In light of Sprint’s CEO taking to Twitter to speak out against T-Mobile CEO John Legere, the latter held a Periscope session earlier today, in which he went on to dismiss the rant, revealed that something big and fantastic was coming to T-Mobile next week, and that Apple Music is coming to Music Freedom soon.
Android Lollipop for the Droid Turbo has been released. That and much more news is covered by Jordan when he reviews all the important stories from this week. Included in this week’s news is the announcement of the 2015 edition of the Moto G and be sure to check out the article talking about Android Lollipop for the Huawei Ascend Mate 2. That’s not all that’s covered in today’s video!
Jordan talks about the other videos released this week on XDA TV. XDA TV Producer TK released an Xposed Tuesday video covering Smart Network. Then Jordan reviewed the NVidia Shield TV. Also, TK gave us an app review of Rovers. Pull up a chair and check out this video.
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After announcing that the OnePlus 2 launch will be streamed in VR, with free OnePlus Cardboard units being given out, the website has finally started showing a “Get It” button. The listing is only live in certain countries, and states that units begin shipping on July 10th with shipping costs coming out to $5.
Earlier this year, a patent infringement lawsuit between Kyocera and Microsoft was brought before the US District Court, and in a unexpected move today, the lawsuit between the two companies was resolved as they went on to sign a patent cross-licensing agreement for a broader range of each other’s technology.
It wasn’t too long ago that we received reports of BlackBerry planning to use Android in their upcoming devices, although it wasn’t confirmed how this would be implemented. The Canadian company has publicly announced that they ‘remain committed to the BlackBerry 10 operating system‘, touting its strengths in security and productivity. Now, thanks to Evan Blass at EVLeaks, we have our first look at what one of these upcoming phones could look like.
The picture itself shows the bottom half of a design reminiscent of 2014’s Passport, with sharp corners and very straight lines throughout. Lollipop-style navigational buttons adorn the screen alongside some additional controls, making use of the screen’s uncommon aspect ratio. A physical keyboard is of course present, again with a style which to my eyes is almost identical to the current BlackBerry Passport. Unfortunately, this is where the inconsistencies start to make themselves apparent.
The display on the render doesn’t quite match the space designed for it, seemingly sitting on top of where it would be on the Passport. Shown clearly in the picture is the second page of an Android keyboard layout, containing currency, mathematical and other symbols as normal, but still containing the ‘ABC’ button presumably linking back to a QWERTY layout, pointless when those keys are placed physically below. Additionally, the style of the keyboard seems to be that of the Ice Cream Sandwich-era Holo keyboards, contrasting hugely with the Navigation buttons. Those issues along with the uncanny similarity with the Passport’s industrial design just don’t ring quite true for us.
Perhaps these are just early rendering issues, or perhaps BlackBerry is simply experimenting with early builds of Android software on existing hardware; XDA members have certainly achieved success in that department. There may well, in fact, be a market for this kind of hybrid device too, as there are vocal members of the Android community that plug the benefits of a physical keyboard, and there are still BlackBerry fans out there. This might not be the leak we’ve been waiting for, but it’s adding momentum and publicity to BlackBerry, and that’s something that they desperately need.
As the year progresses, we draw further away from Google’s annual I/O conference, and closer to the time when the latest hardware from Mountain View is made available to the public. While I/O itself remains one of the most popular tech conferences, the hardware unveiling is a contrastively low-key post across social media, but nonetheless, remains an exciting and much awaited event.
In the months leading up to the unveiling, a host of leaks take place, revealing various info about the expected hardware, and this year is no exception. Rumors of LG and Huawei making Nexus devices, the angler codename for a Nexus, and more have been floating around, but today brought an unexpected twist in the form of an FCC filing. Contrary to being filed as either a smartphone or a wearable, a mysterious device originating at Google made an appearance under the “BLUETOOTH & DTS/UNII a/b/g/n/ac” category, carrying the model name “GG1.” The filing includes a number of tests carried out on the device, which go on to reveal that it supports 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WiFi in 2.4GHz and 5GHz, has Bluetooth Low Energy and sports a non-removable battery. Additionally, the device FCC label is an e-label, which is rather unusual. All the evidence, the screenshot of the e-label looking like a Glass screen, and the rather telling model number, invariably point towards an upcoming Google Glass which lines up with Wall Street Journal’s prediction earlier this year.
Does the prospect of a new Google Glass excite you? Do you think it will be better received this time around? Given a reasonable price point, would you jump on board? Let us know in the comments below!
The latest version of Touchwiz, launched alongside the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, was aimed at providing a vastly improved software experience in lieu of the bad reputation its predecessors had gained. While this iteration turned out to be a vast improvement in terms of lack of bloatware, fluidity and user experience, Samsung’s OEM skin fell short in the aesthetics department by a long shot, abandoning a plethora of Material Design principles and leaving users wanting more.
However, Theme Store was one of the numerous extra additions that this version of Touchwiz brought with it, and what seemed to be just a ray of hope has blossomed into an impressive repository of a multitude of styles aimed at satisfying a wide variety of users. Among the designers creating themes for the store, a few were working hard on bringing Google’s paper and ink world to Touchwiz, and the first complete Material Design theme was released a while ago, with the second one hitting the Theme Store earlier today. Crafted with an extraordinary level of precision and attention to detail by Cambunch, the theme comes in two styles called Material Design and Material Dark, that allow users to choose between light and dark styles.
Users sporting a Galaxy S6 or S6 Edge can head over to Settings > Themes to get started with downloading themes from the Store. Which Material Design theme do you prefer? Does this affect your view of Samsung’s 2015 flagships? Let us know in the comments below!
Image Source: Sammobile
