The SDK for Samsung’s upcoming round smartwatch is now available, complete with platform images, example apps, a suite of tools, and an install manager. Enrolled devs can follow the link right now for a copy, and all others are welcome to sign up for access.
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After a somewhat successful run of the Android One devices in India and Southeast Asia, Google has announced the program’s expansion to Turkey. The first Turkish Android One phone, made by General Mobile, packs a Snapdragon 410 SoC, 2GB of RAM and a 13MP camera and is priced at a relatively high $260.
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With Honor having recently released several great looking phones and last year showing significant growth, we reached out to try and help people better understand the company and they have kindly agreed to speak to us about their brand, devices and plans for the future.
Can you please tell us the difference between Huawei and Honor?
Huawei has designed a dual-brand strategy by positioning two separate brands, each developing independently. Honor is an internet trade brand of Huawei group, founded to create beautiful, high performing products for digital natives who demand to always stay connected and rely on the web for entertainment, shopping and everything else. The two brands are designed to coexist together to help the Huawei consumer business expand across markets.
Honor’s tagline is “For the brave” can you tell us why?
Honor is a new brand, born for digital natives, dedicated to producing high quality devices that suit their lifestyles and their budgets. Honor is a brand for digital natives who spend their lives online and our business model reflects this behavior. It means we don’t need expensive physical stores, gurus or contracts but provide quality devices at affordable prices through the online retailers digital natives have grown up with and use day in, day out. This approach is shaking up the industry, empowering customers to get the best technology they can at great value prices.
“For the brave” encapsulates everything that we’re doing at Honor. Making incredible devices at affordable prices. Designed for the brave generation, Honor is not afraid to do things differently to bring about change. We’re shaking up the way you buy a smartphone, with a focus on premium devices at a great value price.
Is there anything you can tell us regarding the rumors, that the next Nexus will be made by Huawei?
We don’t comment on speculation.
How do you plan to approach emerging economies in Asia, considering that these markets are price sensitive and are saturated with local brands? Any special plans etc.
In 2014, Honor saw significant growth and traction across the world, including mainland China, Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions. We’re focused on Honor in the UK and making an impact on European markets. Each market is very different, even within Europe. We’re seeing a strong appetite for Honor devices across markets, including the competitive emerging economies in Asia.
The Honor 4X has just been launched and looks exceptional, can you tell us anything more about this device? (price, availability, full specs)
We’re glad you like the look of it! The Honor 4X is available across the UK on Amazon.co.uk for the recommended retail price £144.99. We’re proud of the impressive hardware and software capabilities, which makes it the most powerful affordable smartphone in its price category.
The Honor 4X incorporates many technological advances. The 64-bit octa-core Kirin 620 processor which powers the phone was developed by Huawei. Other patented in-house technologies include the EMUI 3.0.5, SmartPower battery life management, and the SmartImage image processing engine. There is more, as well: We hold a vast number of patents in communications technologies, and that powerful technological background has made the Honor 4X a smartphone which oozes value and quality.
Inspired by the fabrics and textures of the fashion industry, the ultra-thin design features a diamond cut casing to produce a flawless metallic finish. Combined with a 5.5” fully laminated black waterfall HD screen and available in white or black, we reckon the Honor 4X is a real head turner!
Do you have plans to expand your Honor VIP Replacement Service worldwide?
We’re trialing this in the UK in the first instance, and depending on feedback from our digital natives, we’d certainly look to roll it out to further countries.
Can you tell us how an interested user would get an invite to the exclusive ‘Honor Elite’?
This is purely through engagement with Honor. If you’re actively an online fan, be it via following us on Twitter or Instagram, or liking us on Facebook, we want to reward you. Simply sign up to the Honor Club on our website to receive Honor news 24 hours ahead of the rest of the world, and be in the chance to get exclusive invites to Honor events.
Engaging digital natives is at the heart of everything we do at Honor, and Honor Elite is our way of recognizing and rewarding those who engage with us across online channels.
How do you work alongside developers and are there any third-party projects you like?
The developer community is a hotbed of activity that we want to engage with. By definition, developers are driving digital natives and as a disruptive, challenger brand we’re keen to foster our relationship with the developer community.
Finally Is there anything you would like to say to the XDA-Developers community?
We’d love the XDA – Developers to sign up to the Honor Club and really take a look at our handsets already available on sale throughout the UK. We hope you’ll be impressed with the quality of our devices, at a very competitive price point. By signing up to the Honor Club, we’d then look to build a relationship, meeting as many XDA-Developers as possible at events, and truly engage in the community and listen to feedback so we can grow together.
Hopefully this has answered many of the questions you may have had about the company, they are clearly committed to engaging with the community and are producing some great devices at reasonable prices. If you have been to one of their fan gatherings we’d love to hear how the event went for you in the comments section.
Do you have any other questions about Honor that you would like to see answered? Leave a comment below!
The post Honor: The Company Behind The Devices appeared first on xda-developers.
The HTC One M7 Google Play Edition is finally receiving its Android 5.1 update which carries the build number LMY47O and is around 280MB. Users whose device’s bootloaders have S-OFF can grab the OTA zip and flash it in the stock recovery, with the rest being resigned to furiously tapping the check for update button.
The post HTC One M7 Google Play Edition Receiving Android 5.1 appeared first on xda-developers.
The YU Yureka was Yu Televentures’ first product, and according to the 6-month old company, it was a momentous success. And now the company is back for Round 2 and this time, they are promising a bigger punch.
The live webcast event was scheduled for 12pm Noon on May 12th 2015. The event began with an outline introduction to Yu’s product philosophy and Yureka’s success. Focussing on community participation, great emphasis was put on the fact that a lot of the Yuphoria’s product design decisions were crowd sourced to deliver a product that catered to the needs of the community.
The Yu Yuphoria features a 5″ 1280×720 TFT IPS display (294 ppi) with Gorilla Glass 3 to increase its resistance to scratches. The housing of the device is metal, and it has a matte finish. Even though it has a metal build, Yu has promised that there shall be no antenna-gate issues on the Yuphoria. The device is 8.25mm thin with a weight of 143 grams. The volume rocker and power button are present on the right side of the device. The Yuphoria also features a “Saturn Ring” design on the camera exterior, and this design decision is expected to carry on to future Yu phones.
Under the hood, the device is powered by Qualcomm’s 64-bit 1.2 GHz Quad core Snapdragon 410. The phone also features 2GB DDR3 RAM along with 16GB onboard storage (expandable upto 64GB via micro-sd card slot). It also sports an array of sensors like the 6-axis gyroscope, and has Bluetooth 4.0 and is VoLTE ready.
Talking about the camera, the rear camera is a 8MP camera with an aperture of f/2.2 and LED flash. The rear camera is capable of HDR and 1080p video recording. The front camera on the Yuphoria is a 5MP snapper with an aperture of f/2.0 and a 86-degree wide-angle lens.
The phone also has the usual tidbits we expect as standard these days, such as dual mic and active noise cancellation. The battery on the Yuphoria is 2230 mAh in capacity. The interesting feature of the Yuphoria in the battery department is that it supports Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 1.0 (not 2.0), which is still good enough to provide 0 to 65% charge in around 45 minutes. The battery is claimed to offer a talktime of 7 hours and a standby time of 160 hours, but real world complex usage scenarios would give different numbers considering the fact that this is a dual sim phone.
Coming down to what sets apart the Yureka in the first place, the Yu Yuphoria runs on Cyanogen OS 12 on Android 5.0 Lollipop. Cyanogen OS 12 comes along with a host of integrated services, notably Truecaller integration in the Dialer, Email powered by Boxer and Audio Fx.
Looking at the spec sheet, the Yu Yuphoria comes off as a rather standard mid end phone with specs that will not really make it the new “flagship killer”. However, the knockout punch for the Yuphoria is its price. All of these specs bundled into a metal chassis are offered at an astonishing Rs. 6,999 ($110). The price puts it into direct competition in the low-end segment where such specs are not really commonplace. For instance, the Samsung Galaxy Core Prime which features the same Snapdragon 410 but Android 4.4.4 retails for Rs. 9,699 ($150). The Moto E 2015 offers Snapdragon 200 with 1GB RAM for the same price, Rs. 6,999 ($110), while the Xiaomi Redmi 2 offers Snapdragon 410 with 1GB RAM and MIUI 6 (Kitkat) at the same price.
However, the Yu Yuphoria will follow along the flash sales model. Registrations begin today at 5pm over at Amazon.in, with the first flash sale scheduled for May 28th, 2015. The phone is available in two colors: Buffed Steel (Black) and Champagne Gold (White).
Along with the Yuphoria, Yu has also launched a fitness band much like Xiaomi’s offering. Named as the Yu Fit, the fitness band has an OLED display and tracks various details that fitness bands are expected to track, like Steps, Distance Walked, Calories Burnt etc. It also acts as a notification companion for your phone, giving details regarding incoming calls, messages and even has a nifty phone tracker built in.
To differentiate itself from the Mi Band, the Yu Fit comes deeply integrated with a Yu Fit app (made in collaboration with HealthifyMe) to offer a comprehensive fitness package. The app has a database of Indian foods, where users can click and upload pictures of their food to find out the amount of calories it usually contains. The app offers services like fitness tracking, weight tracking, group coaching with dedicated coaches on call. The app/service is a paid service, but free personal trainers are made available for first 1000 users of the Yu Fit band. The Yu Fit band is priced for Rs. 999 ($15), same as the Xiaomi Mi Band.
Another product was launched in the event called the Health Yu, also a fitness companion accessory. The device is a cassette like apparatus with areas to place your thumbs on. The apparatus can be used on any device (and not just Yu smartphones), and it gives out measurements for body vitals like ECG, Skin Temperature, Blood Oxygen Saturation, Heart Rate, Respiration Rate, Blood Pressure etc. The device also features records and tracking, and ability to sync data to the cloud. This device is priced at Rs. 4,999 ($80).
The Yu Yuphoria is in the lead for the title of the “Low End Killer”, dethroning the likes of the Moto E 2015 and the Xiaomi Redmi 2. The price-value combo guarantees that the product will be sold out within seconds in its first few flash sales. And given how the community involvement was with the Yureka, the Yuphoria will not disappoint in this quarter.
What do you think about the Yu Yuphoria? Does it deliver on your expectations? Will it be able to translate good specs into a cohesive user experience with Cyanogen OS 12 on board? Let us know in the comments below!
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Verizon has today announced the signing of an agreement to purchase AOL Inc for $50 per share, which comes to a total in the region of $4.4 billion. This acquisition of course includes their assets such as TechCrunch and Engadget. AOL is to become a subsidiary of Verizon following the tender and offer and merger.
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Motorola’s Senior Director of Product Management, David Schuster, has announced that the Moto X 2013’s Android 5.1 Lollipop upgrade has begun “TestDrive” in the US and Latin American regions, with full deployment expected in the next few weeks. The Moto X 2013 will jump straight to Android 5.1 from Android 4.4.
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