IFYBRIAN

Samsung is finally making good on its promise to debut a foldable phone. Well, sort of. At the Samsung Developer Conference today, Samsung’s Justin Denison got on stage to announce the Infinity Flex display. This flexible OLED technology will launch in 2019 as part of a still unnamed phone. Denison had the phone on stage, but we only got to see if for a precious few seconds. Almost every phone today uses a glass cover on top of the display. While glass can crack if you drop your phone, it’s very difficult to scratch, and its rigidity adds strength to the device frame. Glass doesn’t bend, though. Samsung created a new composite polymer to replace the glass on top of the Infinity Flex display. We didn’t get any specifics, but Denison says it’s “both flexible and tough.” OLED panels are fabricated on flexible substrates, so it’s been possible to make a foldable display for years as long as you only wanted to fold it a few times. More than that and the adhesive that holds the display layer...

One of the differences between the iPhone XS and XR is the latter’s lack of support for 3D Touch, the feature that lets you press slightly harder on your phone’s screen to access certain shortcuts or “peek” at links. However, with iOS 12.1.1, 9to5Mac reports that Haptic Touch will offer one of those 3D Touch features — expanding your notifications — to iPhone XR owners. Haptic Touch was a feature introduced with the iPhone XR that lets you get some of the same functionality as 3D Touch without having the specialized hardware. For now, it’s largely limited to launching the camera or flashlight on the lock screen or adjusting Control Center settings. To access it, long-press on your phone’s screen, and a bit of haptic feedback will confirm your selection. It takes slightly longer than a hard press, but its existence seems to underscore just how useless 3D Touch has become. Apple previously told The Verge that it planned to expand Haptic Touch’s capabilities, and letting users expand noti...

Now that Apple’s full fall hardware lineup is officially available, the company has announced a slew of updates for its video creation and productivity apps. First, a new iMovie update will let users connect an external display to an iPad or iPhone, which allows screen mirroring or creating a full-screen preview of what you’re editing. (Full-screen previews require an iPhone 7 or newer, sixth-generation iPad or newer, or a 2017 iPad Pro or newer.) In addition, there’s also support for uncompressed 4K video output on the third-generation 11-inch iPad Pro and 12.9-inch iPad Pro. For iMovie on desktop, there’s now a new export option called “Prepare for Facebook.” This will export a Facebook-compatible video file that you can then manually upload to Facebook without issue. Clips, Apple’s app for making videos using an iPhone or iPad, has added six new Selfie Scenes — 360-degree backgrounds — as well as filters, stickers, and 17 additional soundtracks that will automatically match the leng...

Smartphones have all looked similar for the last decade, but we may be on the verge of another major shift. At the Android Developer Summit today, the company announced native platform support for a class of devices it calls “foldables.” As you can probably guess, that means devices with foldable displays. Google also confirms that news of a Samsung foldable is coming soon. We’ve seen demos of foldable phones at trade shows for years, but none of them have been real products. The hardware has been a barrier, of course. While OLEDs are flexible, they don’t necessarily take kindly to being folded several thousand times. We’re nearing the point that a foldable display could physically work, but the software needs to catch up. Look at the recent FlexPai announcement (pictured, top) — it’s a flexible phone/tablet you can (allegedly) purchase, but the Android software shown at the demo was an incredible mess. It was completely custom, and apps don’t know how to operate on a device with a fol...

A recent incident reminded me of the importance of backing up one's phone regularly. Soon after carrying my recycling out to the curbside, I realized I had misplaced my 6-month-old iPhone. Cue brief panic, followed by deep concern that I'd somehow tossed my device into that transparent bag I'd left outside for the world to see. That led me to yelling "Hey, Siri" a few times around my apartment until the familiar chime sounded, revealing my trusty phone was hiding on a stepladder underneath a coat. Phew. I have no idea how or why I managed to leave my phone there, but had I not found it, the situation could have been much worse: It had been months since I'd backed up my data. I was lucky to escape what could have been a potential disaster caused by my absent-minded tendencies. Save Main Drive Space I bought my current laptop a little over a year ago and actually had some trouble managing backups at first. My partner and I use the same computer for backing up ou...

Microsoft on Thursday introduced its new Xbox Adaptive Controller, designed specifically for gamers with disabilities. The new hardware can be used for game play with an Xbox One console or Windows 10 PC, and it offers Bluetooth plug-and-play compatibility. It supports Xbox Wireless Controller features such as button remapping, and it connects to external buttons, switches, joysticks and mounts. Microsoft developed the Xbox Adaptive Controller to enable gamers with physical disabilities to customize their respective setups. Microsoft partnered with several high-profile global organizations dedicated to providing accessibility to those with physical disabilities: The AbleGamers Charity, The Cerebral Palsy Foundation, Craig Hospital, SpecialEffect, and Warfighter Engaged. Microsoft developers also worked directly with gamers who have limited mobility. The Xbox Adaptive Controller will be available later this year for about US$100. Serious Control Panel The inspiration for the Xbox Adapti...

If you’re over Snapchat because of the countless redesigns and re-redesigns but Instagram’s filters don’t tickle your fancy, there’s a Korean app called Snow that takes all of the beloved features and combines them into a super cute camera app. Snow has been around for a while, but the latest update gives it even more features, including its own take on Apple’s adorable Animoji, real-time beauty effects, and a new mirror mode. The new AR emoji feature lets you overlay your face with animated characters, including a puppy dog and an old man. Once selected, the camera detects your face, masks it with the sticker, and mimics your expressions. The major difference between this and Animoji is that you can still (kind of) see your body. While the feature is cool, it doesn’t work quite as well or as smoothly as the iPhone X’s Animoji. When I blinked, the app registered that as me winking instead, and there was a lag between when I opened my mouth and when the app followed the motion. The othe...