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Today’s topics include a mobile device market report that shows iPhone 7 Plus sales are outpacing iPhone 7 sales during the first few days of availability, Samsung’s plan to replace all Note7 smartphones starting Sept. 21, Oracle’s announcement that Java 9 may be delayed until July 2017 and Microsoft’s update to Outlook.com that supports iOS and Android.
Most online Apple smartphone buyers were choosing the larger iPhone 7 Plus model over its smaller iPhone 7 model, according to online preorder sales data collected and analyzed by digital commerce research firm Slice Intelligence.
That trend contrasts with the market performance of the previous generation iPhone models when sales of the smaller iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s phones beat out initial sales figures for the iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 6s Plus, according to Slice. It’s the first time that such a shift in purchasing preferences has occurred, according to Slice.
In the early days of availability, 55 percent of iPhone 7 buyers chose the larger iPhone 7 Plus handset, compared to 45 percent who chose the smaller iPhone 7, compared with 59 percent of buyers who bought the iPhone 6s a year ago and 41 percent who bought the iPhone 6s Plus at that time.
Samsung Galaxy Note7 smartphone owners will be able to begin exchanging their now-recalled phones for improved devices starting Sept. 21, according to advisories from mobile carriers AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile. Verizon customers can also exchange their phones, but the carrier has not yet issued a formal statement about the exchange or refund program.
Some 1 million Note7 smartphones were recalled Sept. 15 by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission after at least 92 battery fires or explosions were reported with the new phones due to a defect in the handsets’ rechargeable batteries.
The recall, known as Recall No. 16-266, applies to all Samsung Galaxy Note7 smartphones sold before Sept. 15, 2016, according to the agency.
Oracle announced that Java 9’s release may once again be delayed and is now expected to reach the market in July 2017.
In a message on the OpenJDK mailing list this week, Mark Reinhold, chief architect of the Java Platform Group at Oracle, said the team needs more time to work on Project Jigsaw, which aims to modularize the platform to make it scalable to a wider range of devices, make it easier for developers to construct and maintain code libraries and large applications as well as improve security and performance, Oracle said.
Reinhold proposed that the release schedule for the Java Development Kit 9 should be extended for four months, which means that it should be generally available in July 2017.
Outlook apps for iOS and Android already feature Google Drive support, enabling users to access their files on the cloud storage service. Last week, Microsoft announced that it was extending similar functionality to Outlook.com.
Users of Hotmail’s successor can now link their Google Drive accounts by selecting the option under the Attachment menu icon. After entering their Google account details, they can browse and select the files they wish to use as message attachments. Outlook.com offers users similar integrations with Box, Dropbox and Microsoft’s own OneDrive cloud file storage, synchronization and share service.