Cult of Android - page 27

Not content with simply being the world’s third-biggest smartphone maker, occasional Apple copycat Xiaomi is also making inroads in becoming a major wearables company in its own right.

Recently, the company’s CEO Lei Jun laid out his plans to sell more than 10 million of its affordable Mi Band smart bracelets within the next 12 months.

While we obviously don’t yet know how well that will turn out, early indicators are certainly promising — with reports that in at least one minor market, Xiaomi is off to a strong start: selling 100,000 units of its smart bracelets in the Taiwan market alone in less than two months.

Apple is close to becoming the world’s top smartphone maker for the first time since it conceded the title to Samsung more than three years ago. The Cupertino company is selling more iPhones than ever before, while Samsung’s smartphone sales are slowing.

Google is about to become its own wireless network, and while the company is keeping quiet on its cellular ambitions, new details have leaked claiming Google’s service might finally be able to cure your signal loss problems.

Citing unnamed sources familiar with Google’s plans, the Wall Street Journal reported today that Google’s network will switch between service on Sprint, T-Mobile and WiFi to route all voice, text messages, and data through the best possible signal.

Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone maker that’s found fame in the West thanks to its many Apple clones, is said to be preparing a trade-in program that will swap your iPhone for the newly-announced Mi Note phablet.

The program is designed to dissuade those with an older iPhone from upgrading to an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus, or to encourage those who already have to make the switch.

Google and Motorola went all out with the Nexus 6 to make it as good as flagship rivals from other manufacturers, but their super-sized handset could have been even better.

The device was set to get a fingerprint scanner, according to former Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside, but the plan had to be scrapped when Apple bought the best supplier in the industry.

At $99 a year, Amazon Prime is a killer deal — especially if you do a lot of online shopping. But it’s going to get even better tomorrow, January 24, when you’ll be able to bag a one-year subscription for just $72 — more than 25% off — to celebrate the Golden Globe Awards.

Thermonuclear war may be over between Google and Apple, but that doesn’t mean that the two aren’t willing to score points against one another.

A few months after Tim Cook critiqued Google’s entire business model during his interview with Charlie Rose, and Google’s Eric Schmidt dismissed the bestselling iPhone 6 as a Samsung clone, Google has struck again with its latest act of aggression: a double billboard for Google Play positioned right next to a leading Apple Store.

BlackBerry may be on its last legs and struggling to attract new customers, but that won’t dissuade Samsung from spending big to buy the company. While both companies have dismissed takeover reports over the past week, a new report claims Samsung really is still interested in acquiring a significant stake in the Canadian smartphone maker.

Pretty soon you’ll be able to buy a Nexus smartphone that works with Google’s own wireless network. The company is close to offering its own mobile phone plans directly to customers, a move that would allow Google to control the entire phone experience from top to bottom.

Amazon jumped into the mobile payments market a few months before Apple Pay launched, but the company is already pulling the plug on its first mobile wallet solution: Amazon Wallet.

Emails were sent out to customers this week from Amazon, alerting them that the service would be shutting down soon. The service was still in beta but it came preinstalled on the Amazon Fire Phone. The move comes just six months after Amazon Wallet made its debut.

If you’re looking for something to do with today’s public holiday, here’s an idea: why not seize the opportunity to buy a Google Glass headset, knowing that this could be your last chance to ever do so?

That’s right — from tomorrow, Google’s $1,500 Glass Explorer augmented reality goggles will no longer be available through Google’s Play Store. Headsets will continue to work, although users shouldn’t expect any official software updates for them.

Samsung’s fingerprint scanners could be some of the worst available in today’s mobile devices; they’re so unreliable that most people don’t even bother with them. But sources familiar with the company’s plans say it is working to change that for the upcoming Galaxy S6.

How? By copying Apple, of course.

It’s not exactly news that Samsung would like be a whole lot more like Apple. And when you compare the sales figures from Samsung’s ailing mobile division to Apple’s thriving iPhone numbers, who can blame it?

But while the South Korea-based tech giant isn’t going to be able to steal away any of the design brains behind Apple’s must-have devices any time soon, it’s trying to do the next best thing: hiring a former boss from the company Jony Ive helped start before he set sale for Apple in the 1990s.

CloudMagic has long been my favorite third-party email client on Android and iOS, thanks mostly to its excellent cross-platform support that makes managing email on different devices incredibly simple. But thanks to its latest update, some of the terrific features we’ve been enjoying for free for over a year are now going to cost $4.99 a month.

Samsung has released six smartwatches in the past year, but now that Apple is coming out with its first timepiece in 2015, the South Korean smartphone already has plans to copy Apple’s Digital Crown with its own spin.

The first round Samsung smartwatch will hit the market in 2015, according to a report from SamMobile which also claims the company’s Moto 360-styled smartwatch will come with an Apple-like twist.

After failing to garner consumer interest for nearly two years, the fate of Google Glass is now in the hands of former Apple executive Tony Fadell. The Glass Explorer program is also being shut down on January 19th, which means it will be impossible to buy the $1,500 headset commercially.

Fadell, whose claim to fame at Apple was leading the development of the original iPod, joined Google last February when Nest was acquired for $3.2 billion. Now Google Glass is being moved out of the experimental Google X division and placed under Fadell’s leadership.

The development of Glass hasn’t been halted, but the move signals the trouble Google has had gaining momentum with the project.

BlackBerry’s employees were caught using iPhones on Twitter recently, but the company could be trading in their CrackBerry keyboards for a Samsung Galaxy S6.

Samsung has recently approached BlackBerry with an offer to buy the company for $7.5 billion. The BlackBerry brand has been in decline ever since 2007 when the iPhone ushered in a new age of smartphones, but Samsung is reportedly interested in gaining access to the company’s patent portfolio.

Apple failed to get its sapphire glass ready for its latest smartphones, but Chinese manufacturer Oppo did not. Its new RC1, a midrange handset with a 5-inch display, has a sapphire back panel that allows the device to be incredibly thin but still surprisingly sturdy.

With so many wearables to choose from these days, how do you decide which one is right for you? Are you better off investing in a cross-platform device like the Pebble, or do you want the color display and other benefits that Android Wear brings?

The best way to decide is by trying these devices out before you buy them. Not for five minutes in a store, but for as long as you like as you go about your day. Lumoid’s rent-to-own program lets you do just that; you can sample five wearables for a full 7 days before deciding which one you want to buy, and if you don’t like any of them, you can just send them all back.

Xiaomi may have risen rapidly to become the world’s third-biggest smartphone maker, but that’s not enough for a company which seems to have Apple-sized ambitions to go along with its Apple-borrowed designs.

With wearables being the next huge tech revolution, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun has laid out its expectations for 2015 shipments of its Mi Band smart bracelet, as announced last summer — and they’re big.

Sony may have begun its recovery following a massive cyberattack, but its bad luck isn’t going to stop there. The Japanese company continues to endure heavy losses thanks to the decline of key divisions, and sources say it is considering the sale of its smartphone business as CEO Kazuo Hirai tries desperately to turn things around.

Who says iOS has all the apps? According to new data, Google isn’t just kicking butt when it comes to market share, but also mobile apps as well. The search giant’s Play Store now offers a great selection of titles than the App Store, but Apple fans will argue that quality is more important than quantity.

Spotify now has a whopping 60 million active listeners, 15 million of which are paying for a Spotify Premium subscription, the European company confirmed today. Spotify has added around 2.5 million paying subscribers in just two months — and that’s despite being given the boot by Taylor Swift.

Xiaomi, the Chinese electronics manufacturer that’s famous for taking inspiration from (copying) Apple, has ironically warned consumers not to buy knockoffs of its flagship devices after a recent increase in the number of copycat devices, which are looking to cash in on the company’s success in China.

Playing games and being productive are two activities that just don’t mix, but thanks to a Minecraft player that goes by the name of Koala Steamed, you can now construct a fort while you type up your class papers. Steamed has spent two years building a word processor inside the hit game that really works.