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Steam is the #1 gaming market for PCs, and the desktop client is quite robust (and big enough that performance-minded gamers complain about its RAM and processor footprint). The official mobile version of Steam has been slowly catching up to the desktop in terms of features, and today's update to version 2.1 is the biggest that's come in a long time. A laundry list of tools from the desktop and web versions of Steam are now available in the Android app, no pop-out required.
It's only been one day since the new and oh-so-shiny Chromecast was announced, but it looks like app developers are jumping at the chance to take advantage of its new capabilities. First on deck in Netflix, which is a bit surprising since the company hasn't been all that quick on the draw in the past when it comes to functional updates. The latest update in the Play Store adds compatibility with the new Chromecast's Fast Play feature, getting a show or video from your phone to your TV in about one third the time that it used to take.
Amazon's Cloud Drive app has been around since June, but it's been missing some fairly basic tools. As in, so basic that it's kind of mind-boggling that they haven't been included thus far. Today's update adds the ability to rename and delete files and folders, which was apparently missing before. That seems like a pretty big omission, but it's been rectified in version 1.2. It's available now on the Google Play Store, and of course, Amazon's own Appstore.
The Google Store is already taking pre-orders for the Nexus 6P, and I'm sure a ton of you have already placed one. But there's an alternative you might want to check out, at least if you live in the US: Huawei's own online storefront. The manufacturer is also selling the phone directly to consumers, with a shipping date of late October. The prices are the same as the Google Store, but there are a few pros and cons for selecting Huawei as your phone vendor instead. Let's break them down:
I think quite a few users were a bit nervous when they heard that the new Nexus phone cameras were eschewing an optical image stabilization system, instead relying on a new sensor design that includes bigger and more sensitive 1.55 micrometer pixels that gather more light. According to the experts over at DxOMark, there's no reason to worry: the Nexus 6P's camera is pretty freakin' great. After the team's battery of intensive photo tests, they've given it a score of 84 out of 100, the second-highest rating on the site. The 6P beats out the Galaxy Note 4, Moto X Style, and the latest crop of iPhones - the only phone to score higher is the Galaxy S6 Edge, and the 6P takes over the LG G4's second-place spot.
This year's Nexus launch seems to have gone surprisingly smoothly - there's no angry mob of disgruntled fans gathering outside of Google's headquarters after everything switches over to "Coming Soon" on the order page. In fact, the gadgets that were immediately available for purchase are already shipping, at least to some customers. We've heard from multiple Android Police staff and readers that say their Chromecast 2015 and/or Chromecast Audio units have already shipped.
We're also happy to confirm that both the Nexus 5X and 6P will work with all major carriers in the US across GSM, CDMA, and LTE, just like the Nexus 6 did. Here are the wireless bands from both phones, per the specs page on the Google Store:
In addition to revised hardware for Chromecast and the new Chromcast Audio, Google also announced a new version of the Chromecast app at its San Francisco event. This updated app is more than just a connection tool, it's a content discovery portal, automatically detecting Chromecast and Chromecast Audio-compatible apps on your phone or tablet. It will show popular and personalized content suggestions to users, and recommend new Chromecast apps from the Play Store.
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- The Chromecast 2015 and Chromecast Audio are both live in the Google Store.
Google's Chromecast streaming gadget was a surprise success when the company introduced it in 2013 - although perhaps not so surprising when you consider that it plays web video from a variety of services and undercuts even the cheapest competitors from the likes of Roku and Apple TV. Chromecast hasn't had a major revision in over two years, perhaps because it hasn't really needed one. But now there's one available, a new hockey puck design with an "dangling" HDMI port, wider Wi-Fi support, and better video thanks to an improved antenna design.
Google Makes The Huawei Nexus 6P Official: 5.7-Inch Screen, Android 6.0, All-Metal Body, $499 Starting Price And Pre-Orders Starting Today
The Huawei Nexus 6P is now official.
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Android Police has successfully blown the doors off of the 2015 Nexus announcements, but now Google has made its flagship phone for this year official. The Nexus 6P is the larger of the two smartphones announced today, and the first Nexus device ever to come from Chinese manufacturer Huawei. The phone will be one of the first devices to launch with Android 6.0 "Marshmallow," as expected for new Nexus hardware.
Remember Milk Video? No, it's not a special Internet repository of all those Got Milk ads, it's Samsung's device-exclusive video arm of the Milk Music service. And now it's not long for this world. Samsung chose the rather unceremonious venue of an updated Play Store app description to let users know that the company will be ending support for the app in November.
Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.
Not all of the news that Android Police has been able to nail down about Google's upcoming hardware is positive. In addition to a lack of MicroSD card slots (despite some exciting new functionality in Android Marshmallow) and a lack of wireless charging (despite the fact that the last three generations of Nexus phone had it), both LG's Nexus 5X and Huawei's Nexus 6P won't have optical image stabilization built into their rear cameras.
New Nexus phones aren't the only thing that Google has in the lineup tomorrow. Sources tell us that the economical Chromecast streaming gadget will be getting its first major revision as well. The new version, codenamed "Earth," will retain the same HDMI dongle design as the original, but come with some exciting new features. We're expecting the price for the second generation Chromecast to remain steady at $35, and it should be available following the announcement tomorrow, September 29th, or shortly thereafter.
Buzzfeed gets something of a bad rap among some of the more conventional news outlets on the Internet. One that it entirely deserves, by the way - you'd be hard-pressed to find a more wretched hive of low-thought content and ill-advised "viral" posts outside of... actually, there's nowhere else. But Buzzfeed's news portal is, if not exactly stellar, then not entirely worthy of derision either - they managed to interview President Obama that one time. Buzzfeed's third published Android app is specifically for the news portion of the site.
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- The original presentation slides have been uploaded to Google Docs, which include a few more details in the speaker notes. Specifically, they augment the existing specifications with more information on the RAM, camera, screen, and dimensions:
The leaks continue to flow out of Mountain View. The latest information on Huawei's Nexus 6P, the larger and presumably more expensive of the two Nexus devices Google is expected to announce next week, comes from a public image gallery posted to Imgur. It's a series of slides that appear to be designed for retail employees to use as an information and promotional tool. The slides include a set of hardware specifications and new photos.
The Android Police staff must not be very musically eclectic, because none of us had ever heard of Bleachers before we spotted another free album on the Play Store. But don't let our lack of broad influences keep you from getting some free music: Terrible Thrills Vol. 2 is now up for grabs. Just add it to your Google account and you'll be able to stream or download it to your Android devices for free, gratis, and nothing. As with most of these free albums, it's a bit of a coin toss as to whether you can download it for free outside the US.
I've used a bunch of team-based, business-oriented chatroom-style services, and Slack and Hipchat seem to be the two most popular choices for managers at this point. Maybe it's time to consider an alternative, and cloud storage giant Dropbox is giving us a pretty good reason to do so: Zulip. The funny-named client has been quietly developed by Dropbox for the last year, and now it's available as an open source tool.
Evernote users who prefer to use homescreen widgets to access their information have new options starting today. The latest update to the note-taking app (version 7.2, at least on my Nexus 6) has three new widgets to check out. The first is a standard list of your most recently-viewed notes, the second is a horizontal bar with a user-customizable set of actions, and the third is a single 1x1 widget with one selectable action. The choices are surprisingly customizable thanks to the pre-roll screen that appears before placing a widget.
Until someone invents the fusion-powered backpack, there's no such thing as too much external power. And if you need some of that power on the cheap, there's a great deal on Amazon right now. You can get an UNU Superpak (with a capacity of 10,000mAh) for just .99 if you apply the coupon O66REVW3 when you check out. That's a solid $10-20 off of the going rate for these things, and $15 off of the retail price for the same unit. You can also grab free shipping if you've subscribed to Amazon Prime, which recently had its own significant discount.This particular battery pack is pretty small for its capacity, and outputs at up to 2.1A out of twin USB ports. It comes with a standard MicroUSB cable and a Lightning cable adapter, handy if you're one of those consumers who double-dips in the mobile OS cup with an Android phone and an iPad. 10,000mAh should be enough to completely recharge a larger phone 2-3 times, and a tablet once. It has the usual LED indicator for its charge level.
Keep in mind that only the black version of the battery is on discount, so putting the white one in your cart will invalidate the coupon (which, again, is O66REVW3). As far as we know, the discount is only applicable on the Amazon's US storefront.Source: Amazon