One of the absolute worst parts about browsing this dusty ol’ web of ours is when you innocently open up some site — maybe, say, a tech news publication — and a video you didn’t ask for suddenly starts blaring annoying audio into your unexpecting ears. It’s especially obnoxious on a phone, where you’re frequently scrolling on your screen in a semipublic area or whilst someone else slumbers nearby.
We’ve all been there. We all loathe it. And yet, we continue to experience it, with no obvious fix or easy way to avoid the annoyance. (Insert awkward eye-darting here.)
Well, my fellow Android adorer, I’ve got good news for you. Google’s Chrome Android browser actually has an incredibly effective system for sending overly aggressive websites a signal that you don’t appreciate their unprompted audio invasions. In fact, with a single tap of your greasy fingeroo, you can stop a site from making sounds on your phone ever again. And you can take control of all sorts of other site-specific permissions while you’re at it.
Get ready for an illuminating “aha!” moment, ’cause you’re about to meet a convenient Chrome feature that you probably never knew existed.
The on-demand Chrome Android control panel
All right — ready? Here ’tis: Anytime you’re viewing a site within Chrome on Android, you can tap the padlock icon at the top of the screen, to the left of the site’s address, to pop up a power-packed panel that lets you view and adjust all sorts of info about that specific site’s permissions and what it’s able to do.
Behold:
JR
Now, how much stuff shows up in that panel all depends on what the site in question has attempted to bombard you with so far. If the site hasn’t been playing any audio, for instance, you won’t see the audio permission in that area. But if it has — well, by golly, all you’ve gotta do is tap the corresponding line to uncover a toggle that’ll let you take away that ability in the blink of an eye.
JR
You’ll sometimes see other relevant site-specific settings in that area as well, including a one-tap-away list of exactly how many cookies the site is creating in your Chrome Android engine room.
JR
As a side note, remember: Cookies may get a bad rap these days, but they aren’t inherently always evil. Lots o’ cookies exist for genuinely useful and not at all nefarious reasons, such as keeping you signed into sites, keeping your self-set preferences in place, and providing you with a delicious dairy-free snack. (That last one might be about a different type of cookie, but you get the idea.) And even those that are related to advertising are often far less frightening than they’re made out to be, once you move past the sensational headlines and consider the actual underlying realities.
Still, knowledge matters. And understanding exactly what different sites are doing is a critical part of being a smart and informed internet dweller.
To be clear, these same sorts of controls have always been accessible within the Chrome Android app’s settings. And you can still get to ’em there, if you want. But that area of the browser is pretty out of the way, and the process of adjusting a site’s permissions deep within those musty inner-hallways is significantly less simple:
First, you’ll need to tap the three-dot menu icon in Chrome’s upper-right corner and select “Settings” in the menu that comes up.
After that, you’ll scroll down and select “Site settings,” then find and tap whatever category you want to consider — “Notifications,” “Sound,” “Cookies,” “Cinnamon Rolls,” and so on. (All right, so I made that last one up. But if a site were able to provide cinnamon rolls as part of its permissions, you’d better believe I’d be checking that box.)
Once you tap on a category, you’ll then have to tap an “Add Site Exception” line and manually type in the address of whatever site you want to disallow for that specific permission.
JR
So it can certainly be done. But it’s a heck of a lot more complicated and clunky of a process, especially when you don’t know offhand exactly which permissions different sites might be using.
No matter, though, for now you know the simpler, easier, and more effective way to handle this. Keep that knowledge tucked away in the back of your suspiciously moist mammal-noggin, and you’ll never be annoyed by a site assaulting you with unwanted audio again — never more than once, anyway.
Get even more advanced shortcut knowledge with my new Android Shortcut Supercourse. You’ll learn tons of time-saving tricks for your phone!
This week brought updates that I consider critical for the “Big Three” — my operating system (Windows), my browser (Google Chrome) and my phone (from Apple). All three releases patch major zero-day vulnerabilities on all three platforms.
While I strongly recommend that you patch Chrome and your iPhone as soon as possible, I always recommend that you hold back on updating Windows. That remains true — at least until we see whether there are any trending side effects from the Patch Tuesday updates.
Let’s break down the patching to do right away.
First, prioritize patching Apple devices. Among this week’s patches is one for Pegasus spyware, which can open up access to the camera and microphone as well as text messages, phone calls, and emails. iPhones, in particular, have been targeted. Apple typically pushes these updates overnight if your phone is plugged in and charging (and connected to the Internet). If you want to make sure your iPhone has received the update, click on Settings, then General, then tap Software Update. Typically, after my iPhone updates, some apps may need passwords again. I personally try to save critical ones in the iCloud keychain. Look for patches for iOS 14.8 and iPad OS 14.8, and Security Update 2021-005 for macOS Catalina and Big Sur 11.6.
The Chrome browser update fixes two in-the-wild exploits patched in version 93.0.4577.82 for Windows, Mac and Linux. (For those using the Chrome OS, Bleeping computer reports that some devices have been reporting black screens after trying to log into their Chrome OS accounts.)
And finally, we come to Microsoft. For anyone hoping this month’s updates would “fix” an issue involving the use of group policy to deal with printers for your domain/business users (I wrote about this earlier), welcome to your new normal: The way you used to deploy printers isn’t fixed. What is fixed is yet another remote attack that utilized the print spooler to gain more access to your machines. So we’re going to have to redeploy print drivers using different means.
Clearly, Microsoft doesn’t see (or apparently understand) how disruptive this change has been for business users. Some of this may be that for many firms the impact has been blunted because workers aren’t in in the office and needing to print. But as employees move back into the office, we will have to use new techniques to deploy printers. Group Policy MVP Jeremy Moskowitz has written up the ultimate workaround and guidance for the issue. For users with a directly attached printer, there have apparently been few issues with the PrintNightmare patches. I saw no side effects in August, and I’ve seen none so far in September.
If you’re still running Windows 10 version 2004, be aware that Dec. 14, 2021 marks the end of support for that version of the OS. While Microsoft has been forthcoming about the release date of Windows 11 (Oct. 5), it’s said little about the arrival of Windows 10 21H2. Everyone keeps assuming it’ll be in October, but no one seems to know. (The update process from 2004 to 20H2, or even 21H1, was minor for me; I don’t foresee any problems for those that want to jump to the21H1 feature release.)
We’ve seen some of the expected changes discussed in blogs, but not when they will be released. Given that 21H2 does not appear to be a major release, I don’t anticipate vendors having major issues. In general, it looks to be more of a release for businesses on their way to Windows 11. Given the small number of changes, I expect to give an “all clear to install” within a few months after release.
Microsoft is at the point where it’ll be releasing 21H2, as well as Windows 11, to commercial vendors so they can certify their apps work on both releases. Clearly, it’s getting close to release as Microsoft is once again re-re-re-releasing KB4023057 — the update for Windows 10 Update service components that it releases on something of a quarterly basis. It’s used to ensure that computers not in a domain or business setting are ready for the next feature release, by checking to ensure that the Windows update process is healthy, that there is enough drive space available for updates, that network settings are reset if problems are detected, and that the Windows update history database is reset as needed.
Many users rely on the Wumgr tool to hide this update, as it has been reported to cause some issues with networking on some computers. If the patch has already been installed, there’s no need to uninstall it since the processes have already taken place. I personally like to review my system for health issues regularly, so I make sure that I check the C: drive for space issues. If I get error messages when attempting to install Windows updates, the best way to fixing misbehaving systems is to not use sfc /scannow or DISM commands; I would do a repair install over the top. You won’t lose any data and your computer will be healthier when you are done.
So, as we look ahead to 21H2 and Windows 11, I’m still in testing mode for this week’s Patch Tuesday arrivals — as you should be, too. As always, if you see or hear of any side effects, let us know at Askwoody.com and we’ll follow up on them.
Apple’s 77-minute iPhone 13 event wasn’t the longest such launch in recent memory – the iPhone 7 reveal took 119 minutes. But the company’s executives still had quite a lot to get through on Tuesday. Here’s what should matter most to enterprise users.
We all want the same things
To be fair, the division between enterprise and consumer expectations for technology continues to erode: Workers want to use the same tools at work as they do at home – and these days most employers feel the same way. Software and hardware are expected to put users first and provide well thought-through user interfaces that reduce, rather than increase, user friction.
The days when enterprise solutions could get away with being unwieldy or hard to use are quickly disappearing in the rear-view mirror. And that means to some extent even the consumer-focused features Apple highlighted have some bearing on enterprise IT. Some items particularly stood out.
Those carrier promotions
Take carrier promotions, for example. I noted them here, but these are emerging globally in a promising arrangement that should see telcos reap more benefit from their 5G infrastructure investments while giving the 95% of existing iPhone users who don’t yet have a 5G device a really good reason to upgrade.
Jefferies analyst Kyle McNealy notes:
“One of the most important elements of the iPhone 13 launch from our perspective is the carrier promotions (and effective subsidies) that are coming through even bigger than the strong promotions last year.” He observed “promotions as more aggressive than last year – they’re either a higher dollar value or don’t require a net-new line.”
That’s serendipitous, of course, given analyst Morgan Stanley’s belief that 5G is and remains the thing consumers most wanted from the iPhone, followed by improved cameras and better battery life. Apple met all three wishes.
What this means: Put simply, it means there will be a wider market for 5G services. It also means enterprises can continue to evolve digital transformation plans around use of the standard. Higher trade-in values might even tempt recently upgraded mobile teams.
No satellite, yet
While earlier claims the iPhones would support satellite access proved unfounded, as the n53 band used for these isn’t listed as being supported on Apple’s site, enterprises do get Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) support on both iPhone 13, as on iPhone 12 — and much improved wireless on iPad mini, which is arguably the enterprise star of Apple’s show.
You do need an 802.11ax router to take advantage of what Wi-Fi 6 offers, but if you don’t have access to one the device just uses Wi-Fi that is locally available.
What this means: The combination of 5G and faster Wi-Fi will support a range of mobile teams in numerous deployments.
Surprise: Dual eSIM support
The new iPhones are the first to support dual eSIM. The iPhone 12 had dual-SIM support and worked with both an eSIM and a physical nano-SIM. iPhone 13 still has the physical slot, but can work with two eSIMs for connection without a card.
Apple says: “Carrier-connected iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro models will arrive ready to activate with eSIM and can connect to your cellular voice and data service without a physical SIM card. You will need a Wi-Fi connection for setup.” You can also activate an eSIM on an unconnected device or add an additional line to one that is connected.
What this means: It’s now super-easy to provision remote employees with both personal and work-related numbers. It’s also a bonus for business travelers and anyone who must change networks quickly.
Cameras aren’t just a consumer item
Apple spent no time discussing augmented reality (AR) during the event. That doesn’t mean it isn’t interested – Apple CEO Tim Cook made the point of sharing how important AR is in a subsequent interview. The company is still focused on it, but had nothing to announce.
Yet.
At the same time, many of the new features in its cameras – particularly Cinematic Mode – are driven by a combination of sensors, software, and machine-learning technologies running on the new A15 Bionic chip. Cook called this “like having a Hollywood rig in your pocket.”
These high-quality cameras will become tools for creative and marketing departments, and companies will use them for asset and social media design, among other things.
What’s also important is that iOS 15, due out on Monday, introduces a range of additional machine vision APIs, some of which may have a bearing on aspects of your business. IDG’s recent Insight study showed 10% of enterprises are using computer vision today, 37% intend to implement it and 44% are investigating future use. Business & Decision, for example, has developed a quality control system for Covid-19 vaccines based on computer vision.
While Apple may be focused on how Hollywood uses its meld of sensors, software, and AI, the reality across most enterprises is that computer vision is a key area for process optimization and business change.
What this means: Apple now offers a stable, powerful solution accompanied by SDKs that may form building blocks for creative use of computer vision in your enterprise. That Apple didn’t discuss AR very much almost certainly implies it has much more it wants to say, probably in spring 2022.
iPad mini, Apple’s stalking horse
The new iPad mini is small, but big. It hosts the same processor used in iPhone 13 (which augurs well for Apple’s Mac and iPad event in October), is available with 5G and support for Apple Pencil 2, and provides 8.3 inches of display in the same footprint as before. It’s a powerful tool that I think will be the choice of many who need a device they can carry everywhere with them. It’s also a tool for which most enterprises will find use cases.
It seems clear that Apple thinks so, too.
When introducing the device, Apple showed footage of the iPad mini in real work situations. And speaking after the launch Cook talked about customers using it in hospitals, classrooms and for mobile work in multiple industries. And 5G/cellular means you can use it to work in a field.
Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, said:
“With its ultra-portable design and wide range of uses from everyday tasks to creative and enterprise applications, there’s nothing else like iPad mini. The new iPad mini is a huge leap forward that can be held in the palm of your hand.”
What this means: iPad mini looks like a perfect solution for a myriad of uses and pits the device squarely against devices currently used by field service, engineering, or warehousing teams.
What about the processor?
There was a lot of consternation when Apple declined to give any comparative speed specifics for its A15 chips. Yes, it said how much faster it was in comparison to “leading competitors,” but didn’t unleash a great deal of data to show improvement in comparison to its previous chips.
Naturally, this led conspiracy theorists to postulate that Apple’s processor design teams have somehow hit the limit of what they can achieve. This doesn’t ring true.
What seems more likely is that the 5-nanometer (nm) A15 processor is an evolution of the also 5-nm A14 chip. In this iteration, Apple has focused its teams on graphics performance and battery life, rather than performance, because that’s what consumers wanted to see improved. Why focus on performance when you already offer the fastest mass market mobile chip on the planet?
The next big leap in performance will come with the move to 3-nm process manufacturing, which was originally expected in 2022, but may now arrive later. The 1TB max storage may also be a game changer for some users.
What this means: Better battery life, astonishing graphics (and computer vision AI) and you still run the fastest processor on the block. Most enterprises need to spend more time focusing on developing unique advantages, rather than competing in speeds and feeds, I guess. But I do enjoy speed comparisons.
Battery life
We all want a phone we can keep using. Apple’s decision to boost battery life is one that matters to everyone, and one of the biggest criticisms its devices historically face. What you get:
iPhone 13: Up to 2.5 hours more battery life than iPhone 12.
iPhone 13 mini: 1.5 hours more than the previous mini.
iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max: 2.5 hours more than their predecessors.
What this means: CCS Insight analyst Ben Wood nailed this: “It looks like Apple has made good progress on battery life, something that is hugely important to consumers spending more and more time glued to their phones. For people upgrading from much older iPhones, the improvement will be dramatic.”
Covid-19 isn’t over
One depressing reality that also emerged post-event is the reality of Covid-19 and its impact on international supply chains. Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty noted that Covid-related travel restrictions slowed Apple’s ability to respond to a series of last-minute production challenges that emerged when building the new Apple Watch Series 7.
“The lack of immediate availability or a concrete Series 7 ship date seems to confirm a slower production ramp, but it is unclear how exactly this will impact shipment timing,” she said.
What this means: It remains vital to monitor and protect supply chains and your human infrastructure heading into autumn. While vaccines may help in some places, they aren’t yet universally available, which suggests most business should expect further impacts.
The sum of the parts is big
Apple has 900 million existing iPhone users who haven’t yet purchased a 5G smartphone. Carrier offers, long battery life, and advanced photography features (among other things) will change that. As Evercore’s Amit Daryanani said:
“The incremental features will make this a compelling product for the 900M+ iPhone users that didn’t purchase the iPhone 12 – ensuring the iPhone cycle sustains into CY22.”
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Apple on Monday issued emergency security updates for iOS, macOS and its other operating systems to plug a hole that Canadian researchers claimed had been planted on a Saudi political activist’s device by NSO Group, an Israeli seller of spyware and surveillance software to governments and their security agencies.
Updates to patch the under-active-exploit vulnerability were released for iOS 14; macOS 11 and 10, aka Big Sur and Catalina, respectively; iPad OS 14; and watchOS 7.
According to Apple, the vulnerability can be exploited by “processing a maliciously crafted PDF,” which “may lead to arbitrary code execution.” The phrase “arbitrary code execution” is Apple’s way of saying that the bug was of the most serious nature; Apple does not rank threat level of vulnerabilities, unlike operating system rivals such as Microsoft and Google.
Apple credited The Citizen Lab for reporting the flaw.
Also on Monday, Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity watchdog organization that operates from the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto, released a report outlining what it found. “While analyzing the phone of a Saudi activist infected with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, we discovered a zero-day zero-click exploit against iMessage,” Citizen Lab researchers wrote.
The exploit, which Citizen Lab dubbed “FORCEDENTRY,” had been used to infect the phone of the activist — and possibly others as far back as February 2021 — with the NGO Group’s “Pegasus” surveillance suite. It, in turn, consists largely of spyware that can document texts and emails sent to and from the device as well as switch on its camera and microphone for secret recording.
Citizen Lab was confident that FORCEDENTRY was associated with Pegasus and thus, NGO Group. According to researchers, the spyware loaded by the zero-click exploit contained coding characteristics, including ones never made public, that Citizen Lab had come across in previous analysis of NGO Group and Pegasus.
“Despite promising their customers the utmost secrecy and confidentiality, NSO Group’s business model contains the seeds of their ongoing unmasking,” Citizen Labs’ researcher wrote in their Monday report. “Selling technology to governments that will use the technology recklessly in violation of international human rights law ultimately facilitates discovery of the spyware by investigatory watchdog organizations.”
Apple device owners can download and install the security-only updates issued Monday by triggering a software update through the device’s OS.
Attention, my fellow Android-owning hominids: Your favorite virtual assistant is learning a few new skills.
Google Assistant is in the midst of getting some significant upgrades on Android — small-seeming features that could have a supersized impact on your workday efficiency. They’re exactly the types of productivity-boosting tidbits I love to uncover on Android, as they’ll make your phone instantly smarter and your life immediately easier.
So what’s the catch, you might be wondering? Well, my curious comrade, there’s just one — and it’s deliciously easy to overcome: These new Assistant abilities are arriving mostly unannounced. (A familiar-feeling tale at this point, wouldn’t ya say?) They oughta be available on any reasonably recent Android phone by now, though. It’s just up to you to find ’em and then figure out how they fit into your personal productivity picture.
So enough with the vague yammering: Let’s break down exactly what these new Android Assistant features are all about and how they could be helpful for you.
New Android Assistant feature No. 1: The delayed action
Our first Android Assistant addition is a welcome new way to automate any type of Assistant-connected action imaginable and then add a delay into that equation.
Sounds a little strange, right? Let me put it into more practical terms. With this new capability in tow, you could do things like:
Configure your phone to rattle off an out-loud update on the weather 20 minutes after the sunrise or sunset in your current location.
Tell your phone to turn on Do Not Disturb and mute all your volumes whenever you activate Assistant and say “Meeting time” — and then undo that and automatically go back to your normal volume state one hour later. (You could even create multiple versions of that, if you really want to get ambitious: “Half-hour meeting,” “One-hour meeting,” “Two-hour meeting,” “Someone please save me,” etc.)
If you have a smart thermostat in your office, home office, or anywhere else you frequent, you could instruct Assistant to adjust the temperature for you 10 minutes after you tell it “Heading to work.”
As you can see, having the option to add a delay into an Assistant automation adds an awful lot of practical potential into the system, and the possibilities are practically endless.
And once you know where to find your new superpower, it’s as easy as can be to get it going:
Activate Assistant on your Android phone — by saying “Hey Google,” by swiping upward from the lower-left or lower-right corner of the screen (on a phone with the current Android gestures system), or by using any other Assistant shortcut that tickles your fancy — and then say “Assistant routines.” If that doesn’t work on your device, smack your face in frustration, vow to buy a different brand of phone on your next purchase, then say “Assistant settings” instead. That should take you to the main Assistant settings screen, where you can then find and tap the option for “Routines” yourself.
However you get there, tap the New button at the top of the Routines screen.
Tap the Add Starter button to add in a voice command and/or time-of-day trigger — what’ll make your automated action occur, in other words.
Once that’s done, tap the Add Action button to add in any combination of actions you want to take place whenever your command gets activated. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the list to find the new “Delay start” option, which will let you add any delay you want into any part of the process.
JR
And in case you were wondering, the sequence above is one of the sound-adjusting “Meeting” commands I mentioned a minute ago, and the music being played at its end is “Celebrate” by Kool & the Gang — for reasons that I hope are obvious.
New Android Assistant feature No. 2: The Daylong Routine
Next up in our Android Assistant addition list is an intriguing little ditty Google’s calling the Daylong Routine. And no, it’s not referring to your curious habit of eating Tic Tacs at a rate of seven mint-scented nibs a minute (though kudos on the dynamite breath).
This option’s presence in the Assistant automation area seems kind of awkwardly tacked on at the moment: When you pull up the Assistant Routines screen and then tap the button to create a new routine (using the same steps we just went over a second ago), the new Daylong Routine feature should show up as a fancy little prompt at the bottom.
JR
Tap the “Yes” in that area, and you’ll then be able to set up a full day’s worth of automated actions on your phone within that single streamlined spot. You can program your entire day, essentially, and have Assistant do all sorts of stuff for you at specific times as the hours tick onward.
JR
You can make as many Daylong Routines as you want, too — so you could have different paths set up for your home and your office, for instance, or different routines for different days of the week. All you’ve gotta do is figure out what recurring chores make sense for Assistant to handle on your behalf and then set ’em all up once.
New Android Assistant feature No. 3: The alarm activation automation
The third and final freshly available Android Assistant addition in our collection is one that’s specifically for the morning hours — or whatever time you find yourself waking up (you unpredictable party animal, you).
Just as of the past several days, Assistant on Android has gained the ability to start an action or a series of actions immediately after you dismiss an alarm on your phone or any other Assistant-connected screen, speaker, or device. That gives you an easy way to have the gadget in question read you weather or news info, update you on your agenda for the day, or maybe even just whisper some gentle reassurances to get your day started right. (Hey, we all need a little tenderness from time to time.)
And by connecting it to the action of dismissing an alarm, you can make sure it happens at the exact right time for when your day actually begins — even if that time might shift around a bit from one day to the next.
This one’s pretty simple to manage, too, once you know where to find it: Once more, mosey your way into the Assistant Routines screen and fire up a new routine. After tapping the Add Starter button, look for the inconspicuously added new “Dismiss an alarm” option.
Tap that bad boy — and by golly, wouldya look at that?
JR
You’ve got all the options you need right in front of you, including the ability to limit the event only to alarm dismissals that occur within certain specified windows of time.
All that’s left is to smack that snooze button and rest easy knowing your trusty virtual Assistant’s got your back — even if she doesn’t have any vertebrae of her own.
Get six full days of advanced Android knowledge with my new Android Shortcut Supercourse. You’ll learn tons of time-saving tricks for your phone!
The first 185-page Apple-v-Epic judgment didn’t please anybody when it arrived on Friday. Apple will be required to permit people to pay for apps and in-app purchases using third party payment services that developers will be entitled to link to.
Epic is appealing the decision, but it’s interesting that while it sued Apple and Google over the 30% fee, it has not started litigation against Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony — all three of which charge the same fee at their online stores.
What does the ruling mean?
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ ruling means that when you pay for a Spotify subscription or some in-app power up you may be given a link that lets you pay through payment systems other than Apple.
I guess developers will get to choose which payment systems to use, but I imagine Apple will still be able to insist on its payment systems being a choice. Developers will have a choice. Some will offer their apps/services at up to 30% less than the equivalent cost via the store; others will try to keep the extra change. Some will not bother offering alternative payment systems; others can’t wait to do so.
What this means in practice
What the judgement has done is set in motion a new kind of competition at the App Store, and if it happens there, it will happen elsewhere. After all, if Apple is required to open for payments competition (even a little), so logically should every other app store provider. Basically, app store payment systems just became a new competitive space, and while that’s bad for Apple’s bottom line in the short-term, it may be able to turn that challenge around.
What can Apple do?
Apple can compete. The judge noted the 70% profit margin generated by App Store sales right now, which is incredibly high and shows why Apple’s existing 30% margin should change. At the same time, Apple’s payment systems are relatively robust and some of the benefits of using them somewhat unsung. That’s going to change.
Apple will simply double down on illustrating the inherent benefits of its own payment systems and work to make the experience of using them better.
What sorts of things might improve?
There are lots of things Apple can do to improve its system. The judgment pointed some of these out, including dispute resolution between developers and customers. Other enhancements might include prompt resolution and a promise to return cash accidentally spent when kids get hooked on in-game purchasing.
The company may consider the customer inducements other payment processors provide and then cherry pick the best of them. Apple can focus on its strengths in usability and customer experience design to help ensure that, when given a choice, consumers continue to select its brand for in app payments.
Will consumers use alternative payments?
While Apple must now permit developers to include links to alternate payment systems in their apps, will consumers use them? I’ve seen several analysts conclude that the actual impact of the judgement against Apple will be minimal. Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives estimates a 3% revenue hit, but predicts: “The vast majority of consumers will continue to use the App Store for in-app purchases.”
Why might this be?
I think the friction of the payment processing services developers choose to deploy will make a difference. I also think many smaller developers (which most are) will simply not bother offering alternative payment systems. For its fee, Apple provides fraud protection, payment processing and payment-related customer support, which means customers and developers have a point of trust.
Not all customers are equal
One big take-away from the details in the ruling is that more than half of all App Store in-app revenue is generated by less than 0.5% of customers.
“In the third quarter of 2017, high spenders, accounting for less than half a percent of all Apple accounts, spent a ‘vast majority of their spend in games via IAP’ and generated 53.7% of all App Store billings for the quarter, paying in excess of $450 each.”
The inference is clear. Developers will need to deliver buying experiences that focus on the needs of that most premium customer segment. That’s not going to be an easy market to please.
Will developers offer alternative payment systems?
As a result of the litigation, we now know thyat around 70% of App Store revenues are generated by games. Games also deliver 98% of in-app purchase revenue. That means games developers are especially likely to offer their own payment processing alternatives.
Developers who achieve the most success will be those who can deliver a more elegant and user-focused payment experience than Apple already does. Consumers will soon identify the also-rans and eventually we’ll see perhaps half a dozen big names in the App Store payments space.
In the absence of scale, proprietary payment systems are unlikely to be able to match the user experiences offered by larger payment providers. In this scenario, it seems inevitable that PayPal, Stripe, and other majors will emerge as Apple’s main competition. Smaller operators will be hard-pressed.
The impact? Developers may find they no longer need to pay 30% (or 15% for most developers) to Apple but will still be forced to pay something to their chosen payments services provider(s). The only real question is how much they need to pay and what kind of service they – and their customers – get in exchange.
Why isn’t Epic happy?
One of Epic’s main aims has been to force Apple to permit sideloading of apps. The games developer has argued users should be able to install apps from outside the App Store, just as Mac users can. The court didn’t agree.
Epic is also unhappy as it has also been required to pay Apple the App Store fees it avoided when it broke its developer agreement to offer sales outside Apple’s system.
The court felt Apple’s App Store model was justified based on security, competition and intellectual property rights. In other words, it will not permit Epic or anyone else to offer alternative stores or stores within a store. All it will permit is a slightly more open approach to payments.
Is Apple a monopoly?
It isn’t seen as one right now. Rogers rejected arguments that Apple is a monopolist, but did warn the company is:
“Near the precipice of substantial market power, or monopoly power, with its considerable market share. Apple is only saved by the fact that its share is not higher, that competitors from related submarkets are making inroads into the mobile gaming submarket, and, perhaps, because plaintiff [Epic] did not focus on this topic.”
Apple must now work hard to ensure it stays on the safe side of that precipice.
What happens now?
The App Store is not going to change immediately. Apple has been given 90 days to comply, Epic has already appealed the ruling, and Apple may file its own appeal. It’s reasonable to expect months of legal wrangling before anything changes.
The judge also said it is logical that some fees are paid at some level. “However, it is also true that, with few exceptions, not every business is entitled to have access to what is effectively shelf space if they cannot afford to pay a commission to the platform host,” she said.
In terms of damage control, we can speculate that Apple could begin supporting these external payment systems early next year when it has already said it will enable such support in Reader apps. That’s not to say it definitely will do so, just that it could.
How can Apple make it all go away?
I don’t think Apple can make Epic happy. At the same time, I believe it can end most of this litigation by proposing a 15% rate for App Store fees and accepting third-party payments as it has been told it must. While there will be a cost, such action would almost certainly end most outstanding litigation and negative publicity.
But doing so will also define the rules of engagement. By coalescing around 15%, Apple may lose revenue, but it will also be telling everyone that in order to compete, developers and payments providers will need to be able to deliver a payment experience on the App Store equal to the one Apple already provides for that same fee or less.
I suspect doing so inside a 15% margin will turn out to be challenging. It certainly challenges Epic, which (the court documents suggest) runs an 88% to 12% revenue share on its own store (which the judge said runs at a loss). That 30% take may be too high, but 12% is too low. Ultimately the only negotiation is around how much it should cost.
One more thing
Apple makes the platform developers use to create the apps they sell. It also makes the tools developers can use to build those apps. The App Store and hardware sales help finance software development today, but Apple will need to find new revenue to make up for any lost because of the mandated App Store payment change.
Apple has some options available.
In the short term, it may choose to raise the at-present nominal annual fee it charges developers for access to its developer tools. It may link that fee to a developer’s revenue, or charge a distribution fee to carry anything other than free apps.
In the longer term, however, I believe Apple will not find the impact of the current court-mandated change to go as deep as many anticipate, with most consumers and developers continuing to use its own payment systems, because they are used to them and already feel trust.
Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.
On the road to AR, Facebook snagged some attention this week with the arrival of its first smart glasses. As Apple inches toward the introduction of its own augmented spectacles, are there lessons here about what these things do and how they should work?
What Facebook’s glasses do
First, let’s take a glance at Facebook’s smart glasses. They offer a pair of cameras to take photos and videos, boast a microphone and a speaker, and are controlled using a voice assistant.
Most observers describe these things as similar to Snapchat spectacles. Facebook has called them Stories, so now you know what the Story feature in Facebook most of us never use is for. The glasses are manufactured with Ray-Ban and look like Wayfarers. They cost $299 and Facebook says it wants them to “create a sense of social presence.”
They aren’t AR glasses. Instead, they will let you film everything that happens around you, presumably so Facebook can analyze your habits and pump you up with advertising, which appears to be the social media company’s basic business plan.
The glasses look cool, the touch controls seem cool, but all you’re getting really is music on the move, a voice assistant that also takes calls, and the chance to take photos/videos on demand. These are accessories at best and are designed to work with an app on a smartphone. These smart glasses seem a little dumb.
What can Apple learn from all this? Here’s a few suggestions.
Price
I doubt Apple’s glasses will cost $299. They will network with an iPhone to deliver a range of high-end tools and will be supported by a set of app development tools designed to support what we already know are the key markets for AR: Location-based games such as Pokémon; enterprise and medical use; and access on-the-go to ambulatory information and entertainment. I’ve come across recent claims Apple’s first-generation glasses won’t support AR. I suspect an on-lens information system remains plausible.
Facebook’s offering is just a data-capture device with a voice assistant. Apple will offer more, and probably charge more, too.
Privacy
If you wear Facebook glasses, don’t be surprised to find yourself asked to leave them at the box office when you attend a live performance, take part in a meeting, visit court, or even wander around some shopping malls. As word spreads, it will become a social faux-pas to wear them at social gatherings. People don’t trust Facebook on privacy.
What Apple learns: We know Apple supports privacy (or used to). When it chooses to introduce its own glasses, it will need to create location-based technologies through integration with Maps that enable destinations to prevent filming from taking place.
It also seems likely an activity light will demonstrate when filming/recording is taking place. Privacy advocates will demand the latter, while certain locations will require the former.
The potential
There doesn’t yet appear to be a developer environment around Facebook’s glasses. That’s going to limit what they can do. Apple knows that to create compelling experiences for a vast audience, it must enable a developer ecosystem. This is the approach it takes across all its products, bar some accessories.
Apple’s glasses focus is likely to evolve around augmented reality experiences and information access, such as guides to shopping malls, tourist guides, or even overlaid information to guide medical procedures. (Arguably, medical and some industrial deployments became the key success stories around Google Glass.)
Apple’s work in Arcade means it also has the potential to create its own interactive gaming experiences to support the products it eventually ships. Plus, why not sit back and watch Apple Music or TV+ videos on your glasses when you travel?
Strategy
Ultimately, Facebook’s strategy seems flawed by lack of preparation. It is only now investing in processor technologies to support its efforts. It has Oculus technologies, but these seem to be on a different tack, focused on pure AR experiences. Integration with the smartphone seems quite limited, Facebook has failed to build a solid reputation around privacy and doesn’t (yet) appear to have built much in the way of a supporting development environment. To be fair, beyond Oculus, Facebook does have several assets it could leverage; I have no doubt it is already iterating more sophisticated glasses in its labs.
Apple, meanwhile, already seems to be working on how to develop health sensors for its future wearables. It is fair to note that most market speculation at present sees Apple introduce a less well-featured first iteration of its glasses next year, before a more sophisticated solution ships a few years down the line.
What it calls to mind
Facebook’s new offering calls to mind Samsung’s early move to rush the introduction of its own smart watch before Apple basically defined the category with Apple Watch. Samsung won a lot of support for its move at that time, but Apple blew it out the water when it followed suit.
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch still has its advocates, (not least because some models are round, which so many people prefer), but while Apple Watch holds about 28% of the market, Samsung has just 7.6%, according to Counterpoint.
It’s an open question the extent to which Facebook will be able to leverage its stained brand to grab market share in the emerging smart glasses market as Apple and others bring the products they have been developing to market in the next year or so.
Facebook’s push seems unlikely to dent the universe, but certainly shows the growing competition between both companies as the battle for the multiverse intensifies.
Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.
We’ve hit that time of year when enterprise IT prepares to support teams as they upgrade all their Apple operating systems across smartphones, tablets, and Macs.
The need for a stress-free upgrade process is accompanied by refreshed demand for hardware upgrades, as new models of iPhones, iPads, the Apple Watch, and Macs appear. Are your employees prepared for the season? Is IT?
When do the new operating systems ship?
Apple will introduce its new iPhone 13 at a special event on Tuesday at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET). The new devices will likely be available for pre-order three days later, on Sept. 17, with the hardware expected to ship and arrive in retail stores on Sept. 24.
Apple will publish its new iOS 15/iPad OS 15 operating systems for iPhones and iPads at around the same time, usually just before the products ship. History is your guide: iOS 14 and iPad OS 14 were released on Sept. 16, 2020 with new iPads. The iPhones followed (along with the iOS 14.1 release) on Oct. 13. iOS 13 shipped Sept. 19, 2019, one day before the iPhone 11 reached stores.
Up next, I imagine macOS Monterey will ship in time to support Apple’s next anticipated Mac event in October.
IT should test the betas immediately
It is reasonable to anticipate that many employees will update (or want to update) their Apple devices when the operating systems ship. Hopefully, your IT department has been working with the beta versions of these installations (they are available here) to identify any potential problems or conflicts with your existing enterprise security protocols or systems. If not, then time is short, and they should expedite such research.
Essential: If your enterprise makes use of proprietary or older apps, it is critical you confirm whether these will be supported on iOS 15. In the event they aren’t, you will either need to delay the upgrade or replace the app/service.
Speak to your MDM provider
Mobile device management (MDM) software developers tend to work closely with Apple to provide zero-day support as new operating systems ship. Jamf, for example, has always provided this. What it means is that when the OS is upgraded, your MDM vendor is in position to automate upgrades across your fleet. It makes sense to confirm whether your vendor will provide such support this year, and also to determine how the installation should take place.
How will you roll out the OS this year? It may make sense to give end users control over upgrade timing, particularly as your remote teams may have work to do. You may want upgrades to take place at night, for example.
Speak to your employees
Your teams should be warned to make time for the upgrade, as it may be necessary for them to verify logins, VPNs, and other passwords at that time. Ensure they have the time and information they need to support that process.
It is possible your company policy may be to delay installation, in which case it is sensible to inform employees of this before they get too caught up in Apple’s inevitable software release hype.
Also, ensure your teams have access to the data connections they need for these upgrades.
Troubleshooting advice
Things can go wrong when system software is upgraded. A failed internet connection mid-install can cause problems, for example. Given so many company employees will be working remotely, it makes sense to distribute routine troubleshooting and installation advice first.
Basic installation and troubleshooting advice:
Note important Apple ID, VPN, Wi-Fi, and enterprise services passwords before upgrading.
Spring clean installed apps, delete those you no longer use.
Backup the device to iCloud or to local hardware before installation.
Be prepared for a short-term performance hit after installation. This usually indicates that the device is reindexing itself and resolves in a few hours.
After the upgrade, you may find a device seems sluggish. Before you panic, Force Restart the device (iPhone, iPad), as doing so fixes such problems more often than not.
Be prepared to update all your apps, most of which should already be available in iOS 15 versions.
Battery life: In the event battery life takes a fall, Force Restart your device. If that doesn’t help, check to see whether an app is consuming vast amounts of battery power in Settings>Battery>Battery Usage. Update or delete and reinstall any that may be doing so.
If nothing else works, try Reset all Settings: Settings>General>Reset and choose Reset All Settings. You’ll be asked for your passcode to complete this process; you must then reconnect all your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices.
Users should familiarize themselves with Apple Support Communities, where they should be able to find answers and solutions to routine problems.
The hope is that if your people have enough information to self-resolve any routine installation challenges that crop up, your tech support teams will be able to focus their time on more serious issues that may emerge.
Known beta testing problems
While most of these problems are likely to have been addressed by the time the final version ships, some of the commonly reported issues during the iOS 15 beta testing process have included:
Files: If you choose Open in New window for a file, it may quit unexpectedly.
Widgets: You may find widget categories unstable, as when you select one an incorrect collection will open. Just quit and try again. The Home screen may quit when you drag a widget from a gallery.
Camera: Panorama may produce what Apple calls “unexpected results” when in Low Power Mode. Live Text may be unavailable.
Battery life: There have been reports of excessive battery drain when using the beta.
Additional problems have also been reported when installing the beta using Restore Images, SharePlay availability and consistency.
What else to expect
You’ve no doubt been festooned with iPhone 13 rumors across every channel, so I won’t spend much time with this short list. That said, here’s some of what’s currently anticipated.
A faster A15 processor delivering around 20% performance and graphics improvements and slightly better battery life.
Potentially, an AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate.
A smaller notch and better support for masks in Face ID.
Improved camera with a better wide angle lens, optical image stabilization and a new astrophotography mode.
iPhone will support mmWave 5G in additional markets, which may have some positive benefits to remote workers. Emergency transmission via satellite in some markets.
Stronger MagSafe magnets and support for reverse charging may also feature in the release.
New iPads and Apple Watch 7 will also appear.
More details here
Take a glance through some of our previous coverage on the new operating systems. I also have some smaller tipshere.
Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.
Remote workers using Macs on high-cost capped data plans or in the field using a smartphone to get online may need to reduce the data they use. Here are some ideas to help you achieve that.
Disable automatic macOS updates
For the purposes of this piece, I’ll assume you’ve already updated your Mac to the latest version of macOS. That’s the right thing to do, but it can devour your remaining data, which is why your should disable automatic macOS updates. Your Mac will automatically download and install macOS updates. That’s good most of the time, but as you come to the end of your monthly data allowance or when using a Mac to work from the middle of nowhere, it’s a potential no-no. This is how to disable automatic downloads on your Mac:
Open System Preferences>Software Updates
Choose Advanced and uncheck Download new updates when available.
Click on OK.
What this means is that you’ll need to manually download and install Mac software updates when they are made available using System Preferences>Software Update, which gives you the chance to do it at a time more convenient to you.
Disable automatic app updates
Apps you download via the App Store do get updated and by default will be updated automatically. You can put a stop to this.
Open the App Store on your Mac
Open App Store Preferences (Command-,) in the app menu.
Uncheck Automatic Updates.
If you think you may be exploring the App Store while dealing with constrained bandwidth, you may also want to disable Video Autoplay.
Open Activity Monitor and Force Quit apps
Tap Command-Space and search for “Activity Monitor,” or find the application tucked away inside Utilities in your Applications folder. When Activity Monitor opens, go to the Network tab and quickly scan the list of apps in the Process Name list. If you see any application names you recognize that you know you have already quit, select the app name and then tap the X button up top, to the left of the circled i. This will quit that process.
It’s quite possible you’ll see no recognized application name that you are not actively using, but at times you might find an app you have quit that continues working in a suspended state in the background. Don’t spend too much time on this; just review the software that is consuming large amounts of data.
You should also be certain to quit any applications you are not using, as many of these now send and receive small quantities of data during use.
NB: Activity Monitor is also a useful tool to monitor Network usage across all the Applications on your Mac. Just click on Sent and/or Rcvd Bytes to identify which applications are devouring data.
Check for Mail manually
At home, I like to check for Mail automatically, but not when I’m working to conserve bandwidth.
Open Mail>Preferences (Command-,) and open the General pane.
Now set the “Check for new messages” drop down menu to Manually.
While you will still use bandwidth when you do check for Mail, you will at least be in control of when you need to use that data. In extremis, it makes sense to use Web-based mail systems via your browser, leaving your Mail application switched off. Webmail still uses some bandwidth, but doesn’t helpfully download document attachments until told to do so.
Take control of iCloud
iCloud sync is one of the big selling points across the Apple ecosystem. It’s what makes sure all your data remains available across all your devices. I think it’s great, but when you want to save a little bandwidth, you can turn this off for the most data-hungry functions. (If you use iCloud Drive for work, you may want to keep this on. But you must consider the data created and up-/down-loaded for anything you create on your Mac.)
Open System Preferences and select Apple ID. Select iCloud and go through the list of apps that use iCloud. You should uncheck sync for the most data hungry apps. I tend to maintain Contacts, Calendars, and Reminders as a minimum as the functionality can exceed the small cost of data.
Reduce video quality
If using your Mac for business, the advice may be water off a duck’s back, but you will reduce bandwidth by avoiding video streaming. That means turning off auto-play in the apps you are using (how to do this varies by app). It also means reducing video quality where you can.
In Music open Preferences>Playback and set Video Playback Quality to Good (smallest files).
Disable Notifications
Notifications use data, too. Disable these in System Preferences>and set Show Previews to Never. You should also Option-click the clock in your Mac’s Menu bar to put your computer into Do Not Disturb mode. It’s not a huge data-slimmer, but may help.
Disable Siri
Those Siri requests usually require data that’s uploaded and downloaded between your Mac and Apple’s Siri servers. If you want to reduce data use, you’ll want to disable Ask Siri, no matter which fantastic voice you’ve chosen. Open System Preferences>Siri and uncheck “Enable Ask Siri” under the Siri icon there.
Stop your Mac sending data home
Apple collects Diagnostics & Usage data from Macs. Apple, which recently delayed launch of its controversial CSAM protection measures, says this is perfectly safe. It also says the collection of this data is designed to help developers and Apple itself build better apps. However, the process uses bandwidth, so you may want to stop it.
Open System Preferences;
Tap the Privacy pane;
In the Diagnostics & Usage section uncheck Send diagnostic & usage data to Apple and also uncheck Share crash data with app developers.
Scan for malware
If you are unlucky enough to have caught one of the Mac’s ever-growing army of malware infections, you may find that the amount of data you are using seems to be spiking, despite what you do to control it. That’s why you should run a malware removal tool to detect and destroy these things. Malwarebytes, Sophos Home, and Avast Security all offer free versions of their tools which should help keep your Mac in good shape.
Avoid social media (particularly Facebook)
Social media apps love to grab data about you which they then magically transform into dollars. Facebook seems particularly keen to do this. If you must check your social media, do so. But don’t forget to quit the webpage once you’re done. Better yet, restart your browser to protect against any social media related “background processes” that may “enhance” your experience.
Advanced tip: Use Content Caching
If you have multiple devices on your bandwidth-constrained network, you may want to try using Content Caching. This reduces bandwidth use by storing software updates, apps, and other content on your Mac that can then be accessed by other Macs (and sometimes iOS devices) on the same wired or Wi-Fi network. (That Mac software update may only need to be downloaded once to share across all your families machines.) As you may expect, you’ll find this feature in System Preferences:
Open Sharing;
Check Content Caching from the list of services;
You’ll need to restart all your devices.
You’ll also be able to monitor how much cached content local networked devices have uploaded and downloaded over time in Activity Monitor.
Once your bandwidth recovers, don’t forget to switch all these features back on again to regain the full functionality of your computer.
Do you have additional tips to help prune data use on a Mac? Please let me know via one of the social media feeds below.
Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.
Hear ye, hear ye, my Chromebook-carrying comrades: Have I ever got the tasty new trick for you — er, for ye.
It’s a super-handy shortcut you can add into your Chrome OS computer to fill a curious void and make your system significantly easier to use. Intriguing, wouldn’t ye say?
Here’s the thing: For all the progress Google’s made with Chrome OS over the years — and to be sure, there’s been plenty! — some extraordinarily simple-seeming feats have remained oddly unaddressed. We’re just now getting a (still-buried) way to restore all of your apps and windows and avoid having that blasted blank browser window come up every time you restart your forkin’ Chromebook, for example, roughly a decade into the platform’s life.
And this topic of today is very much in that same category of “How Can We Possibly Not Do That Yet?!” features. The main difference is that Google still hasn’t tackled this one effectively, so it’s up to you to find or create the creative workaround.
I’m talking about the vexing lack of any simple restart command within the Chrome OS software. It’s something that came up during a conversation with one of the members of my Android Intelligence Platinum community recently, so I set out to scratch this fuzzy ol’ mammal-noggin of mine and muster up a solution.
I’d honestly never considered the fact that Chromebooks don’t have a simple on-screen restart function, but the perceptive Homo sapien asking me the question was absolutely right: If you look at the Chrome OS Quick Settings panel, you’ve got a single-click button for powering your computer down — and that’s it:
JR
Weird, right? But as with most things in GoogleLand, there’s a pretty easy fix. In fact, there are a few of ’em.
Choose your own adventure:
The Chrome OS restart shortcut: The custom command option
First, you can take matters into your own hands and cook up your own custom Chrome OS restart shortcut. The secret resides within a little-known Chrome command for initiating a fresh start: All you’ve gotta do is type chrome:restart into the address bar of any browser window, and bam — your Chromebook will restart itself.
That’s all well and good, but we can take this a step further and turn it into a true time-saving shortcut. We’ll just rely on the custom Chrome address bar action method I shared with you some months back to perform a quick bit of command creating magic.
Here’s how:
Type chrome:settings into the address bar of any Chrome browser window on your Chromebook.
Scroll down until you see the Search Engines sections, then click the line within it labeled “Manage search engines.”
On the screen that comes up next, find the line that says “Other search engines” and click the Add box alongside it.
Now, in the box that pops up, enter Restart as the search engine, *r* as the keyword, and chrome://restart as the URL — like so:
JR
You can actually make the keyword anything you want — restart, SOS, someonesaveme, or maybe even oogaboogaheyhey, if you happen to be insane and/or a tech-savvy dolphin who says things like “oogaboogaheyhey.” Whatever keyword you choose will be the command you type into the browser address bar anytime you want to restart your Chromebook, so the main thing is that you want it to be short and simple enough to be effective as a shortcut — but not so short and simple that you might enter it accidentally. And, of course, you want it to be something you’ll remember.
Once you’ve got all of that done, just click the Add button to save it, and then type that magic word into the address bar and hit Enter anytime you need a fresh start.
The Chrome OS restart shortcut: The browser button option
If you’re more of a clicker than a keyword-rememberer(er), take 20 seconds to bring your fancy new restart shortcut into your browser’s address bar as a clickable button.
It’s easy to do:
Head into a Chrome window and look for the bookmark bar — that strip of links right under the browser’s address bar. If you don’t see it, hit Ctrl-Shift-B to toggle it on.
Right-click (or two-finger-click) anywhere inside the bar and select “Add page” from the menu that comes up.
Type in Restart for the name and chrome://restart for the URL and click the Save button.
Now just look for your newly created Restart button in that area (and drag and drop it if you want to move it into a more prominent place). Told ya it was easy!
The Chrome OS restart shortcut: The hardware button combo
Last but not least is a built-in shortcut with your Chromebook’s physical buttons, and it’s something I think approximately 0.02% of Chromebook owners realize exists. It works well, but depending on the specifics of your device, it may or may not always be as convenient as the on-screen options we just went over — and it may not be possible at all, even, especially if you’re using a desktop-based Chromebox or any other such setup.
With a typical Chromebook, though, make yourself a mental note: Holding down the Refresh button in the top row of the keyboard and then tapping the physical power button — either on the side of the device or on that same top row of the keyboard, depending on the device — will cause your computer to reset.
Who knew?!
So there ya have it: three fast ‘n’ easy ways to restart your Chromebook at a moment’s notice. With any luck, Google will add in a proper command for this as part of the on-screen shutdown menu soon, but until then, you’ve got some pretty decent options.
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For all the ways travel is different these days, one thing hasn’t changed: Moving from one place to another can be a massive hassle. There’s plenty of room for inconvenience and error, and a journey rarely goes according to plan.
But while there’s not much you can do about the late departures, the surly gate attendants, or the smelly fella somehow always seated right next to you (a factor where your mask may come in extra handy, incidentally), there are some tech-centric steps you can take to make your next business trip a little less unpleasant.
Android’s travel app selection has really taken off over the past few years, and the Google Play Store now boasts an impressive array of genuinely useful titles for the traveling professional. After putting numerous standout candidates to the test, these are the apps I’d recommend stowing on your smartphone and keeping at arm’s reach whenever your work next has you hitting the road or flying the (allegedly) friendly skies.
(All apps are free unless otherwise specified.)
Planning and preparing
Organize your packing process
PackPoint is a travel organization genie. You simply tell it where you’re going, when, and what you’ll be doing — and the app generates a detailed checklist of suggested items for your suitcase.
You can add your own items to the list, as needed, and then use it as a guide to make sure you remember everything, every time.
PackPoint is free, with an optional one-time $3 upgrade that removes ads and gives you the ability to create your own custom packing templates. The paid version of the app also integrates with TripIt (more on that in a moment), which means it can import your travel plans automatically and create packing lists before you even ask.
Prepare for local navigation
Yeah, yeah, I know: You’re well aware of Google Maps. But what you might not realize — or maybe have just forgotten — is that with a teensy bit of planning, you can download all the data you need for a trip directly into Maps in advance. That way, you can navigate to your heart’s content, even in areas without strong mobile data signals, and you can avoid burning through mobile data unnecessarily on the road.
Here’s the trick: While you’re still in the comfort of your home or office, open up Maps on your phone and search for the city you’ll be visiting. Tap the city’s name within the search interface, then tap its name a second time when it appears in a box at the bottom of the screen.
At that point, you should be taken to a full-screen info page about the city — and within a row of circular icons, you should see one icon with a downward-facing arrow and the word “Download” beneath it. Tap that, then tap “Download” on the confirmation screen that appears. Once the download finishes, you’ll be able to access maps and directions within your destination without the need for an active connection.
Repeat as needed for any additional places on your agenda, then rest easy knowing your navigational guide will be there and waiting — no matter what sort of conditions you encounter.
Lonely Planet has tons of useful info about places all over the world. You’ll also find selections of “must-see” attractions for cities, along with suggested tours and activities. Once you select something you’re interested in, you’ll find all sorts of details about its location and pricing. You’ll even be given quick links to make reservations or buy tickets, if applicable.
It’s true that Google Maps does offer up some of this same sort of info, but Lonely Planet relies on its widely recognized travel experts to visit every included city and carefully review the possibilities — and that, suffice it to say, results in a much more polished and thorough sort of guide than what you’ll get from Google’s algorithm-driven recommendations and random user reviews. The app’s interface also makes it easy and fun to explore different places and find what appeals to you.
Lonely Planet is free for limited use. The app also offers a subscription that provides unlimited access, along with extras such as offline availability, on-demand Lonely Planet videos, and an actual printed guidebook for a city of your choice for five bucks a month or $40 a year.
Flying
Manage your air travel
TripIt is an all-around air travel management companion, and it’ll make your life easier in some meaningful ways — especially if you do a fair amount of flying.
At its core, TripIt allows you to forward flight itineraries and other travel-related emails to a special address — or, if you want, to grant it direct access to your inbox so it can find and process such emails on its own — and it then extracts all the relevant details and organizes them into clean and easy-to-follow master itineraries.
Once you travel with TripIt — and specifically its TripIt Pro service — you won’t want to fly without it.
Beyond that, TripIt Pro makes it dead simple to find alternate flights at any point in your adventure. If a connection is canceled or delayed, all it takes is a couple of taps to see what other flights are available — even down to the specific open seats — on your current airline or on another. That’s helped me stay a step ahead of the gate agent on multiple occasions when late departures have put connecting flights in jeopardy.
TripIt Pro comes with a few other perks, too, such as a four-month free trial of the CLEAR expedited airport access program and then a $30 discount on that service’s ongoing annual fee. But the notifications and alternate flight finder are what really make the app invaluable. And while services like App in the Air offer similar sorts of features, no other app has been as consistently helpful, reliable, and easy to use as TripIt in my real-world travel testing. It’s the gold standard of travel organization and a must-have for any frequent flier or business traveler.
Find the best flights
Forget all the clunky, upsell-infested flight-finding services and instead, open up your Chrome Android browser and navigate to Google Flights. All right — so technically, it isn’t an Android app, but Google’s flight-searching system makes it super-easy to find and book flights across all airlines. You can save or share potential itineraries, monitor flights and get notified by email as soon as a specific fare goes up or down, and then buy your tickets directly with whatever airline (or airlines) you choose.
Pro tip: If you want to make the app easier to access, tap Chrome’s three-dot menu icon while viewing the website and select “Add to home screen.” That’ll give you a more traditional mobile-app-like icon that can then pull up the tool with a single tap.
One other utility that might be worth keeping handy is Hopper — but there’s a very specific purpose and also an important asterisk involved. Hopper watches flight prices over long periods of time in order to track trends and show you how fares are likely to fluctuate based on when you fly and when you make your purchase. If you’re booking your own travel and either footing the bill yourself or trying to stay within a limited company budget, that knowledge can be incredibly helpful to have.
JR Raphael/IDG
Hopper’s airfare-tracking system can give you valuable flight price knowledge.
But Hopper’s ultimate goal is to get you to book your tickets through its service, and that doesn’t necessarily seem like the most advisable thing to do. User reviews on the Play Store mention difficulty changing itineraries once they’re booked with Hopper and challenges getting through to the company’s customer service.
So what I’d suggest is treating Hopper as a resource and not a ticket-purchasing portal: Use it to research optimal travel dates and purchasing windows, if you need to, and then take the info it gives you and plug it directly into either Google Flights or the appropriate airline’s website to buy the tickets directly from the source — and without the potentially problematic middleman.
Speed up your border entry
If you’re traveling internationally — and have a valid passport from the U.S. or Canada — the Mobile Passport app can save you precious time when you enter the U.S. by allowing you to submit your passport info and customs declaration form through the app upon landing and then skip the regular line on your way through border patrol.
Despite its name, the app does not replace your passport; you still need to carry that with you. And not to worry: It’s authorized by the U.S. Customs and Border Protections agency and totally legit.
Driving
Track your mileage
If you drive your own car for business, Microsoft’s MileIQ makes it easy as can be to keep track of all your mileage for later reimbursement. Once you set up the app on your phone and activate its “Drive Detection” feature, you don’t have to do a thing: It’ll automatically detect when you’re driving and then log all your miles in the background. It even uses current IRS-mandated reimbursement rates to calculate what you’re owed.
The app has some interesting advanced options, too, such as the ability to set specific work hours and then ignore any drives that occur outside of those times.
MileIQ is free to use for up to 40 drives per month. For unlimited access, you’ll have to pony up $6 a month or $60 for a full year of service.
Pay less for gas
Why pay top dollar for top-offs when you can drive an extra minute from the highway and save yourself (or your company) some money? GasBuddy gives you the insight you need to find fuel that won’t break the bank: You just open up the app, tap the option to find gas near you, and then either look through a list of nearby gas stations and how much they’re currently charging or switch to a map view to see prices plotted out around your present location.
GasBuddy
GasBuddy relies on user reports to provide up-to-date info on gas prices in your area.
GasBuddy has a bunch of other features you probably won’t want to mess with, but the app’s price searching ability is worth every penny (particularly since the app is free and thus costs you precisely zero pennies to use).
At your destination
Track your travel expenses
When it comes to more general expense-tracking, Expensify is the app to have in your arsenal. Expensify lets you simply take photos of receipts with your phone — or forward invoices and receipts via email — and it then extracts the relevant details and organizes them into reports. The app is available on the web as well, and it offers direct-export integrations with QuickBooks, Xero, and other accounting services.
Expensify
Snap a photo of a receipt — or forward it in via email — and then forget about it with Expensify.
Expensify costs either $5 or $9 per person per month for businesses, depending on your needs. You can try the app out with a free individual plan, too, though that limits you to just 25 imports per month and lacks many of the service’s advanced expense reporting and integration options.
Find a place to stay on short notice
The next time you find yourself unexpectedly stuck somewhere — be it due to a cancelled flight or a road trip gone awry — don’t panic. Instead, snag the free and easy to use HotelTonight app. HotelTonight searches around your current location to find hotels with open and available rooms, but that’s not all: It also scores you legitimate savings on the rates, by way of an apparent deal wherein hotels let the service sell rooms at a discount in order to fill last-minute vacancies. I spot-checked a handful of the app’s recommendations, and the savings were absolutely real.
JR Raphael/IDG
HotelTonight provides an easy way to find last-minute rooms at discounted rates.
HotelTonight has handy details and ratings for all the hotels it recommends. And once you find something suitable, all it takes is a few taps within the app to book your room and be ready to roll.
Find Wi-Fi anywhere
Why waste money on mobile data when Wi-Fi is all around you and waiting for the taking? Just open WiFi Map to see an interactive map showing available Wi-Fi networks in your area (or any other area you want to search). The app lists out speed information and even provides user-submitted passwords to secured public networks in some instances.
Just note: When you first open WiFi Map, you’ll be pressed to upgrade to a $40-a-year premium subscription. That allows you to eliminate some rather aggressive ads within the app and also gives you the ability to download information in advance for offline viewing. You don’t have to make the upgrade, though (and arguably shouldn’t bother); if you want to use the app for free, just tap the “Continue without subscription” text when the upgrade prompt appears.
Also, when searching for available networks, be sure to tap the three-line menu icon at the top of the results list and change the setting from “Show All” to “Recently Connected.” That’ll weed out old (and thus likely to be inaccurate) info from the list and show you only networks that have been confirmed to work by other users within the last 90 days.
Convert and translate anything
For your next border-crossing journey, let XE Currency Converter convert currency for you without the usual headache. Once you tell the app your home country’s currency and select which foreign currencies you want to convert into, all you have to do is type in a dollar amount to get an instant glimpse at the exact equivalent based on up-to-the-minute conversion rates.
And when language translation is what you require, the aptly named Google Translate app is the tool you want. It’s jam-packed with practical features, such as the ability to translate text instantly from an image you capture with your camera and a “conversation mode” that lets you have a (somewhat awkward) back-and-forth dialog, in real time, with someone speaking a different tongue.
Stay fit wherever you go
Who says you have to stay sedentary just because you’re traveling? Skip the underwhelming hotel “exercise facility” and turn to RunGo to find and navigate popular running trails wherever you are. It’s free to use, with an optional $2-a-month or $15-a-year premium upgrade that gives you a variety of extra features you probably won’t need (unless you really want to sync the app with a Strava activity tracker).
If you’d rather get your heart pumping from the privacy of your own room, snag the Nike Training Club app. It’s filled with easy-to-follow workouts, ranging from the intense and Crossfit-reminiscent “Bodyweight Only Benchmark” to the simple and stretch-oriented “Run Ready Yoga.”
Nike
The Nike Training Club app has tons of workouts you can do almost anywhere.
You can find workouts for practically any amount of time you want — as little as five minutes, even! — and you can browse specifically through “no-equipment workouts,” assuming you don’t carry your entire collection of kettlebells with you every time you travel. And best of all? The app is completely free to use.
The only thing you’ll be missing is an excuse.
This article was originally published in June 2018 and most recently updated in September 2021.
In a surprise Friday announcement, Apple said it will take more time to improve its controversial child safety tools before it introduces them.
More feedback sought
The company says it plans to get more feedback and improve the system, which had three key components: iCloud photos scanning for CSAM material, on-device message scanning to protect kids, and search suggestions designed to protect children.
Ever since Apple announced the tools, it has faced a barrage of criticism from concerned individuals and rights groups from across the world. The big argument the company seemed to have a problem addressing seems to have been the potential for repressive governments to force Apple to monitor for more than CSAM.
Who watches the watchmen?
Edward Snowden, accused of leaking US intelligence and now a privacy advocate, warned on Twitter, “Make no mistake: if they can scan for kiddie porn today, they can scan for anything tomorrow.”
Critics said these tools could be exploited or extended to support censorship of ideas or otherwise threaten free thought. Apple’s response — that it would not extend the system — was seen as a little naïve.
“We have faced demands to build and deploy government-mandated changes that degrade the privacy of users before and have steadfastly refused those demands. We will continue to refuse them in the future. Let us be clear, this technology is limited to detecting CSAM stored in iCloud and we will not accede to any government’s request to expand it,” the company said.
“All it would take to widen the narrow backdoor that Apple is building is an expansion of the machine learning parameters to look for additional types of content,” countered the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Apple listens to its users (in a good way)
In a statement widely released to the media (on the Friday before a US holiday, when bad news is sometimes released) about the suspension, Apple said:
“Based on feedback from customers, advocacy groups, researchers and others, we have decided to take additional time over the coming months to collect input and make improvements before releasing these critically important child safety features.”
It’s a move the company had to take. In mid-August, more than 90 NGOs contacted the company in an open letter begging that it reconsider. That letter was signed by Liberty, Big Brother Watch. ACLU, Center for Democracy & Technology, Centre for Free Expression, EFF, ISOC, Privacy International, and many more.
The devil in the details
The organizations warned of several weaknesses in the company’s proposals. One that very much cut through: that the system itself may be abused by abusive adults.
“LGBTQ+ youths on family accounts with unsympathetic parents are particularly at risk,” they wrote. “As a result of this change, iMessages will no longer provide confidentiality and privacy to those users.”
Concern that Apple’s proposed system could be extended also remain. Sharon Bradford Franklin, co-director of the CDT Security & Surveillance Project, warned that governments “will demand that Apple scan for and block images of human rights abuses, political protests, and other content that should be protected as free expression, which forms the backbone of a free and democratic society.”
Apple’s defenders said what Apple had been trying to achieve was to maintain overall privacy on user data while creating a system that could pick up only illegal content. They also pointed to the various failsafes the company built into its system.
Those arguments did not work, and Apple execs surely picked up on the same kind of social media feedback I saw, which represented deep distrust in the proposals.
What happens next?
Apple’s statement didn’t say. But given the company has spent weeks since the announcement meeting with media and concerned groups from across all its markets on this matter, it seems logical that the second iteration of its child protection tools may address some of the concerns.
Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.
Crack your phalanges and limber up your tendons, my fellow Android-adoring animal: We’re about to make a tiny but tremendously significant change to your Android keyboard setup. I josh you not — I don’t even arnold you, in fact: With a whopping 30 seconds of setup, this quick switcheroo will make you about five times faster at tapping out text on your fancy phone’s screen.
“Why, Mr. Writer Person, how could this possibly save me that much time?” you might be wondering — along with, perhaps, “Mr. Writer Person, what in the world happened to your brain that causes you to have formal conversations with yourself in the middle of keyboard-focused columns?” Well, Jasper, we’ll answer at least one of those questions now. (The other, I’m afraid, can’t be answered without the help of an entire team of highly trained psychoanalysts.)
Google’s Gboard Android keyboard, y’see, is positively overflowing with useful shortcuts and tucked away time-savers. And all of ’em are absolutely awesome. They’re little things that shave seconds off your typing time and really add up over the course of a day.
B-b-b-but: Lots of ’em revolve around the notion of long-pressing buttons on the Gboard keyboard — pressing and holding a particular key down for a second or so, in other words, to reveal some handy function artfully hidden beneath it.
That’s all well and good, but the very act of long-pressing a key in Gboard is anything but optimized for efficiency. By default, you have to press and hold a key for what feels like an eternity (even if it’s actually only a fraction of a second) before its alternate function appears.
And that brings us to the pressing Gboard enhancement we’ve gathered here to go over. Deep within the bowels of Gboard’s virtual innards lies a way to change the length of that long-press delay — the amount of time it takes for a key to register your pressing appendage and shift from its single-press function into its secondary purpose. And cranking that puppy down considerably from its default state will make more of a difference on your smartphone typing speed than just about any other adjustment you could make.
So, ready to feel some high-octane typing power coursing throughout your capillaries? Here’s the five-step, 30-second secret:
Make your way into the Gboard settings on your phone. The quickest way to get there is to pull up the keyboard in any text field, then tap the three-dot icon in its top row and look for the gear-shaped Settings icon in the panel that comes up. (And if you don’t see that three-dot icon right away, tap the right-facing arrow in the keyboard’s top row to reveal it.)
In the Gboard settings, tap the line labeled “Preferences.”
Scroll down to the very bottom of the screen that comes up next and tap “Key long press delay.”
JR
See that saucy little slider? Crank that bad boy down, down, down. I’d recommend trying a setting of about 200ms to start. (You can always go back and adjust it later if that feels faster or slower than you’d like.)
Be sure to tap “OK” after making that adjustment. And while you’re there, make sure the toggle next to “Long press for symbols” is activated, too.
Didja do all of that? Well, my goodness, look at you! I always knew you were smart and capable, no matter what the internet says about you.
With that change made, mosey your way back into any open text field — in an email, a document, a search prompt, a cheese-colored sandwich journal, or whatever you happen to have nearby — and hold that fantastic fingie of yours firmly down onto any key on the keyboard.
JR
You should see the key flip to its secondary function in the blink of an eye, without any awkwardly long delays or pregnant pauses. Much better, no?
And with this snazzy new setup in place, you can get to a bunch of special characters and numbers faster than you can say “iPhone typing terrors.” Need a dash? Rest your finger on the “h” key for a split second. Looking for the @ symbol? Just tap “a” and keep your finger down for one extra beat.
You won’t stop the rhythm of your typing or sit and wait for the keyboard to collect its thoughts. You’ll barely even break away from your train of thought. And if you type as much rambling poppycock into your Android-scented companion as I do, all of those saved seconds will add up fast.
Crack your phalanges and limber up your tendons, my fellow Android-adoring animal: We’re about to make a tiny but tremendously significant change to your Android keyboard setup. I josh you not — I don’t even arnold you, in fact: With a whopping 30 seconds of setup, this quick switcheroo will make you about five times faster at tapping out text on your fancy phone’s screen.
“Why, Mr. Writer Person, how could this possibly save me that much time?” you might be wondering — along with, perhaps, “Mr. Writer Person, what in the world happened to your brain that causes you to have formal conversations with yourself in the middle of keyboard-focused columns?” Well, Jasper, we’ll answer at least one of those questions now. (The other, I’m afraid, can’t be answered without the help of an entire team of highly trained psychoanalysts.)
Google’s Gboard Android keyboard, y’see, is positively overflowing with useful shortcuts and tucked away time-savers. And all of ’em are absolutely awesome. They’re little things that shave seconds off your typing time and really add up over the course of a day.
B-b-b-but: Lots of ’em revolve around the notion of long-pressing buttons on the Gboard keyboard — pressing and holding a particular key down for a second or so, in other words, to reveal some handy function artfully hidden beneath it.
That’s all well and good, but the very act of long-pressing a key in Gboard is anything but optimized for efficiency. By default, you have to press and hold a key for what feels like an eternity (even if it’s actually only a fraction of a second) before its alternate function appears.
And that brings us to the pressing Gboard enhancement we’ve gathered here to go over. Deep within the bowels of Gboard’s virtual innards lies a way to change the length of that long-press delay — the amount of time it takes for a key to register your pressing appendage and shift from its single-press function into its secondary purpose. And cranking that puppy down considerably from its default state will make more of a difference on your smartphone typing speed than just about any other adjustment you could make.
So, ready to feel some high-octane typing power coursing throughout your capillaries? Here’s the five-step, 30-second secret:
Make your way into the Gboard settings on your phone. The quickest way to get there is to pull up the keyboard in any text field, then tap the three-dot icon in its top row and look for the gear-shaped Settings icon in the panel that comes up. (And if you don’t see that three-dot icon right away, tap the right-facing arrow in the keyboard’s top row to reveal it.)
In the Gboard settings, tap the line labeled “Preferences.”
Scroll down to the very bottom of the screen that comes up next and tap “Key long press delay.”
JR
See that saucy little slider? Crank that bad boy down, down, down. I’d recommend trying a setting of about 200ms to start. (You can always go back and adjust it later if that feels faster or slower than you’d like.)
Be sure to tap “OK” after making that adjustment. And while you’re there, make sure the toggle next to “Long press for symbols” is activated, too.
Didja do all of that? Well, my goodness, look at you! I always knew you were smart and capable, no matter what the internet says about you.
With that change made, mosey your way back into any open text field — in an email, a document, a search prompt, a cheese-colored sandwich journal, or whatever you happen to have nearby — and hold that fantastic fingie of yours firmly down onto any key on the keyboard.
JR
You should see the key flip to its secondary function in the blink of an eye, without any awkwardly long delays or pregnant pauses. Much better, no?
And with this snazzy new setup in place, you can get to a bunch of special characters and numbers faster than you can say “iPhone typing terrors.” Need a dash? Rest your finger on the “h” key for a split second. Looking for the @ symbol? Just tap “a” and keep your finger down for one extra beat.
You won’t stop the rhythm of your typing or sit and wait for the keyboard to collect its thoughts. You’ll barely even break away from your train of thought. And if you type as much rambling poppycock into your Android-scented companion as I do, all of those saved seconds will add up fast.
When it comes to the future of Apple, it may be significant that reports this weekend claim CEO Tim Cook is now searching for a successor. But for the immediate future of your business, it may be even more important to learn that the iPhone 13 may support satellite communications.
An unexpected Apple moon shot?
We’ve heard whispers Apple may be reaching for the stars. We know the company is working with others to develop 6G, and that part of that standard includes the capacity to broadcast data at high rates across very, very long distances. But the latest report from the uncannily accurate pen of analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is that he expects Apple’s next generation iPhone 13 will feature a low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite communication mode, thanks to a Qualcomm X60 baseband modem chip.
In theory, this would let iPhone 13 users send messages and make calls using satellite networks. Kuo also speculates that LEO may be used in Apple’s AR headset, the Apple Car, and other connected accessories. But we don’t know how these features will be deployed, or even whether they will be.
We can speculate that this could mean free Messages to other iPhone users on a global basis; it could become an additional iCloud+ service offering enhanced communication for international users that sidesteps the insecurity of local networks; and it could simply require a subscription to a satellite communication provider.
If the latter, informed speculation suggests Globalstar as the most likely satellite operator to cooperate with Apple on the plan. Globalstar offers a range of devices and coverage plans, but as a guide it currently charges $200/month for its Orbit Unlimited plan, which promises unlimited voice calls. There are other operators using LEO, including Starling, Hughesnet, OneWeb, and more recently, Immarsat, but we don’t know if any of these are supported. We do know that Globalstar stock has climbed 50% on the strength of these claims.
So, who might this be for?
A glance at the status of global mobile broadband and network coverage shows many regions on a national and international basis that are not yet switched on for access. This has prompted all kinds of solutions, including use of satellite “hubs” to provide access to some remote areas.
On a more generic basis, there are multiple industries working in remote areas of the US that require robust connectivity but lack access to cellular. Satellite can fill this gap, particularly at sea, where maritime connectivity is a big business. Use of satellite is also potentially valuable to enterprises seeking solutions for ultra-private communications off the public grid.
While these services do support data, it does seem unlikely you’ll be using these connections to download the latest Ted Lasso episode, though some might take a little pleasure in watching the friendly football coach while on a cargo vessel in the Atlantic Ocean.
We can’t know that Apple plans any of this. But in the event the company were to introduce satellite comms in iPhones, there would be plenty of existing markets that might want to explore the technology; the cost of doing so will inevitably limit adoption, however. There aren’t too many consumers willing to spent $2,400 a year just so they can send unlimited messages to their mates when in areas of poor mobile reception.
At least, not yet.
If Kuo is correct, then it seems Apple’s top brass is quite confident in these plans. He states teams have been researching this for “some time” and are “optimistic.” We’ve heard enough subdued rumors to confirm interest over the last few years.
After all, in the event iPhones become internationally connected on a global basis, then they become bridges to support IoT deployments on a global scale. Cars and AR glasses might be the icing on the cake, but the potential is for Apple to leverage this connectivity to underpin development (or even acquisition) of a global satellite data and communications network.
These days, mobile data is money — and if you don’t optimize your phone to handle it intelligently, you’re throwing dollars down the drain.
After all, whether you have a plan with a monthly data cap or a setup where you’re billed for the data you use, you’re essentially paying for all the virtual info you transmit over your carrier’s network. In the former case, reducing your Android data usage could let you move to a cheaper level of service — while in the latter, every megabyte you save will directly lower your monthly bill.
The good news is that it’s relatively easy to save data on Android without seeing much meaningful impact on your day-to-day experience. Just follow the steps below, starting small and ending with the nuclear-level Android Data Saver option, and watch your wallet — or your company’s appreciation — grow larger.
1. Diagnose your data usage
You have to understand a problem before you can fix it, so start by heading into your system settings. The specific steps you’ll take from there can vary considerably based on what company made your phone and what version of Android it’s running.
Brace yourself:
On older Android versions, you’ll want to open up the Network & Internet section, then tap a line labeled “Data usage” and select “Mobile data usage” on the screen that appears.
On more recent versions of the operating system, all the way up until 2021’s Android 12 release, you’ll open that same Network & Internet section and then tap “Mobile network” followed by “App data usage.”
On Google’s version of Android 12, you’ll head into the Network & Internet section and then tap “Internet” followed by the gear-shaped icon next to your carrier’s name and then “App data usage” (whew!).
And on Samsung’s recent Android implementations, you’ll march into the Connections section of the system settings, then tap “Data usage” followed by “Mobile data usage.”
However you get there, you’ll be greeted with a detailed overview of exactly what apps burned through your mobile data over the most recent 30-day cycle (and if you want even more context, you can look back in previous cycles by tapping the dates at the top of the screen and selecting an earlier range). Many of the top offenders will likely be social media programs, web browsers, and apps that involve streaming audio or video. Make a mental note of any such items; we’ll get into the specifics of dealing with them in a moment.
If you see anything else that’s responsible for more than a few megabytes of mobile data, tap on it to take a closer look. That’ll give you a breakdown of how much of the app’s data usage was in the foreground — in other words, the result of something you actively did with your display on — and how much of it was in the background, or taking place without your active involvement.
JR Raphael/IDG
Android’s data usage tool shows you a breakdown of each app’s consumption for any given period of time.
Keep all of that in mind as we move through the following steps.
2. Battle unnecessary background trickles
Now that we know what’s eating through your mobile data, it’s time to start addressing it. We’ll start by seeking out and limiting specific instances of unnecessary background data use. Social and news apps tend to be among the worst at this, as they often check in at regular intervals throughout the day in order to pull in new updates. You can opt to disable that behavior — and in most cases, you probably won’t even notice the difference.
One by one, open up any social or news apps on your phone and look for data-saving opportunities in their settings. In the Twitter Android app, for instance, you’ll find a section called “Data usage.” Tap it and then uncheck the box next to “Sync data” to make the app update only when you’re actively looking at it. (That won’t affect your ability to get notifications, incidentally; those are controlled separately in the “Notifications” section of the app’s settings.)
You’ll find similar options for controlling how often syncing or updating occurs in most social and news apps. And if you have an app that showed up as a high consumer of background data in our first step but that doesn’t have any obvious way to control its data use within its settings — like Facebook, which is a notorious data guzzler but doesn’t provide any way for you disable its background activity altogether — take control at the system level: Head into the Apps section of your system settings and tap the relevant app’s line. (Depending on your Android version, you may first have to tap “See all apps” to find it.) Next, tap “Data usage,” “Mobile data & Wi-Fi,” or “Mobile data,” and then deactivate the toggle next to either “Background data” or “Allow background data usage.” That’ll prevent the app from using data in the background unless you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network.
(Be sure to use common sense with this, by the way: If you disable background data for something like a messaging app, that app isn’t going to be able to receive messages in the background when you’re out and about during the day. That probably isn’t something you want. Think carefully about the implications of turning off any app’s ability to retrieve new info in the background before you do it, and make sure you’re OK with any tradeoffs that might be involved.)
3. Stop the autoplay insanity
Videos are among the most voracious consumers of data, and lots of apps have the bad habit of playing them when you aren’t even paying attention.
Social media apps, for example, love to autoplay videos as you scroll through a feed or timeline. But guess what? It doesn’t take much effort to change that.
In the Facebook Android app, if you open the main menu, tap “Settings & Privacy,” then tap “Settings” followed by “Media,” you’ll find a series of controls that’ll reduce the size of images and videos and keep videos from playing on their own. In Twitter, you’ll find similar options in the “Data Usage” section of the app’s settings.
Most social apps have similar settings, even if they require a little digging. Seek ’em all out and stop letting your data allotment get tossed into the trash.
And one more thing: Certain websites that autoplay videos (cough, cough, awkward whistling) also take a toll on your data use — and probably annoy the living daylights out of you, too. Chrome, curiously enough, seems to have quietly eliminated the option it once offered to stop that from happening. But if you’re willing to switch to an alternate browser, you can still take back control.
Next up is an easy fix: making your browser less of a data hog. Google’s Chrome Android browser has an option called Lite Mode that routes pages through Google’s servers so they’re compressed when they reach you. It can save a significant amount of data — as much as 60%, according to Google’s estimates — and actually make your browsing noticeably faster as a result. (Note, however, that it doesn’t work with Chrome’s Incognito Mode.)
To try it out, go into Chrome’s settings and look for the line labeled “Lite Mode.” Tap it, then make sure the toggle there is activated.
If you want even more data-saving tools, try Opera Mini. The browser offers its own form of remote page compression and provides a variety of settings to control how much optimization occurs.
JR Raphael/IDG
Chrome’s Lite Mode feature can cut back significantly on your mobile data usage, while Opera Mini’s equivalent allows you to customize its data-saving behavior.
5. Optimize your music apps
Got YouTube Music for your morning commute? Head into the app’s settings and look for the “Audio quality on mobile network” option. Try setting it to “Low” and then see if the more data-friendly audio quality is good enough for your ears.
While you’re in the settings, take a moment to confirm that the “Limit mobile data usage” and “Don’t play music videos” options are activated.
YouTube Music isn’t the only audio app with these sorts of options, of course. Spotify has an “Audio Quality” setting along with separate settings for streaming quality on both Wi-Fi and mobile data. Pandora has a single “Higher quality audio” toggle that you can turn off. And most other music and podcast services have some manner of similar controls. Be sure to look through the settings of any such apps on your phone to make sure they’re configured in the most data-efficient manner possible.
6. Put YouTube on a mobile data diet
While we’re on the subject of streaming, open up the YouTube app and look in the “Video quality preferences” section of its settings. There, you’ll find an option to force the app to use “Data saver” quality whenever you’re relying on mobile data.
Next, back out to the main settings menu and select “Autoplay.” Make sure the toggle next to “Autoplay next video” is disabled — then back out to the main settings once more, select “General,” then tap “Playback in feeds” and change its setting to either “Wi-Fi only” or “Off.”
7. Download media in advance
The best way to cut back on mobile data streaming is to avoid it — and many multimedia apps make that easy to do. The trick is simply to download the content you want in advance, while you’re connected to Wi-Fi, so it’ll be locally stored and available whenever you’re relying on mobile data.
And don’t forget that if you subscribe to YouTube Premium or YouTube Music Premium, you also have the ability to download videos from YouTube for on-the-go viewing (and that applies on your Chromebook, too, if you’re crafty). Look in the “Background & downloads” section of the YouTube app’s settings to adjust your offline watching settings, then tap the three-line menu icon next to any video on the YouTube home screen to find the download option (or open the video and then look for the Download button directly beneath its title).
Spotify and other audio streaming services also offer similar options.
8. Take your navigation offline
You know what else can download data in advance and help you avoid expensive streaming? Google Maps. The next time you know you’re going to need navigation, open the Maps app in advance, while you’re still somewhere with Wi-Fi. Search for the city where you’ll be navigating, then tap the city’s name in the middle of the screen and tap the Download button that appears on the next screen.
JR Raphael/IDG
Search for a city in Maps, then tap its name to find the option to download all of its data for later use.
You’ll then be able to use the map of that area normally, and you can always see and manage all of your downloaded maps by tapping your profile picture in the app’s upper-right corner and then selecting “Offline maps” from the menu that appears.
9. Put the Play Store on notice
App updates are great! They’re also, however, often large — and if you aren’t careful, they can use an awful lot of your mobile data allotment.
Make sure that isn’t happening by opening up the Play Store on your phone, tapping your profile in the upper-right corner, then selecting “Settings” followed by “Network preferences.” There, you can ensure that the “Auto-update apps” option is set to “Over Wi-Fi only” and also that “Auto-play videos” is set to “Over Wi-Fi only.” If you really want to go all out, you can also change “App download preference” to either “Over Wi-Fi only” or “Ask me every time” and then avoid downloading any apps on mobile data unless it’s absolutely necessary.
10. Try the light versions of apps and websites
A growing number of services now offer scaled-down versions of apps — apps designed explicitly to use less data while still delivering reasonably good experiences. Even if you aren’t overly worried about your mobile data usage, you might find some of them to be preferable to the regular alternatives.
Google has an entire suite of “Go”-branded apps for this very purpose, and as of this writing, four of them are broadly available: Google Go, Google Maps Go, Navigation for Google Maps Go, and Gallery Go. (The others — including Gmail Go, Google Assistant Go, and YouTube Go — are currently available only for Android Go devices.) Facebook also offers light versions of its main Facebook app and Facebook Messenger app. Most other prominent light apps in the Play Store are heavily restricted, for some reason, and not broadly available for installation in the U.S.
And beyond just apps, both CNN and NPR offer super-light, text-centric versions of their websites that’ll barely tip your data scales.
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Google Maps Go (left) gives you all the Maps basics in a lighter form, while CNN’s text-only website (right) is designed to use minimal data.
11. Plug up senseless leaks
Now’s a good time to think about any apps on your phone that you no longer use and to uninstall them (or disable them, if they came preinstalled and can’t be removed) — especially if they showed up in your list of top mobile data drainers.
Keeping any such items on your phone is like keeping an out-of-use cable box plugged into an electrical outlet. Every little bit adds up — so why allow a leak of your resources for no real reason?
12. Perform an account syncing audit
While you’ve got your plumber pants on, head into the Accounts (or Passwords & Accounts, Accounts & Backup, or possibly Users & Accounts) section of your system settings, tap “Accounts” a second time, if needed (hi, Samsung folk!), and then tap the line for your main Google account. Last but not least, tap the line that says either “Account sync” or “Sync account” (because clearly, nothing across Android can ever be completely consistent).
See all that stuff your phone is syncing? Odds are, at least some of it is related to services you never use. If, say, you never open Google Drive, Google TV, or even Google Calendar, deactivate the toggle next to the corresponding line. That’s one less thing your phone will check in on throughout the day. (I hope this goes without saying, but phone-level services such as “Contacts” and “People details” are generally best left alone.)
Got multiple Google accounts connected to your phone? Repeat this step for each of ’em — and do the same for any third-party apps that show up in your account list.
13. Go nuclear on unnecessary data use
If you’ve tried all the above options and still feel like you could stand to use less data, there’s an even more extreme step to try — and it’s a drastic one.
With any reasonably recent Android version (anything from 2017’s Android 7.0 release forward), Android has a system-level tool called Data Saver that prevents most apps from using mobile data unless they’re open on your screen and actively being used. That means apps won’t be able to do anything in the background, including fetching and notifying you about new messages, unless you’re on Wi-Fi (or you manually safe-list them as exceptions). And even apps you’re actively using in the foreground will frequently be forced to adjust their behavior in order to use less data.
It’s a severe measure, to be sure, but if you’re desperate to curb your mobile data use, even temporarily, it’s worth considering. You can find the feature in the Network & Internet section of your system settings — or, with Samsung devices, in the Connections section, within the area labeled “Data usage.”
Related video:
JR Raphael walks you through a few quick ways to curb data use in Android. (Depending on your Android version, the exact steps involved might be slightly different.)
This article was initially published in April 2017 and most recently updated in August 2021.
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