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Right now any headphone maker in the world can make any headphones they want for the standard jack. Not so with the Lightning port.

That's supposed to be an argument for this change? I don't care if it's a good move for Apple, it's a bad move for me. My iPhone spends ~10 hours every day with something plugged into the 3.5mm jack between my car's auxiliary cable and my nice headphones at work. A new iPhone is already over $600, now I'm expected to get bluetooth installed in my car and toss my $200 headphones, or constantly carry an adapter cable, or buy 3 adapter cables to keep at home, work, and in my car? That's insane.

Well, it may be insane; but 3.5 mm jacks on phones are already going the way of the Dodo.

But nobody cares if Motorola or LeEco or whoever ELSE does it; but if Apple DARES to even have a RUMOR of ditching the 3.5mm jack (in favor of what? Nobody knows; but everyone speculates), they are the frickin' Antichrist...

Of course, now that I've posted this, the Fandroids will just start accusing Apple of copying Android (facepalm).

It looks like the OS doesn't suck, but the hardware does...

http://www.digitaltrends.com/c...
"The Marshall London looks fantastic, and its musical ability lives up to expectations, but it's a terribly mediocre, overpriced smartphone."

http://www.androidauthority.co...
"What the Marshall London does have going for it is its near-stock Android experience. Marshall didn't try too hard to make Google's OS different, something that might have helped keep the phone snappier. Just keep in mind you would be getting a mid-to-low tier performance out of this phone. That's really the important part....
With that said, we also have to mention casual smartphone users will have to cut too many corners to live with superior sound. That's the main issue here, Marshall took a generic phone and put its name on it. Cool apps and a good design won't be enough to put this phone in the hands of people outside the target niche. Especially when considering that price."

http://www.alphr.com/mobile-ph...
"A distinct lack of imagination continues throughout the handset."

I bought Tasker. Doesn't work on iOS.

http://www.appszoom.com/androi...

Some also use it with other apps:
http://www.androidauthority.co...
http://www.xda-developers.com/...

To me Tasker is one of the few apps that can make smartphones smarter...

Let me know when a Chromebook can actually run software. No, browsing the web, sending mail or writing a letter doesn't count.

This fall.

If a fake fingerprint scanned is not perfectly made (by an adversary or some state organization), the system could just fail back to the password prompt. Fingerprint scanner protection could also be mixed with the security feature recently announced that would analyze the user's actions and compare it with the typical owner's behaviour. If mismatch is found the system would require password input. http://www.androidauthority.co...

One of these cheap cables wasn't wired correctly and when Benson connected it to a Pixel C to charge some device (Nexus Phone?), the Pixel was destroyed. Apparently during manufacture two wires in one of the connectors were switched.

One difference between older USB cables is that the Type C cables contain a 56 k ohm pull up resistor for current control purpose. Some of the out of spec USB C cables with at least one USB Type C plug - probably a USB Type A plug at the other end - have a lower valued resistor and can cause problems. The problem is that if a lower resistance is used with a power supply that can only provide 1 Amp instead of 3 Amps at 5 Volts, the power supply can be fried as it tries to deliver 3 Amps. This could be the case for powered USB ports on computers. I've read that Apple laptops with a Type A compatible connector cannot deliver 3 Amps (1 Amp?) and might be at risk of damage when using an out of spec USB Type C connector cable with the wrong resistor. Further more, these out of spec cables may not be cheap. For more information, check the linked page and scroll down a bit:
http://www.androidauthority.co...

Hopefully I can use my phone as an NFC card or something. Come to think of it, not sure that phones can do that without power...

An interesting question

Passive NFC devices include tags, and other small transmitters, that can send information to other NFC devices without the need for a power source of their own. However, they don’t really process any information sent from other sources, and can’t connect to other passive components. These often take the form of interactive signs on walls or advertisements.

I actually saw this quote last but this seems to clinch it. Regardless of how they would work in a situation where they both lack power they're both passive and therefore can't connect to each other.

The technology used in NFC is based on older RFID (Radio-frequency identification) ideas, which uses electromagnetic induction in order to transmit information.

...passive devices don’t require their own power supply, and can instead be powered by the electromagnetic field produced by an active NFC component when it comes into range [...] NFC technology does not command enough inductance to be used to charge our smartphones, but QI charging is based on the same principle.

Read/write mode, on the other hand, is a one way data transmission, where the active device, possibly your smartphone, links up with another device in order to read information from it. This is the mode used when you interact with an NFC advert tag.

In order to determine what sort of information is to be exchanged between devices, the NFC standard currently has three distinct modes of operation for compliant devices. Perhaps the most common use in smartphones is the peer-to-peer mode, which allows two NFC-enabled devices to exchange various pieces of information between each other. In this mode both devices switch between active, when sending data, and passive states when receiving.

[What is NFC?]

Bah I was going to try to organize all of this into a comprehensive order to prove that I think sans power it wouldn't work but hopefully this is enough.

AMOLED displays recently became less expensive than LCD displays: http://www.androidauthority.co... Given that, and especially given the fact that they are lighter and thinner (always priorities at Apple), a switch seems inevitable. One difference we are likely to see from the competition is that Apple's displays will be tuned for color accuracy rather than impact; they will probably look less vibrant than the displays on Samsung phones but will display colors more faithfully.

this strength of AMOLED is something Tim Cook was spreading FUD about last year

This is what Tim Cook said about OLED in Feb 2013 (not last year):

When you look at displays, some people are focused on size. There’s a few other things about the display that are important. Some people use OLED displays, the color saturation is awful.

In fact, reading articles from back then, over-saturation was a problem for AMOLED displays. Since that time OLED technology has worked on many of the shortcomings including contrast, saturation, and cost. However not all OLED displays are equal as the Android forums have noted as a few months ago. I don't see that as FUD.

A4WP and PMA have merged to form Rezence, which should become the prevailing standard as it's better technology than Qi. So it's really too bad that Ikea is supporting WPC - which will probably not emerge as the winning standard. Ikea can always make next year's furniture with Rezence, but it's not clear first gen customers that got Qi would be able to upgrade. Also the article is misleading in that it suggests Samsung is completely in the WPC camp when they are also involved with and helped found A4WP (Rezence) and believe it's the future.

Newer versions of Android (I'm wanting to say 4.3 or above, but I'm not certain) allow you to disable those, which includes removing the icon for them and making sure they can't run.

Starting with 5.0 there's another potential improvement: http://www.androidauthority.co...

They already did. Beats was only used with the HTC M7. Now, they call the exact same thing "Boomsound". If you use Sprint in the USA, you can also get the HTC One M8/Harmon Kardon Edition, which is actually an improvement over the software that works with the standard M8's boomsound (though I am not sure the hardware changes at all). It also gains the ability to play FLAC files, which Beats didn't give, a free Spotify account for 6 months for "Framily [sic] plan" users, and a nice set of earphones. But as a past Sprint user for over 10 years, I am an ex-Sprint user now and probably forever, and the only reason I would consider getting this phone would be to immediately root it which would negate some of the bonus features that only work on the Sprint Network. If it supported two SIMs, I would seriously consider that, though.

Android has just over 50% of the US marketshare, hardly "fallen so far".

I suppose that 60% counts as "just over 50%" if you hold your tongue right.

href=http://www.androidauthority.com/android-up-8-us-market-374932/

And when buying Android you get to support Microsoft to the tune of 2 billion dollars per year.

LINK | LINK 2 | LINK 3

Allow the police the right to search the phone, but don't make it a law that the accused has to unlock or unencrypt the data on the phone. I have no problem wiht the police looking through my phone, but if you want to get inside any of my data then be prepared to crack it.

Easy. http://www.androidauthority.com/xry-software-crack-ios-android-70132/
This is automated these days. You should be more careful.

The Feds put backdoors into everything modern, so the apis are already there to not even need to crack. You may be trading your cheap (but clean) low-encryption device for one that offers OVAR 9,000-bit encryption... with the catch that some hardware signal triggers its yield-to-cops() function so it's laughably less work to penetrate your data and unlock, than your ancient device's real implementation (backed by more honesty) would present to them.

the world has changed in the last 12 years that you've had your head buried in the sand... nowadays police don't need warrants for anything

I thought GP was going to cite what I was thinking about in that quote.

They do indeed still need a warrant. It's the law. If you keep everything encrypted you are protected from any law officer under the delusion that they don't need a warrant.

Let's face it, law officers aren't the brightest people. In fact you are automatically disqualified from being in law enforecement if your IQ is high enough.

tldr; use encryption, protect yourself from dumbfucks.

You didn't either. What I was looking for is what I've heard about forensic tools that are now available to any cop, if I recall correctly, where they just plug in your phone and sluuuuurp! Done!
So you don't even need to unlock it, regardless of whether it's iOS or Android based. Since the US government has agreements with all those companies and there are backdoors in everything, the war is lost if the device leaves your hands, being it the good guys, or the bad guys.

http://www.androidauthority.com/xry-software-crack-ios-android-70132/ (plus some irony in the comment section given those were made in pre-Snowden days of 2012)
http://www.hotforsecurity.com/blog/us-police-forensic-tools-can-collect-suspects-smartphone-data-without-warrant-aclu-says-5574.html

Because given misunderstandings, the only good guy when it comes to your personal data is your own self. Nothing will stop "parallel construction" from creating a probable cause to view your data in some new light.

See http://www.androidauthority.com/smartphones-have-a-second-os-317800/

Cellphones have two processors, a main processor (running an open-source OS in the case of Android) and a baseband processor built into the modem chip (running a closed-source OS in all cases). The baseband processor can be used to hack the phone. For a phone to be truly secure, you need a firewall between the main memory and the baseband processor, and AFAIK no phone is designed that way (except this one).

Hmmm, 1st quarter, 2nd quarter, 3rd quarter, 4th quarter

You have to question the wisdom of chasing the iPad which has dropped to 40% http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24093213 of the tablet market for 3 quarters (even after launching a smaller tablet) having been overtaken by Android, and growing less than half the overall market (Android is almost doubling growth).

As for competing with Apple because of an Office product even if it were true http://www.androidauthority.com/libreoffice-android-release-171002/ Libreoffice is getting frustrating close to release.

You can tell Microsoft and Apple want the safe Duopoly back; Androids monster growth is not going to stop anytime soon, the iPad is a dying platform.

http://www.androidauthority.com/galaxy-s4-not-cyanogenmod-support-174322/

Reports are coming in that Cyanogenmod will not be spending any resources on Galaxy S4. None. They've complained that the Galaxy models are too hard to keep working. The strange thing about it, Cyanogen works for Samsung on their Android Team.

Question is, will that affect your decision to buy or not buy the Galaxy S4.

The only reason I picked up a Galaxy S3 is because it was CM10 supported. 2 hours after purchase, warranty was voided and CM was running on it. So no CM, no sale.

http://www.androidauthority.com/galaxy-s4-not-cyanogenmod-support-174322/

Reports are coming in that Cyanogenmod will not be spending any resources on Galaxy S4. None. They've complained that the Galaxy models are too hard to keep working. The strange thing about it, Cyanogen works for Samsung on their Android Team.

Question is, will that affect your decision to buy or not buy the Galaxy S4.

http://www.androidauthority.com/t-mobile-carrier-strategy-dual-4g-164618/ T-mobile is rumored to be doing just that. They already kind of do with their value plans and having you bring your own phone. We switched to it recently from Verizon and bought two Nexus 4 phones. I have calculated that if I keep the same phone for three years which I feel is reasonable we will have saved $1200 over the three year period. The only issue is we had $750 to lay out up front which most people probably don't have. Our new plan has 1000 minutes which we will never touch vs. Verizon's unlimited and 2GB per phone vs 2GB shared on Verizon (which we probably would have broken that mark occasionally). So far the coverage has been fine but we live in a major metropolitan area so I have no idea what it it is like outside of that.

A quick search revealed these gems

http://tech2.in.com/news/android/malware-found-in-updates-app-on-google-play/523862

http://www.androidauthority.com/google-hosted-malware-on-its-play-store-during-q3-but-how-much-131309/

http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/07/more-malware-found-hosted-in-google-android-market/

And there are not.

Ergo, need. At least want, and the cell phone industry is dependent on WANT, not NEED. So finish the job, and let us get more of what we WANT.

If you want a keyboard with android, get one that has a keyboard.

Windows 8 overtakes all of Android web traffic in just 10 days http://www.androidauthority.com/windows-8-has-more-web-traffic-129925/

Well, Android users don't really USE their phones for the web it seems.

iOS devices seem to take in (depending on who you ask) around 65-80% of mobile web traffic to sites. The rest is mostly Android, but despite Android selling way more than iOS (and being around 75% marketshare), the vast majority of those devices aren't being used for the Internet.

Given that Android phones sell just as cheap as featurephones, it's probably not a surprise people buy them - free featurephone vs. free android phone.

So Windows 8 traffic surpassing Android isn't a huge surprise - despite being the market leader, few Android users actually use it to surf the 'net.

Anyone else tired of the constant negative stream of non-sequitir flamebait summaries and articles on Windows 8 or even Microsoft/Apple on Slashdot and any and all positive or neutral news being totally ignored?

Let's see...

Monday - Windows 8 PCs Still Throttled By Crapware

Tuesday - Hello, I'm a Mac. And I'm a $248 Win8 PC.

Thursday - NPD Group Analysts Say Windows 8 Sales Sluggish

Friday - Why Microsoft's Surface Pro Could Fail

Also, note how news on Tuesday that Microsoft has sold 40M Windows 8 licenses so far completely missed Slashdot's front page... only to be briefly mentioned two days later in the NPD story summary. But when there was a rumor that Windows 8 sales were below expectations, there it was hanging on the front page.

Also Slashdot totally ignored the following:

The NPD survey didn't include the biggest sales day of the year, Black Friday.

Black Friday boosts Windows 8 net use in US above 2% http://microsoft-news.com/black-friday-boosts-windows-8-net-use-in-us-above-2/
Windows 8 sells 4 million copies in 3 days. 40 million in a month. Some apps get more than 1 million downloads and some apps go over $25K revenue.
Windows 8 overtakes all of Android web traffic in just 10 days http://www.androidauthority.com/windows-8-has-more-web-traffic-129925/

New tagline:

Slashdot, Fox News for tech zealots, Stuff that doesn't matter.

Actually..
http://www.androidauthority.com/android-4-2-verify-apps-security-feature-explained-by-google-131514/

It is a very good feature, as it allows you to have sideloaded apps checked as well. Whatever you think of Google, they take their platforms and fundamentally improving them serious.

It's well-known that Apple's new A6 leaves other ARM-based chips in the dust.

sorry. the exynos 5 (samsung's A15) wipes the floor with the apple A6.
http://www.androidauthority.com/exynos-5-dual-benchmarks-125134/

20-30%. And as long as T-Mobile doesn't get the iPhone (I know you can get unlocked ones now, but still), you're probably still gonna end up being faster in most areas, since you're sharing with fewer people.

I've been running the latest ROM from project Jandycane over on XDA, hardware acceleration works just fine. The one thing I haven't bothered to sort out yet is the sleep mode. With the stock Kindle Fire ROM you can hit the power button and leave the Fire in your bag for a week or two without the battery running down, now it's running in the background as if it were a phone and the battery's flat in a day.
Otherwise, it works far better now that it did unmodified.
If you want to run Amazon apps, just register it as one of your android devices and re-send the apps to it.
This article is a bit dated, Jandycane is now on 1.7.3 updated last Oct.1st, but it hasn't changed that much.
http://www.androidauthority.com/kindle-fire-jelly-bean-tablet-ui-jandycane-custom-rom-105945/

I hear the next Samsung phones will come with free large pizzas because the phones are shipped in similar sized boxes.

Or they will be iPhone sized: http://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-galaxy-s3-mini-listing-120947/ - coming soon "Galaxy S III Mini"

If this was "made public" today, why is [sic] there so many articles from August 20th, when it was submitted?

Because the USITC acted on it yesterday.

If this was "made public" today, why is there so many articles from August 20th, when it was submitted? This is total bullshit, posted by Ars, just to try and get publicity with the iPhone 5 release tomorrow.

And for the record, I am not an Apple apologist, and I own a Galaxy S3. But I mean, bullshit is bullshit.

Except that Intel change their mind and now says that they will support Linux/Android with their Clover Trail chip

You could reduce the risk of theft by making your phone very very distinctive in a permanent way.

Ugly helps - example: http://www.androidauthority.com/good-guy-samsung-gives-free-custom-s3-lucky-facebook-fan-exchange-dragon-drawing-110858/

Low fence value, I bet the thief's girlfriend won't accept it either.

It's not 100% of course.

Way behind? Samsung sold 10 million in 60 days. Apple sold 20% of that number in 1.6% of the time. Not so sure that is way behind..

I've been responsible for converting more than a dozen people from Apple to Android now

I've converted a similar number from Android to iOS.

Basically, demonstrate the Google connectivity

Google's services are of course accessible from iPhone. Apple's services on the other hand don't tend to be available on Android.

show the hardware features (standard usb is a big deal for just about everybody)

iOS devices of course ship with a cable which plugs into any USB. So that's covered. However there are a huge variety of peripherals that use the Apple dock connector, and these Android users can't use them.

The bottom line is, a Google logo is just a lot more sought after these days than a half eaten apple.

Only for search. Market share of Google devices (Nexus) is miniscule next to iPhone. http://www.androidauthority.com/galaxy-nexus-minuscule-compared-iphone-sales-samsung-defense-against-apples-copy-claims-109137/

Another way to seal the deal, bring along a couple of Nexus tablets and demo a video chat using Google Talk, which is based on free-and-open Jabber/XMPP.

iOS ships with Facetime and has Skype and Jabber/XMPP clients available. You thus have more people you can do video chats with from an iPhone.

All the things you list, you're better off with an iPhone. You've given bad advice to your friends.

If it means universal service provisions for broadband internet access, then yes.

There are people in rural areas right now that don't have Internet access because telcos aren't willing to spend the money to run it out to them.

Universal service provisions allowed telephone service to reach every single person in the entire country back in the day. The same thing should happen for broadband internet access today.

I'm going to burst your bubble. In the US governments has already given cablecos and telcos hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to build out broadband. However all these companies did was pocket the money to be used as pocket liners. Former telecom industry analyst Bruce Kushnick documented how the federal government was ripped off by businesses in the e-book $200 Billion Broadband Scandal. In New Jersey alone Verizon was given tax breaks along with allowed to raise phone rates to cover the state with broadband. An agreement was reached between the state and Verizon 20 years ago but the state does not have wide coverage of broadband yet.

The only non-big government inexpensive way broadband will become more widely available throughout the US is by allowing competition and getting rid of monopolies/duopolies. Google is in the process of rolling-out fiber in Kansas City. Before fiber is rolled out in a neighborhood Google is asking 25% of the people to sign up and it costs $10. Wiki has an article on the plan, Google Fiber, including the cost for the services. 1Gbps net access and TV cost $120 a month with $300 construction fee. A Nexus 7 tablet is included. Internet access alone is $70 a month. In both cases the construction fee is waived if a 2 year contract is signed. And "Free Internet" with speeds of 5 Mbps / 1 Mbps is provided for the cost of the construction fee which can be spread out over a year, $25 a month.

There are people in rural areas right now that don't have Internet access because telcos aren't willing to spend the money to run it out to them.

While it may be expensive to roll out cables and fiber that's not true with radio, wire-less, access. Of course wire-less has it's own problems, such as not being that secure and not being as fast as fiber.

Falcon

It looks like samsung ships 20 to 45 million smart phones and tablets per quarter

This case only covers the US. In the US, from the summer of 2010 to the summer of 2012 Samsung sold approx 21 million phones and just over 1 million tablets.

/me looks at address bar

Hmm, so this isn't Wikipedia, then?

You said that, "until recently," you were missing this detail. I haven't heard anything about it, so isn't it reasonable to ask for a link?

But, I digress, here's your citation and a quote.

The presiding judge of the case, Lucy Koh, rejected Samsung’s multiple motions on the matter, because they were filed too late in the discovery stage (the stage when the two parties in a trial submit their evidence).

You said "Samsung countered by attempting to introduce the barred documents shortly after, still within the required timeframe.."
Your citation here is that Samsung filed motions to introduce the barred documents "too late."
Does "too late" mean something different to you?

/me looks at address bar

Hmm, so this isn't Wikipedia, then? But, I digress, here's your citation and a quote.

The presiding judge of the case, Lucy Koh, rejected Samsung’s multiple motions on the matter, because they were filed too late in the discovery stage (the stage when the two parties in a trial submit their evidence).

Interestingly enough Samsung did actually produce a very iDevice-like photo frame before the iPhone was even announced, let along the iPad: http://www.androidauthority.com/behold-samsungs-ipad-made-in-2006-21278/

It is instructive to look at tablet design before and after iPad.

That's a rather selective set of examples. Take a look at this photo frame, from 2006. It looks pretty much identical to the iPad, apart from the Samsung label.

What I conclude from this is that the iPad form factor - black surface, rounded corners, etc. - was already known to be attractive to customers 6 years ago. It was inevitable that, once computing hardware got small enough, someone would cram it into a device with that appearance. Does Apple deserve credit for being the first to do so? Yes, a bit. Do they deserve exclusive rights to use that form factor? Hell no.

Perhaps your prefect phone needs a better spell check.

Uh, for "phablet"? It's a portmanteau used to describe tablet-sized phones.

http://www.androidauthority.com/nexus-7-unboxing-how-many-people-unbox-google-jelly-bean-tablet-101459/

little to do with with tape. mostly it's the bottom half of the box being a little too big for the top.

that said.. I had no problems whatsoever with mine (the tape or the box)

b) the ban wasn't lifted, just temporarily removed until further legal wranglings. http://www.androidauthority.com/galaxy-nexus-ban-temporary-lifted-100109/ [androidauthority.com]

temporarily removed = temporarily lifted = lifted(if stated after the starting point of the period in which it was temporarily lifted)

Death penalty temporarily put on hold = found innocent of murder.

b) the ban wasn't lifted, just temporarily removed until further legal wranglings.
http://www.androidauthority.com/galaxy-nexus-ban-temporary-lifted-100109/ [androidauthority.com]

temporarily removed = temporarily lifted = lifted(if stated after the starting point of the period in which it was temporarily lifted)

a) says you. Show a legal standing that says that. I doubt you can find it.

b) the ban wasn't lifted, just temporarily removed until further legal wranglings.
http://www.androidauthority.com/galaxy-nexus-ban-temporary-lifted-100109/

If you mean that crappy portrait mode keyboard, then there are android devices like that.

I hate them, and would much prefer a slide out keyboard of reasonable size but they exist.

Here is one example:
http://www.androidauthority.com/motorola-defy-pro-is-the-first-ruggedized-android-phone-with-a-physical-qwerty-keyboard-99976/

You will be sacrificing everything for that though, battery, screen, ram, a good SOC. These are only ever low end to midrange at best devices. Any BB user who is not lying to himself would be ecstatic at the upgrade though.