Android Authority’s favorite tech of 2018!

2018 is finally coming to a close, and Team AA wanted to talk about their favorite tech of the year. Join David, Kris, C. Scott, Lanh, and others as they talk about the technology they couldn’t live without this year, from flagship phones to flagship killers, smartphone printers to true-wireless earbuds, and more.

If you’re interested in learning more about any of the products mentioned in this video, you can find links to each one below:

• Fujifilm Instax Smartphone Printer SP-2 ($139.95) on Amazon
• OnePlus 6T ($549) on OnePlus.com
• Google Pixel 3 XL ($899) on the Google Store
• Corsair One Desktop Gaming PC ($2,299.99) on Amazon
• Logitech MX Anywhere S2 Wireless Mouse ($47.79) on Amazon
• JLab JBuds Air True Wireless Earbuds ($49) on Amazon
• Oura Ring ($299) on OuraRing.com
• SanDisk 256GB USB Type-C Ultra Dual Drive ($50) on Amazon
• Anker PowerCore Slim 5,000mAh Portable Charger ($29.99) on Amazon

Affiliate disclosure: We may receive compensation in connection with your purchase of products via links on this page. The compensation received will never influence the content, topics or posts made in this blog. See our disclosure policy for more details.

Source: Android Zone

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Honor 10 Lite hands-on: The budget selfie king?

Last month, we reviewed the Honor 10. The device was admirable for something that only costs 399 euros (~$453), bringing last year’s flagship Kirin 970 processor, plenty of RAM and storage, and a high resolution camera.

The phone brought quite a lot of value to the mid-range market, but Honor is looking to introduce an option for those on an even tighter budget.

We just got our hands on the Honor 10 Lite, and here are our first impressions.

Related:

Honor 10 review: Reflections of a flagship

Buy Now: Honor 10
Fresh off the recent launch of its elite offering for 2018, the Honor View 10, Honor is back with a successor to the Honor 9. Priced at 399 pounds/euro in Europe, can the …

The Honor 10 Lite is definitely a flashy device. While it comes in standard black and silver colors that shimmer in Honor’s classic “Aurora” pattern, there’s also now a sky blue option which transitions from a light baby blue at the bottom to silver at the top. I think it looks quite good.

However, it’s proven to be a fingerprint magnet during the time I’ve had with it.

There is a fingerprint reader nested in the top third of the device with a 13MP and 2MP dual-camera setup sitting to the top left. These sensors have apertures of f/1.8 and f/2.4 respectively. The 13MP sensor is the primary camera while the second is primarily used for depth sensing.

The glass on the back feels fairly premium, but the aluminum sides feel a bit cheap. It’s also fairly light at 162 grams.

The Honor 10 Lite has a 6.21-inch 1080p LCD display with a small waterdrop-style notch design. This notch houses a 24MP selfie camera with an f/2.0 aperture. It can recognize up to eight different selfie scenarios and react appropriately, adding things like color adjustments and skin smoothing. It also offers multiple different studio lighting modes.

The screen isn’t incredibly disappointing, but it does make it clear that this isn’t a flagship device. There is a noticeable difference in quality between this panel and the Honor 10. Even though the colors are quite deep and punchy, the display feels almost matte, and could definitely be sharper.

The clear sign this is a budget device comes in the form of a MicroUSB port on the bottom of the phone. A single bottom-firing speaker and a headphone jack sit on either side of the port. The headphone jack seems to have become a budget feature, but I’m very glad to see it included nonetheless.

The other budget giveaway is the phone’s specs. The Honor 10 Lite is powered by Huawei’s Kirin 710 mobile chipset, 3GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. This won’t come close to competing with Huawei’s flagship Kirin 980 or even last year’s Kirin 970, though the octa-core processor should perform decently for everyday tasks. However, we’ll have to wait to review the device in full before we can make a final verdict. There is a microSD card slot in the device, which can expand the total storage capacity up to 512GB.

The Honor 10 Lite runs on EMUI 9.1, based on Android 9 Pie. EMUI has quite a controversial user interface — most people either love it or hate it. The phone comes with standard Android soft keys and no app drawer, but users can toggle on gesture navigation and even enable the app drawer if they want.

We won’t have official European pricing for the device until it officially launches in the U.K., but the phone costs 799 dirham in the United Arab Emirates, about 192 euros or $217. That’s about half the cost of the Honor 10, so this could be a great option for fans of the company with a bit tighter budget.

What are your thoughts on the Honor 10 Lite? Is it the budget device you’ve been waiting for?

Let us know!

Source: Android Zone

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Break into the computer science industry for only $39

Computer science is a growing section of many industries, so the skilled positions are becoming more numerous and lucrative. Some of them even offer the luxury of working remotely too, so you could explore the world, or just roll out of bed a few minutes before logging on.

To get into the industry, you could spend three years and thousands of dollars at college, or you could shortcut that and spend just $39 for the Computer Science Advancement Bundle. It’s a no-brainer, really.

Every new piece of tech you come across will have had computer scientists involved somewhere along the line, from the latest smartphones to self-driving cars. You don’t need to marvel from the sidelines, you can be a part of it.

This bundle is a huge 134 hours of premium computer science content, covering today’s most important technologies. There’s mainstream coding such as Python, various techniques for handling big data, web development, machine learning, and much more. 

This bundle isn’t just about learning to code, though there’s obviously plenty of that included. It’s got practical knowledge about actually landing yourself a top job too. For example Break Away: Programming And Coding Interviews coaches you to ace interviews for these roles. This useful learning kit is worth $199 alone.

The Computer Science bundle:

• Break Away: Programming And Coding Interviews — $99 value
• Software Testing Omnibus: Sikuli, Selenium, JUnit and Principles of Testing — $99 value
• The Fintech Omnibus: Theory and Practice in Python, R and Excel — $199 value
• The Big Data Omnibus: Hadoop, Spark, Storm and QlikView — $199 value
• The Web Development Omnibus: jQuery, AngularJS and ReactJS — $99 value
• Machine Learning and TensorFlow on the Google Cloud — $199 value
• Time Capsule: Trends in Tech, Product Strategy — $99 value
• GCP: Complete Google Data Engineer and Cloud Architect Guide — $199 value

That’s almost $1,200 of content, all for only $39. It’s lifetime access as well, so if you’re a bit busy right now then why not grab it while it’s on offer and dive in when you’re ready.

This deal ends in the coming days, so don’t miss out. Hit the button below to find the deal.

Show me the deal!

The AAPicks team writes about things we think you’ll like, and we may see a share of revenue from any purchases made through affiliate links. To see all our hottest deals, head over to the AAPICKS HUB.

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Looking for a new phone or plan? Start here with the Android Authority Plan Tool:

This smart tool lets you filter plans by phone, price, data tiers, and regional availability. Stop overpaying for cell service you hate and a phone that you’re tired of. Use our Compare Phones & Plans tool to fully customize your mobile experience and painlessly transition from one carrier to another!

Source: Android Zone

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4 reasons why HMD Global is a spiritual successor to Nokia, not just a brand licensee

This week marks the second anniversary of the Nokia name’s return to smartphones under HMD Global. We’ve seen a slew of smartphones from HMD since then, ranging from entry-level devices to high-powered flagships.

It’s easy to dismiss HMD Global as a mere pretender and brand licensee. After all, it’s not the real Nokia, right? Here’s why the company should be seen as a proper spiritual successor to Nokia.

A ton of former Nokia employees

HMD Global CEO Florian Seiche

One thing you might not know about HMD Global is many of its executives were actually former Nokia employees. Whether it’s current CEO Florian Seiche (a former Nokia Europe executive) or the company’s design directors, there are loads of HMD people with “Nokia” on their resumes.

Heck, it even surprised me when the regional PR people were employees I had previously known when they were at Nokia. Of course, the presence of a large number of former Nokia employees doesn’t guarantee anything. However, there are people at the company who get why consumers bought Nokia phones in the first place.

Nokia design DNA

One of Nokia’s trademarks was its durable and premium designs, and HMD has certainly delivered here. You need only take a look at the Nokia 8 Sirocco to see some Nokia DNA, but even the firm’s low-end devices maintain that philosophy. It’s hardly a surprise, given how some senior Nokia designers work at HMD, but it’s welcome to see anyway.

The company also issued two retro reboots in the Nokia 3310 and Nokia 8110, and it’s tough to argue that they don’t look like something the “real” Nokia would’ve done today. (Now, about those ridiculous prices.)

The Nokia camera experience

If there was one unique selling point for Nokia Lumia phones, it was the camera experience. Back then, Nokia had been teaming up with Carl Zeiss in order to deliver better camera lenses. The firm also offered features like refocusing and cinemagraphs before most other OEMs picked up these features.

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Microsoft and mobile: Can it stop shooting itself in the foot?

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Arguably the most influential addition has to be the inclusion of a Pro Camera mode in Lumia phones. This delivered manual adjustments (ISO, shutter speed) before Android supported it. It was all packaged in a very intuitive wheel-based menu.

We’ve seen LG adopt a similar UI for its manual mode in the years that followed, but HMD Global went the whole hog and acquired the patents for the UI last year. Now all Zeiss-equipped HMD Nokia phones have the same Pro Camera UI seen on older Nokia devices.

A focus on audio recording

The Finnish company’s phones, like the Lumia 1520 and Nokia 808, were audio recording beasts. This was due to the multiple high-quality microphones in each phone that delivered solid, distortion-free sound at a time when rival phones struggled with loud audio.

The Nokia 8 shows HMD Global hasn’t forgotten about audio capabilities, featuring three microphones and Nokia’s OZO recording tech for 360-degree surround sound recording. This audio setup has also landed on devices like the Nokia 7 Plus and Nokia 8 Sirocco, giving you better audio recording in theory than many rival devices.

What more could HMD do?

HMD Global has focused on the design and camera performance of its devices, showing it understands what made Nokia a popular choice in the first place. The company’s job isn’t done yet, though.

For starters, we know the Finnish company obtained the Pureview name from Microsoft and Nokia earlier this year, suggesting more camera improvements are afoot (although Pureview was a brand name used for Nokia phones rather than a specific technology).

We also have to wonder when we’ll see a device truly manage to combine the best of Nokia and HMD. The Nokia 8 Sirocco demonstrated the firm’s design chops, but we thought the camera experience should’ve been better for the price. HMD has a ways to go to truly succeed Nokia and challenge the likes of Google, Samsung, Huawei, and Apple’s cameras.

Hopefully that oft-rumored penta-lens smartphone isn’t just a gimmick.

NEXT: The best Nokia you can buy

Source: Android Zone

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Best of Android 2018: the smartphone of the year is…

The Best of Android series is designed to do one thing: give you definitive, objective answers to the subjective debates that fill the smartphone landscape. Which battery really is the best? Which phone actually has the best display? How do you know performance is as good as the manufacturers claim when so many companies are gaming benchmarks? How do you pick the best smartphone overall?

When all is said and done, there can be only one device crowned the best smartphone of 2018. That device has to excel in many areas, including camera, display, performance, audio and battery. It doesn’t have to win in each category – although that certainly helps its chances – it just has to stack up better than the competition overall.

Price is not a consideration here, being the best is. That’s why we have a special category for the best phones in a more affordable price bracket. So when you empty your piggybank and lay it on the counter for one phone above all others, which phone should you buy if you want the best of 2018?

Best of Android 2018: The candidates

• Asus ROG Phone
• Google Pixel 3
• Google Pixel 3 XL
• Honor 8X
• Honor Play
• HTC U12+
• Huawei Mate 20
• Huawei Mate 20 Pro
• Huawei P20
• Huawei P20 Pro
• LG G7 ThinQ
• LG V40 ThinQ
• Motorola Moto Z3
• Nokia 7.1
• Nokia 8 Sirocco

• OnePlus 6T
• Oppo R17 Pro
• Razer Phone 2
• RED Hydrogen One
• Samsung Galaxy Note 9
• Samsung Galaxy S9
• Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus
• Sony Xperia XZ3
• Vivo Nex
• Vivo V11 Pro
• Vivo X21
• Xiaomi Black Shark
• Xiaomi Mi 8
• Xiaomi Mi A2
• Xiaomi Pocophone F1

Best of Android 2018: The winner is…

After weeks of testing against a field of 30 phones, the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 has emerged victorious as the best smartphone of 2018. For many of you, this will serve as confirmation of what you already knew to be true. For others, you might be surprised that the incremental improvements Samsung has been making stack up so well against such a competitive field. The underlying fact is that smartphones are so good these days that even incremental improvements still matter.

After weeks of testing against a field of 30 phones, the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 has emerged victorious as the best smartphone of 2018.

The Galaxy Note 9 taking top spot is a great result for a company besieged by scandal in recent years. Despite tumultuous sales in a troubled landscape, Samsung still ships one in five phones globally. Some feel like Samsung is laying down, playing it safe. But Samsung continues to hone the razor’s edge of perfection each year, producing an ever-more competitive phone even if huge groundbreaking changes seem a thing of the past.

See our review!

Samsung Galaxy Note 9 review: In praise of incrementalism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk9BNLd1-_c

This review is bought to you by the folks at Moment, who make excellent photo cases and lenses to elevate your smartphone photography to the next level.

Get 20% off when you pre-order a Note 9 …

Let’s look at the stats. The Galaxy Note 9 was the outright winner in Best of Android’s display category even as several contenders nipped at its heels. The Note 9 also took out one of our coveted best camera categories for being the most technically accurate camera (the Google Pixel 3 series took out the other award for computational photography). The Note 9 also had solid enough battery life to secure fourth place, excellent performance that locked in fifth spot (it was a very, very close race), and a top ten result for audio. (Right now, you can grab the Note 9 for $200 off via the button below!)

BUY GALAXY NOTE 9 FOR $799

In a test of this type, consistency matters more than a single standout feature. Having a great camera but weak battery won’t get you onto the podium, just as excellent performance but poor audio won’t do you any favors. If you want to be the best, you have to be great at everything we can measure, not just some of them.

In a test of this type, consistency matters: the Galaxy Note 9 had a top-five finish in four out of five categories.

Of course, we don’t have a software or UI category because that’s impossible to score even semi-objectively (but if that isn’t true we’d love to hear it). So absorb these results with an awareness that important factors like update frequency, after sales support, price and software stability haven’t be considered. Those factors are critical, yes, but they can’t be measured in quite the same way as our Best of Android categories can.

We are introducing the Best of Android Reader’s Choice Award this year to let you evaluate those additional immeasurable considerations for us. We’re running a bracket-style competition on the site and our social channels that lets you vote for your favorite phone. It may end up being one of our category winners or something else entirely: it’s up to you. The Reader’s Choice competition is entering its final stages, so stay tuned and keep voting!

Here are the winners of each primary category in Best of Android 2018:

• Best smartphone: Samsung Galaxy Note 9
• Best camera: Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and Google Pixel 3/3 XL
• Best battery: Huawei P20 Pro (battery life) and Huawei Mate 20 Pro (charging)
• Best audio: LG V40
• Best display: Samsung Galaxy Note 9 (overall) and Razer Phone 2 (gaming)
• Best performance: Huawei Mate 20 Pro

Stay tuned for our best value winners, the best smartphone innovation awards and the Reader’s Choice award which we’ll be announcing in the days to come.

The unique part about Best of Android is that, even though we crown winners in each category and one device overall, you don’t have to agree with the phone we say is best. If your specific criteria for what’s best differs from ours, you can simply dig into the data to find the information that matters more to you. So whether you agree with our weighting or scoring algorithm results, the raw numbers are always there for you to pore over and draw your own conclusions from.

This year we’ve seen some favorites fall by the wayside, some confirmed suspicions, and some notable special mentions in the winner’s circle. It’s impossible to please all the people all the time, so we encourage you to debate the results in the comments and suggest the specific comparisons and tests you want to see in greater detail. We’ll have plenty more content around the masses of Best of Android 2018 data we’ve collected, so stay tuned for plenty more once the awards are all handed out.

Congratulations Samsung.

Source: Android Zone

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MediaTek vs Snapdragon: Everything you should know about the two companies

Huawei and Samsung are two of the only Android manufacturers regularly producing in-house processors. Everyone else turns to Qualcomm and MediaTek for their mobile chip needs.

The two companies have been the dominant third-party chipset providers for several years now, following the withdrawal of players like Texas Instruments, Intel, and ST-Ericsson’s NovaThor.

We’ve put together a handy primer on the MediaTek vs Qualcomm, covering their differences and reasons why a company would opt for one or the other.

CPU technology

When it comes to the all-important CPUs, Qualcomm has a history of creating its own Kryo cores. Since 2017, however, the company has settled on semi-custom designs (dubbed Kryo Gold or Kryo Silver). These designs are based on standard Arm CPU cores, with a few tweaks for power consumption and performance.

Meanwhile, MediaTek uses standard Arm CPU cores for its processors, without modifying them to the same degree as Qualcomm.

Qualcomm uses the latest and greatest Arm CPU cores whenever they’re available, as is the case with the new Snapdragon 675. MediaTek hasn’t used Arm’s latest cores yet (Cortex-A76, A75, and A55), content to use legacy cores for now.

The long and short of it is Qualcomm and MediaTek both use the same CPU cores, but Qualcomm tends to adopt new cores at a faster pace.

GPUs: Qualcomm’s secret weapon?

GPUs are Qualcomm’s biggest advantage, thanks to its secretive Adreno graphics technology. This was borne out of Qualcomm’s acquisition of AMD’s handheld graphics chip business (Adreno is an anagram of Radeon, AMD’s graphics brand).

Arm’s Adreno GPUs recently trumped Arm’s Mali GPUs in benchmarks — just compare graphics benchmarks of the Qualcomm-powered Galaxy S9 and its Exynos-powered variant (which uses Arm GPU tech).

Manufacturers like Samsung and Huawei generally opt to simply use more Arm Mali GPU core to reduce the gap to Qualcomm’s hardware.

Arm’s new Mali-G76 GPU is a big upgrade, in theory targetting laptop-class performance. Qualcomm obviously won’t be standing still, so we look forward to the company’s next flagship chip announcements in December.

Machine learning

Qualcomm has been harnessing its Hexagon digital signal processor (DSP) for machine learning tasks in recent years. The DSP usually handles tasks related to audio, photography, and connectivity, but the company has tuned the chip (along with its CPU and GPU) for machine learning. In other words, the company doesn’t have a dedicated AI chip in the same way Apple and Huawei has, but it seems to do the job well.

The top-end Hexagon 685 DSP is available on the likes of the Snapdragon 845, Snapdragon 710, Snapdragon 670, and the Snapdragon 675. So tasks like image recognition and other forms of offline inference should get a boost on phones with these chips.

MediaTek, on the other hand, has introduced a dedicated AI processing unit (APU) to mid-range phones with the launch of the Helio P60 chipset. The APU brings features like smart scene recognition, better facial recognition, and more to mid-range phones.

Developer support and updates

If you’re planning to flash a new ROM on your phone, Qualcomm-equipped phones have traditionally been the go-to option. MediaTek phones gained a poor reputation several years ago for developer support (or the lack thereof) compared to Qualcomm. The issue seems to revolve around the company’s policy for releasing source code, which isn’t quite as straightforward as the U.S. chipmaker.

MediaTek phones also have a reputation for tardy or missing system updates. Then again, scores of low-end brands have traditionally used their chips, and often lack the resources to update their phones in the first place. It’s not necessarily the chipmaker’s fault if a MediaTek-powered phone doesn’t get updated.

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There are a lot of great phones out there, but the reality is many of them cost well over $500. So what if you want a good phone but don’t want to spend a lot …

The firm has taken steps to turn things around though, joining the GMS Express initiative a year ago, which requires shipping a more complete version of Android, plus several Google apps, to partners (rather than the bare minimum AOSP build). This has made some hope MediaTek partners will start bringing updates to consumers quicker.

Google’s Project Treble initiative should also result in faster updates for both Qualcomm and MediaTek devices. Project Treble effectively separates a phone’s hardware and software layers so that software (Android) updates won’t affect the hardware.

We’ve also seen Nokia/HMD deliver updates to some of its MediaTek-equipped phones, such as the Nokia 3 and 3.1. The chipmaker clearly isn’t a lost cause for updates, but Qualcomm is still the go-to option for updates, and crucially, ROM development.

Qualcomm and MediaTek devices

MediaTek is a firm fixture in the entry-level tier, with chips in phones like the Nokia 1, Nokia 3 and 3.1, and Redmi 6 and 6A. In fact, the company’s new low-end Helio A22 and P22 chips are smaller than Qualcomm’s counterparts, which should result in better endurance on paper.

Qualcomm still leans on aging chips like the Snapdragon 212 and Snapdragon 425 for its entry-level needs. The company’s new Snapdragon 429 and Snapdragon 439 processors might give its presence in the space a shot in the arm.

The flagship level is utterly dominated by Qualcomm and its Snapdragon 800 series of chips (Snapdragon 835 and 845). Mediatek is taking a break from flagship chipsets, following the release of its Helio X30 flagship processor last year. Unfortunately the X30 only made it into the Meizu Pro 7 Plus (seen above), while Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 powered almost every other top-shelf device. If you’re buying a flagship phone, Snapdragon is the default chipset.

The mid-range sees more of a mix, as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 400, 600, and 700 series edge out the Helio P60 and MT6750 range. Popular P60 and MT6750 phones include the Nokia 5.1 Plus, Realme 1, Oppo F9, LG Q7, and LG X Power 2. Meanwhile, prominent mid-range phones with Qualcomm chips include the Nokia 7 Plus, Xiaomi Mi A2, Xiaomi Redmi Note 5, and Realme 2 Pro. For the most part, the Snapdragon chips are the choice for many big-name mid-range phones.

So, which one is better?

Ultimately, there’s far more to buying a smartphone than which chipset it uses. Would you buy a powerful phone with no features, or a mid-range phone with a great camera, water resistance, and a headphone jack?

If you’re planning to tinker with your phone’s inner workings or want a proper flagship phone, the choice is already made for you (Qualcomm). The mid-range bracket is murkier though, as MediaTek’s Helio P60 and Qualcomm’s popular Snapdragon 660 are similarly powerful, though Qualcomm’s newest 600-series chips blow the Helio P60 out of the water.

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Mediatek announces Helio P70: It’s a slightly better Helio P60, really

MediaTek’s Helio P60 might be the surprise chipset of 2018, bringing a capable octa-core CPU arrangement and AI silicon to mid-range smartphones. Now, the Taiwanese firm has followed up with the Helio P70.

The chipset is …

It’s the entry-level category where MediaTek has an advantage, thanks to the Helio A22 and P22 series. Offering newer, smaller chips than Qualcomm’s low-end efforts (which should result in better efficiency on paper), the new processors also deliver Bluetooth 5, a rarity at this price-point.

MediaTek also generally undercuts Qualcomm’s prices, which doesn’t guarantee a MediaTek phone will be cheaper, but opens the possibility.

Looking for a comprehensive guide to MediaTek chips? Read our rundown over here. We’ve also got a guide to Qualcomm’s recent Snapdragon chips, available by clicking here.

Source: Android Zone

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Google Assistant gets alarm-linked routines, broadcast responses, and more new features

Just yesterday, Google hosted a small event in San Francisco where it showed off a bunch of new features for the Google Assistant. There’s a lot to cover here and we want to respect your time, so we’ve broken everything out in the order that we find most interesting.

Let’s get to it.

Respond to broadcasts

Almost exactly a year ago, Google introduced broadcasts. This feature allowed users to send messages through the Google Assistant-enabled speakers in their home. For example, a user could say, “Hey Google, broadcast ‘It’s time for school!’”, and the message would be relayed to any Assistant-enabled speaker in the home.

Today, Google is updating this feature. Now, you can respond to broadcasts from any Google Assistant-enabled smart speaker, smart display, or smartphone. For example, while prepping a holiday dinner, someone could tell their Google Home Hub to send a broadcast to their spouse’s phone asking them to pick up cranberry sauce, and the person on the other end could reply with a broadcast of their own. When the reply is received on a phone, users will be notified and the message will be automatically transcribed. Users can then respond with text or voice. It’s effectively voice-centered text messaging on any Assistant-enabled device.

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Broadcast responses will be rolling out to all smart displays and smart speakers in the coming weeks.

Link routines to your alarm

If you didn’t know, routines are a way for the Google Assistant to automate tasks you would normally have to do manually, in sequence. The feature allows you to chain Google Assistant commands through a single phrase.

A common routine might be to tell Assistant you’re on your way home, which would set your Nest thermostat, launch Google Maps, and send a message to a family member. Announced today, integration with the clock app means you can take automation even further, automatically starting any routine when an alarm goes off.

For instance, when your alarm goes off and you dismiss it, you can have Assistant automatically start your smart coffee maker, tell you about your day, and how long it will take to get to work. You can obviously set up your routine however you like, but linking it to alarms is quite powerful.

Google Assistant routines will be accessible right from the Google Clock app, so you can easily tell Assistant what to do in the morning.

At the end of the day, you will be able to tell all your smart devices to go into Do Not Disturb mode with one command. This feature will be coming to Google Assistant sometime “soon”.

Better recipes suggestions

A lot of people with smart displays use them to check out recipes while in the kitchen, and Google wants to make it easier for them to find meals they’ll love. Now, smart displays will suggest recipes based on the time of day, as well as the season. Get ready for a lot of Thanksgiving and Christmas-based recipe suggestions.

A “Recommended Recipes” section will be added to the smart display home screen and the suggested recipes are based on your previous searches. If you love any of the recipes in particular, you can save them to your “cookbook” for future use.

More features for the kids

Google Assistant devices are particularly useful with kids, and Google is launching a few new features centered around them. They’ve partnered with Nickelodeon, Lego, and Spin Master to create special alarms for kids based on characters like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and LEGO friends. There will be a ton of voices, tunes, jokes, and catchphrases that will help the kids get out of bed in the morning.

Google has also added a new “read along” story – “Ara the Star Engineer”. This feature, which was introduced earlier this year, listens to you read a book and plays music and sound effects along with you for a more immersive experience. Google Assistant will also get 25 new stories to read out loud.

Finally, Google is adding more kid-friendly responses to Assistant, for things like dinosaurs, superheroes and crafts.

Better media control on smart displays

Google wants to buff out how you control your media on smart displays, so they’re adding things like podcast playback speed and smart device control to the dashboard. You can play things like podcasts at twice or half the speed, or tell it to skip 30 seconds when you need it with a simple voice command.

You can also play group games like trivia and other visual games, adding to the display experience.

Read next: Lenovo Smart Display review: Much more than a Google Home

Wrap up

These features will all be headed to Google Assistant and Google Home over the next couple of weeks, so be sure to keep an eye out.

Is there anything you wish the Assistant could do that it can’t currently? Let us know!

Source: Android Zone

The post Google Assistant gets alarm-linked routines, broadcast responses, and more new features appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.

WooCommerce SEO Made Simple – A Step-by-Step Guide to Ranking #1 in Google

Do you want to improve your WooCommerce SEO, but not sure how to get started? Search engine optimization (SEO) for your eCommerce store is an equivalent of having someone standing on every street corner in the real world, spinning signs with your store’s name and direction. If you have not optimized your WooCommerce store for SEO, then you are missing out on a lot of sales. We have created this ultimate WooCommerce SEO guide to help you improve your WooCommerce SEO and get more customers.

Before we get started, let’s cover the basics.

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce plugin built for WordPress. It allows you to leverage the most powerful content management system (CMS) and use it to run an online store. Because of the open-source nature, you can customize every aspect of your store and easily build custom extensions.

Before starting an online store, most beginners usually ask one of the two questions: How does WooCommerce compare to Shopify and is WooCommerce SEO friendly?

We have created a detailed comparison of Shopify vs WooCommerce that you can use to see which is the better platform for you.

The answer to the second question is below:

Is WooCommerce SEO Friendly?

WooCommerce is very SEO friendly out of the box. It runs on top of WordPress which itself is standard compliant and good for SEO. However, you can definitely use plugins and techniques to further improve WooCommerce product SEO.

When you start an online store with WooCommerce, it is up to you to add things like themes, products, description, images, and other content on your store. You’re responsible for optimizing all additional content that you add.

WooCommerce SEO is an ongoing process, and you will need to keep it up to steadily see growth in your search engine traffic / sales.

Now you might be wondering, what do I need to properly deploy an effective WooCommerce SEO strategy?

Well, that’s where our WooCommerce SEO guide can help. We have broken down every thing for you.

Ready? Let’s get started.

1. Perform The WordPress SEO Setup

WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, which means you need to improve your overall WordPress SEO setup before you can move on to WooCommerce specific SEO tweaks.

We have created a complete WordPress SEO guide for beginners. It is extremely detailed, and we highly recommend going through the entire guide first before moving onto the step 2 of this article.

However if you’re in a rush, then the most important thing you need to do is install and setup the Yoast SEO plugin on your site.

Yoast SEO plugin will help you add SEO sitemaps along with setting up proper SEO fields for your products.

Once you have setup Yoast SEO, you can move on to step 2 of our WooCommerce SEO guide.

2. Write Product SEO Titles

Just like you optimize your blog posts for SEO, you also need to optimize your individual WooCommerce products for SEO.

One of the most important part of WooCommerce product SEO is to write SEO-friendly product titles.

These product titles appear in your browser’s title bar and are used by search engines as the title of a search result.

If you followed the previous step, then you would have already installed Yoast SEO plugin. It is the complete WordPress SEO suite that covers your WooCommerce products as well.

You need to start by editing a WooCommerce product and scrolling down to the Yoast SEO box section. Next, you need to click on the post title as shown in the snippet preview, and Yoast SEO will display a field where you can edit the product’s SEO title.

Your WooCommerce product SEO title can be slightly different than the product title on your store. You can use keywords that you think your customers will use when searching for the product.

You also need to make it catchy, interesting, and attractive to users. However, it’s important not to use misleading or incorrect titles that would trick users and search engines because that could get your website penalized.

Let’s take a look at an example title below.

Boring title: Men’s Leather Wallet by Brandname
SEO Optimized Title: Bi-Fold Brown Leather Wallet for Men – High-Quality built for Durability

In our SEO optimized title, we’re mentioning long-tail keywords like bi-fold, brown, durability all things that people will search for when searching for “men’s leather wallet”.

When shopping online, people type detailed search queries instead of generic ones. By adding long-tail keywords in your WooCommerce product title, you help search engines find and rank you higher than your competitors.

3. Add Product SEO Descriptions

Just below the title in Yoast SEO, you will also see a box to add your own product meta description.

While this description is not displayed on your website, it will be used by search engines to appear below your product title. You need to make sure that you use this description to provide a compelling reason for users to click and view your product. Think of this as your one-line sales pitch.

Don’t forget to use the same keywords that you used in the product’s SEO title. This will boost your chances on ranking for those target keywords.

4. Optimize Product Slug

Slug is a product’s nice-name used by WordPress in your URL also known as permalinks. By default, WooCommerce uses your product’s title as the slug. However, sometimes the default slugs do not include any relevant SEO keywords.

You can change that in your product’s SEO settings. Make sure that you use your main keyword in the slug and don’t make it too long.

For example, for men’s leather wallet, we’d recommend making the slug be: bi-fold-brown-mens-leather-wallet-by-brandname

5. Enable Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs are great for internal linking because it defines a clean path or trail to the page you are on.

These breadcrumbs also appear in search results giving your site extra advantage in rankings.

You can enable breadcrumbs for your WooCommerce products by adjusting Yoast SEO settings. Simply go to SEO » Search Appearance page and click on the Breadcrumbs tab.

Next, you need to make sure that breadcrumbs option is set to ‘Enabled’. Additionally, you can also use product category in your breadcrumbs.

Don’t forget to click on the save changes button to store your settings.

To display breadcrumbs in your WooCommerce theme, you will need to add the following code to your theme or child theme. Simply edit the header.php file for your theme and add this code towards the end.

<?php 
if ( function_exists('yoast_breadcrumb') ) {
  yoast_breadcrumb( '
<p id="breadcrumbs">','</p>
' );
}
?>

To learn more about breadcrumbs, see our article on how to display breadcrumb navigation links in WordPress.

If you’re using one of these best WooCommerce themes, then they will likely come with built-in breadcrumb functionality.

6. Properly Using Product Categories and Tags

Product categories and tags help you organize products throughout your online store. This makes it easy for your customers to find the right product they’re looking for.

Categories and tags also help search engines in the same way. Each product category and tag has its own page in WooCommerce which is crawled and listed by search engines.

Since these pages have similar products, this increases their keyword density and making them more likely to rank for those keywords.

Many beginners get confused about the difference between category and tags and end up using them incorrectly. Categories are meant for the broad grouping of your products. If your store was a book, then categories will be the table of contents.

For example, a clothing store can have categories like men’s, women’s, accessories, jewelry, etc. Categories are hierarchical, so you can add child categories to them.

On the other hand, tags are more specific keywords that describe the properties of the product. For example, a t-shirt product can have tags like casual, summer wear, and more.

For more on this topic, see our guide on the difference between categories vs tags.

7. Add Alt Text for Product Images

Many customers switch to image search to quickly find products that they are looking for. To help website owners, Google recently removed the ‘View Image’ button from their image search results. This means that users will have to visit your website to see the image with context.

This trend further helps online stores drive highly-motivated customers to their websites.

Image SEO works a lot like web search. Google uses artificial intelligence, image recognition, and other algorithms to help users find the images they are looking for.

The most important thing you can do to get traffic from Google image search is adding alt tag to all images on your website.

Alt text is an HTML attribute which allows website owners to add some text with their images. The purpose of this text is to be displayed when the browser is unable to fetch an image.

Search engines use this alternate text as a ranking factor in their image search. Basically, you can add text to describe what this particular image is about.

You can add alt text to all your product images when uploading them to WooCommerce. You can also edit your old product images in Media library and add alt text to each of them one by one.

To learn more about Alt text, see our article on image alt text vs image title in WordPress.

8. Add SEO Title and Descriptions for Product Categories

Each product category in WooCommerce has its own page. This page contains similar products, which increases the keyword density for your targeted keywords. This makes product category pages more significant for WooCommerce SEO.

You can further optimize product category pages by adding a title and description to them. Yoast SEO allows you to set SEO title and description for each category on your WooCommerce store.

Simply go to Products » Categories page and click on the edit link below a category.

On the edit screen, scroll down to Yoast SEO section and click on the category title in the snippet preview. Yoast SEO will now display edit fields to enter your own custom SEO title and description for the product category.

9. Track WooCommerce Customers in Google Analytics

The most important part of an effective SEO strategy is data. You need to learn where your users are coming from, how they found your store, what products they looked at, and what are they doing on your store.

Google Analytics can help you track all this information, but it’s extremely difficult to set it up properly.

That’s why we built MonsterInsights, the most popular Google Analytics plugin for WordPress.

The pro version of MonsterInsights comes with built-in eCommerce tracking feature that you can use to enable WooCommerce enhanced eCommerce tracking with a single click.

You can use MonsterInsights combined with Google Analytics to make data-driven decisions about your WooCommerce store and grow your business with confidence.

To learn more how to use Google Analytics’ advanced eCommerce features, see our article on how to enable customer tracking in WooCommerce.

10. Optimize Website Speed and Performance

Google considers website speed as one of the most important ranking factors. This means faster websites are more likely to rank higher than slower websites.

Slow websites are also bad for your business because they affect user experience and cost you actual money.

According to a StrangeLoop case study, a 1 second delay in page load time can lead to a 7% loss in conversions, 11% fewer page views, and a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction.

Majority of the times, the #1 reason for a slow WooCommerce store is web hosting. If that is the case, then you can switch to one of these optimized WooCommerce hosting providers.

You can also follow the step by step instructions in our WordPress performance guide to speed up your website.

11. Improve WooCommerce Security

Search engines love websites that are safe and secure. Google warns users from scams, malware, and phishing websites, by quickly marking unsafe websites with warnings.

This could not only destroy your WooCommerce SEO rankings but will also have a severe impact on your brand’s reputation.

Hackers are always targetting random websites with brute force attacks, malware injection, and data theft attempts. To prevent this you need tighten your WooCommerce store’s security.

Follow the step by step instructions in our WordPress security guide to harden your WooCommerce security.

We hope this article helped you learn how to improve your WooCommerce SEO. You may also want to see our list of the best WooCommerce plugins to help you grow your business.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post WooCommerce SEO Made Simple – A Step-by-Step Guide to Ranking #1 in Google appeared first on WPBeginner.

Source: Wordpres

The post WooCommerce SEO Made Simple – A Step-by-Step Guide to Ranking #1 in Google appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.

Renders allegedly show Sony’s upcoming smartphones (Update: XA3 Ultra included)

MySmartPrice

Update, October 3, 2018 (10:00AM EST): We got our first look at the Sony Xperia XA3 and Sony Xperia L3 yesterday via some new renders, but now it looks like we also are getting a look at the Sony Xperia XA3 Ultra, from the same source (@OnLeaks) via MySmartPrice.

The renders of the Sony Xperia XA3 Ultra are below:

The renders make it seem that the XA3 Ultra will be very similar to the vanilla XA3, but likely a bit bigger with some beefed-up specs. You can also see a 360-degree render video below:

Note the lack of a rear fingerprint sensor, as it appears the Xperia XA3 Ultra will also have a side-mounted sensor, just like its vanilla counterpart.

For more information on the XA3 lineup (and the L3), continue reading the original article below.

Original Article, October 2, 2018 (11:12PM EST): With the Sony Xperia XA2, Xperia XA2 Ultra, and Xperia L2 coming up on their first birthdays, successors for all three smartphones should be right around the corner. Thanks to renders from known leakster @OnLeaks and leaked specs from MySmartPrice, we might have our first look at the supposedly upcoming Xperia XA3 and Xperia L3.

Starting with the Xperia XA3, the renders show off its alleged 5.9-inch display with an 18:9 aspect ratio and 2,160 x 1,080 resolution. Even though the power button remains on the right side, it now doubles as a fingerprint sensor. By comparison, the Xperia XA2 features a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor.

Elsewhere, the Xperia XA3 reportedly features the Snapdragon 660, up to 6 GB of RAM, 64 GB of internal storage, Bluetooth 5.0, and a USB Type-C port. The phone might also run Android 9 Pie out of the box, retain the headphone jack, feature two rear cameras, and retain the camera shutter button, but little else is known for now.

As for the Xperia L3, it looks to succeed this year’s Xperia L2. Based on the renders and PriceBaba‘s report, the Xperia L3 features a 5.7-inch display with an 18:9 aspect ratio and HD+ resolution. The right side reportedly features the volume rocker and a power button that doubles as a fingerprint sensor.

The Xperia L3 also reportedly retains its headphone jack and adds a second rear camera. Whereas the Xperia XA3 reportedly sports a horizontally-aligned dual camera arrangement, the Xperia L3 seemingly opts for a vertical arrangement for its two cameras.

Finally, Sony might opt for a plastic build for the Xperia L3.

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Keep in mind that Sony unveiled the Xperia XA2, Xperia XA2 Ultra, and Xperia L2 during CES 2018 in January. It would make sense to see the Xperia XA3 and Xperia L3 announced during CES 2019 in three months.

It would also make sense to see relatively low prices for the two new phones. Whereas the Xperia XA2 went for $350 when it launched, the Xperia L2 sold for $250. We can probably expect similar price points for the Xperia XA3 and Xperia L3.

Source: Android Zone

The post Renders allegedly show Sony’s upcoming smartphones (Update: XA3 Ultra included) appeared first on TuneMaster.ml.