If you prefer to carry Samsung's most recent handset instead of that newfangled iPhone 6, Sprint is now offering the Android option for lease. Until now, the carrier allowed customers to rent Apple's phone for $20 a month for two years. After that,...
The Amazon Appstore already gives away one free app each day, but today it's decided give away 30 apps, worth a combined total of $115, for free to anyone with an Android phone. Here are the pick of the bunch that you should download first.
The latest things to dance out of Samsung's hyperactive R&D department are the A5 and A3, a pair of all-metal, super-thin phones aimed at teenagers. However, they're also "optimized for social networking" and feature a "5MP Camera For Unmatched Selfies", which probably mean that they'll be shit.
Just a year ago we learned Andy Rubin had shifted his focus at Google from Android to working with robots, like the ones from its acquisition Boston Dynamics, but tonight reports indicate he is leaving the company entirely. The Information and the...
The hype meter is off the charts this week. The sweat is real. This Vergecast is beef, not bust. Our hosts Nilay Patel, Chris Plante, and The Verge's social beast Sam Sheffer begin the hour with a reflection on various motorized death machines and enormous phones. Then David Pierce steps in to discuss super heroes, Apple Pay vs. CurrentC, Microsoft's fitness band, and Chris's alarming misunderstanding of contraception. Join us, won't you?
Sure, smartphones have been getting larger and larger every year. And for those who really want to go big, large-screen "phablet" Android phones have risen to fill the demand. But iPhone users who wanted a larger screen have always been left wanting...
Motorola's Moto 360 stole the Android Wear spotlight when Google's smartwatch operating system was first revealed. But it's not the only tech-filled timepiece to sport a circular display, with this, LG's G Watch R, hot on its heels just a few months after the Moto 360's release. Depending on your aesthetic taste, the G Watch R may well be the best smartwatch yet. But just because the hardware is ready, doesn't necessarily mean that the Android Wear software is too.
After last month's iPhone event, I was disappointed -- I realized the iPhone 6 and its "Plus" sibling were still catching up to Android in a lot of ways. Regardless, the devoted iPhone fan in me still pre-ordered an iPhone 6 a few days later, in the...
By now, you're likely quite familiar with the concept of reading an ebook, whether on a tablet or dedicated e-reader: you load it up with as many books as you can, tap or flip your way through the pages, and maybe highlight a few favorite passages or look up some word definitions along the way. Google believes that's a fine formula for reading a novel, but sorely lacking when reading nonfiction books — think cookbooks, textbooks, or any other book that you don't typically read straight through from cover to cover. If it's not something you read serially, Google's thinking goes, the ebook experience is still sub-optimal.
The company is looking to improve that experience with a new version of its Google Play Books app for Android — Google...
Google's latest Play Books update for Android makes the app a lot easier to use for reading non-fiction e-books. See, Play Books is perfect if you're just reading something from cover to cover. But if you're using it to read text or reference books...
Productivity-focused app Any.do, which is available on iOS, Android and the web, has gained popularity largely because, well, it helps people get things done. But, with households and businesses being about more than just one particular user, the...
Amazon's Android Appstore is back with another terrific promotion for Halloween. From now until November 1, you can get 39 different paid Android apps absolutely free, with no strings attached.
The folks at Flipboard must have been crazy busy these past months: the company has just unleashed a huge update for its iOS and Android apps, a few weeks after it finally released an app for Windows Phone. This update gives the digital...
Google wants even third-party Android apps to be able to do searches using "Ok, Google" voice commands, so it's now making it easier for developers to integrate the feature. Now, all devs have to do is add a few lines of code to their...
Hasraf Dulull is a master of digital visual effects with an uncanny vision of our near future: A tech company creates an army of badass android data couriers to fight against cyber-terrorism.
It looks like the curtains have been raised early on Microsoft's attempt to join the wearables game. Windows Central points out that sync apps have appeared in the Mac and Android app stores, set to personalize and track data for your "Microsoft...
Google Now is a glimpse of the future, a digital assistant that knows a surprising amount about you. It's not for everyone though, and you might not want the app keeping tabs on everything you're doing (and making suggestions accordingly). Here's how to disable some or all of the Google Now service on your Android phone.
Google's wanted a piece of your living room for ages, and now -- after two attempts that never really went anywhere -- the search giant seems poised to get what it wants. Android TV is coming to, well, a TV near you, and we just spent a few brief...
Google has opened up pre-orders for its Nexus 6 today, The flagship Android 5.0 Lollipop phone starts at $649 for a 32GB model, and you can also bump up to 64GB of storage for $699. It's unclear how much inventory Google has to start; the 32GB model almost instantly switched over to a message reflecting that it's already sold out. All four major US carriers will be carrying the Nexus 6, though on-contract pricing isn't official just yet. Nexus 6 comes in two colors: a "midnight blue" version with a black rear shell and blue metal frame, or "cloud white" with a white back and silver frame.
The Motorola-made device is a powerhouse with its quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor and 3GB of RAM. But the big question to ask yourself is whether...
The Poynt Smart Terminal is like Swiss Army Knife for payments. It has an NFC antenna, a magnetic swipe reader, a Bluetooth antenna, a QR code reader, a printer for receipts, and even an Android tablet to boot. So not matter how the future of payments pans out, you'll be able to get your dang cup of coffee.
Google broke more than a couple of hearts when it announced that its new Android flagship, the Nexus 6, was going to be a whale. Now that I've seen it up close, I can tell you that yes, this sucker is a huge. But that's not a bad thing.
You're looking at what Oppo claims to be the slimmest smartphone in the world—which measures just 4.85mm front to back.
As Samsung struggles and Apple starts to encroach on the Android mainstay of giant screens, LG's smartphones ar doing alright. In fact it's doing pretty darn well. Announcing a record number of smartphones sold and the best quarter in five years,...
It may seem as if YouTube Live is still a work in progress for Google, and in many ways that continues to be the case. That's far from being a bad thing, though. Over the course of the past couple of years, YouTube's live-streaming feature has become...
Google’s approach for rolling out the latest version of Android, Lollipop, is a little different. There are the usual things we see every year — a new Nexus phone and a new Nexus tablet — but instead of a big event, the company is posting details in blog posts and on the main Android site. So if you’re tracking the rollout closely, you probably have a sense of what’s new and what’s cool in the OS. If you’re not, though, getting a sense of what Lollipop is actually like and what it actually does isn’t easy.
Luckily, we got a chance to sit down with some Google execs last week to get a walkthrough of the coolest features. We won’t know everything until we actually have a chance to use the final version, but there are some clever additions...
We first heard about Mountain View's activity-tracking plans back at I/O, and now the Android faithful and get their hands on the goods. The Google Fit app, the company's answer to Apple Health, is now available for download, compiling all of those...
Android 5.0 Lollipop isn't just about a shiny new interface or whiz-bang features; there are some new ways to safeguard your phone's data, too. To underscore that point, Google has detailed Lollipop's toughened-up security features. Some of them you...
Algoriddim's Djay app has come a long way since its Mac-only beginnings in 2006, but after years of Apple exclusivity, Android users are finally welcome to join the party. Djay 2, the current version of the award-winning mobile mixing platform, has...
Samsung promised an open platform when it purchased SmartThings, a startup that aims to make every household more intelligent with its products. So, despite the automation service already being present on iOS and Android, the most popular mobile...
Thanks to the built-in features in most games and apps, it's become increasingly difficult to lose something you're working on. Your phone or tablet can suddenly explode, but if you had an internet connection, there's a good chance you'll be able to get right back to what you were working on with some other device. One thing that hasn't changed though is the juggle involved in switching between an app or game on a phone and tablet. Your data may be syncing up behind the scenes, but not every app does it, and you still hunt down the app, open your file, and remember what exactly you were doing.
You may just about recall that Nextbit, a startup formed by ex-Googlers, has been collaborating with Cyanogen on a "really cool" secret project. As it turns out, this is all about the continuity experience across Android devices -- very timely given...
Since its creation, the Amazon Appstore stood apart, banned from being offered in the official store for Android apps, Google Play, until now... sort of. When Amazon recently updated its main Android app, it got a new "Apps & Games" department that...
Well, we guess congratulations are in order. According to Re/code, Sundar Pichai, the senior vice president at Google who used to just be in charge of the Chrome, Android, and web apps teams now basically has control of almost every other Google...
The Nexus 9 wasn't designed to be an iPad killer; it was designed to inspire Google's Android partners to create one instead. Though you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise: It was announced one day before the iPad Air 2 and mini 3, comes with a...
One factor that's certainly helped in Samsung's near-domination of the Android market over the last few years is its use of Samsung-manufactured components in its vast range of Android handsets. You can therefore bet that the CEO won't be too happy to hear that LG is now manufacturing top-end silicon of its own.
Does the topic of laser guns intrigue you? Perhaps you're more interested to learn about Facebook's new anonymous chat app? Read on for all our news highlights from the last 24 hours, including Google's Android Wear update, CERN's mysterious photos,...
Whether you're running the latest version of Android, iOS or Windows Phone, there's bound to be something missing from your favorite mobile operating system. Personally, I find it amazing that iOS still makes me play Whac-a-mole when it comes to...
Android Wear, Google's four-month-old wearables platform, is off to a good start. But like all nascent systems, there are still plenty of areas that need some TLC. It's got a lot of features and developer support, but it's practically useless if you...
If you haven't heard, Microsoft has kicked open the doors to its experimental Garage development hub, and among the projects now available for beta testing is the Next Lock Screen app for Android. Lock screen customization is nothing new, but this effort from Redmond is worth a look for the way it brings information, apps and settings right to your front screen.
