The Moto Z is Motorola’s latest and greatest flagship currently available, and it packs a nifty spec sheet in order to give it the best chance possible against competitors. Unfortunately, the device has only been available through Verizon since its launch, but as of today it is up for pre-order from either Amazon or best buy.
The 5.5 incher will set you back a hefty $699.99 from either site, and will come unlocked for use on any GSM networks. As a side note, the model starts at 64GB for the base model, as opposed to the previous 32GB.
The Moto Z Play is also now up for pre-order, but at a more reasonable $449.99, again from both online retailers.
The Moto Z will start shipping on the 2nd October for Amazon, and on the 3rd October from Best Buy and Motorola. The Moto Z Play will be out a little later, seeing the first orders shipping on the 20th October.
Ordering the Moto Z from Motorola’s site will bag you a free Charcoal Ash Wood shell to customize your device. If you buy it through Amazon instead, you’ll get $200 off the Hasselblad True Zoom Moto Mod, effectively bringing the price of the mod down to $50.
If you prefer to get the Moto Z Play, you will receive the Incipio offGRID Moto Mod with your order for free from Best Buy. This mod is selling for $79.99 from Amazon.
Although it’s a good thing that we’re seeing unlocked models available now, it may be a little late considering that there are countless other options out there that were available long before this unlocked variant of the Moto Z.
Nine years ago today, the world saw the release of the Android operating system. Like any operating system, Android has gone through many versions, each with its unique features and additions to the Android ecosystem. Android was revolutionary at its launch, and it continues to inspire growth and new design in a crowded industry. To celebrate almost a decade of Android devices, we invite you to join us as we take a look at the history and biggest moments of both Android the OS and Android the company.
Android logo 2014 – PresentAndroid logo 2007 – 2014
October 2003: A humble beginning
Android, Inc., the brainchild of Andy Ruin (co-founder of Danger), Rich Miner (co-founder of Wildfire Communications, Inc.), Nick Sears (former VP at T-Mobile), and Chris White (headed design and interface development at WebTV), was founded in October 2003 in Palo Alto, California. The company had to abandon its original goals of developing an advanced operating system for digital cameras after the founders realized the number of devices available to run their software would be minuscule. Instead, Android, Inc. turned its focus to the mobile market to take on the likes of Microsoft and Symbian.
One thing that immediately set Android apart from the competition was the fact that it is open source and completely free for phone manufacturers (OEMs) to use and modify. In the past, phone manufacturers would have to pay to use software. OEMs would then have to build devices to the specifications needed to run the software they had purchased. Android threw all that out the window by allowing OEMs to use the software for free and to make any changes needed to make it run on the devices they designed.
January 2005: Google shows interest
Google’s co-founder Larry Page took an early interest in Android. In January of 2005, Page and his Google co-founder Sergey Brin sat down with Andy Rubin and Nick Sears. Page wasted no time with small talk and jumped straight into the conversation by complimenting Rubin’s work on the T-Mobile Sidekick. Brin followed with a few jokes before getting in depth about the technology powering the Sidekick. While this conversation was friendly, Page and Brin tested Rubin by questioning him about what he could have done differently with the Sidekick. The conversation quickly turned into a collaborative process talking about the problems Rubin faced with the Sidekick faced.
While the purpose of the meeting may have been a bit confusing for Rubin and Sears at the time, Google’s interest in Android was evident.
A month and a half later, Page called Rubin back for a second meeting, and Google made its intentions clear. Google wanted to buy Android. While Rubin, White, and Sears were on board and wanted to sell to Google, Rich Miner wanted to company to stay small. Given Android’s financial state at the time, though, all four of Android’s founders eventually decided to sell and moved its base of operations into the Googleplex on July 11th, 2005.
November 5th, 2007: Forming an Alliance
Following a shocking iPhone announcement, rumors began to surface about a new Google phone. Google began to show up more and more in the media and speculations about a Google phone ran rampant. Tensions were heightened in September of 2007 when a leaked report revealed Google had filed for multiple patents having to do with the mobile devices.
On the 5th of November 2007, Google unveiled its secret project, the Open Handset Alliance (OHA). Founding members of the OHA include Samsung, HTC, Sony, Motorola, Qualcomm, T-Mobile, and many more. Google built the OHA as a commitment to openness, to establish standards for mobile devices, and to create a better experience for users. Together with Google at the helm, the OHA announced the release of the Android operating system. On October 22, 2008, almost a year after Android’s launch, HTC released the first Android-powered smartphone, the HTC Dream.
The Android timeline through KitKat
The sweetest version of Android yet
Since Android’s release in 2007, twelve major versions of Android have been released. Excluding versions 1.0 and 1.1, These versions of Android are always named alphabetically after sweet treats. This naming convention started in April of 2009 with Android 1.5 Cupcake and is still being followed today with Android 7.0 Nougat’s release in August of this year.
In addition to a “sweet” name, every version of Android has brought support for new features and hardware that previous versions were lacking such as widgets in Android Cupcake, support for CDMA networks in Android Doughnut, and Material Design in Android Lollipop.
Material Design
Material Design was introduced in Android 5.0 Lollipop and is one of the biggest UI design changes Android had seen since its inception. With Material Design, Google seeks to “Develop a single underlying system that allows for a unified experience across platforms and device sizes.”
To create the unique look and feel of Material Design, Google’s designers looked at paper and ink for inspiration. The designers would often make the app icons they were trying to design to see its texture, the way the light interacted with it, and how it moved.
Material Design expands upon Googles “card motifs” while making good use of grid-based layouts. The use of these grids makes the theme very organized user-friendly. Due to this organization, apps can easily be organized to fit into the established design within Android. This creates the uniform feel and experience Google is striving for across its platforms.
Android’s limitless future
Android has been through a lot in the last nine years. It has grown from a small startup to a piece in the large Google puzzle. We have seen 12 versions of Android, each adding something unique for users to experience. Today, Android has a dominant market share controlling 75.6% of the market. The journey to this point has been long and arduous at times and Android has had to overcome iOS, Symbian, and Microsoft to get to this point. Android, the OHA, and Google were able to accomplish this feat with beautiful innovation, intelligent design, and keeping the user experience the priority. Seeing how far Android has come in less than a decade make us hopeful and excited to see where it will go.
Zinga Jump is another game that hearkens back to the old days of mobile gaming, where you didn’t need as much substance or style to make a decent game. Unfortunately for Zinga Jump, it’s 2016 now and we have a lot of great mobile games available that offer a ton of content and polish, some even without ads. Zinga Jump is simple and rather innocuous, but there are some elements that make it almost impossible to recommend to anyone. at least for me.
Let’s start with the art and sound of the game. The resolution of the character sprite and backgrounds appear super low and blurry, especially on the QHDÂ screen of my Nexus 6P. There’s also very little variety in the levels, as they all use the same scrolling backgrounds and obstacles all the way through. There’s also no real theme to the game, as you play a sort of cutesy alien character in what appears to be a generic “Mario” type landscape. I could give the simple visuals a pass if it wasn’t made in Unity, which has the potential for much better graphics and is relatively simple to use. The worst part of the style of this game however, has to be the music. A three second loop of annoyingly upbeat noise that plays from the moment you start the app onward to infinity. The music alone is enough to tell you to avoid this one, and sure you could mute it, but then what’s the point.
Gameplay-wise, Zinga Jump is a bore. Timed tapping with shoddy accuracy makes it very difficult for something so simple, but just easy enough to beat if you halfway try. The placement of platforms is odd, and makes timing rapid jumps harder than it should since the game doesn’t like to always respond when I tap the screen. When you lose a level, you’re greeted with a poorly-spelled “game over” screen as well, which just further adds to the frustration. Also, you could beat the whole game in an hour since there’s only about 24 stages in total, and no good reason to replay them at all.
The biggest issue, however, has to be the micro-transactions. For some reason, the developer has seen fit to lock the last six levels behind a nonsense paywall, because of course. If that wasn’t bad enough, the whole of the six levels can only be bought individually with coins, that cost $0.99 for 250, which means in order to get all six, you’d be forced to spend another $0.99 for just one level. On top of that, there’s a 1000 coin option for $2.99, but why would anyone ever buy that? You may say “well, surely there’s more to be purchased with coins that justify the existence of such purchases.” well, you’d be wrong. There’s nothing else. Six levels, and that’s all. It would almost be okay if you could unlock the levels with the coins you collect from the actual gameplay, but guess what, those coins are meaningless and aren’t actually in-game currency at all. The game tries to force you to pay two buck minimum to unlock all it’s content and beat the full game, when it’s levels aren’t remotely worth the cost. It’s an awful scam and the developer shouldn’t feel proud of this game at all in this regard.
Oh, and on top of that it has the occasional ad as well.
Conclusion:
All in all, Zinga Jump is probably harmless, but the overall low quality and way it handles micro-transactions make it seem like a scam. I’d be hard pressed to find a less shady cash grab in the Google Play Store today. How it has a four star rating is beyond me, but either way I’d steer clear of this game for now.
There is definitely no shortage of weather apps available in the Play Store and for good reason. Weather apps are some of the most vital apps that people have on their phones. Whether it is just to check the forecast before leaving the house or getting alerts of severe weather before it arrives, a weather app is essential for any smartphone user.
You can find weather apps that provide you with so much information it can feel overwhelming and difficult to find what you are actually looking for. Today, we aren’t looking at a robust and feature-packed app, but instead, one that simply wants to tell you the weather. Sasha Weather Free is not robust…at all actually. But what it is is a good, simple way to see the current temperature and the current 7-day forecast for your current location or a manual location that you pick.
The Middle
Let’s start with the permissions that are needed for this app. First in order to automatically find the weather where you are, the app needs access to your location. It will work without allowing this, but it’s nice to not worry about manually putting in your location every time you want to look at the forecast. The second is to allow the app to access photos,media, and files. This one is a little riskier as I am not sure why the app needs to be able to read and delete things from your phone. So use your own discretion before allowing this (I did not allow it on my phone).
Once we get past the permissions it’s time to dive into the app. Remember this is a really simple app but it gets the job done. The first thing that CATches your eye is the cat theme. (See what I did there?) The first action I took was to change all the settings to things that made sense to me: Fahrenheit, MPH, inches, those types of things. Just tap the hamburger button on the top left and click units to change these.
Once you come out of the Settings panel, you will notice the big weather icon in the middle of the screen. This changes depending on the current weather. So if it’s sunny out, you will have a big sun shining; at night, you get a nice little moon and stars animation; if it’s partly cloudy, there is the sun with some clouds over it; I think you get the picture. Scroll down just a little and you see the current temp and a message from Sasha the Cat.
Moving down the page, we see today’s high and low. Clicking on this box gives us even more information about today’s weather. You’ll find the standard weather app info here: hourly forecast, precipitation, and some more details about what’s going on outside right now. Scrolling to the bottom gives us the rest of the 7-day forecast. There is also an ad at the bottom of the page for other apps from Sasha Labs, but it is minor and fairly unobtrusive.
For those widget lovers out there, Sasha Weather also comes with two home screen widgets: the first is the Cat theme with all the current weather information, and the second is a more “normal’ widget that gives current info along with a 7-day forecast. You can place these on your homescreen for glanceable weather details.
As far as usage and accuracy go, Sasha seemed to get my location even before better-known apps, and the temperatures seem just as or more accurate than Weather Bug (my main weather app). For a newer weather app, I have been impressed with how fast and accurate Sasha Weather is.
The End
Overall this app provides the needed info to know whether you will need your rain coat or snow boots before going outside. It is not as robust as some others but gets the job done and looks pretty good while doing it. The most important feature of a weather app is to tell you the weather, and Sasha Weather hits the nail on the head in that respect.
It does not use Material Design so that takes it down a notch or two in my book. The cat theme is a little strange to me, but I won’t hold that against it. If you just need the basics and don’t want to mess with all the bells and whistles of some of the other weather apps out there then you should give Sasha Weather Free a try.
This week, Google updated Google Drive to make it smarter than ever. In the same way that you can search Google Photos for things like “photos from last month” you can do the same for files in Drive.
Natural Language Processing
If you have a lot of files in Google Drive, you’re going to love this. Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a technical term for “search like you talk.” You can type things like “show budget spreadsheets” and Google will give you a clickable suggestion to use.
Technical people will probably search something like this:
Type:spreadsheet Date:2014
Now, the suggestion that Google gives you with the natural language search will be that same technical search. “Show budget spreadsheets” gives us:
budget Type:spreadsheets
You don’t even have to worry about spelling correctly. Like regular Google search, using NLP in Drive means that you can misspell “scedule” and every file with “schedule” in its name is brought up. NLP is supposed to get better over time as the company tweaks its algorithms.
Other Features
Google added a couple of smaller features in Google Docs:
You can split documents into columns in Docs. Select Columns in the Format menu for more viewing options
When you open, convert and edit non-Google files across Docs, Sheets and Slides, a copy will get automatically saved. You can view/download the original file directly from Revision History.
Column View
The new update will gradually roll out around the world over the next several days. There’s no word yet, but I’m assuming this will eventually make its way over to Google Drive on mobile as well.
If you’ve been looking to pick up a tablet or hybrid device for this new school season, the time to buy is now. Chuwi is currently running a promotion to celebrate its 12th anniversary and is offering up big discounts on devices across a variety of outlets. Among the places offering up sales are Gearbest, Banggood, Geekbuying and Ali Express.
From now until September 25, customers can choose from tablets and convertibles that run Android, Remix OS, and Windows 10 with prices as low as $80. Here are some of the products you can get on sale right now.
Should you decide to pick up one of these devices from one of the aforementioned outlets, you may be eligible to get the price of you product back. That’s right, Chuwi is randomly rewarding customers with full refunds of their purchase costs. Follow them along on various social networks as there are a variety of activities on Facebook, Twitter and Chuwi forum.
Blu on Thursday revealed yet another smartphone, the Life One X2, as part of its Android-powered portfolio. This time we’re looking at a model that borders somewhere in the space occupied by entry level and mid-range hardware.
As it is often wont to do, Blu releases devices with prices that come in lower than its competition. The Miami-based phone maker tends to prefer a stripped down stock Android experience that gives users less expensive, yet well-built alternatives to bigger brands. Moreover, its phones are sold unlocked and can be paired with a variety of GSM carriers.
A successor to the Blu Life One X, this new phone offers up a 5.2-inch full HD (1080p) display with curved glass and a metal chassis. Powered by a 1.4GHz octa-core processor, the Life One X2 comes in to options: 2GB RAM with 16GB storage and 4GB RAM with 64GB storage. Both versions run Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow.
The rear camera is listed at 16-megapixels and includes phase-detection autofocus and LED flash; the front-facing shooter is an 8-megapixel unit, also with LED flash.
Other key hardware details in the Life One X2 include a fingerprint reader, a 3000mAh battery with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0, and support for LTE Bands 2, 4, 7, 12, and 17. If you are a T-Mobile or AT&T customer, or use their prepaid brands such as Cricket, MetroPCS, then the One X2 is one to consider.
Pre-orders for the Life One X2 start immediately with shipment expected to commence on October 7. The 2GB/16GB variant runs $150 while the 4GB/64GB option comes in at $200. Customers who pre-order today or tomorrow (September 23) will receive a 10% discount, effectively dropping prices to $135 and $180, respectively.
With more and more web users now viewing a record number of websites from mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones, it’s never been more important to ensure that your website or blog has a design which is responsive. Since the majority of internet users are now on a mobile device, it’s no longer enough that your website looks and works great when viewed on a desktop computer or laptop. Along with that, Google has also added mobile-friendliness to its list of SEO guidelines for websites. Since having a responsive design is now more fundamental than ever before to your success, we’ve listed some of the basic practices of a responsive design.
Begin with Branding
Whether you’re looking after the coding of your website’s design or are paying somebody else to do it, making sure that you begin with your brand first and foremost is absolutely essential. When putting together a responsive design for your website or blog, it’s not only important to make sure that your brand’s persona, voice and values are clearly communicated when viewed on a laptop or desktop, but on any other device. Paying careful attention to your branding and ensuring that each of your visitors knows who your brand is, its values, and what it’s offering is vital. For more information about setting up your first business website or blog, see makeawebsitehub.com.
Page Loading Time
The amount of time that your website and pages take to load can be more significant to the success of your business than you may realize. Research shows that a huge percentage of internet users expect a page to be fully loaded within a matter of seconds, and will go elsewhere without a second thought if they are kept waiting. With such high expectations when it comes to page speed, it’s not only important to choose a design which is responsive, but also make sure that it is uncluttered, simple and ready to load up as quickly as possible on any device. Page speed is also crucial to your SEO efforts, with Google offering more favor to sites which load up quickly.
Content Strategy
Choosing a responsive design which allows you to easily update the content on your website or blog is absolutely essential. Your content strategy should be a huge priority when it comes to putting together a responsive web design. Along with ensuring that text content is also responsive and readers can view blog posts, articles, and text on pages easily on any device, it’s also important to understand that today, web users are increasingly looking for other forms of content to words.
Images or video, for example, should be able to be seamlessly included in your responsive design in order to ensure that your site visitors have the best experience. A responsive web design is absolutely crucial for any website owner or blogger today. But, when choosing a responsive design for your website or blog, there are a range of important practices which should be taken into consideration.
Since their announcement at I/O 2016 in May, the mobile world has eagerly awaited the arrival of Google’s new communication apps, Allo and Duo. Duo was released back in August for both Android and iOS, but we have had to wait until today to meet Allo. Allo is Google’s new cross-platform messenger app looking to change the way we interact with each other, and ourselves.
Allo contextual replyAllo smart reply
Allo is an “intelligent” messaging app created by Google to rival apps like Facebook’s Messenger and WhatsApp. Though Allo is the newest in the group, it quickly surpasses its competition. Not only will Allo be able to send and receive text, pictures, emojis, and videos, it will harness the power of Google Now on Tap to deliver information inside of the app. Google Nows integration will eliminate the need to leave the app to look information up, add dates to your calendar, predict your response, and can even help you create a dinner reservation. This integration will also allow you to work one-on-one with the app as if it were an assistant.
While many had hoped Allo would be a true all-in-one messenger replacement, it is not. Allo will not allow you to set it as the default SMS application nor will messages sent from Allo to those without the app show up from your number. Instead, a message letting the recipient know you are using Allo to send the messages will appear. Subsequent messages will still show up, but through a relay number instead of the sender’s phone number. Android users will receive a push message on their devices prompting them to install Allo, ignore the message, or respond via a text message. Truly a disappointing development.
In the newest Google app beta, it appears that certain things are being renamed. Version 6.5 of the Google app also adds an In Apps shortcut.
The Naming of Things
Now on Tap is being renamed to “Screen Search”, while Google Now cards will now be “Feed.” In the case of Now on Tap, this change might be a good thing. The name itself wasn’t very descriptive in what the feature could do. Although Screen search isn’t as sexy as Now on Tap, it’s capabilities are more clear.
When the Google Assistant first appeared at Google I/O 2016, I wondered if how this would affect Google Now. The distinction between the two wasn’t very clear. Google Now is the hub of quick information, but Assistant was…what exactly?
Image credit: 9To5Google
At first, it seemed that the Assistant only lived in Google’s Home device and Allo app. It seemed more like the voice of Google, and not an AI personality like Siri and Cortana. But what if the Assistant replaced Google Now and became more of an entity?
At first, Google didn’t want to move in this direction. Scott Huffman, vice president of engineering for search, told The Verge that Google “shied away from the idea of kind of a human personal for search…Whether we have a name or not, we think of this as Google…”
The Mysterious Production of Google
Google has spread out its smarts among many apps, but in a confusing way. When you ask Google to set a reminder, will it show up in Inbox, Keep or Now? What if you told the Assistant to set a reminder and it just showed up in the Feed?
I admit I’m probably getting ahead of myself, but I can’t help but wonder if this a sign of things to come. We’ll have a chance to chat up Assistant tomorrow when Allo is released, or at least if Evan Blass is correct.
Once you come out of the Settings panel, you will notice the big weather icon in the middle of the screen. This changes depending on the current weather. So if it’s sunny out, you will have a big sun shining; at night, you get a nice little moon and stars animation; if it’s partly cloudy, there is the sun with some clouds over it; I think you get the picture. Scroll down just a little and you see the current temp and a message from Sasha the Cat.
