By way of its official Verizon News Twitter account, the carrier has confirmed that it will also carry the Android-powered BlackBerry PRIV. Unfortunately for those that might be considering the handset under the Big Red umbrella, the carrier wasn’t forthcoming on just when it will launch the handset. As it stands, it’s only listed as “coming soon.”
If the PRIV shows up in time for the holiday shopping season, do you plan on picking one up?
Welcome back to our weekly Top 10 Android App Updates column, where we take a look at the most frequently upgraded apps for the week. We’ve found that one of the best ways to discover useful apps is to find the ones that are actually being updated by the developers rather than selecting the apps with the most installs. As in the past, we’re going to filter out minor updates for the super-popular apps that have over 10 million installs, but we’ll make exceptions for apps that have had significant updates. We hope you enjoy this weekly feature and that you discover some apps that end up being useful.
Android Pay – Version 1.1.0
What’s new in this version:
Previous Google Wallet users can add loyalty cards, gift cards, and offers without first setting up a credit or debit card.
Natural Language Processing: Today now allows you to input events using natural language. Simply say something like “Party at John’s house, next Friday at 8pm.” and Today will handle the rest.
History Brush is now the enhanced Eraser tool – it is conveniently present in the upper left corner of the app after you apply an edit. Use it across all tools to selectively remove your edits and effects.
Check out the MADE WITH PIXLR feed, curated by the Pixlr team, and be inspired by the community.
All adjustments, like brightness, hue, and saturation, are now conveniently grouped together under an adjustments menu.
New Brushes–try brighten, darken, pixelate, and doodle.
Lots of us use Google Maps and Search to find businesses and get info about them, like their location and hours. Those features really come in handy during the holidays, and now Google is making Maps and Search even more useful for us that’ll be out shopping for loved ones.
Google is adding holiday hours to Google Maps and Search. That means that when you’re viewing a business page, you’ll see the shop’s holiday hours if there’s a holiday coming up in the next 7 days. If the business doesn’t have any holiday hours available anywhere, Google will warn you that the shops hours may be different than what’s listed because of the holiday.
It can take a lot of time to hunt down a business’s holiday hours, especially when you’re on a phone and are forced to navigate a website that may not be mobile-optimized. Google’s addition to Maps and Search makes everything much easier, which is good because anything that can reduce the stress of holiday shopping is welcome.
For anyone that has been considering cozying up to Sprint for their cellular needs, the Now Network has recently kicked off a promotion that might see the deal sweetened a bit — as long as you want a Samsung device, that is.
Sprint is now offering a free year of Amazon Prime for anyone that begins service with the carrier and also purchases a Samsung device. That means you’ll have to choose between a Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge, Galaxy S6 edge+, or the Galaxy Note 5 to qualify for the promotion. Once you pick the handset you want, you’ll need to sign up for either a Sprint Lease, Easy Pay, a two-year contract or simply buy the device outright.
The promotion is open to new customers and current subscribers that are just adding a line, too. It’s available now and it will run until Monday, November 30. As for as the Prime subscription itself, Sprint seems to be just doling out promotional codes for a year’s worth of the service, so that means current Prime subscribers should simply be able to extend their subscription with the promo code.
Amazon Prime is a whole collection of different services and offerings. That includes access to Prime Video and Prime Music streaming, free two-day shipping, and unlimited cloud storage of photos thanks to Prime Photo. It typically retails for $99 per year, so getting a free year with all of that bundled into it is probably a good deal for most.
Motorola isn’t quite done announcing new devices, apparently. Recently, the company officially debuted another member of the Moto G lineup, but this one’s specifically meant for a single market, it seems.
With the new Moto G, dubbed the Turbo Edition, Motorola has actually improved some important specifications, including the display’s resolution and the processor under the hood. Now the 5-inch display boasts a resolution of 1920×1080, while inside the device is powered by a 64-bit octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor. It has 2GB of RAM and 16GB of built-in storage, with a microSD card slot to expand it when necessary.
On the back, the Moto G Turbo Edition features a 13-megapixel camera, while the front boasts a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. The battery is measured in at 2470mAh and it features Motorola’s Turbo Power technology. It’s running a stock version of Android 5.1.1 Lollipop out of the gate.
As far as availability goes, the Moto G Turbo Edition is slated to arrive in Mexico soon, and Motorola wasn’t willing to say whether or not the device will be making an appearance in any other market. It’s priced to the equivalent of $283.
It may be coming a smidge later than originally anticipated, but the HTC One M8 Google Play edition’s Marshmallow update has officially arrived.
Mo Versi, HTC’s VP of Product Management, says that the HTC One M8 Google Play edition’s Android 6.0 update is now rolling out. The Marshmallow bump is build MRA58K, and it weighs in at 450.4MB.
The Google Play edition program may be long gone, but at least some of the members are still getting major OS upgrades. The One M8 GPe is more than 2 years old at this point, but it’s now getting Android 6.0, and it’s great to see HTC still showing the phone some love.
Google Wallet has long supported multiple credit cards, but strangely it was limited to only one bank account. With the latest app update, that restriction is finally gone, so you can add multiple bank accounts to the app. For extra security, a “Lock Now” button has also been added to the drawer, which bypasses the pin timeout and immediately locks the app.
The update will take a while to roll out, so keep an eye on the Play Store for the update.
Google Play services has been updated to version 8.3 and brings along with it some major improvements. The biggest relates to signing in with a Google account. Instead of having to press multiple buttons and granting permissions, you’ll only need to select an account from now on. It’s easier and more streamlined.
Also included are updates to the app invites API and Fused Location Provider. All these changes make it easier for the developer to use these features, resulting in less code having to be written.
One important update is for Android Wear. Now, sync priority defaults to low to save battery on your Android Wear device, and developers can set high priority sync for some features. Overall, this means less syncing and less battery drain.
It’s a pretty significant update, so developers take note. Hit the source link for more details, there’s plenty more good stuff in the original blog post.
BlackBerry is known for its security in the corporate world, and with the PRIV running Android, the company will have to deal with an entirely different method of keeping its device safe.
We all know how carriers love to delay Android updates. BlackBerry has spoken about such problems and revealed that important security hotfixes can be patched without carrier approval if necessary. Thought the company will be going through the carriers for approval when it can, it can bypass them entirely for important security fixes. The fact that BlackBerry is announcing that it has this power is great, and maybe other manufacturers will follow suit.
The PRIV will also feature enterprise-managed updates. If it’s a corporate device, IT can manage when updates are released to the PRIV to prevent incompatibility problems with corporate software. This is the same approach that’s taken with corporate PCs.
BlackBerry is doing with Android exactly what it historically did with its own operating system, and that’s keeping them secure, safe, and corporate friendly. It’s good to see the company taking a strong stance on security.
Welcome back to Android Gaming Weekly, our weekly recap of new game releases. We still plan to cover upcoming releases and games we’re playing, but this column is dedicated to new games that you can start playing right now. Check out our top picks and let us know in the comments section if you have any suggestions for next week’s post.
Tengami
Description: Tengami is an atmospheric adventure game set inside a Japanese pop-up book. Fold and slide the beautifully crafted paper world to solve puzzles and discover secrets.
Description: If you like TV quiz shows, you will love Big Bad Quiz. It’s a fast, fun and furious trivia game hosted by the one and only Bag Man. He is one crazy quiz master who has scoured the universe for the toughest questions ever.
Description: The world’s most popular mobile RPG, ZENONIA®, is now online! Travel across nine treacherous realms to uncover the mystery behind the portal. Assist the Celestial Kingdom and expose the horrifying truth.
Description: Octodad: Dadliest Catch is a game about destruction, deception, and fatherhood. The player controls Octodad, a dapper octopus masquerading as a human, as he goes about his life.
Description:Hack and slash monsters in a spooky mansion! Slashy Hero must save Halloween by defeating spooky ghosts, possessed tombstones, and evil jack o’lanterns. Play through 48 action packed dungeons with unique enemy types and crushing bosses
Description: The year is 2019 and everyone’s bored of TV, celebrities and games. Everything is inflated. S U P E R B O Y S – The Big Fight, is an ultra violent TV show where fighters from across the globe form teams that clobber each other to win money, toasters and blu-ray players.
Description: Frenetic and stylish, Starific is an endless arcade reactor where you set off epic chain reactions and catch awesome powerups to keep your stellar hopes alive.
Description: In Illumica, an invasion of the enemy lands of Laft is being planned. As a sign of this, Kline goes into Laft undercover. Kline is an apprentice High Beast Knight (a Rivell), but he is definitely not at the top of the class.
Description: Enter the world of “A Land Fit For Heroes”, written by Richard Morgan. A unique cooperative multiplayer gamebook awaits with a dark, gritty story, doomed anti-heroes and where every decision is about choosing the lesser evil.
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