Friday, April 15, 2016

Apple iPhone SE review – too small for most people

Apple iPhone SE review – too small for most

Taking the guts of the iPhone 6S and squeezing them into the frame of the iPhone 5S is great, but only those who really want a 4in phone should buy one

With the iPhone SE everything that is old is now new again, but is that a good thing and is a small, 4in smartphone really up to scratch in 2016?
The new iPhone SE comes in at the bottom end of Apple’s iPhone range on cost, below the iPhone 6S and 2014’s iPhone 6, a spot typically filled by last year’s model. It’s now the only smartphone Apple makes with a screen smaller than 4.7in, which for some could be a big deal. For others it could be a deal breaker.

iPhone 5, 5S or iPhone SE?

iPhone SE review — All-metal body, glass top and bottom and a glass-front, a mirror image of the iPhone 5 and 5S. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian

The iPhone SE is the spitting image of the iPhone 5S. The only differences are that the edges are the same colour and texture as the back of the device, it comes in rose gold, the Apple logo on the back is shiny, and there’s a small “SE” emblem on the back, reminiscent of the Machintosh SE from 1987.
It’s still relatively slender at 7.6mm thick - its hard square edges make it feel thicker than it is - and it weighs 113g, which is quite light for a smartphone these days. Then again, it’s very small for a smartphone in 2016.
The screen is the same as the 5S, 4in on the diagonal with the same quality colours, brightness and blacks. Compared to the iPhone 6S the screen is noticeably weaker, with poorer blacks and vibrancy. It’s not a bad screen by any stretch of the imagination, it’s just a good screen from two years ago, which is exactly what it is.
In the hand the body feels sharp and hard, with unforgiving edges which are only acceptable because of the phone’s diminutive size. The hard edges are easier to grip than the slippery rounded sides of the iPhone 6S, and particularly the large 6S Plus, but they hurt my palms after clutching it for an hour or two.
The iPhone SE’s closest rival is the excellent Sony Xperia Z5 Compact, which has a significantly larger 4.6in display, weighs 138g, is 8.9mm thick and has slightly larger dimensions. Practically no other 4in devices in this high-end category exist anymore.
Using a 4in screen in 2016 is a compromise. Websites feel very cramped, apps often leave only a small amount of screen to the content they’re trying to display and buttons can end up very small making tapping them a bit of a challenge.

Specifications

Screen: 4in 1136 x 640 pixels (326 ppi)
Processor: dual-core Apple A9
RAM: 2GB of RAM Storage: 16/64GB; no SD card
Operating system: iOS 9.3
Camera: 12MP rear camera, 1.2MP front-facing camera
Connectivity: LTE, Wi-Fi, NFC, Bluetooth 4.2 and GPS
Dimensions: 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6mm Weight: 113g

Three generations in one device

The Touch ID sensor is slower than the one on the iPhone 6S, which makes it easier to see the lockscreen, but also forces you to wait a second or so to get to the homescreen. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian

When you dig into the innards of the iPhone SE things start to get more interesting. It has a combination of iPhone 5S, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S parts. The processor and graphics chip is an Apple A9 from the iPhone 6S, which makes it as fast as its bigger brother. It also has 2GB of RAM - double the iPhone 5S - which makes multitasking or browsing multiple tabs in Safari a lot faster with less reloading.
Performance is much faster overall than the iPhone 5S and feels similar to that of the iPhone 6S, apart from the fingerprint sensor, which is pretty slow for a 2016 smartphone costing £350+. It’s the same original Touch ID sensor from the iPhone 5S/6, not the new, much faster Touch ID sensor from the 6S, which is disappointing.
The iPhone SE’s battery life is better than the 6S, mirroring that of the 6S Plus. Using it as my main device, with hundreds of emails, push notifications, three hours of browsing and listening to music - without the Facebook app installed - the iPhone SE lasted a solid working day. I went to bed with 10% battery left and work up eight hours later with 5%.
Compared to other iPhones, most will see better battery out of the SE, but it doesn’t come close to its closest Android competitor, the Xperia Z5 Compact, which lasted as long as three days between charges.
Call quality was excellent. I also didn’t suffer from the reported Bluetooth audio issues.

iOS 9

The iPhone SE comes loaded with iOS 9.3, which currently runs on the iPhone 4S and newer, including the iPhone 5S.
It includes features such as Apple’s Night Mode, which reduces the amount of blue light emitted by the display in the evening to help you sleep. It’s the exact same version running on the iPhone 6S currently and behaves as such, minus the 3D Touch gestures that the SE does not support.
It’s worth noting that iOS works better on smaller devices, where your thumb can reach all areas of the screen. Activating the Control Center feels more consistent, as does swapping between apps using the task switcher on the smaller screen.

iOS 9 review: an upgrade to jump for, or skip?

Camera

The rear camera is the same 12-megapixel shooter as fitted in the iPhone 6S and performs as such. It’s one of the better cameras available on a smartphone, with good detail and colour balance, but it has been bettered recently by cameras from Samsung, Sony and Google.
It is a big step up from the iPhone 5S with 4K video recording and Apple’s Live Photos, which are nice to play with but end up being a gimmick that’s difficult to share with non-iPhone users.
The 1.2-megapixel selfie camera, however, is the same as that fitted to the iPhone 5S and is distinctly worse than the rear camera or that fitted to the iPhone 6S, which is a shame. It will shoot decent selfies in good light, but struggles in low-light conditions.

Price

The iPhone SE is available in four colours and two storage options costing £359 for 16GB of space and £439 for 64GB of space.
For comparison, the iPhone 6S costs £539, the iPhone 6 costs £459 and the Sony Xperia Z5 Compact costs £300.

Observations

It took a full phone reset to get iCloud Music/iTunes Match to work properly, which was deeply irritating.
Do not buy the 16GB version unless you can help it. 16GB of storage will rapidly be filled up with apps, videos, music and photos.
The iPhone SE will fit in any cases and take any accessories designed for the iPhone 5S or 5
Apple Pay is supported, unlike the 5S
Compared to larger phones the SE feels more robust
Typing on the 4in screen is quite fiddly and slow - my thumbs clashed on the tiny keyboard
My hands started to cramp after half a day trying to grip the small phone
The hard edges were sore on my palms and are a downgrade over the iPhone 5S. Stick it in a case.
The iPhone SE lacks 3D touch and the Taptic engine from the iPhone 6S, which means many of the new gestures built into iOS9 for swapping between apps etc are not available.

Verdict

The iPhone SE is one of the best of the very few small phones still available. It would be a significant downgrade from an iPhone 6, isn’t a quantum leap over the iPhone 5S and should only really be considered if size is the overriding factor.
It might make a good first iPhone, but it feels like a step backwards - the 4in screen is very small for browsing, viewing photos, apps, games and typing. Smartphones, and what we consume on them, have moved on in the four years since a 4in iPhone was first unveiled, and the iPhone SE feels much less engaging than a 6S.
It is much more pocketable, easier to grip and costs less, but it still isn’t a “budget” iPhone and is still relatively expensive compared to competing smartphones from other manufacturers.

Pros: one-day battery, good rear camera, decent screen, easy to hold, easy to fit in a pocket, fits in existing iPhone 5 accessories
Cons: very small screen, edges are hard on hands, looks like an iPhone 5 or 5S, selfie camera isn’t great, no expandable storage or removable battery

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

WhatsApp Encryption Ups Privacy Ante

WhatsApp on Tuesday told its 1 billion users that their communications would be better protected from prying eyes with end-to-end encryption.

The company always has made data and communication security a priority, according to Jan Koum and Brian Acton, the founders of WhatsApp, which Facebook bought for US$19 billion in 2014.
"From now on when you and your contacts use the latest version of the app, every call you make, and every message, photo, video, file, and voice message you send, is end to end encrypted by default, including group chats," they wrote in a blog post.

Signal Protocol

WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption is accomplished through the use of the Signal Protocol, developed by Open Whisper Systems.
The company has been working with WhatsApp for a year to integrate the technology with all the platforms WhatsApp works on, including chats, group chats, attachments, voice notes and voice calls across Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, Nokia S40, Nokia S60, BlackBerry and BB10.
During the transition period while users upgrade to the new version of WhatsApp, there will be some unencrypted text, also known as plaintext, on the system, said Moxie Marlinspike, a member of Open Whisper's management team.
"To make this transition as clear as possible," he said, "WhatsApp clients notify users when their chats become end to end encrypted."

User Alerts

Starting Tuesday, WhatsApp users began seeing notices on their conversation screens, as well as under a chat's preference screen, when an individual or group chat is end to end encrypted.
"Once a client recognizes a contact as being fully e2e capable, it will not permit transmitting plaintext to that contact, even if that contact were to downgrade to a version of the software that is not fully e2e capable. This prevents the server or a network attacker from being able to perform a downgrade attack," Marlinspike said.
The Signal Protocol has more than a billion monthly active users worldwide, he added.
"Over the next year," Marlinspike added, "we will continue to work with additional messengers to amplify the impact and scope of private communication."

Appropriate Response

More companies should emulate WhatsApp's attitude toward encryption, maintained Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst at IT-Harvest.
"It's the appropriate response of vendors of communication tools that need privacy," he told TechNewsWorld.
"It pushes the care and feeding of the encryption keys to the users. That offloads discovery and all the hassles with requests from law enforcement to decrypt captured data," Stiennon said.
"It's the only economically viable solution for anyone who does this," he added.

Conflicting Interests

Although WhatsApp recognized that end-to-end encryption can be a barrier to effective law enforcement, Koum and Acton defended the company's use of the technology, asserting that efforts to weaken encryption risk exposing users' information to abuse from cybercriminals and rogue countries.
"While WhatsApp is among the few communication platforms to build full end-to-end encryption that is on by default for everything you do, we expect that it will ultimately represent the future of personal communication," the pair added.
If that happens, however, confrontations between tech companies and law enforcement agencies likely will escalate.
"We're definitely going to see more incidents," said Matthew Green, a professor specializing in cryptography at Johns Hopkins University.
"Law enforcement is hugely dependent on wiretaps," he told TechNewsWorld. "Since we've only begun to see data encrypted, we're only at the beginning of this controversy."

Imperfect Protection

While end-to-end encryption is a strong measure to protect privacy, the messages of WhatsApp users still can be exposed in other ways, warned Cris Thomas, a strategist with Tenable Network Security.
"If you're using an unencrypted iCloud backup or someone has access to your Android device, your messages are still readable," he told TechNewsWorld.
End-to-end encryption is akin to transporting valuables in an armored car, Thomas said. "The messages while in transit are secure, but the endpoints are still vulnerable."
In addition, although WhatsApp can't decrypt the data on users' phones, it still has the metadata about their activity -- their phone numbers, who they messaged and when they message them.

Sunday, April 3, 2016

10 things to know about Google's biggest business

1/1110 things to know about Google's biggest business

Google and its parent company Alphabet may nowadays be known for a myriad of projects, such as self-driving cars and smart contact lenses, but the brand is still best for its search division.

Here are 10 things you probably don't know about Google's search division, its biggest business...

2/11

First, a trip down memory lane. Here's what Google's search page looked like back in 1997

3/11

In 1998, the year Google officially launched, users were making about 500,000 searches per day. Now, there are more than 2.3 million Google searches per second.

4/11

That adds up to more than 100,000,000,000 Google searches per month.

5/11

For each one, Google takes over 200 factors into account before delivering you the best results to any query in 1/8 of a second.

6/11

People rely on Google's services so heavily that when they all went down for 5 minutes in 2013, global internet traffic dropped by 40%.

7/11

Google's search index contains over 100 million GB of data. It would take 100,000 one-terabyte personal drives to contain the same amount of data.

8/11

Although the 69% of internet browser users who have Chrome don't actually ever type out "Google.com" anymore, the company owns a bunch of domains that are common misspellings of Google, like Gooogle.com, Gogle.com, Googlr.com, and more. Google also owns 466453.com, too ...

9/11

Google creates products that it hopes will matter to millions, or even billions, of people.

However, it also takes on important projects that matter only to small groups: Google's internationalization team spent more than four years working with reps from Cherokee Nation to bring the language into search (it's also available on Gmail, Chromebooks, and Android).

10/11

Since October 2015, more than half of Google's searches happen on mobile.

11/11

If you want to dive into your own digital archive, you can visit Google.com/history to see *every single search* tied to your account.