Fortnite players everywhere are well aware that the popular game — which has been available on the App Store for quite a while now — has yet to hit Android. Now, we’ve learned a few tidbits about its imminent launch from a source familiar with the plan. The game will be available exclusively on the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 for 30 days and then arrive on other Android handsets shortly thereafter.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Along with the upcoming Messages for web feature, the latest version of Android Messages reveals that Google is working on a Material Theme for its default RCS client. We’ve managed to enable this under development look that brings the app in line with other recently updated Google services. There is also an in-progress revamp to search functionality that includes filters and GIF lookup.

Expand
Expanding
Close

You may have noticed that we got our hands on some as-yet unreleased Google app icons this week, and we’ve slowly been trickling them out as we’ve become a little more confident on what they might mean. While all we have are these little icons and their names for now, here’s the full gallery of all the ones we have and what they might mean for announcements at Google I/O next week…

Expand
Expanding
Close

We’ve been talking about Android P’s forthcoming navigation revamp here at 9to5Google for about a month, and just last week Google finally let the cat out of the bag itself in a leaked navigation bar in a screenshot on one of the company’s official blogs. Now, based on information from a source who has used the new UI, we have details on how it works and what it looks like.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Update: We’ve confirmed with two sources that the LG G6 production model in the US will have a 3,300 mAh battery, not a 3,200 mAh battery. We’re also told that the battery has “better layering between cells” to prevent Note 7-like disasters. There is at least one internal variant with a 3,200 mAh battery, but it’s not clear if that model will go public.

The LG G6 is far from being a secret at this point, with LG itself going as far as to confirm its ‘FullVision’ 18:9 5.7-inch display, offer a peek at the new LG UX 6.0 software, and send out a few teasers to various media outlets suggesting that it will feature ‘resistance’ and ‘reliability’. LG has also itself confirmed that the phone will have a 32-bit Quad-DAC like the LG V20.

But we haven’t seen all that many photos of the phone in the flesh, so we thought we would share a couple images we recently obtained from a source.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Regina Dugan recently left her position heading up Google’s Advanced Technologies and Projects group to lead a new hardware initiative at Facebook. That’s obviously not great news for Google, as Dugan was the head of many of the company’s growing ATAP projects (including Ara, the company’s ambitious modular smartphone project). But maybe it was inevitable.

Dugan’s position at Google has been a weird one from the start. Silicon Valley’s super-fast reckless “break things fast” mindset that she was quickly confronted with upon arriving at Google conflicted with her many years of experience at the United States government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Recently, she highlighted this in a story of her first meeting at Google…

Expand
Expanding
Close

Before the Nexus 6P launched, it seemed — thanks to some early render leaks — that four different colors of the phone were going to be available for consumers. Come the Nexus event in September, only three colors (Aluminium, Graphite, or Frost) were available in most regions, with only Japan announced to be getting access to the last “Special Edition” gold variant. According to people familiar with the matter, the company is planning to soon begin selling the Nexus 6P via Best Buy, and finally launch the gold variant in the United States after only just recently making it available to Japanese customers through cellular carrier SoftBank…

Expand
Expanding
Close

When Motorola launched its first smartphone as a Google company with the Moto X back in August, the big stand out feature for the device was the ability to apply over 2000 customizations at the time of purchase. Motorola let users pick the front, back, and accent colors, match headphone and case colors, and more all though its MotoMaker.com online ordering tool. Unfortunately, until today the MotoMaker tool was exclusive to AT&T with other carriers only selling white and black models of the Moto X.

The good news is AT&T’s exclusivity window has now officially ended and starting today you can order a customized Moto X through Moto Maker from all major US carriers including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon.
Expand
Expanding
Close

https://vimeo.com/69352543

Yesterday we noted that Best Buy retail sources indicated the popular ‘Pebble’ Bluetooth smart watch would be landing on at least some of the retailer’s store shelves this weekend. Today Pebble and Best Buy have finally made things official by announcing the partnership that will bring the most successful Kickstarter-backed device of all time to both Best Buy online and across all its U.S. brick and mortar locations.

It’s definitely big news for the company ahead of Apple’s rumored smart watch, as well as Sony and others getting deeper into the space. The exclusive retail partnership with Best Buy also marks Pebble’s first retail launch of the device after raising over $10.2 million from around 68,000 backers on Kickstarter.
Expand
Expanding
Close

After releasing a free version of the Quickoffice iPad app for its Google Apps for Business customers in December, Google today announced free iPhone and Android versions of the app exclusively for its Apps for Business customers.

Google Apps for Business can already edit Microsoft Office files using Quickoffice on an iPad, and starting today they can do the same on iPhone and Androiddevices. From Word to Excel to Powerpoint, you can make quick edits at the airport or from the back of a taxi and save and share everything in Google Drive… iPad and iPhone users can open and edit Office files directly from the Drive app. Just open Drive and select the file, make edits using Quickoffice and save it back to Drive.

Google noted the updated apps also bring new features including support for multiple Google Drive accounts, improved chart rendering, ZIP folders from multiple files, and the ability to sort Drive files by “Shared with me, Starred, and Recent”:

Expand
Expanding
Close