Technology - Google News

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• How to install Apple’s watchOS 7 and iOS 14 betas so you can unlock your phone with your watch - The Verge
• Xiaomi's latest concept phone has a quad waterfall display and no ports - Engadget
• Galaxy S21 Ultra vs. iPhone 12 Pro Max cameras: A pro photographer's assessment - CNET

How to install Apple’s watchOS 7 and iOS 14 betas so you can unlock your phone with your watch - The Verge Posted: 05 Feb 2021 09:57 AM PST Apple's iOS 14.5 beta is out, and with it comes the ability to have your Apple Watch unlock your Face ID-protected phone if you happen to be wearing a mask. If you really want this feature right now, you'll have to download the latest iOS and watchOS betas — something that does come with at least a little risk, as it's unfinished software. There are bugs, and features might change between updates. There have been reports in the past of watches being bricked by betas (though I didn't find any for this release). With all that said, I've been using the betas since they came out, and I haven't noticed anything acting particularly buggy. So if you're willing to throw caution to the wind to get access to the new Apple Watch unlock feature, here's how you can get the betas. First, start by going to beta.apple.com on your iPhone. If you've never participated in a public beta before, you'll have to tap on the sign up button, and if you have, you can tap on the sign in button. Once you're logged in, tap the down arrow on the header, and go to Enroll Your Devices. I highly recommend following Apple's advice to make an archived backup of your device, as iCloud backups won't necessarily be accessible if you have to switch back from a beta. Apple explains how to make one on the Enroll page. Go ahead, I'll be here when you get back. After you've backed up your device, you can scroll down and tap the Download profile button, and your phone will let you know that you have to review the profile before it installs. Before we do that, though, let's grab the profile for the watch by scrolling up to the top and choosing WatchOS from the list. There, you can tap the Download profile button, then press Allow. This will automatically open the Watch app, where you can press Install. This will reboot your watch, so while that's happening, let's install the phone's profile by going to Settings, then Profile Downloaded. There, you can tap the Install button, and your phone will restart. After you've got the profiles downloaded and your devices rebooted, you'll have to update your phone, then your watch. Unfortunately, you have to wait until the phone is updated before you can even start on the watch, so you can't multitask. Once you're officially running iOS 14.5 and watchOS 7.4, we can finally enable the unlock with watch feature. Go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode, and scroll down to the new Unlock With Apple Watch option. Toggling it will turn on the feature, there's nothing you have to do on the watch. Now that you have it installed, here's what you can expect. First, and most important to note, is that your phone isn't looking for your face with a mask, it's looking for a face with a mask. With this feature on, if my wife was wearing a mask, she was able to unlock my phone with no problem if I was within three or so feet. Apple's mitigation to this is whenever your Apple Watch is used to unlock your phone, it buzzes you with a notification saying your phone has been unlocked, along with a button to lock it. Pressing that lock button immediately locks your phone and requires a passcode on next unlock. With that caveat out of the way, so far I've had great success with the feature. I tried it with a variety of masks, and it worked with all of them for me. It is worth noting that, again, it is still looking for a face with a mask. This feature won't help you in the situation where your phone is laying on the table and you want to unlock it without the Face ID camera being able to see you. Still, for me, not having to put in my passcode every time I want to check my grocery list while shopping is a huge benefit and worth what I consider to be relatively minor security trade-offs. The feature may not be for those with super-secret info on their phones, but for everyone else it'll be a nice quality-of-life improvement, whether you decide to go for it right now or wait for the official release. Let's block ads! (Why?)

Xiaomi's latest concept phone has a quad waterfall display and no ports - Engadget Posted: 05 Feb 2021 09:18 AM PST Xiaomi might be best known for its extremely affordable, competent smartphones, but it also loves flexing with its some truly ambitious designs. (Case in point: this foldable prototype, or this phone that's almost 100 percent screen.) The company's latest is among its most eye-catching, and as usual that's all because of its screen — in this case, a "quad-curved waterfall display" that stretches down all four sides of the phone. As the company notes in a blog post describing the concept, sourcing a screen that could do the trick is pretty simple now that flexible display panels have grown more common. The real challenge, Xiaomi notes, was in "manufacturing a 88° quad-curved glass panel" and bonding it to the underlying display. All told, Xiaomi says, the process of correctly shaping glass layers like this involved in-house processing equipment, 800-degree heat, multiple polishing tools and thousands of attempts. With all that said, there were limits to what Xiaomi was able to pull off here. If for instance you were wondering how Xiaomi's engineers managed to stretch and bend that glass around the phone's corners, the answer is simple: they didn't. The company's dark, moody product renders and videos do a great job of hiding them, but there are small cut-outs in each corner. So much for the "just a screen" look the company was gunning for. Beyond all the screen cleverness on display, this latest concept is also notable for its complete lack of physical controls and ports. Instead, the company leaned on 46 of its patents and built-in clever alternatives like pressure-sensitive touch sensors in place of buttons and "industry-first flexible film display acoustic technology" in lieu of a traditional speaker and grille. The lack of a USB-C port also means wireless charging, and who knows — perhaps it's meant to work with another of Xiaomi's recent announcements, a remote wireless charging system the company calls "Mi Air Charge." Granted, not all of these developments are particularly new, but the fact that Xiaomi is exploring how all of these disparate developments can be used in tandem is one of the clearest signs yet that it plans to release a fully unibody smartphone in the future. They're not the only ones either. Rumors have long suggested that Apple would like to ditch ports across its iPhone line entirely. If Xiaomi and Apple were to release portless devices, the pressure would be on for the rest of the industry to go full unibody, and it's hard to imagine the status quo would remain the status quo for very long. Let's block ads! (Why?)

Galaxy S21 Ultra vs. iPhone 12 Pro Max cameras: A pro photographer's assessment - CNET Posted: 05 Feb 2021 05:00 AM PST The iPhone 12 Pro Max has impressed us by being able to take incredible images that can rival what you might see from a DSLR. But Samsung's new Galaxy S21 Ultra packs an incredible camera array, boasting zoom skills that comfortably outstrip what Apple is offering. So how do these two phones stack up and which should you consider if you're really into your photography? I headed across the beautiful Scottish city of Edinburgh to find out. Both phones were in their default settings using the standard camera app on each phone, unless otherwise stated.  Galaxy S21 Ultra, normal lens. Andrew Hoyle/CNET iPhone 12 Pro Max, normal lens. Andrew Hoyle/CNET We're kicking off with this beautiful view from the top of Calton Hill. The differences are clear: The S21 Ultra's white balance has given its shot a noticeable magenta bias, with more accurate color tones being visible on the iPhone.  Galaxy S21 Ultra, 100% crop. Andrew Hoyle/CNET iPhone 12 Pro Max, 100% crop. Andrew Hoyle/CNET Cropping into both images to 100%, it's also possible to see that the iPhone's camera provides a lot more detail in its image -- pay particular attention to the detail on the large foreground column on the left. It's surprising, as both shots are 12 megapixels. (The iPhone only does 12 megapixels, whereas the S21 Ultra downsamples its 108-megapixel sensor into 12-megapixel shots, a process called pixel binning.) Galaxy S21 Ultra, normal lens. Andrew Hoyle/CNET iPhone 12 Pro Max, normal lens. Andrew Hoyle/CNET There are noticeable color differences again on this outdoor scene, with the S21 Ultra producing a more cyan-toned sky that looks a little unnatural to me. That said, the S21 has also made the church itself brighter, which helps it stand out from the scene much more.  Galaxy S21 Ultra, super-wide lens. Andrew Hoyle/CNET iPhone 12 Pro Max, super-wide lens. Andrew Hoyle/CNET Switching to the super-wide mode, both phones have captured extremely vibrant scenes here, with a great balance between the bright blue sky and the more shadowy areas around the bushes. The white balance differences are evident again, with the S21 Ultra leaning still on the magenta side. However, I also think the iPhone has gone too far into the green side here, with a more noticeable green color cast in the clouds and in the building.  Galaxy S21 Ultra, ultrawide lens. Andrew Hoyle/CNET iPhone 12 Pro Max, ultrawide lens. Andrew Hoyle/CNET It's exactly the same story here. The S21 Ultra displays more magentas in its scene; the iPhone 12 Pro Max leans more into the greens. Neither is exactly better than the other here, although the S21 has brightened some of the details slightly on the cannon. It's subtle, but it helps bring out some of the natural textures of the old ironwork.  Galaxy S21 Ultra is the zoom king It's zoom skills where the S21 Ultra really shines though, with optical zoom lenses for 3x and 10x zoom, with digital zoom all the way up to 100x. By comparison, the iPhone 12 Pro Max offers a maximum optical zoom of 2.5x -- an increase of 0.5x over the previous iPhone 11 Pro.  Galaxy S21 Ultra, 3x zoom. Andrew Hoyle/CNET iPhone 12 Pro Max, 2.5x zoom. Andrew Hoyle/CNET At 3x zoom on the S21 Ultra and 2.5x zoom on the iPhone 12 Pro Max, it's evident that the zoom amount is very similar (the S21 Ultra's 3x zoom is equivalent to a 72mm zoom lens on a 35mm camera, while the iPhone's is equivalent to 68mm). Both color and overall exposure look to be pretty much identical between the two images, with little to differentiate between them in contrast either.  Galaxy S21 Ultra, 3x zoom, 100% crop. Andrew Hoyle/CNET iPhone 12 Pro Max, 2.5x zoom, 100% crop. Andrew Hoyle/CNET Cropping in to 100% on those images reveals an interesting difference though. The S21 Ultra's image looks sharper, as the phone has applied a lot of digital sharpening to preserve the details. When viewed up close like this, it almost looks like some of the building details have been gone round with a pen. By comparison, the iPhone's shot looks less sharp when zoomed in. If you're sharing your image straight from your phone, you probably want the sharper shot and would be very happy with what the S21 has produced.  I personally prefer less sharpening to be added by default, however, as this can quickly degrade the image if you want to do more artistic edits later in apps like Adobe Lightroom. I prefer less digital sharpening on my images so that I can apply my own sharpening later, should I want to. If you're not quite so into your image editing, this likely won't be a problem for you. Galaxy S21 Ultra, 3x zoom. Andrew Hoyle/CNET iPhone 12 Pro Max, 2.5x zoom. Andrew Hoyle/CNET Details look to be pretty similar between these shots. The S21 Ultra's shot is again a bit more magenta, but in this scene I actually prefer the white balance shift as it gives a slight sunset feel.  Galaxy S21 Ultra, 10x zoom. Andrew Hoyle/CNET iPhone 12 Pro Max, 2.5x zoom. Andrew Hoyle/CNET The S21 Ultra takes things further though. Much further. Its 10x optical zoom vastly outstrips what the iPhone's 2.5x zoom can achieve and the results are clear to see here. Being able to zoom right in with the S21 has made the dramatic Fettes College the focus of the image, eliminating all of the cluttering details like the buildings and cars that remain present in the iPhone's shot.  Galaxy S21 Ultra, 10x zoom. Andrew Hoyle/CNET iPhone 12 Pro Max, 2.5x zoom. Andrew Hoyle/CNET And here, the iPhone's 2.5x zoom falls far behind the Galaxy S21 Ultra, which is able to zoom right on the distant buildings of Edinburgh's center.  Galaxy S21 10x zoom (left) versus iPhone 12 Pro Max digital zoom (right). Andrew Hoyle/CNET On the left is a shot overlooking Edinburgh's Princes Street, taken using the S21 Ultra's 10x zoom lens. On the right I've tried to digitally zoom in to an equivalent level with the iPhone 12 Pro Max. The difference is huge, with extremely mushy details on the iPhone's shot that doesn't look at all good. When it comes to zooming in, the Galaxy S21 Ultra is on a whole other level.  Galaxy S21 Ultra, night mode. Andrew Hoyle/CNET iPhone 12 Pro Max, night mode. Andrew Hoyle/CNET My last test was this still life scene, which I set up in an extremely dark room. The iPhone 12 Pro Max quite comfortably takes the win here -- its shot is brighter and with less image noise than the image from the S21 Ultra. I also appreciated that the iPhone automatically switches into night mode when it needs to, whereas I had to go into More and then select a specific night mode on the S21. It's a small point, but Apple has always had an intuitive user interface, which does make it quicker to get shots. Now playing: Watch this: We review the Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G and its bonkers cameras 9:22 Which phone has the best camera? Which camera is best is not an easy question to answer. Fundamentally, they're both superb, being able to take vibrant images with excellent dynamic range. It's close, but generally I prefer shots taken on the iPhone as they tend to have more natural colors and less digital sharpening. I tend to edit all my images, however, so I like a more natural base image to work with -- you may prefer a more finished image to share straight out of camera.  But it's the zoom that really separates these two and it's worth thinking about how often you've wanted to zoom in closer when you've taken photos before. It really does add a whole new option for composing your images that the iPhone simply can't provide and means that you're walking around with a more complete photography kit bag, ready for any scene you come across. If you've ever felt the 2x zoom on your old phone lacking, the S21 Ultra may well be the camera for you. CNET Mobile Discover the latest news and best reviews in smartphones and carriers from CNET's mobile experts. Let's block ads! (Why?)

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