As Android Oreo have already started to roll out to many devices, its time to gear up for the next version. Google is said to be working on the Android P operating system. The operating system will be unveiled at Google's I/O event which is set for May 8, 2018. Though we have around 2months to go, the source code commits of the upcoming Android has given us a clue on few of its features.
The source code commits from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) was initially spotted by the XDA Developers. As per the source code, with the Android P, the OS will restrict background apps from accessing device's microphone and camera. This works by User IDs assigned to each application by Google. Android P's camera app will detect the User IDs and block the ones who are in "idle" state.
Android P will not only block the camera for the background apps, it will block the microphone as well. This will ultimately prevent applications from taking any important information from the user's personal life. The new feature will also improve the security of the Android operating system.
According to the reports, Google has been working on such feature since the Android 6.0 Marshmallow which was released in 2015. Android Marshmallow made it necessary for apps to have "foreground and user-visible activities."
Google made the decision with Android P as there have been cases of Android apps using background access to collect crucial information.
Telecom giant, Vodafone recently announced two new prepaid plans. However, the plans are only valid in Kerela circle as of now. Both of the company's new recharge offers are sub Rs 200 plans. The first one is at Rs 158 and the second one is at Rs 151. The company's new prepaid plans compete with Rs 149 plan by Reliance Jio. Vodafone also offers Rs 198 plan for those interested.
As for the Airtel, the company currently has a Rs 149 recharge offer. Also, in addition to that, they have a Rs 199 pack if users are interested. Also, Reliance Jio'd and Airtel’s plans are not limited to Kerala circle, unlike Vodafone. Alongside Vodafone, Jio, Airtel, Idea also has many plans in the same range for the same usage. Let us take a brief look at all the sub Rs 200 offers from all the major operators in India.
Vodafone
Rs 158, Rs 151 prepaid recharge offers
Vodafone’s Rs 158 prepaid recharge plan gives users 1GB 4G/3G data daily. Along with that, users get unlimited local, STD voice calling. Also, roaming calls in India are included in this offer. The validity of this Rs 158 recharge offer is only for 28 days. The company’s Rs 151 prepaid recharge plan also offers unlimited voice calls. These unlimited calls include local, STD, and roaming calls within the country. Although with this plan users will only get 1GB 4G/3G data for 28 days. Also, the unlimited voice calls have been capped. The cap limit is set at 250 minutes per day and 1000 minutes per week.
Rs 198, Rs 199 prepaid recharge offers
The company’s Rs 199 plan gives its users 1.4GB 3G/4G data per day for 28 days. Along with this, users also get unlimited local, STD, and roaming calls. This is coupled along with 100 SMS per day. Whats more interesting is the company's Rs 198 plan offers same benefits. The company's Rs 198 plan also offers 1.4GB daily data. This comes along with unlimited calls and 100 SMS per day. The validity of this plan is also for a period of 28 days.
Reliance Jio
Rs 198, Rs 149 prepaid recharge offers
Jio’s Rs 198recharge plan gives its users 2GB data per day. The validity of the plan is for the period of 28 days. At Rs 149 plan, the users get daily 1.5 GB data. With Jio's plans, post limit exhaustion the internet will continue to work. However, the speeds will be reduced to 64 Kbps. Reliance Jio’s all recharge packs come bundled with unlimited local, STD, and roaming calls. These plans also come bundled with 100 SMS per day. Jio users will also get access to company’s suite of apps. These apps include MyJio, Jio Cinema, Jio Music and many more.
Airtel
Rs 199, Rs 149 prepaid recharge offers
Airtel’s Rs 199 recharge plans offer users 1.4GB data per day, for 28 days. Along with the internet, users also get unlimited local and STD calls. The calls include roaming also within India. Also, users get 100 local, national SMS per day. The company's Rs 149 plan offers unlimited local, STD, and roaming calls for a period of 28 days. This recharge plan also offers 100 SMS per day. The only difference is that this plan offers 1GB of data daily instead of 1.4GB.
Idea
Rs 109, Rs 147 prepaid recharge offers
Idea’s Rs 109 recharge plan offers users unlimited local, STD and roaming calls. Also, along with that users get 1GB data and 100 SMS per day. However, the validity is only for 14 days. Idea users who will recharge with the company’s Rs 147 plan will get unlimited local, STD mobile calls. This plan also includes 50MB data for a validity period of 28 days. However, 4G handset users will get an additional 250MB data with their plans. Users opting for Rs 147 plan via MyIdea app or Idea website will be eligible for an additional 1GB data for 28 days.
Idea Rs 198, Rs 199 prepaid recharge offers
Idea’s Rs 198 recharge plan offers users unlimited local, STD, roaming calls. Along with that users get 4GB 3G data along with 100 SMS per day. The validity of the plan is for a period of 28 days. Users opting for Rs 147 plan via MyIdea app or Idea website will be eligible for an additional 1GB data. Idea's Rs 199 plan offers exactly same benefits as their Rs 198 plan
As many companies are now partnering up to offer cashback offers, iVoomi has now partnered up with Reliance Jio. In partnership with iVoomi, Reliance Jio is offering Rs. 2,200 cashback on its smartphones. The offer is applicable to a wide range of smartphones offered by the company.
Commenting on the new partnership, Mr. Ashwin Bhandari, CEO, iVOOMi, India says, “iVOOMi is already known for its feature-rich, high quality, value for money smartphones. With the instant cashback offered by Reliance Jio on all iVOOMi smartphones, we aim to make the 4G experience more accessible to the masses in the country. Therefore, it is a win-win situation for all the stakeholders.”
The iVoomi Me4, a budget smartphone, now comes with an effective price tag of Rs. 1,099. The company's Me1 and Me5 are also brought down to an effective price of Rs. 1,399 and Rs. 2,499 respectively. The offer is also applicable to iVoomi i1 and i1s as they now have an effective price of Rs.3799 and Rs. 5299 respectively.
In order to avail the offer, the customers will need to make a recharge or Rs. 198 or Rs. 299 at first. After the first recharge is done, 44 cashback vouchers worth Rs. 50 each will be credited to the user's account. The user can now use these vouchers to avail Rs. 50 off on Rs. 198 or Rs. 299 recharge. The vouchers can be found under the My Vouchers section on My Jio app.
As for the specifications, the Me4 features a 4.5-inch display while the Me1 and Me5 come with a larger 5-inch display. The Me4 and Me1 come with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage, whereas, the Me5 comes with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage.
Telecom operators have been introducing a lot of new plans in order to keep up with the competition. Vodafone, one of the most popular telecom operator, has introduced new prepaid plans for its customers. The company is trying to cope up with the competition created by Reliance Jio. Also, the company is targeting to attract new customers as well as keep their existing customers happy.
What are the offers?
Vodafone has introduced the Rs. 158 pack under its SuperPlans. The Rs. 158 pack brings in 1GB 4G/3G data per day for 28 days. Along with the data, the pack also offers unlimited voice calls (250 minutes/ day and 1,000 minutes/ week). The other pack introduced is the Rs. 151 pack. At Rs. 7 less you will get only 1GB 4G/3G data and unlimited calls with a validity of 28 days. Currently, both the packs are only available in Kerala circle. These packs should make their way to the other circles soon.
Vodafone India
Those who do not stay in Kerala can enjoy the benefits of a slightly expensive Rs. 198 plan. At Rs. 198, Vodafone offers 1.4GB of 4G/3G data per day with unlimited calls and 100 SMS per day.
However, if you do stay in Kerala and are planning to opt in for one of this packs, we would recommend the Rs. 158 pack. As Rs. 158 pack being expensive by just Rs. 7 offers a total of 28GB data instead of the 1GB data found on Rs. 151 pack.
Vodafone has introduced the Rs. 158 pack to compete against the Rs. 149 pack by Reliance Jio. Jio's Rs. 149 pack offers 1.5GB data per day with unlimited calls and 100 SMS per day for 28days. Vodafone's Rs. 151 pack, on the other hand, competes against the Rs. 93 pack by Airtel. Airtel's Rs. 93 pack offers 1GB data, unlimited calls and 100 SMS per day for 28 days.
Most telecom companies are now offering cashback offers on purchase of a new smartphone. Idea Cellular, to keep up with it, has partnered up with Panasonic to offer cashback worth Rs. 1,500. The offer is applicable to the Panasonic P100 which comes in two variants. Any of the two variants of the smartphone can be grabbed at an effective price of Rs. 4,500 under the offer.
Similar to other telecom companies, Idea will also offer the cashback on Panasonic P100 in two instalments. To avail the cashback offer, users will need to make recharges worth Rs. 199 every month which will get them 1GB 4G data per day with unlimited calls and messages for 28days. The recharge should be done for 24months in order to claim the cash back. Customers will get Rs. 500 cashback after the first 12months while the Rs. 1000 cashback will be credited after a total of 24months.
This offer will bring down the price of Panasonic P100 (1GB) to Rs. 3,799 from Rs. 5,299. The 2GB variant of the smartphone will be effectively priced at Rs. 4,499 instead of the usual Rs. 5,999 price tag.
Specifications
The Panasonic P100 features a 5-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 720x1280 pixels. The smartphone is powered by the MediaTek 6737 SoC. The MTK 6737 is a quad-core processor clocked at 1.25GHz. The device packs in 1GB or 2GB of RAM with 16GB of onboard storage. Storage on the device is further expandable up to 128GB using a microSD card. The smartphone runs on Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box. Under the hood, there is a 2,200mAh battery powering up the internals.
In the camera department, the Panasonic P100 sports an 8-megapixel camera at the back with a LED flash. Up front, there is a 5-megapixel selfie shooter with a selfie flash. The smartphone also sports a fingerprint scanner at the back.
The Panasonic P100 is available in Gold, Black, Blue and Dark Grey colour variant. The smartphone can be purchased exclusively via the e-commerce website Flipkart.
As most smartphone companies are gearing up to launch something at the MWC 2018, Asus also has something big to unveil. The Taiwanese tech giant is all set to unveil the Asus ZenFone 5 line-up at the upcoming MWC 2018 event. As the event is coming closer, we get to know more and more about the upcoming device via the leaks and rumours which usually come out to be true.
A recent report suggests that the upcoming Asus ZenFone 5 will sport an Apple iPhone X like a notch up front. The notch will consist of the earpiece, camera and few important sensors. The report comes from WinFuture.de who accidentally leaked the renders of the smartphone. The report also claims that the smartphone will feature an 18:9 display to compete against the flagships by other companies. The 18:9 display will result in shifting the fingerprint to the back of the device. Asus might also introduce some sort of face unlock feature with the flagship.
As far as the specifications are concerned, as per earlier leaks, the Asus ZenFone 5 will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC. The smartphone will feature a 5.7-inch FHD+ display with 18:9 aspect ratio. The device will carry 6GB of RAM under the hood. It is being said that the Asus ZenFone 5 will run on Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box.
The ZenFone 5 line-up will also include the ZenFone 5 Max and the ZenFone 5 Lite. All these smartphones are said to unveil at the MWC 2018 in Berlin. Asus has set the launch event for February 26.
Idea Cellular, one of the top telecom companies in India released new plans to take on Jio. Reliance Jio is no doubt the fastest growing telecom operator. The company created a market monopoly with its ultra-low-cost data plans. The benefits can be continued to be seen even now. The company is now nearly one and a half years old now. While the Jio is focused on its data and unlimited bundled calls. The company's plans offer an attractive proposition for users across the country. The company recently launched the Rs. 98 recharge with unlimited calls and 2GB 4G data.
Soon after, Airtel followed suit with their latest Rs. 93 pack. The new Airtel pack provides customers with unlimited calls and 1GB data for 28 days. Now Idea has stepped into the game and launched its own Rs 100 plan. This is to compete again Airtel and Jio who are rapidly gaining market share.
What is Idea's new Rs 109 plan?
According to the company's official website. The company's Rs 109 prepaid plan offers unlimited local, STD, and roaming calls. Alongside this, users get 1GB of 4G/ 3G data and daily 100 local and national SMS. Although, there is a cap of unlimited calls also. The voice calls through the pack are capped at 250 minutes per day and 1,000 minutes per week. These numbers are identical to unlimited packs by its competition. Further, if the user exceeds the bundled limit, they will be charged 1 paise per minute. This is still cheaper than many of the competition packs.
However, the pack is available in a few circles only. The plan is only available in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Bihar and Jharkhand, Gujarat, Haryana, and Karnataka, among others. Also, the availability of 4G/ 3G data is subject to the network. Those interested can recharge their accounts. To do so they can add Rs 109 pack either via the operator's official site or via their My Idea app.
Technological giant, Apple recently addressed publically the extent of the bug in their software. All the Apple devices weren't able to render a character from the Telugu language.This made to messaging apps which received the message rendered useless. Now the company has rolled out an official update to fix this problem. The new update is available starting today. It comes in the form of iOS 11.2.6 for iPhone and iPad, watchOS 4.2.3 for Apple Watch, tvOS 11.2.6 for Apple TV, and macOS 10.13.3 for Mac.
The update primarily focuses to fix the springboard crash as soon as the Telugu character was received by the user.This problem is not only affecting iMessage on iPhones. This bug also affects other apps over all of the Apple Ecosystem.
How bad was the Telugu Character Bug on iOS?
In its iOS release of the new update, it says the update fixes an issue. The issue where using certain character sequences could cause apps to crash. The update also fixes the issues with the third-party accessories. Earlier which could fail to connect to external accessories is now fixed. The updates for the watchOS and macOS also make almost similar reference to the character bug. This bug not only crashed the iPhones but also Apple Watch and tvOS with Mac os also.
It was noticed by the users on Reddit that the bug didn't affect all devices. This bug only affected devices running iOS 11.2.5. Devices which were running on iOS 11.3 beta or previous iOS 10 or below versions aren't affected. It was clear that Apple would fix the bug with the upcoming release. The company also already cleared that the bug will be fixed by a supplemental update to fix the issue. Apple said, that they had already found the bug and fixed it in iOS 11.3 update. But the supplement update was to fi it for the users waiting for the global roll-out of the iOS 11.3.
Was it a first or the last of the bugs for iOS?
This is not the first time that iOS has been found affected by a massive bug like this. Neither it is the first bug to affect the messaging apps. If you remember, back in 2015, a tiny string of text disabled iMessage. Also, a five-second video crashed iPhones in 2016. Last month, Apple's ecosystem was affected by ‘ChaiOS’ bug. The ChaiOS bug had the potential to freeze any iPhone with a single link.
The last few weeks have been tough for the company. The updates are buggy and sometimes broken whats already working. A report recently claimed that the company is planning to make iOS 12 all about stability and not about the new features planned earlier. This will push the features we expected in iOS 12 to 13 in order to maintain stability in the devices.
HMD Global and Bharti Airtel have partnered up to offer massive cashback offer to the Nokia 2 and Nokia 3 buyers in India. The telecom company and the smartphone giant are giving Rs. 2,000 cashback on the smartphone under the ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ initiative by Airtel. Nokia 2 and Nokia 3, both are budget smartphone offerings from the company.
Ajai Puri, Chief Operating Officer (India & South Asia), Bharti Airtel said, “We are delighted to partner with Nokia to bring exciting and affordable options to customers planning to upgrade to a 4G smartphone. Nokia devices has a solid brand resonance amongst customers and we believe that the partnership offers a great proposition to customers looking for quality devices at great prices.
Ajey Mehta, Vice President & Country Head - India, HMD Global said, “We are delighted to partner with Airtel for their “Mera Pehla Smartphone” initiative offering our powerful devices Nokia 3 and Nokia 2. We at HMD are focused at offering great value to our consumers with such partnerships.”
What's the offer?
The cashback offer will bring down the effective price of the Nokia 2 and Nokia 3 from Rs. 6,999 and Rs. 9,499 to Rs. 4,999 and Rs. 7,499 respectively. Airtel customers will get the cashback in two instalments over a period of 36 months. The customer needs to make Airtel prepaid recharges worth Rs. 3500 within the 18 months to be eligible for the offer. After a period of 18months, the user will receive a cashback of Rs. 500. Similarly, in the next 18months, the user will need to make recharges worth Rs. 3500 to get a cashback of Rs. 1500.
As for the specifications, both the smartphones sport a 5-inch IPS LCD display. At the heart of the Nokia 2 sits a Qualcomm Snapdragon 212 SoC clocked at 1.3GHz. Nokia 3 comes with a MediaTek 6737 chipset on board. The Nokia 2 and Nokia 3 come with 1GB and 2GB of RAM respectively. Both the smartphones feature an 8-megapixel camera at the back.
The MWC 2018 is just around the corner and smartphone companies like Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi are all gearing up to showcase their new smartphones. As per previous leaks and rumours, Huawei is said to launch the Huawei P20 Plus. The smartphone will be a flagship device from the company offering high-end hardware. We all were expecting it to launch at the MWC which was contradicted by the media invites. The media invites suggest that the company will be launching the P20 Plus on March 27.
Specifications and Features
According to a report by FunkyHuawei.club, the Huawei P20 Plus will be backed by a massive 4,000mAh battery. The report also suggests that the smartphone will have the Always-on Display feature. These pieces of information were found on the software files of the smartphone. The report further says that the smaller P20 will have a 3,320mAh battery.
As mentioned above, the smartphone will come with Always-on Display which might mean that the smartphone will feature an OLED panel. We first saw the Always on Display, on a Huawei phone, a feature on the Mate 10 Pro which has a 6-inch OLED display.
Earlier rumours also claim that the Huawei P20 line-up will have three variants, the P20, P20 Plus and the P20 Lite. It is also being said that the top end P20 Plus will feature a notch similar to what we have seen on the Apple iPhone X. As per the leaks, the P20 will feature a triple-camera setup at the back. Up front, the smartphone will sport a 24-megapixel camera.
Huawei has set the launch event for March 27 which will be held in Paris.
