作者彙整: Alex Dobie

The start of a new year — or indeed a new decade — is a natural point to take a breather and consider how far we’ve come, and what lies ahead in the following months. The 2010s’ saw smartphones dominate the consumer tech space, with fortunes made and lost in the process. And although critics have repeatedly said that phones as we know them have plateaued, this space remains highly competitive and exciting.

So on this first Sunday of the 2020s, I’d like to offer a few thoughts on where we’re headed through the next twelve months.

You still won’t need 5G

5G networks are currently split between early mmWave offerings, which need signal maps measured in fractions of a city block to identify areas of coverage, and early sub-6GHz networks, which match the best-case-scenario speeds for strong LTE coverage areas.

5G will be exciting once these two coalesce to give us reliable, multi-hundred-megabit speeds everywhere. But we’re not there yet, and I’m betting we still won’t be by the e… 閱讀全文 →

There’s no denying it: the HTC One M7 was one of the iconic Android phones of the decade.

Google

Top Google stories of the decade
Google Home & Google Assistant
Moto X
Roku
Chromecast & Google Cast
HDR+
Samsung Galaxy S7
Alexa & Amazon Echo
HTC One M7
Robot Vacuums
Google Cardboard
Google Wifi

Apple

Apple across the decade
Rene Ritchie’s product of the decade
The iPad
iPhone 4s
Qi charging
iPhone 5c
iOS 8
Apple Watch
Pokémon Go
Nintendo Switch
iPad Pro
iPhone 11 Pro

Microsoft

Top Microsoft news stories
Surface Pro
Windows as a service
The Xbox revolution
AMD vs. Intel
OneDrive

The HTC of today is a long way removed from the company that launched the year’s best flagship phone back in 2013. In those days, HTC was at the peak of its popularity, with serious industry clout and money to spend following strong performances in 2010 and 2011. In the Android world, the pendulum would seem to swing from HTC to rival Samsung from year to year.

HTC’s disparate … 閱讀全文 →

If phone hardware is going to become more than a hobby project for Google, things need to change.

Three years on from the launch of the first Pixel phone, I’m lukewarm on the future of the series. That’s not because they’re bad products — at least outside of a couple of misjudged forays into tablet hardware that I’ll gladly sweep under the rug for the purposes of this editorial. On the phone side, Google continues to excel in imaging, for instance, which is one of the major areas of competition right now. Its Android software experience, too, is among the best.

Rather, my Pixel enthusiasm is waning because of a pattern of obvious blunders that have afflicted almost every generation of Pixel, and which shows no sign of letting up.

Or to put it another way: Year after year, Google makes excellent icing but half-asses the cake.

Google makes excellent icing but half-asses the cake.

Pixel phones have always been flawed, and their flaws have almost always been obvious and often r… 閱讀全文 →

As we wrap up IFA 2019, some thoughts and predictions on what’s to come in the fourth quarter.

The end of IFA 2019 trade show in Berlin marks the start of the end-of-year smartphone launch season, with the narrative sure to be dominated by the likes of Huawei, Google and OnePlus.

Huawei, as if often does, pre-empted the launch of its new Mate series phones with the announcement of a new Kirin chipset, the Kirin 990. Although the launch of the next Mate is likely to be overshadowed by the company’s current tensions with the U.S. government, the chip’s capabilities are genuinely impressive, and foreshadow what we’re likely to see from Qualcomm and others in early 2020: Improved machine learning capabilities and onboard 5G.

Besides generational bumps in efficiency and CPU speed, the Kirin 990’s tech specs also hints at impressive photo and video features in the new phone, which is rumored to also include significantly upgraded standard and ultrawide image sensors. Expect BM3D (Block-… 閱讀全文 →

Can Google continue to pretend the normal rules of phone hardware don’t apply to it?

It’s been three years since Google first launched its Pixel series of devices. In that time, despite lackluster sales, the company’s phone brand has managed to carve out its own niche around quality photography and software purity. There’s no denying Google’s Android software is more enjoyable to use than anyone else’s, and that its HDR+ camera is in a league of its own.

But with flagging Pixel 3 sales, it’s also evident that the Pixel series as a whole has been far from a resounding success. A big part of the reason why the Pixels have failed to enjoy success beyond a niche audience is that Google seems to have its head in the sand when it comes to what the Pixel line actually is.

You can attribute the Pixels’ lack of barnstorming success to occasionally sluggish software or ho-hum hardware designs, but in my view one of the Pixel brand’s most significant weaknesses is Google’s stubborn insistenc… 閱讀全文 →