The worst thing about the Galaxy S20 in a world where the cheapest new iPhone costs just $699 was the price. Samsung somehow believed that it’s perfectly acceptable to sell the most affordable Galaxy S20 version for $999, and hoped it would make a killing.

It turns out that the phone was too expensive for most people, and it was hardly able to put a dent in Apple’s sales. In fact, the iPhone 11 was the world’s most popular phone in the first quarter of the year, and there wasn’t even a contest.

Data from market research first firm Omdia shows that Apple sold 19.5 million iPhone 11 units in the first three months of the year, replacing the iPhone XR, which was the world’s best-selling phone last year during the same period. But Apple did even better in Q1 2020, despite the emerging health threat. The novel coronavirus impacted the entire economy, including smartphone sales, with many significant outbreaks occurring in the first months of the year. Many European countries and the US initiated lockdown measures in Q1, most of them towards the end of the quarter.

The iPhone 11 sold six million units more than the iPhone XR in the year-ago quarter. The Samsung Galaxy A51 was the world’s second most popular phone, with 6.8 million units sold, with Xiaomi taking the third and fourth spots. The Redmi Note 8 and Note 8 Pro sold 6.6 million and 6.1 million units, respectively.

Apple had four more iPhones in the top 10, including the iPhone XR, iPhone 11 Pro Max, and iPhone 11 Pro, which ranked fifth (4.7 million), sixth (4.2 million), and eighth (3.8 million), respectively.

The Galaxy S20+ 5G was the only Galaxy S20 version present in Omdia’s rankings, placing ninth with 3.5 million units sold. In total, the Galaxy S20 sold 8.2 million units during the quarter, per Elec. If we were to add all iPhone 11 sales for the period, we’d end up with 27.5 million units, an impressive figure for a phone that launched in September during a quarter where most of the world realized that COVID-19 won’t stay in China and can’t be ignored.

The Galaxy S20 only launched in mid-February, so it didn’t enjoy a full quarter of sales. And the coronavirus pandemic definitely hurt sales. The Elec says Samsung sold 10.3 Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus units combined in the first quarter of 2019. The Galaxy S10 series was also launched in the middle of that quarter.

But it’s unlikely the Galaxy S20 could have done any better, given the high entry price at the time. Since then, Samsung cut the cost of all its Galaxy S20 models, offering better deals meant to drive up sales. But the COVID-19 crisis got even worse than in the first quarter, with millions of people around the world having lost their job.

Samsung’s consolation price is that the Galaxy S20+ 5G was the world’s best-selling 5G phone, but that won’t really count as long most other phones don’t support 5G, Apple’s included.

If you missed out on buying a new computer over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, you’re in luck. Today, you can get one of Dell’s best gaming laptops with more than $600 cut off the price tag.

You can also save 30 percent on a new Apple iPhone XS Max.

Dell Alienware M15 R1 Intel Core i7-9750H 15.6-Inch 1080p 144Hz Gaming Laptop w/ Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q, 16GB DDR4 RAM and 512GB M.2 PCI-E SSD ($1,547.99)

If you want a fast notebook with plenty of performance for running the latest games, you may want to consider Dell’s Alienware M15 R1. This system was literally built for gaming and it features a fast six-core processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q GPU, and a high-quality 1080p 144Hz IPS display. You can get this system from Dell marked down from $2,194.99 to $1,574.99 with promo code LCS10OFF.

Apple iPhone XS Max ($699.99)

Apple’s iPhone XS Max is a feature-rich smartphone with a large 6.5-inch OLED display and a powerful A12 Bionic processor. For a limited time, you can get one of these phones with 64GB of internal storage from Woot marked down from $999.99 to just $699.99.

Amazon Kindle — Newest Edition w/ Built-in Front Light + 3-Month Kindle Unlimited Subscription ($59.99)

Amazon’s newest Kindle comes with a built-in front light, a high-quality 167ppi display, and a battery that can last for weeks without needing to be recharged. For a limited time, you can get this Kindle along with a three-month subscription to Kindle Unlimited marked down from $89.99 to just $59.99.

Dell Alienware 25 AW2518H 240Hz 1080p 25-Inch Gaming Monitor ($399.99)

Enjoy your games to the fullest with a blazing 240Hz monitor! In addition to its extreme refresh rate, this display features support for both FreeSync and G-Sync and a fast 1ms response time giving you a highly responsive gaming experience. Right now you can get this display from Dell marked down from $709.99 to $399.99.

Logitech G604 Lightspeed Wireless Gaming Mouse ($69.99)

Logitech’s G604 Lightspeed is a high-end wireless mouse that’s well-suited for gaming and work. Logitech claims it has excellent battery life and can last for up to five and a half months on a single AA battery. Right now you can get one of these mice from Amazon marked down from $99.99 to just $69.99.

Dell Vostro 15 5590 Intel Core i7-10510U 1080p 15.6-Inch Laptop w/ Nvidia MX250 GPU, 8GB DDR4 RAM and 256 M.2 NVMe SSD ($899.00)

This laptop comes equipped with one of Intel’s new 10th generation Core i7-10510U processors that has four CPU cores clocked at up to 4.9GHz. The system also comes with fast NVMe SSD storage and a 1080p display, which makes it well-suited for just about any type of work or any non-gaming activity. You can get it now from Dell marked down from $1,427.14 to just $779.00 with promo code SUM999LT5590.

Sometimes, it’s the smallest-seeming announcements that have the biggest real-world impact. And there’s no better example of that than a decidedly muted Android.

Assistant-related rollout plopped out by Google just before the U.S. holiday weekend.

You’d be forgiven for failing to notice — or maybe for seeing a passing mention of the news and then just casually scratching your fibula and moving on. Do me a favor, though, and pause all itch-related activity for a moment, because this announcement truly does deserve your attention — especially if you’re a fan of potential-filled productivity boosters (and who among us isn’t?!).

The item in question is an innocuous-seeming little somethin’ called Action Blocks — about as uninspiring of a name as one could imagine, I know. And if most of us needed more reason to ignore it, it showed up as part of a meandering Google blog about “accessibility updates” — which, suffice it to say, isn’t exactly the type of topic that screams “HEY! THIS IS A TIME-SAVING, EFFICIENCY-ENHANCING FEATURE FOR EVERYONE!”

But it should. And not only because the idea of a screaming topic is hilarious.

As readers of my newsletter know, I’m incredibly excited about the arrival of Action Blocks and the possibilities the new system opens up for every single one of us. Some of Android’s most powerful productivity tools are designed with accessibility as their primary purpose but end up having a much more universal impact, once discovered — and this is another such gem to add onto that list.

The key, as usual, is simply knowing how to tap into its potential and take advantage of what it can do for you. And in about five minutes, you’ll have all that knowledge.

Google’s Assistant Action Blocks: The basics

We’ll get into the advanced Assistant/Action Blocks possibilities in a second. First, let’s cover the basics of what the Action Blocks add-on is actually all about — and what it’s intended to do at its most basic level.

So here you have it: Action Blocks is a standalone Android app that lets you create custom Assistant widgets for your Android phone. Basically, anything you could ask Assistant to do can be turned into an Action Block button and placed on your home screen for easy one-tap access.

Now, couldn’t you just speak out loud to Assistant and ask it to do that very same stuff? Why, yes: Of course you could, you astute little aardvark. And if you like talking to your technology all the time and find that to be an effective method of getting things accomplished, then this new system might offer little in the way of meaningful value for you.

But personally, I tend to find talking to Assistant to be awkward, annoying, and ineffective more often than not. Sometimes, you’re just not in a position where speaking aloud to your phone is ideal — if, say, you’re in a noisy environment, other people are around you, or you have any sense of shame and realize how much of a dillweed you sound like when you talk to inanimate objects. And sometimes, it’s just plain faster and more efficient to tap a button on the screen.

On that note, there’s the plain and simple fact that Google Assistant and virtual assistants in general just aren’t all that great at understanding us. How many times have you tried to get your phone or another Assistant device to do something, only to find yourself sighing loudly and shouting “GOOGLE, STOP!” while the device rattles off the definition for “wattle” instead of telling you the weather?

And then there’s the issue of having multiple Assistant devices within earshot and having the wrong one pick up your voice and respond — an especially irksome occurrence when you’re trying to do something on your phone and a nearby speaker answers instead and informs you it can’t perform that function. (If only there were some super-simple fix Google could give us for that — hmmmmm…)

So that’s where an Action Block widget can come in handy: by granting you a dead-simple, no-speaking-required way to activate an advanced function on your phone with zero room for error. One tap, and it’s done.

It’s simple, it’s effective, and it’s clever. And it fills in a massive gap in what Assistant’s able to do and how easily you can use it — in some seriously advanced ways that aren’t immediately obvious.

Let’s get into ’em, shall we?

Action Blocks pro tip #1: Don’t limit yourself to single commands

First up: When you open the Action Blocks app and tap the Create Action Block button, you’ll see a list of common actions you can use within your Google Assistant widget — along with the option to create a custom action.

That “custom action” option is what you want. Tap it, and you’ll be taken to a screen that looks something like this:

JR

Easy enough, right? You can just type in any command you’d give to Google Assistant — “Turn on Bluetooth,” “Start Do Not Disturb mode,” “Set my ringer volume to 10%,” or whatever — and then move on. But that’s missing out on the hidden power in this part of the process.

You’d never know it from looking, but Action Blocks actually lets you string together multiple Assistant commands and put ’em into a single button. So if, for instance, you wanted to make a simple one-tap button you could press to catch up when you start your day or come out of a meeting (or even a siesta disguised as a meeting), you could type in combination commands like these:

• Take my phone off silent and read my reminders
• Take my phone off silent and read my messages
• Take my phone off silent and what’s my next meeting

Or maybe you want a button for switching your phone’s settings over to a mode that makes sense for driving:

• Turn on Bluetooth and set my media volume to 80%

You get the idea. But you don’t have to stop with two commands, either: You can string together even more Assistant actions and then have a single button on your home screen trigger all of ’em for you. The key is just to use the word “and” in between whatever Assistant actions you want.

So maybe you’d enjoy an even more elaborate button for catching up after a brief bout of being offline:

• Take my phone off silent and what’s my next meeting and read my messages

Or maybe you’d want a home screen widget that preps your phone for a focus mode in which you play some manner of music or white noise, eliminate outside distractions, and inform your (human) assistant, colleague, or friendly neighborhood marmot that you’ll be away for a while:

• Set my media volume to 80% and turn on Do Not Disturb and text Mortimer on his mobile I’ll be offline for the next 20 minutes. Please hold my calls.

Or, for one more practical example, maybe you’d like a one-touch button on your home screen to get ready for a rest:

• Put my phone on silent and set an alarm for 7am and play babbling brook sounds

Whatever you do, you’ll be a mere few taps away from naming and styling your widget however you want and placing it onto your home screen for easy ongoing access.

JR

Once you wrap your head around the Action Blocks basics and become aware of the system’s hidden support for stringing together multiple commands, the possibilities are practically endless. Just be sure to use the option within the app to test your commands before saving your creation; Assistant in general can be a little finicky, and sometimes it takes a teensy bit of experimentation to figure out the right phrasing or the most effective order for any given sequence.

(One other tiny tip: Think about unchecking the box for “Always speak action out loud.” Unless you’re actually using this for accessibility purposes, having the app read out every command it’s completing is gonna get old fast.)

And speaking of combining commands together…

Action Blocks pro tip #2: Don’t limit yourself to a single device

In addition to allowing you to bundle multiple Assistant commands into a single button, Google’s Action Blocks add-on will let you perform tasks on both your phone and another Assistant-connected device in one fell swoop. And whether you’ve got a Assistant speaker in your office or some smart lights and other connected tech in your home work environment, there’s lots of useful stuff you can do once you realize what’s possible.

Let’s say, for instance, you’re working from home, and you want to take a quick break for some quiet thought and reflection. You could create an Action Block with the following command:

• Put my phone on silent and play classical music on my office display

Provided you actually have a Smart Display in your office, that one button will prep both your phone and the screen for that special moment.

If you have more connected devices, you can take the same concept even further:

• Turn the office lights on and set the thermostat to 72

Or you can get really wild:

• Put my phone on silent and turn off the office lights and play nature sounds on my office display

Just start thinking about all the things you’d like to accomplish with any Assistant-associated devices in your vicinity, and then let Action Blocks do the heavy lifting.

Action Blocks pro tip #3: Don’t forget about routines

If you ask me, Google Assistant’s Routines feature is kind of clunky and confusing — not to mention woefully buried and out of sight. If I were to guess, I’d say somewhere in the ballpark of 90 to 95% of Android owners probably never use it.

But hey, you’re reading this column! You’re clearly not an ordinary user. So if you do have some Assistant routines set up or maybe just want to try messing around with ’em, take note: You can set up an Action Block button that’ll trigger any existing routine on your account. Just open up the Action Blocks app, choose the custom command option, and type in your routine’s launch phrase as the Action Block command.

JR

Now you’ve got a faster, more foolproof way to trigger the same Assistant sequences you’ve already created. Not bad, eh?

And one more thing to mention…

Action Blocks pro tip #4: Don’t stop with Assistant’s native capabilities

This last tip takes us slightly deep into geeky waters, but it opens up even more interesting options with Assistant and Action Blocks:

If you think of something Assistant itself can’t do on its own, there’s a decent chance you can still accomplish it by way of a free (and very reputable) third-party service called IFTTT.

IFTTT is short for “If This, Then That.” It ultimately just acts as a middleman to connect different web-based services together. You can find a list of ready-made recipes for making Assistant work with different external apps and systems on this page — and if you find anything that stands out to you as seeming worthwhile, all you’ve gotta do is sign up for or sign into the service, activate and set up the recipe once, and then create an Action Block using its custom command.

So, for instance, I used this IFTTT sequence to link my Assistant account with one of my Slack workspaces. Now, whenever I tell Assistant to “tell Slack” something, it posts my message into a specific channel that I specified within the IFTTT setup.

That means I can create an Action Block that’ll post a specific, common message I send on Slack with just a single tap on my home screen:

• Tell Slack Got hot sauce on my pants, will be 5-10 late to the meeting!

Or I can create an even more advanced Action Block button with multiple commands strung together — maybe for taking a break and letting co-workers know I won’t be reachable for a while:

• Put my phone on silent and tell Slack FYI, party people: I’ll be offline for the next 30 minutes.

Or we could go just positively bonkers and string a few different things together with that same Slack action:

• Put my phone on silent and set an alarm for 7am and tell Slack Signing off for the night, suckers.

Ahh — so much accomplished with one simple tap. Now, that’s what I called effective assistance.

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The future of smart devices is wireless. The dawn of 5G and Wi-Fi 6 will make data transfer faster than ever when an internet connection is present.

But moving large chunks of data between devices without a wired or internet connection to intermediate the transfer could soon become a reality. Moreover, next-gen wireless charging tech could work across long distances, and make charging pads forgotten. It may sound like tech from sci-fi movies, but the building blocks of all these wireless technologies are already in place. And Apple might make the next move towards that future with the kind of baby step we all expect to see soon, an iPhone that features no ports whatsoever.

The iPhone 12 that’s due this fall could be one of the last iPhone generations to feature ports of any kind. A new report says the iPhone 12 will not make the switch to USB-C, as some people might hope. Apple is sticking with Lightning for at least one more year, as one of next year’s iPhone 13 models could ditch the Lightning connector as well.

Leaker Fudge, who posted in early April a schematic of the purported iPhone 12 Pro design, complete with a smaller notch and a LiDAR camera on the back, took to Twitter to suggest that Apple had a USB-C prototype for the iPhone 12.

The leaker’s mention of a smart connector for the iPhone 13 may be about an iPhone 12 design leak that circulated online recently, showing a phone with an iPad-like quick connector on the side of the phone where the SIM card goes.

In a follow-up tweet, Fudge said that the smart connector won’t be used for charging purposes, as wireless charging will be the portless iPhone 13’s primary way to recharge the battery.

Well-known leaker Jon Prosser said in mid-April that the iPhone 12 won’t feature a smart connector as seen in some leaks, adding that the feature will be found on a future prototype “for charging on a portless iPhone.”

Prosser also said at the time that the iPhone 12 will not make the switch to USB-C, and noted that “Apple will go portless before they go USB-C.” Technically, Apple went USB-C for the iPad Pro, but that’s a different story.

The YouTuber turned Apple leaker said a few days ago that one portless iPhone is coming next year, excluding the possibility for Apple to use USB-C anytime soon. “Eventually, they’ll all be portless,” he said.

Prosser explained in one of his scoops that Apple’s seemingly abandoned AirPower universal charger is essential for the future of the iPhone, and that’s why Apple hasn’t given up on launching such a device.

Separately, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said in a research note that Apple would drop the Lightning connector from 2021 iPhones, without specifying at the time whether Apple would go portless or USB-C.

There are other signs that a portless iPhone is in the making. Apple is rumored to ditch the EarPods for the iPhone 12, a move that’s meant to boost AirPods sales. But it can also be an indication of what’s to come in the not so distant future. Apple is also working on faster short-range wireless connectivity that could come in handy on a portless iPhone.

Things change — sometimes for the better. There are two big changes in the Windows 10 world that come into focus with Windows 10 version 2004:

• Updates now appear to run on a tick-tock model: The Windows 10 update in the first half of the year contains major changes; the update in the second half of the year holds only minor changes. Microsoft hasn’t committed to the new tick-tock model, but all evidence points in that direction.
• Microsoft doesn’t cram a new version of Windows down your throat, like it used to. (Don’t get me started on the surprise! forced 1703 to 1709 upgrades.)

Windows 10 version 2004 continues in the same mode, but with an unusual difference. Instead of getting a full-fledged “tick’s” worth of changes, what we’re seeing is more of a whimper. In addition to the usual promises of faster and better, and maybe a Search that actually works, we’re also seeing a demotion (er, realignment) of Cortana, better Windows Subsystem for Linux, and Windows Hello working in Safe Mode. Be still my beating heart.

There’s a reason why: Microsoft has realigned the Windows 10 delivery schedule to sync up with Azure. Don’t ask me why: Tail, meet dog. In this particular case, the big new version of Windows 10 delivered in May 2020 was actually finalized in December 2019.

While we’re going through the usual crowdsourced beta testing, you should take these steps to make sure you aren’t accidentally swept up in an unwanted upgrade.

Step 1. What version are you running?

The method for blocking unwanted version upgrades varies greatly depending on which version of Windows 10 you’re running. To find out, click Start > Settings (the gear icon) > System, and on the left side at the bottom, click About.

You’ll see something like this screenshot.

IDG

Take note of both the edition (Pro, Home, Education, Enterprise) and the version.

If your computer is connected to a network that has an update server (such as WSUS or SCCM), you don’t have any control over your version — the network admin gets to sweat this one out. But if you’re connected to a normal network, or not connected at all, read on. Enterprise and Education users who aren’t connected to a network with an update server can follow along with the Pro instructions below.

Step 2. If you’re on version 1803, it’s time to move on.

For Home and Pro customers, the last security updates for Windows 10 version 1803 arrived on November 12, 2019. That means you’ve been running without a net — and Microsoft has been trying to push you onto a newer version — for half a year.

It’s time to move on from 1803. I, personally, have moved to version 1909, a.k.a. the Windows 10 November 2019 Update. You may want to hedge your bets a bit and go to version 1903, but for several months now, all of the significant bugs documented in version 1909 are also in version 1903. There are many ways to move from 1803 to 1909, but the easiest is to back up everything and follow the steps in the Windows Update Assistant.

Step 3. If you’re on version 1809, you have a tough decision to make.

Last month, Microsoft granted a reprieve to Windows 10 version 1809 Home and Pro customers. Officially, 1809 will continue to receive updates until November 10, 2020. The official version of the announcement attributed the change to the pandemic. Many folks noted that there are lots of paying customers still stuck on 1809.

Staying on 1809 is relatively easy if you’re using Windows 10 Pro. Using an administrator account, click Start > Settings > Update & Security. Click the link marked Advanced options. Make sure you have the Channel and feature update deferral set as shown in the screenshot below.

IDG

With the Channel and feature update deferral settings like that, Microsoft won’t try to push you onto Windows 10 version 1903 or 1909 until you’re ready to give the go-ahead. (Unless the company, uh, “accidentally” forgets to honor its own settings, as it has several times in the past.)

Just remember: Don’t ever click Check for updates.

For Windows 10 version 1809 Home users, the only way to take control of version updates on your machine is to move to 1903 or 1909 and proceed to Step 4. To move to 1909, remove all updating blocks (for most people that means turning off metered connections), and let Windows Update take its time and do its thing. But don’t click Check for updates.

As Windows 10 1809 reaches end of support on November 10, 2020, you can expect that Microsoft will start bending the rules a bit and push harder to get you onto 1909 or 2004 (or some future version). We’ll keep you posted on those developments at Computerworld.

Step 4: If you’re on version 1903 or 1909, don’t click that link.

If you’re running Windows 10 version 1903 or 1909, sooner or later you’ll see a Windows Update notice (Start > Settings > Update & Security) like the one in the screenshot below.

IDG

The notice will appear in Windows 10 1903 and 1909 Home and Windows 10 1903 and 1909 Pro. (Yay!)

If you want to avoid installing Windows 10 version 2004, don’t click the Download and install link. It’s that simple. If you avoid clicking the Download and install link, you’ll continue on 1909 (or 1903) forever — or until MS decides it needs to push you off, whichever comes first.

Too bad Microsoft didn’t decide to delay Windows 10 version 2004 until the work-from-home world was in a better space, but them’s the breaks. Curtail your clicking finger, avoid the shiny new version siren call, and you’ll be relatively stable for months to come.