Hasta La Gadget!

With the launch of the Apple Watch Series 3, Apple has introduced an option in which users can choose to activate LTE capabilities on their smartwatch so that they don’t have to be tethered to a phone. This of course also means that you’ll need to purchase a separate Apple Watch plan from your carrier.

Now if you live in the US, this is something you’ll want to take note of because it could be an expensive decision if you’re still unsure. According to a report from Macworld’s Michael Simon, it seems that deactivating and reactivating the LTE capabilities on the Apple Watch Series 3 could be rather expensive. This is because carriers usually charge customers an activation fee, one that most of them seem to have waived for first-time activations.

So imagine this scenario where you purchase a data plan for your Apple Watch, but ultimately you decide that you’d rather save yourself $10 a month and that tethering it to your iPhone isn’t really so bad, so you deactivate LTE on your Apple Watch through your carrier. However a few months later you realize how useful LTE is on the Apple Watch and want to reactivate it, in which you will then be charged anywhere between $25-$30 for it.

As Simon points out, the activation fees are usually worth a couple of months of maintaining the subscription, so depending on how long you want to cancel the service for, it might actually be cheaper to just let it run. Of course $25-30 might not seem like a huge deal, but if you flip-flop between keeping the service and deactivating it, it could easily run up a huge bill.

Reactivating LTE For The Apple Watch Series 3 Could Be Pricey , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Image credit – iFixit

Whenever a new iPhone is released, naturally it benefits Apple if existing iPhone customers were to upgrade their devices, but what if users felt that their phones were still fine and did not need upgrading? This has led to conspiracy theories that Apple could be intentionally slowing down older iPhones to force users to upgrade, which apparently has been debunked.

However a more convincing theory has since surfaced, which is that Apple could be slowing on iPhones on purpose, but not necessarily for nefarious purposes, but rather to try and maintain a consistent battery life. For those wondering how true that theory holds, Primate Labs founder John Poole has recently plotted the kernel density of Geekbench 4 scores (via MacRumors) to see if there is any truth to these claims, and as it turns out there is.

According to Poole, “The difference between iOS 10.2 and 10.2.1 is too abrupt to be just a function of battery condition. I believe … that Apple introduced a change to limit performance when battery condition decreases past a certain point.” For those learning about this for the first time, in a bid to address random iPhone shutdowns, Apple released an update that seemingly fixed the problem.

The belief is that the shutdowns were due to older and degraded batteries that weren’t functioning at peak levels anymore, meaning that it could not handle the iPhone’s clock speeds and thus led to the shutdowns. However with the update, it seems that Apple has dynamically changed the clock speed on iPhones to match that of the battery, meaning the worse your battery got, the slower your iPhone got.

Apple has yet to disclose the improvements they made to address the issues, nor have they commented on the latest Geekbench scores, so take this with a grain of salt for now. However if you are experiencing a slowed down iPhone, you could try and swap out its battery for a new one which should be considerably cheaper than buying a new iPhone.

Benchmarks ‘Confirm’ Theory Behind Slower iPhones And Degraded Batteries , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Hyperloop One, now called Virgin Hyperloop One, has named Richard Branson as its new Chairman, this announcement following an investment into the company by Branson’s Virgin Group back in October. In addition to revealing Branson’s new role in the company, Virgin Hyperloop One has announced a new series of funding and details about its latest round of testing, during which … Continue reading

While it’s great that a consumer app like Waze started offering traffic data to help first responders avoid traffic, emergency professionals have been using their own suite of apps for awhile. But how safe are they? The Department of Homeland Securit…

Image credit – SamMobile

Naming your files is obviously the best way to identify them, but sometimes our phones/computers name the files themselves, which can be a bit confusing. However it seems that with the Android Oreo update that is coming to Samsung phones, it looks like Samsung wants to improve on the user experience.

According to a report from SamMobile, it appears that Samsung will help users name their screenshots based on the image that was taken. For example if you take a screenshot of the home screen or app drawer, the file will be named Screenshot_Samsung Experience Home, or if you take a photo of YouTube it will be called Screenshot_YouTube. The time and date of the screenshot will also be added to the file name, which will make it easier for users to identify in the future.

However as SamMobile notes, this is probably something that not all users might find useful or necessary. However if you’re the type that likes to manage their files and save them for backing up and would like some context, then this feature will come in handy. The fact that it is smart enough to identify what you’re screenshotting will also save users time and effort from having to manually rename them.

Oreo Update For Samsung Will Name Screenshots Based On What It Captured , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.