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Android TVs and Home units have become the hallmark of a smart home powered by Google. We’ve seen a fair share of Android TV boxes from a variety of manufacturers, including the Nvidia Shield. For the most part, they offered the same features in slightly-different packages. But when Google announced the JBL Link Bar, we witnessed a different product entirely. Sadly, pre-orders for the Android soundbar have now been hit with delays.
Android co-founder Andy Rubin finally revealed the Essential phone at the end of May, after months of rumors and teasers. The main selling point is the near-bezeless display, but it also has all the other features you would expect from a 2017 flagship. There's a Snapdragon 835 processor, 4GB of RAM, 128GB of internal storage, and a 3,040mAh battery. It also supports modular accessories (much like Moto Mods), starting with a tiny 360-degree camera.
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- Wareable.com has obtained confirmation from ASUS that the ZenWatch 3 will get the Android Wear 2.0 update on July 11th. The ZenWatch 2 will get it in two waves: one in late July, and one in early August.
When Google listed all of the watches that would receive Android 2.0, I was surprised. I only expected a handful of wearables to make the jump, but nearly all of them (besides the earliest models) were marked as compatible. Unfortunately, it's taking a while to deliver on that promise; fast forward five months later, and a few models are still waiting on an update.
You might have heard about Valve Time - the tendency for video game company Valve to release games and features long after the intended date. Google is also guilty of this, with apps and features still rolling out weeks after being announced. Many Android Wear users were left wondering why their watches had not received the much-anticipated 2.0 update weeks after the rollout supposedly started, but now we know why.
Android 7.0 Nougat was officially released over three weeks ago, and people instantly went insane over the lack of any factory or OTA images available for the Nexus 6 (but not so much for the Nexus 9 LTE, since they didn't sell too many). We reached out to Google, and it seems like you guys are gonna have to wait for just a few more weeks.
Google's Project Tango, that awesome tech that allows a gadget to map out three-dimensional spaces, is really cool. But it's taking its damn sweet time getting here: Tango was first announced over two years ago and offered as a developer kit tablet last summer, and the first Tango-capable smartphone was supposed to arrive from Lenovo this month. That seems less than likely now - the store page for the Phab 2 Pro has been adjusted from "coming this summer" to "coming this fall."
After the rollout of XE12 in mid-December and the announcement that January would not bring an update, Glass Explorers have been anxiously awaiting the release of XE14, originally due in February. As it turns out, they were to be disappointed. In a posting to the private Glass Community forum late yesterday, Teresa Z explained that XE14 had missed its February deadline. The reason: it simply wasn't ready to be released. Unfortunately, no details were given with regard to the timeline for the next update.
If you were one of the many people looking forward to playing Carmageddon on your Android device this summer, you may be disappointed to learn that you'll have to wait slightly longer than expected.
Sprint's Galaxy SIII Launch Will Be Delayed Due To "Overwhelming Demand" – Web/Telesales Launching June 21st, Retail Channels "Next Week"
In a post to its community boards today, Sprint has confirmed that its Galaxy SIII will be delayed. The statement indicates that, due to overwhelming
In a post to its community boards today, Sprint has confirmed that its Galaxy SIII will be delayed. The statement indicates that, due to overwhelming demand (sound familiar?), the device will be available only through Web Sales and Telesales on its June 21st launch date, with all other channels getting the device "next week." Here's the full post:
So, here's a new one: Samsung has apparently halted the TouchWiz UX update for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in order to "assess progress and ensure it's a positive experience for customers." We're not entirely sure what that means on a realistic level, but I'll go out on a limb and assume they found some sort of bug -- possibly one that is making some Tabs unusable by scrambling the graphics.
July 11th has come and gone, but owners of the Samsung Nexus S 4G still haven't received the bug-fixing, NFC-enhancing GRJ90 update that was supposed to begin its rollout yesterday. Well thanks to Android Central, we now have an idea of why this is so:
Don't tell us you didn't see this one coming: Samsung's Gingerbread update for the Galaxy S has been "temporarily suspended." Great.
You can chalk up another false rumor on the list of "impending releases" for the HTC Thunderbolt. The latest speculation to be debunked is that the March 10 date that had been teased is a no-go, according to a leaked Verizon chart picked up by Droid Life. The internal memo shows the much-delayed Verizon phone falling sometime after the iPad 2 launch (which is March 11).
It's been so long off the radar that you can be forgiven for forgetting about it, but LG has had plans to release an Android tablet originating all the way back in July. The original release was set to be sometime in Q4 of 2010, but it's just been pushed back indefinitely when an unnamed official at LG commented: