Apple : Report: iPhone SE successor could be released in early 2020 |
- Report: iPhone SE successor could be released in early 2020
- Amazon bets big on Alexa smart TVs with huge Fire TV Edition rollout
- Best 4K TV 2019: Your definitive guide to the top Ultra-HD TVs
- HDR10+ finally gets the 8K treatment – but only on Samsung TVs
- Huawei claims US enticed and coerced its staff to provide company info
- UFC 242 live stream: how to watch Khabib vs Poirier from anywhere this Saturday
- New Amazon Fire TV Cube enhances your watching experience with Dolby Vision
- IFA 2019 news, previews and everything you need to know
- Businesses are finally starting to trust the cloud
- The best iPhone 11 rumored features, ranked
- Polestar is the biggest new kid on the electric car block
- Asus ZenWiFi mesh router will bring next-gen Wi-Fi 6 to every room of your home
- Acer's best Chromebooks are getting sleeker looks and more power
- Reliance JioFiber commercial launch on September 5: All your questions answered
- The best iPhone apps we've used in 2019
- The best Motorola phones of 2019: find the best Moto smartphone for you
- Two new Acer Swift laptops fly into IFA 2019 packing discrete graphics
- The best cheap TV sales and 4K TV deals in the UK in August 2019
- Over a billion Android phones vulnerable to phishing attack
- Acer buffs Predator gaming laptop with new 300Hz display and more accessories
| Report: iPhone SE successor could be released in early 2020 Posted: 04 Sep 2019 02:08 PM PDT We’ve been waiting for the iPhone SE 2, an updated version of Apple’s budget smartphone, for awhile now - and it might actually be released early next year in ‘Spring’ 2020, according to a new report. The next iPhone SE’s size will be expanded from the 4-inch screen in the original device to be similar to the 4.7-inch display on the iPhone 8, sources told the Nikkei Asian Review. They asserted it will have an LCD screen to save costs (much like the iPhone XR), but will pack ‘most of the same components’ as are coming in this year’s flagship iPhones. Assumedly, this means the iPhone SE 2 will at least have the same powerful A13 processor coming in the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11R, which are expected to be introduced at an Apple event on September 10. While it would be nice if the SE 2 also got a generous helping of RAM, Apple’s phones traditionally don’t pack much anyway - it’s the processor that sets the benchmark for performance as well as the threshold for iOS updates. Each new major iOS version updates the minimum processor quality needed to upgrade; for instance, the upcoming iOS 13 only supports the iPhone 6S and iPhone SE or newer. So releasing the iPhone SE 2 makes sense - in essence, to catch the lowest-cost rung of Apple phone customers before they’re aged out of new iOS versions. The sales angleOr the new iPhone SE 2 could just be a play to drum up sales. iPhone sales dropped for the second consecutive fiscal quarter in Q2 2019 - down 17% year over year, according to an Apple earnings call back in April. It followed a general sales slump across the entire smartphone industry, but some have pointed to skyrocketing flagship device prices for scaring away consumers - including with the latest top-tier Apple handsets. “The cheaper iPhone SE could serve as a sales momentum kicker the first half next year, if the new premium iPhones do not perform well in the coming months,” GF Securities tech analyst Jeff Pu told Nikkei Asian Review. But that might be too myopic of a move for Apple, which has rigorously held its devices in the premium tier. Releasing an SE 2 might not help Apple enough in the long run to be worth releasing. "Launching a mid-range handset [such as an iPhone SE 2] would be good for short-term interest, but it won't help the brand in the long term as the image of Apple is premium,” IDC Associate Vice President for Devices, Francisco Jeronimo told TechRadar shortly after Apple’s Q2 earnings call. “It's much better to sell discounted older and refurbished devices as it keeps Apple's band at the high level." To combat sluggish market performance this year, Apple cut prices for its premium handsets in developing markets, which was somewhat effective: discounting the iPhone XR increased sales by 20 million in China, though Apple sales suffered an overall shortfall in the region. The company also ramped up its trade-in value, and typically discounts older phones after introducing new ones. These are Apple’s affordable options for securing one of its premium handsets, and offering an iPhone SE 2 could undercut even these warehouse-clearing options. In any case, we’d have to wait for early 2020 to see whether this report is accurate or not - but if it is, we might see a whole new Apple phones strategy develop around twice-yearly releases...just like Samsung, OnePlus and Huawei have.
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| Amazon bets big on Alexa smart TVs with huge Fire TV Edition rollout Posted: 04 Sep 2019 02:06 PM PDT Not content with being embedded into smartphones, tablets, web browsers and your home's smart speakers, Amazon is continuing its push into televisions with the announcement of a number of new Fire TV Edition sets destined for the UK, Germany and Austria. The retailer giant has launched more than 15 new Fire TV Edition products (one of which is a new soundbar) which see Amazon's Fire TV streaming technology and Alexa smart assistant come built-in. Amazon has teamed up with television manufacturers JVC, Grundig and Toshiba to bring its fleet of new Fire TV Edition sets to market.
4K JVC Fire TV Edition in the UKFor those in the UK, you will be able to get your Fire TV experience fill thanks to a partnership between Amazon, JVC and Dixons Carphone. The JVC Fire TV Edition Smart 4K Ultra HD HDR LED TVs are the first in the UK to come with Amazon's experience, and will be available at Currys PC World and Amazon.co.uk. There's support for HDR10 and Dolby Vision, for an enhanced viewing experience, and you'll be able to pick from three sizes; 40-inch, 49-inch and 55-inch. You'll also get access to a host of apps including Prime Video, Netflix, YouTube, ITV Hub, All 4, My5 and more. Prices will start from £349, but we're still waiting to hear when the JVC Fire TV Edition will go on sale. OLED Fire TV EditionPotentially the most interesting of the bunch are four OLED Fire TV edition televisions from Grundig, but they'll only be available in Germany and Austria for now. Whether they'll roll out to other countries remains to be seen. Two of these four feature far-field voice control - a world's first - allowing you to harness the power of Alexa to power on/off, change channel and adjust volume without the need to lift a finger. The Grundig OLED Fire TV Edition Hands-Free with Alexa (what a mouthful) will be available in 55-inch and 65-inch models, starting at €1,299.99 (around £1,200) and will begin shipping on November 21. In total there are 11 new Grundig Fire TV edition sets, which means the firm's entire range now ships with Amazon's smarts inside. The full Grundig Fire TV Edition range is as follows:
A number of other manufacturers have also been given clearance to produce Fire TV Edition sets, including Skyworth, Arcelik, TPV, Compal, and Imtron - which means we'll likely see even more televisions with Amazon's smarts arrive in Europe over the coming months. IFA 2019 is Europe's biggest tech show, and the TechRadar team is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and hands-on first impressions of new TVs, laptops, wearables and other products as they're announced. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Best 4K TV 2019: Your definitive guide to the top Ultra-HD TVs Posted: 04 Sep 2019 01:38 PM PDT For over a decade, HD TVs ruled the market. Their 1080p (and often, lower) resolution felt like a huge jump from the CRT TVs we had been using. If you're just getting on board with them now, 4K TVs are a similar jump in technology you saw 10 years ago, promising four times the resolution and exceptional contrast. So why should you ditch that 1080p TV? Not only do 4K TVs simply look better thanks to the increased pixel density and support for wide color gamut technology, but they're usually just as cheap as a 1080p TV - even if you buy them brand-new. In fact, buying a new 1080p TV is getting harder and harder as more manufacturers continue to phase them out of their product lineups. But with so many options out there, narrowing down a year's worth of high-caliber screens to just eight is a tough job. But that's where we come in. We've viewed the vast majority of the 4K TVs on the market, and have narrowed them down to a list of the top 4K TVs on the market for 2019 with screens from Samsung, Sony and LG leading the pack, and lower-cost options like Vizio, Hisense and TCL following just behind. If you recently bought something from another manufacturer that you love and you don't see it on this list, it doesn't mean we've intentionally snubbed it. Unfortunately best-of lists are tiny and we can only squeeze so many screens on here. That said, we're always adding more screens to this list, so be sure to check back this time next month. What is 4K? Watch the video below to find out: What are the best 4K TVs in 2019?Samsung Q90R QLED TV (2019) Last year, the Samsung Q9FN was the TV to beat. It won award-after-award for its features and image quality, not to mention its excellent, improved smart platform that came with Bixby support and Samsung SmartThings. However it wasn’t perfect and there were legitimate complaints about viewing angles and an over-aggressive local dimming system that crushed black detail. Samsung has clearly taken these criticisms to heart, and directly addressed them in the Q90. The new model has a visibly superior viewing angle that holds its own against OLED, and the local dimming delivers deep blacks without losing shadow detail. To that end, the new Ultra Black Elite filter is nothing short of a revelation, rejecting ambient light in a way that just staggers belief. The Q90 is able to deliver images that can directly compete with an OLED, with natural colors, bright highlights, deep blacks, and well defined shadows. It can also surpass any OLED when it comes to HDR, with images that are often breathtaking in their detail and dynamic range. In fact our only real criticism would be that, unlike some of the competition, the Q90 doesn’t support Dolby Vision. However in all other respects the Samsung Q90 is an absolutely stellar TV that takes QLED to another level. Read the full review: Samsung Q90R QLED TV LG C9 OLED 4K TV If smart features are the most important criteria for you when picking out a new 4K TV, then you can't do any better than the new LG C9 OLED. The 2nd generation Alpha9 processor, which uses AI enhancements to deliver stellar SDR and HDR images, helps make the upscaling and processing second-to-none with incredible levels of detail and image fidelity. Add to that a robust smart platform and new AI sound options that analyze and improve sound quality in real time, and you have one of the smartest – and, in our opinion – one of the best 4K TVs on the market. Not to mention one of the best OLED TVs too. Read the full review: LG C9 OLED (OLED55C9, OLED65C9, OLED77C9) The Vizio P-Series Quantum X is a home run for Vizio. Sure, the SmartCast interface isn’t all the great, and the speakers are worth bypassing, but the TV is packed with awesome features and backed up by an excellent image quality. We’re looking forward to AirPlay 2 and HomeKit support, but even without those features the TV is still one of the best options in its price range. If you truly have deep pockets and want the best image quality out there, then it’s still worth going for LG's OLED or Samsung's QLED TVs - but in the absence of a six-figure salary, the $2,199 Vizio P-Series Quantum X PX-65G1 is clearly an excellent option for those that want quantum dot tech in a smart TV at Vizio-level prices. Read the full review: Vizio P-Series Quantum (PQ65-F1) A direct replacement for last year's Sony A9F/AF9 OLED, the Sony A9G/AG9 Master Series OLED is the new flagship of Sony’s TV fleet. It embraces a characteristically minimalist design that disguises a host of cutting-edge features like Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos support, plus Netflix Calibrated Mode (of interest to many), and IMAX Enhanced certification (of interest to few). This is a screen that looks premium, and has a spec on the right side of righteous. The Android platform is easy to live with, that vibrating sound system entertaining and picture quality top notch. Offering Dolby Vision is a welcome refinement, but the caveat is a lack of support for HDR10+. That said, it does a fabulous job up-scaling HD/SDR so it's easy to overlook the lack of at least one HDR format. It's undoubtedly expensive but, all things considered, this glass is class. Read the full review: Sony A9G Master Series OLED LG E9 OLED Series (2019) Overall, the LG E9 OLED offers a dazzling picture, with crisp detail and truly cinematic visuals. LG’s organic LED displays lack the brightness of competing models, but those after a proper movie night in won’t be disappointed. The E9 differs mostly from other LG OLEDs in its shape and its size options – both the more premium W9 and cheaper C9 offer a larger 77-inch model – but we’d be surprised if the E9’s all-glass panel design didn’t impress you. With a unique look, and the multi-channel audio to elevate it above other OLED sets in the range, the E9 is a fantastic addition to any living room if you can afford one. Read the full review: LG E9 OLED (OLED55E9, OLED65E9) While it's not as impressive as this year's Vizio P-Series Quantum X, last year's Vizio P-Series Quantum still offers an incredible deal for those who can find one. It’s a big, bold and affordable screen that supports most forms of HDR and has the ability to light up the room with its 2,000 nits of peak brightness. It might not be able to hit the inky black levels of OLED, and suffers from slow startup, but it is by far the best value quantum dot TV on the market. That being said, if there’s anything substantial holding the Vizio P-Series Quantum back, it’s Vizio’s smart platform: In just a few words, SmartCast is one of the least robust platforms and one of the slowest, too. Startup from a complete shutdown takes a seriously long time, and navigating around the interface isn’t nearly as snappy as LG’s WebOS or Samsung’s Tizen platform. Still, if you don't mind a slow OS, this is a great budget big-screen TV. Read the full review: Vizio P-Series Quantum (PQ65-F1) Samsung Q70R QLED TV (2019) Samsung’s flagship Q90R QLED TV blew us away recently with its wider viewing angles, deeper blacks, and superior HDR images - sadly, however, not everyone can afford the flagship model. So what can Samsung offer for those wanting to experience QLED picture quality on a budget? Despite sitting lower down in the QLED line-up, the Q70R includes the same comprehensive smart platform, extensive connections, and cutting-edge features found further up the range. This isn’t the flashiest-looking TV that Samsung has ever made, but if your funds are limited the Q70 is a cracking QLED all-rounder that’s worth checking out. Read the full review: Samsung Q70R QLED TV Sony Bravia X950G 4K TV Sporting the upgraded X1 Ultimate processor, Netflix Calibrated Mode and the latest version of Android TV, Sony’s mid-range X950G has a lot going for it. Right out of the box, the best way to describe the image quality of the X950G is… well, natural. It’s not flashy. It’s not overly bright. Colors aren’t oversaturated. It’s just a really natural picture with subdued colors and great black levels perfect for HD/SDR content. That said, if you’re the kind of person that wants a bit more pop to your images all you need to do is turn on Live Color in the picture settings. This mode works on HD/SDR content to add a bit more color saturation to the image and helps to make the image ‘pop’ in a way that really grabs your attention. It’s a shame that poor sound quality ruined such a great 4K/HDR TV, however, taken by itself, the Sony X950G is an immaculate screen with a ton of potential. Read the full review: Sony BRAVIA X950G (XBR-65X950G) TCL 6-Series 4K TV If you have deep pockets and a checkbook filled with blank checks, we’d tell you to reach deep and shell out for only the best 4K TVs on the market – LG’s crazy-thin OLED W8 or Samsung’s ultra-bright Q9FN QLED. But that’s not always realistic: for the vast, vast majority of us, our budget to spend on a 4K UHD TV is limited to somewhere under $1,000 – and often it's even less than that. To that end, it’s absolutely fair to say that the TCL 6-Series is the best TV you can possibly get in this price range. Its performance per dollar is unmatched and its picture quality – despite a few minor flaws – will truly impress you. Said simply, if there’s a better value 4K TV on the market, we’ve yet to see it. Read the full review: TCL 6-Series (R615, R617) Hisense's H8 Series has long offered high quality at a very reasonable price, but these days it's getting harder and harder to make waves in the budget TV market - Samsung and LG now offer plenty of great 4K HDR TVs well under the $1,000 mark, while TCL has been making headlines with its $600 TCL 6-Series. But the H8F is a little different than previous-gen H8 series TVs. It's the company's best value TV yet and offers both Android TV and the company's proprietary ULED TV tech that it claims offers better contrast and performance than rival LED TVs. Sure, it's not going to compete with LG's OLEDs or Samsung high-end QLED models, but this affordable 4K screen is one of the best in its price range, and the only sub-$500 model we feel comfortable recommending to our readers. Read the full review: Hisense H8F (55H8F) review
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| HDR10+ finally gets the 8K treatment – but only on Samsung TVs Posted: 04 Sep 2019 01:07 PM PDT Samsung has announced that its 2019 range of 8K TVs will soon be the first to display the dynamic HDR10+ video format in the ultra-high 8K resolution. Coinciding with the IFA 2019 technology expo, the world's biggest TV manufacturer has partnered with a number of streaming services across Europe – including CHILI, MEGAGOGO, and The Explorers – to start displaying 8K HDR10+ content. HDR10+ is a competing HDR format to Dolby Vision, which similarly uses dynamic metadata to enhance and alter picture settings throughout supported films and TV shows, in order to optimize the picture for each scene. This is unlike the regular HDR10 format, which uses the same overall settings throughout the video.
The 8K version of the format is now compatible with Samsung 4K TVs, and every QLED TV from the Samsung 2019 TV range. There's no word on when this 8K content will be launching, though, and naturally will only be watchable by those of you with a Samsung 8K TV – like the Samsung Q950R 8K QLED, or Samsung Q900R 8K QLED – and with the high-speed bandwidth to play all those pretty 8K pixels. What about Amazon Prime?Samsung has named three large providers of TV streaming across Europe, with others like Rakuten TV likely to join the fray – according to Samsung's own press release. It's interesting, however, that Amazon Prime Video – probably the best-known streaming service to support the HDR10+ format, unlike the Dolby Vision-supporting Netflix platform – isn't included in this list of OTT (over-the-top) providers. It may be that negotiations with the retail and streaming giant are still ongoing. But given there is so little 8K content available anywhere, Amazon may be waiting for a larger catalogue before it joins in Samsung's plans. IFA 2019 is Europe's biggest tech show, and the TechRadar team is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and hands-on first impressions of new TVs, laptops, wearables and other devices as they're announced. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Huawei claims US enticed and coerced its staff to provide company info Posted: 04 Sep 2019 12:58 PM PDT The US government has allegedly instructed law enforcement agencies to “coerce” and “entice” Huawei employees to turn against it according to a recent media statement from the company. During its ongoing trade war with China, the US put the world's second largest smartphone maker on an Entity List back in May which resulted in the company losing access to US components and technology including Google's apps and services for Android devices. In Huawei's media statement, the company alleges that the US government has made carrying out its day to day operations increasingly difficult, saying: “For the past several months, the US government has been leveraging its political and diplomatic influence to lobby other governments to ban Huawei equipment. Furthermore, it has been using every tool at its disposal – including both judicial and administrative powers, as well as a host of other unscrupulous means – to disrupt the normal business operations of Huawei and its partners.”
US government interferenceTo make matters worse, Huawei also said that its partners were subjected to unlawful searches, detention and even arrest while several of its employees were visited by FBI agents at their homes and pressured to collect information on the company. The company said that eight of its employees, several of which are US citizens, were involved in the incidents. All of these employees are either mid-level or high-level executives and the latest incident occurred in August when an employee at Huawei's US office told the company that the FBI had visited them and asked that they become an informant. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang commented on Huawei's media statement by saying that the country opposes US moves designed at targeting a specific company without providing any evidence at all. In addition to trying to coerce its employees, the company also claims that the US government has launched cyberattacks against it and has mobilized companies that work with Huawei to bring unsubstantiated accusations against the firm. Huawei concluded its media statement by denying any accusations against the company as sufficient evidence has not yet been brought forth, saying: “The fact remains that none of Huawei's core technology has been the subject of any criminal case brought against the company, and none of the accusations levied by the US government have been supported with sufficient evidence. We strongly condemn the malign, concerted effort by the US government to discredit Huawei and curb its leadership position in the industry.” Via Reuters This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| UFC 242 live stream: how to watch Khabib vs Poirier from anywhere this Saturday Posted: 04 Sep 2019 12:24 PM PDT Let us all cast our minds back to last year - Khabib Nurmagomedov destroyed the quite literally 'Notorious' Conor McGregor through submission and became the UFC fighter everyone feared. Now, he's back to defend his UFC Lightweight Championship belt. In other words, cancel all of your weekend plans, watching a UFC 242 live stream should be your only goal. With 27 wins, 0 losses and one of the most controversial feuds in UFC history under his (lightweight) belt, Khabib would need a pretty fearless fighter to take him on for his title - enter the American Dustin Poirier. Poirier might not have quite the impressive track record Khabib has, but after leaving Max Holloway in the dust back in April he's proved he is the person to take on Khabib. Especially as he holds the interim UFC Lightweight title. And it's not just the main fight to get hyped about. Watching a UFC 242 live stream will mean catching Edson Barboza vs Paul Felder, a fight that really began back in July, 2015 when the two fighters first went head-to-head, with Barboza pulling out a unanimous win. Now, Felder is back for blood. And not to mention 'The Tasmanian Devil' Davi Ramos vs Islam Makhachev, two well matched fighters, likely to push way into the rounds in a fist for fist marathon. In other words, UFC 242 is looking like a event you will not want to miss. No matter what weight class, which fighter or which style you're there for, we’ll show you how to live stream UFC 242’s main card from anywhere in the world.
Live stream UFC 242 from outside your countryWorry not if you're a huge UFC fan but aren't in the country to watch UFC 242 when it happens. If you find the coverage is geo-blocked, you can try using a VPN to change your IP address to a country where the fights are airing and watch this week's main card just as if you were back at home. How to watch UFC 242 online in the US exclusively on ESPNLive stream UFC 242 in the UKWatch a UFC 242 stream in AustraliaThis posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| New Amazon Fire TV Cube enhances your watching experience with Dolby Vision Posted: 04 Sep 2019 11:51 AM PDT Amazon has announced the new Fire TV Cube, an updated version of its Alexa-enabled hands-free streaming media player, adding Dolby Vision and a few other new features to the mix. It's twice as powerful as the previous generation, with a new hexa-core processor for a faster user experience. It should be quicker when reacting to voice commands, opening apps and pulling up the content you want to watch. Another new feature on the Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen) is Local Voice Control, which lets it quickly execute some of the most frequently used voice commands, such as "Alexa, scroll right", "Alexa, go home", "Alexa, select number one", and more. Amazon claims reactions to these commands are up to four times faster versus the first generation box.
4K, HDR, Dolby Atmos and Alexa all includedYou still get support for 4K Ultra HD playback at 60fps, Dolby Atmos audio, HDR and HDR10+, along with over 50 apps including Netflix, YouTube and Prime Video, plus if you're in the US you can access live TV stations directly from the second-generation Fire TV Cube. And of course you can summon Alexa, allowing you to control the device (plus your soundbar, TVs, A/V receiver and cable or satellite box) with your voice - although a physical remote is also included. Previously the Cube has only been available in the US, but the new Amazon Fire TV Cube will also be available in Canada, the UK and Germany from October 10 and Japan from November 5. As for the new Fire TV Cube price, it will set you back $119 (£109.99, around AU$175) - the same price as the previous generation.
IFA 2019 is Europe's biggest tech show, and the TechRadar team is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and hands-on first impressions of new TVs, laptops, wearables and other products as they're announced. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| IFA 2019 news, previews and everything you need to know Posted: 04 Sep 2019 10:33 AM PDT IFA 2019 has officially kicked off, with multiple brands beginning to peddle their new wares for you to gawp and gander at. Europe's biggest tech show is the place every year to find out more on which 4K TVs (or even 8K), phones, wearables, headphones and appliances are going to be changing the world in the next 12 months. Yes, that is rather like CES, the yearly tech show that takes place in Las Vegas, Nevada, but while the two shows are similar, IFA is the place for the key European launches - and that traditionally means a butt-load of TVs from the likes of Philips, Samsung, LG, Hisense and Panasonic. While not rivaling Mobile World Congress (MWC) in February for phone launches, we're also expecting some decent news from some of the major smartphone manufacturers too. We've got a huge presence at IFA this year, so we'll be bringing you all the key news, color pieces and - most importantly - hands on experiences with the new products you're going to be buying over the next 12 months from one of the biggest tech shows of the year. What you need to know
Hands on reviews from IFA 2019
Latest IFA 2019 newsHundreds, if not thousands, of exhibitors are lining the halls of Berlin's Messe conference center for IFA 2019. It's an all-encompassing show, where you'll have drone designers rubbing shoulders with microwave makers. Navigating the show and all its news can be a nightmare. So we've got all the key news listed right here for you, as well as outlining what all the key players have announced (or we expect them to announce) below that. Asus ZenWiFi mesh router will bring next-gen Wi-Fi 6 to every room of your homeAsus has announced its ZenWiFi mesh router, which features next-gen Wi-Fi 6 technology for faster and more stable wireless internet around your home. Acer buffs Predator gaming laptop with new 300Hz display and more accessoriesAcer's Predator Triton 500 is getting a major upgrade this year, and it comes amid plenty of other new hardware and peripheral announcements from the company at IFA 2019. The new Triton 500 model will offer up a beastly 300Hz display to take gamers to an entirely new level of smooth gameplay. Acer has improved it's already great Chromebooks, and two Windows laptops with discrete graphicsAcer already had some of the best Chromebooks on the market, but it's improved on them with its latest launch in the form of the Acer Chromebook 314 and Chromebook 315. They're more powerful and feature a sleeker design. Meanwhile, it's also refreshed its Swift 5 and Swift 3 laptops with updated power and graphics. Chromecast in a room-shaking soundbar? That's what we've got hereThe key thing here with Definitive Technology's super-slim soundbar is that it comes with Chromecast built in - so you can stream audio and play radio over Wi-Fi. It's a little pricey though, which is the cost of this slim design and extra functionality. True wireless headphones with outstanding battery life? That's what Audio-Technica is promisingAudio-Technica has announced two new nattily-named true wireless earbud models, the ATH-CKS5TW and its budget sibling, the ATH-CK3TW. There's 15 hours of battery life on offer, with another 30 from the charging case - and that's alongside the promise of enhanced sound quality. Worth checking out. Asus debuts its latest Apple Watch rival, the Vivowatch SPDesigned to be a full health monitor, this watch packs in both an ECG and GPS as well as waterproofing to 50 meters. It's pretty advanced for a smartwatch, and up to 14 days' battery life have been mooted. Intel says the future of laptops is Project AthenaIntel has been talking up its vision of the future of laptops, and has brought along devices from big names such as Dell and HP. Crucially, it revealed more about its Project Athena innovation program, which it says will change everything... but will that be the case? Asus unveils laptops with 300Hz screens - trust us, that's fastWith a display panel with a 300Hz refresh rate for ultra-smooth gaming, the new ROG Zephyrus S models are set to be real winner for gamers this year. We're still waiting on the full specs (and the all-important price) but the GX502 model will include a 9th-Gen Intel Core i7-9750H with up to 32GB of RAM and PCIe NVMe SSD storage, so its a safe bet the GX701 will at least go that high as well. Acer’s $14k Predator Thronos Air gaming chair is just crazyAnother tech show, another crazy gaming chair. This time it's the new Predator Thronos chair which is actually 'cheap' for impossibly-expensive gaming seats. The cost has been dropped through a lack of motorization, which seems to make sense. Adidas' new headphones promise to make you run fasterWorking in collaboration with Zound Industries (the one behind Marshall headphones and Urbanears) Adidas has created headphones that promise to help you with your workouts. Sadly, there's no smart AI in here - only headphones that Adidas promises will help you exercise better by being more comfortable. 16 hours' battery life for the true wireless earbuds is pretty nifty though, and there are over-ear options too. Other news snippets
News and rumors by brandWe're keeping our ears pressed firmly to the ground and we've got all the information you need on the top brands at IFA 2019, so keep an eye on the sections below to learn everything that's emerged from each manufacturer. SamsungIFA used to be a huge phone show for Samsung – quite literally, as it's where it first revealed its then-massive Note smartphone range. That won't be the case for 2019 as the company has already unveiled its Note 10, Note 10 Plus, Watch Active 2 and Galaxy Tab S6 at its own show in early August. However, there's rumblings that Samsung could use the IFA 2019 event to lift the lid on the Samsung Galaxy Fold. A new report from a Korean media outlet suggests Samsung has chosen September 6 for an official announcement. That’s the same date Europe’s largest trade show kicks off in Berlin, so it wouldn’t surprise us in the least of Samsung chooses to use IFA 2019 as a launch platform. But Samsung isn't all about phones, you can also expect Samsung to focus on its blindingly-bright QLED TV sets. As with LG, Samsung has a hand in many consumer-tech brackets. So if you're on the market for a washing machine or new connected fridgefreezer, wait until you've seen what the company's IFA 2019 press conference has to offer. SonyLatest news: We're hearing teases of a new Sony Xperia Compact handset - but will Sony really deliver that? IFA tends to be a big show for Sony, where it as historically launched smartphones. Previous years introduced the Xperia Z3, which is why many believe IFA 2019 will likely usher in the Xperia 2 (leading on from the 21:9 ratio Xperia 1 launched earlier in 2019). There's also a chance we'll see mid-range devices too. In 2018 it also used the show to launch the odd FES Watch U wearable. There's a chance we may see more wearables this year, or at least some intriguing concept designs. Sony will of course also have plenty of Android TV-powered OLED sets on display. But what are we really the most excited about? We're holding out hope for a follow up to the world-beating noise cancelling headphones, the Sony WH-1000XM3 cans, which were revealed at last year's show. The shadow of the PS5 will be looming over the event but, alas – we will eat our laptops if the company chose IFA as its new console launchpad. AcerComputing company Acer always puts on a show during IFA, and for 2019 it's even hosting a keynote session where we're expecting a large chunk of its upcoming line-up to be revealed. IFA tends to be the place where Acer's Predator gaming lineup receives updates, and is often where Acer debuts concept products, which we've seen with the new Predator Thronos gaming chair among other new announcements. AMDWith its Ryzen 3000 CPUs riding high, and its Navi rDNA graphics architecture expected to power the Xbox Project Scarlett and PS5 consoles, AMD has its hands full at the moment. Though it usually has a presence at IFA, we're not expecting any big announcements from the company this time around. AsusAsus has already had a busy IFA 2019, announcing a spate of gaming and professional devices that push the boundaries of what we’ve come to expect from laptops. On the gaming side of things, Asus revealed new models of its ROG Zephyrus S gaming laptops. Not only are these gorgeously-designed laptops that combine powerful gaming components with thin and light designs, but the new models also feature screens with incredibly fast 300Hz refresh rates. That will allow the laptops to provide ultra-smooth frame rates when playing games. That kind of refresh rate needs powerful hardware behind it, and Asus appears to have packed these laptops with some impressive tech, including an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080, a 9th-Gen Intel Core i7-9750H processor and up to 32GB of RAM. Asus also announced new ROG Zephyrus M laptops, which feature 1080p screens with Pantone validation, making them excellent laptops for content creators as well as gamers. There were also announcements for professionals, with Asus revealing its ProArt StudioBook laptops at IFA 2019, which includes the ProArt StudioBook One, which it claims is the “most graphically-powerful laptop” in the world. The ProArt StudioBooks are seriously-strong workstations that offer incredible performance for professionals, while also taking cues from Asus’ consumer laptops, such as ultra-thin NanoEdge bezels around the screens and secondary ScreenPad 2.0 touchscreens, which replace the traditional touchpad on certain models. BlackBerryBlackBerry! Yep, remember those handsets? They've not gone completely the way of the dodo just yet. There was activity around the BlackBerry brand with a new handset (now made by TCL) arriving in 2018 in the form of the BlackBerry Key2 LE. But with no sign of the Key3 in 2019 so far, and the brands' overall fortunes showing no sign of recovery any time soon, we'd say it's pretty unlikely we'll see a handset bearing the BB name at IFA this year. DellWe expect to see plenty of new products from Dell at IFA 2019. Dell could surprise us with another XPS product reveal or use this opportunity to catch its other product lines up to speed with current computing trends. Dell and Alienware truly have been wild cards at IFA in years past – if there's one area it might steal the headlines, it'd be on its gaming hardware, so keep an eye on the Alienware gear coming out of the show. FossilWearables continue to have a strong showing at IFA, and Fossil often announces new watches at the show. Could the Fossil Sport 2 make an appearance? If not, expect other brands like Michael Kors or Diesel to fill in that watch-shaped gap around your wrist. GarminAs with Fossil, Garmin likes to hit IFA with a range of sports-focused wearables. But it's in a slightly different position this year, coming into the show hot on the heels of a busy period of announcements. Expect to see variants of Garmin's existing lines, rather than anything brand spanking new. For example, we already know that Garmin is readying six new smartwatches for release in the coming months according to a recent leak, and it's a range that is set to include the Vivoactive 4 and Vivomove Style. The leak comes from WinFuture, which has also included pictures of all six new products. There's also the new Garmin Venu, which seems to be a top-end watch that comes in a 43mm body and supports both Spotify and Deezer. It's set to come with activity tracking for runners, cyclists and swimmers with GPS on board, plus it will have Garmin Pay as well. HPThe Houston-based computer maker generally doesn't make a big splash at IFA, preferring the halls of Computex or CES. We might see one or two new products launch at the show, but not much more than that. Stranger things have happened. HisenseWith its first range of OLED TVs finally hitting store shelves, Hisense will be doubling down on the technology at IFA 2019. It's current top-tier OLED TV has a high asking price, but lacks some of the more premium features that its competition offers. Though the brand tends to lean towards the affordable and budget end of the market, we're hoping to see at least one grandstanding set that aims towards more luxurious features at a more attainable price point. This could be coming in the form of the sonic screen laser TV, which a press release from Hisense revealed will be announced at IFA. According to the announcement, the TV will be focused on synchronising sound and image: "The Hisense sonic screen laser TV brings sound (40-18kHz) directly from the screen, and with the diaphragm of the Distributed-Mode Loudspeaker vibrating in a complex pattern over its entire surface, it guarantees consistent output level and undistorted time response in all directions." HonorHere's one that could turn out to be a bit of a surprise. Honor announced the Honor Magic 2 at IFA in 2018, but did further promo around the already-announced Honor Play at the show, too. The Honor 9X, 9X Pro and Honor Band 5 have just launched in China, so IFA could IFA perhaps be their European debut? Regardless, as the company sits under the Huawei umbrella, expect the parent brand to do most of the talking. Another upcoming surprise from Honor is Capture Vision. No, we're not sure what that means either, but according to a number of rumours that's another new kind of tech Honor might be showcasing at IFA this year. HuaweiLast year, Huawei saved its big-hitting Mate 20 / 20 Pro launch for after IFA, but it did however introduce the range with the Mate 20 Lite in Berlin. We could see something similar here, with a mid-range handset launched, maybe with the Mate 30 name. You're unlikely to see a flagship launch though, with the company now favoring its own solo shows. The company also has been dabbling with smart speaker tech, its AI Cube being both audio device and 4G router. Could a 5G update be on the cards? We could also see Huawei unleash a new MateBook at the tech event. Its laptops, like the Huawei MateBook 14 are some of our favorite laptops, so we're looking forward to maybe seeing some more computing products from the company. IntelIntel is going big at IFA 2019 – and in our view it needs to, as the competition against AMD is tougher than it’s been for quite some time. That’s why Intel has taken to the show floor to show us its vision of the future of laptops , and throughout the week it will be showing off new Project Athena laptops from some of the biggest names in notebooks. These promise to revolutionise the laptop market with improved power, huge battery lives and instant boot-up times. Intel will also be revealing laptops from the likes of Acer, Asus, Lenovo, MSI and Razer that run on its latest 10th generation Core processors, so check back here throughout the week for news and hands-on reviews. LenovoThe company behind Yoga laptops and Motorola phones has a major nighttime event planned for IFA 2019 called "Tech Life," which will play host to a number of product unveilings. It's likely that more of Lenovo's flagship products for 2019 could be unveiled here, including new Yoga and ThinkPad devices. However, Lenovo has already lifted the lid on lots of new devices already, including updated versions of the ThinkPad range, as well as Chromebooks, tablets, desktops and monitors. Although IFA 2019 will be a good chance for us to get our hands on all of this new tech. Keep in mind that Lenovo increasingly steps into the smart home arena too. We were very impressed earlier this year with the Lenovo Smart Clock, for instance. Don't be surprised if it adds more to its smart home line up as a result. Image credit: LG LGTV and home cinema tech will be the main attractions of LG's IFA showcase, no doubt, as the company (being the only actual manufacturer of the technology) continues to sign the praises of its OLED TV tech. We already know its new range of CineBeam 4K projectors is set to be shown off at IFA and a release for European markets (presumably including the UK) is scheduled for September. The lineup will include LG's first ultra short throw projector, called the CineBeam Laser (HU85L). This project can display a 90-inch image along a wall at only two inches away – and a 120-inch image at seven inches away. At 2,500 lumens brightness, 4K resolution, and HDR support, it's a premium projector offering set to appease home cinema enthusiasts who don't want a massive 75-inch TV (or bigger) taking up space in their living room. As well as TV tech, LG also tends to have mid-range handsets at the show. In 2018 is was the LG G7 One and LG G7 Fit - building off the flagship line at lower price points. In terms of audio, we'd be hoping to see further fruits from its partnership with UK experts Meridian Audio. The company also posted another a teaser video on its Youtube channel, with the title 'Defy Limits with LG Mobile at IFA 2019', which hints at a few features of its new LG V60 ThinQ dual-screen smartphone. However this teaser video may be a little more cryptic than LG intended, so we're left with more questions than answers. There's also been rumblings of another mobile device called the LG G8X, but that could be the dual-screen phone above, but it's just being referred to as a different name in internal comms. But don't be surprised if there's more from the brand. LG is a giant of the industry, and has its hand in essentially every technological consumer space imaginable, from freezers to laptops, monitors to robotics. Last year its CLOi bots were future-gazing highlights of the show. MotorolaThe phone branch of Lenovo has become a bastion of hope for those looking for high-end smartphone features on a tighter budget. Usually Moto has a phone or two to show at IFA – in 2018 we got the Motorola One, a respectable mid-range handset, for instance. Though it's unlikely to have a new flagship in Berlin, more mid-rangers are certainly on the cards if past exhibitions are anything to go by. A series of different leaks have hinted at the various handsets that might be launched at IFA 2019, including the Motorola One Zoom. The rumoured quad rear camera may get a 5x hybrid telephoto lens and depth-measuring Time of Flight sensor, according to a new leak. NokiaThese days phones are smarter and more capable than ever. But, if you look back to the early days of phones and wish things were just a little simpler again, then Nokia might be able to help you out. The brand's iconic 3310 handset was a firm favourite for anyone who had a phone 19 years ago. It was simple. You had calls, you had texts, you had Snake and that was about it. According to rumours, Nokia might be bringing out the 3310 all over again. None of this is official, of course, but plenty of Nokia fans have been reading into texts from HMD Global’s Chief Product Officer, Juho Sarvikas. PhilipsWith the European (read: better) arm of Philips TV division unable to show at CES, we're expecting big, big things from the brand at IFA 2019. It's the manufacturer's time to shine, and we'd expect a snazzy new OLED Ambilight flagship to launch at the show. In addition, Philips is once again ramping up its audio offering, dusting off its long-neglected Fidelio range. It was once a mighty player in headphones – could it come back to reclaim its position? RazerWe haven't been sure what to expect from gaming hardware company Razer at this year's IFA tech conference. But now the brand has teased a "world's first" launch, which has got everyone talking. A tweet from the brand's Twitter account teased the "world's first" with an image that references Razer's gaming laptop. Does that mean another laptop is on the cards? And if so what would make it a "world's first"? We can't think of what kind of laptop tech hasn't been done yet, which means we're looking forward to a surprise. 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| Businesses are finally starting to trust the cloud Posted: 04 Sep 2019 10:00 AM PDT More than half (61%) of security professionals believe the risk of a security breach is the same or lower in the cloud compared to on-premise according to new research from Nominet. The firm surveyed nearly 300 C-level security professionals from the UK and the US to compile its new “Cyber security and the cloud” report which marks a major tipping point in the perception of security in the cloud. Nominet's research found that 71 percent of those surveyed were either moderately, very or extremely concerned about malicious activity in cloud systems. When it came to their biggest concerns regarding cloud security, 56 percent of respondents cited fines for data leaks while 54 percent worry about the increasing sophistication of cyber criminals.
VP of Cyber Security at Nominet, Stuart Reed explained how the perceived risk gap between cloud and on-premise has disappeared, saying: “Security has traditionally always been cited as a barrier to cloud adoption, so it is significant that the perceived risk gap between cloud and on-premise has disappeared. It is evident that security concerns are no longer an insurmountable barrier to cloud deployments given the high adoption rate of cloud services. And, as we move into the ‘cloud era’, arguably security teams need to channel their concern into finding solutions that work with the cloud, just as they have been doing in an on-premise environment. The shift in attitude between on-premise and cloud doesn’t change the remit for security teams, it just puts us on a different type of playing field.” Multi-cloud vs single-cloudNominet's research also took a deeper look into the relative security of cloud storage strategies to discover that a multi-cloud approach is seen to be more risky than either hybrid or single-cloud approaches. Organizations that adopted a multi-cloud approach were far more likely to have suffered a data breach over the past 12 months at 52 percent versus 24 percent of hybrid-cloud users and 24 percent of single-cloud users. Adopting a multi-cloud approach also caused organizations to suffer a larger number of breaches with 69 percent of respondents suffering between 11-30 breaches compared to 19 percent of those from single-cloud and 13 percent from hybrid-cloud businesses. Reed explained that while adopting a multi-cloud approach makes sense on paper, the real-world implications are quite different, saying: “When it comes to ensuring resilience and being able to source ‘best-in-class’ services, using multiple vendors makes sense. However, from a security perspective, the muti-cloud approach also increases exposure to risk as there are a greater number of parties handling an organisation’s sensitive data. This is exactly why an eye must be kept on integration and a concerted effort be made to gain the visibility needed to counter threats across all different types of environments.” Nominet also questioned C-level security professionals about cloud security tools deployed at their organizations to find that firewalls (55%), email security (52%), antivirus/anti-malware (48%) and data loss prevention (48%) were the most popular and that the majority (57%) of respondents expect their cloud security budget to increase in the next 12 months.
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| The best iPhone 11 rumored features, ranked Posted: 04 Sep 2019 09:31 AM PDT Apple has announced the date for its next big launch - September 10 - and we’re expecting to see three new handsets. But what are the best features rumored to be coming in the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11R? These are assumed names of the phones, of course - Apple has kept a lid on everything, including what they’ll be called. But if they follow last year’s models, there’s a lot that could be improved on the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR. We have to rely on rumors at this point, and we’ll know for certain which whispers were right on the money and which were just pipe dreams when Apple reveals the phones in less than a week. Still, it’s fun to speculate - and wonder how the tech giant is planning to keep its top-tier devices at the top of our best phones list. So, here’s our totally scientific list of possible features coming to the next-gen Apple phones, ranked from most to least awesome. 1. Triple camera lensesThis one’s a bit of a gimme. The most potent (and repeated) leaks suggest the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro will finally branch out to include a third lens. This is somewhat overdue from Apple - even the iPhone XS felt a little underequipped with only a main and telephoto lens. While we’re excited to see the likely higher-specced iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro add a third lens - which, assuming Apple follows phone trends, will be an ultrawide lens - we’re perhaps even more pumped for the iPhone 11R to get an extra lens. Yes, from the renders, the budget phone seems to only be getting two of the three lenses. Even if it’s simply adding a telephoto, an extra shooter will improve the phone’s photography (especially Portrait mode). But hopefully it will be the ultrawide, which was such a useful bonus lens on the budget flagship Samsung Galaxy S10e that we really didn’t mind losing out on optical zoom. 2. The iPhone 11 Pro’s mini Apple Pencil stylusWe love this idea so much we wrote an entire op ed singing its potential praises. The short version: we really dig the Apple Pencil functionality on the latest iPad Pro, and it would be even more useful on a powerful (and hopefully big-screen) iPhone. Yes, we’re essentially hoping Apple follows Samsung’s lead and steals the Galaxy Note 10’s standout feature - or, if you want to be particular, take a page way back from Palm’s PDA playbook. But sketching notes to share within the iOS ecosystem sounds useful, especially combined with scaled-down versions of iPad Pro functionality. A techie can dream. 3. No-signal texting over radio wavesFull disclosure, we probably won’t see this feature come in the iPhone 11 series, if it comes to Apple’s handsets at all, as the rumor listing the project asserted it’s been put on ice. But iPhone engineers had reportedly been working on a way to let phone owners chat with each other, walkie-talkie style, without cell signal by sending voice messages over long-distance radio waves. Supposedly titled Project OGRS (Off-Grid Radio Service), which is a heck of a name, the program was suspended for unknown reasons, but two possibilities emerged as the likely culprits. One, that the executive responsible, Rubén Caballero, had left Apple; and the other, that the feature had been designed with Intel modems in mind, which Apple switched away from in favor of Qualcomm’s, and eventually will likely make its own. Awesome? Yes. Coming? Not likely. 4. Upgraded charging block bundled inAlas, it seems we’re stuck with the Lightning port for at least one more iPhone cycle, watching enviously as Android devices charge faster and faster (Samsung 45W charger, we’re looking at you). But there’s a possible consolation prize for Apple’s handsets: the iPhone 11 might bundle an 18W charger in the box. The 18W charger debuted in the latest iPad Pro as a faster-charging option - and while it will absolutely juice up the iPhone XS generation faster than the puny 7.5W block that comes with the phones, optional chargers are often, well, very optional. It’s certainly not the highest-wattage charger out there - perhaps we won’t even see one until Apple formally switches its phones away from Lightning - but packing the 18W charger is at least a step in the right direction. Now if only it came with a wireless charger, too... 5. Reverse wireless chargingOne feature that debuted in the Huawei Mate 20 Pro has been cropping up in more and more new phones released in 2019: the ability to use your phone to wirelessly charge other devices, essentially donating charge. Back in February, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo released a report with some predictions for the iPhone 11 that included getting this capability. It is admittedly pretty cool, especially for devices you use all the time like the AirPods 2. But we’ve ranked this low on our list because...we just don’t use it that much. The feature appeared on the Samsung Galaxy S10 range, and much like with the Mate 20 Pro, we didn’t want to put our main phone in "charger time-out" while it slowly juiced up another device. Perhaps if the iPhone 11 juices up battery at a faster rate, we’ll be excited for this perk - but given how slow all wireless charging is, we’re not holding our breath.
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| Polestar is the biggest new kid on the electric car block Posted: 04 Sep 2019 08:40 AM PDT For the past few years, if you wanted to buy a luxury electric vehicle, you really could only find one company selling them. But now many other automakers are coming for Tesla’s high-end, battery-powered market, and so consumers that don’t live and breathe car statistics will have to determine what makes one EV better than the other. Do you focus on battery range and brake horsepower, or tech gadgets like the infotainment touchscreen or potential self-driving systems? Enter Polestar, an EV car brand and spin-off of the Volvo Car group that treats innovation as more than just a marketing buzzword. This February it announced that the Polestar 2, its first all-electric car, will launch worldwide in summer 2020. While the Polestar 2’s reported specs—500km/275mi range per charge, regenerative braking with one-pedal driving, acceleration from 0–60mph in under 5 seconds—will excite the car geeks reading this, the other tech geeks only vaguely impressed by these numbers can take heart. Polestar has geared its car (pun intended) completely towards tech geeks. Its native Android app and Google Assistant support, unique touchscreen UI, smartphone car key and subscription ownership option should appeal to anyone that thinks their car should have as much brain power as horsepower. Don’t tap apps and driveWith an 11.5-inch vertical touchscreen just above the hexagonal gear shifter, it’s easier than ever for a driver to access apps while they drive to work. But Polestar’s engineers had the sense to realize this wasn’t necessarily a good thing. “UIs tend not to be driver oriented,” says Amil Gasanin, the graphic designer responsible for the Polestar 2 UI design. “They also have comparatively small touch areas, taking more of your attention which should be on the road.” So Gasanin and his team designed a four-tile grid system, making your most commonly used apps easy to find and tap without having to take your concentration off the road for longer than a second. Plus, you can customize which three buttons (see the light-gray icons above) are constantly visible for each app, since you know best what you need to endure your morning commute. You can see how the UI looks on your phone or tablet with this sample web app Polestar made. Unlike most infotainment screens that use a proprietary UI and quickly become obsolete, the Polestar tablet uses an Android OS that can receive wi-fi updates at any time, ensuring it (and your car) stay up to date. Polestar will even let you connect your Google Play account to the car so you can download your favorite apps. Polestar has an ambitious plan to design its Android Automotive OS specifically for the in-car experience. It launched its own developer portal, where engineers can develop apps using their Emulator and dev tools, specifically designed for hands-free users. Then those devs can pitch their apps and ideas to Polestar and form partnerships to create a better in-car user experience. Your favorite apps like Google Maps and Spotify will be redesigned for in-car use, keeping you safe from distraction, and other new apps will provide features that you wouldn’t need anywhere else except in a car. Some examples Polestar suggested to developers include a tool for finding and paying for parking without leaving your EV or daily briefings that mix in your appointments with the daily news. Whatever the devs come up with, the OS will ship with features to ensure you don’t have to take your eyes off the road. The tablet comes embedded with Google Assistant support and natural speech recognition. And the Polestar 2 employs an audio environment from Harman Kardon, which specializes in smart speakers with GA support. So your voice commands should suffice until you reach your destination. Subscribe to the Polestar experienceBeing your own auto expert used to be an adult rite of passage, and even now plenty of car owners scoff at people who can’t change a tire and spend all their time fixing up vintage muscle cars in their driveway. But some folks would much rather spend time building computer rigs than endlessly fixing an engine. For them, owning a car should mirror the Forza Horizon experience: you never haggle with aggressive salespeople, cars arrive at your location with the tap of a button, check engine lights don’t exist, and you can somehow afford high-end cars. We don’t have the time, or inclination, to become masters and experts of every aspect of our lives; we’d rather be users of a streamlined experience. Thankfully, Polestar figured out that our love of “Netflix for _______” subscription services can and should extend to car ownership. They’ve abandoned the dealership model for an online-only vehicle purchasing service. And if you’re not ready to buy a Polestar 2 just yet, you’ll be able to subscribe to one via a Polestar subscription service due out sometime in the second half of 2019. Your offer would vary based on your country of origin and the details aren’t final, but here’s the core of the idea: for a monthly fee, you’ll receive your own Polestar 2 EV to drive around, along with some essential complementary services to keep it running smoothly. All of the annoying nickel-and-dime fees that comes with owning a car—driver’s insurance, maintenance costs, roadside assistance, even concierge services—will all theoretically be covered by that one subscription fee. Plus, all of these perks would be requestable through the same app you’ll use to unlock your car, no phone calls or website searches required. Download your car keysPlenty of automakers have given up on car keys in favor of a fob and a start button. But Polestar decided this wasn’t far enough and just got rid of those too. Instead you’ll just use your smartphone to unlock and start your car, the same way you use it for everything else. With the Polestar Connect app enabled on your phone, your car will wake up at your approach, sensing when you are less than ten meters away. However, it won’t unlock until you touch the door handle. Once inside, you simply need to change gears and activate the brake, and your car will start on its own. During your drive, you don’t want your “car key” to run out of juice, so you can use the wireless charging tray to keep your smartphone topped off at all times. Then, if you needed to, say, have a valet drive your car into the lot, you could use your Connect app to give his or her phone access as a temporary key. Don’t worry: if the valet (or anyone) breaches trust and decides to go on a Ferris Bueller-style joyride with your car, you can always revoke their access. Polestar’s bright futureTechradar frequently covers Volvo’s groundbreaking designs, including in-car cameras for monitoring intoxicated drivers, self-driving Volvo Ubers, and an online-only car purchasing app, among others. It’s no wonder that its EV offshoot would follow its lead and take a similar approach towards breaking the paradigms of car-making. Polestar 2’s upgradeable tablet UI should keep the car running smoothly, and leave open the possibility that Polestar will add neat new tricks years past your purchase. Or, if buying any car you haven’t tested thoroughly isn’t appealing, you have the option to subscribe for a month or two and see if the car lives up to its reputation. |
| Asus ZenWiFi mesh router will bring next-gen Wi-Fi 6 to every room of your home Posted: 04 Sep 2019 08:35 AM PDT At IFA 2019 in Berlin, Germany, Asus announced its ZenWiFi mesh router, which features next-gen Wi-Fi 6 technology for faster and more stable wireless internet around your home. The ZenWiFi XT8 kit will come with two Asus AX6600 tri-band routers, which will use Wi-Fi 6 for both the backhaul and fronthaul connection. What that means is that the two routers, like the best mesh Wi-Fi routers, can be placed in separate parts of your home, and will use the ultra-fast connection to speak to each other and effectively create one large Wi-Fi network that can cover your entire property.
Thanks to the new Wi-Fi 6 technology, the ZenWiFi offers a total data rate of up to 6,600Mbps, and a combination of OFDMA and MU-MIMO tech, which is part of the Wi-Fi 6 standard, means the router can offer up to four times the network capacity and over twice the transmission speeds compared to Wi-Fi 5 (also known as 802.11ac). As Wi-Fi 6 is backwards compatible, all your existing Wi-Fi devices will be able to connect to the network without any issue, and if you have a Wi-Fi 6 device – like the Samsung Galaxy S10 – then you’ll get all the benefits of the new technology. Other featuresThe ZenWiFi mesh router kit also features AiProtection Pro powered by Trend Micro, which is aimed at protecting your connected devices from online threats, as well as parental controls and management features that are accessed via a smartphone app. Asus also announced that it's releasing a Wi-Fi 5 version – the ZenWiFi CT8 – which comes with two Asus AC3000 tri-band routers for a lower price, and aimed at people who don’t feel the need to upgrade to Wi-Fi 6 just yet. The ZenWiFi routers will be released at the end of 2019, though we don’t have official prices for them just yet. IFA 2019 is Europe's biggest tech show, and the TechRadar team is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and hands-on first impressions of new TVs, laptops, wearables and other products as they're announced. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Acer's best Chromebooks are getting sleeker looks and more power Posted: 04 Sep 2019 08:21 AM PDT Acer has all new Chromebooks to show off at IFA 2019, bringing updates to its 15.6-inch Chromebook 315, the 14-inch Chromebook 314, as well as both the clamshell and 2-in-1 versions of its 11-inch Chromebook. The Acer Chromebook 314 and Chromebook 315 are going to be available with Full HD, IPS displays with the option for touchscreen functionality. They also are getting an upgraded design to reduce the bezels around the displays, which will give them a smaller footprint than their predecessors. The Acer Chromebook 315 will also feature a full numeric pad. Both Chromebooks will feature USB 3.1 Type-C ports on both sides, which also can handle charging. Standard USB 3.1 ports and a microSD card reader also round out the connections. Each Chromebook has the option for either an Intel Celeron N4000 dual-core processor (CPU) or a Celeron N4100 quad-core CPU. The Chromebook 315 gets the additional option of a Pentium Silver N5000 processor. Both can pack 8GB of memory (RAM) and use eMMC storage, but the Chromebook 315 can come with 128GB of storage while the Chromebook 314 will max out at 64GB.
Two new 11-inch modelsToday's 2-in-1 Chromebooks are among the best implementations of Chromebooks out there, and Acer's Chromebook Spin 311 updates its already excellent Chromebook Spin 11. It also has a standard, clamshell-style unit. These two new models feature 11.6-inch displays, and the whole body is smaller than a standard sheet of A4 paper (though thicker, of course), with accordingly light weights. They both offer HD resolutions, with the Chromebook Spin 311 including touchscreen functionality and stylus support with the Wacom EMR stylus. The Chromebook Spin 311 and clamshell model both feature the same USB ports and microSD card reader found on the larger models. They also have the same Intel Celeron CPU options. The Chromebook Spin 311 can come with up to 64GB of storage and 8GB of RAM, while the Chromebook 311 only offers up to 32GB of storage and 4GB of RAM. For anyone on the market for a Chromebook, these will likely be strong contenders given Acer's track record for quality Chromebooks. They'll all be available in the EMEA region from October, with a North American release to follow in December. Here's the price breakdown:
IFA 2019 is Europe's biggest tech show. The TechRadar team is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and hands-on first impressions of new TVs, watches and other tech as they're announced. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Reliance JioFiber commercial launch on September 5: All your questions answered Posted: 04 Sep 2019 08:20 AM PDT Reliance Jio is scheduled to launch its JioFiber FTTH (fiber-to-the-home) service across various cities of India starting September 5. Announced during the 42nd Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Reliance Industries Ltd, the previously named GigaFiber home broadband service has been undergoing tests since the past year in over 0.5 million homes across India. With Reliance ramping up the deployment of home broadband in more towns of the country, it plans to reach to over 20 million homes in the next year. Reliance's JioFiber offers speeds upto 1Gbps, landline connection with unlimited calling, upto 4K UHD content via cable channels and OTT platforms, multi-party video calling facility, gaming and IoT solutions. While the company did not reveal broadband tariff plans at its AGM, it hinted that the prices will start from Rs 700 and go all the way upto Rs 10,000. It is expected that the company will reveal the plans on the day of the commercial rollout of JioFiber, September 5. Until then, let's take a closer look at the features and services offered by JioFiber. What is JioFiber?JioFiber (previously Jio GigaFiber) is a home broadband service by Reliance Jio that aims to provide high-speed internet connectivity at an affordable price in India. Along with the basic internet connectivity, it offers ultra-HD content via a 4K set-top box along with features like video conferencing, gaming, home security and smart home solutions. How fast is JioFiber?Reliance has confirmed that its JioFiber home broadband service will offer speeds upto 1Gbps. Even the base plan which should be priced close to Rs 700 will offer 100Mbps browsing speed. As the plans go upto Rs 10,000, we expect different speeds as we move up from the base plans. At the AGM, Reliance did not reveal any FUP limits and neither did it state the amount of data provided with the base plan. Under the JioFiber preview offer, Reliance offers unlimited 100GB data at upto 100Mbps. How much do JioFiber plans cost?At its AGM held on August 12, Reliance revealed that its broadband plans will start from Rs 700 and go all the way up to Rs 10,000. However, the company didn't get into the specifics and the information around detailed plans is still kept under wraps. We also don't know if the same JioFiber plans will offer cable TV channels or there are separate plans for that service. Will JioFiber offer cable TV channels?Reliance has positioned JioFiber as the ultimate home internet and TV service. The 4K set-top box that will be provided with home broadband subscriptions supports broadcast TV channels. These channels will be sourced from local cable operators in different towns across India and Reliance has already acquired stakes in the three major operators-- Den, Hathway and GTPL. Can I make voice calls from JioFiber connection?Yes. Reliance bundles in the landline service with JioFiber at no extra cost. There are two ways through which a user can make voice calls from their Jio FixedLine number. The first and simplest way is to connect the JioFiber router to a basic landline phone using the RJ-11 cable that's provided with the broadband connection. This will allow users to initiate phone calls from the landline unit to anywhere in India free of cost. Now, in case you don't have a landline unit lying around, you can configure the allotted Jio FixedLine number to a smartphone by downloading the Jio Call app. This doesn't require a SIM card and users will be able to make calls using their JioFiber number. Will JioFiber come bundled with OTT streaming services?During the Reliance Jio AGM held last month, it was revealed that JioFiber will come with a subscription to major OTT streaming services. However, the company did not say which OTT players it has partnered with for subscriptions. We also noticed Eros Now, Voot and ALTBalaji apps during the demo of Jio 4K set-top box, in addition to the Jio Cinema app. Can I play games on JioFiber set-top box?Reliance has revealed that using the 4K set-top box JioFiber subscribers will be able to play "console-like" games. To this end, the company has announced partnerships with Microsoft Game Studios, Riot Games, Tencent Games, Gameloft, Milestone and more. The set-top box is also compatible with most console controllers. Jio is looking to populate its gaming catalog under Jio Games service which was briefly teased during the demo of JioFiber last month. Having said that, we have no information on how many games will be offered with the JioFiber subscription or whether its a separate service with different plans. There's also no information as to how the set-top box can render "console-like" games with little to no latency. What is the JioFiber Welcome Offer?Reliance Jio also revealed that under the JioFiber Welcome Offer, customers subscribing to Jio Forever Annual plans are eligible to get a free Full HD/4K television or a Home PC along with a 4K set-top box. How to register for JioFiber?Reliance JioFiber home broadband services are present in some states and are being rolled out to more cities as we near the commercial roll-out on September 5. Interested people can head to fiber.jio.com to register their address for JioFiber services in their localities or RWA societies. In case you already have the MyJio app installed on your smartphone, just open it and click on the JioFiber banner on the top. It will redirect you to a form where you need to put down your residential address for successful registration. More details will be revealed on September 5 when JioFiber goes live for everyone.
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| The best iPhone apps we've used in 2019 Posted: 04 Sep 2019 08:12 AM PDT Apps are the cornerstone of the iPhone – what really set it apart from Android. The best iPhone apps are typically best in class. However, finding the greatest apps among the millions available isn’t easy, and so we’ve done the hard work for you. Our lists compile the very best the iPhone has to offer, whether using your iPhone for photos, video, drawing, music, office tasks, reading, maps, weather forecasts or keeping kids entertained. This round-up compiles our favourites, from top-quality creative tools and video editors to the finest productivity kit and social networking clients. In addition to our ongoing list of the absolute best, every week we're adding our picks for the latest and greatest new or updated apps, so check back often. Even if you don't have an iPhone right now, it's worth reading up on what's available if you're considering investing in the iPhone XS or even one of the older models (if you need more info, check out our list of the best iPhones) - but note that some of these titles will only work with models from iPhone 5S and later. Read on below for our free app pick of the week then click through to the following pages for the best iPhone apps across a range of categories.
iPhone app of the week: Streaks Workout
Streaks Workout is an exercise app that marries immediacy and depth. To quickly kick off a workout, tap a time. The app will formulate a routine on your behalf, barking orders as exercises switch. Options range from the relatively easy six-minute ‘Quick’ to the frankly masochistic 30-minute ‘Extreme’. When you have the time and inclination to plan, there are plenty of additional options. You can toggle specific exercises on and off, or add your own, stating how long a rep takes, and whether it should be timed or counted. Want an entire custom routine? That’s possible, too. Continue to use Streaks Workout, and the app will log your history and streaks. You can set weekly goals, and the app links to Apple Health. It will even track workouts across devices should you start on an iPad or Apple TV. So now there’s no escape from getting fitter. Best iPhone photo editing and camera appsThese are our favorite iPhone apps for editing snaps, capturing photos and video and applying the filters that actually make things look good. TouchRetouch
TouchRetouch can rid photos of unwanted elements. Such tools are commonplace – even in free apps like Snapseed – but TouchRetouch being dedicated to the task affords it focus; more importantly, the tools you get are really good. Blemishes on faces can be removed with a tap. Larger objects can be painted out, whereupon the app fills in the gaps. Alternatively, you can clone from one part of the image to another. There’s also a line remover, which smartly makes short work of power lines and the like that otherwise carve their way across your pic. Obviously, automation of this kind has some shortcomings – TouchRetouch can’t match desktop apps where you partake in painstaking, time-consuming, pro-level retouching. But for the average iPhone owner wanting to remove annoying things from pics, it’s well worth the small outlay. Darkroom
Darkroom is yet another photo editor for iPhone, but just a few minutes in, you’ll likely decide it should be forever welded to your home screen. The app is efficient, usable and sleek. Immediately, it invites you to delve into your on-device images. There’s no mucking around. Cropping tools and adjustments sliders bring out the best from what you shoot. Splash out on some IAP and you gain access to pro-oriented curves and color tools. Edits are non-destructive, and you can save your work directly to your Camera Roll (in a manner that can later be reversed), or export copies. The process feels effortless throughout, but pause for a moment and you realize how powerful Darkroom is. Only to be avoided, then, if you for some reason don’t want your photos to look better! Glitch Art Studio
Glitch Art Studio is an impressive and arresting photo effects app that brings texture and character to even the most mundane snap. This is achieved by way of slathering on all kinds of distortion effects, up to the point where you’re left with something that’s barely recognizable as a photograph. We’re not kidding. The first few presets (available in the free app) give you an indication of what’s in store, making videos and stills alike look as if they’re being displayed on an ancient, very broken television. But further filters come across like you’re stuck inside a kaleidoscope or are having a full-on hallucinogenic episode. If the presets don’t do it for you, you can make custom ones by working with a slew of settings; and when done, you can output your eye-popping miniature masterpieces as stills or videos. Camera+
Camera+ is a combined camera and editor. Despite the wealth of available options, the interface is initially quite minimal, with a modes strip across the top of the screen, a zoom slider, and the shutter. But tap the + button and you reveal further modes, including a timer, a stabilizer and smile detection. Similarly, tap the viewfinder area and Camera+ enters a ‘pro’ mode, with manual controls, and scene options for shooting under specific lighting conditions. The interface is finicky compared to Obscura 2, but Camera+ is undoubtedly powerful. Post-shooting, you can edit with adjustment tools, filters, and frames in the Lightbox. This all comes across as impressively friendly and straightforward, and although the range of tools doesn’t compare to Snapseed’s, it’s enough to keep you within the one app for the most part. Oilist
Oilist is a generational art app. You feed it something from Photos, choose a style, and it gets to work, continually repainting your image. It’s like someone’s trapped a tiny van Gogh in your iPhone. In fact, it’s like a slew of artists are stuck in your device, because Oilist has a massive range of styles to choose from, taking in everything from classic oil painters through to modern art. Although the app can be left alone in a dock, you can capture stills for posterity, or fiddle with settings (including brush strokes, mood, ‘chaos’ and gravity) to redirect the virtual artist. Whether you interact or just sit back and watch, Oilist is mesmerizing – kind of like a painterly lava lamp, only what you see is based on one of your own cherished photographs. Snapseed
Snapseed is a free photo editor with a feature set that rivals the very best premium apps. It’s geared towards users of any level, from those who fancy applying quick filters to anyone who wants to dig deep into adjustments and powerful editing tools. The range of options is dazzling, and the interface is smartly conceived. You can crop, make adjustments, and edit curves, all with a few swipes and taps. Often, vertical drags select parameters, and horizontal drags define an effect’s strength – tactile and intuitive. Even better, edits are non-destructive, and can be removed or changed at any point by accessing them in the edits stack. As a final sign off, the app enables you to save any combination of adjustments as a custom preset, which you can then apply to any image in the future with a single tap. Superb stuff. Obscura 2
Obscura 2 is the best manual camera app for iPhone. It achieves this not with a slew of features, but by providing an interaction model that’s so brilliantly conceived that you simply won’t want to use another iPhone camera. Echoing manual cameras of old, everything is based around a contextual wheel that sits above the shutter. Initially, you use it to select a tool. When setting focus or exposure, the wheel enables you to make fine adjustments with your thumb. You get a real feel of precision control, with optional haptic feedback confirming your choices. The app makes the odd concession to modern photography trends with a range of filters, but mostly Obscura 2 wants you to think a little more about what you’re snapping, all while breathing in its minimal yet approachable and deeply pleasing design. Filmborn
Filmborn is an app for camera obsessives – for those who revel in the joys of film, but come away unimpressed with apps that present an over-saturated, overblown take on old-school photography. The interface is icon-heavy, but gives you fast access to tools that will improve your photography. There’s manual focusing, a range of grid overlays, and a blown highlights preview that outlines problematic areas of a potential snap. The film filters will appeal to fans of real-world stock, subtly transforming images in a manner that’s pleasingly realistic. Filmborn even educates you regarding when’s best to use each one. The app also includes basic editing functionality, although a key tool – curves – frustratingly sits behind IAP. Despite that niggle, Filmborn is well worth checking out if you fancy fusing photography’s past with its present. Retrospecs
Retrospecs is a camera app that wants you to see the world as if it was being rendered by ancient computing and gaming hardware. Load a photo – or take one using the app – and you can select from a wide range of systems, such as the Game Boy, Commodore 64, and original Mac. But this isn’t just a single-tap filter app for aficionados of pixel art. You can adjust dither, image corruption, and virtual CRT distortion. You get animation effects and video support. And should you get fed up with the included emulated systems, you can even make your own. So whether you believe all your photos should look like an eight-bit video game or want to add a crazy glitch sequence to your next YouTube video, Retrospecs fits the bill perfectly. Halide
Halide wants you to focus on deliberate, thoughtful photography. Its creator has remarked that many camera apps now have interfaces like airplane cockpits, and Halide was stripped back accordingly. That’s not to say Halide is bereft of features, but those it has are all about taking better photos. You can adjust focus and exposure manually, and use ‘focus peaking’ to highlight areas of sharp contrast within the frame, and the grid overlay’s central rectangle turns yellow when your phone is held straight. If you have a modern iPhone, Halide offers a groundbreaking depth mode with ‘depth peaking’ and a depth map preview. You can also view portrait photos in augmented reality. The net result of all this is a premium camera app that feels like a professional tool – money well spent if your idea of photography isn’t based around filters and stickers. Pic Collage
Pic Collage offers ways to quickly turn some photos into something special, and the best mode is Grids. You select some images, which Pic Collage automatically drops into a grid layout. If you’re not keen on what you get, you can choose something different, add a background, or manually fiddle with the dividers. Double-tap an individual image and you get further tools, including an ‘effects’ area that’s not far off a fully-fledged photo editor. You can add stickers and text to your masterpiece, and even doodle over the top of everything. If you fancy something more structured, the Cards mode offers predefined card layouts, and Freestyle lets you go entirely freeform. Everything can be tried entirely for free, but exports have watermarks. Be rid of those for a one-off IAP that’s very much value for money. Mextures
Modern iPhones have some seriously impressive camera hardware, and are capable of taking clean, vibrant shots. So it’s perhaps no surprise that iPhone users are often hell-bent on slathering said images in filters and messing them up. Mextures is a decidedly extreme example, providing a theoretically unlimited number of layers to play with, each of which can have some kind of effect applied. These include grit, grain, light leaks, gradients, and more. Because each layer can be fine-tuned in terms of opacity and blend mode, you can get anything from subtle film textures to seriously eye-popping grunge effects. Hit upon something particularly amazing and you can share your ‘formulas’ with other people. Or if you’re in need of a quick fix, you can grab something that’s already online to overhaul your snaps. Hipstamatic
There are two sides to Hipstamatic. In its ‘native’ form, the app apes old-school point-and-click cameras. You get a tiny viewport inside a virtual plastic camera body, and can swap out lenses, film, and flashes, along with messing about with multiple exposures and manual shutters. It’s pleasingly tactile and twangs your nostalgia gland, but feels a bit cramped. If you’d rather use your entire iPhone display to show what you’re snapping, you can switch to a ‘pro’ camera mode. That’s closer in nature to Apple’s own Camera, but with Hipstamatic’s huge range of rather lovely filters bolted on – a great mash-up of old and new. And if you’re wedded to Apple’s camera, Hipstamatic’s still worth a download, given that you can load a photo, slather it in filters, add loads of effects and bask in your creative genius. SoSoCamera
Apple offers a burst mode when you hold down the shutter in its camera app, but this is for very rapidly taking many shots in quick succession, in order to select the best one. By contrast, SoSoCamera is about documenting a lengthier slice of time, taking a series of photos over several seconds and then stitching them together in a grid. The grid's size maxes out at 48 items and can be fashioned however you like. It's then just a question of selecting a filter, prodding the camera button, and letting SoSoCamera perform its magic. The resulting images, while low-res in nature, nicely capture the feel of time passing, in many cases better than video; although do experiment first with the filters, because some are a bit too eye-searing. The best animation apps and video editors for iPhoneOur favorite iPhone apps for editing and creating videos, GIFs, Live Photos and cinemagraphs. VideoGrade
VideoGrade is a color editor for videos. Its toolset gives you something akin to the color grading effects you find in modern TV shows and movies, along with the means to repair problematic footage. Although primarily aimed at professionals, VideoGrade is easy to use – essentially selecting tools and dragging sliders. Adjustments are non-destructive, and green indicators denote tools you’ve already used, so you can go back and make changes. There are a couple of issues. Effects are applied to a still frame, which is awkward to change. Also, full previews require rendering. But there’s an original/edit split view, favorite setups can be saved, and VideoGrade’s entire feature set can be accessed from within Photos. Given that this all happens on a phone, it’s hugely impressive. Just go easy on the ‘teal and orange’, eh? 8mm Vintage Camera
8mm Vintage Camera is an app dedicated to shooting authentic retro films. In other words, it transforms your otherwise pristine iPhone videos into something that could have been shot anywhere from the 1970s back to the 1920s. This is more than a basic filters app, though. When shooting live, you get to see the effect, can swap out lenses to add spotlights, color fringing and other effects, and can even add jitter to imitate frame shakes. Polishing off a superb app are features for working with existing video (which you ‘record’ into 8mm, in a manner similar to Apple’s Clips), and stitching together multiple shots, complete with titles and music. You get a couple of themes included in the purchase price, and several more are available via IAP. nception
nception is a photo/video reality-bender of the opinion that everything looks interesting when you start mucking about with mirrors. It provides over 20 symmetric reflection presets, some carving the screen in half, and others being a mite more complicated. You can shoot live stills or footage, and import existing content. When working with either, there are color filters to overlay; and with video, it’s possible to adjust the frame rate and speed. So if you want some slo-mo (rather than just standard speed) weirdness, that’s just a couple of taps away. Naturally, nception isn’t the kind of filter app that you’ll wheel out for every occasion, but it’s great for experimenting with, and getting some weirdness into photos, especially when exploring cities and wanting to capture a unique take on local architecture. Stop Motion Studio Pro
Stop Motion Studio Pro is designed for people patient enough to craft stop-motion masterpieces. It’s a friendly app, but flexible too. You can shoot in-app to add new frames, add existing images from your iPhone, or import video, which is converted to a string of stills. The editor is powerful: you can copy and paste frames; a Painter mode offers text, shapes and backgrounds; you can create custom titles; and it’s possible to import audio. Playback of audio is intelligent, continuing until completion (rather than just the end of the frame), allowing multiple effects to be overlaid. The app overreaches with talk of rotoscoping – drawing over frames in the stype of A Scanner Darkly – but for everything else, this is ideal fodder for taking your first steps towards becoming the next Aardman or Ray Harryhausen. Cinegraph
Cinegraph is about using existing videos (or Live Photos) to create images that move. Areas selected by the user animate in an endless loop while the rest of the image remains static – a beguiling effect. The selection of tools is small, but focused on the task at hand: basic adjustment options for your image, brush/overlay settings for outlining the part(s) of your image that will move, and the means to fine-tune the video output, for example to crossfade the end of the loop. There’s no automated stabilization, which is a pity – you’re effectively restricted to videos or stills shot using a tripod with no wobble whatsoever. But with the right starting point, Cinegraph is capable of fashioning little slices of magic. And unlike much of the competition, there’s no messing about with subscriptions or IAP for ongoing use or removing watermarks. ImgPlay
A playground for GIFs, ImgPlay aims to bring life to whatever you capture with your iPhone – or to fine-tune the motion within those things that already move. You start off by loading pretty much anything from your Camera Roll: photos, videos, Burst mode images, Live Photos, or GIFs. With stills, you can select a number of them to stitch together, essentially making ImgPlay a kind of low-end stop-motion tool. But it’s with Live Photos and Burst shots that ImgPlay really becomes interesting. You can take the video or sequence of images your iPhone shoots, trim the result (including removing individual frames), add a filter and text, and then export the lot as a GIF or video. For free, the app’s full-featured, but buy the small IAP and you get more filters, no ads, and no watermark on export. The best art and design apps for iPhoneOur favorite iPhone apps for painting, drawing, sketching, design and animation. Imaengine Vector
Imaengine Vector is a camera app/photo editor. Take a shot – a selfie, your lunch, or an amazing landscape – or load an image, and it’s turned into a vector drawing. That in itself perhaps isn’t anything special, but what else the app does very much is. First and foremost, some of the predefined filters are spectacular. Even the dullest of pics when fed through this app can end up looking like art. The settings can be tweaked, too, including detail levels, colors, and line thickness. If that’s not enough, tap the Editor button and you end up in a full-fledged vector graphics editor. The interface is a bit messy on iPhone, and the editing section might baffle. But even for the filters, it’s worth the outlay, and for illustrators happy to tweak the app’s output, it’s a bargain. Linea Go
Linea Go is designed to make sketching on iPhone effortless. It does this by way of a friendly, stripped-back interface – although one that doesn’t lack for features. The base of your image can be a paper texture or a grid. Atop that you get five layers, offering great scope for complex compositions – or to isolate one component while drawing another. When sketching, there’s a pencil and a few pens, a flood fill that can also be used for creating arbitrary blocked-in areas, and Zip Shapes. That last feature recognizes rough shapes you draw, and tidies them if you keep your finger pressed down. They can then be rotated, moved, and scaled. Although the end results look a bit digital, Linea Go is elegant and efficient, and iCloud cross-device sync makes it a smart choice for iOS-based sketching. Comic Life 3
Comic Life 3 is for creating comics from photos and other images on your iPhone. Although it works best on the bigger screen of an iPad, it’s surprisingly usable on an iPhone, not least due to the sheer speed at which you can put together a great page (or, if you’re feeling ambitious, a full multi-page book). Much of this is down to the app’s varied templates, which get you up and running in no time. You can quickly import pictures into frames, add speech bubbles and sound effects, and then export the lot to a variety of different formats. Oddly, the one thing the app does badly is comic-style filters – you’re better off using Prisma for that. But for making custom comics from doodles or photos of amazing days out, Comic Life 3 can’t be beaten. Procreate Pocket
Procreate Pocket is a great bet if you fancy dabbling in digital finger-painting. Whether you’re a novice scribbler or a jobbing artist, this app’s sleek interface wants to get out of your way and let you paint. The toolbar that runs along the top of the display provides fast access to brushes. At the left of the screen are two sliders, for adjusting brush size and opacity. If you find them distracting, a four-finger tap puts you in full-screen mode, leaving you alone with your miniature masterpiece. It all feels fluid and sleek, but there’s depth here too. A fantastic brush editor (including custom grain sources) unleashes all kinds of creativity, and the layers system provides scope for more advanced compositions. And when you get really good, you can share time-lapse recordings created automatically by Procreate Pocket, and await glory when a TV network comes calling. Graphic
On the iPad, Graphic resembles a touchscreen take on desktop vector powerhouse Adobe Illustrator. You might think you’d need to be mad to try and squeeze that into an iPhone, but Indeeo has succeeded in fine style. The app, equally happy in portrait and landscape, is initially set up for vector-based sketching, with you scribbling freehand lines that can subsequently be tweaked and edited. Smartly, the app always lets you know what’s going on under your finger, because Graphic shows that area elsewhere on the screen while you draw. Delve deeper and you’ll find a shape library, Bézier curves, a layers system and everything else you need to craft illustrations and logos on your iPhone. It can be a touch fiddly at times, but the powerful zoom and general friendliness, of what’s a hugely powerful mobile app, help immeasurably. Pixelmator
Photoshop is so ingrained in people's minds when it comes to image editing that it's become a verb. Oddly, though, Adobe's largely abandoned high-end mobile apps, choosing instead to create simpler 'accessories' for the iPhone and iPad, augmenting rather than aping its desktop products. Valiantly filling the void is Pixelmator, a feature-rich and truly astonishing mobile Photoshop. It's packed full of tools and adjustment options, and works well whether you're into digital painting or creating multi-layered photographic masterpieces. On iPhone, Pixelmator's naturally a bit cramped compared to using the app on iPad, but at the price it remains an insanely great bargain. The best entertainment apps for iPhoneOur favorite iPhone apps for having fun with your iPhone, whether stargazing, reading, watching TV or checking out Twitter. Infuse Pro 6
Infuse Pro 6 is a premium video player. Rather than having you transfer files to your iPhone (although that is an option), it streams from pretty much anywhere, including local PCs, network drives and cloud storage. It can connect with Plex, too, but doesn’t require a server to be running for general use. From a usability and interface standpoint, the app’s a winner. Assuming your files are sensibly named, Infuse will helpfully organize them and download cover art. When watching, you can grab subtitles with a tap. Halfway through a movie after a commute? Infuse will sync progress to your Apple TV, so you can see the conclusion. This isn’t a cheap app, and if your demands are simpler, perhaps start with the free version, but if you want the best video player for iPhone, Infuse Pro 6 is it. Reeder 4
Reeder 4 is a sleek RSS reader. Through RSS, you can subscribe to your favorite websites, safe in the knowledge you’ll never miss an article. Reeder then lets you browse headlines by individual feed, or a combined one that displays all articles in chronological order. When reading an article, you get plenty of options. There are light and dark modes, and you can adjust the typography and contrast – the latter being a good thing, given that the default setting isn’t terribly readable. Further handy features are a button that loads entire articles for feeds that initially just supply synopses, and Bionic Reading. The latter aims to encourage in-depth rather than skim-reading, through guiding the eyes via artificial fixation points. Surprisingly, it works. And overall, it adds to what – in its fourth incarnation – remains the best RSS reader on iPhone. David Bowie is…
David Bowie is… reimagines a famous touring exhibition about a music industry icon as an augmented reality experience. You work your way through Bowie’s life story, exploring videos, costumes, handwritten lyrics, and other objects, which sit before you in a pseudo-3D desk-bound view. Although less directly immersive than Shepard Fairey – Damaged, it’s arguably more accessible, simply due to Bowie’s infusion into popular culture. And although there are limitations on the smaller screen – the slight awkwardness of a letterbox view; costumes looking a bit like videogame character clothing – this is a fascinating glimpse into one of pop music’s most famous and influential artists. Given the content lurking within, and its price tag being far less than a ticket to the original exhibition, it’s a must-buy for fans and the merely curious alike. Bloom: 10 Worlds
Bloom: 10 Worlds is the follow-up to 2008’s Bloom, in which you tapped the screen to play notes while dots of color emanated from your fingers like ripples in a pond. A decade later, 10 Worlds takes that app’s premise and expands out what was effectively a single into a full album. You get 10 distinct playgrounds to experiment with. Their sounds are varied, as are their visual effects. Some slash lines horizontally and vertically across the screen, while others soak the canvas in watercolor curtains. Whether you want to interact or just let 10 Worlds play itself (which it starts doing when left alone for a short while), this is an enchanting ambient audio experience that breathes new life into what was already an iOS classic. Tweetbot 5
Tweetbot 5 is a premium Twitter client, and in an era when Twitter seems to be doing its level best to grind third-party clients into dust, it might seem an odd recommendation. However, hampered though it may be in some areas, Tweetbot remains highly recommended for people who want to free themselves from Twitter noise. This is especially apparent when exploring timelines: everything’s in blissful reverse-chronological order; the Mentions tab isn’t cluttered with like and retweet notifications; and you can swap out a toolbar tab for fast access to user-defined lists. In other words, despite not having access to all of Twitter’s toys, Tweetbot continues to offer the best iPhone Twitter experience for heavy users of the service – and anyone who prefers order over chaos. Shepard Fairey AR - Damaged
Shepard Fairey AR - Damaged is essentially an art exhibit crammed into your iPhone – and in a rather more literal sense than you might expect. If the name Shepard Fairey doesn’t ring a bell, you’ll likely recognize his most famous work – the iconic ‘Hope’ image of Barack Obama. In Damaged, he tackles the current political climate in a similarly arresting manner. As a viewer, the AR bit of the app’s name is important. This is no slideshow with written notes. Instead, the entire warehouse-sized show has been transformed into a virtual space you can explore with swipes and taps, or even by walking around yourself. All the while, you can optionally take in Fairey’s narration, giving you extra context behind the work in what’s easily the best virtual art exhibit on the iPhone. Pimp Your Screen
Pimp Your Screen is an app for customizing your iPhone. At its most basic, this means wallpaper. You select a category, swipe until you find something you like, tap to bring up a Home screen mock-up, and save the image to Photos when you’re done. However, Pimp Your Screen goes further than its contemporaries in key ways. There’s a Themes section, which pairs matching lock and Home screen wallpapers. There are also ‘makers’ for both screen types, which enable you to combine components in a creative manner. In the Lock Screen Maker, you can define a background, and add text. Swiping the status bar or clock adds a background for that area alone; swipe below the clock and a (static) calendar appears. The Home Screen Maker adds a slew of virtual shelves and icon ‘skins’ to the status bar and page backgrounds. The results can vary from beautiful to eye-punchingly taste-free. Probably best if you try to veer toward the former. The best health, diet and exercise apps for iPhoneOur favorite iPhone apps for keeping fit, workouts, reducing stress and relaxing. Cosm
Cosm is designed to calm and focus your mind, through ambient audio composition – and journaling. The music bit resembles Brian Eno’s Bloom app, with you tapping the screen to simultaneously play notes and have shapes appear from beneath your digits. Your taps coalesce into a semi-random repeating loop. But Cosm differentiates itself from Bloom in key ways. There are multiple instruments to select (albeit from an awkward picker), and the option to define tuning. Also, there’s the writing bit. This suggests you align soundscapes with how you felt when making them. But the text fields are blank, and so it’s down to you to decide how to use them – while Cosm gets on helping to make your mind a calmer place. Paprika Recipe Manager
Paprika wants your main companion in the kitchen to be your iPhone. With the app, you can store clippings from foodie websites. Recipes are intelligently saved offline, and can be edited. You can even add photos of your successes, thereby giving you something to aim for next time! The app also supports everything else about mealtimes. You can create grocery lists, track what’s in your cupboards and when ingredients expire, plan meals that are synced with Calendar, and create reusable menus. The app’s not the most vibrant in its class, and lacks the handy step-by-step imagery and videos found in the likes of Kitchen Stories and Tasty, but for getting on with the business of planning and making meals, on an ongoing basis it deserves the app equivalent of a Michelin star. Streaks
Streaks is a to-do manager all about helping you form good habits – and ridding yourself of bad ones. You begin by selecting a task and defining how often you want to do it. Tasks are subsequently checked off, and you can track your progress by way of the app’s various graphs and statistics. Where Streaks succeeds is in the flexibility of the tasks you can add, and the razor-sharp focus on getting habits infused into your routine. The bold interface is ideally suited to six tasks, forcing you to prioritize. You can set reminders, and mark items as done using the Today widget or an Apple Watch. Task types are varied. There are those that integrate with Health, negative tasks (like smoking) to avoid completing, and timed tasks for things like meditation sessions. In all, it’s an excellent app for coaxing out a better you. White Noise+
White Noise+ is an ambient noise machine, which aims to drown out distractions by filling your ears with something pleasant instead. Rather than just offering you sounds to play, or sliders to adjust volume levels, it takes the form of a mini mixing desk akin to the smart drums grid in GarageBand. You drag sounds into the 16 available slots, with those towards the top playing at a louder volume, and those towards the right offering more complexity. It’s intuitive, effective and looks really great as well. Neatly, should you happen upon a particularly pleasing combination, it can be saved for later playback, and the app itself includes a few examples to get you going. There’s also an alarm built-in, for using the app for meditation sessions – or to help you not oversleep when having a quick afternoon nap. Zombies, Run!
Zombies, Run! is a fitness app that urges you on not just with stats and data, but with the threat you’re about to be torn limb from limb by the undead. Fortunately, it doesn’t just randomly blare BRAINZZZZ into your ears – it’s a full-fledged adventure experience, co-created with an award-winning novelist. So as you huff and puff, you gain insight into a dystopian future, head out on supply runs, and try not to become lunch for a zombie horde. For free, you get a few missions, one of which unlocks every week, and interval training workouts. But the subscription packs in hundreds of missions – enough to keep you going for many months. If you’re a fan of horror or just fancy an exercise app that isn’t all about numbers and music, it’s an excellent buy. MyFitnessPal
MyFitnessPal aims to get you fitter by helping you track what you eat. Given that such tracking often involves logging meals, the app speeds things along by way of a barcode scanner, a colossal food database and a recipe importer. If you tend to eat the same meals often, you can save favorites. All the while, your calories are tracked, and you can check how you’re doing against any goals you’ve set. The ability to connect exercise apps also means MyFitnessPal can become a kind of hub for your general wellbeing. As ever, there’s a pro version. This seriously ramps up data, analysis and support, with the likes of nutrient insights, tips articles and fine-grained goals. In either incarnation, MyFitnessPal works well to help you more easily understand how food intake affects you. Runkeeper
Runkeeper is a training aid and run tracker, which has been around for more than a decade. Since its debut, it’s evolved from mapping out your runs by utilizing your iPhone’s GPS to become a kind of digital personal trainer. If all you’re looking for is a way to track exercise, Runkeeper remains a winning app. Whether you’re running, walking or cycling, Runkeeper provides real-time data in massive glanceable numbers, and plenty of data to delve into when you’re done. Runkeeper Go takes things further than logging and stats. For $9.99/£7.99/AU$14.99 per month, you gain access to premium training plans, and custom workouts designed to fit your schedule and ability. The price is obviously a jump up from the free app, but it’s cheaper than a human trainer, and effective when you want more than the basics. The best kids apps for iPhoneOur favorite iPhone apps, learning tools, musical toys and games for toddlers and children. Thinkrolls Space
Thinkrolls Space finds a cast of oddball rotund critters trundling around 200 mazes set across seven unique planets. With its tactile interface and amusing characters, it has the appearance of a stylish cartoon – but one children can interact with, and that makes them think. Essentially, the player tries to get the Thinkroll to an exit, swiping to make it roll, and manipulating other critters on screen as necessary. Cheese monsters tuck into moon cheese, clearing blocked tunnels. Goo monsters, robots and others also have their parts to play, as do vanishing bridges, plasma fields and teleporters. With two distinct level sets, 24 Thinkrolls to collect, and no ads/IAP whatsoever, this one’s a good bet for keeping a kid with an iPod Touch happy – without filling their head with junk. Sago Mini Village
Sago Mini Village is a building blocks game for small children. It takes place in a vibrant, fantastical realm apparently entirely populated by grinning gnomes. Shops and houses are constructed by drag-and-drop, like a cross between prefab housing and Duplo. As your village grows, more gnomes will move in, and then start milling about the place, visiting new friends. In the hands of a kid, Sago Mini Village becomes a thing of wonder. It’s reportedly inspired by Minecraft, but clearly knows how to engage and cater for very young children. The interface is elegant and usable,there are no ads, it’s possible to play offline, and all of the surprises within the game are of a delightful kind. And as an added bonus, after a major building session, there’s nothing to tidy away! Women Who Changed the World
Women Who Changed the World is an animated picture book for children, exploring the achievements of influential and iconic women, including Rosa Parks, Amelia Earhart, and Marie Curie. The stories are approachable, providing useful facts, but not deluging children with too much content. The illustrations are bright and adorable, and many scenes in each story have interactive elements, such as being able to drag Earhart’s plane around. There are a few niggles, most notably that it isn’t always obvious what should be done to move the story on. However, this low-cost, advertising-free introduction to such important subject matter is a must-download app for any kids (small or large) who’d like a grounding in the achievements of some of history’s most brilliant and brave women. Zen Studio
Zen Studio‘s developer describes it as a meditation app for kids, but really it’s an engaging and entertaining combination of coloring and musical toy. It’s ideal for anyone who needs to relax for a while – regardless of age. The app’s canvases are triangles that you color in with a tap and emit a note whenever you do so. Drag out a line or tap a few triangles in quick succession and you’re treated to a little melody. It’s all very ‘zen’. You get the bulk of the app for free, but pay the one-off IAP and it opens up in useful ways: white paint for ‘deleting’ colored triangles; a range of template-based tutorials; and unlimited save slots. You might feel ‘zen’ about not splashing out, but this is an app that’s well worth paying a few bucks for. Foldify
Foldify is a rarity – an app that’s not entirely devoted to the digital realm. Instead, it invites you to create little characters on your iPhone, which you can then print on to card or paper, and construct by way of deft folding and a dab of glue. The interface is first-rate. You kick things off with a template – anything from basic cubes to little blocky people, cars and arcade machines. You then scribble all over that with a pen tool, slap on stickers, and import your own images. All the while, you can admire your handiwork as a little 3D model that’s updated in real-time and can be spun with a flick. There’s also a social aspect for sharing your creations and downloading other people’s works – including amusingly cuboid takes on Steve Jobs and the original Mac. Bandimal
Bandimal is probably the world’s cutest music-making app. And although it was designed for children, we’ll wager anyone with a soul will be grinning from ear to ear shortly after starting to play. It involves loading animals into one of three available slots, and tapping out notes on a dotted grid. When the playhead moves over the dots, a sound plays, and the animal bops along accordingly – such as a whale blowing colored water while emitting suitably deep bass noises. It’s relentlessly jolly, sounds superb, and automatically stores every song you make. And as if to cement how perfect the app is, load one of your songs and the animals count in before it starts playing. Toca Life: Office
Toca Life: Office is an app designed for children, ostensibly giving them insight into what their parents do all day at work. Only this office is probably a lot more exciting than the one you get to spend many hours in every week. Here, tiny fingers can dot 35 distinct characters about the place, and role-play in an office, bank, rooftop, courthouse, and apartment. There’s a virtual daycare, a swanky glass elevator, and a bank vault with an alarm. You can draw on a whiteboard, print from the computers, discover a helicopter, and even make superheroes. Chances are you’ll want to try this out yourself when your kid’s done, too, if only to imagine how exciting your own office life could be. DNA Play
DNA Play is an educational app for children that serves as an introduction to the basic science behind DNA. At least in theory. Really, most tiny people will be more excited about the prospect of fashioning all kinds of bizarre, colorful creatures by way of dragging and tapping. The app begins with you completing simple ‘gene’ puzzles, which see you dramatically adjusting a monster’s characteristics, and this can be done by simply hammering away at a body part to switch it for something new - ideal for less dextrous younglings. Each monster can then be saved and its photo shared. Occasionally, objects show up, giving you the chance to propel your monster along on a skateboard, feed it a pile of fruit, or have it totally freak out when faced by a spider significantly less terrifying than the monster. But best of all, if you get caught playing with the app yourself, you can argue you’re in the midst of an important scientific breakthrough. Probably. Endless Alphabet
If you’ve got yourself a resident tiny human, your house probably has a few of those wooden puzzles where letter shapes are shoved into their respective slots. Endless Alphabet isn’t quite, well, endless, but contains dozens of such puzzles, which work brilliantly on the touchscreen. On your child selecting a word, monsters sprint along the bottom of the screen, scattering its letters. They then need to be dragged back into place, coming to life as they’re moved. When a word’s complete, monsters act out what it means in a charming animated cut scene. There are some minor grumbles here and there – the app’s resolutely US-English in nature, and the sounds letters make when dragged might confuse, since they’re not full letters nor the phonics often used in education. Otherwise, this is a first-rate, charming, enjoyable educational app for youngsters getting to grips with words. Metamorphabet
If you've seen tiny humans around iOS devices, you'll have noticed that even those that can't speak beyond bababababa and dadadadada nonetheless merrily swipe and poke at screens. Metamorphabet capitalises on this ingrained infatuation with shiny touchscreens, and cunningly attempts to teach the alphabet via the medium of surreal interactive animations. It starts off with A, which when poked grows antlers, transforms into an arch and goes for an amble. Although a few words are a stretch too far (wafting clouds representing a daydream, for example), this is a charming, imaginative and beautifully designed app. Loopimal
For most kids, plastic keyboards and annoyingly loud toy drums are a typical starting point in music, but Loopimal ambitiously attempts to introduce children to the concept of computer sequencing. Fortunately, it does so by way of highly animated dancing cartoon animals, bright shapes, and plenty of flair. Hit play and you're immediately shown an animal bobbing its head to a backing track. You then drag coloured pieces (from a selection of five) into eight empty slots. When the playhead moves over the shapes, the animal adds its own sounds and melodies, often while performing impressive gymnastic feats. It's Loopimal's character that initially wins you over. Unless you're dead inside, you won't fail to crack a smile when an octopus starts playing funky basslines with its tentacles, or the percussive Yeti gets all stompy. Smartly, once the player clocks how Loopimal works, the screen can be split into two or four, to combine animals and their unique sounds. The one big miss is the inability to save your compositions, but every Loopimal riff is in C-major; this means you can use just the white notes on nearby keyboards to play along with whatever madness is happening inside the app. The best music and audio apps for iPhoneOur favorite iPhone apps for making music, listening to podcasts and being a DJ. Songbirds
Songbirds is a set of three artistic vignettes that are part meditative aid, part musical instrument. Each of them finds you crafting melodies by directing digital birds across vibrant, minimal scenes. The best of them is called The Sky. It has you draw pathways akin to constellations, each ‘star’ playing a note when a bird moves over it. With support for up to four simultaneous melodies, you can craft surprisingly intricate sounds, and if you make something you love, tap record to output a video. The other two options are The Lake, where you control the timing of birds diving into water, and The Flock, in which you use square ‘moons’ to record compositions played out on abstract keyboards. Neither quite matches the intoxicating joy of The Sky, but together, this collection is calming, engaging, and beautiful. Fugue Machine
Fugue Machine is a tool for making music based on compositional techniques used by Bach. That perhaps sounds dry, but stick with us, because Fugue Machine makes it astonishingly easy to create beautiful audio. You tap out notes on a piano roll, much like in GarageBand. The twist is that in this app, there’s only ever a single loop, but with up to four playheads moving over it. Each playhead is controlled independently, and this means you can play your loop at different speeds and pitches simultaneously, and in different directions. The interplay of several variations of a melody quickly becomes hypnotic. For beginners, it’s a great way to start making music. For professionals, it’s also a must – not least given that Fugue Machine ships with comprehensive MIDI, AUv3, Ableton Link, IAA, and Audiobus support. djay
djay is a hugely powerful DJ app for iOS. Formerly released in various flavors, it’s now universal and a free download. On install, you get a basic two-deck system with crossfader, looping, and some effects. Go pro, though, and a world of high-end DJ power opens up. At that point, you can run up to four decks, and dabble in video mixing. You get over 1GB of samples, loops, and visuals to trigger. There’s a ton of integration with a range of hardware solutions. Automix is available too, for when you can’t be bothered doing the DJ work yourself. On iPhone, it’s naturally a bit fiddly compared to the iPad’s relative acres – but it’s also a very portable way to always have the app on you for experimenting with – and useful for hooking up to physical controllers. SquareSynth 2
SquareSynth 2 seems to have two reasons to exist. The first is to make you grin on selecting a preset, tapping a key, and having some retro audio blaze forth from your iPhone. The built-in sounds are reminiscent of noise you’d once have heard blasting from a Commodore 64 or NES; this in itself is all rather good fun. But for musicians, this is a full-fledged synth. You can delve into each sound and muck about with its parameters – the results of which can be ear-thumpingly terrific. AudioUnit support also means this isn’t an isolated box – the entire thing can essentially be squirted into GarageBand. Only the slightly awkward interface on iPhone when editing lets it down a touch – but the great sounds more than make up for that. Samplebot
Samplebot is a colorful grid of buttons that you use to capture sounds. Press a pad, make a noise, and it’s then played by tapping the pad again. Fun stuff – but it turns out Samplebot has more layers than an onion. Recorded sounds can be trimmed, and arranged in a sequencer. Pre-defined drum patterns are included, but you can also tap out your own. Beyond that, you can import audio from cloud services, Music, Files, or the clipboard, and manage sounds in-app. Tracks can be exported, and Samplebot can even be synced to other music apps. In short, then, Samplebot is ideal for anyone wanting to make some noise, whether you fancy recording and playing back pots and pans being whacked, or creating entire songs. GarageBand
GarageBand is a music creation app and recording studio. Ambitiously, it aims to suit newcomers and pro musicians alike – and it succeeds. For newcomers, there are smart instruments that automate chords and riffs, and a grid pad for triggering samples and loops. Gain in confidence and you can plug in a guitar and use GarageBand’s excellent range of amps, experiment with the timeline, and create drum patterns in the Beat Sequencer. For pros, though, this app connects to other apps via Inter-App Audio and Audiobus, can ‘import’ entire third-party apps as Audio Units, and enables you to record, arrange and mix up to 32 tracks. The app’s a stunning achievement, and we suspect many long-time musicians can’t believe such a thing exists on a phone. Brian Eno: Reflection
In a sense, featuring Brian Eno : Reflection in this round-up is a bit weird. Unlike other collaborations between musician Eno and software designer/musician Peter Chilvers, Reflection is broadly devoid of interaction. Instead, it effectively just plays Eno’s ambient Reflection album, but with some clever twists. Unlike the standard album, which is the same every time you listen, the audio here has phrases and patterns within that continually interact in different ways, and subtly change as the day progresses, creating an endlessly changing version of the music. Likewise, the painterly visual on the screen slowly morphs before your eyes. It’s pricey, but ultimately gives you endless Eno and is an intoxicating experience for anyone that likes their ambient fare. The man himself describes the app like sitting by a river: it’s the same river, but always changing. By contrast, the standard Reflections album initially sounds similar, but it’s a recording frozen in time, never changing. Ferrite Recording Studio
Ferrite Recording Studio in its initial form appears similar to Apple’s Voice Memos, but under the surface, this is a powerful multi-track editor. Pay the IAP and you get a full-fledged podcast creation studio right on your iPhone. Of course, you don’t have to delve into such complex fare. For free, you can work with a few tracks, make basic edits, and export your reworked audio. But pay money and you get eight-band EQ, a slew of effects, auto-leveling, and noise reduction. Project templates help you quickly create new podcast episodes, and presets can be created for chapters; said presets can be stored in templates or shared via iCloud. This is top-notch stuff for creating podcasts on the go; and even if you usually edit on a PC or Mac, Ferrite works wonders as a sketchpad to bash out ideas on a commute. Korg Gadget
Let's immediately get one thing out of the way: Korg Gadget isn't cheap. It's not the sort of app you're going to download for some larks, use for a few minutes, and then casually toss aside. However, if you've any interest in making music — whether as a relative newcomer or jobbing musician — it is quite simply the best app available for iPhone. Purely as a tool for live performance, Korg's app is first-rate. You get a bunch of miniature synths, referred to as 'gadgets'; they're geared towards electronic music, but still have plenty of range. There are drum machines, a gorgeous bell synth, some ear-smashing bass instruments, and plenty of other options, whether you want to be the Human League for a bit or go all clubby. Each synth comes with a slew of presets, but you can fiddle with dials and levers to make your own, which can be saved for later use. When it comes to writing music, you can record live, tapping out notes on a tiny on-screen keyboard or by using a connected piece of hardware. Alternatively, there's a piano roll for tapping out notes on a grid as you do in GarageBand, creating loops to then combine into a song in the mixing-desk view. Korg Gadget is one of the most flexible and intuitive music-making apps we've seen on any platform, and the deepest on iOS. It was superb on the iPad, but that it actually works — and is very usable — on iPhone is nothing short of astonishing. The best office and writing apps for iPhoneOur favorite iPhone apps for file management, video memos, writing, email, spreadsheets, notes, presentations and calculations. Remote Control for Mac – Pro
Remote Control for Mac – Pro enables you to control your Mac using your phone so you don’t have to bother with the Mac itself, and although there’s a lot going on in this app, it somehow gives you an interface that’s immediate and coherent. Using taps, you can flick between media keys, direct input, app launching, triggering menu items, and special commands like restart and sleep. Naturally, some of these work better than others. During testing, responses to media buttons and app launching were instantaneous, but direct input with a Mac display on an iPhone is understandably fiddly. Still, if you’ve a headless Mac you need to command – or just one elsewhere in your home you can’t be bothered actually walking over to – this app is first-rate stuff. Image credit: TechRadar Vignette
Vignette is the solution when you have a Contacts app full of blanks rather than faces, but can’t be bothered to put in the work to fix this. Since other iPhone apps – including Messages and Mail – use these thumbnails, having them around can be a handy way to spot who’s chatting with you. That said, for Vignette to work, you need to give it a hand. It essentially rifles through each contact in turn, finding relevant images from their social media accounts. You can then choose to update a contact’s thumbnail, or leave things as they are. Neatly, Vignette does all the grunt work for free, so you can see whether or not it will work for you. Should you want to save thumbnails, only then will you need to pay the one-off IAP. Memento: Modern Reminders
Memento: Modern Reminders is a modern take on reminders, and feels a lot like the app Apple should have made itself. The interface is clean, with bold headings, and is peppered with tools to speed up creating and editing reminders. A smart keyboard row makes it a cinch to add a time or location alert. The former have friendly options like ‘tomorrow morning’, and these presets can be edited and added to. Notifications are similarly powerful, with snooze and move options. Browsing is superior to Apple’s app, too. There are views to zoom through all your reminders (grouped by list), or just ones with time alerts attached. Add in dark mode and Apple Watch support, and you’ve got a superb replacement for a tired stock app. Cardhop
Cardhop is designed to effectively replace Contacts on your iPhone. It uses the same iCloud information (so you can switch back to Apple’s app at any point), but presents it in a far more usable manner. Individual contact cards are more clearly laid out. Tapping on a phone number or email doesn’t trigger a call or open Mail – instead, you get options regarding what you want to do with that data. The notes field usefully remains anchored to the foot of the screen, so it’s always available. Back in the main view, there’s a dynamic search field that uses natural language, so you can input phrases to get at information, or to add new contacts. In all, this is an essential app for anyone who regularly dips into Contacts, but wants something better. Timeview
Timeview gives you alternate interpretations of and insight into your calendar data. Instead of events plastered across a day, week, or month view, this app is all about statistics, and presenting them as easy-to-scan cards. The app delves into your existing iOS Calendar data, and the cards are based around user-defined rule-sets. That might sound complex, but it really isn’t. You can, for example, quickly create cards to outline calendar events that include the word ‘meeting’, those from specific calendars, recurring events, and so on. For light users of Apple’s Calendar, this won’t be especially thrilling. But we imagine if your calendar is a mess of entries, all fighting for attention, the means to make sense of the chaos with Timeview’s straightforward, very readable interface will be very appealing. 1Password
1Password, like iCloud Keychain, is used to store website logins and payment information. But this app then goes further, being able to house details for servers, app license details, notes and identities. The other big advantage is 1Password being a standalone app. Launch it and use Face ID or Touch ID and you’ll quickly be browsing your logins and data, which can be further refined through the use of favorites and tags. A first-rate password creator is bundled, too, for when you need a new or replacement website password. The core app is free to try for 30 days, after which point a subscription is required. However, this unlocks the app across a range of supported platforms, including macOS, Android and Windows – something iCloud Keychain cannot compete with. Noted
Noted is a rich-text notepad and voice memos app combined. This isn’t a new concept on the iPhone – other apps do much the same. But Noted differentiates itself by enabling you to mark important moments within the recording. This is achieved using #TimeTags. As you type up notes while recording, tapping a button places a tag inline. When you subsequently tap a tag, your recording instantly starts playing from the relevant moment. This means you can take basic notes during a meeting or lecture, and then flesh everything out later, without having to constantly scrub through a recording to find the relevant parts. You’ll need a subscription to make the most of the app – not least to record more than a handful of notes – but for many people, #TimeTags alone will be worth the outlay. PCalc
PCalc is a traditional calculator – like the super-powered equivalent of something you might find sitting on a desk. If you want something more conventional than the calculator meets sort-of spreadsheet Soulver, PCalc is simply the best there is on iPhone. For a start, the app’s almost absurdly feature-packed. There’s multiline and RPN, a paper tape, and multiple undo. Need conversions and constants? Done. Engineering and scientific notation? Sure. You can even edit the individual buttons, if you for some reason want the 6 key to be massive. The app has a slightly odd sense of humor, too. Head into the Help section in its Settings and fire up the ARKit About PCalc screen, and lob anti-gravity bananas about the place. This is a calculator with leaderboards and achievements, and – we say again – anti-gravity bananas. Buy it. Just Press Record
Just Press Record is a highly usable audio recorder and transcription tool. It’s also an excellent example of how to take an app that’s extremely simple and add new features without drowning it in complexity. To start, you still tap a big, red button, and then record whatever you want to say. Saved recordings head to iCloud, meaning they can be accessed on any device. On your iPhone, they’re found in the Recents and Browse tabs, the latter listing them by date. There’s also a Search tool – which might seem redundant until you realize every recording is automatically transcribed. Naturally, this doesn’t always nail context – during testing, it mixed up ‘synced’ and ‘sinked’ – and you have to manually say punctuation (such as ‘comma’). Still, this means that you can share text rather than just audio files, and that every utterance you make can potentially be found by keyword, instead of you scrabbling through a huge list of recordings. It’s really smart stuff. Pennies
Pennies is all about managing your money. But whereas finance trackers have a tendency to be dry and complicated, Pennies goes for a much friendlier approach. Using the app’s colorful, straightforward interface, you can quickly and easily define new budgets around any kind of topic, and add or remove money from them. Much of the app’s effectiveness lies in the way it encourages you to categorize your spending. Want to cut down on coffee? Create a ‘coffee’ category and get a monthly and daily budget, along with a visible reminder of when you can next spend. Your entire history always remains available in an ongoing scrolling list, and because Pennies syncs across devices, your figures are readily available on iPad and Apple Watch too. In short, it’s the budget tracker for the rest of us. Untitled
Untitled rethinks screenwriting. Rather than you having to remember how to format your next Hollywood blockbuster, Untitled prioritizes you getting ideas down, through providing a helping hand regarding how your script should look. This works by way of simple-to-remember shorthand, such as placing dialogue underneath a character’s name, or ‘>’ before a transition. The app’s also intelligent enough to reformat scene headers (intro/location/time) from plain English into the correct style. On iPad, Untitled is a friendly screenwriting tool, but its relaxed, note-taking approach really feels at home on iPhone. It’s not a tool you’d likely use to fine-tune a fully polished screenplay, but it’s excellent for starting one – wherever and whenever inspiration strikes. Carbo
You can of course use a wide range of apps for storing real-world scribbles – photograph a journal page and you can fling it at the likes of Evernote, say. But Carbo tries something more ambitious. Your sketches and notes are cleaned up, and converted to vectors, while preserving your original stroke. What this means is that images within Carbo retain the character of your penmanship, but are also editable in a manner standard photographs are not – you can select and move specific elements that Carbo intelligently groups, adjust line thicknesses throughout the entire image, add annotations and tags, and export the result to various formats. It's a friendly, intuitive app to work with, and efficient, too – a typical Carbo note requires only a tenth of the storage as the same image saved as a standard JPEG photo. Scrivener
On the desktop, Scrivener is popular with writers crafting long-form text. On iPad, the app is - amazingly - barely altered from the PC and Mac release; but Scrivener on iPhone is a slightly different prospect. That's not to say this isn't a feature-rich and highly capable product. You still get a solid rich-text editing environment and a 'binder' to house and arrange documents and research, before compiling a manuscript for export. What you lose on the smaller screen is those features that require more space: a two-up research/writing view; the corkboard for virtual index cards. But Scrivener is still worth buying - although you're unlikely to write an entire screenplay or novel on an iPhone, you can use the app to take notes, make edits, and peruse your existing work, wherever you happen to be. Soulver
Traditional calculator apps are fine, but even if they come with digital tape, you don't get figures in context. By contrast, a spreadsheet is overkill for most adding-up tasks. Soulver is a neatly conceived half-way house — like scribbling sums on the back of an envelope, but a magic envelope that tots everything up. You get two columns. On the left, you type everything out, integrating words as you see fit. On the right, totals are smartly extracted. So if you type 'Hotel: 3 nights at $125', Soulver will automatically display $375 in the totals column. Line totals can be integrated into subsequent sums, ensuring your entire multi-line calculation remains dynamic — handy should you later need to make adjustments to any part. Given the relative complexity of what Soulver's doing, it all feels surprisingly intuitive from the get-go. There are multiple keyboards (including advanced functions and currency conversion), you can save calculations and sync them via iCloud or Dropbox, and it's even possible to output HTML formatted emails of your work. The best productivity apps for iPhoneOur favorite iPhone apps for being productive with launchers, focus timers and to-do lists. Hour Blocks
Hour Blocks solves key problems in digital calendaring: a tendency toward clutter, and an emphasis on packing as much in as possible. Overlapping tasks crammed into little space rob you of focus and increase stress. Hour Blocks, though, radically alters how events are presented. Instead of multiple items competing for space, each hour block can have just one entry. This can be added in-app, or pulled from existing iPhone calendar data. The only real distraction is a simplified to-do manager, which seems a logical, useful inclusion. Hour Blocks is probably too limited to be your only calendar, but with its low price and razor-sharp focus, it’s worth trying to help you make the most of the time you have, and give your attention to what really matters. Image credit: Super Useful Ltd Magpie
Magpie reimagines notes and reminders for the visually inclined. The experience focuses on photographs rather than being words-first. Create new lists and items, and you’re invited to take snaps or load existing ones. When browsing lists, your eyes are dazzled by the imagery rather than bogged down in text. That said, Magpie doesn’t eschew words entirely. You can add brief notes to any list item, and for the likes of gift lists, it’s possible to add prices, links, and even locations. Once you’ve built up a bit of a collection, Magpie shines especially bright on iPhone, as you browse your items. For a few bucks a month, there’s plenty of value here if you want a creative spin on note-taking and lists – and one that’s far more sleek and arresting than the closest equivalent Apple provides itself. Bin Day Alert
Bin Day Alert does what you’d expect from its name – alerts you when it’s bin day. But although this is every inch a focused app, it also has the flexibility to cater for any refuse system, wherever you happen to live (and however complex the collection cycles are). So rather than limiting you to a basic schedule, Bin Day Alert invites you to define each type of trash you deal with, give it a color and an icon, and outline when collections occur. For example, if your recycling is picked up every three weeks on a Wednesday, the app has you covered. Beyond that, you set alerts. Handily, you’re not limited to one – so if you casually dismiss one the evening before, you can get a further reminder on the day itself to put a bin out. NordVPN
NordVPN is a VPN app for iPhone. It encrypts your internet traffic, making it effectively impossible for anyone else to decipher. The company doesn’t keep logs of activity, and because you can use servers in any country, the app lets you circumvent many geographic blockers. That might all sound a bit nefarious, but there are many reasons why a VPN can be handy, including enhancing safety when using public Wi-Fi, and getting at media subscriptions when on holiday. What sets NordVPN apart from much of the competition is a combination of reliability, performance, and usability. Setting things up is a cinch, and although speeds are slower than on vanilla Wi-Fi, you won’t feel the hit. Once you’ve downloaded the app, do, though, subscribe via the NordVPN website, because the regular offers are significantly cheaper than signing up in-app. MindNode 6
MindNode 6 is a desktop-grade mind-mapping tool for iPhone. Creating complex diagrams perhaps isn’t best suited to a small handheld device, but MindNode speeds things along with Quick Entry. With this feature, you create a bullet-point list, tap a button, and the app instantly transforms your thoughts into a mind map. After that, the sky’s the limit. You can snap nodes and branches into position or go free-form, and add labels, stickers, and images for more context. If everything gets a bit complicated, you can hide connections, and/or focus on one part of your map. Full iCloud support lets you start on your iPhone and pick up elsewhere; but from any device, you can export to a range of formats. Top stuff, then, when you need to get ideas out of your head, and explore them in a logical, visual, useful manner. 1Blocker X
1Blocker X is a robust, powerful, and user-friendly app for improving the web browsing experience on your phone – mostly by blocking things. Once 1Blocker X is approved in Settings > Safari > Content Blockers, it’s a cinch to block ads, trackers, and other annoyances, such as comments and social media widgets. There’s nuance in the app’s settings, too. You can whitelist favorite sites, stating specifically what things (if any) should be blocked on them, and even write your own rules to hide specific CSS elements. If that all sounds complex, don’t be concerned. At its core, 1Blocker X is simply a case of flicking some switches. Importantly, this paid indie app cares about privacy, too, and so you can be assured it’s doing nothing nefarious while making the internet on your iPhone a better and safer place. Yoink
Yoink can be thought of as a super-charged version of the clipboard. It’s used to stash all kinds of things for later – text snippets, URLs, images, and even documents and emails. Items added to Yoink can be renamed, formed into groups called ‘stacks’, and previewed. Files integration means you can get at everything you’ve stored in the app without actually going into Yoink itself. Siri Shortcuts support also means you can stash your clipboard’s contents without first activating the app. Cross-device capabilities round out a great app – iCloud sync allows you to get at Yoink content saved on any of your devices. And so although this is probably not an app you’ll use every day, it’s a massive time-saver when you need to collate files from disparate sources on mobile. Fantastical 2
Fantastical 2 acts as a replacement for the iOS Calendar app. You might question the logic in buying something like this, but Fantastical 2 quickly pays for itself by making you more efficient. This is apparent the second you check out the main view. Rather than having to laboriously tap each day to see its events, Fantastical 2 provides a scrollable feed, making it a cinch to see how your schedule looks into the future – and to quickly browse the past. Reminders are integrated, too, and event input includes a powerful natural-language parser. As you tap in the likes of ‘TechRadar lunch at 3pm on Friday’, a live preview builds. And none of the data you add is locked in – Fantastical 2 works with your existing iCloud account, Google Calendar, or Exchange. BFT - Bear Focus Timer
BFT - Bear Focus Timer is yet another app designed to make you use your iPhone less and concentrate more, but if you need a sense of focus and are easily distracted by your iPhone, it’s one of the best of its kind. First, it features a friendly bear, and who doesn’t like bears? Secondly, the app’s Pomodoro-style timers are adjustable, so you can fine-tune lengths for work, short breaks, session counts, and long breaks (recommended after several work/short break sessions). The app’s interface is the real star though, inviting you to turn your device upside-down to get the timer going. Pick up your phone and the timer stops, while the previously friendly bear scowls. It’s amusing and chastising in equal measure, making you smile, flip your phone back, and listen to the app’s helpful hubbub-drowning noise loops. Things 3
Things 3 is a task manager that wants to help you get more done. The interface is sleek and the workflow is smart, helping you collect thoughts and plan your time efficiently. The app’s core is to-dos, but it allows you to add context, such as the time, date or location that you plan to carry the task out. Things 3 then populates a Today view with the day’s tasks (cleverly grouping things you do at home under a This Evening heading), and puts later tasks in an Upcoming list. The finer points of the app’s design and interactions make it a joy to use. Animations are subtle, but colors are bold. Clever details are dotted about, like the ability to position a new entry by dragging the to-do button to a list. Things 3 isn’t cheap – especially if you also buy it on iPad and Mac – but the potential time savings make it good value. Forest
The idea behind Forest is to get you to leave your iPhone alone. It does this by having you plant a tiny sapling and set a timer. If you succeed in not using your iPhone until the timer’s done, you get to plant what’s now a little tree in a virtual forest. If you succumb to temptation, Forest mercilessly kills your tree, leaving a barren little twig. Amusingly, if you try to trick the app by switching away, it’ll immediately send a terse reminder to have you switch right back. But despite this somewhat gruff element, Forest ranks among the best gamified focus aids. Over time, it’s rewarding to see your forest grow, unlock new trees, and delve into detailed statistics. Also, using coins earned in-app, you can buy real trees for communities that need them. And all because you avoided Facebook for a few hours. Focus Keeper
Focus and burnout are two commonplace issues for people in work. Too often, you can become distracted from tasks; but also there’s the risk of working long hours without a break, leading to fatigue. Focus Keeper aims to deal with both. The timer is loosely based around the Pomodoro Technique (a time management method), and recommends splitting your time between 25-minute work sprints and five-minute breaks. After four sessions, you take a longer break of about half an hour. The app is clutter-free, and easy to use. The timer combines a minimal iOS-like design aesthetic with hints of a real-world timer’s dial. You can delve into statistics, adjust work/break lengths, and choose alternate alarm and ‘ticking’ noises. Most importantly, however much this is all about psychology, it does work. Need convincing? Try the free version first. The best travel and weather apps for iPhoneOur favorite iPhone apps for planning a holiday, currency conversion, weather forecasts and mapping. Dark Sky Weather
Dark Sky Weather started out primarily as a rainfall tracker, with luminous clouds billowing over a dark background map. Now, the app is much more conventional – but arguably massively more useful. The main forecast page shows current conditions and a local map. Usefully, little arrows denote the direction a storm’s heading, so you can always spot that at a glance, rather than having to check the full animated rainfall view. Below that you get rainfall predictions for the hour, the daily forecast, and a weekly outlook. It’s all very sleek, efficient and usable. The app’s accuracy may vary by location, but during testing in various countries we’ve found its rainfall predictions to be spot-on. It’s also a nicely flexible app regarding warnings – several notifications are built in, and you can add your own based on a range of weather conditions. V for Wikipedia
V for Wikipedia is a Wikipedia reader. That in itself might sound like an odd recommendation for a premium app, but bear with us. Although V can be used to search Wikipedia in the normal way, it starts off in its Nearby tab, flagging articles of interest in your vicinity. This looks great, tabs snaking their way from map locations to large thumbnails. It’s practical, too, for finding out more about the local area, without resorting to review-oriented web services. This sense of polish extends to the article views. Typography and layout are first class, and a slide-in contents list is only a tap away. So while you might narrow your eyes at the prospect of paying for a Wikipedia reader, Viki will have said eyes busily and regularly reading the world’s most dynamic encyclopedia. WeatherPro
WeatherPro is a weather app designed for people who favor information density over aesthetics. That’s not to say WeatherPro looks bad – its white-on-blue stylings are perfectly nice. But where it excels is in providing fast access to a wealth of weather data. For any selected location, a single screen shows the current conditions, a local radar, upcoming predictions and then a forecast for the coming week. The latter packs temperatures, sun hours, precipitation forecasts and wind speeds into a tiny space. In pretty much all cases, tapping on something lets you delve into even more information, and additional taps provide layered mapping and radar services. Accessing some layers requires an IAP subscription, but just the bare-bones WeatherPro is a great buy if you want at-a-glance forecasts packed with detail. Citymapper
Citymapper is a navigation aid for finding your way around big cities. It doesn’t cover the entire globe, but is instead focused on a handful of major destinations, such as New York, Chicago, Tokyo, London, Paris and Sydney. Locations are periodically added by way of user votes. If you live in or visit a supported city, Citymapper is superb for helping you find your way around more efficiently. The app quickly finds where you are and offers options – in real-time – of how to reach your intended target. And small details really help it stand out, such as you being able to track the location of a bus you’re waiting for, alerts that blare when your stop’s coming up, and even recommendations of the best carriage to get on – and the fastest station exit to use. Google Maps
Google Maps is the best mapping app on iPhone. It’s extremely good at locating places you want to visit, be that a distant town or a point of interest like a restaurant or store. When it comes to turn-by-turn driving directions, the voiceovers lack the nuance of Apple’s Maps, but the actual directions tend to be more helpful when it comes to dealing with incidents like congestion. Google Maps is great for planning and non-car use, too. There are reviews and recommendations for places to go, public transport routing, and Street View – a navigable 3D street-level map for scoping out landmarks that proves handy when traveling somewhere or visiting a new place. Importantly, you can also download chunks of map for offline use, turning Google Maps into a turn-by-turn navigator even when you lack a data connection. CARROT Weather
CARROT Weather rethinks weather apps, mostly in being helmed by an angry AI that seemingly won the ‘most likely to kill people in their sleep’ award over HAL. Sure, you get the usual rainfall warnings, hourly forecasts, and weekly outlooks, but they’re all delivered with a layer of snark. Venture into the excellent Today view widget and CARROT will ‘LOL’ if it’s going to rain. If it’s sunny, she’ll hope you get tan lines, call you a meatbag, and suggest you make the most of the nice weather – “or else”. It’s uniquely entertaining in its App Store category, but also usable, colorful, and configurable. The maps are extremely variable by country, and some layers require IAP – as do a number of useful settings. But otherwise this is one of the best – and certainly the most fun – weather apps for iPhone. Elk
We’ve lost count of how many currency converters exist on the App Store, but it’s vanishingly rare to see anyone try something properly different. Elk bucks the trend, with a unique interface and approach that might not appeal to traders, but feels very much like currency conversion for the rest of us. On firing up the app, you select your two currencies and it offers a list of current rate conversions. For USD to EUR, for example, you get a list of the rates for one through ten dollars. Swiping from the right increases these values by ten. To access rates between two values, tap an entry. Smartly, you can also input a fixed rate, for example to track your spending on a holiday when you’ve already got your cash. Most of the features are behind a paywall, but a 14-day trial lets you try them for free. Poison Maps
This one’s all about ‘points of interest’, hence the name – Poison Maps (‘POIs on maps’). Essentially, it’s a wealth of information from OpenStreetMap shoved into an app and twinned with an interface that makes it a cinch to drill down into categories. So, mooching about London and fancy a bite to eat? Tap on the food and drink icon. Something quick? Tap Fast Food. Pizza? Sounds good. Each tap filters the POIs and navigation buttons displayed, and arrows point at nearby locations when you’re zoomed in. Everything’s extremely responsive, and the maps and icons are clear and easy to read. Other nice bits include a full-screen mode, a search function, and public transport overlays. The only snag is Poison Maps is a gargantuan install – well over 1GB. If that’s a bit rich, smaller regional alternatives by the same developer exist, each being a free download with a small IAP to unlock all categories. Living Earth
From a functionality standpoint, Living Earth is a combination clock/weather app. You define a bunch of cities to track, and switch between them to see current time, weather conditions, and when the sun's going to make an appearance and vanish for the day. Tapping the forecast quickly loads an outlook for the entire week; prod the clock and you'll get the weather and time in each of your defined locations. What sets Living Earth apart, though, is the globe at the screen's centre. This provides a live view of the planet's weather - clouds, by default, which can be swapped for temperature, wind and humidity. We like the clouds most, along with the way the virtual planet can be slowly spun with the slightest swipe. It'll then lazily rotate between zones in daylight and those lit up after night has fallen. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The best Motorola phones of 2019: find the best Moto smartphone for you Posted: 04 Sep 2019 08:02 AM PDT Motorola phones, alongside Nokia phones, and certain LG phones, are champions of the budget smartphone market. That means if you're looking for a decent handset that won't break the bank, you're in the right place. Motorola's smartphones run the gamut of low price points, but each has impressive features that might be enough to compel you to buy them. The Moto Z handsets can support modding if you buy Moto Mods, the Moto G range consists of budget devices with certain impressive specs each, and the Motorola One handsets are wacky and interesting in even more novel ways. Of course, these phones won't compete with the likes of the iPhone XS or the Samsung Galaxy S10, but they won't cost you as much either. They're reliable, with impressive specs for their price tag. But Motorola has a lot of phones, especially ones that it releases all at the same time, so it can be a little hard getting your head around the products. That's why we've made this list of the best Moto phones to guide your hand. We also update this list regularly, when Motorola releases a new phone, or when software updates cause the rankings to shift, so keep checking back to see which devices we recommend the most. Image credit: TechRadar The Moto Z4 is a safe move from Motorola - it looks nearly identical to its predecessors, with only minor shifts in size and shape - but that likely arises from the company's decision to keep supporting the Moto Mods, which require phones to keep roughly the same shape. Thus, the phone doesn't look like it's changed. Look closer and you'll find some improvements, like an expanded 6.4-inch screen to the edges (around a top notch), an in-screen fingerprint scanner, and the return of a 3.5mm headphone jack. Gone also is the dual 12MP lenses in the rear camera bump; instead, the Moto Z4 follows the midrange (and Google Pixel-like) trend of dropping lenses and using software to make up for it. We found the Moto Z4 took slightly better photos with its lone 48MP rear camera, and similar improvements with its 25MP selfie lens. The phone is speedy enough, though its performance might drag on over the years: instead of packing an older but still flagship chipset like its predecessor, the Moto Z4 opted for a Snapdragon 675 - a new, but definitively midrange option. This is more speculation - we'll have to see whether this chipset lasts longer than we expect - but the phone's 4GB RAM (only option) isn't promising for longevity either. Read our in-depth review: Moto Z4 Image credit: TechRadar The Moto Z3 is still a solid pick in the Moto line, with a comparable (if not slightly faster) chipset than the Moto Z4. Best of all? It's still the cheapest way to access 5G through the 5G Moto Mod. When this Moto add-on first came out, it made the Moto Z3 the first 5G-capable phone to hit the market in the whole world. Of course, there are a lot of caveats to that fact – namely, that the mod is only coming to Verizon in the US, and will only work in that carrier's very limited 5G coverage areas – but it's still an impressive claim for a sub-flagship phone. Yes, the phone doesn't have the beastly specs of top-tier flagships – but at half the price, the Moto Z3 boasts impressive value. It sports a Snapdragon 835, which is respectable if dated, and comes in two average if unimpressive versions: 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, or 6GB of RAM and 128GB of space (expandable via microSD to up to 512GB). That's enough for streaming multimedia and moderate gaming, which look good on the phone's 6-inch (2160 x 1080) AMOLED display. Combine that with basic dual 12MP rear cameras and an 8MP front-facing selfie shooter and you have a good phone sitting somewhere below the OnePlus 6T and lesser-performing midrange phones. The phone's glass back and side-mounted fingerprint scanner are similarly middle-luxe – a good compromise if you want performance at a lower price. Read our in-depth review: Motorola Moto Z3 The Motorola One Action has lots in common with the other Motorola One phones, like its chipset and screen quality, but it has one novel feature that makes it an interesting prospect for phones buyers. As well as its main and depth sensing cameras on the back of the device, the Motorola One Action has an 'action cam' which is designed for impressive video recording. You can record in landscape while holding the phone in portrait, and the camera is great at picking up video detail: all in all it's a great device for people who take a lot of videos. On top of that the handset is actually cheaper than lots of other Motorola ones, so you could do a lot worse if you're looking for a device with an intriguing extra feature. Read our in-depth review: Motorola One Action Image credit: TechRadar The Motorola Moto G7 Plus is the top performer of the brand's G7 family, which counts four phones this time around. The G7 Plus is the standout model, though it may not reach your region: Motorola confirmed the device isn't coming to the US. But if you can pick the phone up, you won't be sorry. For sub-midrange price, you'll get a Snapdragon 636-powered phone with a decent 4GB RAM and 64GB of storage (expandable up to 512GB). The phone even has one up on the more powerful Moto Z3 with its 3.5mm headphone jack. So why the G7 Plus and not, say, an older (but still hefty) Moto Z2 Play? Simple: Android 9 Pie out of the box. That leads us to recommend the phone even over other more powerful Moto phones (like the Moto Z2 Force, which is nearly identical to the Z3), and the G7 Plus has other benefits of a later release date, like speedier Fast Charging and a higher screen-to-body ratio. Read our in-depth review: Motorola Moto G7 Plus Image credit: TechRadar No, Motorola One Vision is not inspired by the Queen song, but it is one of the royalty of Moto handsets – its clean and clear Android One operating system (OS) cuts away the bloat and excess of normal Android, and the phone itself has an attractive and clean design. The Motorola One Vision's 21:9 aspect ratio may be questionable to some, however, as the jury's still out on whether this is the future of smartphones or just an annoying gimmick. If you're on-board with the phone's unwieldy length, and don't mind its weak specs in a certain few areas, the Motorola One Vision sits at a happily affordable price point and does impress in a few major ways. Read our in-depth review: Motorola One Vision Image Credit: TechRadar Why list the Moto G7 here? Sure, it's slightly less powerful than the G7 Plus, but it's also available in more regions (including the US), so we're covering our bases in case you don't want to pay international shipping on your budget-plus phone. You don't miss much going for the G7, either: its Snapdragon 632 chip is a bit less powerful, sure, and its frame is plastic instead of aluminum. But the rest of its specs are essentially the same, which means you're getting a phone that's nearly as nice at a discount. That means 4GB of RAM and 64GB of space, a 6.2-inch LCD display and dual 12MP + 5MP rear shooters/an 8MP front-facing camera for a great price. Plus it comes with Android 9 Pie right out of the box. Read our in-depth review: Moto G7 Image credit: TechRadar If you're looking for the ultimate Moto value, think about digging back into the reserves. The Moto Z2 Force came out in mid-2017, but it's still a relative powerhouse – and you can find it for a bit cheaper than the newer Moto Z3. Despite over a year between releases, the Z2 Force packs the same Snapdragon 835 processor as its successor. Its screen is even higher resolution at 2560 x 1440, though its 5.5 inches are smaller than the Z3's display. Unfortunately, the Z2 Force shows its age in its chin and top bezels, which are significantly larger than those on phones released today. But if you don't mind not sporting the sleekest phone on the block, the Z2 Force has most of the newest top-tier Moto phone at a lower price. And it works with Moto Mods -- including, eventually, the Moto Mod 5G, which will expand functionality to the earlier Z2 phones at some point after it's released on April 11. Read our in-depth review: Moto Z2 Force Image credit: TechRadar The third phone in the budget Moto G7 line is the G7 Power, which doesn't vary much from the standard G7 – aside from its enormous battery. Yes, for those of you who tire of recharging your phone everyday, here's one with a 5,000mAh battery. Other phones have reached such heights, but they're either expensive flagships (like the gaming-focused Huawei Mate 20 X) or battery-focused brick-thick novelty items (like the Energizer Power Max P18K). The G7 Power is a much more affordable, sensible and normal-looking phone than others that offer its level of battery capabilities. Otherwise, the phone is basic but not bottom-tier, with a Snapdragon 632 and either 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage (in the US) or 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage (elsewhere). Its 6.2-inch LCD screen is large but not terribly impressive (1570 x 720px). But in combination with the giant battery and an accessible price of $249 / £179 (around AU$330), the Moto G7 Power is a great bargain. Read our in-depth review: Moto G7 Power review This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Two new Acer Swift laptops fly into IFA 2019 packing discrete graphics Posted: 04 Sep 2019 08:00 AM PDT Acer has a load of updates for its products at IFA 2019, and that includes refreshes of its Swift 5 and Swift 3 laptops. The Swift 5 has already been an impressive Ultrabook, boasting a thin design, plenty of performance and a shockingly light body. The Swift 5 model will stay light while also offering a modern processor (CPU) and the option for discrete graphics. The update is to the 14-inch Acer Swift 5, which comes in at just 0.99 kg (2.18 pounds). And, that weight is for the model that will include Nvidia GeForce MX250 graphics. The added graphics processor (GPU) is optional, though. So, a configuration that opts instead for integrated Intel Iris Pro graphics can weigh even less. The Swift 5 can come configured with up to an Intel Core i7-1065G7, one of the new 10th Generation Ice Lake processors. It also supports Wi-Fi 6 and Thunderbolt 3, for some serious connectivity options. The Acer Swift 5 will be available this month in the EMEA region, and it will launch in the US this November at a starting price of $899 (about £750, AU$1,330).
Acer Swift 3 gets the bump, tooDespite being the cheaper model, the Acer Swift 3 is coming along for the ride, too. It also gets the upgrade to Intel Ice Lake processors, and it will have the same option for discrete Nvidia GeForce MX250 or integrated Intel Iris Pro graphics. On top of that, it can pack as much as 512GB of PCIe, Gen 3x4 solid-state storage and up to 16GB of memory. The Acer Swift 3 still starts lightweight as well, just edging out the Swift 5, at 1.19 kg (2.62 pounds). This model has the same launch window as the Swift 5, but will start at $699 (about £580, AU$1,040) in the US. The lines between the two laptops are narrowing. Both are lightweight, have 14-inch IPS displays with narrow bezels, and offer 12.5 hours of battery life with fast charging.
IFA 2019 is Europe's biggest tech show. The TechRadar team is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and hands-on first impressions of new TVs, watches and other tech as they're announced. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The best cheap TV sales and 4K TV deals in the UK in August 2019 Posted: 04 Sep 2019 07:59 AM PDT We've been super busy this week adding lots of highlights of the very best cheap TV sales. TV prices on some fantastic Ultra HD 4K TVs have been dropping nicely in recent months in the UK. We've got you covered if you're looking for TV deals in the US too. We've tried to find something for everyone here. So we've got you covered for multiple size categories and we've looked at both ends of the pricing scale so you can get a cheap TV on a low budget, or you might find a higher quality set for a lower price than you expected - although those super new 8K models aren't coming down any time soon. Not to worry though, as some of these HDR 4K TV deals will make your jaw drop. Netflix, Amazon, Sky TV and the like are all increasing their 4K content too so you won't be short on Ultra HD content to watch. Standard HD content will be upscaled on these TVs a bit too, so you can feel the benefits of 4K straight away. We keep our eye on the latest TV deals throughout the year, so we're poised to find you the best price whenever the need to replace your old TV arises. We're fully behind the 4K TV movement too as a competitive market has seen prices reach affordable levels much quicker than when HD tellies first came around. One look at the prices below and you'll see what we mean. So much so, we'll rarely even mention regular HD TVs here seeing as Ultra HD TV deals are so cheap today. Finding you the best cheap TV dealWe've split our carefully curated 4K TV deals into different size categories immediately after our pick for cheap TV deal of the week. Whatever your budget, we're sure we can find something for you. Note: all of our selected TV sales highlights are for 4K/Ultra HD TVs and include a built-in freeview tuner as standard. Pretty much every deal comes with Smart TV functionality built-in along with HDR technology. If they don't, we'll clearly mention it. The best cheap TV deals you can buy todayExtra retailer cheap 4K TV sales links:Not found the right cheap TV for you today? Or maybe you'd prefer to directly browse the offers at your favourite retailers instead of our highlights of the best cheap TV deals? We're updating this page on a regular basis, so you may have better luck another day. If you want to take a look for yourself now though, here are the direct links to a the full collection of TV sales at multiple stores. More large screen 4K TV salesIf you're after more seriously large TV deals, we should warn you, they don't come cheap. However, if you want to see some more large screen TV deals -we're talking about 65 to 85-inch TVs- we'd recommend heading over to AO.com, John Lewis, Currys and Amazon as they seem to stock more models than most UK retailers. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Over a billion Android phones vulnerable to phishing attack Posted: 04 Sep 2019 07:49 AM PDT Over a billion Android smartphones, including those from the world's largest manufacturers, are vulnerable to a hugely dangerous cyberattack, researchers have warned. A new report from Check Point Research has uncovered a security flaw that could leave users open to advanced phishing attacks that would steal personal information. The company says that hundreds of millions of Android phones across the world are at risk from the attack, with devices from Samsung, Huawei, LG and Sony among those affected.
CounterfeitThe flaw allowed hackers to steal user email addresses using counterfeit Android SMS messages that have been custom-engineered to intercept all email traffic to and from mobiles. The affected Android phones use over-the-air (OTA) provisioning, which allows mobile network operators to deploy network-specific settings to a new phone joining their network. In this case, the SMS is disguised as an innocent ‘update network settings’ text from the mobile network provider. The researchers say that anyone connected to a cellular network can be targeted by such attacks, as the SMS doesn't require a victim's device to be connected to a Wi-Fi network, and it only takes a single message to gain full access to a device’s emails. Samsung phones were found to be the most at risk to the attack as they do not have an authenticity check. The user only needs to accept the message for the malicious software to be installed without the sender needing to prove their identity. “Given the popularity of Android devices, this is a critical vulnerability that must be addressed,” said Slava Makkaveev, security researcher at Check Point Software Technologies. “Without a stronger form of authentication, it is easy for a malicious agent to launch a phishing attack through over-the-air provisioning. ” Check Point says the flaw was first detected in March 2019, and the company told the affected manufacturers soon after. So far, Samsung and LG have released fixes, with Huawei set to launch its patch in the next generation of Mate and P-series smartphones - with Sony insisting its devices are already up to scratch.
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| Acer buffs Predator gaming laptop with new 300Hz display and more accessories Posted: 04 Sep 2019 07:46 AM PDT Acer's Predator Triton 500 is getting a major upgrade this year, and it comes amid plenty of other new hardware and peripheral announcements from the company at IFA 2019. The new Triton 500 model will offer up a beastly 300Hz display to take gamers to an entirely new level of smooth gameplay. The newly updated Triton 500 will be one of the first laptops to offer a display with such a fast refresh rate. The 15.6-inch display will be Full HD, as any higher resolution would be near impossible for even the strongest mobile graphics processors to deliver 300 frames-per-second to in all but the least graphically intensive games. The laptop will also pack up to a 9th-Generation Intel Core i7 processor. So, serious gamers will have a new laptop to look out for in the Predator Triton 500, as that 300Hz refresh rate can provide a competitive advantage. The Predator Triton 500 will release in EMEA in November with a North American release later in December. It will start at $2,799 (about £2,320, AU$4,140). But, that's not all Acer is offering.
A more affordable Predator Triton 300For gamers that need something a bit more affordable, Acer is also launching the new Predator Triton 300 laptop to round out its Triton series. The new laptop can still offer up to a 9th-Gen Intel Core i7 processor, but will pair it with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650. That will suit it better for esports games. But, it will still have a 15.6-inch, Full HD IPS display with a 144Hz refresh rate for smooth gaming. And, up to 1TB of PCIe-based SSD storage and room for up to a 2TB hard drive offers ample space for game libraries. Plus, it will offer Wi-Fi 6 and Ethernet connectivity for a more stable online gaming experience regardless of whether you go wired or wireless. It will come first to the EMEA region this October starting at €1,299 (about £1,210, AU$2,160), with no release date for the US currently. Predator chairs and Nitro monitors as wellLuxury gamers had the option of the insane, $20,000 Predator Thronos battle station before. Now, gamers with plenty of money to spend have a slightly more affordable option on the way. Acer is launching a Predator Thronos Air for $13,999 (about £11,560, AU$20,720) in Q4 this year. It includes a built-in chair, triple-monitor stand, cable routing, and a keyboard and mouse tray. And, Acer has a series of new Nitro XV3 monitors that can kit out that new Thronos or any desk, as they have a much lower starting price. The cheapest – a Full HD, 144Hz – will start at $299 (about £250, AU$450). There are two 24.5-inch models, both with Full HD resolutions and either 144Hz or 240Hz refresh rates. Meanwhile, one 27-inch model will be Full HD and hit 240Hz. A fourth model will be 27 inches with a WQHD resolution an 165Hz refresh rate. The monitors will boast 1ms response times using Acer's Visual Response Boost, and they'll also offer 99% coverage of the sRGB color space. Cinema fans can also enjoy DisplayHDR 400 certification. And, when your computer can't quite hit the high refresh rates of these monitors, Variable Refresh Rate technology can step in to smooth out gaming visuals. Altogether, Acer has a sizable lineup of new products for gamers to look at as we close out 2019.
IFA 2019 is Europe's biggest tech show. The TechRadar team is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and hands-on first impressions of new TVs, watches and other tech as they're announced. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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