There are a lot of OnePlus phones planned for this year, but the next one could be among the most exciting, and the company has now confirmed that this handset (dubbed the OnePlus Ace) will be fully unveiled on April 21.
This was revealed by the company on Weibo (a Chinese social network), and the announcement included images of the phone, showing off a very different design to what we’ve seen from OnePlus before.
Half of the back has stripes running down it, while the other half is plain. The sides meanwhile are flat, and there's no alert slider, a handy feature found on many OnePlus phones. We can also see that there's a triple-lens camera, with one big lens and two smaller ones.
OnePlus hasn't confirmed any specs of the OnePlus Ace yet, except it kind of has, because the company also recently revealed that the OnePlus 10R would be unveiled in India on April 28 , and that phone looks exactly the same, so presumably they're the same handset under different names.
Admittedly, we don't know much about this phone either, but the company has said that it supports 5G and comes in two versions - one with 80W charging and one with 150W charging, the latter of which is a tech the company revealed it was working on a while back.
For reference, the OnePlus 10 Pro only has 80W charging, so that would be quite an upgrade.
The rest of the specs might not be though, as while they haven't been revealed yet, previous leaks suggested the OnePlus Ace would be a rebranded Realme GT Neo 3 , and that phone also has those charging powers, so this checks out.
If it is the Neo 3 in all but name then you can expect a 6.7-inch 1080 x 2412 AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, a 5,000mAh battery in the 80W model or a 4,500mAh one in the 150W version, a reasonably speedy MediaTek Dimensity 8100 chipset, up to 12GB of RAM, and up to 256GB of storage.
The Realme GT Neo 3 also has a triple-lens camera, with a 50MP main sensor, an 8MP ultrawide one (with a 120-degree field of view), and a 2MP macro one, plus a 16MP snapper on the front.
So those are fairly high-end specs, but it's only on the charging front that it might have the OnePlus 10 Pro beat, though it's also sure to cost less than that phone. Of course, we're not totally sure that the OnePlus Ace is the Realme GT Neo 3, but it's looking very likely.
Analysis: will the OnePlus Ace go global?
Since this launch appears to just be for China, we can't be sure whether other regions like the US and UK will get the OnePlus Ace, but there's certainly a chance they will.
Given that India seems to be getting it under the OnePlus 10R name, it's entirely possible that other parts of the world will get this phone too. Though probably not until later, since there's no word of a global launch.
If and when the likes of the UK and US do get this phone, it's more likely to land as the OnePlus Ace than the OnePlus 10R, since the OnePlus 9R was only available in India, and since OnePlus has confusingly said the OnePlus 10 Pro will be the only OnePlus 10 model - a claim which it now seems might only have applied to the west.
Via Playfuldroid
Hulu's best comedy show lands official season 2 release date
Update: well, we were right. Since this story was published, Disney has confirmed that Only Murders in the Building season 2 will launch on Hulu and Disney Plus on Tuesday, June 28 – the release date that we worked out in the story below.
The show will be available to stream on Disney Plus in the UK (and other territories) under the streamer's Star Banner.
Original story follows.
Only Murders in the Building fans have been whipped into a frenzy at the crime-comedy show's second season reportedly received a release date.
The fan favorite Disney Plus and Hulu series, which holds a 100% 'certified fresh' rating among critics on review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes , seems set to return to our screens this summer. Or, rather, this winter for those of you in the southern hemisphere.
We already knew that Only Murders in the Building was getting a second season. The Selena Gomez, Steve Martin, and Martin Short-starring show was renewed by Hulu for a second outing in September 2021. That came after Only Murders in the Building was confirmed to be the most-watched Hulu comedy series of all-time (per Vulture ).
Filming for the show's second season began in December 2021 and, at the time of writing, appears to be ongoing. That didn't stop fans from putting their detective skills to the test, though, after a teaser image was posted on Only Murders in the Building's social media channels on Thursday, March 24.
The picture, which shows the Arconia building's elevator, wouldn't ordinarily be that exciting. Look closer, though, and you'll see that three of the elevator buttons are lit up. It's this trio of lit up buttons – for floors two, six, and eight – that's turned fans into would-be sleuths and appears to tease when the show will return.
Analysis: when is Only Murders in the Building season 2 releasing on Hulu and Disney Plus?
On the surface, it seems that there are only two potential date configurations that can be determined using these specific numbers: June 28 and August 26, i 6/28 and 8/26.
However, there are a couple of other options. The number 2 could refer to the show's next instalment – aka season 2. If it does, we can remove that from the equation, leaving us with the numbers 6 and 8. Using those digits only, we come up with June 8 and August 6, i 6/8 and 8/6.
So which of these dates seems the most likely for Only Murders in the Building season 2? For that, we need to do a little more digging. The show's first season debuted on August 31, 2021 – a Tuesday – with subsequent episodes released weekly after that point.
If Only Murders in the Building's second instalment is similarly released on Tuesdays, there's only one date from the four above that fits a Tuesday release: June 28, 2022. That's because June 8 falls on a Wednesday, August 6 on a Sunday, and August 26 on a Friday.
Of course, due to its popularity, Only Murders in the Building's day of release could be altered by Hulu and Disney Plus for season 2. However a potential new release day – either Wednesdays or Fridays – would pit Only Murders in the Building against other Disney-owned originals.
On Disney Plus for UK viewers, the likes of Ms Marvel and Obi-Wan Kenobi will be already be airing, or be set to launch, in June. Hulu subscribers in the US, meanwhile, may choose to watch new TV series in the Jessica Biel-starring Candy and Under the Banner of Heaven, which stars Andrew Garfield and Daisy Edgar Jones, instead. So it would make sense for Only Murders in the Building season 2 to follow its predecessor's lead and release weekly on Tuesdays.
For more Hulu-based content, check out which movies and TV shows are leaving the platform in the next few weeks . Meanwhile, for Disney Plus fans, read our exclusive interview coverage of Marvel Studios' Moon Knight .
AirPods Pro 2 could ditch Bluetooth for lossless audio support
The Apple AirPods Pro are among the most popular Bluetooth earbuds on the planet - but their successors, the so-called AirPods Pro 2 , could swap Bluetooth for a proprietary wireless streaming technology in a bid to bring lossless to its true wireless earbuds .
According to a patent spotted by Patently Apple , the company is working on a new optical audio transmission technology - and based on the illustrations included in the patent, it will work with the rumored Apple MR headset that could launch this year.
The patent describes a system that includes a headset that's acting as an audio source device. This headset contains an optical transmitter for sending audio data as an optical signal and a radio frequency (Bluetooth) transceiver. The system also includes a wireless earphone that has an optical receiver so it could pick up the audio data from the headset wirelessly, as well as an radio frequency transceiver to indicate the reception quality of the optical signal.
Optical audio transmission provides a higher bandwidth than Bluetooth, which could allow for earbuds using this technology to play lossless and hi-res audio files. Previously, Apple's AirPods have been limited to the highly compressed AAC codec, which doesn't allow for truly lossless streams - and that means you can't pick out the finer details in your music, despite Apple Music 's support for lossless audio.
As the AirPods Pro 2 are expected to be the next earbuds launched in the AirPods range, with a late 2022 release date hinted at by respected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. And, as the lack of hi-res audio support is one of the main drawbacks of the original AirPods Pro, it's not out of the question that optical audio transmission could come to the second-gen noise-cancelling earbuds .
There are some drawbacks to optical audio transmission, though. It only works over very short ranges and needs to have a line of sight between the transmitter and the receiver, so while it makes sense for it to transfer data between a headset and a pair of in-ear headphones , it wouldn't work if you wanted to stream music from a phone in your pocket (though it could work incredibly well for watching movies on Apple TV Plus , which would require you to have your phone in front of you anyway).
That issue is addressed in the patent by the inclusion of a radio frequency transceiver, which could feasibly allow the earbuds to use Bluetooth as a back up if the optical signal failed.
Still, only being able to experience hi-res audio when your audio source device is in the line of the sight of your AirPods doesn't sound ideal.
Analysis: what are Apple's options for lossless audio?
Apple does have other options for implementing lossless and hi-res audio in the AirPods Pro 2. Many true wireless earbuds already come with support for the aptX HD codec, which allows for 24-bit audio transmission over Bluetooth.
Lossless audio is a trickier problem to solve, as mathematically bit-for-bit music streams haven't been possible over Bluetooth due to its low bandwidth. However, Qualcomm recently announced aptX Lossless , which the company says is capable of delivering 16-bit / 44.1kHz audio over Bluetooth, without losing any data over a wireless connection.
We haven't seen this technology implemented just yet, but it's expected to come to headphones at some point this year. Unfortunately, as Apple hasn't utilized Qualcomm's technologies in the past, the likelihood that the AirPods Pro 2 will support aptX Lossless is negligible.
In any case, we know that Apple is interested in overcoming the limitations of Bluetooth audio transmission. In an interview with What Hi-Fi? , Apple's VP of Acoustics, Gary Geaves said that “there’s a number of tricks we can play to maximise or get around some of the limits of Bluetooth,” but that “it’s fair to say that we would like more bandwidth”.
Could one of these tricks be optical audio transmission? We'll just have to wait and see, but if rumors of a 2022 AirPods Pro 2 release date are to be believed, we won't have to wait long.