Verizon

1. Qualcomm’s new Quick Charge will take batteries from 0 to 80 percent in 35 minutes Vlad Savov, for The Verge:

Quick Charge 3 is 38 percent more efficient than its predecessor, and will appear in mobile devices next year.

2. Apple creating new software platform to unify its cloud services, based off Siri’s open-source backend Huge, complex undertaking. Benjamin Mayo, for 9to5Mac:

What’s particularly interesting about this change is that Apple will be relying heavily on open-source software. Mesos is released under an Apache license, for instance. However, the report claims Apple has struggled to attract engineering talent with open-source backgrounds due to the company secrecy.

3. Apple is quietly expanding its stealthy R&D center in Lund (Sweden) to work on ‘advanced mapping technology’: report

4. Verizon and AT&T to roll out mini-stores inside Best Buy locations across the country

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1. Almost all smartphones sold today have the same two flaws — and the cases you’re buying prove it. Durability and battery life. Battery life is always in the news. This is a good reminder that durability is important too. ~~The question is, for the next $1 of R&D to spend, do you allocate it to optimizing durability? Tough call, but most might answer “no”~~.

(Correction: I don’t think I should have framed it that way. It really depends on what other features you’ve developed and what parts of the product you’re able to control. And, crucially, the degree of improvement you’re able to make.)

2. Why 8 and 10 CPU cores in smartphones are a good idea – a lesson from the kitchen. (Remember, not every company is in a position to optimize its own CPU.) The main point:

The clusters of cores have different performance and power characteristics. With clever scheduling the mobile OS is able to use the best core for the best job […] more cores equals […] better power efficiency, but not necessarily more performance.

3. How Smartphones Have Changed Photography, In Three Numbers. And add to that the simple ability to share them.

4. Samsung answers the Apple Watch Digital Crown with a rotating, round bezel. What they need to avoid is this.

5. Why the Verizon-AOL deal just might work: Mobile video ads are worth a lot. “Verizon didn’t buy AOL, a dying ISP—it bought AOL, a digital ad company.” Maybe because of this.

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