Airtel’s Xstream service gives customers access to a curated list of English and vernacular content along with live TV channels on their smartphone. Now the cord-cutting generation can enjoy the Airtel Xstream library of content on their Android TV. Users should note that the curated list of content is there on the Android TV app, but it does not have the live TV channels the service offers. When used on a smartphone, the service gives users access to 350+ live channels. It makes sense not to offer the same on the TV as then people would have no reason to move to an Airtel Set-top-box.
How to download Airtel Xstream on Android TV
Firstly, please note that your TV needs to be running the Android TV platform and not AOSP. Then, go to the Play Store on your TV and search for Airtel Xstream. Install the app and open it. Enter your airtel mobile number. Enter the OTP sent to your mobile number. Enjoy Airtel Xstream content.
For those that don't have a smart TV or don't have an Android TV, you can check out the Airtel Xstream Box and Xstream Stick. The Airtel Xstream Box is a 4K Hybrid Box that brings satellite TV and OTT content together. The Airtel Xstream stick has a Chromecast-like form factor and runs on Android TV. You can read more about them here. You can also check out our comparison - Airtel Xstream Stick Vs Airtel Xstream Box Vs Chromecast Vs Fire TV Stick Vs Tata Sky Binge Vs Act Stream 4k Vs Apple TV here.
If you are a Jio user, then know that the JioTV app is available for Android TVs and users can download the app, log in with their Jio account and enjoy the content on a large screen. You can read more about the JioTV app for Android TV here.
Xiaomi is expected to launch its Fire TV stick competitor in the form of the Mi TV Stick in an FHD and 4K variant. You can read more about it here.
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Microsoft said Monday it was throwing in the towel on its livestream gaming platform and teaming up with Facebook to better compete with rivals like Amazon-owned Twitch.
Microsoft has, in a surprise announcement, stated that it will shut down Mixer, its streaming service and provide existing partners the option to switch over to Facebook Gaming. In late January 2020, Mixer had entered into an exclusive partnership with Tyler “Ninja” Blevins to stream on Mixer. Ninja was paid somewhere between $20 million to $30 million for the deal. Other big name exclusive partners include Cory “King Gothalion” Michael, and Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek. Mixer is slated to shut down on July 22, 2020 and all exclusive partners will be free agents to move to the platform of their choice.
Mixer - Aug 2017 to July 2020
Mixer started out in January 2016 as Beam by Matthew Salsamendi and James Boehm, and was soon acquired by Microsoft in August 2016. Microsoft rebranded Beam as Mixer in 2017 and integrated Mixer into the Xbox Division. Despite the integration into Microsoft’s Xbox One gaming console and into Windows 10, Mixer did not gain a large enough user base to compete with the likes of Twitch and YouTube Gaming. The exclusivity agreement with several top Twitch streamers was to remedy this particular situation.
As of 2019, Twitch controls 73% of the streaming market with YouTube gaming coming in at 21%, Facebook Gaming at 3% and Mixer at 3% as well. Despite the exclusivity agreements with some of the largest influencers in the streaming market, Mixer could not grab a larger piece of the streaming pie. Between 2018 and 2019, Facebook Gaming outgrew Mixer in terms of ‘hours watched’ without entering into any exclusivity agreements with streaming influencers. The Average Concurrent Viewers on Mixer peaked in Q2 2019 and had been steadily dropping in Q3 and Q4 2019. Clearly, influencer marketing didn’t work out for Mixer. Mixer’s co-founders left Microsoft in late 2019.
Onto Facebook Gaming
Microsoft will offer existing users the opportunity to migrate to Facebook Gaming starting today. Existing Mixer partners will be granted partner status on Facebook Gaming and any streamer who has access to Mixer’s monetisation program will be granted access to Facebook’s Level Up program. Microsoft’s tie-up with Facebook is part of their long-term strategy for xCloud, Microsoft’s upcoming game streaming service that’s slated to launch later this year. Microsoft aims to bring xCloud to 2 billion gamers as part of their vision for the platform and Mixer’s slow growth did not align with this goal. It stands to be seen whether Facebook will be the right platform to bring Microsoft’s xCloud ambitions to fruition.
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Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference has usually been all about the software side of things from Apple. This is when the company showcases its next version of iOS, iPadOS, MacOS and WatchOS. However, Apple put a long-standing rumour to rest; its transition from Intel and over to its own Silicon, based on ARM’s architecture. Apple CEO Tim Cook concluded the presentation by announcing that computers with Apple’s silicon will be available to consumers by the end of the year and that the company will complete its transition from Intel-based Macs to its own silicon in two years.
The Silicon
Apple has been making its own processors, the A-series processors powering the iPhone and iPad for well over a decade. Intel, unfortunately, hasn’t been able to establish major leaps in performance over the last few years, having struggled greatly to move from the 14nm process to a smaller one. As Apple fine-tuned its hardware-software medley, the only note that was off were the Intel processors. Intel has hence decided to move over to ARM-base chips for its computers as well, showcasing iMacs running on the A12Z Bionic processor. This is the same chip that powers the 2020 iPad Pro. The demo machine, however, had 16GB RAM and a 512GB. Apple revealed that the custom silicon will combine the processor, GPU, SSD controller, Neural engine and many other features onto the same chip.
Application Showcase
Apple didn’t announce official machines today, but what they did showcase were a number of popular applications running on their custom chip powered Macs. During the demo, Apple announced that they were already working with partners like Microsoft and Adobe to bring their applications to the new environment being created by Apple. In the demo, we go to see a PowerPoint presentation dissected in 3D view, with layers switching with fluid animations. We saw a demo of Lightroom and Photoshop, both running heavy workloads (the Photoshop PSD file was apparently 5GB with many many layer). The company also showcased its own video editing software FinalCut Pro running on the new Mac, with a 4K timeline being edited with great ease. The ARM chip powered Mac was also able to playback three 4K videos side-by-side, a true show of prowess. Lastly, we got to see Maya in action, a very popular 3D application and of course, a gameplay of Shadow of the Tomb Raider downloaded straight from the Mac App Store. Everything ran impressively smooth, like you would expect it to on a high-end machine.
Making it all Work
With Apple moving to different processor architecture, there’s the obvious question of what’s going to happen to existing applications and how things will work. Apple has multiple solutions in place for this. For starters, the company expects developers to jump onto developing native applications for the new architecture as soon as the dev kits are available. If you have an application that runs on the Intel-based Macs, you can run that on the new Apple hardware thanks to Rosetta2. Rosetta2 is a translation layer that will allow non-native applications to run natively on the new ARM-based Macs. Apple says that Universal 2 binaries will allow developers to create a single application for the macOS, and would run just fine on both Intel and ARM-powered Macs.
Unification of an Ecosystem
With Apple’s move to ARM-based processors, the company has taken a huge step towards the unification of its entire device ecosystem. During the keynote, Apple revealed that users will be able to natively run iOS and iPadOS apps on the ARM-powered Macs. This means that if you’ve preferred the iOS or iPadOS version of an app over its desktop counterpart, you would have the flexibility to using that, instead of the native desktop application.
Apple’s announcement of moving on from Intel to ARM was expected, given the flak, Apple has had to face particularly due to the Intel parts. It’s also been the core piece of hardware that has allegedly held Apple back from showing significant performance gains year-on-year in its machines. Apple says that customers can expect ARM-based machines to be available by the end of the year but has not revealed any information on which of the machines from Apple’s stable will be getting the new Apple Silicon first.
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Alongside a fresh take on iOS and iPadOS, Apple also completely refreshed the Mac experience this year at WWDC. Named macOS Big Sur, the operating system will complement Apple’s historic transition to ARM-based Apple silicon for Macs that’s slated to launch by the end of this year.
MacOS Big Sur introduces a complete redesign that’s both new and instantly familiar, according to Apple. The update focuses big on privacy, minimalism and productivity. Here’s a look at all the new features coming to Macs near you.
What's new in macOS Big Sur?
Biggest design upgrade to MacOS since Mac OS X
The new macOS Big Sur offers a spacious new design that helps navigating the UI much easier. Apple has worked on refining the colour palette, window corners and materials. The dock icons are now more consistent with the rest of the Apple ecosystem, while the buttons and controls appear when needed and disappear when not.
There’s also a new customisable menu-bar and a new Control Center which gives quick access to controls on the desktop. Notifications are more interactive and widgets now come in different sizes. Core apps on macOS also received a facelift with new features.
Faster, more privacy-focused Safari
Apple claimed Safari on macOS Big Sur is 50 per cent faster than Chrome in loading webpages. Apple has redesigned tabs to show more tabs on screen, displaying favicons to tabs to let you identify tabs quicker, and gives users a preview of the page by hovering the cursor over the tab.
The home page on Safari is also more contextual and personalised. You can have you iCloud tabs synced right on the homepage, and get your reading list right below. Apply custom wallpapers and translate webpages right from the address bar.
Safari Extensions are also upgraded to now work only when needed. Users can chose when and which websites can work with a Safari Extensions,
More transparent data collection
macOS Big Sur offers more transparency and control over what data is shared by mac Apps by detailing the privacy practices of apps before you download them. This includes the types of data the app might collect, like usage, contact information or location, and what data is shared with third parties. You can also see and block tracking on Safari.
Big updates to native apps
Native apps like Messages and Apple Maps also got a big facelift and are now more in sync with their iOS and iPadOS counterparts. On Messages, you can pin conversations on top for faster access, create and customise Memojis, have threaded replies on group messages, and set a photo or memoji as the group icon.
As for Apple Maps, the new update brings all that was announced for Apple Maps on iOS 14 including bike routes, 360-degree view of a destination, detailed indoor maps of major airports and shopping malls and more.
macOS Big Sur availability
The final release of macOS will be pushed to Mac PCs and MacBooks in fall 2020 as a free software update, and the developer beta of macOS Big Sur will be available starting today on developer.apple.com. The public beta of the operating system will be available in June alongside public betas for iOS 14, iPadOS 14 and for the first time, watchOS 7.
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Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference has finally kicked off and the first topic of discussion was iOS14. In case you didn’t notice, the name of Apple’s mobile operating system continues to follow the existing ‘iOS’ nomenclature, and does not go back to the iPhone OS name, like some rumours recently suggested.
Apple will also be hosting over a hundred engineering sessions which is now free to attend. You just need to tune in via the Apple Developers app or on the Apple Developers website.
During the keynote, a number of new features were announced that would be a part of iOS 14.
What's new in iOS 14?
Widgets
Apple had already introduced widgets to iOS in a rather limited capacity, but iOS 14 super charges widgets. Besides being able to choose multiple sizes for widgets, users will finally be able to combine Widgets with Apps on the homescreen. Users iwill be able to customise the homescreen of their iOS device with their favourite combination of widgets and apps. Android did this years ago, but for iOS users, this is bound to create a whole new experience of getting access to things they use most frequently.
App Library
One of the biggest pain points for many iOS users is managing the large number of apps they end up installing. While most users have the first few pages committed to memory, the rest of the pages upon pages of apps remain mostly unloved. App Library will allow you to clean up the excess pages of apps by putting apps into folders based on the app category. When enabled, users will be able to “hide” the pages of apps you don’t really access, replacing them with an App Library view. Think of it like a super-charged version of folders. If your OCD has been greatly challenged by the inability to hide the numerous app icons, you’re going to absolutely love App Library.
Picture in Picture
Users of the iPhone will finally get Picture-in-Picture functionality, which will work across the entire user interface of iOS 14. Users will be able to resize the picture in picture box and be able to control the floating window with complete ease.
Siri Updated
Siri has received perhaps its biggest update in years, getting a visual redesign as well as being super-charged with new capabilities. In iOS 14, Siri won’t take over the screen when invoked. Perhaps the feature that will interest most of you the most is the ability to send voice notes via Siri. Siri can now also do live translations on device, keeping in line with Apple’s premise of customer privacy.
Apple Translate
Piggybacking off the new Siri capabilities, Apple Translate is a translation app based on the premise that people are often looking for conversational translations, and not academic ones. The app will support 11 languages at launch, with more coming in later months.
Messages
The messages app gets a number of new features, the most interesting ones being able to pin contacts and conversations to the top of the Messages app. Bigger, and more useful changes come to group messages though. Those involved in group conversations in the Messages app will be able to utilize in-line replying and also get mentions. Since group messages can get very noisy, users will also be able to choose to be notified only when their name is mentioned in a conversation.
Maps
Apple also announced a number of new features for Maps, but most of them for now, will be limited to very few cities. The list, sadly, does not have any Indian cities on it. In the new Maps app, users will be able to find points of interest in cities of their choice. Apple Maps iOS also now getting “cycling” as a means of transportation, but the feature is going to be limited to five cities at launch.
What's new in iPadOS 14?
While iOS 14 remains more of an iPhone-centric operating system iPadOS 14 brings all of iOS 14’s features to the iPad, along with a few exclusive nuts and bolts.
Sidebar
Apps like Photos and Music are getting a new Sidebar that will offer most frequently used aspects of those apps right at the fingertips of the user. Users will be able to move photos from one section of their gallery to another, or maybe move them to another album altogether. The sidebar allows that to happen with a simple drag-and-drop behavior. The Music app has also received a full redesign, including a full-screen experience.
New Search
iPadOS 14 now incorporates a completely new Search experience. When you pull down to search, the search bar will simply float over whatever it is that you have open. This means that search won’t interfere with whatever it is you have open. Second, Search won’t just be implemented for apps, but will actually be a universal search, being able to pull results from everywhere.
Pencil Supercharged
The most significant update part of the iPadOS 14 update is coming to the Pencil’s functionality. Users will finally be able to treat hand-written content the same as digital text, allowing you to select, move and format it accordingly. Moore importantly, users will finally be able to convert handwritten text to digital text on the fly, a feature that’s bound to increase the popularity of the Apple Pencil significantly.
iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 Availability
Apple’s next generation of mobile operating systems will be available later this year when the company launches their next iPhone. However, for those who are eager to test drive the betas, the public beta for iiOOS, iPad OS and WatchOS wll go live in July. This will be the first-time apple is offering a WatchOS beta.
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“It’s time to rock the boat again” Tweets OnePlus co-founder Car Pei. On the other hand, Pete Lau tweets, “Who's ready for something new from @oneplus?” It looks like the founders of OnePlus are taking to Twitter to tease the launch of the upcoming OnePlus Z. We think the founders are talking about the OnePlus Z because of the tweet, “It’s time to rock the boat again”. OnePlus really shook the smartphone market when they launched the OnePlus One catering to the needs of those that wanted a high performing device with an affordable price tag. The OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro (review) bring with them premium pricing and the budget space has a void for those looking for a high performing device like the OnePlus.
Co-founder Carl Pei tweeted a few days ago highlighting the OnePlus One and we know the impact that phone has had on the brand and consumers alike. So we think rocking the boat could imply aggressive pricing for the OnePlus Z. You can read more about the pricing of the Oneplus Z here.
Could OnePlus be teasing the OnePlus Z?
It is possible that OnePlus Z is not the final name of the smartphone. It looks like the OnePlus Z could actually be the Nord by OnePlus or under the Nord by OnePlus umbrella. OnePlus has filed for a trademark for the “Nord by OnePlus” name. The trademark was filed in March 2020. It is possible that the name OnePlus 8 Lite and the OnePlus Z were internal names for the new Nord by OnePlus Lineup. The trademark reveals that we could see a number of devices under the Nord by OnePlus name including devices like “Tablet computers; Smartphones; Sleeves for laptops; Loudspeakers for mobile phones; Headphones for mobile phones; Electronic book readers; Smart television; Remote controls for televisions”. You can read more about it here.
If the Payback survey is to be believed, then the OnePlus Z will sport a 6.55-inch Super AMOLED 90Hz display, however, the resolution of the display isn’t known. It would be safe to assume that the smartphone has a 1080p display. Under the hood, the smartphone is expected to be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 SoC along with support for 5G. The SoC is accompanied by 6GB of RAM and 128GB built-in storage. A 4300 mAh battery with 30W fast charging powers the entire package. For the optics, the smartphone has a triple rear camera setup sporting a 64MP + 16MP + 2MP setup. It is presumed that the 16MP camera is ultra-wide and the 2MP is a depth-sensing or macro camera. The OnePlus Z also has a 16MP selfie camera. You can read more about the specs of the OnePlus Z here.
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