Category: Mobile Syrup

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Mobile Syrup

Some Pixel Watch owners report backplate falling off

Like any Google product, the Pixel Watch has had its share of issues. But a new problem seems a bit more serious — some Pixel Watch owners had the watch’s backplate pop off.

So far, the problem doesn’t seem very widespread, with only a small number of reports showing up on Reddit. In the past two days, there were two posts about the problem on Reddit, with another replying in the comments to say they also had the issue.

Pixel Watch backplate falling off, | Images credits: u/milkkomson (left) and u/MelonHeadSeb (right)

There’s also no clear cause for the back plate popping off. Both Redditors claim they haven’t worn the watch swimming and generally avoided getting it wet. Some commenters suggested it could be due to sweat, humidity or heat fluctuations.

Whatever the cause, it seems those impacted so far have been able to resolve the issue, either through Google Support with a warranty-covered repair or by finding a repair shop. Again, the problem doesn’t seem super widespread, but if it does happen to your Pixel Watch, it seems like you’ll be covered.

Source: Reddit ‘milkkomson,’ (2) ‘MelonHeadSeb’

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Mobile Syrup

Pixel April 2023 security patch is now available

April’s Android security patch is finally available after a short delay.

This isn’t a big feature drop; Google did a larger one last month, with another expected for June. This update comes with bug fixes.

  • Fix for issue occasionally causing connected Bluetooth devices or accessories to silently unpair
  • Autofocus improvements while using Macro Focus in certain situations (Pixel 7 Pro only)
  • Fix for issue occasionally causing instability while using certain USB devices or accessories (Pixel 6 series, Pixel 7 series)

Security fixes range from moderate to critical in severity. 

The update is hitting Pixel 4a devices to Pixel 7 series handsets. You can download them over the air or download the factory images from Android Authority’s website. 

Source: Google

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Mobile Syrup

Apple Fitness+ introduces news workouts inspired by Ted Lasso

Fans of the hit sports comedy-drama and Apple TV+ Original Ted Lasso can now get in on the action with newly released workouts inspired by the show, courtesy of Apple Fitness+.

Apple Fitness+ has introduced four new Ted Lasso-inspired workouts. Users can join Coach Kyle for soccer-influenced strength moves as well as participate in a soccer-match-inspired HIIT workout with Coach Bakari.

Additionally, two of the new exercises include a cycling and treadmill workout from Coach Sherica and Emily respectively.

Coaches from the workouts even sport AFC Richmond jerseys, a nod to the club from the hit show.

Each of the four new workouts features playlists inspired by music from the show, adding to the themes of teamwork and confidence.

Further, Ted Lasso‘s influence has found its way to Time to Walk, the audio walking experience from Apple Fitness+. Time to Walk has recently featured Ted Lasso stars Brendan Hunt and Hannah Waddingham.

Apple Fitness+ can find the new workouts under the Fitness+ tab of the Fitness app.

Apple Fitness+ costs $12.99 per month or $99.99 CAD annually.

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Mobile Syrup

Pixel 7a images show off stylish blue colour option

Google I/O is just around the corner, which means so is the Pixel 7a. Google typically reveals its A-series Pixel phone at the annual developer conference, and this year likely will be no different. Also like in past years, we’ve learned a lot about the Pixel 7a through various leaks. The latest, however, is a series of images showing off the three colour options for the 7a.

The images (which appear to be Google marketing renders, but it’s not entirely clear) come from MySmartPrice and leaker OnLeaks and show the Pixel 7a in white, grey and blue. MySmartPrice notes it isn’t yet aware of the official marketing names for each colour.

If you’ve been following Pixel 7a leaks so far, there’s very little in the renders that should be new or surprising, aside from the blue colour. The 7a looks very similar to its predecessor and the Pixel 7, borrowing the metal camera visor design that differentiated the Pixel 7 series from the Pixel 6 series.

MySmartPrice also details the rumoured specs, claiming the 7a will sport a 64-megapixel Sony IMX787 main sensor and a 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera sensor, 256GB of internal storage (up from 128GB on the 6a) and a bump to 8GB of RAM. The 7a will reportedly have a 10.8-megapixel front camera.

Beyond that, the phone will have a 6.1-inch OLED display, apparently with a 90Hz refresh rate. It will run on Google’s Tensor G2 chip, just like the Pixel 7 and 7 pro, and sport 5W wireless charging. The wireless charging and refresh rate bumps will address two of the biggest issues I had with the Pixel 6a and significantly close the gap between the 7a and Pixel 7, with the only major difference between them being the camera.

Of course, with all the deals available on the Pixel 7 recently, it’s tough to say if it makes sense to wait for the 7a given how similar the devices are. Currently, the Pixel 6a goes for $599 in Canada, and the 7a will presumably be around the same price. The Pixel 7 costs $799 but has been repeatedly discounted down to $599 in recent months. If it goes on sale again, it might make sense to grab the Pixel 7 and forget the 7a — but we’ll see what happens when the 7a launches.

Source: MySmartPrice

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Mobile Syrup

AirTag helps recover stolen E-bike from thief’s apartment

The AirTag, Apple’s small tracking device, has proven to be useful for finding lost items but also for recovering stolen ones. Just last week, we reported a story where a San Antonio man used his AirTag to track a stolen truck.

Now, A family in California has used the AirTag to track down their $3,000 USD (about $4,065 CAD) e-bike that was stolen in March and confronted the thief at his apartment.

Johnny Ehrman of Orange County relied on her e-bike for daily transportation to work, school, and other places. She was devastated when she discovered that her e-bike was stolen. “I drive like 12 miles a day,” Ehrman told Fox 11 LA (via AppleInsider). “I was sobbing outside my workplace. I actually had some of my coworkers be like, What’s happening? Where is your bike?”

Fortunately, Ehrman had an AirTag attached to her bike. The $39 tracker uses ultra-wideband technology to share its location, which can be seen on the Find My app on your iPhone or iPad. After reporting the theft to the police, Ehrman and her family used the Find My app on their iPhone to locate the AirTag and the e-bike at an apartment near their home.

David Ehrman, Johnny’s father, decided to take matters into his own hands and went to the apartment to retrieve the e-bike. “I yelled, ‘Dude I am grabbing my daughters bike,’ boom and I hightailed right out of there,” David said. “The dude just stood there with the look on his face like I’ve never seen anyone with that look.”

“I think the look was shock.” he added “Like ‘How did you get my location?’”

It’s worth noting that it is important to wait for the police in such matters. While AirTag can be an effective tool for locating stolen items, it is crucial to exercise caution and leave any confrontations to the professionals. While this confrontation did not get heated, last week’s stolen truck confrontation turned deadly.

Source: Fox 11 LA Via: AppleInsider

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Mobile Syrup

Season two of upcoming Star Wars: Visions series gets a trailer

The highly anticipated season two of Disney +’s anthology series, Star Wars: Visions, now has an official trailer.

It was announced in February 2023 that Lucasfilm Animation would be branching out from its plan to only include only Japanese anime studios to work on the project. Season two is set to feature nine new animated shorts from nine different studios across the globe.

Star Wars fans can now get a sneak peek of those plans before the premiere of season two is set to release on May 4th.

Season two was announced during 2022’s Star Wars Celebration event after the first season was met with immense acclaim and popularity.

Studios such as Cartoon Saloon, PunkRobot, Triggerfish and El Guiri Studios are slated to produce episodes for season two, according to Star Wars.

Season two of Star Wars: Visions will be streaming on Disney+ on May 4th.

Image credit: Star Wars

Source: Star Wars Via: Gizmodo

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Mobile Syrup

Virgin Plus increases unlimited talk and text plan to $34/mo

Bell flanker brand Virgin Plus increased the price of its basic unlimited talk and text plan by $1/mo again, roughly three months after the last price increase.

Virgin’s website now lists the unlimited talk and text plan as $34/mo. The plan doesn’t include data, which means any data use gets billed at the pay-per-use rate (which costs an absurd $20 per gigabyte up to 8GB — $160 total — followed by $0.02 per megabyte thereafter, which still works out to about $20 per gigabyte). It’s worth noting that Virgin’s data overage rate increased last month.

Back in January, Virgin and Telus flanker Koodo increased the cost of their unlimited talk and text plans to $33/mo. In January 2022, the plans cost $30/mo. There was a brief period in August 2022 when Virgin, Koodo, and Rogers flanker Fido lowered the cost to $27/mo — something approaching fair for a talk and text plan — but that was short-lived.

Virgin Plus talk and text plan as of April 10th, 2023

At the time of publication, only Virgin had increased the talk and text plan to $34. Koodo still offered the plan for $33 at the time of publication. Fido, on the other hand, charges $38 for the plan but markets it as a $33 plan because of the $5/mo automatic payments discount. Fido added the auto pay discount in January, but instead of offering the discount on existing prices, it increased every plan by $5/mo so that customers need to choose automatic payments to get the same pricing as before the discount was offered.

Canadians in the market for an unlimited talk and text plan should definitely look elsewhere. Lucky Mobile, Public Mobile and Chatr Mobile all offer a $25/mo plan with 1GB of 3G data and unlimited talk and text. Freedom Mobile also has a $25/mo plan with 1GB of LTE data and unlimited talk and text. And that’s just a few of the options out there.

Source: Virgin Plus

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Mobile Syrup

How to use Voice Isolation mic mode for calls with iOS 16.4

With the release of iOS 15, Apple added mic modes to the iPhone that brought features like ‘Wide Spectrum,’ ‘Voice Isolation,’ and ‘Standard’ to calls. However, the modes were limited to calls on FaceTime.

With iOS 16.4, Apple is expanding the feature to work with regular cellular calls, essentially improving the quality of calls on the iPhone.

Voice Isolation mic mode gets rid of all the ambient background noise around you and prioritizes your voice only, allowing the person on the other side of the call to hear you clearly. It’s worth noting that the Wide Spectrum mic mode is currently unavailable for cellular calls, but when it does roll out, instead of isolating your voice and removing all the background sound, your mic will capture, intensify, and transmit all the noise around you during a cellular call. The Standard mic mode, as the name suggests, reverts your mic to the regular mode.

To be able to use the feature with your iPhone, you need to be running iOS 16.4. Once updated, simply hop on a cellular call and pull up the Control Center by swiping down on your phone.

On the top right, you’ll see a ‘Mic Mode’ option, which will be on Standard mode by default. Tap on it and you’ll see the Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum modes. Tap on either of the modes depending on your need.

Besides the new mic modes, iOS 16.4 also bring expanded support for detecting duplicate photos and videos in an iCloud Shared Photo Library, notifications for Web Apps, new emojis, VoiceOver support for Maps in the Weather app, and more.

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Mobile Syrup

Did you watch The Super Mario Bros. Movie?

Many people will celebrate Easter or Passover this long weekend, but some folks might also be celebrating the release of The Super Mario Bros. Movie in theatres.

The film features the voices of Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad and many more. The Illumination film has a pretty low 53 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, but the ‘Audience Score’ is 96 percent, indicating that critics and fans are split on the new movie.

I haven’t seen The Super Mario Bros. Movie yet, but MobileSyrup‘s Brad Shankar watched the film, and you can read his thoughts on it here.

So, our question this week: did you watch The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and if you did, how was it? Let us know in the comments below.

In related news, MobileSyrup just kicked off a contest with Nintendo of Canada to send you and a friend to New York City for the launch of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. More information can be found here.

Image credit: Illumination

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Mobile Syrup

I’ve been trying to find a better iPhone camera app, and it’s tough

While I love the power of the iPhone 14 Pro’s camera, there are a few things on the software side where I crave a little more control.

There’s weird HDR to deal with, super blue skies, auto-brightening people and other minor tweaks in Apple’s photo-developing pipeline that make the iPhone act less like a camera and more like a memory capture device. This is probably a good thing for most people, but I’d rather handle edits myself.

I snapped some shots a few months ago when I was visiting the new GM assembly plant, and my iPhone 14 Pro butchered several photos of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In an attempt to brighten the subject of the image, my iPhone created weird edges around the Prime Minister and the flags on stage.

Since I had forgotten to toggle ProRAW mode, the edits were burned into my file. To make matters worse, whenever I long-pressed on the picture, the ‘Live Photo’ would show the scene as it properly looked, but that version of the photo was too low-resolution.

This led me to look at other apps that could be used to replace the default camera app that’s always been trusted on iPhones. When it came down to it, I almost went with an app called Obscura 3, but the fantastic iPhone 14 Pro review from Sebastiaan de With, the founder of the Halide app, swayed me towards his software. His photos were great, and the reviews of the most recent version of Halide Mark II led me to big things. But most importantly, you can set it to capture RAW images and JPEGs simultaneously like a real camera.

This means that when you snap a photo, you have an easy-to-share JPEG and, if you want to edit, a RAW DNG file. While taking up more storage space, these retain more information about your scene, giving you more detail and the ability to adjust highlights and shadows easily. The downside is that your photos will all be larger than regular JPEG files. Although, this does depend on what you’re taking a picture of. Trees with tons of detail make big photo files, but smooth surfaces in even lighting can be much smaller. That said, I haven’t seen anything over 150MB.

There are still some processing issues, but having a RAW file each time at least gave me an unedited file to work from without fear of Apple taking the edits into its own hands.

Halide has an easy-to-use Auto mode that helps the app replicate some of the point-and-shoot functionality of the default app, plus it still gives me a RAW file to edit. I’ve admittedly spent most of my time in this mode since subtle exposure adjustments are the only thing I often change. Shutter speed and ISO are nice to be able to control if I jump into manual mode, but I don’t need these from a phone unless I’m trying to take a long exposure. For me, this exercise is just to get the most editable file possible.

Manual mode toggle on the left and a long exposure shot on iPhone.

From there, I removed the default camera app from my home screen and replaced it with Halide. The app even has a widget that makes it easy to open from the lock screen. However, it lacks one crucial feature that keeps me diving back into Apple’s camera — video mode.

Bouncing between separate apps to create videos and photos is not a very efficient way to work. While I like having a backup RAW file to work in case everything goes wrong, the hassle of switching apps has become too annoying. Combining that with Halide’s $14 per year subscription, there seems to be more pulling me away from the app than in.

I still need to test Obscura 3, and as a big fan of Obscura 2, I have hopes it can solve my problems. It does have a built-in video mode, but for now, I’ll likely try switching back to the default camera app and toggling ProRAW on when I need it. Two apps for one feature is too much for how little it changes things.