Times are changing. The mobile/smartphone world has plateaued to a large degree, a new Android phone emerges (literally) every week that is largely indistinguishable from everything else from the last 24 months, a new iPhone emerges each year that… ditto, offers almost the identical experience and functionality of last year’s model. Windows on phones died out. Blackberry’s efforts faded away. There is no viable ‘third ecosystem’ anymore. Sadly.

With everything else equal there might still be enough to cover, mind you - in the last three months, I’ve got a lot of editorial mileage out of the Microsoft Surface Duo 2, for example, and that’s a device that is very definitely different. But there needs to be more. A lot more.

In parallel with this plateauing, there are three other salient major factors. Firstly, as I’m sure you’ll have noted by now, I lost my dad late in 2021, just before Christmas. While sad enough in itself, I’ve been deluged by the work and responsibility of sorting out his (and my also late mum’s) physical estate and 85 years of ‘stuff’. I always said that when he died that I’d have to retire. I stopped my Phones Show videos immediately (here’s the last one) and also stopped writing for other sites completely. And you’ll have noted that content here has been less voluminous as 2022 has unfurled.

Secondly, the site itself has had issues for the last few years - features and links not working and, in the last few months, the straw that broke the camel's back, stories simply coming up with blank content. Much of the site code is only documented in Rafe’s brain(!), leading to delays in getting anything fixed, since he's now high up in management in the IT industry and just doesn’t have the time for projects outside his main employment.

Thirdly, times are changing in how people consume content. Long-form 2500 word articles aren’t as attractive now as quick fire glossy videos. And, while both still have their place, general reader attention span does seem far shorter now than a decade ago.

All of these factors have converged to now, Spring 2022. While I’m sure there may be some more content at some point (if the CMS allows), either from myself or a guest, it will become a rarity. However, Rafe moved the sites to a cheaper server a couple of years ago and so I’m confident that all the existing 25,000 articles and stories will remain online for the immediate future, at least. So there’s that. At some point, if the servers ever go offline, there’s always The Internet Archive, which has the vast majority of the All About content, going back to the very beginning (January 2002, if you’re counting, the first archive crawl of AllAboutER6!)

So, as they say, thanks for all the fish. Thanks a million to Rafe for keeping everything (largely) going for so long (and for funding things as best he could), thanks to Ewan, David and other writers in the past, thanks for the millions (literally) of readers, commenters, and forum members over 20 years.

Steve Litchfield (I do still post YouTube Shorts and occasional imaging features on my personal blog.)

From Apple:

Apple today introduced a new version of iMovie with features that make it easier than ever to create beautiful edited videos on iPhone and iPad.

Storyboards helps aspiring content creators and moviemakers learn to edit and improve their video storytelling skills with pre-made templates for popular types of videos shared on social, with colleagues, or with classmates — videos like DIYs, cooking tutorials, product reviews, science experiments, and more. Storyboards makes it easy to get started with flexible shot lists and step-by-step guidance on which clips to capture for each video type.

For those who want to create a video even faster, Magic Movie instantly creates a polished video from the clips and photos a user selects, automatically adding transitions, effects, and music to the edit. Both new features include a range of styles to help personalize the final look and feel of a video, including titles, filters, transitions, color palettes, and music, all designed to work together.

Here's the new iMovie in action on my iPhone 12 Pro Max:

The two new options, Magic Movie and Storyboard, are front and centre when starting a new project. Tapping on the latter kicks off a long browse through pre-designed templates, each with prompts and suggested shots.

At any stage you can choose a visual style, music, colour scheme, font, and a graphical filter. Then it's into filling out the storyboard with actual media. You can pick existing photos or videos or even just shoot things to order by following the storyboard.

Magic Movie is the biggest time saver - just pick all the bits you shot on a day out (or similar) and Magic Movie puts them together in a semi-pro video project.

You can preview the (magic) movie at any point, tweak clip trimming, and - again - adjust music, colour, font, and graphical filter.

When done, exporting to a video will render everything out at your chosen settings, or you can even save to a new iMovie project which can be edited in more detail in the traditional way.

Another really useful aid to home movie makers on their phones, from Apple. A someone who covers both Windows and Android smartphones, the perennial question 'what should I use to edit video?' is only really easy to answer if the answer can be 'Switch to a Mac or iPhone'!

You really didn't need to click through to read the body of this news post.

Honest.

There's nothing here. Nothing at all. Get back to work!

PS. If you do spot articles which seem to come and go or contain no visible content, that's us testing the code out. Sorry again.

It's particularly notable that while most manufacturers stick to under-the-hood security patches, Microsoft is using the monthly security update cycle for Android to also push significant new features. Here's the full changelog:

• Enabled pen shortcut preferences in settings for Surface Slim Pen 2. It requires Surface Slim Pen 2 to be paired with Surface Duo 2.
• With the Your Phone app, you can use Android apps on your PC. For more information on using Surface Duo with your PC see Link Surface Duo to your PC.
• Addresses scenarios outlined in the Android Security Bulletin—January 2022.
• Improves camera usability of night mode, 4k video recording, and auto focus.
• Improves charging reliability with 3rd party chargers.
• Improves system reliability and stability.
• Improves touch responsiveness.

I've been testing the Surface Duo 2 with the new update in place and have some real world notes:

• The pen button improvements work with all Surface Pen variants, tested here on my original Surface Pen. I have double-press set to Screenshot and press and hold set to launch Gmail, with a single click set to launch OneNote, as per the default, which is handy. Note that existing inking and erasing features still work on the Duo 2, though actual scribbling and drawing remains laggy, at least with my older Surface Pen - I'm sure the Slim Pen 2 works much better and I'm tempted to get this in for review.
  
  
  
  It's also worth noting that the older pen (2016?) does keep disconnecting from the more modern Duo 2 and has to be power back on when you want to use it. But again I'm sure that a newer Surface Pen would work more seamlessly!  
   
• Touch response was already pretty good on the December 2021 update and I've put occasional tap misfires down to cold and dry fingers in the UK winter - I'd had similar problems on my iPhone with capacitive touch! With this January 2022 update, Microsoft has dialled up the response significantly and tapping and swiping are now as sensitive as on my iPhone. Time will tell whether they've gone too far, but right now I like it! 
   
• The Camera app was already producing decent results (see my features here), but the viewfinder did lag sometimes, especially in low light, with too much 'focus hunting'. After using the January 2022 update for a few hours, I'm impressed - focus hunting has gone under most light conditions, as has any viewfinder or shutter lag. In very, very low light there are still issues, but I have to remind myself that I'm coming from the iPhone 12 Pro Max here, which pretty much rules the night - the Duo 2 is now perfectly serviceable in the evening when there's any light at all. 
   
•  I'd not had a charging failure, so can't comment on this, but I gather the protocol negotiation with some power banks was an issue before this update. I'll keep an eye on this and report back.
    
• The 'Your Phone' improvements are excellent to see if you use Windows on your main desktop/laptop - although I'm able to test this, my main desktop and laptops are both Macs. But this update brings the Duo 2 up to the same level as Samsung's flagships in terms of Microsoft Windows integration and are best seen in WC's Zac Bowden's demo video, embedded here (Zac uses Windows full time):

Comments welcome if you too have a Duo 2 and have been trying things out.

First of all the Fairphone press release:

/e/OS and Fairphone have partnered to provide Fairphone users with a privacy by design operating system since Fairphone 3. Fairphone has always valued open source software as a way of reaching its goal of bringing more fairness to software. The collaboration between Fairphone and /e/OS is the first of its kind, providing users with the first 5G privacy conscious and sustainable smartphone. With /e/OS, Fairphone continues to provide its users with options when it comes to privacy, allowing them to choose from the standard Android OS and /e/OS, for those who value the protection of their personal data. 

Similar to previous Fairphones, Fairphone 4 is built to last. Thanks to the modular construction and spare parts, anyone can make repairs with a standard screwdriver. Fairphone has also introduced a 5-year warranty, ensuring that the phones keep running smoothly (and securely) for years to come and lowering their environmental footprint. The device was given the highest iFixit score on the market - 10/10 - and has received a 9.3 in the French Repairability Index. Fairphone 4 is also the first modular phone with an IP rating. It has a rating of IP54, meaning that the device is protected from dust-ingress and protected from rain.

Fairphone 4 offers a step up in tech specifications. It has up-to-date specs such as three high-quality cameras, a future-proof 5G with dual SIM, a powerful processor, and a fast-charging battery. The camera comes with a pair of premium lenses — a 48MP main camera for all the details and a 48MP ultrawide camera for the bigger picture — and to top it off, a 25MP selfie camera.

The Murena Fairphone 4 is available to purchase on the Murena online shop for RRP 629,90€ across Europe. 

See also my own Fairphone 4 review.

As I say, it's all somewhat poppycock though. While it's admirable to try and avoid being spied on, one also has to realise how much 'spying' generates benefits for the user. I've lost count of the number of times that Google has 'saved me' in terms of remembering passwords, facts, locations, over the last two decades. Allowing Google to know who I am and what I do actually has enormous benefits. 

After all, you have to trust someone in order to do anything online. For me it's just Google, Microsoft, and my ISP/network providers - since they can track all traffic anyway, if they really wanted to (they don't). If you use /e/ OS, for example, you may not be using Google services, but you'll be using somebody's, as you log in to the various things you do online. In an extreme example, I guess you could use VPNs and anonymised email and social accounts, but surely life is too short to make things so complicated for yourself?

We all also have a 'bad list', and for me that mainly means Facebook (who also own Whatsapp and Instagram). So I keep my involvement with it to an absolute minimum. You may have your own pet hate online. But if, for example, you go to the extent of buying a Fairphone 4 with /e/ OS and installing a VPN and so forth, and then install (by side loading or from a third party app store, both of which have huge risks) Facebook and log into that, I'd argue you're way, way more compromised already in terms of privacy then if you'd just stuck to regular Android and Google in the first place.

And it goes without saying that if you opt for an 'open source' OS (or application) then technically you're only really protected if you're willing to go through 10 million lines of source code every week to make sure no one has added a nasty into this week's 'build'. Of course, absolutely no one does this, so I'd argue that open source software (while laudable) isn't necessarily any safer than that coded by the major players (Google, Apple, Microsoft).

Your thoughts welcomed, of course.

PS. In terms of THAT name, ArsTechnica says it well:

...another example of how incredibly frustrating it can be to try to follow or cover /e/ OS. The name "/e/ OS" doesn't really work on search engines—slashes are usually not a valid character for a search, and you're left searching for a single-letter OS, which works very poorly. You can nail the official home page of the e Foundation, but search engines quickly move on to other things that contain the letter "e," so it's harder than it needs to be to bring up news or other ancillary information about the OS.

The e Foundation webpage doesn't show any news or have a blog (there is a dead news section here), and the official /e/ Twitter never announced US sales. The "Follow us" footer on the e Foundation page lists a Medium blog, but the icon goes to the wrong link: this empty blog instead of this active blog, but the active /e/ blog doesn't mention this news, either.

Clearly part of what the e Foundation wants to accomplish is building a wider movement of respecting privacy and pushing back against data collection companies, but step one of a movement like this needs to be communication, and /e/ seems very bad at communication. How is anyone supposed to find this stuff out?

There's a chance you don't have to actually buy a phone to run /e/ OS. Just like with Lineage, you can install the OS at home, for free, if you have a compatible device. There are 138 devices officially supported by /e/ OS (oddly no up-to-date builds for Pixel phones, which are probably the most popular unlocked devices), although only about 60 are on the latest version. There is even an "Easy Installer" for some Samsung Exynos devices.

With his funeral and entire estate to sort out, please expect fewer articles in January 2022, though I do have a number of items that I still want to publish, particularly with regards to Surface Duo 2 (aka 'Surface Phone'), which I now have back in hand.

So watch this space... just not too impatiently!

The All About Mobile site is secure (https) but has a number of missing features still (recent comments, erratic comment number reporting, FTP access so that I can host article images on the domain, and more...), while AAWP has all the features but isn't secure - it's a little bit of a mess, but Rafe Blandford is still hoping to address some of this over the Christmas break.

Either way, please bear with us in all of this. The All About sites aren't going away, whatever happens, Rafe and I are keen to keep all content online as long as possible.

And do have a great Christmas and New Year yourself, gentle reader. 

Firstly, in case you're unaware of the device, from the official promo page (slightly edited by Planet in the intervening years):

• First 5G handheld device with full physical keyboard
• RockUp™ slider hinge mechanism combines all the power of a mini laptop  with the functionality of a smartphone
• Device features a large AMOLED 6.39" touchscreen display and a 48MP camera
• Astro runs Android 11 and also supports Linux OSs, with a multi-boot option
• Big enough to be the only device you need to carry, and small enough to fit in your pocket, it’s a true all-in-one replacement for both your mobile phone and your laptop
  

The biggest concept to grasp is the form factor, so here's the launch 'behind the scenes' design video:

...and you might like to return to Phones Show Chat 555, where I chatted to Martin for ages about the background to the device and concept.

Aside from caveats over the mechanical reliability of the ribbon cable system needed so support such an extensive slider system, the Astro Slide 5G should be more competitive than the previous two QWERTY devices, plus hopefully Planet Computers will at last address my biggest complaint about the Gemini and Cosmo, which is that their speakers were both wired out of phase and were horribly tinny as a result (bass being cancelled out!!)

As a reminder of the specifications, as they are now - after some upgrading in the intervening two years:

• Integrated physical backlit keyboard, 24 international layouts available
• 6.39" AMOLED 1080p touchscreen display with Gorilla Glass 3
• Dimensity 800 chipset
• 48MP rear camera
• 13MP selfie camera
• 8GB of RAM
• 128GB of Flash storage
• MicroSD slot for additional storage
• Capacitive fingerprint sensor
• Smart toggle button for security and control
• NFC for payment
• 2x Nano SIMs and 1x eSIM 
• 2 USB-C ports (including USB OTG and Display Port)
• 3.5mm audio jack
• Stereo speakers
• 4000mAh battery
• 10W Qi charging
• Weight: 300g
• Comes by default with Android 11
• Comes in any colour you want as long as you want black(!)

Which is very decent for the mid-range, if not quite a flagship. There are still Astro Slide 5G units available at 529 Euros as I write this, so just under £500, which seems remarkably good, though you'll have to be quick, etc.

Although originally aimed at summer 2021, things have obviously slipped, but there are two obvious huge reasons for the six month delay:

• The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted all parts of the tech industry in terms of factories with reduced capacity and shortage of specific components
• Planet Computers is a tiny company in a huge industry and thus often has to take second or even third place to other, bigger companies, in terms of ordering parts and production runs

Things do seem to be coming to a head in terms of the Astro Slide 5G actually being delivered though, according to the latest updates, excerpted below:

Good news! The Astro PCBs have arrived from Wuhan to the SMT factory.

The SMT process has now started to produce fully populated Astro PCBs with all of the required components.

The factory still expects to ship the first units to Planet before Christmas and we will immediately ship them onward to backers.

and, just before (early December)...

The factory has informed us that there is a short delay on receiving the PCB (printed circuit boards) itself for the Astro from the supplier in Wuhan. The issue is Covid and the issue is in fact not in Wuhan, but in their sister factory in Vietnam, that has meant that our PCB run is slightly delayed as production in under strain at the Wuhan facility.

Otherwise, all PCB components are now in the warehouse ready for SMT.

After testing the PR2 units, we also decided to make a small modification to one of the mechanical metal components. This will not affect the shipping schedules.

The overall schedule remains relatively unchanged, but the date of the PCB surface mounting (SMT) is now moved to mid-December.

Packaging and assembly will occur immediately afterwards.

We have now also received the final proofs of the Astro box, which has been accepted by Planet.

Keyboard production underway - new keyboard layouts received

And for real geeks, the latest on Linux on Astro:

As you know, we have sent a few devices to the Linux community from the Astro T1 test device batch. And they have been working hard to get Linux running on the Astro.

There has been a lot of work behind the scenes adapting the Halium layer to Android 11. Halium 11 offers a bridge between the Android low level drivers and Linux OS above Halium.

This has meant that we can now show Linux OS running on Astro for the first time.

Here is an image of UBports Ubuntu running on Astro.

It's not clear whether Planet will actually ship Astro Slides with Linux or whether this will remain a geek project for enthusiasts to flash themselves.

Despite Planet Computers' continuing optimism(!), I'd estimate that the first real world Astro Slide 5G units with common keyboard layouts will arrive mid-January 2022 (as ever, Christmas and New Year holidays, plus postal delays will get in the way). One of the 'All About' sites' friends is right on the bleeding edge of production, so we'll get first notification of arrival and hopefully some first impressions. Watch this space!

I've managed to obtain the official changelog for Unigram Mobile Messenger (last covered here) v21.12.6006 (from v20.9.5640):

• Pinned Messages 2.0: Pin multiple messages in any chat and see them all on a separate page
• Comment on posts in channels that have a discussion group.
• Get notified about replies to your comments via the new "Replies" chat (if you are not a member in the discussion group).
• Anonymous group admins: Turn on "Remain Anonymous" in an admin's permissions (edit group -> admins -> tap on an admin) to let them post on behalf of the group and become invisible in the list of members.
• Added a context menu button to the chat (in touch mode) for easier access to some context menus
• Added in-app volume control.
• Increased music player slider.
• Send music playlists
• Improved live locations

Interestingly, though, there's no mention of the goings on behind the scenes! But after applying the update (which I suspect was almost done in terms of the new functions anyway, as per the changelog), all my Telegram groups flooded back into life. And without adverts, which will presumably annoy the core Telegram management, if they care.

Telegram's message sent out to all clients the other day. But, of course, there is no official version for Windows 10 Mobile; (right) heading into Unigram Mobile Messenger, I was logged in (though warned not to log out) but my messages weren't being seen by anyone (at the time).

After spotting the new update in the Store (see the notification at the bottom), messages started to flood in, and (right) confirmation in the main Windows 10 Mobile support group.

All my chats burst into life and are fully working again, though note that (as per right) the developer has spotted a few issues (expected with such a major update) and that minor updates will follow in the Store.

You can grab (and update) Unigram Mobile Messenger UWP in the Store here. (Note that with the Telegram server changes, the original 'Unigram Mobile' UWP app also stopped working, for old-hands who still had this installed. Time to move onto the new forked app!)

There's also the original Telegram PWA, which in theory works fine in Edge, other than not having push notifications, though I'm currently having trouble logging in. Just me?

On iOS and Android, of course, you just go to the App Store or Play Store, though expect adverts in the service for 2022!

Popping up in the To-Do application today, we have:

All very interesting, since I didn't know the To-Do UWP application had a facility for 'system generated' to-dos! Needless to say. if you head to the Windows 10 Mobile Store then there's no update waiting and it's clear that development in the UWP app stopped a long time ago (early 2020). But it's nice of Microsoft to (un)helpfully suggest this, both in the app itself and on the help pages.

Microsoft To-Do was always a top notch service, very configurable and a worthy effort from the company in this busy space. I never had it as my main reminders store, preferring a homebrew system based on Google Keep and Google Calendar - I know, I know. Maybe I'm just not that much of a 'to do list' person? Most things I HAVE to do are time-specific and therefore they end up in my Calendar. But I always enjoyed playing with To-Do, at least.

Coming almost two years after the end of support for Windows 10 Mobile, one can't blame Microsoft from moving on and withdrawing support - see my Services feature that contains the status of other Windows 10 Mobile services and applications. I'm guessing that the OS itself is now something of a play thing or guilty pleasure for most folks reading this. But if not, then this is just another nudge onto a current supported smartphone platform.

As a preface to this, I should also point out that the Twitter UWP/PWA was dropped from the Windows 10 Mobile-accessible Store earlier this year, since it had moved on to requiring a higher build of Windows than was available on phones. However, a) it still runs fine for the majority of people who have it installed already, and b) if you don't have the Twitter app then going to twitter.com in your Edge mobile browser gets you the exact same content, albeit with a URL bar in the interface.

The allowance for full image aspect ratio display was actually implemented in mobile apps for iOS and Android six months ago, but it's only in the last 24 hours that the PWA code on the server was updated to the same effect. From Twitter:

This is now available on web!

Pic looking good in the Tweet composer? That’s how it will look on the timeline.

We can see the difference if I bring up one of my friend Rory Cellan-Jones's tweets from a while back, as viewed in the Twitter UWP/PWA at the time on my Lumia 950 XL, and then beside it the exact same tweet, searched for and displayed in the exact same application (locally on the phone) but using the new PWA code from the server:

Ignore the timeline versus tweet view aspect, ignore the font difference, what you're looking at here is the different cropping of the main image. 16:9 in Twitter's old code/crop, and now the original square image from Rory...

Some more examples of full height photos posted today on Twitter, as seen through the PWA interface in the Twitter app on my Lumia 950 XL:

Both of these image post examples would have been really hard to crop intelligently, so it's good to see them at full aspect ratio...

Although cropping images slightly may not seem like a huge problem to you, there have been many examples where the crop has completely missed the point of the post, such as that posted by Twitter itself to demonstrate the reversal of the cropping system and the huge improvement overall:

An extreme example, perhaps, but it does show cropping can go horribly wrong. And we're all used to swiping and scrolling, so why not have a little more space used by each post if needed?

Enjoy the difference anyway, whether on a Lumia or when using the PWA interface through your usual desktop web browser.

PS. There's also the official Twitter PWA release notes, though most changes are now quite small and/or only apply to people accessing the service from Desktop browsers.

Some notes first. Although all the tools and notes seem to come from Google in a first party fashion, the video was clearly not part of the official Pixel 6 Pro leak campaign, since the video was removed in short order from its main YouTube URL. However, many people had saved it by then and so it's still available, see the example embed below (if this one goes too, then I'll try and find a working link).

Note also that the video goes at breakneck pace. It's not exactly speeded up, but - as they say in the promo world - sequences have been shortened. You'll see. Plus the annotations are crazily detailed and only shown for brief periods of time. The end result depicts exactly as you'd build a Pixel 6 Pro from first principles with all the Google hardware tools and set-up jigs, but it's more for effect than genuine instruction.

Finally, you may want to ignore/mute the audio, which is just jaunty music! Here goes (and, as I say, if this embed is pulled, I'll try and replace it):

Fascinating stuff and I've included it here as news partly because the Google Pixel 6 Pro is indeed imminent (in terms of official launch) and partly because I wanted to comment further. If you ever thought that assembling a phone was imply a matter of screwing in the right components in the right order then think again. 

At each stage in the video you can see subtle touches like lubricating edges/seals or pre-folding cables or using pre-cut transfer sheets (release papers) to allow the application of non-conducting or heat-wicking material. Then there are the glued aspects, with certain components that need to be added within a certain number of seconds or minutes since the primer or glue was first laid down. All of which are vital to structure and waterproofing.

What's so impressive here is that even if the video itself is not fully official, every single part is new and unused, straight from the OEM, so protective layers have to be peeled off - we've been so used to seeing teardown videos, where every part is 'used' that it's refreshing to see the complete factory fresh experience.

Overall, watching the 8 minutes of assembly is a little overwhelming, not least because of the speed at which it goes, but because most of us hadn't the slightest idea of just how much goes into bolting our phones together. Comments?

PS. Of course, set all this against the launch of the Fairphone 4, with a review unit on its way, which is unique in that it's 100% user repairable and a few standard cross-head screws are all that's between you and a full teardown or rebuild. The catch is a lowering of water resistance, of course, plus you have to pay a little extra for such a niche device and all the eco-goodness that comes with it. Anyway, more on the Fairphone 4 when it arrives at 'All About' Towers.

The changelog since March from developer Sebastian is small, but worth including here for completeness:

• Added 'on the fly' calendar updates
• Improved image support for news feeds
• Fixed crash due to Calendar entries being listed as 'to be confirmed'
• Further database updates

The aim, as always, is to be an unofficial but definitive guide to Formula 1, using updated databases (from the developer) and official feeds and APIs, so that PitlaneOne is all you need to follow the sport. First of all, here's PitlaneOne (Store link) running on my Lumia 950 XL:

The familiar home screen, tiled (hey, this is Windows, after all), with panes for calendar, news, drivers, and so on; (right) diving into the news to scan the F1 headlines...

For some reason images weren't working on this particular story, but no matter, the text content is all there; (right) looking back and forwards through the race calendar...

For each race, full practice, qualifying and race timings are available in gory detail; (right) in Settings, did you know that there's a 'do not spoil' mode for those with live tiles which might give the result away before you've watched the highlights on terrestrial TV?(!)

Browsing the teams and drivers, with handy direct Twitter links to each, so that you can follow your favourites. And by marking them as such you can optionally highlight just them on PitlaneOne's home screen.

Calendar reminders are terse but functional - making sure you don't miss commentary or coverage of any live action.

And here PitlaneOne UWP is installed on my Surface 2-in-1 and it rescales and runs perfectly...

In fact, given all this attention to detail and given the age of the Lumia and indeed the gradual ageing of the UWP system itself, you won't be surprised to learn that Sebastian has also been porting PitlaneOne to both the iOS App Store (see the screenshots below) and the Android Play Store (links go direct to the app, etc.) 

From opening wizard and tutorial through detailed Settings (including keeping the screen from powering off when in Live mode) and then news and race information, it's all here, despite the new interface for iOS. And all in Ferrari red, or is that just my imagination?

All very impressive. Yes, there's the official F1 (largely paid) application on both modern phone OS, but if you want something small, simple and free then PitlaneOne just keeps getting better and better - whatever your smartphone (or indeed desktop) of choice.

[Cross-posted to AAWP because AAM is still not yet complete - many resources are still hosted on AAWP and some 'discovery' pages still don't work on AAM. Note that we'd still like you to link to the 'secure' AAM URLs where possible though, since it will help the domain in the long run.]

Using Apple's own promo paragraphs, feature by feature, here's what's new in iOS 15:

Explore Cities with Highly Detailed Maps - Apple Maps introduces a new way to navigate cities with a visually stunning 3D map that offers unprecedented detail for neighborhoods, commercial districts, marinas, buildings, and more. Now users can see elevation details across a city, new road labels, and hundreds of custom-designed landmarks like Coit Tower in San Francisco, Dodger Stadium in LA, the Statue of Liberty in NYC, and the Royal Albert Hall in London, with more to come. A beautiful nighttime mode with a moonlit glow activates at dusk. The city map experience is now available in London, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco, and later this year, it will be available in Philadelphia, San Diego, and Washington, D.C. Support for additional cities, including Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, will be available next year.

Battersea Power Station, currently being re-developed, here modelled in 3D; and HMS Belfast and the Tower Bridge area of London, though note that Tower Bridge itself is just a placeholder - I'm sure Apple will fix this in short order! The modelling on HMS Belfast is superb, even individual guns.

Enhanced Navigation Provides a Better Driving Experience - Maps now features even more road details to help drivers navigate through cities more easily and safely. Turn lanes, medians, bus and taxi lanes, and crosswalks are clearly displayed for navigating busy intersections, and highways with overlapping complex interchanges are rendered in a road-level 3D view, making it easier to see upcoming traffic conditions or the best lane for an approaching exit. Route planning provides the estimated time of arrival for future departures based on expected traffic. The new navigation will be available through CarPlay later this year.

The modelling of roads and their markings and crossings is now phenomenal, almost photo-realistic. Though note that these are rolling out from the aforementioned cities - this is London, obviously - your own area will take a lot longer to capture in this detail, and keep up to date!

Never Miss a Stop with Powerful Transit Updates - Maps now offers major improvements for public transit riders. Nearby stations are prominently displayed at the top of the screen, and users can pin their favorite lines in Maps so the best route is just one tap away. Once a transit route is selected, Maps will automatically notify a user when it is time to disembark as they approach their final destination, and riders can even keep track on Apple Watch. These updates build on transit features already available in Maps, including real-time transit, which provides detailed transit schedules, live departure times, arrival times, the current location of a bus or train en route, and system connections to help plan a journey. Maps also includes important real-time information like outages.

Transit instructions are superb - though obviously I can't demonstrate the real time disembarking notifications without actually doing a journey, which seems overkill just for a screenshot!

Immersive Walking Directions - With iOS 15, Apple Maps introduces step-by-step walking guidance in augmented reality. Users can simply raise their iPhone to scan buildings in the area, and Maps generates a highly accurate position to deliver detailed directions that can be viewed in the context of the real world.

This also seems to be area-dependent, so I've resorted to using Apple's promo screenshot here!

Discover Great Places with Curated Guides - Maps makes it easy to discover the amazing things to see and do in cities around the world through curated Guides created by a selection of trusted resources. In iOS 15, users can tap the Explore Guides button in Maps to access over a thousand expertly curated guides that include recommendations from respected brands such as Time Out, The Washington Post, the National Park Foundation, Complex, and The Infatuation. Curated Guides can be saved, and they are automatically updated when new places are added, so users always have the latest recommendations. Users can even create their own personal Guides of favorite places to share with friends and family.

Plenty of guides to give you travel ideas - here I'm digging down into a London guide on unusual places to visit, I'd never heard of The Old Operating Theatre Museum!

A New Interactive Globe - In iOS 15, Apple Maps offers a rich and interactive three-dimensional globe that introduces a whole new way of looking at the world. The globe shows Earth’s natural beauty with amazing textures and contours. Users can see vibrant details of mountain ranges, deserts, rainforests, oceans, and more. Now even the most remote and precious locations on the planet can be explored right from iPhone.

Zooming out to spin the entire planet, then zooming in and in, exploring terrain and so on. Yes, you can do a lot of this in Google Maps too, but it's all well integrated and implemented here.

Nokia was the first smartphone maker to buy in (and then develop) their own maps and navigation for users of their platforms, followed by Google (for Android) and then Apple here. Personal navigation is now such a ubiquitous feature in any phone that every ecosystem owner wants as much of it as possible within their own walls and not to have to rely too much on others, especially nominal competitors.

Apple uses a lot of TomTom data here, but it also has a vast trove of its own, gathered with its own LiDAR-equipped cars and its own drones. The winner is the user, of course. With free maps and navigation of extremely high quality, whether on iOS (as here) or Android.

Notably, Apple Maps doesn't have an explicit offline maps feature, so you have to rely on cached data - this works pretty well for places you've browsed before at various map zoom levels, but there's no way to pre-fetch areas that you might want to browse in the future when you have limited data signal. Nokia's Maps/HERE Maps, back in the day, let you download entire countries, while Google Maps lets you download rectangular areas, even up to entire (small) countries. With Apple Maps, it's all hidden behind the scenes, though if you're planning to go to area X then it makes sense to browse it in Maps before you set off, and at various zoom levels, to make sure it's all cached in your iPhone storage ahead of time.

From today's launch, the new Surface Duo 2 comes with:

• Twin 5.8" AMOLED 1344p displays, adding up to an effective 8.3" diagonal, at 90Hz refresh rate. Now with hinge-side curved (as we saw on the earliest Andromeda concepts) Gorilla Glass Victus, so that the centre hinge bezel is very small, plus the curved edges give limited display space when the Duo 2 is closed, allowing for notifications and indicators (e.g. battery charge left)
• 5G connectivity
• Snapdragon 888 chipset
• 8GB RAM
• 128/256/512GB storage variants
• 12MP f/1.7 main camera with OIS
• Time of flight depth sensor
• 12MP f/2.4 telephoto camera with OIS
• 16MP f/2.2 ultra-wide camera
• 12MP f/2.0 internal camera (mainly for selfies and video calls)
• Stereo speakers
• Capacitive fingerprint sensor in the side power button

There's also:

• Bluetooth 5.1
• Wi-Fi 6
• Ultra-wideband (UWB) chip (though I'm not sure what this is for)
  
• NFC for Google Pay
• 4400mAh battery, with (up to) 23W Type C charging
• Comes with Android 11, with an update to Android 12 in 2022
• 284g
• Available in white and black

Which, overall, is a lot more competitive than the original device, though with the compromise that it can't be folded completely flat in the 'open' (call taking) position. Which is an acceptable compromise for those cameras, I think, especially given that user will likely have a protective 'bumper' on, and these will match the camera glass bump and almost compensate.

In terms of pricing, it starts at $1500 ($100 more than the original Duo) - perhaps unsurprisingly. And £1349 in the UK, pre-orders are live now. The Duo 2 is also available right now for preorder in Canada, France, Germany, and Japan.

I've approached the usual PR channels for a review loan, but don't hold your breath. Availability is October 21st.

As usual, there's a promo/sizzle video:

CNet already has a hands-on video up:

Interesting to see the (Slim Pen 2) pen-friendly case option there, very Galaxy Note-ish.

Lots of USA media were at a physical event for their hands-on, so you'll find these across YouTube over the next 24 hours. And no, there wasn't a corresponding UK event.

The official Microsoft press release includes:

Designed to showcase the power of Microsoft 365 in your pocket, Surface Duo brings dual-screen productivity and entertainment with you wherever you go.

When Surface Duo launched last year, we pushed the boundaries of what a mobile device could be. With Surface Duo 2, we’re pushing that vision even further while offering the core capabilities people expect from a modern premium smartphone.

Surface Duo 2 is much more than a phone. From the integration with Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams, to entertainment scenarios like TikTok, Kindle and gaming, Duo 2 enables countless app pairings and unmatched multitasking capabilities. Use any two Android apps simultaneously and check out new app experiences tuned for dual screen, like Gameloft’s Asphalt 9: Legends.

Featuring larger, 8.3" PixelSense Fusion displays, the Snapdragon® 888 5G Mobile Platform, a dynamic triple-lens camera, stereo audio, NFC for contactless payments and an array of new accessories that add special features and extra protection, Duo 2 represents a major upgrade.

[As usual, cross-posted to AAWP for interest sake and because AAM isn't complete and/or discoverable yet.]

Before embedding the videos, I should summarise a little and draw out the top-level takeaways:

• The 120Hz displays on the two 'Pro' devices seem to work well, varying up from 1Hz according to needs, though note that if you're over about 50 then your eyes won't really see any difference from the older 60Hz refresh rate.
• The main Camera application has a 'trick' in which it switches from the main to the ultra-wide when it detects the subject is less than 14cm away, leading to a shift in framing and loss of bokeh, which is understandably annoying for anyone who knows what they're doing and wants to try an arty close-up optical bokeh. While useful as an option for new users, the new system just gets in the way for others and word on the street is that Apple has said they'll provide a toggle in Settings, in a future update, to turn this behaviour off.
• The 'cinematic mode' in video capture is aimed at 'pros' but only possible in 1080p for performance reasons, which is a shame as 'pros' will want to be shooting in 4K. So best consider this just a 'portrait mode for video' for regular users and not to concentrate on the focus-change effects.
• The much vaunted ProRes video capture mode isn't available yet, it'll come in an update. But note that this mode is strictly for video professionals - it uses insane amounts of disk space and 99.9% of users should never, ever need this.
• Each of the iPhones (mini, standard, Pro, Pro Max) are a little heavier though with bigger batteries and longer battery life. Which is always good.
• If you have an existing iPhone 12 series then there's little reason to pay to upgrade unless you're changing form factor or strike a particularly good trade in or contract deal.

From The Verge's written review:

The ProMotion display is the perfect example of what you get with the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max. It’s an improvement that may only matter explicitly to a few but will subtly make life nicer for everybody who uses it. The battery life upgrade isn’t quite so subtle, of course.

As for the camera, I can see it both ways. When you’re sharing photos and videos to social media and looking at them on a phone, the differences are subtle at most — but they’re there if you look for them. And if you use your iPhone’s camera for more than just Instagram, you’ll appreciate the updates.

The list of significant things I have to complain about with these phones is almost astonishingly short. (Though, as you might expect, I can quibble for days about little things like the lack of a meaningful MagSafe ecosystem, the lightning port, or how iOS 15 handles notifications).

The story of the iPhone 13 Pro is a story of iteration, sure, but iteration matters. iPhone 12 Pro owners will have to pay a lot of attention to see some of the differences and an upgrade probably doesn’t make a lot of sense. But if you’re using something older, all that iteration comes on top of the major improvements from the iPhone 12 Pro — the upgrades will be very noticeable.
Either way, when you start to pay attention to the details, prepare to be impressed.

And now for a few video reviews, if you have the time. Firsly again from The Verge:

And from Rene Ritchie:

And from MKBHD:

That's enough for now, I think. Note that each of these reviews has been done with only five days to put them together, so none are exactly real world tests, borne of weeks of use, plus there are the features that Apple says it will add (or fix) in updates in the coming months. So expect more from longer term reviews if you're still in the market for an upgrade or switch later this year.

All of these opinions are from Apple-supplied review units, mainly in the USA. Notably, Apple UK PR is extremely restricted in who it sends review devices to, and I've never been on that list. So it'll be a while before I get my own hands-on time. But, from the thoughts so far, it does seem as though my existing iOS phone, the 12 Pro Max, is going to be quite good enough and that I'd only see marginal gains in spending over £1000 to get the 2021 models.