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Motorola has been a very leaky ship lately with photos and renders of upcoming phones popping up online. At least some secrets will be revealed in just a few weeks on July 25th at the #hellomotoworld event in New York City. Yeah, Motorola loves hashtags.
The CNN app has gone through many updates, redesigns, and revampings. Along the way, it lost widget support, but today's update rights that tremendous wrong. In addition, there is now an option to Chromecast your live TV feed inside the CNN app to another screen.
Snapchat is a thing the millennials are into these days, and it's not just for sexting anymore. At least that's what I hear. A new update to Snapchat adds several features, one of which seems rather rudimentary: you can have links in your Snaps now. Previously, this was only available to brands and ad campaigns. Not enough? You can also make your voice sound weird. You millennials are into that, right?
It's that time again—Google is rolling out monthly security patches for Nexus and Pixel devices, but you don't have to wait. The system images and OTA files are now live and ready for your sideloading pleasure. In addition, the monthly security bulletin is available for your perusal if you want to know what's being patched this time around.
Prior to the Lenovo takeover, Motorola had a reputation for making flagship phones at very competitive prices. Since the acquisition was finalized, Moto's high-end phones have been a bit less attractive, but the cheaper phones are still good options. However, it's been a while since Motorola took the super-affordable Moto E seriously. After a very limited third-gen release in parts of Asia and Europe, Motorola is again making the 4th gen Moto E a mainstream product. It's available as an unlocked phone, and on carriers as a cheap prepaid device. But "cheap" here doesn't mean it's a bad phone. It's definitely not offering an experience on-par with something like a Pixel, OnePlus 5, or even a Moto G5. Yet, this is an impressive phone for the price.
It's a foregone conclusion now that Motorola plans to bring back the Moto X brand in the coming months. There have been several leaks showing off the device, which may even come to Project Fi later this year. We've now gotten our best look yet at the device thanks to a leak from Evan Blass. It has a sleek rounded frame, narrow bezels, oh, and the camera module looks like a face.
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- According to the ASUS ZenTalk forums, another ZenFone 3 Max variant, the ZC520TL, began receiving an update to Android Nougat a few days ago. However, unlike the ZC553KL above, the ZC520TL seems to only be getting Android 7.0. We don't have a ZC520TL to confirm, so we hope this is a typo as it's a little weird to see only 7.0 come to the device when 7.1.1 is already available for another variant.
Asus didn't pop up much on our radar until a few years ago when the ZenFone 2 came in at a competitive price. The ZenFone 3 family hasn't been as popular, but there certainly are more of them. One variant of the ZenFone is the lucky winner of "first Nougat update," the ZenFone 3 Max (model ZC553KL).
Cellular data is all well and good when it works, but maybe you're in an area with spotty coverage, or perhaps you are traveling in a foreign country. That's when you need some WiFi, and now Facebook would like to help you find it. The "Find WiFi" feature that was being tested in a few countries is now rolling out globally.
You might be aware of a little thing we run called APK Mirror. It's a site that hosts (safe) free APKs so you can sideload them instead of waiting for staged rollouts. There are a few ways you can upload your APKs to the site, including the ML manager app. An update today (in beta) makes that even easier with multi-APK uploads.
Notification importance controls won't work for most apps in Android O, and Google is fine with that
Android O is going to have a lot of neat stuff, including notification channels for more granular control over what apps can ping you about. However, developers need to get their apps ready by targeting Android O. Until that happens, notification controls will be hobbled in Android O, and Google won't be fixing this apparent problem.
There are few game fans as passionate as Final Fantasy fans. They devour new content, and are happy to drop $15-20 on re-releases of the classic games on mobile. So, the new Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire game on Android drew some attention when it was announced. It's finally available to all, but the early response is quite negative. It seems this title is little more than a generic city builder with on-the-rails combat dressed up like a Final Fantasy title.
Data caps are lame, but that's the reality in most parts of the world. People in some regions have to make do with meager amounts of data on prepaid plans, so Google is looking to make it easier to get by with Triangle. It's a new app, currently being tested in the Philippines, that can block apps from using your mobile data and let you earn bonus data.
Google announced at I/O that Home was going to learn a few new tricks, including good old-fashioned Bluetooth streaming. Even though Bluetooth is as old as the hills in tech years, it still took some time to get this feature ready. It's rolling out now, and you might already have it on your Google Home.
The Nest app is getting an update today, which makes sense. The Nest Cam IQ is available for purchase, and the app needs some new smarts to keep up with this 4K security camera. Just grab the new version from the Play Store or APK Mirror, and you'll be able to set that camera up. There are a few other goodies as well.
Google announced a few cool things were coming to Google Photos back at I/O, but there was no date for the rollout. Apparently today is the day. Both Suggested Sharing and Shared Libraries are rolling out to all devices, employing Google's machine learning muscle to make it easier to share photos with friends and family.
Sony's phones used to stand out from the crowd thanks to features like water-resistance and high-resolution camera sensors. Now, everyone has those. So, what's next for Sony? Maybe a 3D depth sensor pointed at your face. Sony subsidiary SoftKinetic, which makes advanced camera sensors, is set to demo such a device at MWC Shanghai this week.
Samsung took a big hit last year when the well-reviewed Galaxy Note 7 showed a propensity to burst into flames. Samsung eventually had to recall millions of units and cancel the device entirely. The company has been working on a revamped version of the Note 7 in recent months, but now the Wall Street Journal has release details. According to the WSJ report, Samsung will launch the Galaxy Note 7 Fandom Edition on July 7th in South Korea.
The Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom came out a few months back, packing a giant battery and dual camera array. However, it was also equipped with Android 6.0.1, which is unacceptable as we get on toward the middle of 2017. I guess Asus got the memo, and it's now rolling Android 7.1.1 out to the ZenFone 3 Zoom. Not only does it bring the usual Nougat goodies, this update addresses some of the problems with ZenUI.
The LG G6 was a definite improvement over the G5, but it wasn't quite as impressive as the Galaxy S8 overall. However, the price of this phone has been dropping ever since launch, and now you can get a new G6 for $150 off. Amazon is now selling the unlocked LG G6 for a mere $549.99, matching a previous deal at B&H. The GS8 is a lot more spendy.This device is the US unlocked LG G6 (LGUS997), so you have a warranty and all the bands you could ever want. It works on both GSM and CDMA networks with LTE bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 12, 13, 17, 20, and 25. Inside, it's the same as carrier versions of the phone with a Snapdragon 821, 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage. The display is 5.7-inches with a resolution of 2880 x 1440, which is taller than most phone screens.
Google's ongoing regulatory headaches in the EU have today resulted in a whopping $2.7 billion fine, the most significant regulatory penalty in the EU since the 2004 Microsoft decision. This fine stems from Google's handling of shopping searches and the way its own comparison tools are allegedly given preferential treatment. It's now up to Google to change its search practices, and that could affect the way it operates in other regions as well.