Apple insider Ming-Chi Kuo predicts that the second generation AirPods, with a wireless charging case, will only become official next year.
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The 2018 Deloitte Mobile Consumer Survey has revealed that 39% of Australians think they use their phones too much, while 26% of Aussies feel they’re able to limit their dependence on their devices.
Another 34% say they’re trying to use their smartphones less but aren’t succeeding in their efforts.
However, with the rise in the cost of a flagship handset, it’s no surprise that Australians are holding on to their phones for longer. The number of people with new phones (handsets that are less than 18 months old) has dropped to 58%, down from 61% in 2016.
Out of the 2,000 Australians surveyed, almost a quarter of the participants said they were watching more video content on their phones. The survey reckons that number is a staggering 400% higher than it was in 2016.
This, too, shouldn’t come as a surprise either. With phone plans offering more and more data, consumers are comfortable with streaming TV shows and movies on their phones.
“Our phone is now our primary computer as well as increasingly a very important entertainment device,” explained Kate Huggins, a consulting partner at Deloitte. “In the past, it was quite normal behaviour to wait until you’re on a Wi-Fi network before using those data-rich applications.”
Of note is the rise in the number of people watching live TV on their handsets; 23% of respondents said they watch live TV each week on their phones. This number is up from 19% in 2017 and just 6% in 2016.
According to this 2018 survey, smartphone ownership Down Under is at its highest, with 89% of Aussie currently owning a handset. However, that's only a 1% increase from last year.
With the spread of smartphone use at its highest, the survey also found that 16% of respondents regularly use the digital assistants on their smartphones – a slight increase from the 14% in 2017.
It has also been revealed that 23% more Australians are using fingerprint authentication on their phones instead of passwords as compared to last year. This includes a rise of 53% in the use of fingerprint authorisation for mobile payments and an increase of 67% using fingerprint technology to authorise money transfers.
"The smartphone is becoming even more central to the way we work (70% of us use smartphones for work, while 90% of businesses rank a connected work place in their top priorities), the way we access entertainment and how we carry out our daily lives," said Peter Corbett, Deloitte Partner and National Telecommunications lead.
"A consumer’s choice of phone impacts their access to the cloud, the expanding world of voice assistants, streaming services, smart home technologies, the ways people pay for goods and services, and even the ways they monitor their daily health," he added. "The impact of replacing a handset can now have significant influence on the services we access, which is another reason people are changing phones less often."
Augmented reality (AR) is one of the newest and fastest-developing areas in smartphone tech – and, no, it’s not just about pointing your phone’s camera at products in the supermarket to find out whether they're cheaper online.
AR can be fun, and educational, too. It will let the little ones draw sculptures in 3D like a preschool Rodin, make Lego creations without you having to spend any money on sets, and learn about ancient Egypt.
All you’ll need are either an iPhone of the 6S generation (2015) or newer, or a phone that runs Android 7.0 or newer. Got that sorted? Here are five AR apps you should try.
Download: Android
Have you seen how expensive Lego sets are? Letting your kids loose on the AR alternative may only cement their love for these pricey colorful bricks, but it’s one way to stop them asking for a new real-life set right now.
Lego has made a bunch of game-like apps that let you build creations brick-by-brick, and then bring them to life with animations and movement. BrickHeadz Builder AR is the most ambitious, as it transposes the process of making Lego creations onto the real world.
This initially sounds incredibly fiddly, but your kids are eased into it, and it's a great demonstration of the fidelity of augmented reality hardware.
If your children find it too tricky, you might want to install one of Lego’s non-AR apps. Lego Duplo Train is perfect for young children. Too simple? Juniors Create & Cruise is a little less simplistic, and Lego Creator Islands is another step up in the level of interaction.
The traditionally tech-cautious BBC has already experimented with augmented reality, producing Civilisations AR. It turns your phone into a mini museum, letting you discover real-life exhibits by dropping them AR-style onto your kitchen table.
Your kids can then explore them, using a virtual flashlight to highlight parts, and read more about them in the written guide. All of the exhibits are real-life objects, and Civilisations AR tells you the museum in which they're housed.
Planning a visit to the British Museum during the school holidays or on a trip to the UK? Civilisations AR is a neat way to get them to engage before you even get there. This is probably an app only older children will enjoy, though, as while the text is easy to read, it hasn’t been watered down to suit a very young audience.
Had enough of our educational picks? Crayola Color Blaster (it's Color Blast AR at the App Store) is pure silly fun. It’s an augmented reality game in which you blast zombies and dragons with paint, and have to move around your home to avoid them.
This isn’t a violent game, so it's perfect for kids, but you do lose paint bucket 'lives' if the waves of enemies catch up with you.
There’s a story mode that teases the most entertainment out of a simple AR action style, and an arcade mode that does the trick for a quick five-minute splatter-fest. Both of these modes are free to play in Crayola Color Blaster.
The star map was one of the original uses for augmented reality. Google released its Sky Map astronomy chart in 2007, and a phone app version appeared not long after Android was born.
You can still download and try that app on an Android phone – it’s called Sky Map. However, there are now much more advanced and visually appealing takes on the same idea, and Star Walk 2 is one of the best.
Point your phone at the sky and you can use it to identify constellations, and zoom in to see information on planets and star clusters.
The amount of information packed into Star Walk 2 when you dig a little deeper is sensational. The only issue is that the app is a little heavy-handed with ads; however the ad-free version is well worth the $2.99 (£2.99, AU$4.49) price if it sparks your kids’ imaginations.
This is an official Google AR app, and it’s brilliant.
On paper, Just a Line sounds almost too simplistic: it lets you draw in AR, with a white line of one of three thicknesses. There’s no color, and no textures or brush styles.
However, in practice it’s spellbinding. Just a Line doesn’t feel like drawing – it’s closer to creating a sculpture in 3D space, or virtual 3D printing, with the movement of your phone teasing out the line in all directions rather than just on a flat plane. You can then pan around your creation in seamless 3D.
Just a Line even lets you draw with another person in the same 3D environment, using another phone or tablet that supports ARCore, Google’s augmented reality standard.
You can also record a video of your painting sculpture in action. This is most definitely not 'just a line'.
When you find yourself in a new city, whether it's on holiday with family or friends or on a work trip, the last thing you want is to buy dinner from 'that place the locals avoid because they all know the person who calls themselves a chef reheats prawns in the microwave'.
The good news is there’s a small army of free smartphone apps that will help you find the best eateries in any town, big or small. Whether you want a blow-out three-course meal, or just want to find the best on-the-go falafel wrap, there’s an app for the job.
Our guide includes apps you may have heard of, and a few you probably won't have, offering user reviews, pro reviews and app-based table booking, and even speciality apps to help you track down the places vegans can eat without worrying if there’s meat in the noodle broth.
There are curated food apps, and those that rely on user reviews. Dojo is a fully-curated app, and it doesn’t offer any random family restaurants, or bargain eateries.
Dojo is about what’s hot, and what’s cool: the places where the people who wear trends that haven't even appeared in Vogue yet can be found.
Don’t skip this one if you have an aversion to hipsters, though. Dojo offers some genuinely interesting and worthwhile food suggestions that would never bob to the surface in an app like TripAdvisor.
It posts reviews of restaurants too, with write-ups just a couple of paragraphs long to keep things snappy.
An institution when it comes to advice on great nights out, Time Out has been around for 50 years now. It covers major cities across the world, and publishes review scores by its own critics and customers. That’s people like us.
Time Out lets you find new and interesting spots without feeling that you’re in danger of becoming a slave to the latest trends. You can also book tables from within the app.
It's not just for restaurants and cafes, though – Time Out is also one of the best resources if you're looking for something to do before or after dining.
HappyCow is dedicated to vegans out there who still struggle to find somewhere that actually serves good vegan food, not just pasta with tomato paste with non-vegetarian parmesan on top.
HappyCow does have quite a ramshackle design, and a basic layout that won’t win any awards. However, the content is invaluable.
You can search for vegan and vegetarian restaurants, as well as those with veggie options, although if you’re after the latter you might as well use one of the bigger apps.
The best part is how HappyCow has been embraced by the veggie and vegan community, so you’ll find plenty of user reviews for most locations – just because a restaurant is 'vegan' doesn’t mean it’s any good.
Formerly known as Urbanspoon, Zomato is the 'other' big restaurant-finder app, alongside TripAdvisor and Yelp. It’s the least popular of the three, although it has quite a following in India, where the main Zomato team is based.
Should you use Yelp, Zomato or TripAdvisor? All have very large databases, and while Zomato has the smallest userbase, there’s still enough to fill most restaurant listings with reviews.
Menus are where Zomato puts in extra effort. Yelp often offers a link to the restaurant’s menu webpage, but Zomato is chock full of actual photos of menus. This is handy for smaller places that may not have a website, or one that hasn't been updated in the last two years.
Many don’t think of this as an app at all, but Google Assistant is one of the best ways to find somewhere nearby to eat – if you have an Android phone, anyway.
Just typing (or speaking) “pizza”, “Thai” or “curry” into the Assistant interface is enough to get you a whole bunch of nearby suggestions from the great Google database in the sky.
Listings appear based roughly on the same criteria as TripAdvisor. A closer location and better user reviews will mean you’re more likely to see a restaurant appear.
Google Assistant wins the prize for sheer quick-fix results. Right at the top you’ll see just a few suggestions rather than the endless lists Yelp and TripAdvisor offer. You’ll see similar results from searching in Chrome or Google Maps, mind – as ever with Google, they’re all linked.
You probably already know about TripAdvisor. It collates millions of reviews of restaurants, cafes, pubs, hotels and attractions from around the world.
Even if you don’t trust totally user-based review systems, there’s fun to be had here reading about the terrible experiences some patrons have had.
If you'll need to find nearby restaurants in another country while on holiday, don’t forget that you can download listings for many big cities, which saves you having to risk racking up high roaming charges.
To download a city, type its name into the app search bar and then scroll down its page. You have to flick through a lot of thumbnail images, but you should see a download link with an indication of how much room the city will take up – London, for example, is only 111MB without photos, which is a data bargain.
The major alternative to TripAdvisor, Yelp focuses on locals looking for places to go rather than travelers. The core concept is the same, though, with Yelp powered by user reviews.
These determine a restaurant’s rating, and written reviews let you look into whether there have been recent rodent sightings, or reports of the “worst service ever” – although a lot of places seem to have that, according to the app's users.
A blog-style section makes Yelp feel a little different to TripAdvisor, though. There aren’t Time Out-style articles based on staff picks, but more fast-moving weekly rankings based on the recent reviews of 'Elite' Yelp-ers.
This UK app is known for its delivery service – it’s perfect for finding local takeaways which don't have the money or time to create an inviting, professionally-made website.
You can order for collection from Just Eat too – just select Collection instead of Delivery at checkout. You can even pay with cash, meaning you pay no money through Just Eat at all. This is an established company, though, so don’t shy away from paying with a card.
Just Eat is a great app for lower-cost, classic takeaway meals, particularly curries, pizza, and Thai and Chinese food.
This is the premier app for booking tables at restaurants, because so many eateries actually use OpenTable’s system to manage their bookings.
In TripAdvisor you might search for nearby pizza restaurants, but with OpenTable you can look for places with a table for four available at 7pm. Thanks to that tight integration with the establishment itself, you can often look through the whole menu as you browse too.
This isn’t quite the best app to get the nitty-gritty on restaurants, though. There is a reviews section, but you don’t get to see 'candid' reviews of the food, as seen on TripAdvisor.
Still, if you want to organize an evening without having to worry about finding the restaurant of your choice fully booked, download OpenTable right away.
It looks like the writing could be on the wall for Google Hangouts... again. The venerable messaging app is going to close down to consumers at some point in 2020, according to sources speaking to 9to5Google, though it will live on as a business tool.
Based on internal roadmaps inside Google, 2019 will be the last year you can make the most of Hangouts unless you've signed up to G Suite. That won't come as much of a surprise to those who've been watching the development of Hangouts closely – Google has largely given up on Hangouts as a messaging tool for the masses.
That's a shame, because Hangouts is actually very good: lightweight, versatile, and available everywhere from your Gmail inbox to your phone. It certainly fared much better than Google Allo, which was built primarily to replace Hangouts.
Now it would seem Google is turning its back on both Allo and Hangouts in the near future and focusing all its attention on Android Messages – or rather the chat platform that underpins apps including Android Messages.
In an attempt to build something approaching an iMessage competitor, Google is backing the RCS or Rich Communication Services standard. It essentially gives good old SMS a few useful upgrades, so it can better handle media files and group chat and so on, but so far the phone networks have been slow to provide the necessary support for it.
Hangouts was already a pretty decent iMessage competitor, but apparently Google doesn't agree. As yet there's no official word from Google about how long Hangouts is going to last, but we wouldn't bet on being able to use it into the next decade.
Planning to exercise is easy. Actually doing it can be trickier, as your good intentions collide with real life. But 10 minutes is more than enough time to cram in some cardio, whether you go for a run, try some yoga or just loosen up with some stretches.
And your phone can help you max out your use of time rather than just wasting it. Have 10 minutes to spare? Here are some ways to use that sliver of your day to slide in a workout that'll make you fitter – and maybe even happier.
All these apps are free to download, but some have 'premium' unlocks, and we'll tell you how much they cost.
There are many 7-minute workout apps, but Perigee’s Seven is perhaps the most polished. The concept of the 7-minute workout is simple: it only uses basic equipment that you’ll have around the house like (drum roll)… a chair.
And, you guessed it, the workouts only take seven minutes.
The obvious question: why seven minutes? This number was cemented as the most effective duration, for maximum results with the least effort. After all, seven minutes may not sound like a lot, but it feels like a lot longer when your heart rate is at 80% of its maximum rate.
Exercises you’ll find in a 7-minute workout include crunches, squats and the side plank.
Yoga can be intimidating. You often won't know how 'spiritual' a particular class will be, while if you’re completely new to yoga exercises then you may feel out of your depth – and yoga memberships can be pricey.
Down Dog is a good way to easy yourself into yoga. It offers lessons in video form, complete with a soundtrack – and yes, you can mute the music if you just want to hear the instructions.
The app lets you choose the length of your session, to the minute if you only have a short stretch to spare – seven minutes is the shortest session on offer. You can try Down Dog for free, and after that the best-value approach is to buy a year’s access.
At the time of writing this costs $29.99 / £29.49 / AU$45.99. The trial version isn't packed with ads either, unlike many exercise apps.
Nike’s training app covers a wide range of disciplines, from yoga and no-equipment core strength workouts to ones that require a near-full gym setup. Go to the Workouts section, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and you’ll find the 'Short Workouts' section.
Many are still around the 15-20 mark, but there are a handful of sub-10 minute exercises too, including Run Ready Yoga, led by singer Ellie Goulding no less – several videos feature celebs, which you won’t find in many exercise apps.
Nike Training is completely free – as ever, you pay with your data if you're not using it over Wi-fi, and Nike wants to keep its brand in the forefront of your mind when you’re in the market for some sports equipment.
However, this is a brilliant freebie, particularly if you can squeeze in a 15-minute workout rather than a 10-minute one, which will enable you to choose from lots more options.
A 10-minute daily run is one of the best ways to up your cardio game – and it’s a kind of exercise that won’t disturb the neighbors below if you live in a flat.
Use Google Fit to GPS-track your run and you’ll get an accurate read on how far you make it – you should be able to reach a mile at a moderate pace if you’re not a running novice.
Just bear in mind that you may want to tack on a few minutes of walking to warm-up, and stretching after you’re done is also a good idea, to avoid injury. If you want to try a non-Google tracker app, consider Strava, Runkeeper, Nike+ Run Club or Map My Run.
Leap Fitness has made many health and fitness apps, from ovulation trackers and blue light filters to the 'six-pack in 30 days' challenge. However, its Stretching Exercises app is the one for quick everyday tone-ups.
It’s easy to dismiss stretches as a sort of pre-exercise tool, but the ones you're taken through here incorporate yoga poses and crunches. They’re real mini-workouts, and all but the longer Back Stretching plan take less than 10 minutes.
Try the morning and 'sleepy time stretching' plans and you should be able to work out some of those shoulder kinks – those exercises combined only take up 10 minutes.
A kettlebell is the ultimate one-piece workout tool. They're the trendy alternative to dumbbells, with kettlebell exercises working a wider array of muscle groups than traditional weight maneuvers.
The Kettlebell app lets you choose the length of your workout to the minute, and which muscle groups to include. An on-screen guide then shows you what to do at each step.
This is a solid app to help improve your functional strength, for benefits you’re more likely to notice in your day-to-day life, rather than ones that are only apparent when you're striking a pose in front the mirror in your swimming costume.
You can use an ad-supported version of Kettlebell for free, while the premium version is just $2.99 / £2.89 / AU$4.49.
This app is a simplified version of what’s on offer in the full Fitify, an expansive workout app that’s worth a try if you can find more than 10 minutes a day to spare. It’s also a sister app to Kettlebell, with roughly the same interface, and exercises designed for those without any equipment to hand.
It’s great if you want to get your heart rate up in the 70-80% of max range quickly, and there’s also a category for joint-friendly exercises if your knees are a little dodgy.
Like Kettlebell, you can use this app for free, or pay a small one-off fee for ad-free access.
First came the notch, and we all put up with a black shape at the top of our phone screens in return for some extra room on the display. Next, apparently, is the cut-out pinhole variation on the notch – a single hole for the front-facing camera, surrounded by screen.
We already know that these kind of phone designs are on the way (see the Huawei teaser image above), and we've even got a name in some cases: Samsung is describing the look as an Infinity-O display. However, we haven't seen much in the way of actual hardware – until this weekend that is, as a flurry of leaked images hit the web in quick succession.
Starting with Samsung, we don't have a picture of an actual device, but we do have screenshots logged with US regulators, showing a space in the top left corner. This is probably the design that will appear on the Samsung Galaxy A8s.
Then there's Lenovo – a grainy video of what is claimed to be the Lenovo Z5s just hit the web, showing a pinhole cut-out in the center up at the top of the screen. It gives you a good idea of what this kind of design is going to be like to use.
And earlier this week we saw what is supposedly being called the Huawei Nova 4 revealed in a live online broadcast from China – during birthday celebrations for singer Jackson Yee (look him up). Again you can see the phone display and its cut-out clearly on show, which suggests the phone is about to be launched, perhaps as early as next week.
The question now is which company will get a handset out of the door first. Both Samsung and Huawei have been keen to get that "first" badge of honor in the past (quad-lens camera, anyone?), so they have to be the favorites right now.
