One of the keystone features of Huawei’s P9 smartphone is its dual-camera system. Huawei pushed hard to market the photography aspect of the camera, claiming it was going to “change smartphone photography forever.”
In our own experience with the P9, Digital Trends writer Andy Boxall said the cameras inside the P9 — which were co-developed with Leica — were some of the “finest we’ve used on any smartphone.” And the photos he shared backed up this statement.
So you would think that Huawei would have no need to falsify information and inaccurately portray the capabilities of the P9’s camera system. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Back on March 8, 2016, Huawei shared a post on its Google Plus page that has since been deleted. In it, the Chinese manufacturer shared an example photo with text that implied the image was captured with the P9 smartphone.
As inspiring as the text might have sounded, the data behind the image didn’t seem to line up with it. As the EXIF data tools built into Google Plus showed, the photograph was instead taken on a Canon EOS 5D Mark III camera with an EF 70–200mm f/2.8L IS II lens attached; a $4,500 setup that’s a far cry from the P9 and its Leica-branded camera system.
Technically, Huawei never explicitly stated that the image was captured with its P9 smartphone. But it does seem highly irresponsible to word the caption in a manner that implied it was.
In speaking to Android Police, Huawei admitted to the misrepresentation and apologized, saying, “The photo, which was professionally taken while filming a Huawei P9 advert, was shared to inspire our community. We recognize though that we should have been clearer with the captions for this image. It was never our intention to mislead. We apologize for this and we have removed the image.”
We’ll leave it up to you to decide whether this was an honest mistake or deceptive marketing.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.
Samsung’s scandal over its Game Optimizing Service, or GOS, has returned with a bill attached. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has tentatively fined the company 20.1 billion won, or about $15.1 million, over gaming claims made for the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S22, and Tab S8.
The regulator says Samsung promoted the devices as gaming powerhouses without disclosing that GOS placed preset CPU and GPU limits on certain demanding games. Samsung disputes that conclusion, calling GOS a legitimate way to manage heat.