Samsung’s Galaxy Fold smartphone is “Fragile with a capital ‘F,’” which was the “big takeaway” of iFixit’s teardown analysis, said the right-to-repair company Wednesday. Samsung this week postponed the Galaxy Fold launch from Friday to a date not certain after online reviewers reported the displays on test samples Samsung sent them broke a day or two after being unboxed (see 1904220028). The Galaxy Fold “is, without question, an ambitious first-generation device,” said iFixit. Time will tell if the problems reviewers encountered are just “temporary setbacks” or the prelude to a “a full-blown AirPower-style product cancellation,” it said. Apple scrapped the AirPower wireless charging mat’s commercial introduction after concluding internally the product wasn't up to snuff (see 1903290062). The Galaxy Fold has a “ton of entry points for dust and other foreign matter to make their way inside, and there are so many different ways for the screen to break,” said iFixit. Its main bezels are “super slim,” it said. “They barely cover two millimeters of display, while leaving a 7 mm gap at the top and bottom. That doesn’t seem like much protection.” Samsung didn’t comment.
Amazon Key for Garage went live Monday, enabling eligible Prime members to get deliveries to their garage using a connected myQ garage door opener from Chamberlain Group, Amazon said. Consumers opt in by linking their Amazon and myQ accounts in the Key by Amazon app, or they can buy one of two Key smart garage kits: a myQ hub, which adds connectivity to an existing garage door opener, or a myQ-connected Chamberlain or LiftMaster Wi-Fi door opener. Optional add-ons are an Amazon Key Edition Cloud Cam, which allows customers to view the interior of their garage -- including deliveries -- via livestream or to view video clips of entries. Customers can also use Key for Garage to manage access to their garage via app, it said. For a limited time, the myQ Smart Garage Hub is selling at Amazon for $49, a 38 percent discount. Also for a limited time, customers can buy a myQ Smart Garage Hub bundled with an Amazon Key Edition Cloud Cam for $125, at the same discount.
Virgin Media will be the first of Liberty Global’s European operations to integrate the Amazon Prime Video app into a set-top box. Customers will be able to access 4K content from the V6 set-top box beginning in summer, it said.
The long-awaited Silicon Valley tech infusion promised by EVA Automation’s buy of Bowers & Wilkins three years ago landed in specialty AV stores Monday. That's when B&W’s Formation line debuted wireless audio products for whole-home sound that includes connecting to Spotify. The hi-res audio system touts 96/24-bit audio streaming and “imperceptible” one-microsecond in-room synchronization between speakers operating over a patented mesh network. Formation isn’t priced for the masses, said James Krakowski, vice president, sales-Americas, in an interview in Phoenix last week. The line is “competitive” with other wireless systems on the market based on the feature set, but when we asked about positioning against Sonos, Heos, Bluesound and Play-Fi, he said: “All of our products are positioned above that.”
Arrow Electronics and Freelancer.com expect the first CE fruits of their ArrowPlus product design and engineering matchmaking service to appear in wearables at CES, Sarah Tang, Freelancer.com vice president-enterprise, told us Friday. The companies announced the ArrowPlus platform last month with the goal of accelerating companies' time to market through the Freelancer.com’s network of electronic and electrical engineers in 1,350 skill areas. Arrow’s portfolio includes more than 200,000 technology manufacturers and service providers, and its Certified Engineering network is designed to solve tech problems across a range of industries including CE, healthcare, IoT, hardware and connected products. The combined ArrowPlus helps companies find qualified experts, use Arrow “technology concierge” services and reach market more quickly at a lower cost than if they went in-house, Tang said. Services include ideation and prototyping; analog and digital design; printed circuit board design; bill of materials parts selection; custom requirements for product delivery; component consolidation and cost reduction; redesigning for smaller size; documentation and translation; firmware, driver and middleware development; real-time embedded software development; and integrated circuit design. A recent ArrowPlus customer was looking to develop a wrist-worn wearable -- from concept to prototype to mass production -- for measuring time, heart rate and other functions consumers would use at a gym, in time for CES in January, she said. ArrowPlus' “platform play” model lowers intermediary and search costs and creates matchmaking efficiencies between supply and demand that benefit smaller companies without the financial resources of large corporations. Quoting a McKinsey report, Tang said the top 10 percent of companies capture 80 percent of positive economic profit and said the ArrowPlus model enables smaller companies to disrupt that paradigm: “Imagine if you can accelerate your go-to-market by two to three times." Arrow calls the platform a “connected talent cloud.” Tang said the platform's cloud-based resources, available globally, means “anything you dream of can come to life."
The BlackBerry Key2 smartphone, launched at Mobile World Congress in February, is available in a limited Red edition in the U.S. under the TCL brand, said the China-based company Friday. The $699 phone includes increased memory at 6 MB and 128 GB storage vs. the $399 standard version, it said, and dual 12-megapixel rear cameras with bokeh, dual-tone LED flash, HDR and 4K video recording. An 8-megapixel "selfie" camera faces front. The Key2 has support for Google Lens, Pay and Assistant; it won't work on CDMA networks from Sprint and Verizon, the company said. TCL signed on to license the BlackBerry brand in 2016 (see 1612200062) after BlackBerry’s decision to stop developing its own consumer hardware.
Schlage’s Encode smart deadbolt is now compatible with Ring video doorbells and cameras via Key by Amazon integration, said the company Thursday. Ring customers will be able to lock and unlock their door directly from their camera's Live View mode using the Ring app, it said, giving the example of allowing temporary access to a pet sitter by pressing a button in the app.
Google began offering free, ad-supported YouTube Music to Google Home smart speaker owners, it blogged Thursday. Users say “Hey Google” before requesting music for a mood or an activity. To set it up, users with a Google Assistant-enabled speaker go to the app's settings, tap services and select music to set YouTube Music as the default music service, it said. For on-demand music for play outside of the house or to request specific songs or playlists, Google directs customers to its $9.99 per month YouTube Premium service.
Intel will exit the 5G smartphone modem business and “complete an assessment of the opportunities” for 4G and 5G modems in PCs, IoT devices and other products, said the company Tuesday. It won’t abandon the 5G network infrastructure business, it said. Intel will continue servicing existing 4G smartphone modem orders but won’t introduce 5G smartphone modems, “including those originally planned for launches in 2020,” because it sees “no clear path to profitability and positive returns" in that space, it said. Intel developed a “valuable portfolio” of wireless products and intellectual property for 5G, it said. “We are assessing our options to realize the value we have created, including the opportunities in a wide variety of data-centric platforms and devices in a 5G world." Intel expects to give more details about the decision on its Q1 earnings call April 25, it said.
Apple’s top executives committed “securities fraud” when they made “materially false” statements during the holiday quarter about the robustness of iPhone sales in China, alleged a complaint (in Pacer) Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Oakland, seeking class-action status. CEO Tim Cook and Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri misled investors by standing by their optimistic iPhone forecasts when they “knew and failed to disclose” that the U.S.-China trade war “had negatively impacted demand for iPhones and Apple’s pricing power in greater China,” alleged the Roseville (California) Employees’ Retirement System, which bought 512 shares of Apple stock Nov. 18 for $175.83 a share. Cook and Maestri also hid from investors the high rate at which Apple customers “were replacing their batteries in older iPhones rather than purchasing new iPhones,” and that it was “negatively impacting” iPhone sales growth, said the complaint. Apple’s decision to stop disclosing iPhone unit sales was designed to “mask” the declining shipments, it said. When Apple “shocked the market” Jan. 2 by finally disclosing it would miss its quarterly revenue target by up to $9 billion on the poor state of iPhone sales, especially in China, it sent the stock tumbling to a 52-week low of $142 the next trading day (see 1901030036), it said. Apple shares closed 2 percent higher Wednesday at $203.13. The “misrepresentations” alleged in the complaint “would tend to induce a reasonable investor to misjudge the value of Apple common stock,” rising to the level of fraud, it said. Apple didn’t comment Wednesday.