Phone service is getting downgraded, while devices getting snazzier
CANNON BEACH, Oregon —Learn to love your Wi-Fi.
That’s the message this week from new Samsung and Verizon Wireless product announcements. Our phones are getting bigger and better, while our wireless service has clearly seen better days.
Samsung, which sells more smartphones worldwide than any other company, had a splashy press event in New York to introduce what appears to be the biggest and most expensive top brand phone ever: the 6.3 inch Note 8, the successor to the disgraced, recalled and discontinued Note 7. You know, the phone whose batteries blew up.
Meanwhile Verizon announced a confusing new wireless plan that sounded to be a money saver. But as our Rob Pegoraro points out, the savings are minimal, and the fine print restrictions would make tech-savvy consumers wince.
Again, learn to love your Wi-Fi. Because the wireless service we know and have loved is only going to be but a memory. Want to enjoy your great new phone? Look to do that with Wi-Fi, not the wireless network.
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The message of the Verizon plan, and other recent updates from T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T are pretty clear. Yes, you can have unlimited data plans, and watch all the YouTube and Netflix video you want, but with a catch. The video quality you’ ve come to expect could be downgraded to “DVD” quality, or 480p resolution. And if you watch too much of it, you may be «throttled, » with slower service that would make it near impossible to continue viewing.
Meanwhile, back to Samsung, with that huge new phone. Apple is expected to counter with its biggest and most pricey iPhone to date as well, when it updates in September with a 10th anniversary edition.
With the big phones and the best viewing screens ever, we consumers naturally want to see our mobile video in the sharpest resolution possible, and it’s clear the wireless companies don’ t think it’s profitable to give that to us anymore.
So what are we to do? Use Wi-Fi when you’ re at home, where the signal is strongest, and when you’re out and about in restaurants, cafes, hotels and other places we congregate. And encourage businesses that don’t offer Wi-Fi to start doing so. It’s either that, or get used to fuzzy, grainy mobile video that deserves to look a whole lot crisper.
WalMart and Google: Alexa will soon have some shopping competition. Google Home, the Internet giant’s voice-activated-speaker answer to Amazon’s Alexa on the Echo device, will join in September with Walmart to offer spoken shopping orders. Beyond Walmart, Google’s shopping service also offers goods from Costco, Whole Foods Market, and Bed, Bath & Beyond. Its Home device has been taking voice orders since February.
The Hashtag turned 10: The Twitter hashtag, a means to help organize tweets based on a similar topic, was born on August 23,2007. Now, an average of 125 million hashtags are shared every day, says Twitter. Among the most popular: #NowPlaying, tweeted more than 1 billion times, and #FollowFriday, used more than half a billion times.
Miracle of science: For 2-3 minutes on Monday, the world stopped obsessing about politics, and millions of people looked up into the skies at one truly amazing marvel. In many states in the Path of Totality, the moon briefly covered the sun, causing day to turn to night and back to day again. The USA TODAY Network covered it from Newport, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina, where we captured Totality in an awesome time-lapse masterpiece. If you haven’ t seen it, please take a look.
— How online banking can save you money. The CEO of Aspiration reveals the answer, in a TalkingTech interview.
— The sights and sounds of the eclipse. Listen as people react to the natural show in the skies,
— Tech #101 — how to avoid phishing e-mail scams.
— This week’s newsletter, the audio version. I’m joined by Rob Pegoraro to break down the new Verizon Wireless plan, and how it compares to offers from AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint.
Finally, TalkingTech was on the road this week, covering the eclipse in Newport, and then vacationing for a few days here on the amazing Oregon coast. How did we spend our time? Timelapsing, of course. Check out our favorite—a short of the clouds zooming over the majestic Haystack Rock.
