Articles by Derrek Lee

Google’s revenue grew only slightly from last quarter.

What you need to know

Alphabet releases its Q3 2021 financial earnings report.
The company made more than $65 billion in revenue, up 41% from the same quarter last year.
Overall revenues grew only slightly from Q2, which brought in $61 billion in revenue.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, announced its Q3 2021 financial earnings on Tuesday, reporting revenue of more than $65 billion.

That represents a growth of 41% compared to the same quarter last year, which raked in just over $46 billion. As usual, those numbers were driven by ads, primarily with Google Search, while YouTube contributed more than $7 billion.

Compared to last quarter, growth seems fairly stagnant, with much of Google’s divisions growing in revenue only slightly. During the earnings call, there were questions about whether iOS 14’s privacy shanges had a negative effect on Googe’s revenue for its services. However, according to Google CFO, Ruth Porat, the…

With Gigi Sohn as the nominee for the second Democratic commissioner.

What you need to know

President Joe Biden has nominated Jessica Rosenworcel as the FCC Chair.
Rosenworcel has sat as Acting Chair since the onset of Biden’s presidency.
Gigi B. Sohn is nominated as an FCC commissioner.

President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Jessica Rosenworcel as the official FCC Chair. This comes less than a year after being appointed as acting Chair while Biden sought to fill the remaining FCC vacancy.

Rosenworcel is a known advocate for net neutrality and making broadband more affordable and accessible. As a result, the FCC has increased its focus on just that since she’s sat as acting Chair, implementing initiatives such as the Emergency Broadband Benefits program and directly asking consumers to detail the availability and quality of their broadband services.

Additionally, Biden has nominated Gigi B. Sohn as the FCC’s second Democratic commissioner, a seat that has been va…

Qualcomm upgrades its cheapest 5G chip

What you need to know

Qualcomm launches new mid-range smartphone chipsets.
Plus variants of the Snapdragon 778G and 480 offer boosted GPU and CPU performance.
The Snadragon 695 and 680 are the latest 5G and LTE chipsets from Qualcomm.

Qualcomm has announced a slew of mid-range chipsets with boosted specs and upgrades to usher mid-range devices into 2022. Two of the chips are upgrades over existing platforms, while the other two are brand new chipsets.

The upgraded Snapdragon 778G+ and 480+ bring improved performance over their non-Plus counterparts. The 778G+ has a slight bump in CPU speed over its predecessor, which powers premium mid-range phones like the new Honor 50. This takes it from 2.4GHz to 2.5GHz with “boosted” GPU performance that Qualcomm says is 20% faster, making it ideal for mid-range gaming smartphones.

While the Snapdragon 480 performed reasonably well on devices like the OnePlus Nord N200, the Snapdragon 480+ also gets a…

T-Mobile is begrudgingly throwing Dish a bone.

Updated to include Dish response to network shutdown delay on Monday, October 25.

What you need to know

T-Mobile announced that it’s delaying its 3G CDMA shutdown by three months.
The carrier says it’s to give its partners time to transition their customers off of the aging network.
The shutdown is now scheduled for March 31, 2022.

Just as T-Mobile’s impending 3G CDMA shutdown neared, the carrier has announced that it’s delaying the shutdown by a few months.

On Friday, T-Mobile explained that it hoped to sunset the aging network as soon as possible to improve its 5G network for the best Android phones while giving its partners “plenty of time and resources to take care of their customers as well.”

However, T-Mobile says its partners “haven’t followed through on their responsibility to help their customers through this shift,” and it’s become clear that the original January 1, 2022 deadline would need to be pushed back.

Even thou…

Our readers apparently like to get the early jump on holiday shopping.

What you need to know

Nearly half the votes indicate that a good majority start their holiday shopping on Black Friday.
Others indicate that they start even sooner, once November arrives.
Many users have already started and finished their shopping.

The holiday season is nearly upon us, which means we’ll be on the lookout for some great Black Friday sales. However, with so many great deals happening throughout the year, there have been many opportunities to start shopping early, So we wanted to know when you usually start your holiday shopping.

Nearly 50% of the responses indicate that readers start their shopping once Black Friday and Cyber Monday hit, two of the biggest shopping events of the season with heavy discounts of all sorts. However, nearly 1/3 of the responses show that many of our readers prefer to get their shopping started even sooner, once November hits and Halloween is over.

From the comme…

Samsung is giving you even more ways to get your phone fixed in a jiffy.

What you need to know

Samsung launches a nationwide repair service with Best Buy.
From October 26, users will enable to enter select Best Buy stores for in and out-of-warranty Galaxy repairs.
Samsung foldable will be supported starting November 2.

Samsung and Best Buy are partnering to bring authorized repair and troubleshooting services to Galaxy smartphone owners across the U.S.

Samsung made the announcement on Monday, turning more than 100 Best Buy locations into Authorized Care Service Centers. This means that starting October 26, anyone with a Samsung Galaxy S or Note series smartphone will be able to get support for their device from Samsung-certified Geek Squad Agents.

Services include various repairs to parts such as the front and back glass, cameras, ports, batteries, and more. The company says that authorized technicians will only use Samsung parts.

Samsung already offers in-home, mail-in, and …

One UI 4 Beta sounds like it’s nearing the final version.

Update, Oct 25 (11:55 a.m. ET): More users receiving third beta

What you need to know

Samsung is rolling out One UI 4 Beta 3 in S. Korea.
The update comes with a number of bug fixes and a revamped Weather app.
It may not be long before the 3rd beta reaches U.S. Galaxy S21 devices.

Samsung Galaxy S21 owners in South Korea are being treated to the 3rd One UI 4 beta, according to a community post on Samsung’s forum.

The update appears to host a number of bug fixes that should make the beta more stable as Samsung finalizes its software. Notable, the changelog states that the update is based on Google’s final AOSP release for Android 12, meaning we could be nearing the final One UI 4 release.

There also appear to be improvements to the dynamic color theme that was introduced in the second One UI 4 beta. Additional changes include the following (via translation):

Fixed an issue where only some menus were partially untransl…

Black Friday is a month away, but there are great deals now.

Halloween is nearly upon us, which means people will be gearing up for holiday shopping in November, particularly once Black Friday comes around. We still have a month to go before the biggest shopping event of the season, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of deals for early birds to take advantage of now.

At Android Central, we want to know when you usually start your holiday shopping. Do you like to get a jump start on things or do you wait until the last minute?

When do you start your holiday tech shopping?

Most major smartphone launches have already happened for the year, with Google causing a stir with its impressive price tags for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. These phones already come with some pretty great deals attached to them, depending on where you buy.

Many other great Android devices have some pretty good offers and discounts going on as well. Of course, going into November, we’ll be keeping an ey…

This isn’t the first time Google’s ad business has been under scrutiny.

What you need to know

Canada’s Competition Bureau has opened an investigation into Google’s ad business.
The agency is concerned about the search giant’s harmful effect on ad competition in Canada.
Google is required to present the bureau records related to the investigation.

Google’s online advertising business is under scrutiny from the Canadian Competition Bureau, which announced on Friday that it has received a court order to investigate the search giant’s ad business.

The concern is that Google’s online advertising business practices may harm Canada’s online display advertising industry, making it hard for other advertisers and publishers to compete.

Android Central reached out to the Bureau for more details on the practices under investigation, but it could not provide any specifics. However, the investigation includes YouTube ad inventory and the market for Demand Side Platform (DSP) services.

As p…

T-Mobile is begrudgingly throwing Dish a bone.

What you need to know

T-Mobile announced that it’s delaying its 3G CDMA shutdown by three months.
The carrier says it’s to give its partners time to transition their customers off of the aging network.
The shutdown is now scheduled for March 31, 2022.

Just as T-Mobile’s impending 3G CDMA shutdown neared, the carrier has announced that it’s delaying the shutdown by a few months.

On Friday, T-Mobile explained that it hoped to sunset the aging network as soon as possible to improve its 5G network for the best Android phones while giving its partners “plenty of time and resources to take care of their customers as well.”

However, T-Mobile says its partners “haven’t followed through on their responsibility to help their customers through this shift,” and it’s become clear that the original January 1, 2022 deadline would need to be pushed back.

Even though T-Mobile does not directly name Dish, it’s clear that the new carrier is among t…