XDA

mercredi 12 février 2020

AT&T and T-Mobile expand their 5G coverage to more cities

Yesterday, Samsung finally took the wraps off the Galaxy S20 series. We were officially introduced to the three new devices: Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20+, and Galaxy S20 Ultra. As with a lot of the phone launches we’ll see this year, 5G was mentioned a lot. To go along with that, AT&T and T-Mobile are expanding their 5G networks.

Not all 5G is created equal. There are several different technologies that carriers are using right now and they all have their pros and cons. AT&T and T-Mobile run low-band 5G networks, which offers great coverage, but not the ludicrous speeds you may expect. Both companies have announced new cities added to these networks.

AT&T has added Gila County, Ariz., Hartford, Conn., Kalamazoo, Mich., Kansas City, Mo., Macon, Ga., Newaygo County, Mich., Northeast Penn., Salem, Ore., Spokane, Wash., Worth County, Ga. and York, Penn. T-Mobile has added a whopping 95 cities and towns.

Low-band 5G has the advantage of being available in many places that LTE is already present. The downside is it’s not as fast as mmWave, which can get up to 700Mbps. Right now, though, mmWave is extremely limited. You need to be outdoors and in very specific locations to get it. The Galaxy S20+ and Ultra support mmWave.

Regardless of the format, 5G is becoming available in some form or another in many more places. The Galaxy S20 series can take advantage of that.

Source: PC Mag

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Breaking: Mobile World Congress 2020 has been canceled

Mobile World Congress 2020 has been officially canceled. GSMA, the organization that puts on MWC in Barcelona each year, broke the news in a statement to Bloomberg. A reporter from FT and La Vanguardia are also independently reporting the news, and the GSMA issued a statement on its official newsroom. The event is being called off due to a growing number of companies pulling out of the show.

JUST IN: The 2020 Mobile World Congress has been canceled by GSMA because of #coronavirus fears.

In an emailed statement, John Hoffman, the CEO of GSMA, said the outbreak has made it “impossible” to hold the event #MWC2020 pic.twitter.com/PS1BqTCzU8

— QuickTake by Bloomberg (@QuickTake) February 12, 2020

This may not come as a surprise if you’ve been following the news. Phone manufacturers who had already dropped out of the show completely or canceled their presentations include LG, Sony, TCL, ZTE, Vivo, HMD Global, and many others. With just under two weeks until MWC was scheduled to begin, it became clear that the snowball effect would only get worse.

The reason behind all of these companies withdrawing is due to the 2019 novel Coronavirus (the infection of which is now called COVID-19) outbreak. Many of the companies pointed to the potential health risk for the thousands of employees and attendees. GSMA CEO John Hoffman said the potential for an outbreak has made it “impossible” to hold the event.

Hundreds of thousands of people from around the world attend the conference, and companies spend millions of dollars in preparation for the event. The cancelation of this event will deal a major blow to the industry, as we were expecting major smartphone launches from brands like HMD Global, Huawei, Honor, LG, Motorola, OPPO, Realme, Sony, TCL, Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE. Of course, there will likely still be a lot of mobile news to come later this month. Companies have been preparing for the show for a long time and they will still need to show off new products. It just won’t happen at MWC, where thousands of journalists conveniently gather.

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Essential shuts down: No more PH-1 updates, No GEM phone

Started by former Android co-founder Andy Rubin, Essential burst onto the scene back in 2017 with the Essential PH-1. The company has never released a follow-up to that phone, but it has continued to offer exceptional software support with monthly security patches and major Android OS upgrades right after Google. It turns out that’s where the story ends as the company has announced it will shut down immediately.

At the time of its release, the Essential Phone had a very unique design. It was really the first major phone with the now-infamous “notch” for the front-facing camera. Essential didn’t sell a ton of these phones, though, and the early reviews were pretty harsh, especially on the camera and signal performance.

Essential Phone XDA Forums

Back in October, Rubin tweeted a couple of images of a very strange-looking device. Many were expecting the company to launch a successor to the PH-1, but it looks like the company was going in a radically different direction. Their new phone was tall, narrow, and had a color-shifting coating. That was the last we heard of “Project GEM.” The company says they’ve “taken GEM as far as we can and regrettably have no clear path to deliver it to customers. Given this, we have made the difficult decision to cease operations and shutdown Essential.” The company also published a few videos showing off the software UI, app experience, camera, voice integration, and overall design of the GEM phone.

While the decision to cancel Project GEM may be disappointing for some, that move may not be the worst news of the day. In shutting down, the company confirmed the Essential Phone will no longer receive updates. The security update from earlier this month will be the last official update from the team. The company reassures its customers that their phones will continue working, but for those of you who are looking for updates, you’ll have to turn to the custom development community. Fortunately, before shutting down, Essential published some important tools for developers on its GitHub page. Lastly, since Essential purchased Newton Mail, that service will also shut down, but not until April 30, 2020.

RIP.

Source: Essential

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OnePlus aims to have its devices be Android Enterprise Recommended this year

In February 2018, Google launched the Android Enterprise Recommended program. This program’s existence is to create a list of certified devices that are recommended for enterprises to roll out to their employees for work management. Enterprises have to manage their employees’ work phones remotely, and to improve Android’s reputation in the enterprise, the Android Enterprise Recommended program has continued to be tweaked since the last two years.

139 phones are now certified as Android Enterprise Recommended. Google also added a separate category for rugged devices in 2018. Those devices will get five years of security updates. In 2019, Google made it mandatory for Android Enterprise Recommended devices with Android 10 to have a separate Work tab in the app drawer instead of Work folders. Carriers are now required to support zero-touch enrollment and rapidly approve security maintenance releases.

The AER program comes with its requirements. Certified devices must receive security patch updates within 90 days, and they must support zero-touch enrollment. They have certain hardware requirements as well, such as having a battery life of 8+ hours, having at least 2GB of RAM and 32GB storage, and they should be available in an unlocked nature. The full list of requirements can be viewed here.

Device makers must satisfy these requirements for their devices to be certified. Phones from the likes of Google itself, HMD Global, Sony, LG, Motorola, Sharp, and other companies are certified as Android Enterprise Recommended. Device makers such as Xiaomi, OPPO, Vivo, OnePlus, and others are missing from the list, while Huawei was taken off the list as a result of the US trade ban. OnePlus aims to rectify this in 2020.

In reply to a user on its forums asking about the certification of OnePlus devices as Android Enterprise Recommended, OnePlus said that doing this was one of its goals this year. The company hopes to bring good news regarding this soon. Its aim to have its phones certified by Google makes sense. This is because it will ensure they are used by enterprises that now demand only Android Enterprise Recommended devices. If the certification is done this year, it will have a positive effect on OnePlus device users who are currently forced to use an alternative phone for work because of their company’s device management requirements.

Source: OnePlus

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Breaking: Mobile World Congress 2020 has been canceled

Mobile World Congress 2020 has been officially canceled. GSMA, the organization that puts on MWC in Barcelona each year, broke the news in a statement to Bloomberg. A reporter from FT and La Vanguardia are also independently reporting the news. The event is being called off due to a growing number of companies pulling out of the show.

JUST IN: The 2020 Mobile World Congress has been canceled by GSMA because of #coronavirus fears.

In an emailed statement, John Hoffman, the CEO of GSMA, said the outbreak has made it “impossible” to hold the event #MWC2020 pic.twitter.com/PS1BqTCzU8

— QuickTake by Bloomberg (@QuickTake) February 12, 2020