The LG-made Nexus 5 looks set to be the next big thing from Google, and rumors have been rife pertaining its specifics and release date. It's expected that the search giant will unveil the handset at some point this month alongside Android 4.4 KitKat, and new images out of Russia appear to throw a little more weight behind the claims. The shots show what is alleged to be the device connected via the USB / power socket, and as you'll see below, looks largely similar to the Korean company's recently announced G2 phablet.
The App Store is a goldmine of weird and wonderful creations, and although we see plenty of intuitive apps and wonderfully enticing games, sometimes an app comes along so novel that it just has to get a mention. If you've seen some of the official iPhone 5c cases, you'll know that there's one featuring quite a few circular holes on the back. In many ways, it could resemble a Connect 4 board, and thanks to the nous of one developer, the Hasbro classic has been remade to work in conjunction with the new case. Details after the break.
It's typical in today's digital industry that we should begin talking about a product before its would-be predecessor has even hit the market, and although we're fairly sure that Apple will be announcing a new iPad 5 at some point this fall, resident Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities already has the scoop on the iPad 6, in a note which was picked up by 9to5Mac. Apparently, it will offer a resolution exceeding the current standard of Apple's so-called Retina iPad panel, with 30-40% more pixels over the 9.7-inch diameter.
With Apple having recently dropped its big software update for iOS, it's now Microsoft's turn to come through with some big announcements for those on its own smartphone platform, and today, the software maker has unveiled the details of Update 3 for Windows Phone 8. Included will be support for 1080p displays and quad-core processors, two features that have become the de facto standard for high-end handsets, and with a new Driving Mode also thrown into the mix, the future does look somewhat brighter for the struggling ecosystem.
People may, rightly or wrongly, accuse the smartphone market of being a little on the stale side. Six years in since the market was turned upside down by Apple when the original iPhone was announced, it's arguable that not a great deal has changed since then. Yes, we've got 4G handsets and yes, they're blazingly fast when compared to the original iPhone and the HTC G1, but they essentially look the same and the form factor hasn't changed a great deal either.
It looks like HTC has beaten Samsung to the punch by launching its own smartphone with a fingerprint sensor before the Galaxy brand makers could get around to copying Apple's iPhone 5s. Announcing the One Max today, HTC becomes the second major smartphone maker to announce a new handset with a fingerprint sensing security solution in the same number of months, leaving Samsung as the only one of the 'big three' to join the fray.
The latest big Android release was definitely the Galaxy Note 3. Both big in the attention it drew and the sheer size of the device brought to market, Samsung's new phablet is proving just as popular as the two versions that came before it. No big shocks there, then.
Facebook may have once been a small hiding place where people who knew each other could chat in private, and share photos that they could feel fairly sure wouldn't be found on the greater web. That's been steadily changing over the last few years as Facebook tries desperately to reinvent itself in the face of stiff competition from Twitter, and in some ways from Google+.
As we work our way through the month of October it's surely only a matter of time until we see an invitation to Google's Nexus 5 event landing in inboxes across the blogging world. With more and more leaks of not just the hardware but also the software that it runs appearing on a seemingly daily basis, it's clear that Google's new smartphone can't be too far away.
The Nexus 5 leaks just keep on coming, and barely a day after the last photos showed up online we have now been treated to a video of what appears to be Google's next big smartphone release.
