Android - page 21

When it comes to smartwatch sales, Apple Watch has well and truly embarrassed the entire Android Wear ecosystem, even though it hasn’t spent anywhere near as long on the market. But with Google’s platform getting a high-profile supporter this week, is it time for change?

TAG Heuer’s new Connected is the first smartwatch from a luxury watchmaker, giving consumers a high-end alternative to the Apple Watch. It has beautiful hardware, great specifications, and even comes with an upgrade program that lets buyers swap it for a traditional TAG watch when it’s no longer useful.

So, is this the device Android Wear needs to mount a threat against Apple’s popular wearable?

Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over that very question!

All of the games Nintendo is currently planning for Android and iOS will be free-to-play titles, according to development partner DeNA. That means you won’t have to pay a penny to download them — but they will almost certainly be filled with in-app purchases.

Apple Music for Android has finally arrived on the Google Play Store today after being publicly demoed at WWDC in June.

The new app brings Android users over 30 million songs from the Apple Music catalog, Beats 1 Radio, Playlists, Connect, and more. Apple’s offering users a 3-month trial, just like iOS. Pricing starts at $9.99 for a single plan, but Apple says your’ll need a Mac or iOS to sign-up for a $14.99 family plan.

Apple VP Eddy Cue says the launch is part of Apple’s plan to do things in music for everyone:

As an Android user, you might feel a little saddened by the fact that you can’t use Apple’s 3D Touch system on your Android device of choice. It’s a pretty neat technology that lets an iPhone sense different pressures on the screen to produce some slick little tricks, like taking a selfie with a strong press on the Camera app icon.

Marco Chiappetta figured out a way to do something similar on his Sony Xperia Z3 using a pretty unexpected little trick.

After five months of beta testing its fast-loading ‘instant’ articles, Facebook is rolling out the feature to all iPhone users starting today.

Instant articles load 10 times faster than normal shared links and rank higher in News Feed. Facebook has enlisted a number of top publishers to create content for the new article format with The New York Times, BuzzFeed, and The Atlantic among the first supporters.

We’ve heard very little about the official Apple Music app for Android since the service was announced back in June, but now a third-party company claims to be running a new beta program on Apple’s behalf.

Betabound is giving Android users the opportunity to register their interest in Apple Music for a chance to get early access — but we’re not totally sure it can be trusted.

The party is on, but there’s a problem: There’s no stereo or Bluetooth speaker for the music.

But a startup out of Montreal has developed an app that allows partygoers to create a DIY sound system. AmpMe is an app that syncs streaming music across the many smartphones at that party to create one powerful sound system. That means iPhones and Android phones can join forces to save the day.

iOS 9 has been out for two days, and it’s already running on more than 20 percent of compatible devices, according to the latest data. In comparison, Google’s latest Android release, version 5.1 Lollipop, is running on just 5.1 percent of devices ten months after it made its public debut.

These figures highlight the staggering difference between updates on Android and iOS. But is it fair to compare adoption figures between these two platforms, and do users really care?

Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over this very topic!

If you can’t beat ’em, underprice ’em. That’s been Amazon’s motto with pretty much all its hardware, especially its Android-based Fire tablets and phones.

But what do you do when even pricing your entry-level Android tablet at under $100 each doesn’t move units? Drop the price to less than $50, apparently.

An Android app that promises free porn has been secretly snapping photos of its users as they enjoy its content. “Adult Player” then locks up the victim’s device and uses their photo in a ransom note demanding $500.

Modern mobile phones need a lot of power; chances are we’ve all got an external battery pack (or at least a second cable and wall plug) tucked away in a bag somewhere that will charge up our Android and iOS mobile phones while we’re on the run.

The thing is, those things need to be taken along with you when you leave the house. If you’re like me, though, that requires a heck of a lot of cognitive overhead and pre-planning.

The whole point of the Nipper, this tiny new mobile phone charger that uses two AA batteries to give you a bit of juice when needed, is to always be available.

Photo-sharing service Instagram takes another step closer to becoming its own self-contained social network today with features aimed at the 85 million folks using Instagram Direct, which lets you send direct messages to individual users or groups of up to 15 people.

The new features include threaded messaging and a new way to share Instagram videos or photos within those direct messages.

Apple fans have good reason to love the Cupertino company, which continues to revolutionize new product categories and deliver hugely successful products year after year. But how far should that love go?

Some might say there is a group of fans who are irrationally loyal to the Apple brand, devoted to buying its latest products just because they sport the Apple logo, and dismissing all competitors just because they don’t. But is there really a “Cult of Apple?”

Join us as we battle it out over that very question in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac.

There’s a smartwatch app for almost everything, but very few are useful to the men and women who work in microgravity.

So NASA is asking the pubic to design a smartwatch app for its astronauts to do everything from keeping them organized during science experiments to alerting them to space debris approaching.

Like every other company, Apple and Google have had their share of highs and lows in the past — but one thing that’s for sure is that neither of them can keep going from strength-to-strength indefinitely; they’ll both stumble at some point in the future.

But which will be the first to take a tumble?

Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over that very question!

It’s pretty difficult to use your smartphone while it’s standing vertically. That’s why when we place our phones on a dock or stand, we tend to neglect them until they’re done charging. Challenging this habit are the makers of the Tilt stand, who seem to think you should be able to use your phone while it’s getting juiced.

Disappearing photo and video sharing app, Snapchat, has just updated to include a couple of great new features, including a data-reducing Travel Mode, an emoji button called Sticker Picker, and a way to see who’s viewing your posts, called Stories, in the app itself.

After the discovery of several dangerous flaws in a few short weeks, Android’s security — or lack thereof — has been big news. Google has acted quickly to eliminate the Stagefright flaw that left 95% of Android devices vulnerable to attack, but others have since wormed their way out of the woodwork.

Now fans are asking how these flaws made their way into public Android releases, compromising the security of more than 1 billion users worldwide. Could Google be doing more to prevent it? And are its hardware partners doing all they can to patch holes in their own software?

Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we fight it out over these questions and more!

Nintendo has been incredibly slow to embrace mobile gaming, but this Wii M concept design has me wishing the company would get serious and make their own smartphone.

This mockup is so beautiful I think I’d gladly give up my eight-year membership in the iPhone club to have a portable gaming device like this at all times.

Every mobile platform now ships with its very own virtual assistant, and while they all offer a similar set of basic features, Google Now and Siri are way ahead of their rivals. Google Now knows what you want and when you want it, but Siri has sass and personality, and is about to get a whole lot better with the help of Proactive.

If you were to pit the two against each other in a virtual ring, which one would come out wearing the belt? Join us as we find out in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac!

Get ready to spend your time chomping dots and eating ghosts with this amazing version of arcade classic Pac-Man, one of the most recognizable games of the past 35 years.

Designed by the original Pac-Man creator Tōru Iwatani, Championship Edition (CE) came out for the Xbox 360 in 2007, and it was the best ever remake of the arcade original.

Now Pac-Man CE DX, an improved version of the game that released onto Xbox 360 in 2010, is here for your iPhone or Android smartphone, and I’m betting you’ll spend some serious time playing it.

“What you don’t know won’t hurt you” is a common phrase that unfortunately does not apply to the apps on your phone. It turns out that thousands of apps on Android and iOS secretly have ads in them that you can’t see, and they very well might be what’s causing a number of problems that plague smartphones today.

Android apps and games are great on pocket-sized smartphones, but they’re even better on big screens — like the 24-inch monitor sitting on your desk. Don’t believe me? Check out the BlueStacks player, which lets you run almost any title built for Android on your Mac.

Apple Music isn’t available on Android yet — though it is coming — but that doesn’t mean you have to miss out on Beats 1 radio. Thanks to a new web app, you can tune into the 24/7 worldwide broadcast on Android and other unsupported devices right away.

To succeed in tech, you must be a master of innovation. No two companies understand this better than Apple and Google, which have become kings of the industry thanks to a string of incredible ideas that have shaped the technology we rely on today.

But which company is continuing to innovate in 2015? Is it Apple, with its fitness-focused Apple Watch, Apple Pay, and a new streaming service that hopes to save the music industry? Or is it Google, with Google Glass, self-driving cars, and secret robots?

Join us as we take it to a debate in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac.