taptic Engine that’s in modern iPhones.
Older phones with the Snapdragon 7-series and 8-series can be updated as OEMs see fit, but you’ll likely find better haptics in new phones.Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
App and game developers can design advanced haptics using Lofelt Studio, which integrates with Unity, Unreal, and Xcode, and create a universal .haptic file that works across multiple devices. According to Lofelt, these files contain “universal parameters, such as whether the haptics should include smooth, continuous signals or more punchy, dynamic events.” In other words, you’ll only need to build it once, then the framework can deliver a consistent experience across different phones.
Existing games and apps running on supported Snapdragon hardware won’t be left in the dust. Lofelt claims that framework will also be able to convert the audio stream coming from an app into vibrations in real time without any hardware or coding modifications. So, you won’t necessarily need to wait for every developer to create bespoke haptics in order to start feeling some tactile enhancements with apps you already know and love.
Lofelt says that its VTX framework comes with no performance trade-offs, and that it aims to deliver better haptics “while minimizing the impact on battery and actuator.” That sounds great, and the demo I tried feels ready for deployment. But now, the wait begins for some phone manufacturers to kickstart what could be a big, positive change for Android.
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