Chance currently writes for both NewGeekGuide and 9to5Mac, in addition to 9to5Toys. He has previously written for several other online publications. He uses a Nexus 5, iPhone 5s, iPad Air, Hackintosh, and Macbook Air.
Motorola today has revealed its plans for the Cyber Monday shopping holiday, but before you get too excited, the deals are absolutely nothing to write home about. Motorola’s website currently lists three deals that it will be offering come Monday, and all three of the deals are for outdated products.
According to a recent filing with the FCC, Google is looking to test something with experimental radios that use a wireless spectrum in all 50 states and in Puerto Rico. The details on these tests are incredibly sparse at this point, but Google wants to start the process on January 1st and test for 24 months (via BI).
Google today has updated its Drive app on iOS with a handful of notable new features and enhancements. First off, today’s update to Drive, which bumps the app to version 4.4, adds 3D Touch support for iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus users. Now, pushing with more pressure on the Drive app icon will bring up two options, one to quickly upload photos and another to quickly search the contents of your Drive.
Following a report from July that Google was looking to curb hiring and spending efforts across the board, The Wall Street Journal reports today that Google’s parent company Alphabet is imposing stricter regulations on internal spending.
Last week, LG abruptly announced it was canceling the launch of its Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE indefinitely, citing an unidentified hardware problem that directly affected the day-to-day functionality of the device. Now, Telegraph has obtained a statement from LG in which the company reveals the hardware issue plaguing its LTE-capable watch relates to the display.
Update: LG has now acknowledged the issue and says that it is canceling the rollout of the device worldwide. It also is unsure if it will be available at any point in the future.
AT&T today appears to have started notifying customers that a quality issue has occurred with the recently launched LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition. According to sources, AT&T has notified its retail stores and customers that those who purchased the latest Watch Urbane are eligible for a refund due to the “quality issue.”
Google over the past several months has spoken a lot about its ever-growing cloud business. It recently dropped prices across the board for its Cloud Platform, and now one Google executive believes the business will soon grow to outpace revenue brought in by the company’s ad division…
Google today is rolling out an update to its iOS app that brings the app to version 10.0 and includes a handful of visual changes. With today’s update, the voice search feature has been redesigned to be more inline with Google’s Material Design aesthetic, while the Google Now cards in the app are now organized in a much more straightforward way.
Google’s ongoing self-driving car project has recorded more than 1.2 million miles of autonomous driving so far and like most drivers it’s picked up a few interesting stories. Today, the Google self-driving car team shared a post on Google+ showing that one of its cars had been pulled over while driving though California.
There really wasn’t any doubt it was coming, but Google this evening has made it official that Android Wear will soon gain cellular support. In a post on the official Android blog, the company announced cellular support and explained that it will allow for your smartwatch to stay connected wherever you are.
Just a short while after the oft-rumored BlackBerry Priv was made official, it appears the company is already readying its second-ever Android phone. CrackBerry today has shared images of what it claims is the BlackBerry Vienna, an Android device with an always-accessible physical keyboard.
Google’s AppleCare-like warranty protection program Nexus Protect is now available in Canada. The company announced the expansion in a post on Google+ more than a month after the program launched in the United States alongside the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X.
Nexus Protect, for those unfamiliar, offers an additional year of coverage for mechanical breakdowns within your Nexus phone, as well as two years of protection from accidental damage like water damage and shattered displays. Google touts that, after you file a claim and it is approved, you’ll receive your replacement device as soon as the next business day, with shipping both ways covered. Nexus Protect coverage is attached to the phone itself, so if you switch carriers or give the phone to someone else, the coverage stays with it.
Nexus Protect runs $69 for the Nexus 5X and $89 for the Nexus 6P. It’s also important to note that claims are subject to a $79 deductible and that Nexus Protect only covers 2 incidents of accidental damage every two-years.
If you reside in Canada, you can find out more about Nexus Protect on Google’s webpage for the program here.
Cyanogen OS is the popular operating system from the team behind CyanogenMod that ships on devices such as the OnePlus One and Wiley Fox. Cyanogen OS offers a handful of features that its aftermarket CyanogenMod ROM solution doesn’t, in large part to make the OS more consumer friendly. Today, however, Cyanogen announced that it is making the added features of Cyanogen OS available as a separate download for users not running the operating system.
Update: The device appears to have sold out already as the Amazon listing now shows the it as unavailable.
BlackBerry’s venture into the Android marketplace has gradually been making its way into the United States via carrier stores and websites, but now the device has become available in an unlocked fashion via Amazon. The device is available on Amazon now, with free Prime shipping, for the standard $699 price tag.
Buying the Priv via Amazon offers several incentives, including free two-day shipping and, in some states, a tax-free purchase. The $699 sticker price, however, doesn’t offer any discounts over how much you’d get the device for from other retailers like AT&T, although the model sold on Amazon is unlocked.
Specifications of BlackBerry’s first Android device include Android 5.1, a 5.4-inch Gorilla Glass 4 display plus a slide-out physical keyboard, an 18MP back shooter, a 3410 mAh battery, and 32GB storage expandable to 2TB with the microSD card slot. The Priv also. of course, features a DTEK app from BlackBerry that keeps an eye on the security level of your device.
You can read our review of the BlackBerry Priv here. By no means is the device perfect, but for those who want a physical keyboards its one of the very, very few devices to offer one. Head over to Amazon to purchase the Priv now.
Following the revelation that Android 6.0 Marshmallow is currently running on just 0.3 percent of devices, the update appears to have started rolling out to at least one more device this evening. According to a handful of postings on the XDA Developer forums, the Google Play Edition HTC One M8 has started receiving Android 6.0.
According to a new report from Amir Efrati of The Information, Google has recently been in discussions with microchip manufacturers about having a deeper involvement in the design of chips used in Android devices. Google hopes to help create a more uniform offering of Android phones by taking part in the chip design process with a company like Qualcomm.
Google today has rolled out an update its Maps application on iOS, bringing with it a pair of new features. The update bumps the app to version 4.12.0 and includes support for adding missing businesses to the app’s database and spoken traffic alerts.
The latter of the two is the far more interesting addition of this update. Spoken traffic alerts mean that Google Maps will now alert you about upcoming traffic congestion and traffic incidents as you use the Navigation feature of the app. It does so via voice so you aren’t distracted while you drive. Traffic descriptions provide the same information, but in both text and verbal forms before you start to move.
Google Maps version 4.12.0 is available via the App Store now for free. The full changelog can be seen below:
What’s New in Version 4.12.0
- Easily add new and missing businesses from the sidebar
- Spoken traffic alerts in Navigation tell you about congestion and incidents on your route and traffic descriptions give you summary of traffic before you drive
- Bug fixes
Google first tried to penetrate the Indian phone market with its Android One lineup of affordable devices, but after deeming that project less-than-successful, the company is reportedly planning to adjust its plans. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Google plans to relax the requirements it originally had on Android One devices, giving manufacturers more freedom when it comes to features and price.
Ahead of the highly anticipated release of Fallout 4 on November 10th, Bethesda, the company behind the game, has released a new app called Fallout C.H.A.T. While it’s not an actual messaging app, or even an actual keyboard, it’s a neat way for fans of the popular Fallout series to communicate with one another.
Google has long been rumored to be planning to open a New York City retail space, but now it looks as if that plan has died off. According to a report from Crain’s New York Business, Google has abandoned its plans to open a retail store in New York City. The company is looking to sublease a 5,442-square-foot space it leased in SoHo last year.
Google X’s incredibly ambitious Project Loon is expanding into another country soon. Parent company Alphabet today announced that it is teaming up with the three largest wireless carriers in Indonesia to test its Project Loon in Indonesia beginning next year. Google is targeting Indonesia because it is the fourth most populous country in the world, but two-thirds of its citizens lack access to Internet.
Several early Nexus 6P orders began shipping last week to eager customers, but now it looks as if many will have to wait a little bit longer before their device arrives. Google this evening has sent out an email to undisclosed number of people who pre-ordered the Nexus 6P, informing them that shipment of their device has been delayed.
When HTC originally unveiled the One A9 last week it announced a price of $399 in the Untied States, but with denotation saying it was a “Limited time, promotional offer.” This evening, the company has come out and confirmed that the price of the device will increase sooner rather than later.
HTC said in a statement that regional sales teams have the ability to set prices independently of other areas, hence why the device is so much cheaper here in the United States than in Europe. As far as that “limited time, promotional offer” goes, HTC says the sale will end on November 7th. At that time, the price of the A9 will increase to $499.99 in the United States.
“The cost of the HTC One A9 is the same worldwide to all distributors and operator partners. For end consumers, HTC’s sales regions are given the freedom to set prices and promotions as they see fit for local market needs. The One A9 price in the US is a very limited-time promotional offer for that region’s online store, as well as select HTC-only franchise stores. The offer is a special promotional pre-sale and is expected to conclude once the One A9 is available on-shelf at major retail and distributor partners.
After the promotional pre-sale offer ends, the new price in the US at htc.com will be $499.99 beginning 12:01 a.m. on 11/7.”
You can read our early thoughts on the HTC One A9 here and decide if it’s worth the money for you.
YouTube announced its new Red ad-free subscription service last week and we’ve slowly been learning the specifics on how content will be affected by it. Disney’s sports network ESPN has now announced that it has pulled all of its content from YouTube due to the YouTube Red subscription service.
