IPhone

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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Android Wear finally has iOS support after Google pushed its iPhone-compatible software to the App Store. This means that Android has beaten Apple Watch to the cross-platform game. Or, at least it would, if iOS didn’t restrict it to a state of almost uselessness. The only device officially supported is the LG Watch Urbane although — as we previously revealed — the older generation Android Wear watches do work. I got it set up with my Moto 360, and have been mostly disappointed by my experience so far.

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Sorry, Android users: Popular online food ordering service Eat24 has determined that you are less healthy on a nutritional basis than owners of Apple’s iPhone. That’s based on data it collected from its mobile app over a three month period, tracking information regarding how ordering habits differed across the rival platforms.

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Verizon has recently started allowing customers to bring non-Verizon devices its network and will activate them. The program officially began this week and Verizon confirmed to 9to5Mac that it applies to the Nexus 6, as well as Apple’s iPhone. Verizon notes, however, that the devices must be unlocked prior to being activated on its network.

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Samsung has launched a new promotional offer aimed squarely at iPhone owners. In a bid to attract Apple’s users to the latest lineup of Galaxy smartphones, the South Korean competitor will now let iPhone users take one of three new models for the “ultimate test drive” for a full month.

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New data from Gartner suggests that Samsung saw its worldwide sales fall by 5.3% year-on-year, its market share dropping from 26.2% in Q2 2014 to 21.9% in the same quarter this year. The company lost ground to both Apple and Chinese brands Huawei and Xiaomi.

Despite the launch of new S6 models, Samsung’s premium phones continued to be challenged by Apple’s large-screen iPhones. Samsung lost 4.3 percentage points in market share and declined 5.3 percent in unit sales in the second quarter of 2015.

Samsung was hit hardest by Huawei, which saw sales growth of 46.3%, followed by Apple, which increased its sales by 36% … 
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In a move that’s no surprise to anyone who’s been following HTC news recently, the company just announced that it’s going to cut 15% of its workforce. Some 2,250 people will lose their jobs as part of the company’s aim to cut 35% of its expenses before 2016 rolls in.

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LG cited “an extremely challenging environment” for premium smartphones as the reason for posting a net operating profit of just 200M won ($172k) for its mobile division – a number put into stark perspective by Engadget as a profit of just 1.2 cents per phone. LG specifically singled out competition from the iPhone as a factor.

While year-on-year smartphone shipments were down 3%, it did achieve a tiny 1% increase in revenue, but said that profitability was hit by weaker demand in the premium sector in its home market of Korea. There was better news in the U.S. and Canada, however … 
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The existing Galaxy Note 4

Samsung is planning to bring forward the launch of the Galaxy Note 5 from September to August, according to the WSJ. It’s believed the change in schedule is designed to get the device on sale ahead of Apple’s anticipated September launch of the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, which is likely to dominate tech media coverage that month.

Samsung has always previously launched its Note models on the eve of the IFA conference, which takes place in Berlin in September. The WSJ cites only a single source for the claim, but it’s not the first time we’ve heard suggestions that the company may bring forward the launch this year … 
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Introducing smart devices made of gold isn’t exactly a new concept (and it’s gone mainstream to a new degree as of late), but now Taiwanese phone maker HTC is on board. Some think the phone is gorgeous in gold, and some think it’s absolutely disgusting. Either way, the company’s flagship smartphone, the One M9, isn’t going to make its way up to par with the Android flagships with a 24-karat gold body.

Oh, and it looks like HTC also managed to accidentally reveal that photos they took to unveil the phone… were taken with an iPhone.
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Samsung earlier this week officially introduced an Iron Man edition Galaxy S6 Edge, but also noted that it would be available only in South Korea, Hong Kong, and China, leaving fans everywhere else out to dry. Nevertheless, popular accessory company SlickWraps has introduced an aftermarket skin/wrap that gives any Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge the Iron Man design.

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The iPhone 6 Plus launch was riddled with endless #bendgate drama, but it looks like the latest flagship from Samsung doesn’t fare much better than Apple’s flagship—at least according to this test. Dozens of YouTube videos have given the latest iPhone line the beating, but now it looks like it’s time for the 2015 round of Android flagships to get tested as well…

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Last month developer Mohammad Abu-Garbeyyeh managed to get an Android Wear-based smartwatch to display notifications from an iPhone, even though Google’s wearable OS doesn’t support Apple’s mobile devices (at least, not yet).

A new video posted by the software dev today shows an Android Wear watch working with the iPhone’s calling function. In the video, an incoming call on the iPhone is answered using the Android watch. Abu-Garbeyyeh says he simulated the gesture to answer to phone call on the watch in software to avoid filling the video frame with his hand, but the functionality works perfectly just as it would with an Android device.

Keep reading to watch the video…

Last month a developer managed to hack together a solution that enabled iPhone users to see their notifications on Google’s Android-powered wearable operating system, but at the moment there is no official way to use the two competing platforms together. That could change at Google’s annual I/O conference later this year, if new rumors are to be believed.

According to French tech blog 01Net, Google is developing an update to Android Wear that would enable it work with Apple’s iOS devices…

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Gartner is out with its latest report tracking smartphone movement during the previous year and more specifically the holiday quarter.

Headlining the report is news that over 1 billion smartphones were sold in 2014, a data point IDC first said was hit in the previous year, adding that two out of three phones sold last year qualified as smartphones.

Gartner’s data shows Apple topped Samsung in worldwide smartphone sales with 74,832,000 units shipped during the holiday quarter, just 1.8 million units more than Samsung, giving Apple 20.4% market share for the quarter, a virtual tie with Samsung’s 19.9%.

Coming up behind Apple and Samsung is Lenovo (which includes sales of Motorola-branded phones), Huawei, and Xiaomi with single digit market share. The collective group of others which amount to 42.4% of the holiday quarter sales.
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Android Wear is great, but if you’re an iOS user, it looks like the Apple Watch is going to be your only option for a while. Google has yet to make any of Android Wear’s functionality compatible with Apple’s operating system, and it doesn’t look like they plan to do so any time soon. But that’s not stopping one developer, Mohammad Abu-Garbeyyeh, from hacking Android Wear to at least support notifications from iOS devices.

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