More than a Phone

Android and iPhone to Firefox OS and Sailfish and back again. If it's a smartphone and it's interesting, it's here. Updated daily.

By Steven Natiello

A pop of color and more: updates to Android’s brand
blog.google - Sameer Samat
Over the last decade, Android's open platform has created a thriving community of manufacturers and developers that reach a global audience with …
Apple Arcade
Here's what's coming with Apple's latest iPhones, iPads and MacBooks
houstonchronicle.com - Mark Gurman and Debby Wu, Bloomberg
Apple Inc. is readying a clutch of new hardware for the coming weeks and months, including “Pro” iPhones, upgrades to iPads and its largest laptop in …
Android Q
The next version of Android will simply be called Android 10
CNET - by Carrie Mihalcik, Eli Blumenthal
The name of the next flavor of Android has been officially unwrapped.
Nespresso
A Swedish bike is made from 300 Nespresso coffee pods
Quartz - Anne Quito
After two years in development, RE:CYCLE, a stylish urban bicycle made from discarded Nespresso pods, is ready to roll. And it only takes 300 espressos to make one. Developed by Swedish start-up Vélosophy
T-Mobile
T-Mobile customers report outage, can’t make calls or send text messages
TechCrunch - Zack Whittaker
T-Mobile customers across the U.S. say they can’t make calls or send text messages — although data appears to be unaffected. We tested with a T-Mobile phone in the office. Both calls to and from the T-Mobile
Android Studio
Android Studio 3.5 arrives, bringing official Chrome OS support
aboutchromebooks.com - Kevin C. Tofel
Back in May at the Google I/O 2019 developer event, Google launched a preview version of Android Studio for Chrome OS. The preview version is gone …
SMS
Microsoft's SMS Organizer is the perfect messaging app, and it's now available in the U.S.
androidcentral.com - Harish Jonnalagadda
Microsoft significantly raised the quality of its apps on Android over the course of the last two years, leading to great Android apps that include …
Motorola
Report: Motorola thinks you’ll buy a “mid-range” Razr foldable phone for $1,500
Android Authority
It’s been a while since we’ve heard any concrete details on the Motorola Razr brand’s long-awaited return as a folding smartphone. A new report suggests we won’t have to wait much longer, however, as reimagined
Motorola
First details about Motorola’s upcoming foldable RAZR phone leak online
mspoweruser.com
Earlier this year we reported that Motorola might be rebooting its classic RAZR phones. It was eventually confirmed by the Vice President of Motorola …
Android News
The Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro is a rebadged Redmi K20 Pro for the European market
androidpolice.com - Scott Scrivens
Xiaomi's recent top-tier handsets have offered flagship-level specs for considerably less than the likes of Samsung and Huawei, a tactic that looks …
Digital Note-Takers Let You Store and Share Your Scrawlings
WIRED - Michael Calore
A thin design and spacious 10-inch E Ink screen make reMarkable's tablet look like a giant Kindle (you can use it to read ebooks), but it's actually a …
Mobile Technology
Carriers throttle online videos and network congestion has nothing to do with it
CNET - by Shelby Brown
Researchers say tests show it has nothing to do with time of day, location or network congestion.
iPhone
Hacker Releases First Public Jailbreak for Up-to-Date iPhones in Years
VICE - Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai
Apple has mistakenly made it a bit easier to hack iPhone users who are on the latest version of its mobile operating system iOS by unpatching a vulnerability it had already fixed. Hackers quickly jumped
Google Play
Google Play Store’s blindingly white redesign starts rolling out
Ars Technica - Ron Amadeo
The all-white theme might actually be a good sign for dark mode lovers. Google seems to be rolling out a major new redesign of the Google Play Store. …
Technology
Quickly learn a new language with AI-powered Lingvist
ZDNet - Eileen Brown
I become addicted to learning a new language with the Lingvist language software within a day of using it. Census data that shows that 231 million …
Mobile Technology
Google pulls 85 Android apps with particularly obnoxious adware
Engadget - Marc DeAngelis
Google has removed 85 apps from the Google Play store after security researchers at Trend Micro found a particularly annoying adware scheme hiding inside.The adware, called AndroidOS_Hidenad.HRXH, was
Chromebook
Google is bringing a portrait mode to Chrome OS for some reason
Android Authority - Edgar Cervantes
Portrait mode has been a fixture on smartphones since Apple popularized the feature back in 2016, making its way to virtually every phone under the sun since then. Now, Google has decided to offer the
Pixel 3A
The Google Pixel 3A is 2019's most important phone
CNET - by Daniel Van Boom
Note 10? Nah.
Samsung
Galaxy Note 10’s ‘Link to Windows’ shortcut already ported to older Samsung phones
9to5Google - Ben Schoon
The Galaxy Note 10 has quite a few new features, but perhaps the ones Samsung spent the most time talking about at its Unpacked event were those that came from its Microsoft collaboration. One of those
Android News
New Chrome OS version brings support for highly-anticipated virtual desktop feature
androidcentral.com - Babu Mohan
• Google has finally started rolling out the stable version of Chrome OS 76 after a slight delay. • The latest release brings a new accessibility setting …
AT&T
AT&T and T-Mobile will now verify phone calls between their networks
Engadget - Mariella Moon
The call verification feature is based on the SHAKEN/STIR framework. AT&T and T-Mobile have started rolling out cross-network call authentication services for their subscribers. That means the companies
World News
A Politician's Tweets About Catching The Train Were Used To Identify Him In "Anonymous" Data
BuzzFeed - Hannah Ryan
"It's easy to imagine how information like this could be used by people who might want to cause harm." Meet Anthony Carbines. He's a politician in Victoria, Australia. Like many politicians, he loves tweet
Samsung Galaxy S10
Galaxy Note 10 vs. Galaxy S10: Which should you buy?
androidcentral.com - Hayato Huseman
The Galaxy S10 may be half a year old, but it still stands strong as one of the best options in Samsung's lineup. It offers nearly identical specs as …
IFixit
Apple's Favorite Anti-Right-to-Repair Argument Is Bullshit
Gizmodo - Catie Keck
Increasingly, it seems, our gadgets are not wholly owned by us—that when some component breaks, we are at the mercy of the giant companies that …
Chromebook
Chrome OS 76: New features actually available this go round
chromeunboxed.com
Just a week past due, Chrome OS 76 has begun rolling out to select users with more Chromebooks to follow in coming days and weeks. There has been a …
Long-form Journalism
Split Screen
The Verge - Adi Robertson
In 2014, Jeffrey Tschiltsch opened an email from Indiegogo and saw the future of computing. The email showed something called the “Dragonfly Futurefön,” a kind of computer-phone hybrid. The Futurefön’s
Verizon's foldable Motorola RAZR 2019 specs and release price - preview of the new clamshell
phonearena.com - Daniel Petrov
The first bendy future-fetchers - Galaxy Fold and Huawei Mate X - turned out to be... how to euphemise it... uninspiring. The two foldable phones …
Google Pixel
Google Pixel owners can claim up to $500 in class action settlement
Engadget - Jon Fingas
You'll have to meet specific criteria to recieve a large payout. Google's settlement over faulty Pixel microphones has largely cleared the gauntlet, and it's now time to make a claim -- though how much
Linux
[Update: Arriving] Chromebook Pixel 2015, 8 more Chrome OS devices to get Linux apps support soon
9to5Google - Kyle Bradshaw
Late last year, we uncovered a list of devices that would never be able to support Chrome OS’s Linux apps (Crostini). At the time, we noted that the second-generation Chromebook Pixel from 2015 was not