Friday
Jun262020

OnePlus teases new smartphone with upcoming documentary

 

OnePlus has been teasing an upcoming release of a new phone that has been called the OnePlus Z or the OnePlus Nord. Aside from putting up a mysterious Instagram account, the company will release a documentary called New Beginnings to give us a better insight into the device rumoured to be coming out in July. The documentary's trailer recently went online, with the documentary set to premiere on June 30. 

The documentary itself has an interesting premise. The OnePlus team working on the phone had only six months to get everything done. And from what the teaser has shown us, it hasn't been an easy time given the shorter than usual development cycle. There will be four parts to New Beginnings, and we aren't sure when the other parts are dropping.

Source: GSMArena

Friday
Jun262020

Microsoft to close all of its retail stores


Microsoft will be closing all of its physical retail stores. The company announced on LinkedIn that while they hope to continue to serve customers, it will not be in their retail locations mostly found in upscale malls. "Our retail team members will continue to serve customers working from Microsoft corporate facilities or remotely and we will continue to develop our diverse team in support of the overall company mission and objectives," said David Porter, corporate VP of Microsoft Store. 

While this could be seen as a reaction to the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic and a move to promote social distancing between staff and customers, it can also be seen as Microsoft transitioning out of the consumer space altogether. Microsoft Stores, after all, were the best places to see and buy the latest Surface devices or Xbox game consoles. Surface represents a very small percentage of Microsoft's profits and the company is clearly focused on the cloud, which means that it could very well diminish or even cease production of its hardware devices moving forward. As for the Microsoft Stores, they never had the foot traffic of competitors like the Apple Store, but still served customers well and were highly regarded for the level of service they provided. 

Friday
Jun262020

Apple tvOS adds picture-in-picture mode, multi-user support for Apple Arcade 

Aside from adding support to HomeKit, Apple's tvOS platform adds a few small but useful features. Like iOS 14, it's getting picture-in-picture mode across the entire Apple TV experience, with AirPlay videos able to show up in picture-in-picture mode. Multiuser support is coming to the platform, but it seems only to be available for continuing gameplay on Apple Arcade games at the moment.

tvOS is also getting support for Microsoft's Elite 2 and Adaptive Xbox One controller, better audio sharing with AirPod earbuds, as well as up to 4K video streaming from your iOS devices' Photos app.

Source: The Verge

Thursday
Jun252020

These HomeKit improvements are coming with iOS 14

HomeKit is getting an update with iOS 14, which we're expecting to arrive later in the year. Let's do a quick rundown under the cut on what Apple announced at WWDC 2020 about changing when it comes to your smart home setup:

Click to read more ...