At this year's Mobile World Congress, we were on hand to witness the big announcement of the Nokia X range, a line of smartphones that would run on a forked version of Android made to appear, and function, like Windows Phone. But just five months after February's MWC, the now Microsoft-owned firm has decided to cease this particular endeavor, with Asha also being scrapped as a part of a shake-up that has seen the Redmond lay off almost 20,000 Nokia staff, and finally, it would seem, the company's sole focus is Windows Phone.
With LG's new flagship phone, the LG G3, being out in the wild, it was only a matter of time before the company did its usual trick of downsizing it for the more budget-oriented markets out there. It's a tried and tested formula for many companies these days, and LG is not shy about following suit.
Even though Apple's iPhone remains the subject of acclaim for its high-end, premium finish, the same cannot quite be said when it comes to durability, with scratches, scrapes, cracks and dents commonplace among the iPhone-rocking faithful, and as such, the market for protective cases and shields is very lucrative indeed. Logitech, an official distributor of third-party Apple accessories and peripherals, has just come through with a cheap, robust solution for iPhone users looking to keep their handset guarded at all times, and notably, doesn't go overboard with regards to adding bulk.
One of the great benefits of owning a Nexus device, or a Google Play Edition of any other popular handset, is that the updates arrive quickly and without those cumbersome delays as vendors take the time to make their own personal tweaks. With Android KitKat 4.4.4 having trickled out a short while ago, those rocking the Nexus 5 have been able to get their fill almost immediately, and today, the search giant has rolled out a very minor bump to those based in Australia, New Zealand and India. Allied to this release of Android 4.4.4_r2, the Big G also pushed Glass's software to XE19.1, and below, you can catch all of the relevant details regarding both updates.
Snapchat has just added a cool new feature allowing users to add location-specific filters to snaps before sending them out. The image and video-sharing IM service, which has a popular following among college-age users, has seen its user base soar in recent times, and having added IM-like chat features in a large update earlier on in the year, has now baked in a geofiltering service as an extension of those traditional, Instagram-esque overlays it recently rolled out.
For better or worse, lots of people get their movies via torrents. One of the things that often puts people off the process is the unwieldy way of getting movies down the pipe and then onto a TV. Popcorn Time beta, which is an app for Android, seeks to rid users of the headaches usually associated with BitTorrent by making it possible to stream torrents on the fly. It's been a popular app since its introduction, but the new beta 2.0 release is sure to take things to a new level.
For a good while now, it has been suggested that Samsung would be coming through with a device finished in a more premium, perhaps metallic material. The Korean outfit has stuck faithfully with polycarbonate through the Galaxy generations, and although the sales figures would suggest that, at a consumer level, this isn't a problem, there's definitely a growing faction of Samsung fans that would love something a little more substantial. With the likes of the iPhone and HTC One series having catered to those with a thirst for the stronger stuff, it now looks like Samsung will finally cave, and according to a new report, the so-called "Galaxy Alpha" will be announced next month.
Any mobile gadget looking to attain FCC certification must, at this moment in time, have certain details branded onto the product itself, stating that said device has indeed been approved. However, the agency has today relaxed these rules somewhat, and mobile devices, including the Apple iPhone, may no longer need these details to be etched onto each and every unit as standard.
Samsung has just unveiled its next-generation mobile processor, and in no uncertain terms, it's a beast. The South Korean company has consistently sought to up the ante with its stream of Exynos processors, and the new Exynos ModAP does precisely that. Although there's no telling whether Samsung plans to implement this new SoC into the imminent Galaxy Note 4, it's more than likely to feature as the workhorse of the next flagship Galaxy S6, which we expect to release at some point in early 2015.
This year's Google I/O may have been dominated by the search giant's grand unveiling of Android L, but there were still plenty of other major announcements besides. Notably, the $35 Chromecast dongle, which turned the streaming market on its head when it first released back in 2013, would support Android Mirroring a la Apple's AirPlay Mirroring, and following the annual developer conference, we couldn't wait to give it a whirl. Having rolled the feature out earlier on this week, many Chromecast-owning Droidsters have jumped on this new feature, but unfortunately, it's rather limited with regards to the devices that it will stream from. Thankfully, though, there's a relatively painless workaround.
