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A week ago, we took an early look at the Nexus 6P, the larger and more "premium" of Google's phones for 2015. Now that I've lived with the 6P for a bit longer, it's time for the full review.
One tool that I personally have always wanted on Android but have never actually seen is a live color picker. A floating tool that could grab pixel-specific color values from your screen without the need for screenshots or any other complication. Today it looks like my wish has been granted by embermitre with the release of Pixolor to the Play Store.
If you didn't already know, photographer Carl Kleiner is the mind behind the enchanting "material" wallpapers that came with Android Lollipop, and with more recent versions of Chrome and the Google app on iOS.
I've been getting to know the Nexus 6P for a few days now, and while I don't feel a few days is enough time to write a complete review, I thought it would at least be helpful to write a review preview with initial impressions and findings from the new Nexus.
The Android Asset Studio is an indispensable tool that offers quick icon and nine-patch generation, along with a device art generator that graduated to Google's official Android Developers site. And since there are new Nexus devices (hopefully shipping soon), it's time for new shells to frame your screenshots. Today, the Nexus 5X and 6P joined the lineup.
After signing up for Google's Project Fi I had only to wait a couple of days before a SIM card and "Welcome Kit" showed up at my door. I noted that the accessories - a battery pack, earbuds, and white case for the Nexus 6 - seemed to be carefully and thoughtfully designed, even if the hard plastic boxes for each seemed a little extravagant. The welcome kit was foreshadowing for the rest of the Fi experience - thoughtfully put together and pleasing.
Mere hours ago we saw LG's new V10 phone leaked courtesy of @evleaks, and now LG has made it official.
Though LG said it wasn't the "star" of today's event, the Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE (a mouthful) did make a cameo at the presentation. We got a few minutes to play with the device hands-on, but eyes-off - the watches on display were actually powered off, so we couldn't even use them in demo mode. Still, it's worth taking a look at least at the form factor of the watch.
This morning at the Walter Reade theater in NYC, LG (re)announced the dual-display, triple-camera V10 phone, a device we heard all about last night. After today's (short) presentation, we got a few minutes to play with the V10 first-hand.
We've been hearing rumblings of an impending update for Hangouts, bringing it to version 5.0 and coming "soon." The update will allegedly resolve lots of lag issues, but it will apparently fix at least one other problem: GIFs.
In version 39, Chrome for Android learned an awesome trick: using a simple HTML tag, any webpage could tell Chrome to theme its UI (and your device's status bar) with a specified color. The downside to this feature was that it only worked if tabs and apps were "merged," meaning your Chrome tabs would show up inline with your recent apps, rather than relying on Chrome's own in-app tab switcher.
In case you aren't getting enough Google Now inside the normal interface, it looks like the Google app is bumping out into some users' notification trays with new, richer, higher priority notifications.
Full disclosure: I own an iPhone 6. It's not my daily driver (I use it for testing and design research), but when Android Wear for iOS was announced, I thought it might be fun to connect my Moto 360 to the iPhone and see what our friends using iOS might experience if they decide to pair up with an Android Wear watch.
Earlier this month, Google surprised us with OnHub, a $200 WiFi router made in partnership with TP-Link that looks great and packs in some smart technology (even if it only has one ethernet port). We knew Google planned to release an app to pair with and control the OnHub, and today Google On hit the Play Store.
In an apparent effort to boost app discoverability and engagement, it looks like Google is rolling out a beautiful new layout for "apps" search results on mobile. Doing a quick search for pretty much anything followed by the word "apps" will get you a grid of app results above the normal search results, each block colored according to the app's icon. Clicking the "expand" button opens up the grid, with more results smoothly flowing in. Check it out in motion below.
It's been a while since we last heard anything about Project Soli - Google's radical post-touch experiment unveiled at I/O - but it looks like the project is still rolling right along. According to a tipster, Google has begun notifying interested parties of an impending "Soli Alpha DevKit," asking that those notified fill out an application for the chance to receive one.
Filed in the category of "things we just noticed" is a pretty strange interface element discovered in the "help" interface of Google Settings. When opening an article, users can tap a "full screen exit" icon in the toolbar to trigger the little floating window seen above.
Back in February, we told you about a new experimental service at Google called Tablescape. The app, which at the time served as a stylized funnel for content tied to Google+, encouraged users to upload "foodographs" (photos of food) with specialized categories like "naughty," "cheesy," and "vegetarian" among others. It would also show featured content and special foodography tips for users.
Something interesting is happening on the Play Store this evening. Users are reporting mysterious "Play Daily" and "Dogfood Apps" buttons appearing on the store's home and apps pages, respectively.
One of the greatest problems in stock Android since the debut of Lollipop last year has been the volume slider - putting aside Lollipop's initially confusing volume modes, the slider unceremoniously pops into place when the user hits the volume keys on their device. Of course I'm kidding, but nevertheless it looks like Google has enhanced the volume controls in the latest Marshmallow dev preview with some motion design love.