Dieter Bohn | Vox

Why the iPhone sometimes feels stuck in the past

2019-03-06T05:14:39-05:00

Recently, I decided buy an iPhone 6s and turn on iMessage. iPhones are great! But in the process of setting it up, I ran into some hassles that reminded me that for all the advancements that Apple has made with iOS over the years, it still can feel like it’s stuck in an old era of phones that were controlled by corporate politics. The iPhone is a computer, but sometimes it acts too much like a RAZR.

I am going to document the process that, in 2016, I went through to get my preferred ringtone on an iPhone. It is a story of complaints and gripes, yes, but it is also a story about why Apple’s philosophy about how it thinks the “future of computing” should work keeps making the mistakes of the past. It’s not just process, it’s layers and layers of politics.

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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Samsung’s New Fridge Can Order Groceries From Its Touchscreen

2019-03-06T05:18:24-05:00

Samsung is really, really eager for you to know about its new smart refrigerator with a ridiculously large touchscreen integrated right into the door. It put up posters early, it posted images early and finally it even put up some PR early. But now it’s officially official, and despite the fact that it looks nothing so much as a huge Android tablet super-glued onto a fridge, it’s actually one of the best implementations of a smart fridge we’ve seen.

The headline feature is a shopping app that’s been created by MasterCard. It lets you buy groceries right from the door, and the intelligent part is that it can combine carts from multiple stores. At launch, you can order from FreshDirect and ShopRite, and MasterCard says that more stores will be added throughout 2016 (you can use any credit card to pay, of course).

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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Nvidia Announces ‘Supercomputer’ for Self-Driving Cars

2019-03-06T05:18:24-05:00

Nvidia kicked off CES 2016 with its traditional first keynote, and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang wasted no time getting to the punchline — a new computer for cars he’s calling the Drive PX2, the follow-up to last year’s Drive CX.

Nvidia is famous for throwing out big numbers to tout the power of their processors, and many of them were mentioned on stage. Its processing power is supposedly equivalent to 150 MacBook Pros, all sitting in a computer that’s about the size of a lunchbox. It has 12 CPU cores that support a combined eight teraflops and 24 deep-learning tera operations per second. It’s also water-cooled, which makes sense given how hard these chips need to work.

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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Your Cheat Sheet for Talking About Tech This Thanksgiving

2019-03-06T06:06:09-05:00

Holiday dinner table talk can be rough. When you’re not slicing up a strange hybrid turkey or serving up dishes of root vegetables, it’s easy to feel as though you’re both moderating a political debate and taking on the role of family IT support.

When the conversation veers into politics, Vox.com has you covered. But if you are the de facto tech expert in your family and updating the software on everyone’s iPhone isn’t enough, there’s a good chance you’ll be called upon to explain some of the tech news that’s happened recently.

So forthwith, here are the topics you’re most likely going to have to hold court about this Thanksgiving — and also, what to say if you’re not quite the expert your family thinks you are.

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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Nine Things I Know About the New BlackBerry Priv

2019-03-06T06:05:16-05:00

BlackBerry’s new Priv smartphone is a big deal. It’s the first time the company is making a real Android phone that runs every Android app (including Google’s). It’s the first Android phone in forever to have an actual, physical keyboard. It’s the phone that will, by BlackBerry’s own admission, be the thing that determines whether BlackBerry continues to make phones at all. There’s one more big thing, the price. It’s $699, which is hefty by Android standards.

So there’s a lot to say about the Priv and normally I’d say it all in a full review. I still will, actually, but unfortunately it seems like the first review phone I received was a bum unit. I’ve got a second one here that seems less buggy, but it wouldn’t be right to put out a review after only a day or so of testing with the new one.

But I’m excited about the Priv, if only because it is one of the few phones out there that’s fulfilling the promise that Android made us all those years ago: A big diversity of hardware choices. It’s also always exciting to see a down-on-its-luck company swing for the fences. So, without further ado, here are nine things I know about the BlackBerry Priv.

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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Android 6.0 Marshmallow Review

2019-03-06T05:42:41-05:00

Android 6.0 Marshmallow is such a mishmash of features that I spent a long time trying to suss out the unifying principle behind it all. Turns out, the answer was literally right in front of my face the entire time I was looking at my phone: That new, colorful Google logo.

Google’s new logo and microphone are unignorable on the home screen, and the multi-hued G is right there winking at you every time you hold down the home button to access Marshmallow’s premier feature, Now on Tap. Google is listening for your voice and standing ready to turn the contents of any app’s screen into a search or an action. It may be called Android, but more and more it feels like Google.

It’s also quietly refining Android to make it less fiddly and better able to handle the complexities that arise in a modern computer operating system.

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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Hands-On: Google’s Pixel C Is a Great Android Tablet That Costs a Great Deal of Money

2019-03-06T05:41:42-05:00

The big surprise at today’s Google announcement was the Pixel C, an Android tablet developed by the team behind the Pixel Chromebooks.

The Chromebook Pixels are powerhouses of speed and wonders of design — and they definitely had the prices to match those outsized ambitions. The same thing applies to the Pixel C. It starts at $499, but you’re also going to want to pony up for the keyboard, which costs $149. That’s pretty-good laptop territory, so does the Pixel C actually compete with a pretty-good laptop?

Well, sort of.

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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 Review

2019-03-06T06:01:16-05:00

Samsung’s Note line of phones has always been about three things: A huge screen, outsized performance and a stylus. But now, with the Galaxy Note 5, two of those three things aren’t so special anymore. Every Android phone is big now, and almost all of those big phones are fast and powerful. And more than any of them, Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus has been eroding Samsung’s claim to phablet dominance. The rest of the world caught up with the Galaxy Note.

Fighting all of that was always going to be an uphill struggle, so something had to change. To its credit, Samsung did just that. The new Note is different: it’s a beautifully designed object that feels like it belongs to the same family as the other Galaxy phones. If you can’t beat ’em with power and size, try to beat ’em with design.

Oh, and don’t forget that stylus.

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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.