Samsung's flagship release for 2014, the Galaxy S5, launched in a blaze of glory back in April, with many quick to pour praise on the great camera and display features. But while the device's early sales figures made for happy reading for all connected with Samsung, the UK numbers tell a story in which the iPhone 5c - Apple's so-called "entry-level" model of iPhone - managed to outsell the all-new GS5, with both the 5c and the Cupertino's flagship 5s each shifting more units for the Galaxy S5 for the month of May.
We know that Android Wear, like most smartwatch ecosystems, will rely heavily on a smartphone for a great deal of its functionality. Given that they're designed, in essence, to supplement our handsets, this isn't too much of a surprise, but with some standalone Android Wear apps having just cropped up on Google Play, it's clear that the likes of the Moto 360, and LG's G Watch will have minds of their own, too. The first batch of Android Wear apps untethered by any post-installation smartphone interaction have begun appearing on the Play Store, and although, naturally, we're talking bare basics in terms of functionality, it sets a very encouraging precedent.
Pebble has continued its tradition of bringing new features and functionality to its smartwatch owners by pushing out firmware updates as well as an improved version of the accompanying appstore based iOS app.
Google mightn't yet have expanded the beta Explorer program of its Glass project across the world just yet, but in an announcement outlining its intention to do broaden Glass's horizons in the future, the search giant also confirmed its roll-out to folks in the United Kingdom. With the Explorer Edition now officially on sale in the UK at a cost of £1,000, though, cinemas are stepping out to to ban moviegoers from wearing them while watching the latest box-office smash, for fear that they may record and subsequently pirate films.
As promised, Google rolled out the Android L SDK on Thursday, and for those looking to flash the developer preview software onto their Nexus 7 (2013, Wi-Fi) or Nexus 5, the process isn't actually all that arduous. Below, we've outlined all of the steps in one easy-to-follow, concise tutorial, so if you want to take a sneak peek at what Google's been working on, join us after the fold.
When Google announced Android L at Google I/O, one of the software's biggest headline new features was its heads-up notifications. Allowing developers to give their apps notifications that fall down from the top of the screen rather than simply living in the status bar, heads-up notifications are similar to the way iOS handles incoming notifications, and are surely an improvement over what came before. Unfortunately, with the early versions of Android L only available for Nexus devices, everyone else is left out in the cold.
With Google having rolled out the early developer preview images of Android L, it was inevitable that the various treasures therein would be plucked out by the modding community and distributed around to those in ownership of devices running older versions of the search giant's ubiquitous software. Although the Google Keyboard 3.1 found within Android L was initially proving problematic, those in the know have fixed it all up, and it's now primed and ready for installation on any device running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich or above.
The Google Glass Explorer program has been running for the best part of a year now, and although the designs are still in the process of being tweaked, the progress that has been made since the start of Project Glass is really quite something. Despite this week's I/O conference has largely avoided the topic of the head-mounted device, the Big G did take the opportunity to showcase several prototype models in something of an evolutionary exhibition. Given that we're in attendance at I/O this week, we couldn't resist taking a few snaps, and below, you can see first-hand just how much progress has been made on Glass' design over the past few years.
Companies will often let you test out their new, exciting releases for a limited period, with the obvious intention of selling you the product thereafter. In the tech world, this isn't necessarily common practice, but following on from T-Mobile's "Test Drive" offer with the iPhone 5s, Samsung has now rolled out a new system giving folks the opportunity to try out a number of devices on its Galaxy line-up for three whole weeks.
At Wednesday's I/O keynote event, Google unleashed Android L, its newest and most advanced flavor of the famed mobile software, and with the subsequent roll-out of the SDK to developers, interested parties have since been able to check out the all-new "Material Design" language, alongside a number of other key enhancements. If you're not a developer, or simply don't wish to get involved with preview software, there is a way you can get a taster of things to come on your current device thanks to the release of the new Android L wallpapers. Below, we've got a preview of these eye-catching new backdrops, as well as the relevant info on how to go about obtaining them, so join us after the break!
