Articles about Smartphone

Smartphones are still shrouded by various myths. Reports say that long telephone conversations may cause tumors, your signal may weaken if you move too quickly, and strong signals from base stations could kill people. Whether or not these things are true remains a mystery, but one thing that we do know is real is the threat of mobile malware.

Malicious programs are able to steal funds from your bank account, extract personal information, lock your phone screen, and render a smartphone useless, among other things. According to Statista, as of March 2018, "the total number of Android malware detections amounted to over 26.6 million programs." All of this got me wondering about how easy it is to infect the phone with a virus, so I decided to try it out and document my journey.

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We are finally in the month of December, meaning many people are doing holiday shopping. While you can give your friends and family things like socks and underwear, let's be honest -- most folks want technology! A gift card is another option, but they are very impersonal and will not create a magical memory.

If you really want to impress a loved one, you can't go wrong with a smartphone. Understandably, not everyone can afford to give a quality Android phone as a gift, so we here at BetaNews are giving two away! Yes, two winners will be selected to get either an Honor 7X or Honor View10. The first selected winner will get the latter, and the second will get the former. Colors will be at random.

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Google is taking steps to make it easier to not only pair Bluetooth headphones and speakers to your Android phones, but also to make it easier to user the same Bluetooth hardware with multiple devices.

The Fast Pair feature was announced last year, and now Google has teamed up with numerous audio companies to not only improve support, but also to use Google accounts as a means of simplifying the process of using the same headphones and speakers with multiple phones -- and, as of next year, Chromebooks.

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Part 1 of three. Google Store's bureaucratic ineptitude is beyond belief. My recent, unresolved customer crisis is an experience in artificial unintelligence. For a parent company whose core competency is supposed to be indexing, crunching, and disseminating information, it's inconceivable that something so simple as fixing a single order error could escalate into a tragically comic Catch-22. I should have abandoned all efforts long before reaching the point of penning this post and looking back to the Apple Way.

To summarize: I received the wrong Pixel phone nearly a month ago. Google Store struggled to process a return authorization, because the device in hand didn't match the one in the order. I eventually agreed to keep the thang, so long as the retailer could transfer the extended warranty -- so-called "Preferred Care" -- that I had paid for. But the process proved to be complicated, then necessity, after I unexpectedly needed to file a damage claim. You'll have to read on for the sordid punchline, but suffice to say it all ends in a comedy of compounding errors.

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If you're an iPhone X owner, you could well be one of the unlucky people who has experienced a ghost touch problem with the screen.

Acknowledging that there is a problem, Apple has announced a free display repair program which customers can take advantage of if they have handsets with the issue. Here's what you need to know about getting your screen sorted out free of charge.

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The concept of a foldable phone has been around for a while now. Indeed, Microsoft’s oft-rumored Surface Phone was expected to offer a foldable display that looked like a tablet when opened up.

Samsung has been teasing us with its own plans for a foldable phone for weeks now, and today at the Samsung Developer Conference 2018 it showed off a prototype which folds out to form a tablet, and back again to become a slightly fat phone.

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The notches that grace an increasing number of phones -- from the iPhone XS to the OnePlus 6T -- have proved quite divisive, but it seems unlikely they are going to disappear anytime soon. In fact, thanks to a weird bug,some Pixel 3 XL owners have found that they have extra notches to contend with.

A number of users have encountered a bug that adds a second notch to the side of the screen in addition to the usual one at the top. The cause of the problem is not known, but Google is working on fixing it.

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After months of build up from the Chinese company, a tremendous number of leaks, and endless hype, the OnePlus 6T has finally been officially announced. Something of an evolution of the OnePlus 6, the latest handset features a smaller notch, an in-screen fingerprint reader, and no headphone socket.

With a starting price of $549 there's a lot to get excited about with the latest addition to the OnePlus range -- and the specs are certainly impressive. But for folks in the US who have been eagerly anticipating OnePlus handsets finally launching in their country, the wait is finally over. The OnePlus 6T will be available in the US as a T-Mobile exclusive.

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One of the problems with buying an Android phone over an iPhone is the fact that you don't know how long you can expect to receive updates. There has long been criticism of the fact that many Android handsets are quickly abandoned while Apple pushes out iOS updates for a number of years.

We've heard suggestions that Google might start requiring handset manufacturers to provide updates for a minimum period, and now it seems that this has indeed been mandated. A leaked copy of a contract between Google and OEMs shows that there is now a requirement to release security updates -- or face the consequences.

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At the moment, there are many people eagerly awaiting the arrival of the OnePlus 6T later this month. But looking further ahead, OnePlus has plans for a 5G handset.

The smartphone manufacturer has already hinted at the release of a 5G handset in 2019, but now this has been confirmed. Joining the president of Qualcomm on stage at the company's 4G/5G summit at Hong Kong, OnePlus' Carl Pei said that a 5G phone is definitely coming next year.

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Following a European Commission ruling earlier in the year that Google had exploited Android for "very serious illegal behavior" and used its mobile operating system "as a vehicle to cement its dominance as a search engine", the company was hit with a record €4.34 billion ($5 billion) fine.

Today Google has outlined how it will respond to the European ruling, in addition to appealing against it. One of the things the company will do is to start charging smartphone makers a licensing fee to use Google Play.

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There have been so many leaks surrounding Google's latest Pixel phones that today's announcements felt like little more than a formality. Nevertheless, the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL are now official.

Taking design inspiration from numerous other handset manufacturers, the new Pixels move away from previous models and have a glass construction. The 5.5-inch Pixel 3 does not feature a notch, but the 6.3-inch XL model does; both handsets feature a Snapdragon 845 SoC, 4GB of RAM, and 64 or 128GB of storage -- and, of course, Android Pie.

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OnePlus has revealed more about the upcoming OnePlus 6T. The company is famed for ramping up the hype ahead of a new launch, and things are no different with its latest handset.

The company has now revealed when the OnePlus 6T will launch -- October 30, at an event in New York City. As well as revealing this, OnePlus has also confirmed that it is no longer possible to sign up for The Lab -- a review opportunity it created to enable a select few to get their hands on the OnePlus 6T early.

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Digital assistants are becoming increasingly popular as people become used to the idea of controlling electronic devices by speaking to them. With Android, Google has supported limited voice control for a while with "OK, Google", but with the release of the Voice Access app you can now do much, much more.

The problem with uttering "OK, Google" at your phone is that there are fairly severe limitations on what you can do -- there are only a small number of supported actions. But with Voice Access you can use your voice to dictate and edit text, and interact with anything that appear on the screen. Here's how to get started.

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Google has a new app that allows for full control of an Android phone with your voice -- Voice Access. While it has been possible to perform simple actions such as switching apps and writing messages, the ability to interact with on-screen elements is something that has been missing.

Pitched as an accessibility tool, Voice Access fills in many gaps in Android's voice control system, making it possible to navigate apps, edit text and much more.

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