Latest news

The Chinese smartphone manufacturer OnePlus held its press event today in New York and unveiled OnePlus 6T first time officially.

After colliding with tomorrow's Apple event the company decided to move theirs to today. The product on display was the already mostly leaked and revealed OnePlus 6T with one of the first in-display fingerprint sensors on the market.

Beyond the cutting edge biometrics the smartphone is as you would expect from a 2018 flagship. It has a huge 6.41 inch display that features 19.5:9 aspect ratio and a Full HD+ resolution.

The display notch has been reduced to what could be called a teardrop shaped notch, a modified version of Essential Phone's notch, and one that OnePlus' sister company Oppo has previously used.

Inside you'll find a Snapdragon 845, the same chip powering the predecessor, 6 or 8 GB of RAM, a 3700 milliamp hour battery that offers an even faster than before – and believe me it was already fast – charging.

According to OnePlus charging has improved up to 20% in the first 30 minutes.

Camera is largely the same with dual sensors of 16 and 20 MP, 4K@60fps video recording, super slow-mo, and OIS. OnePlus 6T has some new trick up its sleeve though. One of them is an improved night mode called Nightscape.

You've probably heard about the visions of foldable smartphones. Samsung perhaps most notably has been painting a picture for years of displays that not only bend but fold, to no avail unfortunately.

Now that the foldable smartphone hasn't panned out, the company is pivoting to laptops, The Korea Herald reports.

According to the paper, Samsung Electronics marketing bigwig Lee Min-cheol has revealed a laptop with a foldable display in development.

There's no word whether there is actually demand for such a product or if it's just a prototype to harvest some reactions. It seems that the only real motive for the product is Samsung's need to make something out of years long R&D on foldable displays.

There's no pictures or specs of the device so everything beyond the comments about the foldable display are speculation.

We'll have to wait and see what Samsung comes up with.

It is clear that laptop manufacturers have been innovating more recently. Innovations include the smartphone as a touchpad from Razer and a second screen touchpad from Asus.

New iPhones landed a month and a half ago, and the last of them, the iPhone XR, became available worldwide today.

The XR is an interesting device for sure. It is the budget iPhone, if you want to call it that with a $749 price tag. It has a subpar display to some (*ahem* me *ahem*).

It also has an odd name. After all, we all know where iPhone XS comes from – Apple has had S versions for years. But what about XR?

Well, fortunately for us, Apple's Phil Schiller has revealed to Engadget exactly what the R stands for, or perhaps more importantly doesn't.

It doesn't stand for Regular or Reduced, none of that. In fact it doesn't mean anything. According to Schiller it just sounds good, kinda like in cars you have special S and R models.

So the closest meaning can be found in motorsport, in which it usually stands for Racing. Then again that doesn't make any sense so I guess Schiller chose it to stand for nothing.

Well anyways, now you can go buy the blue iPhone Ten Racing.

Apple was for years the leader in downloadable digital entertainment but the move towards streaming services killed the traditional iTunes business model.

Now Apple has been reinventing iTunes over the years, and the most obvious example is of course Apple Music.

Apple TV is another evolving entertainment platform and Apple has been investing in it fiercely to develop it into something new. The company has been putting down some serious cash to produce their own content to challenge the likes of Netflix and Amazon, and it is soon expected to materialize.

According to a report by The Information, Apple will be releasing their new streaming service worldwide as soon as next year. Three different sources claim that Apple is planning a simultaneous launch in over 100 countries around the world.

The unnamed service is said to first launch in the U.S. but quickly followed up with launches around the globe. Netflix is already available in most of the world as is Amazon's Prime Video.

At least some of the programming is expected to be free for Apple device owners, although at this point is it clear what limitation this might have.

Facebook is of course known for its core business, that is the world's most popular social media site, but the company is perhaps even more dominant in another space.

Facebook owns two of the world's most popular messaging platforms, namely WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. WhatsApp has continuously held the throne for years, and Messenger hasn't been able to catch up.

Both of them are of course growing, currently WhatsApp has 1.5 billion users and Messenger is still a close second with 1.3 billion. Facebook, however, hopes to get people in Messenger with a new update.

The updated Messenger is quite the revamp to the user experience, and Facebook hopes that the simpler user interface will attract more people.

That is at least what their research has shown, people love simplicity. Up to 7 out of 10 people appreciate simplicity over anything else.

The simpler UI means for example that the iOS app now only has three tabs instead of nine.

They also wanted to make the app more customizable and now the user can choose the color of chat bubbles.

If you want to preserve battery life, and happen to own a phone with an OLED display (e.g. iPhone X or Galaxy S9), you'll probably appreciate the new Dark Mode.

The fight for the fifth generation of wireless data connections is upon us. 5G is landing in not too distant future, and tech companies are trying their best to be the first, and best, one to the party.

One of the more important companies surrounding 5G is American semiconductor company Qualcomm. Known for its Snapdragon system-on-chips, they are trying to equip Android phones with 5G as early as possible.

And now we have a schedule of some kind.

According to Qualcomm's Cristiano Amon, who spoke at the 4G/5G Summit in Hong Kong, its 5G modems will be found in plethora of smartphones next year.

There will be two waves of flagship phones next year, first one in the first half and second one in the second half. With the first wave Amon is likely referring to the Mobile World Congress, and press events surrounding that.

Also we might see first 5G phones as soon as early January in CES 2019 in Las Vegas.

Amon obviously didn't give us any other details of the phones or which manufacturer would be releasing what and when. However, Qualcomm revealed that a total of 19 manufacturers will be releasing Qualcomm-powered 5G devices next year.

Spotify has been doing some new A/B testing, reports from social media confirm.

The world's leading streaming music service is looking to customize their content to users more, and the new "What's New" feature might be one of the better attempts at it.

What's New section of the app is pretty much what you would expect it to be. It shows new releases but personalizes the selection by the user.

Spotify has become the leading player in the field not only because of its good app or music selection, but perhaps most because of its successes in AI and content personalization.

This newest feature is still in testing, and there's no guarantee that it'll ever make to everyone, but it seems like people are happy about it.

If it works as well as Discover Weekly it'll get a good reception, one would think.

Google has decided that it is necessary to start charging Android manufacturers for using Google Play services, and its apps, in Europe.

New rules in EU create incentives for Google to try to find new ways for revenue as the manufacturers cannot anymore be required to pre-install Google's services, such as Chrome as a default browser, on Android.

Google will also implement incentives of its own by lowering the prices if certain Google services are pre-installed.

Prices might be as much as $40 per device, The Verge reports.

For reasons unknown, the licensing fee depends on display pixel density. For over 500 PPI device the fee is as much as $40, with 400-500 PPI devices half of that, and under 400 PPI devices need only pay $10 fee.

According to the document the lowest end devices might have a fee of $2.50, depending on the country.

As the market forces demand, this payment will inevitably be forwarded to customers in form of a price hike.

We'll have to see how many will take use of the new EU rules or will they want relief from the fee and choose to install Google apps.

Known for its household appliances, such as curling irons and humidifiers, Dyson has been thinking outside the box in a real way.

Obviously the company is a vacuum cleaner company first and foremost, but in the future it might be remembered as a electric car manufacturer as well.

The company has been planning as move into electric cars since 2017 and is now ready to take a major step towards building its own vehicles.

Dyson's board has approved a new factory in Singapore that will that building its upcoming electric cars, The Verge reports.

Plans are to start building the factory in December and should have it running in 2020. This would mean that the first Dyson car would be ready for release perhaps in 2021.

The company has earmarked $2.6 billion for the factory.

According to Jason Dyson, the vehicle will be something completely new or, as he puts it, "radically different", although at this point there's no word on what this might entail.

It'll likely be a higher end product, as are the company's other products, but Dyson plans to introduce couple more affordable models later on.

Apple's latest "budget" iPhone has entered the pre-order stage. The iPhone XR is now available for pre-order in six bright color and three storage options.

Color options are White, Black, Blue, Yellow, Coral, and (PRODUCT)RED™, and you can get each with three storage options, including 64, 128 and 256 GB.

Starting at $37.41/mo or $749 lump sum and ranging all the way up to $43.66/mo. or $899 for the 256 GB version.

The iPhone XR is expected to be perhaps the best selling iPhone of its generation. That is supported by the fact that it is indeed the cheapest of them, despite the aforementioned fairly steep price.

Deliveries are scheduled from October 26 onward, and they range depending on the version and its availability.

Specs-wise you can expect a 6.1 inch and 828 x 1792 resolution LCD screen, new and powerful Apple A12 Bionic chip, 12 megapixel camera, Face ID, and of course updated iOS 12.

World's leading messaging platform, WhatsApp, is working on an update that brings a few new features to its mobile app.

According to WABetaInfo, a resource for WhatsApp beta updates, has found out that the Facebook-owned messaging app is looking to release a couple new features in an upcoming update.

The new Silent Mode allows users to silence conversations and notifications. With it enabled, you won't be notified of new messages unless you open the app.

Another new feature is Vacation Mode, which you might want to use on your work groups while on vacation. When enabled you can silence and archive chats without them having to pop up again when a new message is received.

In addition to these two new modes, WhatsApp is reportedly adding Linked Accounts. The feature allows you to link other (social media) accounts to your WhatsApp account. Not surprisingly it is said to support at least Instagram but likely Facebook, and perhaps even other Facebook-owned and third party services.

This could allow status updates to be posted simultaneously to social media and WhatsApp.

Winamp has gone through several ownership changes ever since AOL gave up hopes with the legendary music player and the program has been on permanent hiatus ever since 2013.

But finally, today, Winamp released the first update since 2013, as Winamp v5.8 beta 3306 was released officially. The rushed release was due a leak which spread the said release acorss the Net. To counter the leak, Winamp decided to release the v5.8 beta officially.

Company, which is nowadays owned by Radionomy, also announcd few days ago that it is working on first major update to Winamp in ages, Winamp 6, which is due to be released in early 2019. Winamp 6 should ba available to Windows, Android and iOS platforms when it is finally released.

And, best of all, now with the v.8 release, Winamp is 100% freeware again.

Download the latest version from AfterDawn's download section:

Winamp v5.8, full version (freeware)

AfterDawn's official Android app has been updated. The new version, v1.60, is mostly a bug fix release to address the known issues with the app.

Our app's crash-free rate has been constantly above 99.9 percent, but there's always room to improve. We've identified handful of bugs causing the app to crash with various handsets - and have managed to fix all those known issues in our new version.

Our official app lets you read our news and allows you to scan through our news archive ever since 1999 when our site was launched. Yup, all of our news, how-tos and reviews are available there.

And of course, the app is completely free - and doesn't ask you any silly permissions when you install it. And apparently, people like it, too: it has the average rating of 4.4/5.0 in Google Play store.

Give it a try:

Download AfterDawn Android app

Apple has revealed the date of their next product launch, and it is sooner than most expected.

The next event will be held October 30 in Brooklyn, New York. Apple seems to be spoiling OnePlus' special day as their OnePlus 6T launch is scheduled just an hour or so later the same day, also in New York City.

Apple's new iPhones are out already, so what are we expected to see?

Most likely products include some new iPad and Mac models. More specifically iPad Pro is expected to get a refresh, and perhaps the next most obvious upgrade would be to non-Pro MacBooks.

MacBook Pro was already refreshed earlier this year but the regular MacBook and MacBook Air might get updates.

Rumors also have it that Apple's tiny Mac mini might be getting an update that is long overdue.

One could easily argue that Apple is predominantly a software company, even though most people think of iPhones and Macs as hardware products first and foremost when they think about Apple.

Cupertino's own trillion dollar company has been investing heavily in hardware lately, in hopes to gain more control over the components in their hardware as well as, perhaps even more importantly, boost the bottom line.

Now rumors have it that Apple is going to bring in one more main component under their own Apple brand, 9to5Mac reports.

In smartphones, Apple designs their own system-on-chips, the A chips, and now Apple is looking into running Mac computers with their own ARM-based processors.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has noted that Apple wants to relieve itself from Intel's CPU roadmap that can be crippling.

However, even though Apple's ARM-based A chips are powerful they can't compete with top-of-the-line Intel chips designed for computers. Not yet at least.

It is thus no surprise that reportedly the transition will begin with the most portable Macs and slowly work its way up the Mac hierarchy.