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The Pixel is a great phone, but it's not sold by most carriers. Google make it a little easier to afford this device by making financing available. It's rare that Google discounts devices on the Google Store, but you can get $75 off a Pixel right now if you use financing. There are some caveats, but not as many as most carrier deals.
Google Photos has become a very convenient way to back up all your photos... all of them. Even all the receipts, addresses, and other junk. Google recently added archiving to get that stuff out of the main timeline, but now it's going a step further by suggesting photos to archive. It sounds like the feature we spotted in a recent APK Teardown.
Samsung launched a payment platform a few years back, and we should have known then it was only a matter of time before LG did the same. Indeed, LG announced several months ago that it was getting its own phone-based payment system. The predictably named LG Pay has launched, but only in South Korea for now.
Verizon used to be one of the most expensive carriers no matter what sort of service you had. However, Big Red has been easing back on the cost lately. Even its prepaid plans are getting reasonable. There's already an $80 unlimited prepaid option, and beginning June 6th there will be some better tiered plans to go with it.
Duolingo is the most popular language learning app on Android with over 50 million downloads. It already supports a myriad of languages including Spanish, Swahili, and French. Duilingo has started rolling out a much anticipated new language to Android users: Japanese.
Google dropped a new version of Gboard last night, which includes a number of cool improvements to search. Some people are reporting another interesting feature in the form of Google search suggestions int he Google app and widget. Not everyone seems to have this, though.
Smart lock can be a life saver if you're unlocking your phone constantly, and Trusted Places is one of the most frequently used options. With Trusted Places, you can set locations where your phone will skip the secure lock method, but it hasn't been working so well as of late. Google says that's fixed in the latest version of Play Services, though.
Samsung launched the Galaxy S8 several months ago without the promised voice Bixby voice control. It said at the time the feature would be launched soon, but so far only the Korean-language version has rolled out. The company imposed a deadline of "spring" for the English launch, but the WSJ says we're still at least a few weeks away from release.
Asus was not on the radar of most US phone buyers until the ZenFone 2 popped up a few years ago with solid specs for a reasonable price, but the ZenFone 3 family hasn't been as prominent. It took Asus ages to roll these devices out in North America, and the pricing was not as generous. However, there are more variants of the ZenFone 3 still trickling out, from the flagship-level "Deluxe Special Edition" to the low-cost "Laser." The ZenFone 3 Zoom is somewhere in the middle with its $329 price tag and mid-range Snapdragon 625 chip.
NVIDIA mostly focuses on the SHIELD Android TV these days, but it hasn't forgotten about the SHIELD Tablet. After getting the device updated to Nougat in February, NVIDIA has sent out two small updates. That includes today's v5.2 update. The changelog shows nothing major, but it's nice of NVIDIA to keep this tablet up-to-date.
You might recall a Daydream VR tidbit in the torrent of Google I/O news earlier this month; Daydream 2.0 will include Chromecast support. Not to be outdone, Oculus has announced that Gear VR can do that starting now, or just as soon as a new version of the Oculus app can be rolled out to Samsung devices. This makes VR just a tiny bit less antisocial.
Google says people like art, and it would know. There are more than 500 million art-related searches on Google every month. The team from Google Arts & Culture got together with the search team to make these results more than just a list of images and Wikipedia links. Now, you'll see high-resolution collections, knowledge panels, better indoor Street View experiences, and more.
We posted some details of Nest's upcoming 4K camera last week, and now it's official. The Nest Cam IQ isn't just a tweaked version of the old camera, it introduces completely new features to the Nest lineup. The video is sharper, the software is smarter, and it's more expensive. That last part might not be your favorite, but $299 (or $498 for 2) is what it'll cost you to get this device.
Twitter can be a fun place to share and interact with your fellow humans. However, it can also be a wretched hive of scum and villainy. That's why keeping your Twitter direct messages open is a bit of a risk, but Twitter is rolling out a feature to keep the riffraff at bay. Soon, all DMs from strangers will be segregated from the messages you care about.
Mozilla has long maintained four release channels for Firefox: Stable, Beta, Aurora, and Nightly. Only Firefox, Firefox Beta, and Firefox Aurora have been available on Android via the Play Store. Now, Mozilla has followed through on an earlier promise to swap Aurora for the nightly build. The Play Store listing remains the same, but the app will be a little different.
Humble Bundle is a great source for cheap games, and you get to support charity while you enjoy your cheap content. The recent "Epic Platformers" bundle is now halfway through its run, and that means it's time for some new games and a giveaway. There are now 11 games, and we're giving them all away to some lucky readers.
Smartwatches haven't exactly taken off. In fact, a number of electronics companies have pulled back on plans for Android Wear including Motorola, Sony, and Asus. That's left fewer smartphone makers in the fray, but there are also fashion designers and traditional watch designers dabbling in Wear. We will see a lot more of these smartwatches in 2017, and one of them is the extremely spendy Tag Heuer Connected Modular 45.
OnePlus is currently selling through the remaining OnePlus 3T stock, which probably means the OnePlus 5 is coming very soon. The company is starting a referral program with discounts on accessory purchases and a point system that can get you some free or discounted swag. The catch: you need to have purchased a phone from OnePlus to get your sharable referral code.
Google announced the Jamboard a few months ago, which is a business-oriented product you are probably not going to buy. Each one of these smart whiteboards costs $5,000, plus another $1,200 if you want the rolling stand. There's an app though. The app is free, but its capabilities are limited without the $5,000 piece of hardware.
We've hit most of the high points in our quest to find all the important things in the new Android O beta. Still, there are some little tidbits that will interest developers and huge Android dorks (that's probably you). If you venture into the developer options, there are two new quick settings tiles to enable: "Window animation scale" and "Force RTL layout direction."