Month: March 2019

Perhaps the initial biggest issue with the Google Pixel Slate was the terrible animation performance when switching apps in tablet mode. I’d say that the second biggest was offering the Slate with an under-powered processor for the base model, but that’s a different issue else entirely.

Google did plan to address the tablet app animation issues with some fixes, but its work isn’t done yet: According to a related bug report, more optimizations are coming in Chrome OS 73… and beyond.

The open bug is actually for a lower-end Chromebook based on the Coral board, of which there are more than a half dozen. However, it relates to choppy transitions and dropped framerates in overview mode for app switching. One workaround that helped was to disable a Chrome OS flag that causes the background to blur in overmode, but that’s not a long term solution.

This recent comment from the Chromium developer team suggests that not all of the visual transition fixes made their way into Chrome OS 72:

According to the Chromium release calendar, Chrome OS 73 should hit the Stable Channel this Tuesday, March 19, following last week’s push of the same version to enterprises, which enabled Linux app support. So any of the newer optimizations should be seen soon for testing.

Even better — to me, anyway — is that the team is continuing to gather telemetry metrics and logs to continue improving overview mode and app switching when devices are used as tablets.

When I use my Pixel Slate, I actually never use overview mode so the animations are a non-issue for me personally. Yes, this is a real issue and it’s really inexcusable, but I never see it: I don’t run numerous apps at the same time and even when I’m multitasking, that’s typically because I’m creating content and have the Pixel Slate Keyboard attached, pressing Alt+Tab to quickly move around between apps.

I also suspect that the more you spend on a Pixel Slate, the less of an impact there is. Meaning, the higher-powered processors combined with more memory manage the app transitions far better than the base model. Here’s a look at the transitions on both the Core m3 and Core i5 Pixel Slate, which perform noticably better than the Celeron edition.

It looks like Google i/o is going to be rather dull this year as tinkering with the beta has revealed that the upgrades being made to Android are becoming more and more incremental. Android Q features a cool new logo which combines both the letter Q and the number 10 (Android 10.0) but on core features that will help Google close to the gap to iOS, there is very little.

To rub salt into the wound, this entire issue is moot because it takes Google around 6 years to upgrade its entire ecosystem to a new version of Android. By comparison, it takes Apple around 90 days to complete this process meaning that its universe of devices is both extremely consistent in terms of software and very up to date. Consequently, any new amazing new innovation in Android can be copied and released to users by Google’s competitors years before the original is in the hands of most users.

Some of the exciting new features in Android Q include a new battery time remaining indicator in addition to percentage, QR code generation to share WiFi network credentials, new theme options for developers, a new share menu as well as a few other tiny tweaks and changes. Unless Google is hiding something big, it is really going to struggle to get the press and bloggers excited about this new version of Android.

Instead, Google will turn to some new AI-driven innovations to improve its Digital Life services and thereby keep its users engaged, generating traffic and, most important of all, consuming advertising. Improvements in its already leading computational photography offering, as well as an expansion of Duplex and Google Assistant, are where Google will look to drive excitement at its developer conference in May. Hence the place to look for innovation is going to be in Google’s own services which are largely underpinned by its AI rather than Android.

This may also run into difficulties as it looks like progress in AI is rapidly slowing down due to the fundamental limitations of the techniques still in use today. This would give the laggards such as Facebook, Apple and the Chinese an opportunity to catch up with Google as it is at the leading edge where the slowdown will be most acute. However, when this will occur is very unclear as some think it could be a year or two before the slowdown begins in earnest.

Apple AAPL +1.3% is planning some surprising upgrades for its 2019 iPhones, but by far the most controversial is an ugly prototype design. And now it appears this will be Apple’s preferred iPhone design…

Respected Japanese site Macotakara reports contacts within Apple’s Chinese supply chain have confirmed the so-called iPhone XI will feature a triple camera array which is housed in a large protruding square on the back of the phone.

This design was initially leaked back in January by acclaimed industry insider Steve Hemmerstoffer (aka OnLeaks) but was ridiculed as being too ugly for Apple to use. Interestingly, Hemmerstoffer also leaked a second iPhone prototype which received a more positive reaction, but Macotakara’s sources state Apple has chosen the only-a-mother-could-love option.

Macotakara does reveal Apple has tweaked the design slightly so that the three rear cameras are at least symmetrical. That said, the large square housing seems completely at odds with the company’s much-loved minimalist design aesthetic.

Perhaps just as surprising, the design isn’t even original. A square triple camera housing has already been implemented by Huawei in the Mate 20 Pro but with a central position which looks a lot better.

Yes, rumours are rife that Apple is working hard to bring a head-turning flexible iPhone Fold to market, but right now it is hard to see how the design of the iPhone XI (coupled with its omission of 5G and still no fast charger) will do enough to reverse stalling iPhone sales. Especially with entry-level cancellations apparently planned.

The clock is ticking on Windows 7, which means those last-minute Windows 10 upgrade projects are picking up momentum.

There’s nothing like a looming deadline to concentrate the mind — something that applies as much in tech as it does in journalism.

Microsoft recently revealed that Windows 10 has burst through the 800 million users mark. And while it’s dangerous to read too much into these very broad statistics, it does seem that there has been an uptick in migrations in recent months. While it took nearly nine months to go from 600 to 700 million users, it only took only five-and-a-half to get from 700 to 800 million. Sure, that’s not as fast as it was in the early days (when consumers had the option to upgrade for free), but it suggests there is some additional momentum out there (see the chart below).

One obvious reason for this uptick in Windows 10 adoption is the rapidly looming demise of Windows 7, which goes out of mainstream support in less than a year.

There are still hundreds of millions of PCs out there running Windows 7, many of them in businesses where the operating system has been a reliable workhorse for nearly a decade. My colleague Ed Bott has an excellent list of your options if you’re still on Windows 7.

Some organisations may be willing to stick with Windows 7 even after the end of mainstream support, but that does come at a cost — which will increase the longer they stick with it. Paying through the nose for additional support on an old and creaky set of software won’t make financial sense to many organisations for very long. Many organisations will also have a policy of only using software that’s still within mainstream support.

Some will have other pressures: in UK, for example, the government has told the NHS that it must have Windows 10 upgrades complete by January 2020 or risk missing out on funding for upgrades.

And it won’t just be large organisations that need to get moving. IDC recently said it expects to see a “sizable amount” of last-minute Windows 10 migration projects to be completed this year, especially among small and medium-sized businesses with an ageing installed base of PCs. (Users grumbling about losing their beloved Windows 7 may be pleased to upgrade to a shiny new laptop: desktops being replaced with notebooks is one of the few bright spots in IDC’s predictions for an otherwise grim PC market.)

Microsoft will soon start nagging Windows 7 PC users to upgrade, and is also trying to make the right noises about the reliability of Windows 10 updates — which have taken a knock recently — in order to calm worries about the move to Windows-as-a-service. Microsoft wants everyone onto Windows 10, not only to streamline support but also to encourage the use of new technologies like HoloLens.

It wouldn’t be a big surprise to see Windows 10 adoption continue at a brisk pace for the rest of this year and into early next year, as businesses race to finish those migration projects. At this rate, Microsoft might finally hit its target of one billion Windows 10 PCs — albeit 18 months later than originally hoped.