Category Archives: Tech News

Apple iPod Touch changes

Apple has changed its iPod Touch line up.

iPod touch Lineup Now Starting at $199

CUPERTINO, California—June 26, 2014—Apple® today announced its 16GB iPod touch® is now available in vibrant colors and equipped with a 5 megapixel iSight® camera for just $199. The entire iPod touch lineup features the 5 megapixel iSight camera with 1080p HD video recording, brilliant 4-inch Retina® display, Apple’s A5 chip and FaceTime® camera. iPod touch features an ultra-thin and light anodized aluminum design and is available in pink, yellow, blue, silver, space gray and (PRODUCT) RED. iPod touch comes in a 16GB model for $199, 32GB for $249, and 64GB for $299.

iPod touch comes with iOS 7, offering more than 200 features including Camera app filters that let you easily add real-time photo effects. Additionally, the Photos app offers ways to automatically organize your photos based on time and location. With iCloud® Photo Sharing, it’s simple to share photos and videos with exactly the people you want to see them and your friends and family can comment and access their shared streams from any iPhone®, iPad®, iPod touch, Mac® or PC at any time. This fall, iOS 8 will be supported on the entire iPod touch lineup.

With the revolutionary App Store℠ on iPod touch, users in 155 countries have access to over 1.2 million apps for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, including hundreds of thousands of games. More than 75 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store. Customers also have the iTunes Store® at their fingertips, giving instant access to an incredible selection of music, TV shows, movies and books to purchase and download directly to their iPod touch.

Pricing & Availability – iPod touch 16GB is available starting in the US today and worldwide in the coming days, in pink, yellow, blue, silver and space gray through the Apple Online Store (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested price of $199 (US). Starting today, the 32GB and 64GB models have been repriced worldwide, at a suggested price of $249 (US) for the 32GB model and $299 (US) for the 64GB model. iPod touch requires a Wi-Fi connection or a Mac with a USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 port, Mac OS X v10.6.8 or later and iTunes® 10.7 or later; or a Windows PC with a USB 2.0 port and Windows 7, Windows Vista or Windows XP Home or Professional with Service Pack 3 or later and iTunes 10.7 or later. An Apple ID is required for some iPod touch features.

(PRODUCT) RED models of iPod touch are available through the Apple Online Store (www.apple.com) and Apple’s retail stores.

LG G Watch vs Samsung Gear Live – specs compared and my views

Available to pre order on the US Play Store are the LG G Watch and Samsung Gear Live, both running android wear. Below is the Gear Live specs –

Display – 1.63" Super AMOLED (320 x 320)
Processor – 1.2 GHz Processor
Google Services – Google Now, Google Voice, Google Maps & Navigation, Gmail, Hangouts
Additional Features – Notification (SMS, E-mail, etc.)
Heart Rate Monitor, IP67 Dust and Water Resistant
Changeable Strap, Colour Options -Black and Wine Red
Connectivity – Bluetooth® v4.0 LE
Sensors – Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Compass, Heart Rate
RAM – 512MB
Storage – 4GB Internal Memory
Dimensions and Weight – 37.9 x 56.4x 8.9 mm, 59g
Battery – Li-ion 300mAh

So all fairly similar to the Samsung Gear smartwatch running Tizen OS. But if I had to chose between the two, I would pick the Live version due to the longer potential of the app support. However, I would the infra red blaster and camera that comes with the Samsung Gear, although most people wouldn't care about those features.

Just as a side note, the LG G Watch also announced has a larger display at 1.65 inches vs the Live at 1.63 inches, but the LG has a lower resolution at 280 x 280, instead of the Samsung Gear Live at 320 x 320. Also the LG has a bigger battery at 400maH but does not have the heart rate monitor of the Samsung. So if fitness is your thing, then I would opt for the Samsung Gear Live.

So what do you think of these new watches? Are you going to be getting one, or are you holding out for the Moto 360 which will be available later in July.

I don’t wear a watch, so not sure why I would get one, plus why pay £159 for the LG or £169 for the Samsung for a device, when you have a phone in your pocket that does everything anyway? Plus the Samsung is saying battery life only 1 day. So it will constantly need charging.

Play store links

https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=samsung_gear_live_black&hl=en

https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=lg_g_watch_black&hl=en

Google Play Services 5 – what does it include ?

Google Play Services 5.0 includes a number of key attributes. Below is a summary that will be integrated into each phone –

Services for Android wearables — Your apps can more easily communicate and sync with code running on Android wearables through an automatically synchronized, persistent data store and a reliable messaging interface.

Play Games services — Build a great gaming experience with Quests, which allow event-based challenges for players to complete for rewards, Saved Games (a snapshot API allow synchronization of game data along with a cover-image and description), and Game Profile (providing experience points for players).
App Indexing API — Surface deep content in your native mobile applications on Google search and drive additional user engagement.

Google Cast — Use media tracks to enable closed-caption support for Chromecast.

Drive — Sort query results, create offline folders, and select any mime type in the file picker by default.

Wallet — Build a “Save to Wallet” button for offers directly into your app; use geo-fenced in-store notifications to prompt the user to show and scan digital cards. Split tender allows payment to be split between Wallet Balance and a credit/debit card in Google Wallet.

Analytics — Get insights into the full user journey and understand how different user acquisition campaigns are performing with Enhanced Ecommerce, letting you measure product impressions, product clicks, and more.
Mobile Ads — Use improved in-app purchase ads and integrations for the Play store in-app purchase API client.

Dynamic Security Provider — Offers an alternative to the platform’s secure networking APIs that can be updated more frequently, for faster delivery of security patches.

Developers announce their support of Google’s new platforms

Hot off the press from Google I/O day 1, Runtastic has announced their apps will support Google Fit, Google Glass and Android Wear integration.

Gameloft has announced that 9 of their games, Asphalt 8: Airborne, Despicable Me: Minion Rush, Gameloft optimized GT Racing 2, Dungeon Hunter 4, Ice Age Village, Modern Combat 4, My Little Pony – Friendship is Magic, Wonder Zoo and World at Arms, will support Android TV.

So watch out in app purchases will now come to a TV new you!

Google releases Gmail API – full info

Google has announced a new Gmail API to replace the IMAP protocol. According to Google, while IMAP is great for standard email clients wanting to connect to an email server, the function is was designed for, it is no longer adequate for new features Gmail makes available or the way services have evolved. I wonder how this might impact future email clients though.

One of the differences for Gmail compared to IMAP is the addition of Labels, which Gmail uses instead of folders. The new Gmail API is designed to work with those labels in providing full RESTful access using OAuth 2.0 authorisation and the ability to support CRUD operations.

Another change is in the fact that this is a standard Google API that enables simple HTTPS calls to query or call Gmail. This means developers can use a variety of standard web languages and frameworks to access. As a standard Google API, it also means normal Google search queries can be used to only pull a subset of messages instead of accessing all messages as IMAP required. The new API also adds more granularity to functions accessed, like only giving an app “compose” access so it can send a message and not read access to a user’s messages.

The above should help improve speed of access.

Google I/O Developer Conference – Highlights plus views

Yesterday, Google live streamed its developer conference opening keynote. And it wasn’t without drama, when protestors tried to interrupt the affair. In all honestly, I think that was the most exciting part of the near 3 hour opening. Google really needs to try and work at its presentation style, and perhaps copy Apple Keynote’s.

But as they say, its not all about the glamour, its about the substance. So what’s new.

1) Well android lollipop or L for short is the name of the next version of android which comes with 5,000 new API’s. Android L is the new OS for your car, TV and phone or tablet. The design of the OS has had a makeover, using more cards and a tweaked colour scheme. It also runs on ART now instead of Dalvik which will provide a major improvement in smoothness and less lag (hopefully).

2) Unified multitasking with your apps and chrome tabs

3) Remote wipe and finally a kill switch

4) Improved battery performance

5) Android apps on Chrome now being supported

6) Microsoft Office files can be edited natively on Google Drive. Google Slides app also announced. Also android L will allow the phone to split work and personal properly with all work data stored in a separate area. Google called with Android for Work.

7) Google Fit platform – Nike, Adidas, Withings, RunKeeper, Basis and Fuel are all on board to support this new Health framework from Google.

8) Chromecast via the Cloud – A feature called Backdrop run feeds of photos, news, weather while you’re not using the Chromecast. And a cast screen button lets you directly mirror anything on your Android device to your TV as long as you’re using a supported phone or tablet from Samsung, HTC, LG, or the Nexus program. Chromecast will also get Live Screen Mirroring, Casting from Other Networks, Google+ Photo Galleries

9) Google Play Games – new features include a new Game Profile, unified leaderboard which lets users compare how they play with their friends. Quests and Saved Games now included. Quests – Allows developers to integrate time-based goals into their games without having to update the app each time. Saved Games – This saves players’ game progress across devices, and displays the total time played along with a cover image. This is cross platform too. Game devs are also getting access to more tools, like Game Stats and a C++ SDK, for, you know, dev stuff. Games will also be able to support Open GL ES 3.1, the Android Extension Pack , and a standard for gamepads. which will make it even easier for games to gain Android TV integration.

10) Android Auto – Google’s OS to support car use- signed up 40 companies including Bentley, LG, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Mazda, Maserati, Volvo, Pioneer, Parrot, Alpine

11) Actionable lockscreen notifications

12) Google announced a new project at I/O called Android One for emerging markets. The project involves a reference smartphone that’s made of affordable components that manufacturers can model cheaper smartphones from.

13) Android Wear – full SDK available for developers – Google OS for wearables

14) Google TV – new hardware and software – with voice integration

The above is as brief a summary as I could make, without straying off in to tech speak. So what does all the above mean. Google wants to be on every screen you use and at the same time will gather data at an unprecedented level on each and every one of us. On the other side, Google is offering a platform with API’s covering all aspects of its new L operating system, Auto, TV, Wearables and Fit platforms.

All we need is beatiful hardware and software tightly integrated together – oh wait, that’s Apple!

Nokia releases another android phone – the X2

20140624-182652-66412125.jpg

The X2 is the next Nokia phone to run a forked version of Android. It has a low off-contract price of $99 and comes with dual SIM card slots.

Don’t worry about the specs as it’s all low end, including a 4.3″ 800×480 screen, a 5MP rear camera, a front-facing camera for Skype, a Snapdragon 200 processor, 1GB of RAM , and just 4GB of storage plus a MicroSD card slot.

Nokia X phones, the X2 runs a super-customized version of Android, which has all traces of Google removed and replaced with Microsoft-powered alternatives like Skype, Outlook, and OneDrive. Nokia’s purpose-built app store will give you access to new software, but excluding any Google services and apps.

This phone is not for me. Probably more for emerging markets.

Google I/O Developer Conference is today – can Google one up Apple

Apple held their World Wide Developer Conference on 2nd June and some 3 weeks later it is now Google’s turn to woo the crowds.

Expect wearables and the home to feature heavily, with new hardware being shown for the first time. Google’s car integration will likely be revealed plus updates to its Google apps and services and a preview of the next version of android operating system.

Could be an exciting day later today. So what are you waiting for to be announced?