Samsung+ app brings tech support to your phone fdr

Apple’s Genius Bar is one of the big reasons people love the company. If you’ve got a problem with a device, you can just go to your local Apple Store and get it fixed in no time. Unfortunately, you can’t get the same kind of help with many other products.

Samsung wants to change that, though, with the latest version of its Samsung+ app. Available today, Samsung+ 3.0 is designed to provide you with all of the information you need to deal with any and all of your connected conundrums from the comfort of your home.

Though it’s on version 3.0, chances are you’ve never heard of Samsung+. That’s because Samsung actually launched the app last summer but didn’t make much of it, as the company said it wanted to continue adding more features.

Several other journalists and I got the chance to use Samsung+ 3.0 in action, and it feels well thought out enough to genuinely make customer support easier for Samsung users.

Samsung says the app is designed to provide you with personalized support for all your Samsung devices.

From the home screen, you can see highlights about your device, get simple tips on how to better use it, or browse various Samsung promotions. That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t do much to help you when your phone is on the fritz.

Tapping on the question mark icon at the top of the screen brings you to the Samsung+ Support page. From here you can perform a diagnostic check on your device, find answers to frequently asked questions, and get live help.

The live help feature is what makes Samsung+ so compelling. Previous versions of the app already offered phone support and live video support, but with Samsung+ 3.0, the company now lets support representatives remotely take control of your device.

During a staged demo, Samsung walked us through the process of letting a customer support rep take over our phone. According to Samsung, customer support reps can access only areas of your phone that you specifically allow them to. So if you don’t want them to look at your photo gallery, they won’t be able to.

In the staged demo, we saw the customer support rep remotely access a test phone and reset its Bluetooth settings. The rep demonstrated how he could draw on the phone’s screen to show users where specific settings they might need to use in the future are located.

Samsung isn’t the first company to make live video and remote customer support a feature of its products. Amazon has been doing the same thing for quite some time with its Mayday button on its Fire tablets.

The one downside to Samsung’s service is that it has tiered levels of support ranging from Silver to Gold and finally Platinum. The base tier is Silver, but if you own a number of Samsung devices, you are automatically bumped up a level.

Why does that matter? Because higher tiers give users access to things like 24-hour video chat support, while lower tiers can access video support only during business hours.

Gold and Platinum tier members also get things like discounts on shipping and repairs.

Overall, Samsung+ feels like a solid customer support service that should help users deal with some of the simpler problems they face with their devices.

That said, something like Samsung+ will never replace the kind of service offered by Apple’s Genius Bar. Sure, going to the Apple Store to get your iPhone fixed can be a pain, but being able to talk to someone face to face is still far easier than talking with someone over video or voice chat.

FBI Won’t Be Able To Hack Into iPhones For Much Longer, Say Apple Engineers vyreyf

The FBI’s secret method for breaking into iPhones will soon be blocked — once Apple fixes the security flaw, experts say.

Once Apple engineers identify the security loophole that allowed the U.S enforcement agency to hack into a locked iPhone 5c, the tech firm will be able to fix the encryption hole, its engineers say.

Last week, the FBI dropped its legal request for Apple to hack into the iPhone belonging to San Bernardino killer Syed Farook, after the agency managed to crack the handset’s security without Apple’s help.

Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, were shot dead after killing 14 people in San Bernardino in California in December 2015.

The FBI has since offered to unlock an iPhone for a local police force investigating a murder case, and is likely to carry on unlocking handsets while it can.

If the FBI continues to help local police forces to unlock iPhones, it could soon be forced to reveal its methods under cross-examination in court.

An unidentified third party reportedly helped the FBI in unlock the Farook’s iPhone.

This raises concerns that the third party could sell the technique to hackers.

It’s likely that the FBI will only be able to use the hacking method for a short time before Apple fixes the security hole.

iPad Pro 9.7-inch review: A dazzling tablet, but still no PCfff

When he unveiled the new, superfast, normal-size iPad Pro onstage last week, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller said something really weird: “There are over 600 million PCs in use today that are over five years old. This is really sad! These people could really benefit from an iPad Pro.”




Wait, what?

What does the old-PC statistic have to do with the iPad Pro? He might as well have said, “Eighty-seven percent of Americans don’t eat enough vegetables. These people could really benefit from an iPad Pro.”

An iPad is not a PC. Never has been. There are so many things that you can do only with a real computer:
1.run full versions of Photoshop, Quicken, Microsoft Office, Final Cut, etc.

2.organize files and folders at the desktop

3.open multiple windows, multiple apps

4.type on real keys

5.plug in peripherals like keyboards, mice, flash drives, musical instruments, cameras, etc.


Now, the Microsoft Surface is a different story. It’s an actual PC. It runs actual Windows — with a desktop, multiple windows, real USB jacks — and actual Windows programs. It’s got all five of the things a real PC has that an iPad doesn’t.




Even so, Apple has been making steady strides toward closing the gulf between an iPad and a real computer. First, in November, it introduced the enormous iPad Pro with a folding keyboard cover that’s a lot like Microsoft’s:




Last week, it introduced a 9.7-inch (standard-size) version of the same thing. It’s a smaller iPad Pro, accompanied by its own keyboard screen cover. That takes care of item 4 (“type on real keys”).

Apple also released a new adapter that lets you plug all kinds of interesting PC-like gadgets into the iPad (more on that shortly), so that’s difference number 5.

And on the Pros, you can split the screen between two apps. Not all apps can be split like this, and the mechanism to trigger this feature is completely hidden and nonintuitive. But it can be done.




So all of this brings up two questions. First, how is the new, normal-size iPad Pro? Second, is using it as a PC replacement as silly an idea as it sounds?

Meet the normal-size iPad Pro

Of course, “normal-size” isn’t Apple’s official terminology. The new device is known as the 9.7-inch iPad Pro. But it is, in fact, the size of the regular iPad — the iPad Air 2 — which remains on sale and which looks identical.