Vodafone UK will be bringing its Wi-Fi Calling service to the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge later this year
Vodafone announced earlier today that it will be bringing its Wi-Fi Calling functionality to the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge in the UK later this year. This is pretty useful for situations when you’re in a location with poor signal, such as travelling via the Underground.
Configuration will be extremely simple once it;s available. All users will have to do is check that their phone’s software is up to date, connect to a Wi-Fi network and switch on Wi-Fi Calling from their device’s Settings, then they’ll be good to go.
Source: Vodafone
Come comment on this article: Vodafone UK will be bringing its Wi-Fi Calling service to the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge later this year
Android Pay confirmed to not work with rooted devices
As Google wraps up rolling out updates to their Google Wallet application to transition to their new Android Pay platform, some power users are discovering an unpleasant surprise. Android Pay does not work with devices that have been rooted. This means users who have installed custom ROMs or perhaps other apps that required root access cannot make use of the mobile payment service. In response to comments that users who root their devices are some of the most ardent Android fans and could help build momentum for Android Pay, a Google staff member took to the XDA forums to discuss the security model and why Android Pay will only work on non-rooted devices.
According to the information provided, one of the key steps the Android developers took in preparing Android Pay was to rely on the SafetyNet API. This means an Android device has to pass a compatibility test that includes a check for the security model included via the SafetyNet API. It was also explained that Android Pay creates tokens for card information and only this token is passed to merchants when purchases are made. This differs from the Google Wallet model where every payment transaction was authorized at the time of purchase. The bottom line is Google does not believe they have a good way to accurately assess the security measures included in individual developer devices like those that are rooted.
Google says they will continue to listen to the community with regard to this issue and they seem to recognize the hardship it is creating. They have not ruled out coming up with some solution, but for now only non-rooted devices will be able to use Android Pay.
source: XDA Forum
Come comment on this article: Android Pay confirmed to not work with rooted devices
Oculus Touch Demo Reaction at Oculus Connect
Yesterday we spent some time at the Oculus Connect event, where we were able to try out the new Samsung Gear VR, as well as get some hands-on time with the Oculus Rift. We already gave our reactions to the Gear VR, but now we want to focus on Oculus Touch as well. While the Rift is a PC-centric VR solution, and not based on Android, it is really cool. As for the Oculus Touch? Basically, this is a unique VR-optimized controller for the Rift, which is designed to take your VR experience to the next level.
One of the things we really liked about the HTC Vive when we saw it at MWC was the VR platform’s touch-centric experience that also let you physically walk around the VR environment. With the Oculus Touch, you get a somewhat similar style of interaction. Most of the earlier experiences we had with the Oculus Rift were with a traditional controller, and with us simply sitting down and playing, so it was cool to see that it is possible to set-up a real-world room for VR interaction with using the Rift and the Rift Touch controller.
With the Touch in play, you can physically walk around just like with the VR, but the inputs here are more geared towards the gaming aspect with controllers that wrap around the hand, and then the circular areas where the contacts are communicate with the computer and sensors to give you 1-to-1 access to where your hands are. The actual shape of the controller is pretty much in the shape of a gun, which was fitting, considering the two demos I played with were of gun-slinging variety.
The first demo was a shooting gallery of sorts, were I had two pistols, and it felt a bit like an old western-style shooter. Focusing on the controllers, on the bottom portion where your middle finger you’ll find a grabbing button that allows you to better interact with your world, hold up your gun, etc.
The second demo was really cool, which was called Bullet Train. You start on a train and can teleport around the world by holding the A button (one of the space buttons on the top), so you can teleport forward. Once the train stopped, I was in a train station where all these soldiers were after me. What was really great about this one was that you could teleport to your enemies to disarm them, to escape, and so forth.
Combining the Oculus Touch controllers with the Rift really put in the shoes of a first person character in a way you wouldn’t get without VR. Of course, the controllers aren’t just for 1st person shooter fans. There were also workshop and toy box type games were you had to grab and manipulate parts of the world and so on.
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HTC Vive’s solution used a wand that was a bit like a Wii controller or PS Move, but the way that Oculus Touch works actually seems a bit better suited for the hardcore gamer type. Overall, I really enjoyed my time with the Rift and with the Rift Touch, and it is great to see VR continually evolving and being pushed forward with each passing month.
Are you looking forward to the commercial launch of the Oculus Rift? How do you think it will compare to solutions like the HTC Vive? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
CNN will live stream the Democratic debates in VR
CNN has announced that it’s going to live stream the full Democratic presidential debate in VR on October 13th. The move comes after the success of VR highlight clips that the channel made available following the recent Republican debate. As with the previous event, the network has teamed up with NextVR, letting users of Samsung’s GearVR to experience the hot, political action as if they were sat in the Las Vegas audience. CNN hasn’t revealed if it’s planning to ask Bernie Sanders to leap towards the camera to make the whole thing more immersive, but a little part of us can hope, right?
Source: CNN
Should Apple discontinue the 16GB iPhone?
In the wake of the launch of the iPhone 6S/6S Plus, the tech journalism sphere was awash with outrage about the continued existence of the 16GB iPhone. This bottom tier is “insulting,” in an era when most Android manufacturers now sell their flagship phones with at least 32GB of built-in storage. If it wasn’t intolerable before, they say, then the addition of live photos and 4K recording to these latest devices have rendered a 16GB iPhone with almost no usable space whatsoever. But is this a real point of concern, or some manufactured anger that masks a culture of entitlement? Devindra Hardawar and Dan Cooper try to hash this topic out without flipping any tables in the process.
Dan Cooper
As much as we may all feel differently, Apple does not owe any of us, at all, jack shit.
Take a look at some of these opinion pieces and the anger all seems to be centered on the idea that Apple owes us a 32GB iPhone when it clearly does not. Do you think it’s because Apple is one of the richest companies in the world that people feel so entitled to demand that it discount its most profitable products? I don’t imagine too many people being taken seriously if they suggested that McDonald’s should replace McDoubles with Big Macs and yet still only charge $1 for it.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that technology companies produce devices for less money than they charge to sell them. That’s how you create a sustainable business, and it’s not as if Apple is different from every other firm in history for acting this way. There’s no definitive figure, but it’s believed that the cost to produce an iPhone is roughly $200, with the remaining $449 of that $649 off-contract price going to the company. Does that make it a rip-off? Possibly, but nobody’s forcing you to buy it. There are figuratively hundreds of companies who will sell you cheaper devices, including Apple itself.
I guess the one stick that you can beat Apple with is that the Galaxy S6, which was released in March, can be had for $130 on a two-year deal with 32GB of built-in storage. I think that’s a false line of argument, since disappointing sales of this six-month-old device forced Samsung to slash the price. When it launched, it cost the same as a 16GB iPhone on a two-year deal, but clearly not enough people found it compelling enough to want to fork over that amount of cash. And yet, they’re more than happy to for a device that’s somehow inferior?
Devindra Hardawar
It’s really not about entitlement — at all. My hatred for the 16GB iPhone stems purely from the fact that it’s a shockingly low amount of storage for a premium device in 2015. Today, 32GB is pretty much the default now on other high-end smartphones, and many even offer expandable storage via microSD cards. Sure, 16GB made sense for the first few years of the iPhone, when apps didn’t take up much room and iOS wasn’t so bloated. But now that the iPhone has 4K video shooting, a 12-megapixel camera and apps are getting even bigger, it seems like a baffling limit.
Apple, of all companies, should be well aware that our smartphones are now our primary computing devices. And putting 16GB in a high-end smartphone today is like making someone buy a premium laptop with a hard drive smaller than 64GB. It was perfectly fine years ago, but it wouldn’t fly today. (Notice that the MacBook ships with 256GB of default storage, and the 11-inch MacBook Air has 128GB.)
The biggest reason I’m annoyed by the 16GB iPhone? It makes for a pretty terrible user experience, which feels very un-Apple. Once you’ve got a bit of music on the phone and your favorite apps, there’s not much room to store 4K video (which eats up 375MB a minute, according to Apple), and larger 12MP photos. Even if you’ve got around 12GB of space to work with, perhaps the most storage you can eke out of a 16GB iPhone when accounting for the size of iOS 9, that only leaves you around 32 minutes of 4K video. That may sound like more than enough for amateur home videos, but the issue is more about what your experience would be like a few months after you unwittingly snap up a 16GB iPhone, when the combination of text messages, offline media and 4K clips leads to constant “storage full” warnings.
I’m no fool; I understand the importance of Apple’s profit margins. And it’s pretty obvious that by having a size jump between 16GB and 64GB iPhones, Apple can push more discerning buyers toward more expensive models. It costs Apple around $200 to build a 16GB iPhone 6 (which sold for $649 at launch), according to IHS, and it’s just another roughly $20 to build a 64GB model. Considering that Apple can charge $100 more for the 64GB iPhone, that’s a pretty significant bit of profit. (CNET has a good breakdown of Apple’s build pricing.)
So sure, it makes sense for Apple to eke out as much profit as it can by keeping the 16GB iPhone around. But just because it can, doesn’t mean it should.
Dan Cooper
iOS occupies about 4GB of your iPhone’s storage, leaving most users with about 12GB for apps and media. For plenty of people, that would surely be enough for a couple of playlists, a movie downloaded from iTunes and a week or two’s worth of photos. If anything, I’d say that your ire is misplaced, because it’s not the storage limit that’s the problem; it’s how a lot of apps slowly fill our devices with junk cache data. For instance, Twitter and Facebook for iOS 8 are 63MB and 95.9MB when you grab them from the App Store. On my phone, both have bloated to a ridiculous 563MB and 386MB — a fault we can lay at the feet of the engineers who built those apps. If iOS apps were built with better cache management, then a lot of people’s storage-management issues would disappear overnight. The less said about the dreaded “other” section that pops up when you connect your phone to iTunes, the better.
Also, you say that Apple is making it impossible for users to take advantage of the iPhone 6S’ new features with just 16GB storage. If you wanted to use that iSight camera to record 4K video, you’d be able to save around 32 minutes of footage in ultra-high resolution. Now, if you’re a professional filmmaker, or someone who is expecting to shoot a lot of 4K clips, you won’t be doing so on a base-model iPhone. If you’re an amateur, then what exactly are you shooting that lasts longer than 32 minutes and is so important that you need to shoot it in 4K?
One thing I will concede is that I think Phil Schiller’s point about iCloud being the savior of 16GB iPhones is farcical. I’m always worried when executives talk about imagined solutions to problems that forget the practical needs of real, “ordinary” people. I can’t think of many people who regularly spend $120 a year for extra storage and have a data plan that wouldn’t penalize you for pushing and pulling stuff from iCloud on a regular basis. Google tells me that Schiller has a net worth of around $60 million, but telling people to “rely on the cloud” isn’t going to fly when your 1GB Verizon plan charges you $15 if you go over your cap by even a megabyte.
I have a confession: Until last year, I always bought the base model iPhone and, largely, that unit has come with just 16GB storage. Most weeks, on a Saturday, I would sync my device with my computer, buy third-party cache clearing apps and generally mother my device to make sure I didn’t run out of space. If I had been making more money, then I’d have probably plumped for the more expensive device, but I couldn’t, so I didn’t. A lot of people out there can’t afford to make that upgrade, and Apple produces a relatively low-cost device ($199 on contract) that can do what its more expensive siblings can do — you just have to be a bit judicious as to how you use it. Maybe that’s the point, because Apple’s lack of educating users as to how to effectively manage the iPhone’s storage is why iOS adoption has slowed.
Devindra Hardawar
I feel for you, Dan, I couldn’t imagine sticking with a 16GB iPhone over the past few years. I’ve got my preorder for the 128GB iPhone 6s in, because I’m already getting warnings about my 64GB iPhone 6 getting full. My usage habits probably aren’t very common: I like to keep a large library of personal music on my phone, along with a rotating playlist of offline Spotify tracks (both necessary for listening to music on the subway). Mostly, though, I wanted a phone that didn’t feel like it had any limitations. It’s just a shame to see Apple stick with arbitrary restrictions when it’s trying to convince us that new technology like “3D Touch” and 4K video are worth buying a new phone.
Dan Cooper
You’ve gotta cut your coat according to your cloth, and if you can’t afford that extra $100 (or $200) when September rolls around, then that’s that. As much as I’d love it if the world’s richest company whacked in more storage into the iPhone, it only really benefits people who are euphemistically called “power users.” I’d say that as technology journalists we both fall into that category, but I’d wager that plenty of folks — the same people who still get use out of the 2GB iPod Shuffle or 16GB iPod Nano — don’t sweat the storage.
The other thing I’ll say is that I know that we’ll see a 32GB base model iPhone at some point, and maybe 2016 is when that will happen. Apple has, traditionally, always waited until it could divine some benefit to a feature before adding it, like holding off on NFC until the 2014 iPhone 6 — a feature Android had in 2012. As apps become more powerful and space-hungry, the default will have to increase, but that decision will be Apple’s, and no amount of pressure will make that change come sooner.
[Image credit: Chris Velazco/Engadget]
Hubble captures a fantastical view of the Veil Nebula
See that diaphanous cylinder of gas above? That’s the Veil Nebula — the supernova remnant of a star that exploded 5,000 to 8,000 years ago — as captured by the Hubble telescope. This shot of the gossamery structure looks a lot more detailed compared to previous attempts, thanks to Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, which used six fields of view for magnification. That’s the same camera that was attached to the space telescope during its last servicing mission in 2009, and the same one used to take a clearer, haunting photo of the Pillars of Creation earlier this year.
Each color represents a different type of gas (the hues were added during post-processing), with the blue parts being the hottest areas. The wispier, fainter filaments are also older than the brighter, sharper ones. Note that what you’re seeing here is actually just a teensy portion of the supernova remnant in a region known as the “Witch’s Broom Nebula,” and the whole thing is actually much, much larger than this.
[Image credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team]
Source: Hubble Space Telescope
UK spy agency snooped on everything users did online — even porn
We’ve been well aware that the British spy agency GCHQ was just as guilty as the NSA when it came to overbearing online surveillance, but new documents from former analyst Edward Snowden paint an even more insane picture. The agency’s “Karma Police” program (note the irony there) spied on practically everything web users did online, including social media posts and porn habits, The Intercept reports. Just like the NSA, the GCHQ was authorized to sift through metadata (details about specific communications, like the sender and recipient, which doesn’t include the message’s contents) with little to no oversight. At one point in 2009, the agency used Karma Police to track online radio listening habits for 200,000 people globally, spanning 7 million metadata records, for signs of spreading radical Islamic ideas. It was then able to use those records to connect listeners of a popular Iraqi radio station to their Facebook and Yahoo profiles, as well as specific porn sites they visited.
According to the documents, Karma Police was put together around 2008 with the goal of giving the GCHQ with “either (a) a web browsing profile for every visible user on the Internet, or (b) a user profile for every visible website on the Internet.” To that end, it collected website browsing histories from web users by tapping into the fiber optic cables that connects the internet globally. The agency already got into hot water for collecting data from civil rights groups, even though it maintains that the surveillance wasn’t illegal, but the more extensive nature of Karma Police is likely to raise even more alarm bells.
So what did the GCHQ do with all of that data? Apparently, most of it went straight to a repository called “Black Hole” (another sign the program’s creators were emo ’90s kids), which was a centerpiece of the agency’s spying apparatus. The diagram below shows how data sent into Black Hole was structured.
It’s easy to feel a bit numbed by all of the news of extensive government surveillance, but it’s stories like these that remind us just how far spy agencies were willing to go over the past decade.
[Photo credit: GCHQ/Crown Copyright]
Source: The Intercept
Bone conduction headphones let me ditch the boombox, but still cycle safely
Long bike rides are an easy way to burn calories without terrorizing your knees, but it helps to have some tunes to keep things fun. My rides usually take me through bustling urban streets and isolated stretches of waterfront, so pumping out a soundtrack using a Bluetooth speaker is usually a viable option — mostly, anyway. Unfortunately, the wind-dampened output is never ideal and a high audio volume can burn through battery life, and bringing a backup device adds weight. Luckily, the ideal solution recently crossed my desk: AfterShokz’s Bluez 2S bone-conduction headphones. Slideshow-322295
If you’re not familiar, this style of device delivers audio as sound vibrations to your inner ear through the bone, bypassing the eardrum entirely. I’d never regularly worn headphones while riding, mostly so I could remain aware of traffic and the world around me. (It’s also illegal to wear them while riding in New York City, at least in both ears.) I found the Bluez 2S struck the perfect balance between weight and audio output, while keeping situational awareness levels high. The experience is quite different from your traditional headphones, though, so they won’t be for everyone.
The AfterShokz Bluez 2S is a recent update to the Bluez 2 model, adding the new “PremiumPitch+” technology, which aims to boost the bottom end and prevent sound leakage, alongside slight changes to the external design. There are now perforated openings where the speakers rest on your cheek — before it was a solid surface. Even with this seemingly more exposed design, the Bluez 2S still meets IP55 standards for dust and sweat protection, which I successfully confirmed over an exceedingly hot and humid summer in NYC. The open speaker surface and revamped internals do indeed make a difference in audio quality and volume. It may not be profound, but it’s a noticeable improvement over its predecessor.
The arrival of the 2S dovetails with the announcement of the company’s sporty Trekz Titanium, which hit Indiegogo last month and quickly shot past its fundraising goal. Although we haven’t tested those yet, it’s easy to see the benefit from the Trekz’ flexible design. With the rigid U-shaped plastic band of the Bluez 2S that goes around the back of your head, you can imagine the potential for breaking while bouncing around in a bag. That said, I’ve had them packed in both full bags and jostling around in sparse ones, and nothing has happened to them in several months of use. Also, the headband does get in the way of sunglasses to a certain degree. Since the speakers work best when resting snugly against the cheek, I’ve had the arms of the glasses positioned above the band (outside just feels weird), which tends to tilt the glasses down and crowd my face a bit. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it’s certainly not a great pairing.
So how do they sound? First, you need to understand that this is an entirely different experience than regular headphones, with its own set of trade-offs. Music will sound a bit different with this type of technology. The overall sound may be a bit duller compared to your standard cans, but you’ll also get a pleasantly spacious head-feel when listening, which is hard to convey. Speech comes across clearly, but the low-end will be lacking in comparison. I frequently have the volume near maximum when I’m hustling on bustling city streets and feeling the music. In quieter environments, however, there’s more headroom in volume flexibility. The claim is that PremiumPitch+ helps increase bass, while dampening vibration and reducing sound leakage. The Bluez 2S may not be the loudest pair I’ve listened too — Damson’s Headbones still hold that title — but they provide plenty of kick without going overboard on the vibration.
It helps to be a glutton for aural stimulation with bone-conduction headphones. Unlike the isolating experience you get with in- or on-ear models, you get both music and ambient sound leaking in — which is part of the benefit for me. As long as you’re not rocking full volume, you can easily have conversations and hear cars approaching from behind, making it a flexible and safer option if music is a must while riding a bike. For the same reason, they’re great when you’re walking around the neighborhood, but the sound of a New York subway will certainly overpower your tunes.
On the hardware side, you get Bluetooth connectivity, a volume control rocker that doubles as a battery check and EQ changer, power and a multipurpose button on the left earpiece. Since I’m right-handed, the left-side button is perfect for me. It can pause/play music, skip tracks, redial the last phone number and take calls with its onboard mic. The battery life is rated at six hours of continuous play and 10 days of standby. Indeed, it’s great to find the headset charged after neglecting it for a week. It takes about two hours to charge up, but I’ve rarely drained the headset fully, so it seems to top off rather quickly for me. Bluetooth range is the standard 33 feet, letting you pair with a computer and wander around the kitchen or nearby room without stuttering. It stays paired with your last device though, so be sure to check it’s not still tied to the computer if you leave the house and don’t hear your tunes. Also, once paired, if the current track isn’t playing still, try skipping forward or back one.
As a comparison, I tested the Damson Headbones, a Kickstarted bone-conduction model from the UK. First, both models get points for awkward naming conventions. The Headbones do have a lot more features including a line-out for earbuds or as a passthrough for non-Bluetooth speakers. They have a bit more playtime at eight hours, APT-X and NFC support, and fold down into a rigid carrying case. As I mentioned, the audio volume is also significantly louder than the Bluez 2S.
This comes at a price, though: The Headbones are more than twice the weight, with a bulky portion that sits at the back of your neck to house the extra flourishes and battery power. Since I ride with a backpack, the hefty rear section bumped up against it making them difficult to wear. While it pumps out a beefier sound, I found the ear (actually cheek) pieces to be a bit too snug and at higher volumes the vibration was uncomfortable. They’re definitely a quality set of bone-conduction headphones, but didn’t mesh well with my needs and preferences.
The bottom line here is that while you’re not going to have the same audio experience as a standard set of headphones, the benefits of the Bluez 2S outweigh the negatives, at least for me in how I use them. I get a comfortable, lightweight wireless headset that provides tunes at a respectable volume, while still being able to maintain awareness about what’s going on around me — an ideal scenario for bike riding. The AfterShokz Bluez 2S is available for pre-order now for $100, while the Trekz Titanium version should arrive in January 2016 for $130.
Six icon packs we’re totally in love with right now
One of the biggest advantages to owning an Android device is the customization. You can change out the stock launcher, change keyboards, and change almost everything else about your day-to-day experience. One of the most popular changes that can be made to your device, is through various icon packs.
There are a few things that I specifically look for when trying to find the “perfect” icon pack. First and foremost is the amount of icons that the icon pack has included. Next is the design, and third is whether there are “freebies” or add-ons like wallpapers or widgets.
When you’re addicted to icon packs like I am, you enjoy trying to get into the betas for these icon packs. Naturally, there won’t be a boat load of icons on the first go ’round. This will change with time, and as long as you’re communicating with the developers, you can have all of your icons themed in next to no time. So if you can get into a beta for an icon pack, pay attention to how everything comes together from the ground, up.
We are going to take a look at a few different icon packs that have been making some waves on the Play Store, and have made their way to my Samsung Galaxy Note5.
Retrorika
Retrorika from sikebo, is a bit of a different take on Google’s Material Design guidelines. Instead of following the natural color scheme, the developer has opted to design these icons with a vintage palette of colors. This adds a little bit of a different overall feel, but still maintains a beautiful look on your devices.
Each of the over 2600 icons is hand-drawn, and although the color palette is vintage, these still follow the Material Design Guidelines set by Google. Included in Retrorika, there are also over 90 high-resolution wallpapers that will allow you to mix and match and keep your device always looking good.
You can grab Retrorika today for 50% off at a price of only 99 cents.
Redux
Redux is one of the icon packs that I have joined the beta of, and offers a completely different design for each individual icon. Since this is still in beta, there are “only” 200 icons, but the developer (SixtyFour ThirtyTwo), is great about getting updates out.
Redux features a “Shapeless design of stock Android”. Meaning that the developer has taken each icon and put their own spin on the stock icons. The colors are a bit different as well, as Redux kind of falls between the regular color palette that is found on stock Android, but not as drastic as a vintage color palette similar to Retrorika.
As stated there are over 200 icons available as well as a few wallpapers. Within the Dashboard app, there are a few wallpapers to pick and choose from, so that you can mix and match your icons to fit your preference.
If Redux tickles your fancy, you can head over to the Play Store and grab these for only $1.
Cornie Icons
As with Redux, I have also joined the beta for Cornie Icons by Patryk Goworowski. Cornie icons are a little bit closer to the traditional icon set, but also have a few icons that stray from the norm. These are the closest to the Material Design Guidelines, compared to Redux or Retrorika, but are still a bit different.
At the time of this writing, there are over 450 high-resolution icons that have been pushed to the beta pack. Due to the popularity, there is large amount of request emails that have been sent to the developer via the Google+ Community. Also included in Cornie Icons are three wallpapers, with more coming.
You can join the Google+ Community here, and grab the beta of Cornie Icons for 99 cents in the Play Store. One note to keep in mind when requesting apps. The developer is in school, and may not get to the requested apps as fast as others, however, patience is a virtue, so just hang tight and wait for the updates to roll out.
Fresh
Stealthychief (Will Windham) is a familiar face for a lot of us who have been using icon packs for a long time. He makes some of the best icons on the Play Store today, and is keeping his streak of great icon packs, rolling. Fresh is one of the latest icon packs to hit the Play Store, and follows no real design guidelines other than whatever Stealthychief has chosen.
There aren’t as many icons available with Fresh as there are with other icon packs, but there is a valid reason as to why. From the Play Store listing:
Fresh Icons can take a significant amount of time to design, so we’re only focusing on adding in popular app and game icons.
In addition to hand-crafting all of these applications, Stealthychief is not accepting any icon requests for right now. We can expect to see this open up once all of the popular apps and games have icons made up.
Hit the Play Store widget below, and grab Fresh from Stealthychief for only 99 cents.
Difft Icons
Keeping in line with the odd-ball icons, Difft falls into the same category. Each icon was created with a vector, but with a completely off the wall color scheme. Each icon falls into one of “four fundamental colors with beautiful modern hues.” This brings a look to your devices that cannot be matched elsewhere.
Add in the fact that there are a slew of various icons, you not only have the stock icons, but a bunch of different alternatives. Having stock and alternative icons, allows you to truly pick what each and every icon looks like on your device. There are also a 21 minimal wallpapers that all match up with the icons rather nicely.
You can grab Difft below for $1.37 via the widget below, and go ahead and join the Google+ Community here.
Refocus
The final icon pack that you should consider to grace your home screen has been a personal favorite for a long time. Refocus from onyxdev, is simple and extremely aesthetically pleasing. Each icon is hand-crafted and features a unique but similar design, with precision matched by few others.
With over 1150 unique icons, custom wallpapers, and the ability to mask un-themed icons, Refocus is an excellent option for everyone to consider. According to the Play Store listing, Refocus includes “icon glyphs to match the new Material Design introduced by Google for Android Lollipop.”
I can’t stress enough how much I love the Refocus icons, so please be sure to at least check them out. If you’ve been convinced to try these out, you can grab them for only $1.50.
Each of these icon packs are great options to show off what you can do with a custom launcher and icon theming. Additionally, each icon pack featured today, brings something different to the table and will turn heads whenever you unlock your device.
Drop us a comment and let us know what icon packs you would like to see featured here at AndroidGuys.
The post Six icon packs we’re totally in love with right now appeared first on AndroidGuys.
iPhone 6s Plus Opens Apps Slightly Faster Than iPhone 6 Plus
As customers begin receiving the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus around the world, the smartphones have quickly been subjected to unboxings, drop tests, teardowns, bend tests and camera comparisons. The latest is a speed test between the iPhone 6s Plus and iPhone 6 Plus that confirms the former is faster than its predecessor.
YouTube channel Mad Matt TV tested the speed of the iPhone 6s Plus and iPhone 6 Plus side by side based on opening apps and loading websites in Safari on each device at the same time. The results show the iPhone 6s Plus is faster than the iPhone 6 Plus, but the difference was minimal for most tasks and equal for others.
iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are powered by a 64-bit Apple A9 chip and embedded M9 motion coprocessor that deliver up to 70% faster CPU performance and up to 90% faster graphics compared to the A8 chip inside the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The new iPhones also have 2GB of RAM, compared to 1GB for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
While this video provides an early speed comparison between the iPhone 6s Plus and iPhone 6 Plus, more in-depth testing should provide more conclusive results. Geekbench processor benchmarks show the iPhone 6s has approximately 1.5x to 1.6x faster single-core and multi-core performance over the iPhone 6.
iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are now available at Apple Stores and authorized resellers.
AIVAnet 