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.
Update: Instagram has pulled the feature from everyone that had it this morning, maybe?
One of the most long-awaited Instagram features, multiple account support, is now being tested on a variety of Android devices. Most people started noticing the feature after version 7.12.0 of the app started rolling out over the last day or two, but the company has yet to make the addition official — and it appears to be a server-side switch that enables it…
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Black Friday is upon us, and that means deals galore. As we mentioned in our gameplan for Apple buyers, though, the biggest “don’t” of Black Friday is to actually go to a physical store. To keep you in the comfort of your home today, we’ve pulled together all of the best deals for Google and Android fans — and all it takes is clicking a few buttons to have these products at your doorstep in a matter of days. Keep reading for the best Google-y Black Friday deals of 2015…
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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.
Heads up! During Black Friday/Cyber Monday you’re going to have to follow us on Twitter to get the best deals since many sell out too quickly to post.
If you’re looking to buy some Google-y phones and tablets and laptops and smartwatches for your loved ones this holiday season, look no further. We’ve had our hands on most Android phones, Android Wear smartwatches, and Chromebooks to come out over the last 12 months, and now it’s time to decide which are the best of the best. Read on…
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I used a Nexus 5X throughout most of October (and was very frustrated with it), but earlier this week the LG V10 showed up at my doorstep — and I just had to give it a shot for a couple weeks. Although my opinion may be skewed thanks to my less than joyful experience with the 5X, I actually found the LG V10 to be a contender for best handset I’ve used this year. It’s huge and heavy, yes, but at least for me, it’s more than feature-complete enough. And it’s especially great when you ditch LG’s software…
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I’m in agreement with most that the Huawei Watch is one of the best Android Wear smartwatches of the year (and thereby one of the best smartwatches of the year, period), and now it’s getting a little better. According to a post on the Huawei Community blog, the device is now getting a minor maintenance release with optimizations all-around a new watch face, and a new app…
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Heads up! During Black Friday/Cyber Monday you’re going to have to follow us on Twitter to get the best deals since many sell out too quickly to post.
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Owners of the recently-released Nexus 6P on Australian carrier Telstra have been complaining of sporadic 4G issues since the phone first launched, and now it appears (via Ausdroid) that these users are receiving an OTA update to fix these issues.
The update comes in at a solid 71.1 MB and specifically mentions improving “4G network connectivity for your Nexus 6P.” The build number is MMB29N, and the Android security patch level is still at November 1, 2015. Reports from Twitter suggest that the problems are indeed resolved.
You can download the OTA update directly from Google’s servers by clicking the link below, and info on how to install it can be found in our guide.
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.
Heads up! During Black Friday/Cyber Monday you’re going to have to follow us on Twitter to get the best deals since many sell out too quickly to post.
We told you early this year that Google added a mortgage calculator to Search, and now the company is taking things a step further. As was first mentioned by Google all the way back in May of this year, Google Compare for U.S. mortgages has now launched in California — with more states to follow…
Google Compare for mortgages provides a seamless, intuitive experience that connects lenders with borrowers online. Whether you’re a national lender or one local to California, people searching for mortgages on their smartphone or desktop computer can now find you, along with a real-time, apples-to-apples comparison of rate quotes from other lenders — all in as little as a minute.
You can head over to the Compare site to check out the new tool, and if you reside in California, you can actually use it. If you’re not one of the lucky souls that lives in the Golden State, you can of course use the quick mortgage calculator in search.
The then-under-Google X Life Sciences team made its “capicola” health tracker official in an interview with Bloomberg earlier this year, but until now we’ve only seen one stock image of the device. Andy Conrad, head of the life sciences team, was quoted at the time as saying that this device is to be used primarily for medical purposes, such as prescribed to patients or used in clinical trials. Now, we have another look at the device — which has the FCC ID A4R-CAP1 — in a little more detail…
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The inaugural Android Dev Summit kicked off earlier today, and Google has conveniently provided a livestream for developers that might want to tune in. You can find schedules for day 1 and day 2 below, as well as the YouTube streams embedded for your convenience.
Day 1:
9:05am Keynote
9:45am Android Application Architecture
11:00am Notification Best Practices
11:45am Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe
1:30pm RecyclerView Animations and Behind the Scenes
2:15pm Support Library: Guts and Glory
3:30pm “”Mother, may I?”” Asking for Permissions
4:15pm Framework Fireside Chat
Day 2:
9:00am What’s new in Android Studio
9:45am Data Binding — write apps faster
11:00am The Android Build System
11:45am Android Testing
1:30pm Android Studio for Experts
3:30pm Developing for Android: The Naughty Bits
4:15pm Android Tools and Testing Fireside Chat:
5:00pm Closing Notes
Google has today launched Android Studio 2.0, the first major update to the company’s IDE since it saw its original stable release in December of last year. Among other features, Android Studio 2.0 brings a revamped Android emulator, a new “Instant Run” feature, and more…
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Samsung really wants you to use its new payments service, and they’re even willing to give you a $50 Best Buy gift card if you get on board. To get the free gift card, you need to register on Samsung’s website and activate Samsung Pay on an eligible device between Friday, November 20th and the end of the year.
The eligible devices include Samsung Galaxy S6, Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+, and Samsung Galaxy Note 5 (of any configuration). You can get the Samsung Pay app on the Play Store, and you need to register at least 1 qualifying card within the app.
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.
Heads up! During Black Friday/Cyber Monday you’re going to have to follow us on Twitter to get the best deals since many sell out too quickly to post.
A few months ago a report surfaced suggesting that Google has plans to bring the Play Store to China, and today another report surfaced (via Reuters) that Google has plans to bring the Play Store to China. You read that sentence correctly; there isn’t anything new here. But if you had any doubt that Google was going to be headed (back) over the Pacific, I think you can put that doubt to rest…
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Not a single phone manages to escape odd glitches and bugs at some point in its lifetime, and now it looks like it’s the Nexus 5X’s turn for a “gate”. I’ve told you about (what I believe to be) inexcusable performance issues, and now it seems many users are having another problem: unresponsive touch screens while the device is charging…
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Sundar Pichai has taken to the Google for Work blog today to announce that Diane Greene, co-founder of VMWare, is taking lead of a newly-organized group at Google that combines the company’s cloud businesses. Besides the obvious Google Cloud Platform, this move pulls in Google for Work and Google Apps to make one integrated team…
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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.
Heads up! During Black Friday/Cyber Monday you’re going to have to follow us on Twitter to get the best deals since many sell out too quickly to post.
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Android Studio 1.0
Last week we told you that Android Studio 1.5 became available in the beta release channel, and now Google has announced that it’s being pushed out to everyone. This release is “focused on delivering more stability,” Google says. Most of the upgrades here are under the hood.
Here’s a rundown of some of the bug fixes in this version:
You can check for updates within the app, or head over to the Android Studio site to grab a fresh version if you need it. Android Studio comes with the Studio IDE, the SDK tools, and the Android 6.0 platform and emulator.
Huawei Watch is the star of the Android Wear show right now, but availability of higher-end gold models has been almost non-existent up to this point. Now, as per Huawei’s official blog, it looks like the rose gold variant (which, to us, looks like regular gold) is now available for purchase.
This is the “Rose Gold Stainless Steel with Brown Leather Strap” model specifically, and it’s currently in stock over at the GetHuawei website for $700. The watch has a 22K gold plated case, a “coin-edge top ring” and an alligator pressed strap. It looks nice, if you ask us.
Like the other models, this watch has a 1.4-inch AMOLED displaycovered by sapphire crystal. The Huawei Watch is powered by a 300 mAh battery, a 1.2Ghz Snapdragon 400 processor, and packs 512 MB of RAM along with 4 GB of flash storage.
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.
Heads up! During Black Friday/Cyber Monday you’re going to have to follow us on Twitter to get the best deals since many sell out too quickly to post.
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Well-known designer Jonathan Adler has put together a new Moto X Pure Edition collection, all intended to capture the “spirit” of Moto Maker. The designs most definitely also have a holiday feel to them, so they might make a great gift if you know someone panning for the latest Moto X.
This holiday season, Motorola has something for every style lover on your list, including an all new Moto X Pure collection designed by the iconic Jonathan Adler. The limited-edition collection features three eye-catching, stylish phones that Jonathan felt captured the spirit of Moto Maker, our online phone design studio.
The collection will be available for pre-order at Motorola.com/JonathanAdler beginning November 24, and will officially go on sale December 3 for $474.99 (32GB). To help round out the rest of your shopping list, we asked Jonathan to share his top holiday gifting tips for the style-obsessed friends and family in your life.
Here’s what the three new phones look like:
It’s not exactly just AOSP, but Oppo has today introduced Project Spectrum, a flavor of Android for its line of phones that combines what the company says is the best of stock Android and its own in-house built features. At first glance, you might think you’re using a Nexus or Motorola handset, which is definitely a great thing, but Spectrum adds some add-ons from its ColorOS that add a little bit to the experience…
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