Tag: android’s
CES 2023: Move over, Apple, Android’s joining the satellite-based texting party
Owners of new Android phones will have a much easier time getting out of emergencies later this year.
At CES 2023, Qualcomm announced Snapdragon Satellite. It’s a new initiative by the mobile chip maker to bring satellite messaging to “next-generation premium Android smartphones,” per the press release. Qualcomm is partnering with Iridium, a company with a communications satellite array already in low orbit, on this project.
So, what does all of that actually mean? Basically, if you buy a new Android phone later this year (like a OnePlus 11 or Samsung Galaxy S23) that has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip inside of it, you’ll be able to send two-way text messages using satellites. If you’re out of cell coverage and need to communicate where you are to someone, this would theoretically come in handy.
Qualcomm’s presentation indicated that you’ll have to aim your phone at the sky while doing so, but unlike Apple’s Emergency SOS feature launched last year, it’s not limited entirely to emergencies and lets you do more than just contact 911. The company also said that this would offer global “pole-to-pole” coverage, so hopefully there aren’t a great deal of areas where this feature won’t work.
It’s no substitute for 5G, but for Android users, it’ll do in a pinch.
How to Use Android’s New Distraction-Free Reading Mode
Android’s Next Flagship Processor is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
Qualcomm has announced its second-generation flagship mobile chip. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 will be available in various flagship Android devices as soon as the end of 2022.
Android’s audio output switcher may soon let you pick cast devices, too
Google may soon start letting you pick from cast devices when using the audio output switcher on Android 13, according to Esper’s Mishaal Rahman. The output switcher, which was first introduced in Android 11, currently only lets you swap between media playback sessions on paired Bluetooth devices, such as wireless headphones or a speaker.
But an update to the Google Cast SDK (software development kit), suggests that Android 13’s output switcher could allow for local-to-remote, remote-to-local, and remote-to-remote transfers. As pointed out by Rahman, “local” refers to transfers involving paired Bluetooth devices, while “remote” refers to cast devices.
FINALLY! Google is reviving a feature originally planned for Android 11: the ability…
Android’s underappreciated design revolution
Over the past couple years, those of us who pay close attention to mobile-tech matters have been watching a whole new paradigm of design shape up right before our overly moist eyeballs.
And you know I have to be talking about something important here, ’cause I’m using big words like “paradigm” and, erm, “eyeballs.”
The subject in question is something core to the Android experience — particularly for anyone who’s palming a Google-made Pixel phone, where the core Android software exists in its most undiluted form.
It’s a little somethin’ called Material You, and having lived with a Pixel through a full year of Android 12 and now the beginning of Android 13, I’m here to tell you it’s one of the most shape-shifting and underappreciated advancements we’ve seen in modern tech — even if hardly anyone seems to be giving it the credit it deserves.