Sony Xperia Z5, 2nd Gen Moto 360, Samsung Gear S2 and More Unveiled at IFA! – XDA TV

Grab Some Popcorn: Bloatware Company Under Attack

A couple weeks ago we posted an article about Digital Turbine and its quest to rule the world of bloatware. The company has partnered with several large global carriers to preinstall its DT Ignite and DT IQ software which are meant to deliver personalized paid app recommendations on Android devices. The fact that Digital Turbine is publicly traded on the Nasdaq (ticker: APPS) adds an extra dimension to the saga, as investors tend to have strong opinions about controversial situations. Yesterday, Mako Research (a “private investor”, according to his bio) posted an article to stock market site Seeking Alpha detailing Digital Turbine’s ties to “stock manipulators” and proclaiming the company’s technology “obsolete.”

 

The report has caused APPS to fall to new lows, which will make it more difficult (and more expensive) for the company to raise additional capital if it needs to do so. The link to the full article is below. It’s long and very detailed, but here are some choice quotes.

On the company’s management and insiders:

I believe Digital Turbine is an extremely speculative and overvalued stock that will likely prove entirely worthless as the company’s products are unviable and the insiders involved with APPS have a long history of “securities fraud.” This report will also detail the rampant capital destruction that has occurred at Digital Turbine’s failed rollup… and how Digital Turbine’s accounting is suspect, with numerous warnings from the SEC and the auditor that itself has been repeatedly connected to accounting frauds.

On whether Google will “allow” DT Ignite to exist at all:

APPS has bet the farm on DT Ignite and I believe this current revenue ramp story will leave shareholders very disappointed as they realize APPS is actually closer to bankruptcy than it is to generating adjusted or non-adjusted profits…It’s clear that Google is right in the middle of disintermediating APPS and soon carriers will terminate their relationships with APPS because they can keep 100% of the revenue instead of sharing the revenue with APPS.

On why any user would want ongoing app recommendations from DT IQ:

APPS says that it will integrate iQ with DT Ignite to continuously evaluate the user’s activity and dynamically recommend applications for the lifetime of the device. This appears to be a serious invasion of privacy… The real question is, why would any user need to travel outside the native app store ecosystem to find an app that they need or want? Isn’t it easier to go to the main app store and simply search “hotels”? Doing so in both the App Store and Google Play Store yielded plenty of helpful results. Even if a user doesn’t know exactly what they want, they can browse plenty of pre-curated lists that rank applications based on their popularity or reviews.

Read the full article on Seeking Alpha. Once you get down to the comments, you’ll see plenty of arguing and dissent, exactly what makes financial markets so interesting. We’ll know who’s right and who’s wrong soon enough.

 

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Is the Xperia Z5 Premium’s 4K Display a Step Forward, or an Absurdity?

The Xperia Z5 Premium is bringing 4K resolutions to mobile, with a 5.5-inch  3840 x 2160 IPS LCD, with 806 pixels per inch. This would obviously have some consequences on battery life and performance, especially given that the device is powered up by the notorious Snapdragon 810. Nevertheless, optimizations and clever tricks could help on these fronts. Does Sony have something up its sleeve? Is 4K resolution on a phone pointless?

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Amazon’s Fire Phone is Getting Official Bootloader Unlock Codes

According to XDA Senior Member v6ser, Amazon’s customer support confirmed that bootloader unlock codes will be coming to the Amazon Fire Phone as a way to officially and easily unlock the bootloader for development. Considering this phone goes on great sales every other day, this is good news!

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Moto 360 Gen 2 Forums Now Available!

The new Moto 360 is sleeker than last year’s model with a revised design, new button placement, a better screen and processor and a bigger battery. Now it also comes with its own set of XDA forums for you to discuss the latest and greatest!

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Acer Predator 6, Asus ZenWatch 2 & Huawei Mate S Forums Now Live!

The sea of announcements at IFA Berlin have given way to sparkly new forums for these devices as well: Acer Predator 6 (Acer’s gaming-focused smartphone), Asus ZenWatch 2 (Asus’s cheap yet exciting smartwatch) and the Huawei Mate S (Huawei’s smartphone offering with force touch technology).

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Hands On with the Huawei Watch

This week we’re in Berlin ready for IFA, and today we managed to spend some time with Huawei. As Android Wear devices are becoming more common, and due to the fact that the OS itself doesn’t change between watches, our hands-on day with the new Huawei Watch goes a fair distance in providing an overall impression of this new wearable.

The Watch is smaller than the LG Watch Urbane, whilst maintaining a simple industrial style that is generally pleasing to the eye. The model we experimented with was of the black variety, with a sturdy brushed Stainless Steel metal fascia and band to match. Overall, the build quality seems excellent, with a sturdy exterior reminiscent of the LG G Watch R, although it can feel a little thick at times. The strap connections look to be compatible with any normal watch strap, and they helpfully include a quick-release mechanism to make the process easier.

The bezels are pleasingly thin, the watch isn’t too bulky, and the screen is a full circle; no ‘flat tire’ here. Another highlight here is the Saffire glass that covers the display, which when added to the fact that it is sunken (not flush with the bezels like the Moto 360), should make it very resistant to scratches, and ensure the screen remains unblemished. The 1.4″ AMOLED display is of a high (for a smartwatch) 400×400 resolution resulting in a pixel density of 286ppi, and it is comparable with competitors when it comes to brightness, although reflections outdoors are rife.

The Huawei Watch is also water resistant so should it stand a shower in the rain, although it isn’t clear exactly to what extent, so care is of course still required when in use. The unit charges through pins on its rear, which connect magnetically to the included circular branded charging plate. This set up does still suffer from the complication of having a strap that is an unbroken circle (which has to lie underneath the plate, instead of allowing it to sit on a flat surface), but if it’s a real annoyance, the user could always either replace or remove the strap with the aforementioned quick-release mechanism. Also housed underneath is the heart rate sensor, which along with the included barometer, gyroscope, accelerometer, Bluetooth 4.1 and Wi-Fi support, bring the watch to the top of the features list.

In terms of specifications, the Watch predictably runs on a Snapdragon 400 SOC clocked at 1.2GHz, with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage. Android Wear runs fairly well for the most part, although there were some brief but noticeable stutters when scrolling through lists of apps and settings. This could in part be due to the fact that the unit was only running Wear version 1.1, and the large update to 1.3 could clear up a number of these complaints. Ss the watch insisted that it was up to date, we’ll need to reserve judgement. We’ve covered Wear before, so there’s no need to repeat prior information as the experience remains unchanged, but it is safe to say that although Huawei can’t modify or add to the OS, it is a great experience nonetheless, especially once customized to your usage patterns. It was, of course, touted at the launch event that the Huawei Watch is compatible with iOS versions from 8.2 upwards, being among the first few devices to support this out of the box. 

There is one obvious negative however – the wrist activated screen-on gesture is generally reliable, but it seems sluggish. The watch face fades in nicely but the whole process is too languid, undermining its intended use as a quick way to check the time. Of course, this could be avoided by having the screen always-on (dimmed state) at the expense of crippling battery life, but hopefully this waiting period can be shortened in future updates. On a positive note, there were no drops in Bluetooth connectivity during our testing period, for which an LG G4 was used. Battery life seems comparable with most other Android Wear watches, so the 300mAh battery should last you through the day with medium to light usage.

The Urbane on the left, the Huawei Watch on the right.

All in all, Huawei have made a good impression with their new wearable, particularly with the physical design. With this hardware running software that most enthusiasts are already familiar with, aesthetics will go a long way to encouraging a purchase, and the Huawei Watch benefits from remaining sleek and understated, making it fairly indistinguishable from a normal watch at a distance. Those comfortable with Android Wear should already be interested, as the watch demonstrates it as well, if not better than recent competitors. We will have more in-depth coverage on the way in the event of a full review, but for now, this concludes our brief introduction to the new Huawei Watch.

What do you think of Huawei’s new wearable?

Let us know in the comments!

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