Stephen is Growth Director at 9to5. You can find his current work at 9to5Mac, 9to5Google 9to5Toys, Electrek, and more. If you want to get in touch, follow me on Twitter. Or, email at stephen (at) 9to5mac (dot) com, or an encrypted email at hallstephenj (at) protonmail (dot) com.
Most of the money transfer services that have popped up in Silicon Valley over the last several years don’t directly offer any federal-level insurance, and Google Wallet—until today—was a pretty good example. But now, according to a report from Yahoo Finance, Google is adding FDIC insurance to the money you keep in your Wallet Balance by storing your funds in various FDIC-insured banking institutions…
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google finalized a deal to acquire Surprise, Arizona startup Athena Wireless Communications in February of this year, according to reports. The company has been around for several years and has spent much of that time building wireless LTE and small cell technologies that can move data at gigabit Fiber-like speeds. The acquisition is an obvious one for a company such as Google that is continuing to build out its Google Fiber infrastructure and has plans to announce its own MVNO…
Expand
Expanding
Close
Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.
OnePlus is definitely known for their hype and their inability to actually deliver, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and hope that this isn’t yet another example of that. The company has this afternoon taken to its Google+ page to post the image above, teasing some kind of event or announcement for April 20th. “You’re invited,” the company says, but we don’t really know what we’re invited to.
Expand
Expanding
Close
The latest version of Google+ for Android—which started rolling out earlier today—gives G+ communities a pretty nifty new redesign. First shared on Google+ by Googler Danielle Buckley, the update makes the community screens a bit more unique with a UI that’s a notable change compared to the rest of the app. One of the annoyances of the Google+ app has long been that it can be hard to tell what you’re looking at because it’s so uniformly designed, and this update seems to make it a bit easier for you to instinctively know that you’re viewing a community.
Announcing: Improved look & feel for Communities
Check out your favorite community on Android to see the new and improved look in this week’s app update (currently rolling out). We hope you’ll love it!
Google+ isn’t the most popular social network, but it does have many loyal users—who, unsurprisingly, are commonly loyal fanboys of Google as a whole. I personally can attest to the fact that Google+ isn’t necessarily the ghost town that it’s claimed to be, though, as I’m the owner of the largest Android Wear community (with more than 40,000 members). It makes me glad to see that this community is now going to look just a bit better on mobile. This visual redesign can be found in version 5.3 of the Google+ app, which is rolling out on the Google Play Store today.
Microsoft’s Bing isn’t the most popular search engine around, but—at least according to the latest from comScore—it’s gaining ground slowly but surely. For the first time, Microsoft sites have surpassed the 20% milestone, meaning more than one fifth of overall search traffic is now owned by the Redmond, Washington company…
Expand
Expanding
Close
Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.
Google Cardboard is getting pretty popular, and Google has today announced a new program called “Works with Google Cardboard” that unifies all the third-party viewers that have cropped up with a cute little orange badge. But beyond the visual representation of the program, it’s an attempt by Google to bring together the various variants of Cardboard and make sure they’ll all work with the many available Cardboard apps (and app developers can play along, too)…
Niantic Labs is the group within Google that’s behind the famed Ingress augmented reality game, but they have another app that definitely gets a lot less attention. It’s called Field Trip, and it lets you quickly and easily find places of interest around your physical location. You don’t even have to use the app yourself—it runs in the background and automatically lets you know when you’re getting close to “cool, hidden, and unique things in the world around you.” Now, the app will send those notifications to your wrist…
Expand
Expanding
Close
In what may be taken as some dreadful news to long-time fans of Cyanogen’s work in the custom Android-based ROM space, the group has today announced a partnership with Microsoft to pre-install many of the Redmond company’s consumer-facing apps on its mobile OS…
Expand
Expanding
Close
There isn’t much new to see of the G4’s externals, as we’ve pretty much seen the device from every angle possible at this point. But what we can gleam once again from the above image, posted by LG itself on the company’s Google+ page, is that the previous leaks were indeed legitimate renders of the upcoming handset.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Evidence of a Moto Maker-like “Google Workshop” service for designing custom Nexus 5 cases surfaced last year, but no real product or service ever came of the rumors. The speculation has now been given new life, though, thanks to a recently posted photo from a Googler on Google+, and this time the Nexus 6—Google’s latest flagship—is the subject smartphone getting a custom case…
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google has today released version 1.0 of its new “Handwriting Input” keyboard, which lets you manually draw the text you would like to type. The app works on both smartphones and tablets as you can see in the gallery below, and it’s—based on my first few minutes using the app—actually pretty good at deciphering your handwriting no matter how bad it may be. It works in any Android app that has a text input field.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.
Moto G No-contract phone for $25 (orig. $100) only for one more hour http://t.co/20Th2mbUhd pic.twitter.com/fnwb1UjBIS
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) April 15, 2015
Update: AT&T has also announced that the Galaxy S5 Active is now receiving Android 5.0 Lollipop. The update includes a variety of changes and improvements, which can be viewed on AT&T’s website now.
We told you earlier today about another device from AT&T that’s getting Lollipop, and now it seems like the Samsung Galaxy Alpha is getting the overhaul as well. As AT&T has announced on their support site, the firmware update is rolling out now over-the-air, and you’ll need a WiFi connection to download the 1 GB file.
Specifically, this is Android Lollipop version 5.0.2, the release that came just before the most-recent 5.1 version. As you probably already know, Android Lollipop comes packed with Material Design, new and improved notifications, multiple device user accounts, and more features.
Google invited developers in mid-November of last year to submit apps that integrate Google Fit, and now they’ve announced the winners of that contest. The main requirement was that the app integrated Fit in some way, and judges were specifically looking for apps that were “innovative, fun to use, keep users coming back, offer users real benefit, and meet the Android design and quality guidelines.”
It looks like they’ve made their picks.
The winners include six apps that are brand new, and six that were updated to include Google Fit features. The two grand prize winners from each category will be receiving some nice swag from contest partners adidas, Polar, and Withings, to further their development. Prizes include X_CELL and SPEED_CELL activity trackers from adidas, a new Android Wear device, a Loop activity tracker and more.
Here’s the full list of winners, all of which will be getting the spotlight on Google Play at some point in the coming months:
- 7MinGym: All you need is this app, a chair, and a wall to start benefiting from 7 minute workouts at home. You can play music from your favorite music app and cast your workout to Chromecast or Android TV.
- Aqualert: This app reminds you to stay hydrated throughout the day and lets you track your water intake.
- Cinch Weight Loss and Fitness: Cinch helps you with detailed information your steps taken and calories burned. The app also supports heart-rate tracking with compatible Android Wear devices.
- FitHub: FitHub lets you track your fitness activity from multiple accounts, including Google Fit, and multiple wearable devices, including Android Wear. You can also add your friends to compare your progress!
- FitSquad: FitSquad turns fitness into a competition. Join your friends in a squad to compare progress, track achievements, and cheer each other on.
- Instant – Quantified Self: Instant is a lifestyle app that helps you track not only your physical activity but your digital activity too and tells you how much you’re using your phone and apps.other activity. You can also set usage limits and reminders.
- Jump Rope Wear Counter: This simple app lets you count your jump rope skips with an Android Wear device.
- Move it!: This app packs one neat feature – it reminds you to get up and move about if you haven’t been active in the last hour.
- Openrider – GPS Cycling Riding: Track and map your cycle routes with Openrider.
- Running Buddies: In this run tracking app, runners can choose to share their runs and stats with those around them so that they can find other runners similar to themselves to go running with.
- Strength: Strength is a workout tracking app that also lets you choose from a number of routines, so you can get to your workout quickly and track it without manual data entry. Schedules and rest timers come included.
- Walkholic: Walkholic is another way to see your Google Fit walking, cycling, and running data. You can also turn on notifications if you don’t meet your own preset goals.
Ditching the Ascend name, Huawei has today announced its P8 flagship smartphone, most notably packing a steel metal construction and some nifty new camera features built around a 13-megapixel main shooter with optical image stabilization. Of course the software on the device got a bump into 2015 as well, bringing on board Google’s Android Lollipop (or at least Huawei’s version of it).
Expand
Expanding
Close
The LG G2 is one of the most trusty Android phones to have ever launched. Even to this day, it’s regarded as still one of the better buys if you’re looking for an Android phone unlocked under $200. Its tried-and-true horsepower is again being proven today, as the AT&T variant of the device is now receiving the latest version of Android—specifically 5.0.1 Lollipop.
On top of adding Lollipop, AT&T says that the update is also removing a couple things—namely the “Browser Bar and Famigo,” and “AT&T Code Scanner and Beats Music.” Keep your eye on your handset over the next couple of days to catch the new software, and as usual, you’ll need to be connected to WiFi to download the over-the-air update.
Huawei is about to announce its next flagship, the Huawei P8, and you can watch the livestream of the global announcement right here. There’s not much known about the P8 besides the fact that Huawei is doing away with the “Ascend” part of its name, but the company is teasing a “Revamp the possibilities of light” motto for today’s event—meaning we might be seeing some kind of new screen or camera technology.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Fnord Software has today announced that they’re releasing a free plugin for Adobe Premiere Pro CC that adds support for Google’s WebM video format. But the plugin doesn’t just add WebM support to Premiere Pro CC, but also other parts of Adobe Creative Cloud including Adobe Media Encoder and more.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.
Google is inviting developers to opt-in to a new program launching on Google Play, which will distinguish apps that meet certain requirement as being “family-friendly.” The program, called “Designed for Families” is launching “in several weeks,” and will bring a new “family-focused” experience to the Mountain View company’s app store…
Expand
Expanding
Close
The next iteration of Google Glass is already in the works, but not much information has surfaced thus far about what the device’s hardware will be like. Google has given much of its focus and attention to the Glass at Work program over the last couple of years, and it’s no secret that specific work applications have been where the device has found its best use cases, but what will that mean for the direction that Google takes with the device’s hardware in the future?
A newly-published patent might give us an idea, and it might involve a new way to get information from the wearable display device based on where you’re looking.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Android 5.1 has been slowly but surely making its way to the slew of Nexus devices that still get updates, and the Nexus 4 was one—until just now—that still hadn’t gotten the latest version of Lollipop. The factory image still hasn’t been uploaded to Google’s developers’ website (we’ll update this post when that’s available), but some Nexus 4 owners are already receiving the update over-the-air and have kindly shared the download link—meaning you can get the update right now straight from Google’s servers.
Expand
Expanding
Close