HTC’s next top of the line smartphone has been in the rumors a lot lately, and we already know it’s going to be sold as the One A9. Its codename was Aero, and we may have already seen it in a leaked image.

As for specs, we now have a much better idea of what to expect, because a One A9 prototype was put through the paces of the GeekBench benchmark. This has helpfully revealed a couple of key features of the device, thanks to the benchmark’s information screen.

The One A9 runs Android 5.1.1 Lollipop and is apparently powered by MediaTek’s upcoming Helio X20 chipset, which comes with a deca-core CPU (that’s ten cores, yes). Of those, two are going to be Cortex-A72 cores, which should perform a lot better than the Cortex-A57s in other high-end chipsets. The other eight cores will be Cortex-A53, divided into two different clusters for maximum performance with minimum power drain.

The chipset will be aided by 4GB of RAM, which is now the norm for any flagship offering worth its salt. It’s also going to have support for LTE Cat.6 networks, with theoretical peak download speeds of up to 300Mbps, as well as 50Mbps uploads.

The Helio X20 has outperformed every competitor out there in the multi-core benchmark, having a score of 5884, more than even Samsung’s Exynos 7420, the current benchmark champion.

The One A9 might become official at a special event on September 29, which HTC’s already announced. That could also be when we’ll see the Butterfly 3 making its debut.

Source (in Chinese) |…

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The wait is almost over if you’re a big fan of Microsoft Office. The next version of the productivity suite now has an official release date, thanks to a Microsoft announcement.

Office 2016 for Windows will become available on September 22. It will follow the release of Office 2016 for Mac, which came out back in July.

With the new version, Office gains real-time collaboration, as well as OneDrive attachments in Outlook, among many other things. The first preview of Office 2016 came out in February, and it got a public release in May.

For companies which subscribe to Office 365 ProPlus, the subscription version of the suite, there will be a new update model added. This will be called Current Branch for Business and it will deliver three cumulative feature updates per year, along with monthly security updates. The alternative is Current Branch, which makes the feature updates monthly too.

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Verizon is set to update its Droid-branded lineup at some point before the end of the year. So far we’ve heard pretty conclusively that what’s known internationally as the Moto X Play will be sold by the carrier under the Droid Maxx 2 moniker.

Big Red has, however, also been rumored to get a proper high-end sequel to last year’s Droid Turbo – the Droid Turbo 2. Up until now however not much was known about this handset.

Thanks to the leaked image you can see above, it’s clear that the Moto X Force will be launched by the carrier as the Droid Turbo 2. The Moto X Force is codenamed Bounce, and it’s been in the rumors a few times recently.

According to previously leaked specs, the Moto X Force will have a 5.43-inch QHD touchscreen, a 21 MP rear camera with dual-LED flash, a 5 MP selfie shooter with a LED flash of its own, 3GB of RAM, 32 or 64GB of storage, and a huge 3,760 mAh battery. It’s going to be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 chipset. Intriguingly, it’s said to be “shatterproof”, which might imply that it will sport some kind of military MIL-STD rating for shock resistance.

We expect the Droid Turbo 2 to carry the exact same specs. It seems like it’s going to be identical to the Moto X Force in terms of looks too, except for the prominent Verizon branding on the front and Droid branding on the back. This isn’t surprising, though, as Big Red is always quick to plaster its logos onto all possible sides of its phones.

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Google is announcing that Android Pay will start rolling out in the US today. The new payment scheme was made official at Google I/O a few months back, and now it’s finally becoming available.

The company warns that the rollout will be gradual and it will take a few days. You need the new Android Pay app that will be out in the Play Store soon. It’s going to show up as an update to the old Google Wallet app if you have that installed.

The system works with any device that runs Android 4.4 KitKat or newer and has NFC. Tokenization is used for security, so your real card’s number is never sent with your payment. A virtual account number is used instead.

In terms of credit card support, you’ll be able to add yours regardless of whether it’s American Express, Discover, MasterCard, or Visa.

Google is quickly adding more and more banks to Android Pay, but for now your account needs to be at American Express, Bank of America, Discover, Navy Federal Credit Union, PNC, Regions Bank, USAA, or U.S. Bank. Citi and Wells Fargo will be available within a few days, with Capital One and others “coming soon”.

As for locations in which you can actually use Android Pay to buy stuff, there are apparently already over a million of those across the country.

In the future, Android Pay will also let you pay for stuff you buy online from your apps, and it will store your many different loyalty cards and special offers in one convenient…

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Today marks a big step forward for Jolla and its ambitious Sailfish mobile OS project. The new version 2.0 of the platform appears is already available to early access users. So, if you own a Jolla phone and participate in the beta program, which you really should if you have decided to back such a start-up initiative to begin with, you should be getting a notification for the update.

Actually, just to be as precise as possible, the said OTA isn’t exactly 2.0. It has a version of 1.1.9 and is designed as an experimental roll-out beta. It does, however, contain most of the important changes that will shape version 2.0 and if the open test goes well, the update will be followed up quickly with a proper 2.0 version with a full-on roll out.

The most apparent part of the current update is the redesigned main interface, which is now executed in carousel manner. You can now simply swipe left or right to go between the Home and Events interfaces. The App Grid is also easily accessible from any interface by swiping over the bottom edge of the screen.

The Events interface itself has also gotten richer with a weather widget with five day forecast a calendar and enhanced notification handling. Notifications can now be grouped together and managed in a more natural way.

Furthermore, the distinction between native app and Android app notifications is getting smaller as both can be grouped and the latter now also wake up the device screen.

Other notable changes include a new swipe gesture over the top of the display, which brings out the Top menu with lock action and a selection of ambiences. Also, the layout of a lot of core applications have undergone an overhaul, including Calendar, Jolla Store, Clock, Email and Camera. This also includes their cover layouts.

Special layout, controls and even three-finger gestures for bigger screens across Saifish 2.0 are also an important new addition that prepares the platform for the Jolla tablet launch.

The full changelog is actually quite thorough and can be viewed at the source link, along with instructions for updating your Jolla…

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Tizen found some success with the Z1, now the successor, Samsung Z3, is nearing launch. The project is reportedly overseen personally by the Vice Chairman of Samsung Electronics and passed through the FCC yesterday.

Of course, the US is probably not the primary target of the Z3. A few months ago the scuttlebutt was that Bangladesh, Nepal and India (where the phone was imported for testing) will be the initial stomping grounds of the Tizen-powered smartphone.

A week from now the Tizen Developer Conference kicks off in Shenzhen and it’s expected that the Samsung Z3 will there. It’s possible that it will launch alongside the Tizen-powered Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch.

Those two should bring a new major version of Tizen (v3.0). Other than that, the Samsung Z3 is epxcted to have a 5″ 720p screen, Snapdragon 410 chipset with 1GB of RAM (1.5GB maybe) and 8GB of storage, 8MP + 5MP cameras (or 5MP + 2MP, not certain).

Source |…

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The only thing that’s changed is everything. Apple’s iPhone 6s/6s Plus marketing slogan is about as true as they come. Certainly more believable than that other catch phrase “most advanced smartphones in the world”. Only, the changes being advertised are about as new to a smartphone as the wheel is to human kind.

Apple’s list kicks off with 3D Touch, and we’re inclined to vote that one in its favor. Originally conceived as Force Touch (even senior VP of software Craig Federighi let his tongue slip once at yesterday’s keynote), it was already introduced on the latest MacBook Pro and Apple Watch.

Sure, there were developments in the field years ago by Synaptics, but they never made it to mass production. And though Apple was rumored for months to be working on the feature for this generation iPhone, the company was still beaten to market by Chinese heavyweights Huawei with the Mate S and ZTE with the Axon Mini. Obviously, those two won’t come anywhere near the iPhone 6s sales, but timing robbed Apple from being first on this one.

7000 series aluminum we haven’t seen used on a smartphone, and bicycle frames are the first thing that comes to mind, though Apple does quote the aerospace industry as the primary customer. Either way, the aluminum-zinc alloy must be pretty strong.

Whether other phone manufacturers don’t go into specifics on the matter, or Apple is actually the only one to use it, we can’t know. The truth is, not a word would have been heard on the precise type of alloy, had Apple designed a proper frame for the previous generation that negates the effect of stress concentration around the button cutouts.

Sapphire crystal was the next big thing to stand between your display and the adverse outer world, Apple would have had you believe until a while ago. Then the world intervened and Sapphire turned out not to be so easy to manufacture on the scale Apple needed it, so double ion exchange glass is the next next big thing. Which, for all we know, is to be found on the non-S iPhone 6, too.

How exactly the 2nd generation Touch ID is different from the first is unclear. It worked pretty great from the get go, and there was so little room for improvement, that the only PR statement this year is that it’s twice as fast. We don’t buy it.

The “incredible, all-new” 12MP iSight camera is perhaps the easiest target for mockery, and not because it’s bad. We haven’t tested it yet for obvious reasons, but we expect it to be every bit as good as it’s advertised.

It’s just that it took Apple years to acknowledge that the world has moved on from the state it was in 2011, when the iPhone 4s debuted the 8MP camera that stayed on for 4 generations iPhones. Not to mention that the Nokia N8 already had a 12MP camera a year before said iPhone, yet a year later than the Samsung Pixon12, all the way back in 2009.

And that doesn’t even graze the fact that you can buy a brand-name Chinese phone with a more than capable 12MP camera for a tenth of the price of an iPhone 6s. That is, an iPhone 6s that makes any sense, meaning a 64GB version, but that’s an entirely different issue.

And how about 4K video recording. Qualcomm brought the feature to prominence with the Snapdragon 800, which made it to market two years ago with the likes of the Nokia Lumia 1520 and Samsung Galaxy Note 3.

You could argue that Apple didn’t anticipate the competition was working on 2160p recording (hard to imagine them being so oblivious) and had no time to react on the iPhone 5s. Why not then do something for the iPhone 6? Oh, it didn’t have the necessary pixels on the 8MP sensor, which it had to use for a fourth generation in a row.

The front FaceTime camera is now a 5MP unit, Apple is keeping up with the times in this respect. Yes, there are 13MP front shooters, but they tend to be installed in midrange devices and flagships are more conservative. The Retina Flash feature, which fires up the display to assist in the darkest shootng conditions, sounds familiar, though.

Could it be that we’ve seen it before, perhaps on the LG G Pro 2, to name one? And that one had it in its native camera app, but there are countless apps both in the Google Play store and the Apple App Store that do more or less the same thing. Though if front flash photography was all that important to Apple, an actual front flash would have…

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As is usually the case with iPhone and iPad announcements, Apple stayed mum about the amount of RAM that inside its latest products. Now, we don’t have to wait for teardowns to reveal this information thanks to an Apple Support employee.

He has revealed in a Reddit thread that the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus come with 2GB of RAM. This was also continuously suggested by rumors months prior to the unveil.

The rest of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus internals include the latest Apple A9 64-bit chip with updated graphics and CPU performance. The details surrounding the CPU and GPU of the chipset aren’t available yet.

Hours ago, the iPad Pro was discovered to boast 4GB of RAM, courtesy of Adobe promotional blog post. This is the highest amount of RAM Apple has put into any iDevice so…

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While previous iPads were mostly geared for content consumption, the Apple iPad Pro will try to capture content creators. Microsoft and Adobe have announced software suites for it, but an interesting detail snuck into Adobe’s announcement.

The iPad Pro has an Apple A9X chipset with 4GB of RAM. Four! That’s double what the iPad Air 2 had, which in turn had double the RAM of other iDevices (iPhones and older iPads).

With Apple getting more serious with split-screen multitasking and heavier apps – Photoshop Sketch, Adobe Comp and other Creative Cloud apps – there’s just no way to get around the need for more RAM. Editing those 4K videos is no light task either.

There’s no info on the iPhones 6s duo though, they may still be at 1GB. There are speculations of 2GB but no proof so far.

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Yesterday, Apple launched the new iPhones – the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus – along with a brand new iPad Pro. Usually, Apple also has a bunch of new accessories to go with their new products, and they have this time too, including some cases, keyboard covers, and docks.

iPhone 6s Leather and Silicone Case

Apple added a bunch of color options to its range of leather and silicon cases for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. The leather range now includes Midnight Blue, Saddle Brown, Rose Gray, Brown, and Black. The Silicon range now includes White, Charcoal Gray, Stone, Antique White, Blue, Turquoise, Midnight Blue, Lavender, Pink, Red, and Orange. The leather cases are available for $45 and the silicone cases for $35. It must be noted that these cases don’t work with the older iPhone 6 and 6 Plus as they are designed for the slightly thicker bodies of the new iPhones.

iPhone Lightning Dock

The iPhone 6s now gets a new dock that you can just put your phone in on the desk and charge it. The docks come in the same four colors as the phone, gold, silver, space gray, and the new rose gold, and are machined out of solid aluminum. The dock connects via the Lightning connector and has a headphone out at the back to route audio out of your phone for connecting to speakers or headphones. The Lightning Dock is priced at $49 and works with both the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus and also older iPhones and iPod touch with the Lightning connector.

Apple Pencil

Apple created a new stylus specifically designed to work with the new iPad Pro. Called the Apple Pencil, the stylus is actively powered and features pressure sensitivity and tilt detection. You can press on it to adjust the thickness of the strokes and tilt it to produce wider strokes. The iPad Pro has been optimized for the Pencil and scans its signal at 240Hz instead of the standard 120Hz for fingers. The Pencil has an internal battery that charges via a Lightning connector and has to be plugged directly into the iPad Pro. The battery provides 12 hours of use with a full charge and around 30 minutes after just 15 seconds of charging. Apple has optimized its Notes and Mail app in iOS 9 to fully support all the features of the Pencil, the third party app Paper also supports it completely, with more app support coming in later. You can purchase the Apple Pencil for $99.

Smart Keyboard

Along with the new iPad Pro Apple also announced the Smart Keyboard, which functions as a keyboard, stand, and a cover, all in one. The keyboard builds upon Apple’s original Smart Cover design, but folds out to reveal a keyboard instead. The keyboard has the full set of keys you’d expect on a Mac and a set of shortcuts that you can use with iOS 9. The keyboard surface is made out of custom-woven fabric that is stain and spill resistant. It employs a standard membrane switch with the fabric providing the tension and feedback. If you fold the keyboard it also acts as a stand for tilting the iPad Pro at a lower angle for watching movies. Lastly, you could just open it completely to protect the display like a cover. The keyboard attaches magnetically but uses the new Smart Connector on the iPad Pro to transfer data. The Smart Keyboard is priced at $169 and only available for the iPad…

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