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In what is probably one of the lesser surprising reports to come out this year, CNET this morning claims that four handset manufacturers — namely, LG, Motorola, Huawei, and ASUS — are all planning to launch new Android Wear smartwatches at the IFA consumer electronics show kicking off late next week. Much-rumored and long-awaited (and highly-leaked?) second generation Moto 360, anyone?

We’ve been seeing leaks of the new Moto 360 for a while now, and ASUS already made its ZenWatch 2 public earlier this year (albeit with very little fanfare). Huawei showed off the Huawei Watch a long time ago, and has yet to deliver, so that company will probably take the stage at IFA to actually announce pricing and availability details. LG is mostly a mystery right now (mostly), but we’ll see what’s up their sleeves soon enough.

We’ll be on the ground at IFA to keep you in the loop, and until then, feel free to read up on the latest on the Moto 360, and check out our Android Wear smartwatch comparison page.

Facebook Moments now automatically creates movies from your photos

Tom Maxwell Aug 25 2015 - 11:26 am PT

Facebook Moments, the app for exchanging photos amongst friends who all find themselves at the same place at the same time (i.e. at a party), has been updated with a neat new way to relive a moment in the past.

IDC: China slowdown cuts smartphone forecast, Android will continue to hold lead through 2019

Tom Maxwell Aug 25 2015 - 10:43 am PT

IDC released an updated forecast today lowering its expectations for worldwide smartphone shipments this year with a continuing slowdown of growth in China cited as the biggest contributor to the lower than expected shipments. It also shared some insight into the future of Android, expecting its current 81% share of the global smartphone market as of 2015 to hold strong through 2019, citing continued price sensitivity in the markets with the biggest growth potential (read: China, India, and everyone else in the Asia-Pacific region).
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Stagefright vulnerability fixes for HTC One M9 and M8 on AT&T now rolling out

Stephen Hall Aug 25 2015 - 10:10 am PT

Google may have promised to keep its Nexus devices updated once a month, and was one of the first to push fixes for the vulnerability in Stagefright, but that doesn’t mean owners of other phones will see such prompt updates. Today, weeks since Nexus devices were patched, AT&T’s HTC One M9 and M8 are receiving over-the-air updates to keep you safe when sending MMS messages.

You can find information about both the HTC One M9 update and that for the HTC One M8 over at AT&T’s website. The OTA for the M9 comes in at just 55.53 MB, while the M8 update is 28 MB. These are pretty tiny numbers for OTA updates, so you shouldn’t expect much more from this update than the patch for Stagefright. It goes without saying that it’s still important to update though.

Head over to the Settings app and mash that refresh button, or just wait until your device tells you that you’re ready to go.

Google Map Maker reopens in 45 more countries including the US

Tom Maxwell Aug 25 2015 - 9:34 am PT

Google Map Maker, the tool which allows anyone around the world to contribute information to Google’s worldwide map, has re-opened in 45 countries after going live again in 6 countries two weeks ago. The product was temporarily shut down in May after it was discovered that some nefarious edits to the map, like geographic polygons shaped to depict an Android peeing on what is ostensibly an Apple logo, were being approved.

Nest may have an updated thermostat on the way, if FCC filings are to be believed

Tom Maxwell Aug 25 2015 - 8:56 am PT

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Nest, the Alphabet company focused on building Internet of Things (IoT) products for the home that was acquired last year by Google for $3.2 billion, looks to be close to introducing an updated Nest Thermostat. That comes from an FCC regulatory filing first spotted yesterday by Business Insider.

Opinion: Sadly, I still don’t have a reason to wear my Android Wear smartwatch

Stephen Hall Aug 25 2015 - 8:34 am PT

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You can ask just about anyone: For quite some time, I thought wearables were on the brink of taking over our lives. And they may still be, but it seems to me that my internal excitement may have been premature. Google Glass fueled most of my anticipation, but smartwatches were definitely an area that intrigued me too. I told myself that all wearables needed was for Apple to make an entrance, and then platforms like Android Wear and Pebble would become quickly ubiquitous.

It may be too early to tell, but that doesn’t seem to be what’s happening — at least not yet. And while ASUS, LG, Huawei, and Motorola have some revamped hardware entries coming very soon, I’m just not that excited anymore. Why? Mostly because I just don’t have a compelling need for wearables in their current form. I have Google Glass and I have an LG G Watch R, but neither have become anything close to a daily driver for me. I still have no reason to use Android Wear.
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Google has an ironic way for you to transfer your data to their cloud

Tom Maxwell Aug 24 2015 - 11:23 am PT

Google has its own enterprise-grade cloud storage offering which competes with the likes of Amazon and Microsoft for storing data from big Internet players like Snapchat and Netflix. Now you can send your data to their cloud in the most literal, or most lazy, way ever before possible.

Microsoft’s Cortana for Android enters public beta, grab it now via Play Store

Tom Maxwell Aug 24 2015 - 9:53 am PT

Cortana, Microsoft’s cross-platform voice assistant not dissimilar from Google Now, is today becoming available as an official public beta through Google Play.

BlackBerry Passport ‘Silver Edition’ w/ Android Lollipop purportedly caught on camera [Video]

Stephen Hall Aug 24 2015 - 8:55 am PT

Evan Blass — otherwise known as Evleaks — shared with us an image last week showing what looks to be some silver variant of the much-rumored BlackBerry Passport running Android Lollipop. Tech blog 4GNews then went on just before the weekend to share images of what it called Passport Silver Edition. It turns out those images were from Dudu Rocha Tec., an Android-related Brazilian YouTube channel, and now we have a look at what is likely the much-rumored BlackBerry device in its full glory…
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Google Maps for Android update makes it easier to access Street View

Tom Maxwell Aug 21 2015 - 1:52 pm PT

If you’re like me, you sometimes use the Street View feature of Google Maps to see a place you’re about to visit and what its surrounding area looks like. Maybe you’re apartment hunting and want to see if the neighborhood looks safe. Regardless of why you do it, Google understands us and has made this previewing a tad easier.

Google Maps version 9.13.0 for Android places a thumbnail preview of a location in the bottom left corner of the screen for inputted addresses and places for which you’ve pressed and held on the map. It looks like this:

Tapping one of these previews brings up your standard Street View:

This version is available from Google Play, and an APK can be downloaded from APKMirror.

Google’s life sciences team is becoming its own Alphabet company

Tom Maxwell Aug 21 2015 - 9:18 am PT

Google’s X lab is famous for its ambitious undertakings building self-driving cars and balloons that beam Internet to the furthest reaches of the planet. Now all of its life sciences projects are moving on to greener pastures.

Google Docs & Sheets for Android learn a few new useful tricks

Tom Maxwell Aug 20 2015 - 8:27 am PT

Update: This post has been updated to include an APKMirror link to the Docs update which includes Print Layout.

Google Docs and Sheets, two of products that make up Google’s suite of online productivity tools, have received some small updates on Android that will come in handy for mobile warriors (sorry, had to say it).

Let’s start with Docs. Now from the overflow menu of a document you’ll find a new Print Layout option that, when selected, will show you a fully paginated (each page labeled with its order in the document), read-only version of your document. This is what your document will look like printed on paper. Print Layout will continue to update in real-time as collaborators make changes. The ability to edit from within the Print Layout view will come in the future.

The other new updates today come for Google Sheets. The first is a new “intuitive keyboard functionality.” Now when you tap a cell in a Sheets spreadsheet, either the alphabetic or numeric will open depending on which type of characters are in the cell. Tap a cell with only numbers in it, Sheets will open the numeric keypad so you don’t have to make another tap to switch to it. Nice touch.

The final update to hit Sheets is autofill. As you can see in the GIF above, autofill makes it easy to complete a pattern without the tedium of going cell-by-cell and doing it yourself. Select the data you want to repeat and drag to the cells you’d like to repeat it in, and Sheets will fill in the cells using the pattern of your selected data.

The latter two updates for Sheets can be found in the latest update to the app for Android in Google Play, while an APK download of Docs including Print Layout can be found on APKMirror.

Verizon’s HTC One M9 is receiving Android 5.1 tomorrow

Tom Maxwell Aug 19 2015 - 7:58 pm PT

Good news for owners of the HTC One M9 on Verizon: Tomorrow the Taiwanese company is pushing Android Lollipop 5.1 to the flagship device. The news comes straight from Mo Versi, HTC’s VP of Product Management:

[tweet https://twitter.com/moversi/status/634105557234769920 align=’center’]

The update includes all the standard bug fixes and operating systems improvements that are baked into 5.1 — like improved Quick Settings and the new Device Protection tool — as well as a patch for the nasty Stagefright exploit. The 3 and 7 bands have also been activated, useful for when you find yourself roaming internationally.

Keep in mind that just because it begins rolling out over-the-air tomorrow, that doesn’t mean you’ll receive it right away. It could take a few days, and just to be sure the update hasn’t reached your device yet you can check for it manually by visiting Settings > About phone > System updates.

Evan Blass shares new GIF showing Blackberry Venice in all its glory

Tom Maxwell Aug 19 2015 - 4:07 pm PT

After sharing this morning a render of the slide-out keyboard on what is ostensibly an Android-powered BlackBerry Venice, a device which the Ontario-based company has teased but made no mention of what OS its powered by, respected leaker Evan Blass is back with more goodies for the BB faithful. This time he has tweeted out a short video that shows off a render of the smartphone from all angles, with dramatic transitions and animations in tow.

Project Ara was delayed in part due to electropermanent magnets not holding together well (Updated)

Tom Maxwell Aug 19 2015 - 12:22 pm PT

Update: Project Ara has just tweeted that the strength of the magnetic forces holding together the Ara phone modules is not, in fact, a problem — apparently that was a joke. We’ve since heard that the strength of the magnetic fields produced by the magnets being used is approximately 30 Newton-meters, more than enough strength to hold a 30 gram electronic module in place. The comments about building a better attachment/detachment solution still seem to be true, however, with the tweet also saying that, “We have been configuring a new solution. It’s better too.” The team is also working on improved camera and battery modules.

Google’s Project Ara, the name of the modular smartphone system the company is building that would enable anyone to put together a phone on their own, has run into problems that have impacted its public test roll-out. The team behind it has been cheeky and somewhat coy in explaining why it has delayed a test launch of the unique system, but a concise message posted to Twitter today might at least partly explain the delay.

AdSense v3.0 for Android receives Material Design treatment

Tom Maxwell Aug 19 2015 - 11:06 am PT

AdSense, Google’s publisher ad network used by millions of websites across the web, has just seen its Android app brought up to the company’s Material design language standards.

The app itself is mostly read-only, meaning you can quickly see data on your performance like how much money you’ve made from your ad placements over different time periods, but you cannot create new ads to place on your site from within the app. That would be cumbersome from a mobile device, though, as it requires copying and pasting HTML code into your site’s backend.

AdSense 3.0 also brings with it a new logo the company unveiled back in June. It looks like this:

And for the curious, here’s what the app looked like before today’s update:

The update hasn’t propagated completely in Google Play yet, but it’s available as a direct download through APKMirror right now.

Google and Intel combine 3D technologies to demo the ultimate augmented reality smartphone

Ben Lovejoy Aug 19 2015 - 4:39 am PT

Google and Intel have developed what looks like the ultimate augmented reality smartphone, combining Google’s Project Tango tech to map and track 3D environments with Intel’s RealSense camera sensor, which isolates and scans 3D objects within those environments.

Engadget reports that the two companies have so far produced a developer prototype of the smartphone, with a consumer device expected to be released further down the line. While there will doubtless be serious applications for the technology, it’s augmented reality gaming that is likely to get the most attention …
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Android-powered BlackBerry Venice render leaks, keyboard exposed

Cam Bunton Aug 19 2015 - 1:23 am PT

BlackBerry has been rumored to be working on an Android phone for quite some time. In fact, almost as soon as its CEO John Chen teased the portrait slider dubbed ‘Venice’, it was predicted it might run Google’s operating. We’ve seen a leaked render showing the front of the device with what looks like stock Android. We’ve even seen slides showing off some of the BlackBerry-inspired user interface elements. What we haven’t seen yet is that ever-elusive keyboard.

Pocket Casts makes use of Google’s new Nearby API in updated Android app

Tom Maxwell Aug 18 2015 - 8:07 pm PT

Pocket Casts, the popular podcast player for iOS and Android, has been updated on Android to take advantage of Google’s new Nearby technologies for enabling interactions between devices within a close proximity of one another.

Android Auto updated with fresh home screen UI

Cam Bunton Aug 18 2015 - 2:05 pm PT

Google pushed an update to its Android Auto app today refreshing the home screen to bring bigger, easier to see cards, particularly when using navigation and playing music. Previously, all stacked cards were of equal height. Now, the top activity card is double the height of any of the cards below. Being bigger not only makes them easier to see, but also easier to interact with on the touch screen.

As well as the updated user interface, there are a few bug fixes and performance improvements. You can download the fresh update right now from the Google Play Store. It’s a free update and requires Android 5.0 or later to work. Obviously, you’ll also need a car with a compatible built-in system, or a compatible after-market system.

You can find out more about Android Auto, including compatible vehicles, over at android.com/auto.

Google unveils OnHub, a wireless router that intelligently finds the fastest connection for you

Tom Maxwell Aug 18 2015 - 9:45 am PT

Google has just published a blog post unveiling OnHub, a wireless router it has developed in partnership with popular router manufacturer TP-LINK, which it says provides a Wi-Fi experience that’s “that’s fast, secure, and easy to use.”

Google Hangouts gets its own dedicated website

Tom Maxwell Aug 17 2015 - 2:16 pm PT

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In a sign that its Hangouts messaging platform is becoming more important to the company, and that Google+ is becoming somewhat less important, Google has given Hangouts its own dedicated website found at hangouts.google.com.

Project Ara delayed until 2016, looking for new locations in US

Cam Bunton Aug 17 2015 - 12:58 pm PT