7 Days is a weekly roundup of the Editors" picks of what"s been happening in the world of technology - written with a dash of humor, a hint of exasperation, and an endless supply of (Irish) coffee.
It"s been a long week, and there"s been a lot of news around the world of technology, but don"t panic... 7 Days is here to bring you up to speed on what"s been happening, walking you through the week"s top tech news.
A new Raspberry Pi rival called the UP Core will begin shipping to Kickstarter backers in August. The device can run Windows 10, Android, and Ubuntu, and costs $89.
Over at Computex, Corsair showed off the Curve, a concept computer case that can be all yours for the low price of just $18,000.
Hey, remember Amazon"s Fire Phone? Indeed, it was a spectacular failure, but if you thought Amazon was done making phones, you"re in for a surprise. The new handset is currently known as Ice, and will reportedly sport Google Play Services.
Amazon also became the latest to ditch its unlimited cloud storage, although at least now it"s offering multiple-tiered plans, priced at $59.99 per terabyte per year.
Apple held its WWDC 2017 event this week, where it made quite a few announcements relating to both hardware and software. For one thing, there are all-new iPad Pros, including a new 10.5-inch model to replace the 9.7-inch one.
The fruity giant also refreshed almost its entire Mac lineup, including iMac, MacBook Air, MacBook, and MacBook Pro, with Kaby Lake processors. But perhaps most exciting is the iMac Pro, which comes in a space gray body, has an 8-, 10-, or 18-core Intel Xeon processor, up to 128GB RAM, up to 4TB SSD, and an AMD Radeon Vega GPU.
Don"t get too excited just yet though, as it won"t be out until December, and it will start at $4,999.
Last but not least, the firm introduced the HomePod, a Siri-powered smart speaker that will launch in December for $349, almost twice what Amazon"s Echo costs.
Just after the Cupertino firm announced that iOS 10 is on 86% of iOS devices, it also announced the next iteration of iOS, which is called, wait for it...iOS 11, and it will be available for all 64-bit iOS devices. It contains quite a few new features, such as a Files app that was discovered earlier in the week, drag and drop, High Efficiency Video Coding, built-in screen recording, and more.
While 32-bit devices are on the chopping block, so are 32-bit apps, as they won"t work in the new update. You can install the developer beta now to try it out if you want though.
ustwo Games also took the stage to show off the sequel to Monument Valley, which is currently an iOS exclusive that can be yours for $4.99.
tvOS 11 was part of the array of announcements, although not at the keynote. The developer beta is available now, although for the first time, there will be a tvOS Public Beta.
The one tvOS-related announcement that Apple did include is that Amazon Video is finally coming to the Apple TV.
While there may be some "misconceptions", Apple says that the name macOS 10.13 High Sierra is "fully baked". It contains a number of improvements for Mail, Safari, and the rest of the OS. There was something of a mixed reality focus at the event, so the company also introduced ARKit.
watchOS 4 was also part of the lineup, bringing new watch faces, redesigned Workout and Music apps, and a way to finally get rid of the "honeycomb" app view. As with everything else, the developer beta is available now.
Unfortunately, Microsoft has already announced that Office 2011 will not be supported on macOS High Sierra.
There were a couple new Office Insider Preview builds this week. Android users got one with new features for Excel and PowerPoint, and Windows 10 Mobile Insiders on the Slow ring got one too.
After three weeks of waiting, Insiders finally got a new Windows 10 build in the Fast ring, and 16215 for PCs contains a ton of new features, including the Windows 10 Mobile Word Flow keyboard, which was discovered earlier in the week. As always, there are a number of fixes, improvements, and known issues.
There was a Windows 10 Mobile build as well, which was 15222. As you can probably imagine, there are no new features.
According to some leaks, Microsoft may launch three new versions of Windows 10, including Pro for Advanced PCs, Pro N for Advanced PCs, and Server 2016 ServerRdsh. Some leaks also show something called Windows 10 Pro for Workstation PCs.
Also, due to some accidentally released Windows 10 builds, we got a peak at Cshell, the adaptable shell for the OS that will adjust to various screen sizes and form factors.
HP announced a new range of gaming devices from its OMEN line, including new laptops, a compact desktop, a full-size tower, and much more.
Samsung"s Galaxy Book is now available for pre-order in the UK, starting at £649 for the 10.6-inch model and £1,099 for the 12-inch variant.
There"s more bad news on the Windows 10 Mobile front. Microsoft is once again out of stock on all Lumias in its US store, and it doesn"t look like they"ll be restocked. Also, it looks like the company will finally be retiring Silverlight app support in a future version of the OS.
Also, if you"re on an older version of the OS, such as Windows Phone 8, 8.1, or Windows 10 Mobile 1511, Skype is going to stop working on July 1.
There was, however, a Surface Mobile rumor that dropped during the week, but please take it with a grain of salt.
Microsoft"s new Surface Pen is now available for pre-order...but only in Platinum and only in the US. It"s $99.99 and will be available on June 15.
There were also a couple of Surface firmware updates, one for the Pro 3 and the other for the Surface Studio, although there"s still no changelog for the latter.
It would appear that Intel isn"t happy about the x86 app emulation that Microsoft is working on with Qualcomm to get Win32 apps running on ARM. The company implied that Microsoft isn"t authorized to use its proprietary technology.
That"s not the only potential legal hot water that the Redmond giant might find itself in. Kaspersky has filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission.
Windows Mixed Reality headsets are coming soon, and this week, companion apps showed up in the Windows Store. Alex Kipman also confirmed this week that Microsoft is focused on mixed reality for the PC, rather than the console for the time being.
We"re just a day out from Microsoft"s Project Scorpio unveiling at E3, which will be live-streamed in 4K, so there was plenty of news about that this week. The company dropped a teaser, which the Internet analyzed and noticed a bunch of secret messages in. Microsoft also trademarked a new gaming-related "S" logo, which very well may be for Scorpio.
If you"re excited about the console"s performance though, we learned yesterday that Microsoft has freed up an extra gigabyte of RAM for gaming, making it 9GB total.
In the world of accessories, Microsoft also announced a new charging dock for Xbox One controllers, called the Xbox Pro Charging Stand.
A new Xbox One Insider Preview is available in the Alpha ring, which is build 15063.4054. Containing the new Entertainment Twist feature, some fixes, and some known issues, it was released to the Beta ring a day later.
Outlook for iOS was updated with a much-anticipated feature; you can finally add and edit contacts, and it"s coming soon to Android.
The firm also introduced a new app for Android, called Face Swap. You can probably guess what it does.
No, that"s not an image of an iPhone 7 Plus. That"s the OnePlus 5, which is due to be unveiled on the 20th. Rumor has it that it will be priced at €550, and it should show up on Amazon India on the 22nd for Rs. 32,999.
If you can"t wait, you can check out a video that shows off the device"s audio recording capabilities.
It wouldn"t be a week if there weren"t some new rumors about the Samsung Galaxy Note8. As it turns out, the fingerprint reader still won"t be embedded in the display, as was rumored for the Galaxy S8, and it might arrive with a slightly upgraded chipset, which Qualcomm may call the Snapdragon 836.
Samsung"s web browser, called Internet and after months of being in beta, is now available for some Pixel, Nexus, and other Android devices.
Andy Rubin"s Essential phone is in hot water already, as Spigen says that it already has a trademark for "Essential", and it"s accusing Essential of trademark infringement.
According to rumors, Google was working on a project called Andromeda, which would merge Android and Chrome OS. A new report says that the company has abandoned these plans.
Google released its monthly Android usage breakdown this week. Nearly ten months old, Nougat is installed on a total of 9.5% of Google Play devices, but the latest version, 7.1.x, is on just 0.6%.
Nevertheless, a number of devices received the Nougat treatment:
- Nextbit Robin (7.1.1)
- Galaxy S6, S6 edge (T-Mobile, 7.0)
- OnePlus 3, 3T (7.1.1)
- Galaxy Tab S2 8.0, 9.7 (7.0)
Google also released the June security update for Pixel and Nexus devices.
We got a bit closer to a final release for Android O this week, as Google released Developer Preview 3. We also learned that it"s likely to be released to Nexus and Pixel devices in August.
While last week"s final destination was North Korea, this week"s is South Korea, where a man was arrested for allegedly stealing $700,000 worth of Samsung phones, which he smuggled out of his office using his wheelchair. You might be wondering why someone would steal $700,000 worth of devices, and the answer is, of course, to pay off $800,000 worth of gambling debts.
Bonus content
Since Apple released all new developer betas this week for their newly announced operating systems, I made some hands on videos with both iOS 11 and watchOS 4.
I also unboxed the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet, which I"m finding to be a remarkable device so far. It might be a bit underpowered, but time will tell on that.
Gabriel Nunes is continuing to write about some really fascinating stuff in This Week in Science. Make sure to check it out.
Lastly, I finally finished my review of the LG G6, giving it an 8.0 out of 10.
Stay tuned to Neowin in the days ahead for what’s sure to be another exciting week, filled with official news, lots of updates, and plenty of insights from around the world of technology.
For now, though, there’s lots more to read across the site – including all sorts of interesting discussions over on our forums.