Hey.
Rarely do some devices give such an impression that a vivid emotion appears, but after the second announcement of the Galaxy Z Fold2, when commercial devices reached Russia, we can say that it happened. The number of changes compared to the first Fold is huge, although the principle of operation, the basic scenarios are exactly the same. But the direction of evolution is captivating – a mixture of smartphone and tablet in a compact form factor. I am completely delighted with the device and wrote two articles about this, I recommend that users of the first Fold start with a comparison.
We will not talk about Fold here, since a lot has already been said, next time I think we will return to this topic in the review. And today we will dwell on how people’s behavior changes depending on their ideas about the capabilities of technology, and we will start with the situation that we saw in Moscow. Go!
Content
- About microphones in modern electronics
- Voice calls in WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber on smart watches
- Mass surveillance in the United States is illegal, but who cares?
- Free hours from “Beeline” to increase the subscriber base
- Epic Games Loses Fortnite Users – Another Lawsuit
- How Danycom fought with Tele2 and what came of it
About microphones in modern electronics
On the Crimean bridge in Moscow, I watched an interesting scene, a guy and a girl looked at the river, at a building in the distance. At some point, the girl took out her phone, activated the voice assistant and asked: “What kind of building in Moscow with a golden roof near Gorky Park?” What caught my eye was not that the girl asks the voice assistant what she sees in front of her (the same Google Lens would be much more successful for finding the building of the Academy of Sciences), but how she does it. The girl brought the phone to her mouth, literally dictated her request into the microphone. And it amazed me, since modern smartphones allow you to pick up a voice at a great distance and can do it even on a noisy street. Of course, the quality of microphones differs in flagships and ordinary smartphones, this is almost never spoken of as something unimportant, but there is such a difference. The most budget models have one microphone, better devices have two, and in the middle and high segment there are three or more. The presence of several microphones allows you to build a matrix, and a separate DSP (or algorithms embedded in the phone’s software) process sound and isolate noise. Therefore, when I talk to people on the phone, as a rule, they do not hear extraneous noise and sound artifacts. I talk on the phone a lot, while I can often tell by indirect signs that my interlocutor has an inexpensive smartphone. As a rule, this manifests itself in extraneous city noise in the background. For example, when you are talking with the iPhone, it cuts out high and low noises, highlights the voice (we are talking about talking on the phone, and not on the headset, of course). Samsung’s flagships are doing a little more intelligent work, they have two dozen typical scenarios when a smartphone analyzes external sounds and improves voice transmission. For me, it was a surprise that at the hardware level, scenarios were written not only for a noisy road, but also for the shop floor of the enterprise. All this is hidden under the hood of a modern smartphone, and few among the users understand how software and hardware work, as well as how much they have evolved since the time of push-button phones, when this journey began.
The advent of voice assistants has put forward new requirements for microphones in portable electronics, they must be sensitive, be able to wake up the device when a person says a passphrase, for example, the same “OK, Google”. And do it in any conditions, on the street or at home.
Many people bring their phones to their mouths not only when they are talking to the voice assistant, but also in speakerphone mode, although this is definitely not necessary. Why? The answer is banal, this is a stereotype of perception – you need to be closer to the microphone in order for it to better cope with the transmission of your voice. Of course, you don’t need to do this, and those who bring the phone up like this simply assume that this is more correct.
While walking along the bridge, I thought that my thoughts about microphones were correct, but how is it in practice? Suddenly the girl brought the device to her lips for a reason, but was there a reason? He took out his smartphone and asked him to find me the weather forecast, held it at his waist, with the screen facing him. Despite the noise of the road, everything happened as expected, the robot read the weather to me.
Then he trained several times in different conditions: at home, in the car, in a noisy restaurant, in the market. Everywhere, my smartphones recognized the voice and started responding. For the purity of the experiment, I took at home a purebred Chinese of the second echelon to see how things are with him. Much worse, the microphone in noisy places did not recognize the command, swallowed it. I caught myself raising my voice to shout to him. However, many subconsciously do exactly the same thing, start talking with their devices louder than necessary. There is no need to yell something at them, although whispering is not a good idea. Speak in a familiar voice, all devices have been designed for this application scenario.
I conducted a small survey on this topic in our Telegram channel, here are its results.
Please note that many of those who use the voice assistant bring the device to their mouth. I am sure that in most cases this is not necessary. This is just a stereotype of perception and nothing else.
The dawn of mobile phone development comes to mind when they had retractable antennas. To improve communication, many extended their antennas during a conversation to their full length. Moreover, having a longer antenna has become associated with better connectivity among consumers. At some point it got ridiculous, most models for the American market already had internal antennas, but outside they continued to place “antennas”. All for users who are used to relying on the quality of the connection and measure it by how far the antenna is extended.
Another stereotype wandering from year to year, which arose back in the days of push-button telephones, is the number of “sticks” on the screen. Better is the operator that shows more sticks in a particular place. And the fact that at the beginning of a conversation the power of the transmitter in the phone increases and it grabs the base in a completely different way, nobody cares. People think that “sticks” reflect a certain quality of the network. I will not even remember that the display of the signal level is implemented differently for different companies. In the days of the antenna gate at Apple, the company “corrected” the engineering flaws of the models for the North American market by adding one division of the signal level. The quality did not change, but the users stopped worrying, as they saw that they were doing well.
Stereotypes are always dictated by our life experience, often we do not even think about how they arise and why. The next topic is exactly the same, about our ideas about the beautiful and disappointed expectations.
Voice calls in WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber on smart watches
Smart watches have appeared by the standards of the electronics market a long time ago, the product has become familiar and popular. The rise of such a watch began in 2013, when it turned from a product for geeks into an ordinary device and quickly evolved. But there is one flaw in smartwatches today, which is felt by many as a kind of oddity, something illogical and contrary to our expectations. A smart watch is an ideal tool for not missing notifications, for example, I have a ring off on my smartphone, but the watch vibrates when someone calls, you can not miss events. At the same time, most smartwatches cannot receive calls from third-party messengers – WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram. And this seems to us something strange, since an important part of our communications is lost. And it’s time to figure out who is to blame and what to do about it.
I’ll start with a simple statement that third-party messengers do not waste time and effort to enter the segment of wearable electronics. So, applications WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber and others are missing for smartwatches. The developers of instant messengers, apparently, believe that their product should be developed by those who create these watches. The watchmakers have exactly the opposite thoughts, since they cannot be responsible for software written by third parties. I was forced to talk about these translation difficulties by communicating with our reader, who claimed that calls from the Note3 Ultra smartphone did not work on his Galaxy Watch20, and everything worked like a clock on the iPhone. In the end, we were able to launch call notifications on Samsung, but it was still those dances with a tambourine. Why? Let’s try to figure it out together.
While studying the topic, I came across funny and sad at the same time. It turns out that a lot of people cannot (rather are lazy) to get into the settings of the watch application and turn on notifications for individual applications, and even the same WhatsApp.
I will not talk about this, because there is nothing to be done with the laziness of individual people, although the question should be posed more broadly. They are too lazy to go into the settings, but they are not even too lazy to ask questions on the forums so that other people describe the setup algorithm. In our mail, dozens of such questions come across every day, people ask what is described in the instructions and is in one request in a search engine. But it’s easier for them to ask a question. When they receive an answer that it is worth looking for information in the same Google, they are sincerely offended, because they want everything to be done for them and a ready-made algorithm sent. From communication with support services I know that about half of the “problems” are of about the same nature, people do not read instructions. On the other hand, sometimes there are such instructions that it is absolutely impossible to understand them.
Let’s take a look at voice calls on the watch and why they don’t work in third-party messengers. For example, the Galaxy Watch can answer calls, you can talk from the watch, but for instant messengers this feature has not been added. There is no malice of the hardware manufacturer here, since this feature is created for ordinary calls and is part of the standard software. But how calls are implemented in instant messengers, the hardware manufacturer does not know and cannot even guess. They have their own codecs for sound, no app for watches. In this case, it is impossible to transfer the call to the watch, and transfer it so that you can talk. And until the same WhatsApp decides that they need it, nothing will happen.
Okay, so what’s going on with notifications? Let’s take a look at the Apple Watch, where third-party messengers can call, but the calls from Apple do not go through! You simply do not see any notifications about this, neither during the call, nor after. This is Apple’s position as they are promoting Facetime and don’t want any competition. But, for example, the same Galaxy Watch perfectly knows how to show calls, you can reject them from the watch or pick up the phone on the iPhone. This is implemented bypassing Apple’s restrictions, although, of course, iOS puts a lot of slingshots to implement the usual functions of third-party smartwatches. Perhaps this moment is a happy exception.
On Android, starting with Android 9, the notification mechanism has changed, which practically killed the call alerts on smartwatches. This problem is faced by the owners of Huawei / Honor / Samsung watches and other manufacturers who use their platforms. On the Galaxy Watch, call notifications may work for someone (they work for me), for someone they are completely absent, although all settings are turned on and this should not be. Finding the cause and method of fixing this problem is almost impossible. All manufacturers claim that the problem is on the side of the creators of instant messengers and they cannot do anything about it. At Huawei, engineers have repeatedly tried to reach out to the same WhatsApp, but received proud silence in response. Active users contacting WhatsApp with a description of the problem receive an unsubscribe: “Everything is fine with us, you should use the watch manufacturer”. How can something be different that was not created in the first place? WhatsApp simply does not have such a function.
On smartwatches working with Android smartphones, a missed call notification comes after a call, you can see it. It comes because it appears in the blind, that is, the standard mechanism is activated. But the calls themselves are implemented inside messengers, the developers do not send them to the blind, hence all the problems.
On Android there is a curve, but still the solution for you to see calls in messengers is guaranteed. To do this, you can install a third-party program that intercepts all your messages in instant messengers and sends a notification in the standard Android way, one of these programs is called Unseen.
Calls will be visible, you can not miss them on your smart watch. But the solution does not look native, it causes rejection for me, it is possible that this will be a way out for you if the calls are so significant.
Common sense dictates that instant messaging calls are important and should be displayed on smartwatches. The reality is completely different, and the reason here lies in the creators of instant messengers themselves, who did not spend time adding these functions to their products. To demand that hardware manufacturers be able to cope with this on their own is at least strange. But this is exactly what most people expect from smartwatches and their skills. These are deceived expectations of us as users of smartwatches, but the expectations themselves were formed out of touch with reality, no one promised us that such opportunities would be in the watch.
Mass surveillance in the United States is illegal, but who cares?
In 2013, Edward Snowden fled the United States, at the same time he began to publish stolen documents about how not only foreign citizens, but also Americans are being monitored inside America. While working for the NSA (National Security Agency), Snowden had access to various documents, plus he created a bulletin that collects a large set of data as part of his work, and thanks to this he gained access to other surveillance programs. In the United States, Snowden is quite naturally considered a traitor who caused irreparable damage to the country, as well as to the professional intelligence community from various departments. Before Snowden’s revelations, NSA officials publicly denied the very existence of surveillance of American citizens, but under the pressure of the facts they were forced to admit it. It was immediately followed by explanations that this was not so bad, since by collecting calls from people, it was possible to prevent terrorist attacks. After September 11, the hands of the special services in the States were untied, they received maximum powers, launched various programs to spy on citizens.
In an American court, they tried a case of spying on citizens, the decision was obvious – spying without a warrant, collecting data on calls and other information is illegal. This does not in any way affect the fate of Snowden, since it does not cancel the theft of classified information and his betrayal. Moreover, this does not change absolutely nothing in the way in America they collect information and monitor both their own citizens and those who live in other countries.
It is important to understand that American laws are more or less scrupulous only with regard to spying on their own citizens, this is considered bad form. But there are practically no restrictions regarding surveillance of the whole world, the hands of the special services are free here, since citizens of other countries have no rights before American law. In situations where a foreign citizen communicates with an American, the other side is tapped, which also makes it possible to bypass legal restrictions. Likewise, any American outside the country can become the object of interest of the intelligence services and be subject to electronic surveillance.
The development of technology makes it possible to automate the collection and analysis of information, and this is what intelligence was created for. No country in the world can and does not want to give up such an instrument. Another thing is that there is no need to inform the people about this, as it makes them nervous. Over the years since Snowden’s revelations, mention has appeared in the public field of at least six programs aimed at spying on citizens, moreover, massive programs. It is clear that no one will tell us how they work from the inside, what they can do and what data they collect. This is a secret with seven seals. If there is another traitor, then we will find out something, but until that moment we can only guess what is happening.
I have a strong feeling that mass surveillance systems have not disappeared anywhere, they continue to work effectively. And public hearings, recognition of illegality – all this concerns the systems that Snowden revealed, they have already been compromised and sent to the dustbin of history. Therefore, if servicemen in America are asked whether they use such and such systems, they will be able to calmly answer that, of course not.
Even more curious is that formally they are right, since the collection of information about US citizens comes from Canada, but is carried out by the NSA. And the decency is respected, and the data is received regularly. There are plenty of loopholes to preserve all of these tools. But the root of the problem is that the very purpose of intelligence is to collect as much data as possible at any cost. And the fact that intelligence is doing this is at least strange to blame it. There is no talk of stopping mass surveillance, today it is reaching a new level and becoming more sophisticated. And this is the case in most countries of the world, which have sufficient resources for this. The United States, of course, is far from Israel in terms of the degree of surveillance of its citizens (as well as strangers), but the sizes of countries and populations simply differ. Soon America will catch up with Israel in these parameters, new data centers allow processing the data of all US citizens without exception.
Free hours from “Beeline” to increase the subscriber base
I sincerely like what Beeline is doing today in order to retain subscribers, make them loyal and at the same time increase the overall base. One of the actions that I missed, but which our reader reminded me of. This is a smart watch for a child as a gift, you get a watch absolutely free that your first grader can use.
The promotion began on August 19 and will last until the end of September, it is available only in Moscow and the region, it is worth remembering about this. Parents of children born from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2015 take part in it (as you can see, these are not only first-graders). The conditions for receiving free hours are very simple – you need to be a Beeline subscriber on one of the tariff plans (“Close people”, “Close people +” or “Family”). Dial the short code 060605, come to the salon and pick up the watch, you only need a passport and a child’s birth certificate.
The set with the watch includes the tariff “For smart things”, it includes a free option – “For smart things forever”. As long as your child has this watch, he will have free communication (a separate tariff costs 99 rubles, and here is an attraction of unprecedented generosity). By the way, we have a very interesting comparison about “For Smart Things” tariffs, I advise you to pay attention to it.
It turns out that you get a free watch for a child, he gets a connection forever and ever, as long as this watch is alive. And here the question arises, what is the benefit for the operator. The answer is quite simple, it is loyalty, linking the subscriber to your network. While you are with Beeline, you will have these hours and free communication. For some, such a gift will be tangible, a trifle, but pleasant.
Of the pitfalls that are not described in the conditions of the promotion, I will note the need to pay 20% tax on the gift. This is a legal requirement, and the operator cannot pay this money for you. At the end of the year, you will receive a tax notice and will be required to pay 900 rubles (the cost of a watch is 4 rubles).
How do you like this action? As for me, this is quite useful and interesting. I would like to see such attractions of unprecedented generosity from all operators.
Epic Games Loses Fortnite Users – Another Lawsuit
We’ve talked a lot about the Epic Games attack on Fortnite and the steps each side took. In order not to repeat myself, I suggest you read these texts if for some reason you missed the main one.
One of the most common comments goes something like this: “Apple created their system on their own and are not a monopoly, you have the right not to use iOS, to disagree with their terms. And Google is no different, they charge exactly the same money from developers ”.
This statement is false, since iOS and Android differ fundamentally in the freedom that they give to developers and content sellers. On iOS, you have only one opportunity to create your applications – initially agree to all the conditions from Apple, just as there is not even the slightest chance that you will be able to create an application without going through the development tools from Apple, but, more importantly, you will not be able to get into App Store without Apple and not agreeing to all of their terms. Apple has complete control over its system; no loopholes exist. On Android, you are free to choose how you want to promote your app, using an official store, some third-party app store, or simply as downloading from your site, bypassing agreements with Google. I will also add that you can choose and how to sell your application. You have the option to use Google’s payment tools, but you can also use third-party services of your choice. In the case of Apple, you can only use one tool – the one owned by Apple, and the company earns not only from the commission from your application, but also from payments. Convenient, isn’t it? There is no competition here, and there cannot be. And this is called the use of a monopoly position, Apple deliberately restricts competition in order to get maximum income and not let the same payment systems on its platform. Google does exactly the opposite, welcoming different services so that developers can choose the ones that are more interesting to them. Therefore, Android today is the dominant system in the world, but Apple cannot grow, there are too many artificial restrictions. A separate issue that will be dealt with in the court between Epic Games and Apple is whether the company is a monopoly on the iOS market, or rather, whether it has the right to restrict competition. Conceptually, Apple is a monopoly, but legally it is not a fact that it will be proven. All the more interesting is what we will see in the court hearings at the end of September.
Epic Games has filed a new appeal to the court, in which they ask to return the Fortnite game to the app store, the text of the statement can be read here.
The text begins symbolically: “Apple is a monopolist”. But we are interested in numbers, they are given in the text. Fortnite’s daily iOS audience has dropped 60% since the app was removed from the App Store. The figure seems gigantic, but it is somewhat sly. It is unclear how many people have started using Fortnite on Android or PC, with many players switching their devices to different ones. In terms of the Fortnite community, Epic Games claims that Apple has deprived people of the communication people are used to, separating friends and family. As for me, those families are so bad that they break up because of such a trifle and cannot find workarounds. In the press, I met calculations with the number of lost Fortnite players, but this is fiction. No one knows the figures for the daily audience of the service, the distribution of shares between platforms, nowhere is such data provided. An attempt to calculate something from an audience of 350 million people and make a projection of a 60% drop in the iOS daily audience looks like an owl pulling on the globe. The end result can be described as a figure that differs from reality by plus or minus a horse. There is no doubt that this is a large figure, and how large it is, we will learn in court hearings if Apple is found guilty and the injured party will scrupulously calculate their losses on their heads. I look forward to the start of the court hearings, as they will reveal many details of Epic Games’ business, and shake up Apple and the industry in general. The forces of the parties, oddly enough, are equal, on Apple’s side there are excellent and very expensive lawyers with conditionally unlimited resources. On the side of Epic Games there are strong arguments, as well as lawyers that have already repeatedly won in battles with corporations of the Apple level. The battle will be interesting.
How Danycom fought with Tele2 and what came of it
Krasnodar virtual operator Danycom was not a special exception to the rule, he worked on the Tele2 network, like the vast majority of other virtuals. It has always been Tele2’s strategy to increase its subscriber base through MVNOs, which is cheap and cheerful. Partners are investing in marketing, and you know how to count subscribers and get paid for communication services, and not at bargain prices. Tinkoff Mobile is a successful and large MVNO, but Danycom is not so successful, although it tried to offer a model in which communication was free, and all expenses were covered by advertising that subscribers watched.
It’s hard for me to remember how many companies around the world tried to adapt such a model, they were Internet providers, cellular operators, sellers of computers and other equipment, but they all have one thing in common – they all failed in the market. For almost three decades, no one has been able to implement this model efficiently, so that it works. And the main problem lies in the model itself – a person who is ready to consume advertising and receive a free product is often not a solvent buyer. The audience of such a service is people who are reluctant to spend their money on anything. Therefore, advertising to such an audience raises many questions, despite the fact that the numbers can be gigantic. But apart from records in impressions, there is nothing, for example, this ad does not convert into sales.
Over the past ten years, from this “ingenious” idea to make an advertising model with a free service / product, I managed to dissuade four companies, to prove on my fingers that the question of when they fail is measured, at best, by a couple of years of having start-up capital and willingness to pull this burden … Danycom took this path, which leads to a dead end, which happened quite recently.
The crisis put everything in its place, MTS and MegaFon turned to the virtual operator with claims, and in their mutual settlements it turned out that the virtual owed decent money. Thus, MTS applied to the court to recover the debt for 383.9 million rubles, while MegaFon indicated the amount of 933.9 million rubles. The amount of 1.3 billion rubles is not all the money that Danycom owes, the company also owes Tele2, its host operator, but the amount of the claims is unknown. Danycom received its main income from SMS-mailings, which were sold to various businesses, but the operator had absolutely nothing from its base, since it provided services for free.
Recently, Danycom issued a press release on the current situation, I will quote it in full, it deserves it:
The mobile operator DANYCOM.Mobile, a member of the DANYCOM Group, announces its intention to change the host operator. MVNO-operator has been providing mobile services since December 2017 on the networks of the technical partner – Tele2.
“We would like to thank the company for the joint cooperation and the experience gained. During the partnership, we adopted the best practices of one of the Big Four operators, implemented developments on our own IT platform and on the partner’s platform. We are successfully continuing to scale up the project, including outside Russia. The term of the MVNO partnership agreement with the current mobile operator has ended, the contract will not be renewed for a new period. The main reasons are incorrect financial calculations of operating costs on the part of the partner, the requirement to pay for services that were actually not provided, as well as the incorrect operation of the Tele2 network in some regions of Russia. We see further development of DANYCOM.Mobile in partnership with another mobile operator, negotiations with which are at the final stage (signing of the contract). During the period of change of the operator on the IT infrastructure, interruptions in the provision of communication services are possible. After switching to a new partner, compensation measures will be implemented for our subscribers ”, – comments Vladislav Deminsky, Development Director of the DANYCOM Group of Companies.
“In addition, I would like to draw the attention of colleagues in the MVNO market, as well as everyone who wants to enter this business, to the need for a more detailed and attentive approach to the choice of host operators and technical partners,” added Vladislav Deminsky.
And here is the official answer from Tele2, which was sent to the editorial office:
Dear colleagues!
In connection with the press release issued by Danycom Mobile, we inform you that Danycom Mobile has systematically violated and is in breach of contractual obligations in terms of payment for work on Tele2 networks. At the request of Dany Call, Tele2 has repeatedly deferred payments to the company, despite the fact that Danycom Mobile’s large debt includes not only monthly payments for traffic in 2020, but also payments for 2019. Tele2 is now considering the possibility of going to court to recover the full debt from Dany Call.
The subscriber base of Danycom Mobile is minimal: for the entire period of operation, the company has not reached the mark of 100 thousand subscribers.
More than 2 partners work on the Tele20 network, the total subscriber base of which exceeded 2019 million by the end of 3,75, they continue to actively recruit a subscriber base. According to a study by TMT Consulting agency, the number of new subscribers of Russian MVNOs in 2019 amounted to 3 million, with 69% of them falling on the share of Tele2 partners. In a short time, Tele2 quickly transformed a niche business into an MVNO factory. In 2020, the company launched an MVNO for commercial operation for GLONASS JSC.
Tele2’s revenue from the MVNO “factory” in 2019 increased by 133% year-on-year. This became possible due to the fact that most of our partners are successfully developing their virtual operators and using them to increase the profitability of their core businesses.
Yours faithfully,
Corporate Communications Directorate Tele2.
Tele2’s response contains extremely important information, for all the time Danycom has not attracted more than 100 thousand subscribers. This means that Tele2 can disconnect these subscribers at any time without much harm to itself. There is simply no bidding to sell these subscribers to another operator, this is too small a value, and the very nature of the subscribers is not the same for someone to covet them (freebie, sir). Plus, in every sense, Tele2 controls these SIM cards and can come up with ways to transfer people to its network. The simplest thing is to make a targeted offer of discounts for n months when switching to Tele2; Danycom will not be able to oppose anything. Well, there is always a switch to simply turn off the entire business of this virtual operator, not to let it work in the future. And this will not cause any damage to the reputation of Tele2, that Danycom works on the network of this operator, almost no one knows or does not attach any importance to it.
The fact that Tele2 will go to court is not just likely, but the only possible development of the situation. The chances that Danycom will be able to prove and challenge anything are extremely small, almost incredible. From a business point of view, Danycom’s attempts to put a pig on Tele2 with their press release look ridiculous, but rather a shot at themselves. A kind of ritual suicide, since in Russia after this press release, no one will dare to deal with this virtual operator. Perhaps we will still hear the continuation of this story. But, again, free services with an advertising model for small and medium-sized companies are a road to nowhere, which the example of this virtual proves.
PS September is always busy, kids head to school, cities rush, and this race will run until the end of December. Watch yourself, be careful, as nothing is over yet and you need to be extremely careful in every sense. Do not be ill! And a good working week for you, and most importantly – fewer traffic jams and that things are arguing.
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