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5G is the biggest mobile tech story of the year. Major networks in the US, UK and Europe have launched 5G services, and you don’t have to be a hedge fund manager to afford them. But Apple has not joined in.

It just announced its iPhone range for 2019/2020. There are three phones, the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max. But not one of them offers 5G.

Huawei, Samsung, Oppo, LG and OnePlus have all made 5G phones. Sony is working on one. And while withered HTC seems to have put its money on blockchain rather than 5G (that’s right, it really did make a ‘blockchain phone’), even it has made a 5G hub.

The big question: why is Apple behind? Let’s look into some of the reasons Apple can arguably afford not to release a 5G iPhone right now, and some of the underlying causes of this delay.

The argument against 5G

That word ‘arguably’ is important. Apple can make a believable argument that now is not the right time for iPhones to go 5G, using the same angles it has mined since the first iPhone generations.

Namely, Apple introduces features when it can make them smooth and seamless. It likes to guarantee a certain quality of experience. While you rarely get the sense of being a beta tester guinea pig with Androids these days, that was not always the case.

Apple did not mention 5G at its latest iPhone launch. But if Tim Cook had mustered some of that old cocksure Steve Jobs swagger and said something like “5G isn’t good enough for our iPhones yet”, we wouldn’t entirely disagree. Even if we would not for a second believe this was the real reasoning.

We at TechRadar have tested a bunch of different 5G services across several major metropolitan areas, including London and New York, to see how well it works. And the reality is very similar between countries.

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

5G can be great, but it appears in such fleeting patches across cities that looking for it can start to seem like prospecting for gold. Even when a 5G phone says it has a 5G signal, it’s no guarantee you’ll get 5G speeds.

If you spent 1,500 pounds or dollars on a 5G iPhone and found you only got the speeds all the adverts told you about when you stood at that one bus stop, would you be happy? Of course not.

This becomes a convenient unspoken excuse for the lack of a 5G iPhone. But it is likely not the primary reason we don’t have one, or why Apple hasn’t even mentioned the technology. That 5G is a bit of a work-in-progress mess is what stops this from being a disaster in September 2019. But nothing more.

So what’s the real reason?

The turmoil behind the scenes

“Apple has always been late to adopt any leading technology into its offerings if it is not developed in-house. However, with 5G adoption there were additional reasons,” says Neil Shah of Counterpoint Research.

“The complexity associated with integrating 5G from RF Front End perspective is very high and Apple’s failed attempt to do that with Intel modems and its spat with Qualcomm until April set back Apple at least by 12-14 months to integrate the 5G capability compared to rivals.”

Don’t worry if those two sentences make you feel a bit lost or confused. Neil is a super-smart analyst entrenched in the workings of the big phone tech companies, so there’s a lot to unpack.

Most of today’s 5G phones use a 5G modem called the Snapdragon X50. And most have a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset too.

(Image credit: Qualcomm)

Apple tried to switch to Intel modems instead of Qualcomm ones in the 2018 generation of iPhones. It used an Intel XMM 7560 modem in the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, following an Apple-Qualcomm ruckus that goes back years.

Apple sued Qualcomm for $1 billion in 2017, claiming the company was charging unfair royalties, which it had to pay for every iPhone produced. Qualcomm counter-sued, claiming Apple gave trade secrets away to Intel, which Apple was trying to mold into a workable (and presumably cheaper) modem-producing alternative.

As Shah says, Apple failed to make Intel’s 5G modem chips function in the context of an iPhone, most likely aging some engineers rather badly in the process.

Apple was in a heated fight with the leading light of 5G, trying to do what it always does: ‘owning’ the tech in its phones. But the whole situation seemingly deflated entirely in April 2019.

Objection! Drop the case

The multitudinous Qualcomm-Apple lawsuits were all dropped in April 2019, after Apple agreed to pay $4.5 billion to Qualcomm. This may make it sound like the two companies hugged, made up, and planned to walk off hand-in-hand into the 5G sunset. But that does not seem to be the case.

Right as the legal action between Apple and Qualcomm was settled, Intel’s 5G phone operation went dark. It announced its intention to leave the 5G phone modem business altogether, to focus on 5G in other devices like PCs and Internet of Things gadgets.

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

But it seems this was preparation for Apple’s buy-out of Intel’s 5G phone modem business, which was announced in July 2019. Apple paid $1 billion, and 2,200 Intel employees traded their Intel work passes for Apple ones.

This helps explain Apple’s $4.5 billion payout to Qualcomm. It paid for the rights to use Qualcomm technologies in what will presumably be Apple own brand 5G modems. But it couldn’t work this out in time to make a 5G phone in 2019.

“Apple technically missed the boat to soft launch at least one 5G iPhone model in the Oct 2019 – Sep 2020 financial year,” says Shah.  “For Apple’s global SKU strategy makes it all the more difficult as initial 5G deployment would require multiple SKUs for different regions depending upon the spectrum characteristics.”

Different shades of 5G

What are those spectrum characteristics? 5G is a bundle of different technologies and standards, not one. Some networks in the US use different ones to those seen in the UK, for example.

The US government is keen on networks using ‘millimeter-wave’ 5G. This is the fastest kind of 5G, but its range is shorter than the style of 5G currently used in UK, which uses frequency bands much closer to those of today’s 4G services.

An Apple 5G modem needs to support both of these. 5G is devilishly complicated. Qualcomm’s X50 modem, used in today’s 5G phones, does support both styles, but Apple is currently left playing catch-up.

We currently don’t know for sure if Apple’s first 5G phones will use Qualcomm modems or Intel-tech-soaked Apple ones, but there’s more work to be done either way.

(Image credit: TechRadar)

How much time does Apple have to do it? Apple needs to announce a 5G iPhone by the time 5G isn’t restricted to ultra-high-end Android phones, by the time 5G seems ‘normal’ to us phone buyers.

“5G will go mainstream in second half next year as we will see sub-$500 devices also sporting 5G capabilities in Western markets,” says Shah. 

“So we are looking at another 8-10 months or so…. With Qualcomm opening up the capabilities to 6 & 7 series Snapdragon, we will see contributions from brands such as Nokia HMD, Realme, ZTE and others as well.”

The race is on. And judging by this timescale, perhaps we’ll even see Apple break from tradition and announce a 5G iPhone before September 2020.

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Google has finally begun rolling out a dark mode for its Gmail app, over a week after the release of Android 10 with its system-wide dark mode.

The company had intended to convert all its first-party apps ahead of the release, but a couple weren’t quite ready when the new OS was released on September 3 – namely Gmail and the Google Play Store, which remained stubbornly white.

Now, as XDA Developers reports, the latest Gmail release (2019.08.18.267044774) has a fully-functioning dark mode that turns the app’s background a pleasing dark gray color (though some might find the stark white text a little hard on the eyes).

You’ve got mail

We got a small glimpse of Gmail’s dark mode two weeks ago, when the app received an update that made the splash screen and home screen widget black if you were using dark mode on Android Pie.

However, the dark mode being rolled out now is only available for Android 10 – it won’t appear if you’re using Pie, even after your Gmail app is updated.

The Play Store is now the only significant holdout, and may be taking longer to convert due to the complexity of its icon-heavy interface. We imagine it might take quite some time to get it looking presentable.

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The brand new range of iPhones has now been revealed to the world and we’re already seeing a number of pre-register promotions popping up across UK retailers and networks – a gift card here, some cashback there. But the one that really caught our eye – a free iPhone 11!

Sounds too good to be true right? Well, in many ways it is, considering only 11 people will get a free phones. Thanks to the people over at Vodafone, if you fill out a quick form and pre-register your interest in the iPhone 11 pre-orders, you’ll be entered into a competition to win this device. Or, indeed, any handset of your choice.

Like most competitions, there are a few things to note here. You can choose which iPhone you want. In fact, you can choose any iPhone that Vodafone has, including the whole iPhone 11 range. So that also appears to include the iPhone 11 Pro Max worth a massive £1,149!

But you need to be quick…entries come to a close at 12.59pm this Friday, September (i.e. one minute before iPhone 11 pre-order deals become available). Vodafone will then choose its winner on September 20.

And just to be clear, pre-registering doesn’t mean you have to buy the phone. It just means Vodafone will keep you informed about its offers when the phone goes live. And considering the form takes probably around a minute to fill out, you have nothing to lose and an iPhone 11 to gain.

How to pre-register for and WIN a new iPhone 11:

If this competition feels to good to be true, then we recommend checking out the full terms and conditions here.

What is the new iPhone 11 like?

Well there’s a fresh array of colours and the same screen-size as the XR. The big focus at the launch was on the cameras and Apple has finally gone with a dual sensor for its main rear camera. The iPhone 11 is teaming up a 12MP wide camera with a second ultra wide camera. And Night Mode is boasting some seriously good low light shots, too.

Beyond the competitive camera, Apple has also gifted us with what they claim is the ‘fastest CPU ever in a smartphone’. There’s also been a big bump to battery life, getting us a few extra hours and a ‘Super Retina XDR’ screen – a fancy name for some very high-definition.

Read our full iPhone 11 review to find out more 

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If you head over to Apple.com right now, the first thing you’ll see at the top of the page is the iPhone 11 Pro. It boats pro cameras, a pro display, and pro performance alongside an image of a triple-camera array that looks intense. Inside, Apple calls it “the first iPhone powerful enough to be called Pro.”

Hogwash. The iPhone 11 Pro runs the same A13 Bionic processor as the iPhone 11. It has many of the same camera features, including the new ultra wide lens. And the battery life, while rated for a fantastic 18 or 20 hours of video playback, isn’t all that much better than the iPhone 11’s 17 hours. In fact, in its intro teaser vid, the only feature Apple showed off was the camera bump.

Basically, the iPhone 11 Pro is no more “Pro” than the iPhone XS was yesterday. Apple merely decided it was time to slap a new name on the iPhone to shake things up and tossed a $26 18W USB-C adapter in the box. And in doing so, it cheapened the “Pro” name for every other product line.

A ‘Pro’ by any other name

When we first heard about the iPhone Pro, it instantly conjured images of a radical new device with a host of rumored new features: A USB-C port. ProMotion display. Apple Pencil support. Higher base storage. Maybe even microSD card support and a Smart Connector.

Apple

That’s how Apple has trained us to think of its “Pro” devices: More powerful, expandable, and capable than the lower-end models. That’s not the case with the iPhone 11 Pros. If anything, the iPhone 11 Pro serves to makes the entry-level iPhone 11 more attractive. Unless you absolutely have to have the biggest possible iPhone display, there’s nothing about the iPhone 11 Pro that make it a “Pro” device, unless you count Midnight Green as a “Pro” color.

With the iPad Pro, the iMac Pro, the MacBook Pro, and the Mac Pro, there are significant and obvious upgrades over their cheaper counterparts. You know immediately if you want to spend the extra money on them, and power users can walk away confident that they spent the extra money on a machine that fits their needs, from the iPad Pro’s USB-C port to the Mac Pro’s insane specs. There’s a level of trust there, that Apple has crafted a device made for a certain type of user and is providing value based on that name.

The “Pro” in the iPhone 11 Pro, on the other hand, is little more than pure marketing. Yes, they have better screens and better cameras than the iPhone 11, but Apple didn’t bring any real professional features to the new iPhones other than the upgrades they would have gotten anyway. Phil Schiller made a big deal about the so-called XDR display, but the improvements over the display on the XS—contrast ratio and brightness—hardly make it “Pro”-caliber.

Apple

When the iPad Pro launched, it wasn’t merely an iPad Air with a bigger screen. It brought a new A9X processor, the Apple Pencil, and the Smart Keyboard, as well as quad-speaker surround sound. The iPhone 11 Pro delivers none of that innovation, despite Apple’s rhetorical flourishes. In one fell swoop, Apple turned “Pro” from an apt descriptor into pure marketing fluff, and millions of people will be none the wiser.

Google is reportedly working on a new bite-sized smart speaker, called the Google Nest Mini, in what could be the next generation of the Google Home Mini. 

According to 9to5Google, the Google Nest Mini will come with better sound than its predecessor, as well as a built-in wall mount.

If the rumored name of the new smart speaker has you confused, allow us to explain; the recent (re)absorption of smart home device manufacturer Nest by Google in 2018 resulted in the rebranding of Google’s smart speakers, starting with the awkwardly named Google Nest Hub Max. 

Until now, we hadn’t heard of any new speakers in the Google Nest range, and reports are so far unconfirmed by the tech giant – nevertheless, here’s everything we know so far about the Google Nest Mini.

[Update: Google has just been awarded an FCC certification in the US for a new “media streaming device”, according to My Smart Price. The documents reveal that the Google Home Mini-like speaker will be wall mountable and will feature a 3.5mm jack input.]

Cut to the chase

• What is it? The Google Nest Hub Mini – or, the second generation of the Google Home Mini.
• When will it be released? Still TBC, but our money’s on an October 2019 release.
• How much will it cost? Probably about the same as the Google Home Mini ($49 / £49 / AU$79).

Google Nest Mini: release date

Right now, we don’t have an official release date for the second-gen Google Home Mini; however, there is a possibility that the Google Nest Mini could debut along with the Pixel 4 phones later this year (possibly in October).

Google usually holds its annual Made by Google hardware showcase at this time of year, but an official date is still to be announced.

A recent FCC certification also suggests that the Google Nest Mini will be released soon, so an October release date is looking more and more likely.

Google Nest Mini: price

Currently, nothing is confirmed, but we wouldn’t expect the Google Home Mini 2 to be much more expensive than its predecessor, which cost ($49 / £49 / AU$79).

Even if the price does increase to reflect the purported additional features, we would be surprised if it exceeded $80 / £65 / AU$120. 

Google Nest Mini: design

As per the name, the second-gen Google Home Mini will likely sport the same compact build as its predecessor.

However, a “reliable source” confirmed to 9to5Google that the speaker will also be wall mountable, unlike the original Google Home Mini. It’s not clear how this will factor into the design just yet, but the plethora of third-party wall mounts available to buy online could give us a clue. 

That rumor has been backed up by FCC certification documents that show a wall mount hole on the back of the device.

The source also told the publication that “there are new colors in the plan for the refreshed Nest Mini”, but no firm details have emerged yet; still, that means we can look forward to a departure from the pastel Aqua, Chalk, Charcoal and Coral color schemes we’ve become used to. 

The Google Nest Mini will also reportedly boast a 3.5mm audio jack, putting the new smart speaker in direct competition with the Amazon Echo Dot; whether this jack will act as an audio input or an output to external speakers remains to be seen. 

Again, this has been corroborated by the diagrams in the recent FCC filing, so the inclusion of a 3.5mm input is looking likely.

(Image credit: Google)

Google Nest Mini: features

One of the coolest rumored features of the Google Home Mini 2 is the inclusion of proximity sensors, much like the Google Nest Hub Max and JBL Link View. 

Motion sensors on the smart displays makes sense, as they’re used to wake the home screen as users step closer. However, on the Nest Mini, it is being speculated that the proximity sensors will only be used to display the current volume level on the device.

We’d love to see the Google Nest Mini awarded the portability its predecessor never had; given the Google Home Mini’s small size, the lack of portability seems to be quite the oversight from Google, as the Mini has to be plugged in to work. 

Right now, the Mini is unable to hold a charge, although some companies have developed battery stands that enable you to take the smart speaker out and about – we’d love to see the Google Home Mini 2 either with an internal battery, or for Google to bring out their own battery stand.

We’d also like to see better Bluetooth pairing; although it is possible to pair the Google Home Mini with your smartphone or laptop via Bluetooth, we found that this feature wasn’t exactly built with user-friendliness in mind. 

For any updated version of the Google Home Mini, we’d like to see Bluetooth pairing take more of a center stage within the app – after all, we imagine a lot of users still like scrolling through Spotify or Youtube manually to find their music as opposed to using the inbuilt Google Assistant. 

Otherwise, we’re expecting many of the features from the original Google Home Mini to be carried over to the Nest Mini – and with Google Assistant being updated and improved regularly, the smart speaker will just get smarter over time.

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Google Nest Mini: sound quality

The main issue we found with the original Google Home Mini was its underwhelming audio quality, which meant it wasn’t particularly suitable as a standalone speaker, and was more suited to being a desk buddy. 

According to 9to5Google, the Nest Mini will have improved bass, a higher maximum volume setting, and an overall better sound than its predecessor. 

While we don’t know the exact details, Google could achieve this by giving the Google Nest Mini some separate tweeters to add clarity to the treble frequencies, making the overall sound a little crisper, plus enabling a fuller, 360-degree soundstage.

That’s another area Google will need to improve upon to truly make an impact with the second-gen Google Home Mini; despite being pitched as having a 360-degree soundstage, we found that the original Mini fell flat in this regard – once again, if at least two separate tweeters were added to the speaker, the sound would feel far fuller.

This is because treble frequencies usually come across as more directional than low-mid frequencies, giving the impression of stereo sound.

Of course we’ll have to wait and see whether our wishes for the Google Home Mini 2 come true – but, if it is to be announced at the next Made by Google event, we won’t have very long to wait at all.  

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The new Apple Watch 5 was announced alongside the new iPhone 11 series – it’s Apple’s newest smartwatch with some all new features.

The Apple Watch 5 looks very similar to the Apple Watch 4, but there are some very significant changes under the glass – starting with the fact that at long last Apple has made an Apple Watch that tells the time all the time. The smartwatch now has an always-on display.

We expected Apple to ditch the Series 3 and make the Series 4 the entry level, but that hasn’t happened. Instead it’s the Series 4 that’s disappeared from the store, with the Series 3 now in position as the more affordable Apple Watch. 

You might not be able to buy a Series 4 from Apple any more, but it’s much better than the Series 3 and there should be some decent deals on the second-hand market as retailers offload stock and early adopters do their early adopting thing, flooding eBay with year-old devices. 

Let’s not forget that until relatively recently, the Apple Watch Series 4 was the best smartwatch in the world. Does the Series 5 have enough power and practicality to make it the better buy, or should you be scouring the second-hand sellers for a Series 4? Let’s find out.

Design and display

The Series 4 grew slightly compared to the Series 3, with the 38mm model becoming 40mm and the 42mm becoming 44mm. Those sizes have been retained for the Series 5, which looks identical until you power it on. 

(Image credit: TechRadar)

That’s when you’ll see the most dramatic difference between the Series 5 and the Series 4: the Series 5 Apple Watch has a very clever always-on display that dims but doesn’t completely disappear when the Watch display isn’t active. The faces for it have been designed in such a way that when the display is dim the time is still perfectly legible. 

The Series 5 also comes in a wider range of colours and materials than the Series 4 – the range now encompasses aluminium, stainless steel, ceramic and titanium – and there are new Nike and Hermes models too, including a black Hermes model.

Fitness and features

The Series 4 introduced an electrocardiogram (EKG) that can help detect heart issues such as atrial fibrillation. It also introduced fall detection and improved both the accelerometer and the gyroscope, and came in both standard and LTE varieties. 

The Series 5 takes all of that and adds a compass for better navigation, and it enhances the emergency SOS feature that can be activated automatically on cellular models: the Series 5 Cellular offers international emergency calling (without requiring an iPhone to be tethered to it) n 150 different countries. 

(Image credit: TechRadar)

As the Series 5 runs watchOS 6 it also has the new noise detection feature that can warn you if the noise levels are potentially dangerous for your health but that’s a software feature, not a hardware one. 

OS, power and battery

The Series 4 ran WatchOS 5, and the Series 5 has WatchOS 6. You can upgrade the older Watch to the latest OS.

(Image credit: TechRadar)

The chipset in the Series 4  is the Apple S4, supported with 16GB of storage for apps or music. Battery life was supposedly 18 hours, according to Apple, which seemed accurate enough in our year of use: we’ve been able to eke two days out of our 44mm without too much effort.

The Series 5 gets a 64-bit, dual core S5 processor (the amount of storage hasn’t been announced) and once again Apple has claimed 18 hours of battery life. It’s managed to achieve that without the always-on display using up the battery life thanks to new power management and the excitingly-named Low Temperature Polycrystalline Oxide (LTPO) display, a variant of OLED that’s much more energy efficient than the OLED used in the Series 4. 

LTPO uses less energy to keep the screen updated, and it’s particularly effective at lower refresh rates: during the keynote we were told that it can move effortlessly from refresh rates as high as 60Hz to a positively sloth-like 1Hz, depending on what you need.

Price

The entry prices for the Series 5 are identical to the Series 4: $399 / £399 / AU$599 for the 40mm and $429 / £429 / AU$649 for the 44mm watch. If you want to go cellular the prices start at $499 / £499 / AU$749 and $529 / £529 / AU$799 for the 40mm and 44mm models respectively. 

Those prices are for the aluminium models. If you want a stainless steel one the prices start $100 higher, and if you fancy a ceramic or Hermes one then perhaps you should get your butler to enquire discreetly about the price (as Apple hasn’t told us so far).

(Image credit: TechRadar)

The Series 3 is now very affordable, with the smallest 38mm version priced at $199 / £199 / AU$319 for the standard model and $299 / £299 / AU$469 for cellular, so if the Apple Watch 5 price is too high, this is a viable alternative for you.

Takeaway

Apple had us at “always on”, which has been at the very top of our wishlist since the very first generation. The Series 4 is much quicker to turn on than any previous Apple Watch display, but having to wake up our watch still annoys us, and makes it almost impossible to check the time surreptitiously when we’re bored in meetings. For that feature alone, we’d argue the Series 5 is better than the Series 4. 

But there’s more to the Apple Watch 5 than just the display, as great as that is. The compass makes any kind of navigation – land, sea or air – that little bit better. There’s a wider choice of materials and colours, even if some of them are so hilariously expensive most of us won’t even glance at their section of the Apple Store. And it’s going to be that little bit smoother thanks to its S5 processor. 

The Series 4 remains a great smartwatch and a strong second-hand buy, but the Series 5 is that little bit better. Did we mention that the display’s always turned on?

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Samsung’s phones always have a lot of features hidden in their labyrinthine menus, but the Note series is particularly jam-packed. Along with the usual Samsung One UI features, the 10 and 10+ also have S Pen capabilities and all the features those entail. The new Notes aren’t cheap phones, so you’ll want to actually use all those features. Here are the 10 things you ought to do first.

Choose your navigation buttons

Samsung still defaults to the standard button navigation system, but you can make some changes. There’s even a gesture option that’s easier to adjust to than the systems used by some other device makers. Just head to Settings > Display > Navigation bar.

In that menu, you can change the order of the buttons to the standard arrangement used on non-Samsung phones (back, home, overview) and turn on gestures. With gesture nav, you just swipe up where the buttons would be to trigger actions. There are optional “hints” to show a line for each swipe target, but they take up space on the screen.

Samsung

Customize the Edge Screen

Samsung’s Edge Screen is an always-available menu of apps and tools that you can open with a swipe. However, it’s not very useful if it doesn’t have the apps and tools you need. You can customize what shows up in Edge Screen under Settings > Display > Edge Screen.

The menu is organized by panels like apps, contacts, and so on. You can reorganize all the panels and edit the contents of some of them (for example, Apps, seen below). The Edge Panels menu also includes an option to change the size, appearance, and location of the swipe handle. If you find that you never use Edge Screen, you can also just shut it off.

Samsung

Customize the Air Command popup

The S Pen works as a stylus as soon as you remove it from the phone, but the Air Command popup can give you quick access to stylus-specific features. This small floating icon has customization settings in Settings > Advanced features > S Pen.

Under the Air Command heading, you can change which app shortcuts appear. If you don’t like Air Command, you can remove the floating icon altogether. Also note the “Removal” heading. There, you can have Air Command open automatically when you take out the S Pen. That could be a good alternative to the persistent icon.

Samsung

Customize Air Actions

Samsung adds at least one new S Pen trick every year, and this time it’s “Air Actions.” The pen’s new accelerometer detects gestures like swiping and drawing circles. You can change what these gestures do in various apps under Settings > Advanced features > S Pen > Air Actions.