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Welcome to the Weird Phone Future

Welcome to the Weird Phone Future

Michael Calor: No, because I don’t have a folding phone. I only have a regular, old, nonfolding Pixel.

Lauren Goode: And you call yourself a tech editor.

Michael Calor: Yes, several people call me a tech editor.

Lauren Goode: I guess my question is, is anyone actually using folding phones?

Michael Calor: Sometimes, I see one in the wild and then it turns out that the person who’s holding it just works at Samsung.

Lauren Goode: Same. I think I’ve seen one three times in the wild and every time, they’re an employee at Samsung.

Michael Calor: Well, we should talk about the new Samsung devices.

Lauren Goode: Yeah. Speaking of Samsung, let’s get to it.

[Gadget Lab intro theme music plays]

Lauren Goode: Hi everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I’m Lauren Goode. I’m a senior writer at WIRED.

Michael Calor: I’m Michael Calore. I’m a senior editor at WIRED.

Lauren Goode: We’re joined this week by WIRED reviews editor, Julian Chokkattu, who’s joining us from New York City. Hey Julian.

Julian Chokkattu: Hey, how are you?

Lauren Goode: Is Tobu the dog around as well?

Julian Chokkattu: No, I had to kick him out of the room because you never know when he’s going to start barking.

Lauren Goode: Well, he’s welcome anytime. Let’s just talk about cats and dogs this episode. What do we say?

Michael Calor: Sure.

Lauren Goode: Esta bien. Well, it’s been a while since we’ve talked about Samsung and Android, but this week, Samsung hosted its annual Unpacked event, which is a smartphone launch event. These are usually loud, hyped-up events that are supposed to get everyone excited about the latest new thing. Since Samsung is one of the world’s biggest smartphone makers, we tend to pay close attention to this because its design decisions are often a leading indicator of what we might see in upcoming phones.

But in recent years, Samsung has really been hyping up foldable phones, which is something that really hasn’t been embraced by the mass market yet. And then, some of the other stuff that Samsung showed off this week, like your smart watches and earbuds, don’t exactly feel new. So, we asked Julian to join us and break down what is actually new, and then in the second half of the show, we’re going to talk about Android. But first, Julian, bend our ears, please. See what I did there?

Michael Calor: And it is.

Lauren Goode: Bending. Folding.

Michael Calor: Yes, I got that.

Lauren Goode: Great. Start with the foldables. What do we need to know?

Julian Chokkattu: They’re not that different from last year’s phones. The biggest changes here are actually that Samsung has made the hinge smaller and they’ve overall reduced the footprint. Just generally, they are bit more compact devices, which is important, and these are the iterations that we’ve been seeing year over year since 2019, since they started coming out with these foldables. There’s the Flip 4, which is a traditional smartphone that you can fold in half like a compact mirror almost. Really nice if you hate large phones. And then there’s the Fold 4, which is like a normal smartphone that you can then open up into a larger book, so you get a larger screen on the inside and gives you a bit more of a tablet experience.

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Technology

It’s time for Apple to fix texting, says Google

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San Francisco: Google has launched a new campaign to put pressure on Apple to adopt RCS (rich communication services) and improve texting between Android and iOS users.

RCS is a next generation SMS protocol that upgrades text messaging across Android and iMessages.

“It’s time for Apple to fix texting. It’s not about the color of the bubbles. It’s the blurry videos, broken group chats, missing read receipts and typing indicators, no texting over Wi-Fi and more,” said the Google campaign.

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“These problems exist because Apple refuses to adopt modern texting standards when people with iPhones and Android phones text each other,” it added.

The tech giant is asking Apple to fix these issues by supporting RCS.

“Messaging should bring people together — not pull them apart,” Google said.

“The Android team’s goal is to make texting a more secure, modern and enjoyable experience for everyone, regardless of the phone they’re using. Because it shouldn’t matter what phone they have � things should just work,” the company added.

According to Google, Apple turns texts between iPhones and Android phones into SMS and MMS which are out-of-date technologies.

“But Apple can adopt RCS — the modern industry standard — for these threads instead. Solving the problem without changing your iPhone to iPhone conversations and making messaging better for everyone,” said Google.

Apple was yet to react to the new Google RCS campaign.

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Google Posts Yet Another Plea for Apple to Support RCS Messaging in iMessage

Google Posts Yet Another Plea for Apple to Support RCS Messaging in iMessage

Google is making yet another attempt to persuade Apple to support the RCS phone-messaging standard in its own iMessage service, but this time it’s aiming the sales pitch at iPhone users.

At a “Get the Message” site posted Tuesday, Google calls out the least-common-denominator aspect of texts between iPhone and Android users: Everybody loses such features as encryption, typing indicators, and read receipts supported separately by Apple’s iMessage and the Google -backed Rich Communications Services (RCS), also called “chat features” in Android.

“Apple creates these problems when we text each other from iPhones and Android phones, but does nothing to fix it,” the page declares. “Apple turns texts between iPhone and Android into SMS and MMS, out-of-date technologies from the 90s and 00s.”

Subsequent paragraphs emphasize how iPhone users don’t only suffer the indignity of seeing Android-using friends’ messages in green bubbles but also miss features they enjoy in conversations with other iPhone users. For example: “Without read receipts and typing indicators, you can’t know if your Android friends got your text and are responding.”

Privacy also loses out in cross-platform conversations, the page notes: “SMS and MMS don’t support end-to-end encryption, which means those messages are not secure.”

(But while RCS supports end-to-end encryption in one-to-one Android chats, group Android chats today only get encryption in transit, with “e2e” security advertised as coming later this year. Bringing this same security to chats between different apps and different platforms would be much harder.)

Apple has never shipped an iMessage client for Android, and court documents unearthed during Fortnite’s lawsuit against Apple revealed that the Cupertino, Calif., company rejected an iMessage port because it might weaken iMessage’s customer lock-in effect.

Google has instead tried in vain to get Apple to add RCS support to iMessage–most recently, at its I/O developer conference in May. But while this latest sales pitch may win over some iPhone users, Apple has a history of ignoring requests from users that don’t square with its own product vision.

Google, meanwhile, has struggled to get RCS going in Android. It didn’t get all three major carriers lined up to ship its own Messages app until 2021, leaving an enormous installed base of Android phones running carrier- or manufacturer-specific messaging apps that don’t speak RCS. And Google still hasn’t persuaded Google to add RCS support to its own Google Voice calling and messaging service.

Finally, Google has yet to provide third-party developers with the coding framework they’d need to add RCS support to such SMS-capable apps as Signal and WhatsApp–the two services Google’s new page endorses as alternatives for iPhone users anxious to avoid today’s “broken experience” of cross-platform communication.

Developer posts in a thread on Signal’s site blame that on Google not providing the right API, and Google has yet to say when it might ship that framework.

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Technology

Discord updates Android app to roll out new features along with iOS

Discord updates Android app to roll out new features along with iOS

Discord’s product team has updated the blog post to announce that the company has revamped its Android app. The new update will help Android users to receive new features at the same time as iOS and desktop. Previously, DiscordAndroid users get new features months after they were announced on iOS. According to a report by The Verge, the recently released Server Profiles feature was also available for iOS users a long time before it arrived for Android users.
The blog post explains that earlier work on Android implementation of new features was usually delayed before its desktop and iOS rollout was completed. This resulted in some features to release first on one platform before eventually arriving on another one. However, this new update is expected to stop showing users “coming soon to Android” messages for future Discord features, the report claims.
New Discord Android app availability
Discord has started rolling out the latest Android app update. Users will be able to see the changes in the underlying codebase over the coming weeks. Discord has decided to switch to ReactNative for its Android app.

What is React Native and how will it help users
React Native is an open-source UI software framework created by Goal which can be used to develop apps for multiple platforms. As per the report, React Native is widely used across multiple popular mobile apps, including — InstagramMicrosoft Outlook, Shopify, Tesla and Pinterest among others. Discord started using this framework for its iOS app since Meta open-sourced it in 2015, the report mentions. The report also claims that
This switch will allow the company to release new features across every platform, simultaneously. Moreover, the design of Discord on Android will look more like the one found in the desktop or the iOS versions, the report suggests. The Discord Android app will retain some specific customizations, however, designs and font size will be aligned with the iOS app.

Discord has explained that React Native has allowed the company to “streamline and consolidate” its processes, which has helped its engineers to “work more efficiently and push out updates more frequently.” Now, the team won’t need to spend much time maintaining “different codebases for different devices” the report states.

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5 Great Features You Only Get in Samsung’s Version of Android

5 Great Features You Only Get in Samsung's Version of Android

While the device care utilities will always be running in the background to look out for problems, you can also tap the Optimize Now button to perform a manual optimization—very handy if you think there might be a few issues with your smartphone.

The optimization process includes looking for duplicate or large files on your device that might be taking up room unnecessarily, for example, or hunting down apps that are draining battery power, or closing down apps running in the background unnecessarily.

Customize the Always-On Display

Samsung phones give you more control than most over what’s shown on your lock screen, and how it’s shown, too. From Settings, head to lock screen and Always On Display to configure it—though note that some budget Samsung handsets don’t offer the feature.

You’ll see that you’ve got all sorts of settings to play around with. You can, for instance, choose how long the always-on display stays visible for and pick your preferred clock style from a variety of digital and analog options.

Other available settings let you switch between portrait and landscape orientation and choose how bright the text is on the lock screen. It’s also up to you whether or not the media playback controls are shown via the always-on display.

You can even download entire themes for the always-on display: Tap Themes from Settings, then pick ODA to see what’s on offer. The quality can vary, but you should find at least a few options that suit your tastes.

Put Items in a Secure Folder

If you own a mid-range or flagship Samsung smartphone then you have access to a Secure Folder: a specially protected area of ​​your device where you can store any kind of file you want that no one else has access to.

Accessing the Secure Folder on your Samsung phone requires extra authentication—a fingerprint, a PIN code, or a pattern—and all the data inside it is fully encrypted, which means it’s almost impossible for it to be hacked.

From Settings, choose Biometrics and security and then Secure Folder. Once you’ve set your authentication method and brought up the Secure Folder, you can add new files and apps to it by tapping on the + (plus) button.

You can also add files to the Secure Folder from several other apps on your handset. In the Gallery app, for example, you can select photos and videos and then tap More and Move to Secure Folder.

Samsung DeX lets you use your phone like a desktop PC.

Courtesy of Samsung

Run Samsung DeX

Samsung DeX is a way of operating your smartphone with a keyboard, mouse, and computer monitor. If you’ve got a lot of image editing or word processing to do on your phone, for example, then it can be useful.

What you’re essentially doing is turning Android and OneUI into a desktop operating system, with all the benefits that brings—floating windows, more intuitive control of your apps, keyboard shortcuts, and so on.

You need some specific hardware: This only works with a Galaxy S series phone, and you need a specific DeX cable from Samsung to connect it to your monitor and your peripherals. You can also plug it into a laptop or desktop computer and use the peripherals attached to that instead.

Samsung has a full guide to DeX that you can consult, but it’s not difficult to get up and running and should seriously increase your mobile productivity—both in what you can do on your phone and how quickly you can get it done.

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