cropr
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Samsung Galaxy S10 5G now on sale via Verizon, but can only use 5G network in two cities
GG1 said:chasm said:I did in fact say that ever sub-6 “5G” would offer improvements, actually, but I used the term “more efficient” rather that you (better) “lower latency” term. But in more typical use — surfing, watching a video, texting, calling — there’s not going to be anything like the kind of speed increases the hype we’re seeing would suggest, and we’re many years away from a level playing field where every gamer has the same low latency you’re (over) emphasizing. That’s my point.You may be mixing up latency and speed (throughput). 5G's most obvious improvement is latency, so gaming (copr's comment) and other mission critical applications (remote medical procedures, such as surgery, and intelligent transportation, such as cars talking to cars and to infrastructure) would now be possible with even the cheapest 5G phone/modem. And this would happen over existing (legacy) frequencies. I doubt speed would increase much, if any (but I'm not 100% sure).But mmWave opens you up to far greater speeds vs. legacy frequencies purely by the virtue of much higher operating frequencies. That's where the marketeers are having their fun convincing you to buy 5G phones now (most of which are not mmWave-capable). Unless you meant "wait for mmWave for the speed increases," in which case you are correct.5G using the existing frequencies does increase the speed if the base station is used at full capacity. A mobile cell is a bit like a cable network, it is a shared medium. So If you have a 4G base station with 100 users connected each at 1 Mbit/s, the same 5G base station will be able to serve 100 users at 3 Mbit/s. This is a bit of a simplification of the reality because the bandwidth a user actually gets depends on a lot of parameters, like e.g. the distance to the base station. Nevertheless the principle remains, the total bandwidth of all connected users of 5G base station will be roughly 3 times that of 4G station
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Editorial: Arguing over iPhone 'Right to Repair' is good, but a solid middle-ground is nee...
In 2017 the HDMI port of my 2012 MacBookPro was defect. I brought it to the nearest official Apple repair center (1 hour driving) to get it repaired. They did the job as it should. 6 weeks later, when I submitted the tax declaration of my company, I discovered that the repair center made an administrative error on the invoice and so I called repair center. They acknowledged they made a mistake but they refused to correct it because it was "too late". This refusal costed me 90 Euro. I don't have to tell you that I was not pleased.In December 2018 an SSD failed on one of my macs and I brought it to a repair center in my neighborhood (but not an Apple certified one) . They were very friendly and professional, they fixed it in 20 minutes and they made no administrative error. And I did not have to experience the arrogant "Who do you think you are that you dare to complain about our service" attitude of the official repair centerThis is what right to repair is about. Giving the end customer a choice. Although I graduated as a electronics engineer, I am not intending to repair hardware myself, I leave it to professionals. Choice is a fundamental factor in any capitalistic system
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EU to investigate Apple following Spotify anti-competition complaint
davidw said:The only time a developer has to pay Apple 30% of the sale price of an app, in the App Store, is if they want to allow their Apple iOS customers to pay with their Apple iTunes accounts. There is nothing and I mean nothing, that prevents a developer from having their customers pay by way of their own payment system, outside of the App Store.
If developers thinks paying Apple a 30% cut of the price of their app is too much, then let them host their own payment system. Let smaller developers require their customers to PayPal the money to their email account directly. Let them host their own web sites for payment purposes. Let them set up a business account with Visa and MasterCard, so they can accept CC payments and then pay the CC company 5% of each charge. Let them worry about securing their customers personal and account data from hackers on the internet. Let them have their customer mail them a check or money order. Let them handle any customers dispute with the payment.
Then they can still have their app in the App Store, without paying the "Apple tax". Apple will not "tax" them for having their app in the App Store if the payment is made outside of iTunes. How hard can that be for these developers complaining about the "Apple tax"? Surely, you must think that the cost for a developer to host, maintain and keep secure, their own payment systems, will easily be paid for by no longer having to pay the "Apple tax", if you're thinking Apple 30% cut is too much. ........ Right?
That's how I pay for my Netflix. I'm using Netflix auto pay, where Netflix directly bills by CC every month. Netflix do not have to pay the "Apple tax" with my subscription and yet, their app is available for me to use on my Apple devices.
What percentage of the their sales in the App Store, do you think it's going to cost developers to have their own payment system to handle the sales of their apps? Specially for the smaller ones. And that cost is the same whether they have any money coming in from the sales of their apps or not. At least with paying the "Apple tax", they are paying for a payment system with money that's coming in. If there's no money coming in from sales, there's no cost associated with maintaining a payment system outside the App Store.I am an app developer and for most of my apps I have 3 versions: an iOS version, an Android version and a web version for PC and Macs. For the webversion I ve set up a secure hosting and payment solution. Guess what: a secure hosting solution costs me about 0.3 % of my revenue and the secure payment costs me about 2.5% of the revenue. And these costs rise almost linear when the number of subscribers increase.So I don't complain about the Apple tax as such, I do complain that I am not allowed to offer payments inside the iOS app using my own payment system (as I do with the Android versions of my app). There is a not important cost related to maintaining 2 codes bases each with a different payment APIs, managing 2 payment processors in my back end, merging 2 payment flows in my management reporting and processing 2 payment sources in my accounting system.
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Optimistic note sounded on Apple's earnings, with concerns about Q3 guidance & 5G iPhone w...
robjn said:These financial analysts think 5G is going to be the next big thing.
I think they are wrong for 3 reasons.
1) 5G offers no known new application to give added user value. For example, LTE was big because it enabled the ability to stream video etc. but 5G does not enable any new functionality to the user apart from saying everything will be faster.
2) 5G does not work over medium or long distances and telecom executives say it will “never exist outside of cities”. So no new technology or service will be able to rely on 5G speeds if it is to work in rural areas.
3) 5G promises to be inefficient, make devices run hot and drain batteries much quicker. As devices heat up, processors will get throttled and the overall user experience on 5G will be worse and sometimes even feel slower than LTE.
Now faster speeds when your in densely populated areas would be a good upgrade once the chips can meet a certain standard of efficiency. But 5G is certain not going to drive a smartphone super sales cycle. These days, people in general upgrade when their phone breaks and not just for new technologies.
I think Tim was smart to “punt” Katie Huberty’s question. I think he’s smart enough, and user experienced focused enough, to have some degree of skepticism about the early 5G experience and real world user benefits. And equally smart enough to keep such thoughts to himself.5G should be split up in 2 parts: one that is using the existing frequency spectrum (similar to 2G, 3G and 4G networks) and one that uses the higher frequencies (the millimeter waves), Because the latter will only be available in a later phase, let's concentrate on the advantages of the former.1) Using the existing frequencies, 5G is roughly 3 times more efficient than 4G, meaning that a single base station can handle about 3 times more traffic. This is very important in densely populated areas, where the existing 4G base stations are suffering from saturation. What does this mean for the end user with a 5 G enabled phone: more available bandwidth and better user experience during the peak hours2) Using the existing frequencies 5G has a lower latency than 4G, meaning that the data connection reacts faster. For the normal user this means some apps like multiplayer shooting games, can be played on 5G connection with the same user experience as on Wifi, while on 4G you would always be shot because you saw your opponent too late.3) Using the existing frequencies 5G is always as fast than 4G even if your phone is limiting its power. The power budget needed to send/receive a 1MB of data is roughly the same for 4G and 5G4) Using the existing frequencies 5G works as good over long and medium distances as 4G. The distance a base station can cover, is fully defined by the frequency and not by the technology. In a rural area a 5G base station at 700 Mhz will give exactly the same coverage as a 4G base station at 700 Mhz. Given the cost for the telecom operator to install a new 5G network, it is logical that 5G will start in the city centers will prioritizedConclusion: If you live in a densely populated area, the existing 4G is saturated and your telecom operator is offering 5G , you definitely have a better user experience with 5G. In all other cases 5G does not matter for the moment.
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Apple's Siri ties with Google Assistant for most-used voice assistant
So an English speaking only research. This put a definitely a different light on the results. I don't know about other languages but Google Assistant in Dutch, my mothertongue, is far superior than Siri. I just repeated the test I am doing on a regular basis: asking the direction to 5 of biggest roads of Antwerp. Siri scored 2/5, Google Assistant 5/5. Last year Siri only 1/5, so there is an improvement but still a long way to go.tht said:
You can read the report. It’s linked.AppleZulu said:
While the referenced report doesn't go in depth into their research methodology, it does not appear that this info resulted from some sort of "two line survey."iOS_Guy80 said:“Hey Siri’ how accurate are these two line surveys? “Nonsense.”
”This report is based on the findings from two separate online consumer focused survey’s. The March – June 2018 survey was conducted by Microsoft Market Intelligence to gain a better understanding of the digital assistant usage and adoption . The Market Intelligence survey was conducted online with over 2,000 global responses representing the US, UK, CA, AU and IN. Building off of the findings from the Market Intelligence survey we used online research tool AskSuzy to engage with 5000 US consumers in February 2019 to gain a better understanding of the usage of how adoption of technology has has shifted and how adoption of shopping functionality has evolved .”
They also have industry analyst information sprinkled in here and there, like 25% of US households have a smart speaker with half of those owners having more than 1, or that there are 50m smart speakers sold in the USA.
The report reads like a “Cortana and voice is great and growing” gospel book. Ie, reads like the division trying to promote itself. It didn’t indicate how much overlap there was, like how much survey respondents used both Alexa and Siri, or Alexa and GA, or Cortana and GA, etc. There should only be a shallow trust in this results.
