Motorola today confirmed that it will begin pushing an Android 7.0 Nougat update to its Moto Z and Moto Z Force handsets. Starting later this week, the two models will go from Android 6.1 to Android 7.0.
Additionally, the software update brings about support for Daydream VR, the new virtual reality platform from Google. According to Motorola, these mark the first non-Google smartphones to pick up certification for Daydream VR. To qualify for the certification, phones must meet certain hardware requirements, including high-resolution displays, fast refresh rates, and finely-tuned sensors.
The Android 7.0 Nougat update is expected to reach devices globally over the next few days. As for the Verizon-branded Droid models (Moto Z Droid, Moto Z Force Droid), it’s not clear how long it will be until they see the release. Although ready to go from Motorola, it must pass Verizon’s checks before going out.
It is not known if, or how soon, Motorola might release the Android 7.0 update for its Z Play model.
As smartphones become smarter, they are able to track more and more of our day. While some of us might start breaking out the tinfoil hats, worried about Big Brother tracking our every move, others are embracing all of the life logging that our pocket partners can offer.
In comes Emberify’s Instant, a life log app with more trackers than you can shake a stick at. If you’re at all interested in logging your daily activities or phone use, you need to give Instant a try.
Instant is quick to get up and running, only requiring a few permissions to be able to access phone app usage and location, and it can be connected to Google Fit for some additional access to workout data. No further login is required; just a few taps you’ll be on your way.
Overview
Instant starts off with tracking your phone usage. It records how long you use your phone for, how long you use specific apps for, and even the number of times you’ve unlocked your phone.
There’s also an alert you can set for total phone usage time. The default is 4 hours of use a day, at which time it will send you a push notification to let you know you have reached your limit. This is great for people looking to limit their daily usage.
All of this was especially useful for me because I’m constantly using my phone for work, which can digress to me flipping through Flipbook to see what’s new, or scrolling through my Twitter feed. Now, I know how long I’m using work and non-work apps for, which helps me know what apps to avoid in the middle of my day so I can stay on track. This is also neat to see what apps you really need and what’s just taking up space.
I am a self-proclaimed app pack-rat. If an app does something cool or unique, I download it — even if I’m not going to use it besides to show off to others. Thanks to Instant, I’ve managed to trim down a few apps after seeing a breakdown of the apps that I actually do use.
Instant also keeps track of a number of things right from your pocket. Steps taken, walking duration, and running duration are pretty standard in apps that track fitness, but Instant takes it a step further to include things such as the amount of time you’ve slept, and even time spent traveling to work.
If you set up your home and work location, it can even log how much time you spend at each location, useful for those who are looking to manage a good work/life balance. In my experience, location tracking is good for a general area but isn’t entirely reliable. I went to the gym this week and it listed that I spent time the next block over. It’s close, but not 100%. The app description says that it also has cycling integration, but unfortunately I was unable to try out this feature.
Instant makes charts and graphs even more fun by adding in interesting facts about your stats
The last feature of this app is the virtual Coach that’s. It provides you with a daily stat breakdown, and you can ask it for information about what you did on certain days or info about usage about previous weeks.
It works well for those specific things, but in my tests, it doesn’t seem to be all that intelligent. If I ask for things like last week’s phone data, it works, but even if I ask something like “What can you do?” to get a list of features, it answers back that it doesn’t understand. It’s still a work in progress and will surely get better with time, but for right now seems a little limited.
To get the most out of Instant, you will need a subscription to its service. Without one, you still have access to a large number of features, such as phone unlocks, total phone usage time, top three apps and usage, and basic fitness history for the day. Additional stats, such as what day you used your phone the most, your most used app of the week, travel time for the week, and how you slept all week are only available to paid subscriptions.
The current subscription price is only $2 per month, so for all the content you’re getting, it is really a great value. Features are also constantly being added, which is great. I would love to see some sort of meal tracker added, or integration with S Health, which is where I log my sleep and meals.
Conclusion
I promise I was only using Facebook for work!
All in all, Instant is a fantastic app. It’s easy to use with beautiful animated charts and graphs that track daily and weekly phone use and activities such as walking, exercise, traveling, and even cool things like the amount of time spent places.
The small subscription fee is totally worth the amount of information you’re getting access to. I didn’t fancy myself much of a lifelogger before Instant, but after trying Instant out, I’m completely fascinated by all the details it provides about my life. This goes especially in areas I wouldn’t even think twice about normally. If you are at all interested in personal stats and lifelogging, this is the app you can not pass up.
Buying a Samsung Gear S3 smartwatch but don’t have a Galaxy phone companion? It doesn’t matter, Samsung Pay will work on the wearable regardless of this aspect. Which is pretty awesome news.
With the previous Gear S2, Samsung wasn’t so generous. You had to have a compatible Galaxy phone to be able to use Samsung Pay via the smartwatch, but this is no longer the case with the S3. Samsung has confirmed via a Tweet.
All you need to pay with your Gear S3 watch is an Android 4.4 or older connected smartphone. It doesn’t matter whether it’s from LG, HTC or Motorola.
However, we need to point out one thing – it doesn’t mean you’ll be able to use Samsung Pay on your smartphone. No, you’ll still need a Galaxy phone for that. It means you’ll be allowed to make payments via the Gear S3 (paired to any device with Android 4.4+).
What’s not clear at the moment is how users will input their card info. On a Galaxy phone this is achieved via Samsung Pay, which is exclusive to the Galaxy lineup. Still Samsung might release some sort of companion app for Gear S3 users (some users are already complaining the service is not working).
It’s good news for Gear S3 owners, as Samsung has just unleashed a loyalty program for Samsung Pay users called Samsung Rewards. Basically every time you shop using Samsung Pay, you receive points which can be turned into prizes like Samsung products, gift cards etc.
As for he Gear S3 customers can get it via T-Mobile, but the magenta carrier is selling it for quite an expensive price tag, compared to other places. Samsung and AT&T also have the wearable on offer.
Retailer BestBuy had the two Gear S3 models, Classic and Frontier on sale for $299.99 but the watch is currently sold out.
Albeit being one of the best known smartphone makers on the market, HTC’s mobile division has been faltering for quite some time. Now a recent report claims that things are going so bad that the Taiwanese device maker is looking to sell its phone making subsidiary.
Given HTC’s current status, it’s not exactly inconceivable the company might be on the lookout for alternatives. The Pixel maker recently posed its Q3 financial results, revealing a $57 million profit loss in its mobile division.
The company said its latest flagship the HTC 10 has been embraced by the market. Despite the phone being pretty solid, it seems that customers prefer other brands.
HTC recently released a new smartphone bound exclusively for Sprint and called Bolt. The device maker is marketing it as an improved version of the HTC 10. However, the phone takes advantage of last year’s chipset – the problematic Snapdragon 810. A puzzling choice which won’t help much with sales, if you ask us.
Anyway, current rumors claim that HTC’s general manager, Cher Wang recently got in touch with collaborators in order to give them the heads up about the sale which will purportedly happen in spring 2017.
The Taiwanese device maker was quick to deny the rumors on Weibo, but analysts claim this is exactly what companies tend to do before a major sale agreement. Four Taiwanese companies are already said to be interested.
Acquisitions like these happen all the time in the mobile world. Microsoft bought Nokia and Motorola got absorbed by Lenovo, so HTC might soon follow a similar path. Recently the company manufactured the Pixel phones for Google, so it wouldn’t be a huge shock if the search giant ended up incorporating HTC.
On the other hand, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard HTC was looking to sell its mobile business. Last year, the rumor mill was claiming laptop maker ASUS was entertaining the possibility of buy HTC. The same was said about Xiaomi, but to this day nothing of the sorts happened to this day, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
That being said, HTC isn’t all about smartphone. The company is said to be working on a smartwatch product codenamed “Halfbeak” and recently went into VR by partnering with Valve for the Vive VR headset.
After the Samsung killed off the Galaxy Note7 phablet, there were concerns the decision will greatly impact the company’s credibility. Will consumers continue to buy Samsung products, seemed to be the question du jour.
Well according to a new opinion poll ordered by Reuters/Ipsos, customers continue to be quite invested in the Samsung brand. The poll was conducted across 50 states and included 2,375 Samsung phone users and 3,158 iPhone owners.
We all known that Apple users are considered loyalists. But you know what? According to the results, Samsung appear to be as invested in their brand of choice, as Apple fans.
91% of existing Samsung users say they would buy another handset from the company, while 92% iPhone users claim they will continue to stick with Apple.
What’s more, people who were up to speed to with the news related to the Galaxy Note7 recall proved to be just as likely to buy the phone from the Korean tech giant, as those who had no idea Samsung killed the phablet.
To give you the numbers – 27% of those who knew about the Galaxy Note7’s demise said they are not looking to do business with another OEM, while 25% of those who were not familiar with the Galaxy Note7 story said the would still buy from Samsung.
This concurs with an earlier report coming out of South Korea showing that a lot of users in Samsung’s home territory aren’t looking to say goodbye to Samsung. Some users explained they did not return the Galaxy Note7 phablet, because they were not really looking to “downgrade”. To them only the upcoming Galaxy S8 is worthy of their attention, even if Samsung is currently offering the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge as a replacement.
The most important thing to note here is that, despite not being interested to exchange the Note7 phablet for an “older” phone like the Galaxy S7, most customers are still looking to upgrade within the Samsung family.
Going back to the Reuters/Ispsos survey, we’re also told that despite info claiming the iPhone 7 benefited the most from the Galaxy Note7’s debacle, the current data reveals that Chinese manufacturers were actually those that gained the most.
For its part Samsung has also tried to keep customers interested in what it still has to offer. For example, the Galaxy Upgrade program allows ex-Galaxy Note7 owners to be eligible to upgrade to the Galaxy S8 or Galaxy Note 8 at half the price next year. And by the looks of it, customers are very interested.
The conclusion of the study is that the Galaxy Note7 fiasco could be a decision factor for some, but mostly newcomers – people who never owned a Samsung phone before. But the bulk of Samsung’s consumer base will continue supporting the Korean conglomerate.
A few weeks ago Nokia’s upcoming Android Nougat smartphones leaked in images, giving us a glimpse of what we could expect to see next year.
Nokia’s return to smartphones has been highly anticipated by fans all over the globe and now the company has confirmed that new handsets are actually slated for 2017. The information popped up in a presentation showcased at the Capital Markets Day event Nokia holds for investors. As you can see for yourself 2017 marks “Nokia brand’s return to smartphones”.
After the Microsoft acquisition, Nokia stopped producing smartphones. The upcoming 2017 devices aren’t going to be manufactured by the Finnish company either, but rather by HDM Global (a Finnish manufacturer) in collaboration with Foxconn.
The slides also reveal that HMD has a ten-year exclusive agreement in place with Nokia for using its brand on mobile phones. The former company will be investing a minimum of $531 million into advertisement for these smartphone products.
If previous leaks are to be believed, Nokia is prepping an all-metal flagship with Gold, Black and White color variants.
These days mobile phone makers tend to release flagship in pairs. Just look at Apple (iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus), Google (Pixel and Pixel XL) or Samsung (Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge), so Nokia will follow the trend.
We’re told the phone maker will unveil a 5.2-inch and 5.5-inch model in 2017. As for computing power, the upcoming devices are expected to run on a Snapdragon 820 chipset, but given that the next-gen Snapdragon 835 is said to be making it out into consumer devices in 2017, we might as well see Nokia’s new flagships take advantage of the 10nm FinFET chips.
Not much is known about resolution, but we’re guessing that at least one model (probably the larger) will enjoy QHD res (1440 x 2560).
Other rumored specifications include IP68 certification for water and dust resistance, fingerprint scanner (embedded in home launcher) and a revamped Z Launcher.
Nokia’s return to the smartphone maker is said to happen in early 2017. Which means that the phones might see the light of day at MWC 2017 in Barcelona. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Oukitel is one of those virtually unknown Chinese smartphone makers that are trying to make a name for themselves on the US market. The company already offers a few products in the country, like the K6000 Pro which arrives with a huge 6,000 mAh battery.
Well the device maker is apparently planning a new handset model dubbed the U20 Plus which according to new information will come with a dual camera setup. Yes, the U20 Pro won’t be the first device to offer such a capability. Smartphones like the iPhone 7 Plus, LG G5 (and the new LG V20) or Huawei P9 (and new Mate 9) already boast this feature.
However, these are all premium phones that are sold at expensive price tags. But the Oukitel U20 Plus will most likely be sold less extravagantly.
Anyway, we should expect the U20 Pro to make a debut into the wild with a 13MP main camera (interpolated to 16MP) that takes advantage of an IMX135 sensor. Oukitel promises the combination of superior hardware and optimized dual lenses software will allow users of the U20 Plus to capture SLR quality pictures.
The phone will incorporate a 5.5-inch FHD display (1920 x 1080 resolution) and a fingerprint sensor which will do more than just unlock the device. The authorization setup will be able to distinguish between long and single finger taps.
The rest of specifications have not been revealed, but if we’d have to guess the upcoming U20 Pro could feature a MediaTek Helio X20 chipset under the hood plus 4GB of RAM and 32GB/64GB of internal storage options. The device should take advantage of at least a 3,500 mAh battery and a price tag revolving around the $200 margin.
If you want a dual phone camera, but not looking to spend a lot of money the U20 Pro might be for you. The recently released Vivo Xplay 6 also features a dual camera setup, but comes with a price tag exceeding $500.
A true alternative to the Oukitel U20 Pro might be the Huawei Honor 6X – a phone which has been launched in China. Here’s the spec list.
Huawei Honor 6X
5.5-inch LCD display with 1080 x 1920 resolution
Kirin 655 processor (octa-core variety)
3GB/4GB
32GB/64GB of internal storage
12MP+2MP/8MP camera combo
Android 6.0 Marshmallow with EMUI 4.1 on top
3,340 mAh battery
In China prices start at $192, but unfortunately you might have to wait until the Honor 6X makes its way towards the US. That’s why the Oukitel U20 Pro might be just the phone you need right now.
I can’t quantify the amount of hours that I’ve wasted in my life thanks to Reddit. I’m always scrolling through /r/Android looking for interesting news, or through /r/iphone to see if I find new apps, /r/soccer to see everyone making fun of Manchester United, and so on. The possibilities are endless. Some people are reluctant to use Reddit, but it can be really useful and a place where I’ve met some good people.
After trying different Reddit clients, I just keep coming back to Sync for Reddit, an app with an impressive amount of customization, delightful interface, and a constant flow of updates. Not only it is one of the best apps to consume Reddit content, but one of the top apps in the Play Store.
Developer:Red Apps LTD Price: Free (Pro version available)
Setup
The menu is home to your profile, messages, settings, and your subreddits.
This is one of those nice developers that have understood that not everyone wants to use an app only after logging in. In fact, you could use Sync for eternity without logging in. Sure, the experience won’t be as satisfying but it’s entirely possible.
If you want to connect your account to Sync, then you can tap on the hamburger menu button at the top left and then tap on Add Account. This will open a webview in which you can input your account details.
I’ve never really thought about how the permission system works in Reddit, but every single app that I’ve tried asks for this extremely long list of permissions. Fortunately, they all sound very logical and you can see how it is being used in the app.
After logging in successfully, you will be taken to the app’s main screen again, but this time, you’ll be logged in! All of your subreddits are automatically synchronized, and you might notice that the side menu now has a couple more options to play around with. We’ll analyze them all later on.
Overview
If you don’t know about Reddit, then the easy, concise way of describing it is “a social news aggregation, web content rating and discussion website” (courtesy of good ol’ Wikipedia). Users submit content into subreddits (think of them as a category where all the content follows the same subject), be it news links, GIFs, pictures, information, and everything in between, and then other users discuss about it. If used correctly, Reddit can be an extremely useful source of information and an easy way of learning about a specific topic without going to multiple sites.
Reddit’s web interface looks outdated in my opinion, but their mobile site is clearly more suitable for our times. However, Sync takes this to another level, presenting a beautiful, yet simple interface. It is inspired by the card-style interface introduced by Google some time ago, and it works wonderfully for every kind of content.
A dark theme is available too!
When you start the app, you’ll see the Front Page, which is an aggregation of all the subreddits you follow. Each card shows the title of the post, the user, the date, the subreddit it belongs to and the points/comments. Also, a big picture accompanies every post, be it either the post’s featured image, the picture uploaded by the user itself, or a preview of a video/GIF.
At the top, there’s a button to enter swipe mode, in which all news will appear full screen; you swipe to the right or left to change between them. Personally, I think it’s a really slow and inefficient way to consume news, but that’s why there are options: some might like them, some might not.
By default, Sync shows you the “Hot” variant of the home page, which aggregates posts that are — wait for it –hot right now. You can also change it to New, Rising, Top (and order it from hour, day, week and even the top post of all time), and Controversial (with the same time frames as Top).
At the top right, you will see an overflow button. This is the home of several very useful functions, such as searching for subreddits/posts, switching the type of view (compact, list, full height, and so on), recently viewed, hide read posts, and sync. There’s also a very peculiar option: Random. It takes you to a random subreddit. The developer has thought of everything.
You can also filter the kind of posts you want to see. Only fancying images? In the mood for some funny GIFs? You actually want to get stuff done and read some news? Maybe a combination of them? Your wish is Sync’s command.
Post view
Selecting a post isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. Selecting the image part will always lead to the resource itself. Be it a news link, an image, a GIF, a video, or everything in between, Sync will always open the content.
For this, the app incorporates an in-app browser, a image viewer (and gallery when there’s more than one image), and a video/GIF viewer. This provides a seamless experience, keeping you in the app as long as possible instead of relying on webviews to see media. Other clients I’ve tried are very eager to take me to webviews in order to see images and videos. This is one of the strongest points of Sync for Reddit, and one that keeps me from using other clients.
The detail view shows more about the content and the comments that they’ve generated.
Hitting the bottom part of a post will take you to the discussion itself. Since a comment can have multiple sub-comments, which in turn can have sub-comments by themselves, Sync uses colors to identify the level of each comment. This can be a confusing system, but Reddit itself uses it, so changing it would be unpopular among users. Fortunately, you can collapse different levels by long-pressing a comment. Commenting and replying can be done in a breeze too.
Profile, Messaging and Subreddits
Your profile shows your badges, karma, and the comments you’ve made.
The overflow menu has so many things to choose from. It even changes its options depending on if you’re signed in or not. First, this is where you sync the app with your reddit account, in order to get your subreddits, messages and favorites.
The Profile menu entry lets you check out different stuff regarding your activity at Reddit, such as the comments you’ve made, posts you’ve upvoted, and links you’ve marked as favorite. Also, you can access the messages you’ve sent and received through the Messaging tab. Also, this is the place you can check your comments and posts replies. The good think about Sync is that everything is where you would expect it to be. There’s no overly complicated flows or digging through different screens.
Finally, the list of all the subreddits you follow will be here. If you follow a lot of subreddits, this can get quite long, and it’s probably the least intuitive part of the whole application. There’s also a list with multireddits (a group of subreddits joined together) at the bottom. This is another case in which having a long list of subreddits could hamper usability of these multireddits.
Options
So. Many. Options. Sync is probably one of the most customizable apps in the Play Store. There’s so many you can change that if I talked about everything, this review would look like a research paper.
Settings are divided into four categories: Appearance, Content, General and Other. All of them are pretty self-explanatory, but I will mention the most important aspects of each one.
Appearance deals with the way the app looks. Here you can change stuff like themes (light or dark), font size, animations, and customization for every view type. This last item is amazingly powerful: not only you can choose between different views to consume the app, but you can change every aspect of each view. Pretty cool stuff.
Sync offers a mind-blowing amount of options to choose from.
The content category controls how you consume Reddit content. You can change the default post sort (Hot, Top, Controversial, etc.), different options for handling the comments view, notifications for messages, image/video viewer, and link handling.
General deals with more broad options, such as the data usage (through preloading of full images, thumbnails and GIFs), content filtering (NSFW posts, domain filtering, keyword filtering, and such), and backup of your current configuration. The Other category groups stuff like app version, licenses, privacy policy and similar.
As we can see, as is always a constant with Sync, everything is exactly where you expect it to be. The app has powerful options and customization, but it never strays away from dealing with a lot of information and features in a no-nonsense way.
Conclusion
For years, Sync for Reddit has been one of the most important Reddit clients in the Play Store. It’s easy to see why: a plethora of features, immensely powerful customization options, and pleasant interface are only a few of the benefits that the app presents. There’s also a Pro version if you don’t want to deal with ads, and want to support the constant updates of this amazing client. Give it a go and I’m sure it won’t disappoint you.
Can you feel that? Discounts and savings are coming at us from all angles. This is the best time of the year to consider switching service providers. Why? Because everyone is doing all they can to attract new customers and finish the year out strong.Here’s a list of what each of the top five carriers are doing this week.
Recently, Huawei Device USA announced that its MediaPad M Series class of tablets are now being sold in the U.S. They’re ranked Best In Class and designed with entertainment in mind. The M Series focus on audio quality from harman/kardon with stereo speakers.
MediaPad M2
The M2 tablet has a 10.1 screen with four different speakers. These speakers include special tech like an Intelligent Power Amplifier, Audio Restoration and SWS 2.0 Surround Sound. Combined with an HD IPS display, this is the perfect tablet for bingeing on Netflix. The M2 is $199.
Body: 8.46 x 4.88 x 0.31 inches; 11.64 oz
Screen: 1200 x 1920 pixels, IPS LCD
Processor: Kirin 930; octa-core, 2000MHz, 64-bit
Storage: 32GB
RAM: 3GB
Camera: 8MP rear/2MP front
Battery: 4800mAh
OS: Android 5.1, Emotion 3.1 UI
Other: Fingerprint sensor
MediaPad M2
MediaPad M3
This tablet features Huawei’s proprietary Super Wide Sound 3.0, which can automatically tell the difference between music and video, and seamlessly adjust the sound. The M3 is $299.
Specifications
Body: 8.48 x 4.89 x 0.29 inches; 10.93 oz
Screen: 1600 x 2560 pixels, IPS LCD
Processor: Kirin 950; octa-core, 2300MHz, 64-bit
Storage: 64GB
RAM: 4GB
Camera: 8MP rear/8MP front
Battery: 5100mAh
OS: Android 6.0, Emotion 4.1 UI
Other: Fingerprint sensor
MediaPad M3
In addition to the M series, Huawei is also bringing its MediaPad T series, billed as family friendly. Just in time for the holidays, these tablets come in 7″ and 10″ sizes at affordable prices.
You can find all four tablets at Amazon.com (affiliate link).
Instant starts off with tracking your phone usage. It records how long you use your phone for, how long you use specific apps for, and even the number of times you’ve unlocked your phone.
All you need to pay with your Gear S3 watch is an Android 4.4 or older connected smartphone. It doesn’t matter whether it’s from LG, HTC or 
What’s not clear at the moment is how users will input their card info. On a Galaxy phone this is achieved via Samsung Pay, which is exclusive to the Galaxy lineup. Still Samsung might release some sort of companion app for Gear S3 users (some users are already complaining the service is not working).
HTC recently released a new smartphone bound exclusively for Sprint and called 
The Taiwanese device maker was quick to deny the rumors on 
On the other hand, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard HTC was looking to sell its mobile business. Last year, the rumor mill was claiming laptop maker ASUS was entertaining the possibility of buy HTC. The same was said about Xiaomi, but to this day nothing of the sorts happened to this day, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
91% of existing Samsung users say they would buy another handset from the company, while 92% iPhone users claim they will continue to stick with Apple.
The most important thing to note here is that, despite not being interested to exchange the Note7 phablet for an “older” phone like the 
For its part Samsung has also tried to keep customers interested in what it still has to offer. For example, the Galaxy Upgrade program allows ex-Galaxy Note7 owners to be eligible to upgrade to the Galaxy S8 or 
After the 
If previous leaks are to be believed, Nokia is prepping an all-metal flagship with Gold, Black and White color variants.
Not much is known about resolution, but we’re guessing that at least one model (probably the larger) will enjoy QHD res (1440 x 2560).
However, these are all premium phones that are sold at expensive price tags. But the Oukitel U20 Plus will most likely be sold less extravagantly.
The rest of specifications have not been revealed, but if we’d have to guess the upcoming U20 Pro could feature a MediaTek Helio X20 chipset under the hood plus 4GB of RAM and 32GB/64GB of internal storage options. The device should take advantage of at least a 3,500 mAh battery and a price tag revolving around the $200 margin.
5.5-inch LCD display with 1080 x 1920 resolution
