The LG G6 was announced today at Mobile World Congress featuring a 5.7-inch display with an 18:9 aspect ratio. The handset’s abnormally tall screen makes it easier to use two applications at the same time on top of each other but it also makes for unusually thin wallpapers. All of the wallpapers seen below are the stock images that come with LG’s latest flagship…
So the Google Pixel embargo dropped today, and if you haven’t noticed, it’s getting pretty good reviews — including from us. One of the nicer touches that Google added with the Pixel in this writer’s opinion is a wide variety of stock wallpapers to choose from. It seems that the wallpaper picker is pulling some of them from the web, but some others — the ones you see below — are actually found in an APK that ships with the Pixel…
After first planning to launch the app during Google I/O 2015 and changing its mind at the last minute, Google has finally launched Voice Access in beta, a new accessibility app that allows users to control their phone using their voice. With Voice Access, you can use a wide variety of voice commands like “open Chrome” to bring up the browser or “go home” to go to the home screen…
In its next major release this summer, Android will finally add a multi-window mode for both tablets and phones. Jide is beating Google to release today with a fully featured version of Remix OS 2.0 for its Ultratablet and the Nexus 9 and 10. ROMs for the two Nexus tablets are available to download now.
Big changes are coming to the community-based music streaming service SoundCloud as the company today introduces a new subscription service for the first time.
The new feature, dubbed SoundCloud Go, will allow users to listen to SoundCloud music both offline and ad-free for $10/month:
Update: The Miitomo app is now available on the Play Store.
The game is already available in Japan— that’s how Jeff managed to go hands-on in our first look video earlier this month— but today Nintendo confirmed that its first smartphone game, Miitomo, will officially arrive in the US on March 31st.
The game isn’t exactly bringing over any of Nintendo’s very popular first party franchises to Android devices, but it does feature known Mii characters and, as we noted in our review, the release feels very much like a Nintendo title:
When you first start Miitomo, it’s immediately recognizable as a Nintendo title. It feels like someone took my Nintendo Wii and shrunk it down to fit inside of my iPhone 6s. The music and sound effects, most notably, are of the characteristic Nintendo style. The Miis themselves look just like the Miis on the game-maker’s handheld and home consoles. The writing — witty, with just a hint of corniness thrown in for good measure — is classic Nintendo.
Nintendo noted in its press release today that Miitomo was downloaded over a million times in the first three days after launch in Japan and it also managed to become the #1 most downloaded free app in both the App Store and Google Play.
While Nintendo didn’t mention other countries by name today, it did say that “several other countries” will receive the title on the 31st alongside users in the US.
Check out our review of the game on our sister site 9to5Mac from earlier this month to get a first look before it officially arrives in the US and other countries on the 31st.
In a surprise move, Google announced today (as we told you earlier this morning) that the Android N developer preview is available for download. The simplest route is through the yet-to-be launched Android Beta Program, but as usual Google has also posted the factory images.
Facebook today announced it’s rolling out a new feature for its Messenger chat app that will let users book a car through Uber. The feature, it said, expands on other “integrations” it’s added recently outside of the app’s core chat functionality, like the ability to send money or use the app for customer support.
Google has quietly launched a Chrome beta for iOS through TestFlight, the beta distribution service Apple acquired last year and integrated into its own developer services. Google has yet to make an official announcement for the beta release, but users can already sign-up and download the beta when visiting Google’s Chrome beta download page on iOS. Expand
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Google has now released the latest version of Android, dubbed Android Marshmallow, which the company first previewed earlier this year at Google I/O in San Francisco. And while Google will most certainly be rolling out the update (and subsequent updates) over-the-air with no work required on your part, many who aren’t as familiar with how to flash factory images might want to install the latest build manually.
That’s why we made this guide. If you have the Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 7 (2013) Nexus 9, or Nexus Player, there’s a build of Android 6.0 Marshmallow available right now for you to install on your device. Be warned however, that this process isn’t something that most regular users should attempt. If you do have a little bit of command line knowledge (or you think you want to take the time to learn), keep reading… Expand
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Google Play has 10 tracks of Latin Vibes Free for a limited time. Just head on over and download the full album. 
We can honestly say we are only familiar with one artist in this collection (I think you can guess who), but the price is just right.
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Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service previously only allowed users of Amazon’s own Fire-branded Android devices to download content for offline viewing, but today the company announced it’s expanding that privilege to all iOS and Android users. Expand
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The SmartWatch 3 is one of a few first-gen Android Wear devices that’s still sold on the Google Store, and now Sony has published an app on the Play Store that lets you customize all of your device’s default watch faces (via Android Police).
With the app, you can customize watch face backgrounds, hands, time markers, accent colors, and more features. Additionally, you can choose “from a range of widgets” that bring information like the current date and your step count to the front of your device.
There are three basic watch faces that are new thanks to the app: Classic, Watercolor, and Sony. The first is a traditional analog face, the second sports — as you might have guessed — some colorful designs, and Sony is a very basic digital face.
To use this app, Sony says that you have to have the Android Wear companion app installed on your device, and it’s probably a good idea to make sure that you have the latest version of Android Wear installed on your device as well.
You can grab the Sony SmartWatch 3 accessory app on the Play Store for free. If you’re like me, you probably think this means a bunch of awesome new watch faces to try on other Android Wear devices. I’ll save you the time in trying; this is for the SmartWatch 3 only.
It’s been possible on the web for quite a while, but a recent update to the Google Keep app now lets you quickly export your notes to a Google Doc. To do so, make sure you have the latest version of the app, and then select the notes you’d like to export. Then tap the drop down menu at the top right of the screen and tap “Copy to Google Doc”. It’s pretty nifty.
You can grab the app from the Play Store for free of course, and if you’d like to try out the feature right now, open this page on your Android device. All you have to do is tap below to download the APK (via APKMirror), and then tap the notification on your phone once the app is done downloading. You’ll be walked through a couple steps, and then you’ll be on the latest version.
Microsoft announced last month that its Cortana voice assistant would be coming to Android in beta at some point in July, but it looks like the APK has managed to leak out a bit early. We grabbed it as soon as we could, and decided to give it a look. And our first impression, frankly, is that there’s not really anything special about Cortana — especially when Android has Google Now, Hound, and other competitors to pick from.
According to The Information, Google secretly bought “app streaming” startup Agawi late last year, an acquisition that wasn’t reported until today. The company built technology that is basically the Netflix or Spotify of apps—letting users stream games and apps to their phone without having to necessarily “download” them:
The search giant last fall secretly acquired an “app streaming” startup called Agawi whose technology allows people to access apps on their smartphone without downloading them first.
The acquisition, which hasn’t been previously reported, provides strong clues about the direction that Google is trying to move mobile software development.
While Sony has yet to officially announce a second generation SmartBand fitness tracker, it briefly released a companion Android app this evening for the device before quickly taking it down. The app, no longer available in the Play Store, was simply titled SmartBand 2 and gave a handful of features we can expect to find in Sony’s upcoming wearable (via Xperia Blog).
Android Wear 5.1.1 is now rolling out to smartwatches everywhere, but as is the case with Google’s over-the-air updates, it might be days before you actually see the latest version pop up on your device. Rollouts start slowly, but thankfully there’s a way around Google’s careful and incremental rollout: OTA download links. It takes a little know-how to capture one, but once they’re discovered, anyone can simply download them to their computer and sideload them via ADB.
The over-the-air download links are now starting to show up for the most recently-released Android Wear 5.1.1 update, and you can find them organized below… Expand
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Android 5.1 has been slowly but surely making its way to the slew of Nexus devices that still get updates, and the Nexus 4 was one—until just now—that still hadn’t gotten the latest version of Lollipop. The factory image still hasn’t been uploaded to Google’s developers’ website (we’ll update this post when that’s available), but some Nexus 4 owners are already receiving the update over-the-air and have kindly shared the download link—meaning you can get the update right now straight from Google’s servers. Expand
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Android 5.1 has slowly begun rolling out to Nexus devices over the last couple of weeks (and has been seen on Android One devices since February), but Google has today posted the factory image for the Nexus Player. Previously, Google updated the download page with links for the Nexus 5, 2012 WiFi Nexus 7, and the Nexus 10, and now you can manually update your new Nexus-branded Android TV set top box as well if you’d like.
Hit up Google’s developers site to find the Nexus Player’s Android 5.1 image, with build number LMY47D.
Update: It seems this is the image that shipped with the Verizon Nexus 6.
Android 5.1 factory images for Nexus devices have been hitting the Google developers’ website for a while now, but a new build of the Nexus 6 image titled “LMY47E” has now been released (via Android Police). It’s unclear exactly what this build is for, but it’s notably just one letter higher than the one we saw appear earlier this month.
Oddly, Google hasn’t decided which one they would like to keep available, and there’s no word on which users should be going with. Both are freely up for download over at the factory image download page right now. So if you’d like to try your hand at flashing the higher build to your device, there’s definitely nothing stopping you.
We’ll update this post when we have word on what’s new in this version.
The Apple Watch was once again shown off at Apple’s “Spring Forward” event on Monday, and it looks like the Android Wear community is already putting together some watch faces inspired by Apple’s selections. Ironically, first up is the iconic Mickey Mouse face that has been the brunt of many a joke in the Android community on Google+, and it looks like the XDA-Developers user who made it did a pretty good job of replicating the real deal…
Google recently started publishing Nexus factory images for Android 5.1, but now download links for the over-the-air update are hitting the Internet. It likely won’t be long before your Nexus device has the update up and running (5.1 for the Sprint Nexus 6 started rolling out yesterday, for example), but if you just can’t wait to get your hands on those performance improvements, we’ve got you covered…
It doesn’t look like the 2012 model of the Nexus 7 is ever going to get updated to 5.0.1, as today Google has updated its factory image download page with a previously unseen build of Android—version 5.0.2. Not much is known yet in regards to what the update packs, or whether or not all devices will be getting it at some point, but it’s likely this is just an additional build (LRX22G) Google is pushing to fix some bugs specific to the Nexus 7.
In this case, the update is for the “nakasi” Wi-Fi model of the Nexus 7 (2012). To get your hands on the update, head over to Google’s factory image download page. And if you’re not quite sure what to do with that factory image, we have a convenient guide written up just for you—although it’s best for those who aren’t as experienced to just wait for the OTA as it will surely be dropping relatively soon.
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Samsung focused blog SamMobile today posted the videos above and below showing off an upcoming Android 5.0.1 update for the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, Galaxy Note Edge, and Galaxy S5 LTE-A.
The update is mostly bug fixes, according to the report, but it also has a few notable new features including slow and fast motion video recording functions. Expand
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The latest build of Android, 5.0.1 Lollipop, has been rolling out to devices for about a week now, and the factory image page has been slowly but surely getting updated with more downloads. A couple days ago we saw the addition of factory image downloads for the Nexus 4 and 6, but today the page has been updated with a link for the LTE model of the Nexus 9.
Following the announce of the next major version of Android Wear this morning, Google has today announced that the official API for Android Wear watch faces is available to developers. The company has also published a video to help give some guidelines to developers on how to take advantage of the API and help them get started.
We’re pleased to announce that the official Android Wear Watch Face API is now available for developers. Watch faces give users even more ways to express their personal style, while creating an opportunity for developers to customize the most prominent UI feature of the watches. Watch faces have been the most requested feature from users and developers alike, and we can’t wait to see what you build for them.
Google asks that developers have their watch faces transitioned to the new API by January 31st, 2015, after which point Google says they plan to completely remove support for watch faces that aren’t built with the API.
You can check out the official watch face API over at the Google Developers website. You’ll need Android Studio 1.0.0 or higher, an Android device with version 4.3 (API level 18) or higher, and an Android Wear watch with version 5.0 (API level 21) or higher to start building faces.
While official Android Lollipop factory images for the all-new Nexus 9 and Nexus Player were made available earlier this month, users with other Nexus and Google Play Edition devices are still waiting on Google to seed the update. In the meantime, Nexus 7 (2012) owners are in luck, as an Android Lollipop factory image for the tablet has leaked ahead of its official release. Expand
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Following the actual announcement of Android Lollipop earlier this week, Google has now released its official SDK to developers interested in writing apps for the new OS. The release comes following the Android L SDK preview that was released earlier this year at Google I/O (which was only for the Nexus 5 and 7).
Following a release for iPad back in March, HBO’s Game of Thrones Ascent game developed by Disruptor Beam & Kongregate is now available for Android. The game already racked up around 2,500,000 players on Facebook and the web before making its way to mobile devices, and it comes to the smartphones with new art, optimized imagery, and leaderboards.
With Game of Thrones Ascent, fans can immerse themselves beyond the books and show, living the life of a noble in Westeros, working with (or against) each other in a persistent, authentic game world. Taking part in thousands of story-driven quests, players delve deeply into the lore and develop their own lands and reputation among the Great Houses. Players explore an expansive world filled with deep political and social play involving diplomatic agreements, pacts, marriages, and betrothals. Through Alliance challenges, players work with hundreds of others to accomplish great tasks and rise to the top of the Power Rankings.
The developers update the game weekly and alongside new episodes of the TV show when it’s airing. That includes new quests, in-game items and more that follow the storyline of the show.
Game of Thrones Ascent is available for Android now as a free download on Google Play.
The Play Store continues to hold a growing advantage over Apple’s App Store in terms of sheer downloads, according to the most recent App Annie report (via TechCrunch). More importantly, Google’s mobile app store is slowly narrowing the revenue gap that exists between the two platforms. While Google passed Apple’s App Store in terms of downloads last year, a major gap remained in the revenue that both platforms generated for developers. While Android still lags behind iOS in this department, it seems that the two are slowly reaching parity. Last year’s indexed revenue for the Play Store was ranked at about 40; as the above chart shows, it’s climbed to be just above 50.
Google Play led the iOS App Store in downloads by approximately 45% in Q1 2014, up from 35% in the previous quarter. Meanwhile, the iOS App Store maintained its comfortable advantage in revenue, leading Google Play by 85%. However, Google Play continued to narrow this revenue gap. The gains for Google Play come as Android devices extended their lead in worldwide device installed base.
Google Play saw revenue growth in the United States, which helped it to close the gap. Additionally, Android saw strong download growth around the world. iOS continued its growth in the US, as well as in China — traditionally a stronghold for Android device, albeit devices without access to the Play Store. Apple’s platform also saw strong growth in Vietnam and South Africa, among other smaller countries.
The takeaway? Both ecosystems are strong, and getting stronger.
Dropbox is introducing its latest product today, a photo and video management app called Carousel that integrates many of the features from the photo storage service Snapjoy acquired by Dropbox back in 2012.
The company unveiled the app at an event today in San Francisco as a gallery to store and share all of your photos and videos. The app is built for quick and easy sharing of one or multiple photos to phone contacts or email addresses (even if the recipient doesn’t have a Dropbox account), allowing you to get around the upload limitations usually associated with sharing photos. With everything backed up in full resolution directly to Dropbox, it essentially becomes a standalone app to manage just photos and videos that you want to store in Dropbox.
With Dropbox, we built a home for your photos and videos but never gave you a great way to experience them. We’d like you to meet Carousel, the newest member of the Dropbox family. It’s a gallery that houses your entire life’s memories. Even more, Carousel lets you share and relive these memories in private conversations with friends and family.
Carousel is now available as a free download on the App Store for iOS and the Play Store for Android.
[tweet https://twitter.com/carouselapp/status/453949761830154240]
The company also made some other product announcements today including news regarding versions of its Mailbox app for Android and Mac OS X.
Even though the phone won’t be released until next month, some of the Galaxy S5’s apps have been leaked online and can be installed on current Samsung devices, according to Android Police. The apps leaked include S Note, S Health, S Translator, the hardware managers for both the Galaxy Gear and the Gear Fit, Samsung Watch ON, and for all you math enthusiasts, the Calculator app.
The apps can be downloaded from the XDA thread where they were leaked, though it seems that some of them (specifically S Health) aren’t actually functional on older devices. Installing some of these packages will require a rooted phone so that old versions of the apps can be removed and replaced by the updated versions.
After hitting 5 million downloads and over 1 billion games played since launching on iOS a little over 4 months ago, betaworks-backed game “Dots” is today making its way to Android users for the time. The simplistic puzzle game, which sees users “connect as many same-colored dots” as they can during a 60 second timeframe, will be available as a free download sometime later today.
The announcement also comes with a new “moves mode” that does away with the time restriction but introduces a 30 move limit, as well as new trophies and support for a number of new languages, including: German, Spanish, French, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Arabic.
Keep an eye on the Google Play store for the Dots game arriving any minute now.
It seems an increasing number of users have been experiencing the old “Package File Invalid” error when attempting to update or download apps from Google Play. While it’s not the first time users have experienced the issue, it does appear that more and more users in recent days have been unable to workaround the issue in order to update and download apps. Good news if you’ve been having the problem, AndroidCentral points us to a Google support thread that confirms the company is investigating the errors:
We’ve received reports that some users are getting “Package File Invalid” while trying to download or update apps.
We’re currently investigating a permanent solution, and there are no workarounds at this time.
We’ll continue to update this page with developments, so check back soon.
Google announced on its Google Drive blog today that it is rolling out an updated Google Drive app for Android that includes a couple notable new features.
The app’s UI has been overhauled and now displays your Drive files in a familiar grid style view:
You can swipe between files to see large previews that let you quickly review and discover the information you’re looking for. And if you want to keep some Drive files on your Android device, you’ll now be able to “download a copy” from the actions menu inside settings.
Another big update included in the latest version of Drive for Android is the ability to ‘scan’ and store physical documents as PDFs. The new scan option will allow users to snap photos of documents and save them within Drive as a PDF. Thanks to Optical Character Recognition, you’ll also be able to search for the scanned docs using keywords.
The update includes a number of other improvements as well including the ability to download a copy of your files in Drive your device’s local storage, improvements to editing features in Google Sheets, and much more: Expand
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Chrome version 25 was released with a new Web Speech API that allows web developers to integrate speech-to-text dictation into their web applications.
The other feature of importance on the new version is the removal of “silent extensions.” Silent extensions are web-browser extensions that install without your knowledge. From now on, every web extension installation must be manually approved.
The updated version is available here, but Chrome’s auto-update feature may have already installed it for you.
WeeManFoo, a user on the popular Internet board site Reddit, claimed his Galaxy Nexus received a OTA update of Android 4.2.2 this morning. Judging by the comments, it seems the update was only rolling out to GSM Galaxy Nexus’, but download links and a screenshot from a Google+ user seems to put the kibosh on the rumor. While there’s no word on what the update holds, because it’s an x.x.1 update, it’s probably a mix of bug fixes and minor improvements. More on what the update holds as information comes in. In the meantime, get downloading!
We already know Flipboard made its Android début last week with the introduction of Samsung’s new Galaxy S III, but today the app is available to everyone willing to download and install the APK themselves. XDA-developer forum user Valcho uploaded the .apk that he extracted from the Galaxy S III, which means you’re getting the actual app. It should also be easily installed through your device’s Web browser, so you will get to try it before its official release on Google Play. Go over to the XDA forums to grab it now.
We originally got our first look at “S Choice” apps running on the new 5.3-inch Galaxy Note when Samsung showed off a selection of apps designed specifically for the device’s S Pen stylus at the launch event in London. While they already had a handful of apps including OmniSketch and Soonr Workplace up and running, the S Pen SDK (version 1.0) is now available for developers interested in creating their own applications optimized for S Pen.
Available from the Samsung Dev Tools portal here, the S Pen SDK allows you to create backgrounds for drawing with a ‘CanvasView’ feature, create panels for adjusting settings like line color an opacity with the ‘Pen Setting Popup’ feature, create panels for adjusting eraser widget with the ‘Eraser Setting Popup’ tool, and enable undo and redo. Screenshots after the break.
The new Android Market version 3.3.11 has begun being pushed to Android handsets. The new update adds a ton of welcomed features, and what seems to be the most welcomed feature is the auto-updating of apps over Wi-Fi — which rids away of having to go back into the Market every time a new update is pushed. 3.3.11 also allows you to select the app being downloaded to automatically set an icon on your homescreen. Other tweaks include voice search inside of the market and a new app drawer.
While you’re waiting for the update to be pushed to your device, you can go ahead and give it a try by downloading it here. We must worn you, though, that the manual install doesn’t work well on tablets and has a few bugs on handsets. Let us know in the comments down south if you’re seeing the update. (via Android Police)
Head on past the break for a full gallery:
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We brought you our 5-minute video walkthrough of the new TouchWiz UX update for Samsung’s Honeycomb-powered Galaxy Tab 10.1, and now the somewhat underwhelming 188mb firmware refresh is available as an over-the-air update.
Some of the more notable features include a new dock-like application launcher, the Swype for tablets app, and mobile printing. You may, however, want to wait this one out, as Samsung’s Gavin Kim confirms to the WSJ the OTA update will not be reversible:
Users, who will receive the over-the-air download for their WiFi devices beginning Friday, won’t be able to remove the Samsung features even if they desire to return to the standard Android platform, Mr. Kim said.
If you’re having trouble getting the update, make sure you’ve set up a Samsung account on your Galaxy Tab. Full list of features from the official press release below, if you’re interested.
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Android users who downloaded the updated Maps application today got a nice surprise. Google Maps for Android now features offline viewing. To enable the new feature, simply navigate to the Labs section of the Maps application and enable the Download Map Area option. After this is enabled, each time you want to download maps for offline viewing you will need to visit a Place page, click the more button, and then select the option to store locally. Maps will then store a 10 mile radius, locally to your device.
Offline viewing is available for Android because of the way it displays the maps. Android uses a vector-based system for displaying map tiles, where the iPhone uses an image based. This means Android can pull maps using about 1/100th of the data the iPhone would. Maybe we’ll see a change to the iPhone’s Google Maps soon.
