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Today’s topics include users’ complaints that some new iPhone 7 handsets are making a “hissing sound,” Microsoft’s delivery of Typescript 2.0 in Visual Studio Code, Comcast’s plan to offer mobile phone services in 2017 and Google’s implementation of the Accelerated Mobile Pages standard.
Some owners of the latest Apple iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus smartphones are posting complaints online about strange “hissing” noises that emanate from their new handsets under high load.
The hissing noises are even being given a “Hissgate” tagline by some annoyed owners who feel the devices may have some kind of technical problem, according to online posts.
One iPhone 7 Plus owner, Stephen Hackett, posted Sept. 17 on Twitter that his phone “makes terrible noises when under load” as he was restoring the device from the cloud.
“After picking the device up from my desk, it was clear the sounds are coming from back of the phone, possibly from the CPU. It seems to get worse if the iPhone is under load and can be heard while the phone is sitting on a table.”
Microsoft on Sept. 22 announced the formal release of TypeScript 2.0, which is available as a download with Visual Studio code. TypeScript 2.0 is a Microsoft programming language that is a superset of JavaScript. Microsoft launched TypeScript in 2012 and released TypeScript 1.0 two years ago.
With TypeScript, Microsoft does JavaScript one better with a programming language that enables JavaScript developers to build enterprise-scale applications.
TypeScript 2.0 brings several new features that enhance developer productivity, advances TypeScript’s alignment with the evolution of another JavaScript-based language ECMAScript, and provides wide support for JavaScript libraries and tools.
Comcast plans to jump into the wireless phone service marketplace by mid-2017 by offering its cable customers phone plans that will use WiFi and the Verizon network for connectivity.
The upcoming Comcast mobile services were unveiled by Comcast CEO Brian Roberts at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference in New York, according to a Sept. 20 article by Bloomberg. Rumors of some kind of Comcast mobile phone service offering have circulated since at least October 2015, according to an earlier eWEEK report.
Roberts said Comcast would deliver the mobile services to current and new customers through its extensive nationwide network of 15 million WiFi hotspots and via Verizon’s existing cellular network, the Bloomberg story said.
Google has started marking websites that are optimized for viewing on mobile devices with an “AMP” icon in mobile search results.
The idea is to give users a way to identify sites that will load faster on smartphones and tablets and provide what the company says will be an overall better viewing and navigating experience than sites that are not optimized for mobile environments.
The move to highlight mobile-optimized sites is part of an ongoing effort by Google to get website owners to adopt an open-source standard called Accelerated Mobile Pages.
Google has described AMP as an HTML framework based on existing web technologies for building lightweight pages and websites for the mobile web. Video, images, maps and other media rich content will upload more quickly and cleanly on mobile devices when sites are AMP-enabled.