Technology - Google News

LastPass’ free tier will become a lot less useful next month - The Verge
A year on, all-in-one Microsoft Office iPad app finally available - 9to5Mac
New Samsung laptops rumored to include OLED screens and S Pen support - The Verge

LastPass’ free tier will become a lot less useful next month - The Verge

Posted: 16 Feb 2021 07:38 AM PST

LastPass is adding new restrictions to its free subscription tier starting March 16th that'll only allow users to view and manage passwords on one category of devices: mobile or computer. Mobile users will be limited to iOS and Android phones, iPads, Android tablets, and smartwatches. Computer subscribers will be able to use their passwords from Windows, macOS, and Linux desktops and laptops, the LastPass browser extension, and Windows tablets.

Users on LastPass' free tier will be asked to pick between the two options the first time they log in after March 16th, and the company says they'll be able to switch between categories up to three times after they've picked. Although customers are restricted to a single category of devices on the free tier, they'll still be able view and manage passwords from an unlimited number of devices within either the mobile or computer category. LastPass says no users will be locked out of their accounts or lose access to their passwords as a result of the changes.

As well as restricting its device types, LastPass is also changing the kinds of customer support free tier users will be able to access. From May 17th, free users will lose access to email support, the company announced.

LastPass is clearly hoping the new restrictions are enough to encourage people to upgrade to its Premium or Families tiers. LastPass Premium starts at $3 a month, while a Families subscription costs $4 and includes licenses for up to six people. In an accompanying blog post, the company says it now has over 20 million users around the world, though it's unclear how many of these use the service's free tier.

Compared to a lot of other password managers, which ask you to subscribe to access even their basic features, LastPass' free tier has always been pretty generous. But these upcoming changes could make it a lot harder to use the service for free in the future.

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A year on, all-in-one Microsoft Office iPad app finally available - 9to5Mac

Posted: 16 Feb 2021 04:20 AM PST

If you've wanted to use a Microsoft Office iPad app, you've been able to run the individual Word, Powerpoint, and Excel apps for many years. But while the iPhone got an all-in-one Office app in February of last year, the iPad didn't. A year later, Microsoft has finally fixed that.

The process of integrating the main Office tools into a single app actually began in November 2019 …

Background

Microsoft launched a 2019 iOS beta to bring "all of your Office documents together in one place."

The Office app provides a simple, integrated experience that puts the tools you need for working on a mobile device at the forefront of the experience. We started by combining the existing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint mobile apps into a single app. Doing so brings all of your Office documents together in one place, reduces the need to switch between multiple apps, and significantly reduces the amount of space used on your phone compared to multiple installed apps. We then added new capabilities that harness the strengths of mobile devices, such as the camera, to enable you to create content in uniquely mobile ways. Finally, we added a new Actions Pane that helps you accomplish many of the common mobile tasks you need to do all from one place.

That was officially launched in February 2020, when Microsoft explained that it made better use of your iPhone's storage.

This app maintains all the functionality of the existing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint mobile apps but requires far less phone storage than using three separate apps.

The only problem was, there was no iPad version – and running the iPhone app on an iPad was as ugly as you'd expect.

Microsoft Office iPad app now available

Version 2.46 finally gives us a native iPad app.

Office is now available on iPad: We're combining the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps you know into a single, iPadOS-optimized app. Plus, you'll see additional tools to keep you more productive than ever. For example, you'll be able to quickly create and sign PDFs, and transform pictures into documents.

Get to Image-based Workflows Readily: Tap 'Share' in the phone gallery outside the Office app, to get to several actions like Create PPT, Create PDF and more. In addition, if there are any recent screenshots when you open the Office app, these are surfaced as a suggestion to covert to PDF or PPT.

Insert date, shape, image and notes in PDF: Now you can easily insert date, shape, image and notes in PDFs using new capabilities.

The app is a free download from the App Store, but requires a Microsoft 365 subscription priced at $6.99/month for an individual, or $9.99/month for a family.

Two of the individual iPad apps got updates last month, including trackpad support in Word.

Photo by Francois Hoang on Unsplash

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New Samsung laptops rumored to include OLED screens and S Pen support - The Verge

Posted: 16 Feb 2021 03:58 AM PST

Samsung has a pair of new laptops in development — the Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360 — which include OLED displays and will be compatible with the company's S Pen stylus, SamMobile reports. The Galaxy Book Pro 360 is said to also be available with 5G connectivity. The laptops were first revealed in a Bluetooth certification filing that surfaced last month.

SamMobile's report doesn't go into details about the specs of the OLED displays such as what their resolution or refresh rates might be. However, given the laptops will reportedly be available with 13.3-inch and 15.6-inch screens, it seems unlikely that they'll use the 14-inch 90Hz OLED displays that Samsung Display said it would be mass manufacturing starting next month.

These wouldn't be the first of Samsung's laptops to support the S Pen (last year's Galaxy Book Flex 5G, the company's first 5G laptop, had one built in for example), but it comes after the company announced a new pair of S Pen styluses alongside the Galaxy S21 Ultra. There's a standard S Pen that's sold separately from the phone, and later this year it'll be joined by the S Pen Pro, an upgraded version that adds Bluetooth and air gesture support. Earlier this year Samsung said it's planning to bring S Pen support to "additional device categories."

Beyond their screens and S Pen support, the new Windows laptops are rumored to be powered by Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs. The Galaxy Pro 360 is thought to be a convertible 2-in-1 laptop, with a 360-hinge to allow its screen to be flipped around and used like a tablet.

If the reports about the upcoming devices are accurate, they'd join a host of other laptops announced by Samsung recently. These include the Galaxy Chromebook 2, an Intel-powered Chromebook with a QLED display (essentially an LCD display that uses Samsung's quantum-dot technology) and stylus support, announced earlier this year.

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