Tech

samsung-quits-updating-galaxy-z-fold-2-that-came-out-in-2020-for-$2,000

Samsung quits updating Galaxy Z Fold 2 that came out in 2020 for $2,000

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In February 2022, Samsung started promising up to four generations of Android OS and One UI upgrades to “select” Galaxy devices, as well as “up to five years of security updates.” And in January, it announced moving to seven years of security and OS updates, matching a move from Google. However, the Fold 2 wasn’t included in Samsung’s list of “select” Galaxy devices.

Thus, one could have estimated that the Fold 2 might stop receiving OS and security updates by 2024, four years after its debut. But it’s still hard to reconcile with paying four figures for a phone that became a security risk after four years, despite functioning properly otherwise. Apple, by comparison, now promises at least five years of security updates. Apple only started making that promise in 2023 with the iPhone 15 series. However, the current-generation iOS 18 is supported by iPhones released in 2020, like the second-generation iPhone SE, and even older ones, like the iPhone XR that came out in 2018. Arguably short-lived expensive devices like the Fold 2 are part of the reason some activists are pushing for the FTC to require that smart devices state on their packaging how long they’ll receive updates.

However, unlike iPhones, Samsung phones aren’t all powered by a proprietary chip, making promises of upgrades require commitments from third-party vendors, like Qualcomm. With Qualcomm known for being resistant to longer chip life cycles in the past, seven years of updates is progress for Samsung users—just not those who invested in the Z Fold 2.

Samsung quits updating Galaxy Z Fold 2 that came out in 2020 for $2,000 Read More »

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Winamp really whips open source coders into frenzy with its source release

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As people in the many, many busy GitHub issue threads are suggesting, coding has come a long way since the heyday of the Windows-98-era Winamp player, and Winamp seems to have rushed its code onto a platform it does not really understand.

Winamp flourished around the same time as illegal MP3 networks such as Napster, Limewire, and Kazaa, providing a more capable means of organizing and playing deeply compressed music with incorrect metadata. After a web shutdown in 2013 that seemed inevitable in hindsight, Winamp’s assets were purchased by a company named Radionomy in 2014, and a new version was due out in 2019, one that aimed to combine local music libraries with web streaming of podcasts and radio.

Winamp did get that big update in 2022, though the app was “still in many ways an ancient app,” Ars’ Andrew Cunningham wrote then. There was support for music NFTs added at the end of 2022.

In its press release for the code availability, the Brussels-based Llama Group SA, with roughly 100 employees, says that “Tens of millions of users still use Winamp for Windows every month.” It plans to release “two major official versions per year with new features,” as well as offering Winamp for Creators, intended for artists or labels to manage their music, licensing, distribution, and monetization on various platforms.

Winamp really whips open source coders into frenzy with its source release Read More »

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Report: First wave of M4 Macs, including smaller Mac mini, coming November 1

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Reliable rumors have suggested that M4 Macs are right around the corner, and now Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman is forecasting a specific launch date: November 1, following a late-October announcement that mirrors last year’s Halloween-themed reveal for the first M3 Macs.

This date could be subject to change, and not all the products announced in October would necessarily launch on November 1—lower-end Macs are more likely to launch early, and higher-end models would be more likely to ship a bit later in the month.

The list of what to expect is the same as it has been for a while: refreshed 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros with M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips, a new M4 version of the 24-inch iMac, and an M4 update to the Mac mini that leapfrogs the M3 entirely. These will all be the first Macs to get the M4, following its unexpected introduction in the iPad Pro earlier this year.

The refreshed Mac mini is the most interesting of the new models—it’s said to come with a fully revamped design for the first time since the aluminum unibody version was released in 2010. The new Mac mini is said to be closer in size to an Apple TV box, but it will retain an internal power supply that doesn’t require a bulky external brick. The Mac mini lineup should still be split between two slightly different machines: one entry-level model with a basic M4 chip, and a higher-end M4 Pro version that bridges the gap between the Mac mini and the Mac Studio.

Report: First wave of M4 Macs, including smaller Mac mini, coming November 1 Read More »

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Smart TVs are like “a digital Trojan Horse” in people’s homes

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Similarly, the report’s authors describe concerns that the CTV industry’s extensive data collection and tracking could potentially have a political impact. It asserts that political candidates could use such data to run “covert personalized campaigns” leveraging information on things like political orientations and “emotional states”:

With no transparency or oversight, these practices could unleash millions of personalized, manipulative and highly targeted political ads, spread disinformation, and further exacerbate the political polarization that threatens a healthy democratic culture in the US.

“Potential discriminatory impacts”

The CDD’s report claims that Black, Hispanic, and Asian-Americans in the US are being “singled out by marketers as highly lucrative targets,” due to fast adoption of new digital media services and brand loyalty. Black and Hispanic communities are key advertising targets for FAST channels, per the report. Chester told Ars:

There are major potential discriminatory impacts from CTV’s harvesting of data from communities of color.

He pointed to “growing widespread racial and ethnic data” collection for ad targeting and marketing.

“We believe this is sensitive information that should not be applied to the data profiles used for targeting on CTV and across other platforms. … Its use in political advertising on CTV will enable widespread disinformation and voter suppression campaigns targeting these communities,” Chester said.

Regulation

In a letter sent to the FTC, FCC, California attorney general, and CPPA , the CDD asked for an investigation into the US’ CTV industry, “including on antitrust, consumer protection, and privacy grounds.” The CDD emphasized the challenges that streamers—including those who pay for ad-free streaming—face in protecting their data from advertisers.

“Connected television has taken root and grown as an unregulated medium in the United States, along with the other platforms, devices, and applications that are part of the massive internet industry,” the report says.

The group asks for the FTC and FCC to investigate CTV practices and consider building on current legislation, like the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act. They also request that antitrust regulators delve deeply into the business practices of CTV players like Amazon, Comcast, and Disney to help build “competition and diversity in the digital and connected TV marketplace.”

Smart TVs are like “a digital Trojan Horse” in people’s homes Read More »

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Google as Darth Vader: Why iA Writer quit the Android app market

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“Picture a massive football stadium filled with fans month after month,” Reichenstein wrote to Ars. In that stadium, he writes:

  • 5 percent (max) have a two-week trial ticket
  • 2 percent have a yearly ticket
  • 0.5 percent have a monthly ticket
  • 0.5 percent are buying “all-time” tickets

But even if every lifetime ticket buyer showed up at once, that’s 10 percent of the stadium, Reichenstein said. Even without full visibility of every APK—”and what is happening in China at all,” he wrote—iA can assume 90 percent of users are “climbing over the fence.”

“Long story short, that’s how you can end up with 50,000 users and only 1,000 paying you,” Reichenstein wrote in the blog post.

Piracy doesn’t just mean lost revenue, Reichenstein wrote, but also increased demands for support, feature requests, and chances for bad ratings from people who never pay. And it builds over time. “You sell less apps through the [Play Store], but pirated users keep coming in because pirate sites don’t have such reviews. Reviews don’t matter much if the app is free.”

The iA numbers on macOS hint at a roughly 10 percent piracy rate. On iOS, it’s “not 0%,” but it’s “very, very hard to say what the numbers are”; there is also no “reset trick” or trials offered there.

A possible future unfreezing

Reichenstein wrote in the post and to Ars that sharing these kinds of numbers can invite critique from other app developers, both armchair and experienced. He’s seen that happening on Mastodon, Hacker News, and X (formerly Twitter). But “critical people are useful,” he noted, and he’s OK with people working backward to figure out how much iA might have made. (Google did not offer comment on aspects of iA’s post outside discussing Drive access policy.)

iA suggests that it might bring back Writer on Android, perhaps in a business-to-business scenario with direct payments. For now, it’s a slab of history, albeit far less valuable to the metaphorical Darth Vader that froze it.

Google as Darth Vader: Why iA Writer quit the Android app market Read More »

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Faulty Samsung update leaves owners of bricked Galaxy phones with few options

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Samsung issued a software update on October 2 that bricked some older Galaxy smartphones. While Samsung has stopped the update from rolling out further, those with broken phones have received a harsh reminder of the importance of data backups.

On Wednesday, numerous people online started complaining about their Samsung phones being stuck in a bootloop (you can see examples here, here, and in newer comments here).

A Samsung spokesperson confirmed to Ars Technica that an update to Samsung’s SmartThings Framework app for managing smart devices caused the problems:

We are aware that a limited number of Galaxy smartphones running on Android 12 are rebooting continuously during an update to the latest version of the SmartThings app.

Samsung “immediately suspended the update” after learning of the problem and is “working to resolve the issues,” the company’s spokesperson said. According to user reports online, Samsung has issued a new update that people can download without their phones breaking.

However, owners of older affected phones, namely the Galaxy S10 series, Galaxy Note 10 series, Galaxy M51, and Galaxy A90, have been unable to power their devices on to roll back the update. Many users who already manually or automatically installed the update are still dealing with bricked devices.

A harsh reminder

Users with bricked Galaxy phones were initially met with a difficult choice: Go without their phone or perform a data-erasing factory reset.

Samsung’s statement to Ars advised customers to “contact the Samsung Contact Center” for support, but it’s unclear if a fix can be employed that doesn’t wipe the phone.

Faulty Samsung update leaves owners of bricked Galaxy phones with few options Read More »

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No more bricked iPads: Apple fixes several bugs in iOS, iPadOS, macOS updates

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On Thursday, Apple released the first software updates for its devices since last month’s rollout of iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia.

Those who’ve been following along know that several key features that didn’t make it into the initial release of iOS 18 are expected in iOS 18.1, but that’s not the update we got on Thursday.

Rather, Apple pushed out a series of smaller updates that fixed several bugs but did not add new features. The updates are labeled iOS 18.0.1, iPadOS 18.0.1, visionOS 2.0.1, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1, and watchOS 11.0.1.

Arguably, the two most important fixes come in iPadOS 18.0.1 and iOS 18.0.1. The iPad update fixes an issue that bricked a small number of recently released iPads (those running Apple’s M4 chip). That problem caused Apple to quickly pull iPadOS 18 for those devices, so Thursday’s iPadOS 18.0.1 release is actually the first time most users of those devices will be able to run iPadOS 18.

On the iPhone side, Apple says it has addressed a bug that could sometimes cause the touchscreen to fail to register users’ fingers.

No more bricked iPads: Apple fixes several bugs in iOS, iPadOS, macOS updates Read More »

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Uninstalled Copilot? Microsoft will let you reprogram your keyboard’s Copilot key

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Whether you care about Microsoft’s Copilot AI assistant or not, many new PCs introduced this year have included a dedicated Copilot key on the keyboard; this is true whether the PC meets the requirements for Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC program or not. Microsoft’s commitment to putting AI features in all its products runs so deep that the company changed the Windows keyboard for the first time in three decades.

But what happens if you don’t use Copilot regularly, or you’ve disabled or uninstalled it entirely, or if you simply don’t need to have it available at the press of a button? Microsoft is making allowances for you in a new Windows Insider Preview build in the Dev channel, which will allow the Copilot key to be reprogrammed so that it can launch more than just Copilot.

The area in Settings where you can reprogram the Copilot key in the latest Windows Insider Preview build in the Dev channel. Credit: Microsoft

There are restrictions. To appear in the menu of options in the Settings app, Microsoft says an app must be “MSIX packaged and signed, thus indicating the app meets security and privacy requirements to keep customers safe.” Generally an app installed via the Microsoft Store or apps built into Windows will meet those requirements, though apps installed from other sources may not. But you can’t make the Copilot key launch any old executable or batch file, and you can’t customize it to do anything other than launch apps (at least, not without using third-party tools for reconfiguring your keyboard).

Uninstalled Copilot? Microsoft will let you reprogram your keyboard’s Copilot key Read More »

microsoft-releases-office-2024,-the-latest-buy-once-own-forever-version-of-office

Microsoft releases Office 2024, the latest buy-once-own-forever version of Office

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Microsoft’s push to get Windows and Office users to buy Microsoft 365 subscriptions can be irritating, but to the company’s credit, it’s one of the few that has continued to sell buy-once, use-forever versions of its flagship software after launching a subscription model. This week the company has officially launched Microsoft Office 2024, a new “locked-in-time” update to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other apps for people who don’t want the continuously developed Microsoft 365 versions.

For end users, Office Home 2024 gets you Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for $149.99. Office Home & Business 2024 costs $249.99, which adds Outlook “and the rights to use the apps for commercial purposes.” Both licenses cover a single PC or Mac.

New Office Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) products are also being released for businesses and other organizations; Office LTSC Professional Plus 2024 for Windows also includes the Access database management app. Project 2024 and Visio 2024 are also still being offered as standalone products.

The new apps include most changes made since Office 2021 was released three years ago; Microsoft details those updates here and on its Learn documentation site. Unlike the Microsoft 365 versions, the perpetually licensed versions of the apps won’t get ongoing feature updates, they’re missing some real-time collaboration capabilities, and they also won’t get any features related to the Copilot AI assistant.

Microsoft releases Office 2024, the latest buy-once-own-forever version of Office Read More »

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“Obviously a failure”: Sonos execs not getting bonuses due to app fiasco

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Sonos’ controversial app update in May was “obviously a failure,” Sonos CEO Patrick Spence told Reuters today.

When the update launched in May, customers revolted over missing features, like the ability to search music libraries, edit song and playlist queues, and set sleep timers. In addition, some already purchased hardware, especially older models, began having problems.

In a note to investors on Tuesday, Sonos said that “more than 80 percent of the app’s missing features have been reintroduced.” The app should be “almost 100 percent restored in the coming weeks.” Sonos has been updating the app every two weeks in an effort to bring it to parity with the old one.

Speaking to Reuters, Spence took the blame for an app said to be rushed out prematurely ahead of Sonos’ first headphones, Ace. 

“This is obviously a failure of Sonos, but it starts with me in terms of where it started,” he said.

The CEO reportedly admitted to the botched rollout stemming from a lack of proper testing and a desire to push out a lot of features simultaneously:

We underestimated the complexity of the system, and so our testing didn’t capture all of the things that it should. We released it too soon.

Sonos was reportedly eager to get the app out to accommodate Ace, resulting in an overhaul of the app, its player side, and Sonos’ cloud infrastructure. Last month, purported former and current Sonos employees spoke about the app accumulating technical debt before being forced into an update that wasn’t ready and overlooked some workers’ concerns.

No executive bonuses for now

Reuters reported today that Spence and seven other execs “would forgo their bonus in the most recent fiscal year,” which ended on September 30. The publication noted that Spence got a bonus of approximately $72,000 for fiscal year 2023. Reuters reported that the company heads have “certain benchmarks” to meet to receive bonuses for the October 2024 to September 2025 fiscal year.

It’s not hard to understand why the executives aren’t getting their bonuses. In addition to the damage that the botched app redesign has wrought on Sonos’ reputation—aggravating long-time customers and deterring prospective ones—the app has had tangible financial consequences. The Santa Barbara, California company is expecting to pay up to $30 million in the short term to fix the app and try to restore customer and partner trust. The company also delayed two hardware releases, which led it to reduce its fiscal 2024 guidance. Sonos shares have fallen more than 30 percent since before the app update, Reuters noted.

“Obviously a failure”: Sonos execs not getting bonuses due to app fiasco Read More »

verizon-customers-face-mass-scale-outage-across-the-us

Verizon customers face mass-scale outage across the US

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5Gpocalypse —

More than 100,000 reports appeared on Downdetector.

–

A map showing hotspots of outages primarily in the east coast and central US, but some in California as well

Enlarge / A Downdetector map showing where Verizon outages are reported.

Wireless customers of Verizon and AT&T have found that they cannot make calls, send or receive text messages, or download any mobile data. As of this article’s publication, it appears the problem has yet to be resolved.

Users took to social media throughout the morning to complain that their phones were showing “SOS” mode, which allows emergency calls but nothing else. This is what phones sometimes offer when the user has no SIM registered on the device. Resetting the device and other common solutions do not resolve the issue. For much of the morning, Verizon offered no response to the reports.

Within hours, more than 100,000 users reported problems on the website Downdetector. The problem does not appear isolated to any particular part of the country; users in California reported problems, and so did users on the East Coast and in Chicago, among other places.

By 10 am, some AT&T users also began reporting problems. Outage maps based on user-reported data found that the outages were especially common in parts of the country otherwise affected by Hurricane Helene.

After a period of silence, Verizon acknowledged the problem in a public statement. “We are aware of an issue impacting service for some customers,” a spokesperson told NBC News and others. “Our engineers are engaged and we are working quickly to identify and solve the issue.”

However, the spokesperson did not specify why the outage was occurring. It’s not the first major online service outage this year, though. AT&T experienced an outage previously, and the CrowdStrike-related outage of Microsoft services caused chaos and made headlines in July.

Update 5: 37 PM ET:  Some users are reporting they have regained service, and Verizon confirmed this in another statement: “Verizon engineers are making progress on our network issue and service has started to be restored. We know how much people rely on Verizon and apologize for any inconvenience some of our customers experienced today. We continue to work around the clock to fully resolve this issue.”

Verizon customers face mass-scale outage across the US Read More »

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Apple backs out of backing OpenAI, report claims

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ChatGPT —

Apple dropped out of the $6.5 billion investment round at the 11th hour.

–

The Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California.

Enlarge / The Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California.

A few weeks back, it was reported that Apple was exploring investing in OpenAI, the company that makes ChatGPT, the GPT model, and other popular generative AI products. Now, a new report from The Wall Street Journal claims that Apple has abandoned those plans.

The article simply says Apple “fell out of the talks to join the round.” The round is expected to close in a week or so and may raise as much as $6.5 billion for the growing Silicon Valley company. Had Apple gone through with the move, it would have been a rare event—though not completely unprecedented—for Apple to invest in another company that size.

OpenAI is still expected to raise the funds it seeks from other sources. The report claims Microsoft is expected to invest around $1 billion in this round. Microsoft has already invested substantial sums in OpenAI, whose GPT models power Microsoft AI tools like Copilot and Bing chat.

Nvidia is also a likely major investor in this round.

Apple will soon offer limited ChatGPT integration in an upcoming iOS update, though it plans to support additional models like Google’s Gemini further down the line, offering users a choice similar to how they pick a default search engine or web browser.

OpenAI has been on a successful tear with its products and models, establishing itself as a leader in the rapidly growing industry. However, it has also been beset by drama and controversy—most recently, some key leaders at OpenAI departed the company abruptly, and it shifted its focus from a research-focused organization that was beholden to a nonprofit, to a for-profit company under CEO Sam Altman. Also, former Apple design lead Jony Ive is confirmed to be working on a new AI product of some kind.

But The Wall Street Journal did not specify which (if any) of these facts are reasons why Apple chose to back out of the investment.

Apple backs out of backing OpenAI, report claims Read More »