If you own a T-Mobile Moto X and are impatient to upgrade to KitKat (aka Android 4.4), the firmware has been leaked on xdaDevelopers.
As ever with unofficial ROM flashes, caution is your watchword. Make sure you have a good backup, and read the thread (a continuation of an earlier 4.3 leak) carefully before deciding whether or not to proceed.
There’s no question that with every new smartphone release, we look at the camera, the display and ultimately, the battery. As the Nexus 5 begins making its way to the masses, some new software and performance enhancements will offer a slight boost in battery life.
As GigaOM points out, the inclusion of Qualcomm’s new “envelope tracking technology” will make the Nexus 5 a more battery friendly, power-efficient smartphone. Qualcomm’s envelope tracker, dubbed the QFE1100 was first introduced to the world with the Galaxy Note 3, highlighting the Nexus 5 as the second smartphone to include the tech.
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After leaking a clear image of the black model yesterday, prolific leaker @evleaks has posted a render of the upcoming Nexus 5 in a white color option. As can be seen in the image above, the white model is actually a two-tone device: a black front, a white back, and black accents around the sides and rear-camera system…
I recently heard word that Google was putting the finishing touches on a Watch product. Details are slim but the person seemed to think that Google Now functionality would be at the center of the product.
Thinking about this, Google could put a lot of the functionality of Google Glass in the watch product. Push a button, ask a question, get a response as the watch talks to the Now-enabled smartphone. Also, the ‘serendipitous’ information that Google Now shows you on your phone could come up in the watch. Time to get home, Calendar alarms, emails, SMSes, etc. all could get pushed to the watch’s display
Google is focusing on longer battery life and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity. There was no word on the type of sensors and health monitoring functionality that Apple is rumored to be working on.
We’d heard earlier some details from Artem Russakovskii, which I can’t confirm, but considering my info now bears repeating:
Google will announce a Nexus watch, codenamed Gem, likely together with the KitKat announcement. The date I have, which, once again, is about a month old, is also October 31st.
My source also seemed to think “sooner rather than later.”
Google acquired WIMM Labs, an Android based Smartwatch SDK developer last year for an undisclosed sum. The company’s Smartwatch App store is still live here and contains some notable apps including Facebook.
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Android Police has screenshots suggesting that both SMS and MMS messaging are being integrated into Google Hangouts, with the standalone Messaging app likely to be dropped from KitKat (Android 4.4) – first on Nexus devices and later on others.
The screenshots claim to be from Hangouts 1.3. It’s just speculation that this will ship with KitKat – it’s possible that it may be released before or after. We have recently seen claimed screenshots of KitKat that include the Messaging app, but that isn’t inconsistent with the idea that it would be dropped from the Nexus first …
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We’ve seen a lot of pictures and videos of the Nexus 5 and that’s why this one has some merit: it looks like the others. It was originally on a forum and picked up by Droid-Life but since has been deleted.
This weekend MyCE/Android World leaked out some specs of the upcoming device.
Also the FCC has picked it up as well as some benchmarks. All we are missing is a launch date and price.
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Developer Jack Underwood took the dimensions from the recent FCC approval of the LG D820 that has been pretty much confirmed as the Nexus 5 and compared them to the Nexus 4. The result? Despite a larger screen size with higher resolution, the Nexus 5 is actually smaller in every dimension.
If there were any lingering doubt about the match between the casings shown and the device slipped into the KitKat video, the animated GIF below seems to provide conclusive proof …
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An FCC filing spotted by Dutch site TabletGuide.nl (via Engadget) suggests that Google may be working on a new streaming media player to replace the Nexus Q, the device Google announced, shipped to pre-order customers free of charge and then withdrew from the market.
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There’s some noise being made about the Nexus 7 in the Hangouts video (above at 21 seconds in). I’ve just talked to a Google rep who said, “That’s not the new Nexus 7… if hypothetically there was such a thing.”
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If a third-generation Nexus phone (dubbed Nexus Prime) even remotely resembles the above concept render, we’re sold. The awesome image arrived courtesy of designer Federico Ciccarese who is also credited with the iPhone Air mockup. As you may recall, rumored Nexus Prime specs include a 4.65-inch Super AMOLED HD display with a native 720p pixel resolution and possibly Texas Instrument’s OMAP4460 processor. The phone is allegedly to be manufactured by Samsung. Two more gorgeous renders included after the break.
