The LG G6 was announced today at Mobile World Congress featuring a 5.7-inch display with an 18:9 aspect ratio. The handset’s abnormally tall screen makes it easier to use two applications at the same time on top of each other but it also makes for unusually thin wallpapers. All of the wallpapers seen below are the stock images that come with LG’s latest flagship…
So the Google Pixel embargo dropped today, and if you haven’t noticed, it’s getting pretty good reviews — including from us. One of the nicer touches that Google added with the Pixel in this writer’s opinion is a wide variety of stock wallpapers to choose from. It seems that the wallpaper picker is pulling some of them from the web, but some others — the ones you see below — are actually found in an APK that ships with the Pixel…
After first planning to launch the app during Google I/O 2015 and changing its mind at the last minute, Google has finally launched Voice Access in beta, a new accessibility app that allows users to control their phone using their voice. With Voice Access, you can use a wide variety of voice commands like “open Chrome” to bring up the browser or “go home” to go to the home screen…
In its next major release this summer, Android will finally add a multi-window mode for both tablets and phones. Jide is beating Google to release today with a fully featured version of Remix OS 2.0 for its Ultratablet and the Nexus 9 and 10. ROMs for the two Nexus tablets are available to download now.
Big changes are coming to the community-based music streaming service SoundCloud as the company today introduces a new subscription service for the first time.
The new feature, dubbed SoundCloud Go, will allow users to listen to SoundCloud music both offline and ad-free for $10/month:
Update: The Miitomo app is now available on the Play Store.
The game is already available in Japan— that’s how Jeff managed to go hands-on in our first look video earlier this month— but today Nintendo confirmed that its first smartphone game, Miitomo, will officially arrive in the US on March 31st.
The game isn’t exactly bringing over any of Nintendo’s very popular first party franchises to Android devices, but it does feature known Mii characters and, as we noted in our review, the release feels very much like a Nintendo title:
When you first start Miitomo, it’s immediately recognizable as a Nintendo title. It feels like someone took my Nintendo Wii and shrunk it down to fit inside of my iPhone 6s. The music and sound effects, most notably, are of the characteristic Nintendo style. The Miis themselves look just like the Miis on the game-maker’s handheld and home consoles. The writing — witty, with just a hint of corniness thrown in for good measure — is classic Nintendo.
Nintendo noted in its press release today that Miitomo was downloaded over a million times in the first three days after launch in Japan and it also managed to become the #1 most downloaded free app in both the App Store and Google Play.
While Nintendo didn’t mention other countries by name today, it did say that “several other countries” will receive the title on the 31st alongside users in the US.
Check out our review of the game on our sister site 9to5Mac from earlier this month to get a first look before it officially arrives in the US and other countries on the 31st.
In a surprise move, Google announced today (as we told you earlier this morning) that the Android N developer preview is available for download. The simplest route is through the yet-to-be launched Android Beta Program, but as usual Google has also posted the factory images.
Facebook today announced it’s rolling out a new feature for its Messenger chat app that will let users book a car through Uber. The feature, it said, expands on other “integrations” it’s added recently outside of the app’s core chat functionality, like the ability to send money or use the app for customer support.
Google has quietly launched a Chrome beta for iOS through TestFlight, the beta distribution service Apple acquired last year and integrated into its own developer services. Google has yet to make an official announcement for the beta release, but users can already sign-up and download the beta when visiting Google’s Chrome beta download page on iOS.
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Google has now released the latest version of Android, dubbed Android Marshmallow, which the company first previewed earlier this year at Google I/O in San Francisco. And while Google will most certainly be rolling out the update (and subsequent updates) over-the-air with no work required on your part, many who aren’t as familiar with how to flash factory images might want to install the latest build manually.
That’s why we made this guide. If you have the Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 7 (2013) Nexus 9, or Nexus Player, there’s a build of Android 6.0 Marshmallow available right now for you to install on your device. Be warned however, that this process isn’t something that most regular users should attempt. If you do have a little bit of command line knowledge (or you think you want to take the time to learn), keep reading…
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Google Play has 10 tracks of Latin Vibes Free for a limited time. Just head on over and download the full album.
We can honestly say we are only familiar with one artist in this collection (I think you can guess who), but the price is just right.
Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service previously only allowed users of Amazon’s own Fire-branded Android devices to download content for offline viewing, but today the company announced it’s expanding that privilege to all iOS and Android users.
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The SmartWatch 3 is one of a few first-gen Android Wear devices that’s still sold on the Google Store, and now Sony has published an app on the Play Store that lets you customize all of your device’s default watch faces (via Android Police).
With the app, you can customize watch face backgrounds, hands, time markers, accent colors, and more features. Additionally, you can choose “from a range of widgets” that bring information like the current date and your step count to the front of your device.
There are three basic watch faces that are new thanks to the app: Classic, Watercolor, and Sony. The first is a traditional analog face, the second sports — as you might have guessed — some colorful designs, and Sony is a very basic digital face.
To use this app, Sony says that you have to have the Android Wear companion app installed on your device, and it’s probably a good idea to make sure that you have the latest version of Android Wear installed on your device as well.
You can grab the Sony SmartWatch 3 accessory app on the Play Store for free. If you’re like me, you probably think this means a bunch of awesome new watch faces to try on other Android Wear devices. I’ll save you the time in trying; this is for the SmartWatch 3 only.
It’s been possible on the web for quite a while, but a recent update to the Google Keep app now lets you quickly export your notes to a Google Doc. To do so, make sure you have the latest version of the app, and then select the notes you’d like to export. Then tap the drop down menu at the top right of the screen and tap “Copy to Google Doc”. It’s pretty nifty.
You can grab the app from the Play Store for free of course, and if you’d like to try out the feature right now, open this page on your Android device. All you have to do is tap below to download the APK (via APKMirror), and then tap the notification on your phone once the app is done downloading. You’ll be walked through a couple steps, and then you’ll be on the latest version.
Microsoft announced last month that its Cortana voice assistant would be coming to Android in beta at some point in July, but it looks like the APK has managed to leak out a bit early. We grabbed it as soon as we could, and decided to give it a look. And our first impression, frankly, is that there’s not really anything special about Cortana — especially when Android has Google Now, Hound, and other competitors to pick from.
According to The Information, Google secretly bought “app streaming” startup Agawi late last year, an acquisition that wasn’t reported until today. The company built technology that is basically the Netflix or Spotify of apps—letting users stream games and apps to their phone without having to necessarily “download” them:
The search giant last fall secretly acquired an “app streaming” startup called Agawi whose technology allows people to access apps on their smartphone without downloading them first.
The acquisition, which hasn’t been previously reported, provides strong clues about the direction that Google is trying to move mobile software development.
While Sony has yet to officially announce a second generation SmartBand fitness tracker, it briefly released a companion Android app this evening for the device before quickly taking it down. The app, no longer available in the Play Store, was simply titled SmartBand 2 and gave a handful of features we can expect to find in Sony’s upcoming wearable (via Xperia Blog).
Android Wear 5.1.1 is now rolling out to smartwatches everywhere, but as is the case with Google’s over-the-air updates, it might be days before you actually see the latest version pop up on your device. Rollouts start slowly, but thankfully there’s a way around Google’s careful and incremental rollout: OTA download links. It takes a little know-how to capture one, but once they’re discovered, anyone can simply download them to their computer and sideload them via ADB.
The over-the-air download links are now starting to show up for the most recently-released Android Wear 5.1.1 update, and you can find them organized below…
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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.
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Android 5.1 has slowly begun rolling out to Nexus devices over the last couple of weeks (and has been seen on Android One devices since February), but Google has today posted the factory image for the Nexus Player. Previously, Google updated the download page with links for the Nexus 5, 2012 WiFi Nexus 7, and the Nexus 10, and now you can manually update your new Nexus-branded Android TV set top box as well if you’d like.
Hit up Google’s developers site to find the Nexus Player’s Android 5.1 image, with build number LMY47D.
Update: It seems this is the image that shipped with the Verizon Nexus 6.
Android 5.1 factory images for Nexus devices have been hitting the Google developers’ website for a while now, but a new build of the Nexus 6 image titled “LMY47E” has now been released (via Android Police). It’s unclear exactly what this build is for, but it’s notably just one letter higher than the one we saw appear earlier this month.
Oddly, Google hasn’t decided which one they would like to keep available, and there’s no word on which users should be going with. Both are freely up for download over at the factory image download page right now. So if you’d like to try your hand at flashing the higher build to your device, there’s definitely nothing stopping you.
We’ll update this post when we have word on what’s new in this version.
The Apple Watch was once again shown off at Apple’s “Spring Forward” event on Monday, and it looks like the Android Wear community is already putting together some watch faces inspired by Apple’s selections. Ironically, first up is the iconic Mickey Mouse face that has been the brunt of many a joke in the Android community on Google+, and it looks like the XDA-Developers user who made it did a pretty good job of replicating the real deal…
Google recently started publishing Nexus factory images for Android 5.1, but now download links for the over-the-air update are hitting the Internet. It likely won’t be long before your Nexus device has the update up and running (5.1 for the Sprint Nexus 6 started rolling out yesterday, for example), but if you just can’t wait to get your hands on those performance improvements, we’ve got you covered…
