Thread: Anandtech News

At the end of Apple's WWDC keynote the company revealed their brand new music streaming service, Apple Music. The launch of the service has long been rumored ever since Apple purchased Beats and brought Jimmy Iovine into Apple along with it. The service will go live on June 30, and pricing starts at $9.99 for a single user, or $14.99 for a family of up to six users. Apple Music will also be available on Android later in the fall.
While Apple Music primarily acts as a competitor to other music streaming services like Spotify, it has a few features that may set it apart from other streaming services. Apple will provide recommended songs and playlists which are partially human curated, which they believe will give more relevant recommendations than those done solely by algorithms. Apple can also use your iTunes purchase history to examine what sort of music you enjoy.
Apple Music also has a feature called Connect, which allows music artists to interact with their fans. Connect can aggregate all of a musician's social media into a single feed, which will allow them to keep their fans updated with their future events and songs. Apple hasn't had much success in integrating social networks with iTunes and their music services, but since Connect integrates with existing services like Facebook and Twitter it has a much higher chance of success.
Apple is also launching a 24/7 radio station called Beats 1 which will feature a combination of news, interviews with musicians, and popular music.
It's not clear how popular Apple Music will be with consumers. Apple can certainly leverage their brand and their existing music products, but with pricing in the hands of the industry it's not really possible for them to compete on cost. Users will likely end up choosing their music streaming service based on features and the user experience offered, and so it's up to Apple to provide a better experience if they want their service to take off. It's also not clear what the launch of Apple Music means for the Beats Music streaming service that Apple currently owns.

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Today Apple has made a number of announcements relating to their three major operating systems. We've seen the announcement of WatchOS 2 for the Apple Watch, OS X El Capitan for Macs, and finally, iOS 9 for Apple's iPhones, iPods and iPads. With the ninth major iteration of their mobile operating system, Apple is bringing some long overdue improvements to features like Siri and Spotlight, improving performance on all devices, and revamping the experience for users on the iPad.

The first big change in iOS 9 that Apple introduced is a completely revamped Spotlight Search. This new screen was actually referred to as part of Siri during the keynote, and so it appears that the name Spotlight is now a thing of the past. Interesting enough, this new search screen is accessible by swiping to the right on your first home screen, which is how Spotlight was accessed up until iOS 7.
The big improvement with the new search feature is how much smarter it is than Spotlight Search was. This mirrors the improvements made to Spotlight in OS X El Capitan, with users being able to make text searches for information that they could access via voice using Siri. As you can see above, information about sports scores and weather can be accessed by typing a single search term. These results appear on the same sort of cards that you see in Siri.
In addition to search, this new screen can display relevant information in the same way that Google Now does. For example, it can show nearby restaurants and stores, and can suggest applications to launch or people to contact based on your daily routine.
These improvements to search are definitely necessary to keep pace with Google. Many of the features mirror those that are available in Google Now, and even the interface of cards with information is very similar. However, Apple is quick to point out that they don't collect any identifiable information about the user when they use these new search features, and your search terms are never linked to your or your Apple ID.

iOS 9 also brings significant improvements to Apple Maps. One of the most desired additions is maps and directions for transit. You will now be able to see maps of transit routes and get directions using public transportation in major cities. Apple also made note that there will be support for over 300 cities in China, which is another step in their efforts to expand in the Chinese market.
Apple Maps in iOS 9 can also show you information about popular nearby stores. You can search by category, and can view detailed information about businesses such as their hours, their phone number, and whether or not they support Apple Pay.

Newsstand has always been an annoyance on iOS. It never really took of, and after many years of users trying to hide it in folders or remove it entirely Apple is trying something new. The new News application in iOS 9 will bring a customizable news experience to users in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. The app looks very similar to Flipboard, but with a heavy focus on typography, animations, and images. It also doesn't appear that you'll be able to add any RSS feeds you want to the app, as publications in the News app need to be crafted using Apple's News Publisher program.

While Apple has made some nice improvements to iOS that will work across all devices, they've made some drastic improvements to the experience on the iPad. These upgrades are part of the new multitasking features in iOS 9. There's a new Split View mode, which you can see above. This mode allows you to use two applications side by side, with both of them functioning as they normally would. When you're using one app, you can still do touch input on the other. This feature will only be available on the iPad Air 2, most certainly due to its 2GB of RAM. It's not clear how it will work with legacy applications that are designed to only work at a given resolution, and we'll have to wait for future betas to find out for sure.
In addition the Split View, Apple has a new Slide Over feature that allows you to temporarily slide one application overtop of another from the side. For example, you can slide the Messages application in from the right side while you're using Safari, respond to a message, and then slide away Messages to continue working in Safari. Apple also has a picture-in-picture mode where you can have videos playing in a window within another app. It can be resized and moved around, much like the video window feature in Google's Youtube app. These features will be available on all devices with Apple's A7, A8, and A8X chips.

Along with the new multitasking features, the iPad keyboard receives some significant improvements in iOS 9 as well. Quick shortcuts have been added on the left and right sides in the suggestion bar, and you can now move across the keyboard with two fingers to use it as a trackpad. This allows you to move the cursor to select text without having to take your fingers off the virtual keyboard.
On top of the new features and improvements to existing features in iOS 9, there are also significant improvements to performance and security. Many of the iOS graphics APIs, including Core Animation and Core Graphics, are now using Metal instead of OpenGL ES. This reduces CPU usage, and will improve the overall smoothness of the UI. Apple has also made improvements to power usage, and they claim that iPhone users will see battery life improve by up to an hour of usage. iOS OTA size has also been reduced from the ridiculous 4.58GB of the iOS 8 OTA update to just 1.3GB.

The last feature of iOS 9 is for users who are coming to the iOS platform from Android. It's a new app called Move to iOS, and it allows users to wireless transfer their data from an Android device to their iPhone. According to Apple, the app is able to move your contacts, message history, camera photos and videos, web bookmarks, mail accounts, calendars, wallpaper, and DRM-free songs and books. It will also recommend any free apps that you had installed on your Android phone so you can easily rebuild your app library.
While iOS 9 doesn't seem as exciting on the surface as iOS 8, there's a number of changes under the hood that are sure to benefit users. iPad users definitely have a lot of improvements heading their way, although it's going to be disappointing for iPad Air and iPad Mini 2/3 users that they're unable to use the new multitasking features.
iOS 9 will be launching alongside OS X El Capitan and WatchOS 2 in the fall of this year. Unlike previous releases where certain devices get dropped from support, iOS 9 supports every device that iOS 8 supported, which includes the Apple A5 based iPad 2 from 2011. A developer beta of iOS 9 is available now, and for the first time ever, Apple will be hosting a public beta which will begin in July.



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The group that was once Nokia's mobile division has gone through a great number of changes in the past few years. After declining sales of Symbian devices, the company decided to go all in with Microsoft's Windows Phone platform. In a very short time, Nokia became the number one vendor of Windows Phone smartphones in the world. Despite this, the move to Windows Phone failed to revitalize the company. In August of last year, Microsoft purchased Nokia's mobile devices business in a 7.2 billion dollar acquisition. Less than a month later, Microsoft launched the Nokia Lumia 830, and the Nokia Lumia 735. These were the last two Lumia smartphones that would be branded as Nokia devices. With Nokia's phone division absorbed into Microsoft, future Lumia devices would fall under the Microsoft brand.
Today's review focuses on the Microsoft Lumia 640. This phone was announced alongside the Lumia 640 XL at MWC in February, and it's one of the first new Lumia devices released under the Microsoft brand. At $129, the Lumia 640 occupies a fairly low price point as far as smartphones are concerned, and it serves as an entry model to the Lumia smartphone line. To see how it compares to the competition, and to its fellow Lumia devices, read on for the full review.

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G.Skill isn't a name that is often associated with SSDs, but the company has been making SSDs as a sort of a side product for several years. We reviewed the Phoenix Blade late last year and it actually did relatively well in our tests, although its high price made it hard to justify for many. At Computex last week G.Skill showcased the successor, which will simply be called Phoenix Blade X.
Phoenix Blade X uses Phison's PS5007-E7 controller, which is a PCIe 3.0 x4 design that supports both AHCI and NVMe. G.Skill will be offering the drive as an add-in card in full-length/half-width form factor with capacities of up to 2TB.

G.Skill had a live demo at its booth, but as Phison is still developing the firmware the performance is quite far from the preliminary specifications. G.Skill didn't disclose availability, but given Phison's schedule I would expect the Phoenix Blade X to ship some time in H2'15, likely late Q3. Pricing is TBA too, although I was told that the drive should be cheaper than its predecessor.

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Winner of Thermaltake's modding contest

As E., our case, cooling and peripheral editor, wasn't at Computex this year, I had the opportunity of meeting with most of the companies to see what's new. My first stop was Thermaltake, which had several new and upcoming products to show.

To start off with external storage, Thermaltake had a USB 3.1 Type-C enclosure on display, which will be available later this year.

The enclosure is accompanied by a USB 3.1 Type-C hard drive dock, which allows easy hot-swap capability for those who deal with several drives.

For liquid cooling Thermaltake showed off a prototype of a CPU block with an integrated pump. The design above is obviously not a final design, but the concept is certainly interesting since mounting the pump on top of the CPU saves space and allows for smaller form factors. Thermaltake also displayed a DRAM kit with pre-installed liquid cooling block.

The focus of Thermaltake's cases was definitely in modding as the WP200 has room for two complete builds, one on each side. There is also going to be a lighter W200 model that isn't as huge as the WP200 is.

The W100 is the mode desktop-like version that is made for a single system. The top part of the case is fully modular and can be placed either on the top of bottom of the main case, where it can house the radiators or other components.

For customization Thermaltake offers a variety of different fans with LED lights and as a new product Thermaltake is introducing an RGB version of the Riing series with 256 colors.

One of the most interesting products I saw at the Thermaltake booth was the company's new Poseidon Z Touch keyboard. Basically all the keys act as a touchpad and by using Thermaltake's bundled software the user can set up custom gestures, which can be handy in some games that require a large number of macros. Pricing will be about $180, which has a premium in it but I wouldn't consider it to be too bad for a relatively unique product.
Gallery: Thermaltake Computex 2015 Booth Tour


To keep things short, I've only included the highlights here and made a gallery of all photos I took, so head to the gallery above if you're interested in seeing more products that Thermaltake had on display!



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Every time I go to a trade show I come back with at least one or two highlights that really impressed me. At this year's Computex one of my highlights was from a product category that usually I barely even follow: keyboards. I've been a strong advocate for mechanical keyboards ever since I got my first one a few years ago, but the obstacle I still face is that people aren't ready to fork out close to $100 for a keyboard. Hence I was very excited when Cougar showcased its upcoming 400K and 450K hybrid mechanical keyboards with the cheaper 400K version being priced at only $60.
What makes the 400K and 450K hybrid is the fact that the keys are ultimately membrane based, but have a mechanical-like feedback (I will save an in-depth analysis to E.). I played around with the 400K for a few minutes and I have to say I really liked the feeling of the key feedback was very close to a real mechanical keyboard, although we certainly need a longer time with the keyboard before drawing a final verdict.

The 450K differs from the 400K by offering 3-color backlight as well as support for Cougar UIX software for custom key mapping. With such a short testing time it's hard to say whether the 400K and 450K can truly replace a mechanical keyboard, but nevertheless Cougar at least offers a viable option to those whose budget can't afford a proper mechanical keyboard. The 400K and 450K will be available in the next two months and we are eagerly looking forward to getting one in for review.

Another interesting aspect of the 400K and 450K is the splash-proof design. Since there's a membrane between the key and PCB, the keyboard can stand a splash of liquid unlike most mechanical keyboards. That's useful specifically for Internet cafes and other public computers, but it's certainly a nice feature to have in home environment as well.

Moving on to power supplies, Cougar demonstrated its CMD Series with Digital Power feature. Basically the end-user can play around with the PSU voltages using Cougar's software, which is a niche feature but for overclockers and others who like to tinker with their systems it can be handy. Note that the software only allows ~5% changes as per Intel's guidelines as larger changes could potentially damage hardware in case the end-user isn't fully aware of his doings.

Cougar also announced a new mini-ITX case called QBX. The design is fairly neutral and stylish to my eye compared to some of the more enthusiast cases and it can fit a full size GPU for high detail gaming.
Gallery: Cougar Computex 2015 Booth Tour


Check out the gallery for more products. We will also have a review of the 600K mechanical keyboard and 600M gaming mouse out in a short while, so stay tuned!

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Silicon Motion has remained relatively quiet about its plans for a PCIe controller. We have known that the company is working on one (well, it would be a major surprise if it wasn't), but until last week Silicon Motion had not shared any details. The controller is called SM2260 and it's a PCIe 3.0 x4 design with support for NVMe. Both MLC and TLC NAND are supported at lithographies as small as 15nm, which suggests the use of LDPC error correction similar to the company's SM2256 controller. Preliminary performance specs come in at up to 2.2GB/s sequential read and 200K random read IOPS, but I wouldn't be surprised to see these change before the final product ships.
Silicon Motion is still fairly early in development and the SM2260 won't be available until sometime next year. For now the company is keeping the additional details close to its chest, but we'll hear more once Silicon Motion has something concrete to show.

In addition to the SM2260, Silicon Motion showcased its new SM2256 controller that will be shipping in the next couple of months. It's the first commercially available controller & firmware solution with TLC support and as a part of Computex Silicon Motion announced that it now supports Micron's 16nm TLC NAND as well, along with all other available TLC NAND dies. ADATA already displayed its SP550 with the SM2256 inside and it will be among the first drives to ship with the new SMI controller. We have some preliminary benchmarks of a 500GB SM2256 reference design sample in our Bench section, so head there if you're interested in taking an early look.

Another product Silicon Motion had on display was the SM2246XT, which is a DRAM-less version of the popular SM2246EN. There is a slight performance impact from the lack of DRAM cache as only parts of the NAND mapping table can be stored in the controller's internal SRAM cache, but in return the SM2246XT offers lower cost due to a smaller die (no need for DRAM controller). Obviously the drive requires no separate DRAM either, which further reduces the cost for the assembler of the drive. SM2246XT is already used by SanDisk in the SSD PLUS and Z400s that was released a couple of weeks ago. I believe we will see the low-end market shift more towards DRAM-less designs in the next year as the race to the bottom gets tougher and with more sophisticated controllers it's possible to have decent performance even without the DRAM cache. Currently Silicon Motion has no plans for an XT version of the SM2256, although I would personally see TLC NAND and DRAM-less controller as the ultimate value play.

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News comes from Redmond today that Microsoft will be offering a new model of Xbox One. It will ship with a larger 1 TB hard drive, which is double the storage capacity of the original Xbox One. It will also feature a new matte black finish, with the original Xbox One being outfitted in a glossy exterior. This is a small upgrade, but with the size of games getting larger and larger, it makes a lot of sense to offer the larger internal storage, even though the Xbox One did add the ability to use USB storage some time ago. As for the finish, I think the matte should be a good look and should help with dust and fingerprints.

Also being announced today, and being bundled with the new Xbox, is an updated version of the wireless controller. The big change is that Microsoft has finally ditched the proprietary headset connector, and has now moved to the normal 3.5mm jack. More subtle, but certainly notable, is that the bumpers have been tweaked, and the new controllers can now be updated wirelessly. The first gen controllers could also be updated, however they had to be connected to the Xbox One with a USB cable, so this should make it a lot easier to keep the controller firmware up to date. I have only updated my controllers one time because it’s a bit of a pain to do so, but when Microsoft drastically reduced the connection time when powering on the controllers, it was worth my time to find a cable and do that. With the new ones, even less hassle is necessary which is always a good thing. There is also a new camouflage design in silver and black available for those that want something different.

The final bit of Xbox news today is that Microsoft is finally releasing a wireless adapter for Windows PCs, letting you use the Xbox One controllers on your PC with no cable necessary. The adapter is just $25, or bundled with a controller for $80, and should come in very handy for anyone who wants to do PC gaming with a controller, or more importantly for those that want to use the upcoming game streaming from their Xbox One to their PC, which is something I got to try first hand at Build.

The new 1 TB model of the Xbox One will be bundled with the Halo Master Chief Collection and available starting on June 16^th for $399, with the 500 GB model being permanently moved to $349.
Source: Major Nelson Blog

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Barring any unforeseen complications, HTC One M9 users in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa should be receiving an OTA update today which will bring the software to version 1.40.401.5. This update rolled out in Taiwan a couple of weeks ago, and will be sent to North American units later this month. You can find the list of changes for this update below.
Camera
- Greater auto-exposure balance to improve overexposure, so images look less washed out
- Reduction of noise and blur in low light, so images are clearer and detail is more apparent
- Reduction of yellow/green hue to photos taken in extreme lighting conditions, so colors appear truer to their actual hue

Battery Life
- Reduced power consumption by YouTube and Facebook, so you can stay on these sites longer or know that your battery will last longer if your site use doesn’t change

Heat Management
- Smart charging thermal improvement, which means your phone will stay cooler when it’s being charged
While this update is still Android Lollipop 5.0.2 instead of Lollipop 5.1, the improvements to battery life and camera processing will definitely be appreciated by users.

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BitFenix had one new case on the show floor called the Atlas. It's a massive "dual-chamber" design that aims to build a very clean look since the PSU, hard drives and basically all the not-so-pretty components are placed behind the motherboard.
Gallery: BitFenix Computex 2015 Booth Tour


I've added more shots of the Atlas in the gallery above. One interesting detail is the screw-less hard drive bays, although in a case this huge only four bays is a little limiting. Personally I feel that Atlas mostly wastes a lot of space by focusing solely on creating a cleaner look. Nowadays there are many cases that hide the PSU fairly well and with good cable management you can achieve a clean look without twice the size. I guess the Atlas could still have a niche for users who really need a lot of space for e.g. radiators, but I feel like it's more of a concept at this point rather than a final product.

While nothing new, BitFenix also had its Pandora mATX and ATX cases on display.

BitFenix had its own LED light stripes inside every case, which light the system up and give the user the ability to properly see the components inside. You only need two stripes for lighting the innards and obviously the stripes are available in multiple colors to fit everyone's preference. I asked about an RGB version, but I was told that and RGB version couldn't produce as pure colors and producing white light (which is one of the most popular models) wouldn't be possible at all. In addition, RGB would add unnecessary cost due to a controller requirement, so at least for now BitFenix is only shipping single-color stripes.

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