And for how expensive portable consoles can be, I’m not calling anything a “steam deck killer” until I’m also confident it can be repaired and upgraded for years after I buy it.

I really want to try the withings. The new fossil hybrid is more like a Pebble. It’s a solid little notification machine.

Can’t blame them. Google cut mobvoi and fossil off at the knees, while courting Samsung. Why would they stay? I hope they try another hybrid watch.

Seems to me that Android as a platform was healthier when there was broader competition, and a wider range of designs and features. Samsung peaked with the S10, and sales have plummeted the more they copy Apple.

The only benefit to Netflix games is that these games have no ads or IAP.

Direct report from the FTC. ISPs are DIGGING into your web behavior. https://www.ftc.gov/reports/look-what-isps-know-about-you-examining-privacy-practices-six-major-internet-service-providers

4K120 is the most useful “extreme” video mode, and it’s a shame more companies haven’t supported it, just ZTE, OnePlus, and Sony. It’s crazy flexible. Can be easily dropped to 60 or 30 fps, and makes for absolutely stunning slow motion. It’s such an easy edit in something like LumaFusion to time stretch it. Even silly little family videos look so much cooler at that resolution in one quarter time. When done right, at a good bitrate, it looks much better than most phones’ potato quality 1080p slow motion. Sony absolutely chose right offering 4k120 over 8k24.

I have my daughter’s first steps in 4K. That was roughly seven years ago. Shot from an old LG. That little clip is amazing, and it looks so much better than what 1080p at the time would have looked like.

I honestly thought they already had…

More video out support and desktop modes. Mid-ranger phones are more powerful than budget Chromebooks. It’s silly to act like these pocket computers couldn’t replace a LOT of folks home PCs or laptops.

Dang. Those are two rough chips to recommend at the end of 2023. The 8Gen1 isn’t as bad as the 810 that would melt solder, but it’s not gonna age as gracefully as the 865 or the 8Gen2. Sad that Samsung’s own design is still poorer than the 8Gen1.

Oh man. As a little kid I burned a LOT of time on the old DOS trek.exe.

Also still fire up Armada from time to time. With all the new ship classes in Online, I’d love to see an Armada 3.

I love the folks who just say “ugh shitty mobile games”, but the hook is like Apple Arcade. If my 8 year old wants to play a shitty gem swap game, there are two on Netflix with all mocrotransactions removed. Plus: Into the Breach TMNT Shredder’s Revenge + DLC Dust and Neon The GTA Definitive Games just went live Football Manager 2024 Asphalt Extreme Dead Cells Queens Gambit Chess Before Your Eyes Lego Legacy: Heros Unboxed Reigns Three Kingdoms Bloons TD6

So yeah, there are a bunch of mediocre “cute” games, but also some fun classics like cut the rope or world of goo. The point is, I’m already paying for Netflix, so these games are fun time wasters that won’t gouge me or my kid for gem packs or in game currency. Like Netflix used to be for DVD, it can also be the “last life” for a good PC or console game. I wouldnt pay for Netflix for these, but they’re nice to have while we still do pay for a single screen sub.

It’s higher level, but video editing on mobile got ugly with this. I’m totally fine to pay for new plugins, but there’s no processing done off my phone. There’s no reason to subscription lock features like 4k rendering and plugins. Especially when free editors are pretty good (after dealing with ads) or Lumafusion is great with a one time purchase.

Wow yeah. I LOVED hiking around looking for caches.

My editor used to be SO into the Porsche designed Huawei phones. They brought a different look, but outside the Porsche label, I couldn’t say what made them any more stylish or desirable.

That’s so awesome. Takes me back. I might need to see if I still have that old Treo in a box somewhere…

The situation has been getting MUCH better. The thing a lot of these articles overlook is just the strange structural difference between Android and iOS. We still seem to be primed to look for the big OTA, that’s “THE Update”, but increasingly more of the bug fixes, security patching, and feature refinement are being delivered by individual app updates and Google Play system updates. I’m OK if the OTAs are a bit more sporadic if I see work from the manufacturer and from Google to push better code throughout the year. I’d rather not wait for a big OTA, when a small component needs to be updated. The situation for Android updates has gotten a LOT better.

We care so much about our users’ privacy and security, we make sure their messages fall back to SMS when chatting with non-iphones. We COULD have dictated the future of messaging in North America, and demanded standards that would have benefited us, but we know we make more money by letting out customers bully the green bubbles.

I worry mediatek might have made the jump one gen too early.