Android

Update: Speaking to TechWeekEurope, Barclays has indicated it has no plans to support Android Pay in the UK. Instead, it would rather continue with its own apps for contactless payment.

“At this stage we are not planning on participating in Android Pay in the UK,” a spokesperson said. “In January this year we introduced a contactless mobile payment feature to the Barclaycard Android app that allows customers with an Android phone to make contactless payments for £30 and under, and at some retailers for up to £100.”

Recently it was rumored that Android Pay would finally land in the UK, and other international destinations, in March. With this month quickly running out of days, Google has officially announced that its mobile payments service will be launching at some point in the next few months. No specific date has been revealed, but, several banks are already onboard.

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According to a report from The Verge, Google is building its own third-party keyboard for iOS and has been doing so for “months.” While it’s unclear when or if the keyboard will be released, the report notes of several features Google has been working to implement as employees test it.

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The Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge has been on the market for roughly a week, and in that first few days, we’ve been testing a number of third party cases to see which we think are the best. Thanks to the phone’s IP67 rating, we know the phone is already pretty well equipped to handle the elements, but a little extra protection from drops and scuffs is always a good thing.

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Yesterday morning, at a relatively low key event without much fanfare and following the almost ritual avalanche of leaked schematics and what have you, Apple officially announced the iPhone SE. With a chassis virtually identical to that of the iPhone 5s – and 5 before it, for that matter – the smaller-sized iPhone came back in all of its four-inch glory, and not without raising eyebrows.

According to the company’s claims, however, about thirty million people bought a 4-inch iPhone last year, amounting to almost 8% of all Apple phones sold. Considering the massive marketing push made to advertise the four bigger-screened iPhones introduced in the past couple of years, that certainly is no small feat, indicating that there indeed still is interest for smaller devices, a market the Cupertino giant would be naive to ignore.

Sure, the much more variegated Android landscape has offered a few notable options in years past, but those were either afterthoughts, less powerful ‘mini’ versions of established flagships, or devices explicitly designed to be sub-par when compared to their siblings. The iPhone SE may lack 3D Touch and newer-generation Touch ID, but the rest of the package is clearly inspired by the iPhone 6s’ spec-sheet, and nothing says that this smaller sibling isn’t here to stay.

And that begs the question of how this is going to impact the Android landscape. Are Android manufacturers going to follow suit the coming years, or instead pray for the SE to be a one hit wonder (or a complete dud) – and thus something less to worry about?

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From adding regional accents to multiple male and female voices, Google has made great strides in making computers sound more natural. According to a video posted today on YouTube, a new voice rolling out to Google Now takes that a step further…

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HTC has announced today that its upcoming flagship HTC 10 (HTC M10?) handset will be announced by way of an online-only event set to take place on April 12th…
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LG revealed details of two Android Marshmallow-powered phones called the X screen and X cam just about a month ago, and now the Korean company has announced that they’re beginning to roll out first in South Korea and then following in other markets including “Europe, Latin America and Asia.” It’s not exactly surprising, but LG seems to be taking a pass on these phones for North America…

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To reflect the recent expansion of its Google Cast streaming platform, Google’s Chromecast app is being renamed to the “Google Cast” app. Google is also announcing some new Google Cast-enabled speakers and TVs from Vizio. 
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Besides the flagship P9, Huawei is also expected to release a smaller P9 Lite and phablet P9 Max at its April 6 event in London. Today, renders of the P9 Lite purportedly show off the device for the first time and several new images have surfaced of the P9 being used in the wild…

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We already knew the LG G5 would launch in early April at the major US retailers (with a free spare battery and cradle offer in tow), but today AT&T makes things official for its customers announcing a preorder date of March 21st ahead of a launch on April 1st.
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In case you hadn’t heard, Android N adds a split-screen mode for phones/tablets and picture-in-picture for Android TV. As previously reported, it also has code references to a freeform mode that allows users to freely resize an app. Now, ArsTechnica (via developer Zhuowei Zhang) has managed to enable the mode and it reveals a very desktop-like UI…

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The LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE — yeah, that’s a mouthful of a name isn’t it? — is back. The Android Wear smartwatch that was supposed to debut the latest version of Google’s smartwatch software all the way back in November of last year was pulled from sale just days after it became available. LG eventually confirmed that the device was suffering a quality issue with a display component, but it was unclear what the device’s future would be.

Now, it seems that the Korean company has relaunched the LTE-enabled smartwatch…
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The HTC One M10 — rumored to be called simply the HTC 10 — has already leaked almost in full at this point. The phone, perhaps unsurprisingly, is going to ship with very similar specs as other early 2016 Android flagships, including of course being built around Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 system-on-a-chip. Now, Evleaks has come out to contradict some previous rumors saying that its previously-rumored AMOLED display is actually going to be a Super LCD 5 and that the phone will have a 3,000 mAh battery…

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We know that T-Mobile likes to distinguish itself from other US carriers, and that usually results in some bizarre stunts. Last month, to emphasize the return of water resistance in the Galaxy S7, the company set up a completely underwater-shot video unboxing of the device, and now that the LG G5 is about to reach stores across the country, T-Mobile is back at it again…

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At CES, Lenovo announced that the Motorola brand name would be phased out in favor of ‘Moto’ and ‘by Lenovo’ branding. Today, the company announced a restructuring of its Mobile Business Group that sees the exit of long-time Motorola president Rick Osterloh.

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The LG G5 is a weird phone, but that’s not a bad thing. If you only look at the spec sheet, there’s not much about LG’s latest G series handset that sets it apart from the other Snapdragon 820-powered competition. On paper, it might as well just be another option available for those perusing the shelves at their local carrier store. It has USB Type-C, a fingerprint sensor on the back, a nice camera set up, and a decent build. All of these things are expected of a 2016 flagship.

But the weirdness of the LG G5 is what makes it intriguing to me. Samsung ditched its plastic in favor of a premium metal and glass build with last year’s handset, and this year LG is following in step with an obvious evolution in the design of the phone. The all-metal beast now just has a single lock button around the back, the volume rockers have been moved to the sides, there’s a dual-camera set up, and most of all, this phone is modular…

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