Apple Planning to Launch 4K 21.5-Inch iMac in Late October
Apple will announce an updated 21.5-inch iMac with a 4K display at the end of October alongside the release of OS X El Capitan, reports 9to5Mac. The new iMac will then begin shipping out to customers in early November.
A new 21.5-inch Retina iMac has been anticipated for several months, following the discovery of code in OS X El Capitan that pointed towards a 21.5-inch machine with a resolution of 4096 x 2304. That code pointed towards Broadwell chips with Intel Iris Pro Graphics 6200 and AMD Radeon M380 – M395X discrete graphics, which may hint at the hardware we’ll see in the updated iMac.
Reliable KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo also said in early August that the iMac line would receive a refresh this quarter, adding new processors and improved display quality that brings greater color saturation.
Apple began updating its iMac lineup last October, with the launch of the 27-inch Retina iMac. Updates across the line have been slow, however, due to Intel’s ongoing Broadwell chip delays, and the 21.5-inch iMac has not seen an update since 2013.
It is not clear if Apple will release multiple 21.5-inch iMac models during the October refresh, or which chips those machines might use. Skylake chips appropriate for the iMac are launching “later this year,” but there are a handful of Broadwell chips appropriate for various 21.5-inch iMac models.
Google launches Street View app for Android and iOS
Right off the heels of a major Google Maps update, the search giant today has launched a new Street View application for Android and iOS, allowing users to tour locations with 360-degree imagery.
The new Street View app will allow users to see “collections and content” from Google Maps all around the world, in addition to photospheres contributed from users.
User contribution plays a big part in this new application from Google, as Street View allows you to take photospheres of your favorite locations with your Android or iOS device. You can even connect up to a spherical camera like the NCTech iris360, Google says.
Street View will replace the Photo Sphere Camera application for iPhones along with Street View from Google Maps on Android. Those interested in taking it for a spin can hit the download link below.
Come comment on this article: Google launches Street View app for Android and iOS
Samsung Gear S2 will work with almost any Android device
With IFA 2015 still happening, it seems that the majority of the major announcements have died down. Now the manufacturers are filling in the holes such as pricing and availability, compatibility, and other questions that may pop up about these new devices.
Speaking of developing information, Samsung is starting to reveal a bit more about the Gear S2. The first bit of news is pretty surprising and awesome at the same time. Those who were intrigued by Samsung’s previous wearable devices, were stuck without, unless they already owned a compatible Samsung device. With the release of the Gear S2, Android users across the board will be able to jump on the Gear S2 bus.
This compatibility breakthrough for Samsung doesn’t come without a cost. The Gear S2 will ONLY be compatible with devices running Android KitKat 4.4 or higher, and your device MUST have at least 1.5 GB of RAM. Sorry if you’re on one of those older devices still, but maybe it’s time to look into the plethora of new devices and upgrade.
Let us know whether this development from Samsung will influence your decision for purchasing your next smartwatch.
Source: Phandroid
The post Samsung Gear S2 will work with almost any Android device appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Samsung Pay will come to the Gear S2 this November
In addition to cross-manufacturer compatibility, Samsung announced that Samsung Pay will be coming to the Gear S2 sometime in November. This will be possible due to the fact that there will be a Gear S2-specific application built into the smartwatch for easy use.
In order to keep your Gear S2 from being used for malicious purposes, Samsung has a two-step verification process built-in.
- The watch continuously monitors your heart rate, so if you haven’t taken the watch off since the last time you authorized it for payments it’ll be painless to walk up to a PoS terminal and pay.
- If the watch was removed from your wrist since the last time you made a payment, it will ask for a personalized PIN that you set up to authorize the next payment, and won’t ask again until the next time you take the watch off.
Finally, you will be able to use the Gear S2 with 3G capabilities with Samsung Pay even if your Gear S2 isn’t connected to your device. These are some awesome updates coming out of Samsung that aren’t even all the way related to Samsung phones.
Let us know what you think about these features of the Gear S2 in the comments down below. Will you be picking one of these up once they are ready for purchase?
Source: Phandroid
The post Samsung Pay will come to the Gear S2 this November appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Watch the Gear S2 launch event live stream right here
Samsung is gearing up to show us its latest weapon in the battle for smartwatch supremacy. It’s called Gear S2, it runs Tizen, and from what we’ve seen of it, it looks really nice. Sure, it’s not Android, but the sleek Gear S2 and Gear S2 Classic will be compatible with most Android devices, potentially giving Samsung’s wearable strategy a much needed shot in the arm.
Stay with us for a look at Samsung’s Gear S2 event, and keep it tuned for our hands-on coverage coming very soon!
LG’s new G Pad II really isn’t anything new
LG’s never been scared of trying new things when it comes to smartphones, even pioneering the strange-yet-convenient back button placement other manufacturers have copied since. By comparison, the company has played it safe with its G Pad tablet range, none of which have had any particularly stand-out features. And after briefly playing the LG’s new G Pad II 10.1 here at IFA, it seems like the company is quite happy sticking to its rather unexciting formula. Last year, LG opted to release three sizes of tablet, but for now at least, the G Pad II only comes in the one form factor, with a 10.1-inch 1,920 x 1,200 display. Slideshow-316996
To refresh your memory, the G Pad II marries a 2.26GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 with 2 gigs of RAM, 16GB of storage, 5- and 2-megapixel cameras, a 7,400mAh battery and Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. By all accounts, a capable tablet, but there really isn’t much to say beyond that. At 489g (just over 17 ounces), it’s agreeably light for a 10-inch slate, and the one “brilliant bronze” color scheme is neither exciting nor off-putting. Build quality is tight, as you’d expect from an established company like LG, but otherwise, the G Pad II is pretty generic. In fact, one of the more interesting factoids about the slate is that it comes with Microsoft’s Office suite preinstalled.
Of course, not every tablet has to push the boundaries of design, specifications or feature set, but it’s hard to consider LG’s latest effort as anything but “just another option.” And without conclusive pricing for either the WiFi-only or LTE variants, which launch in the US later this month before rolling out to other markets in due course, we can’t really speculate on who it’ll appeal to most. We’ve poked LG for more info on this important missing piece, and we’ll be sure to update you if we hear anything more. On first impressions, at least, the Bluetooth keyboard launching alongside the G Pad II is more interesting than the new tablet itself. Whoops…
Check out all the news from Berlin at our IFA 2015 hub.
Filed under:
Tablets, Microsoft, LG
Tags: gpadII, gpadII10.1, hands-on, ifa, ifa2015, lg, lggpadII, lggpadII10.1, microsoft, microsoftoffice
Samsung finally has an elegant smartwatch in the Gear S2
Few companies have churned out as many different smartwatches as Samsung, so it’s little surprise the company is showing off a new one — the Gear S2 — at IFA. What is a surprise, though, is how much more elegant, more polished the S2 feels compared to just about all of Samsung’s previous attempts. After years of seemingly blind iteration (and just a little bit of hands-on time), Samsung finally seems to have a style, if somewhat controversial smartwatch on its hands.Slideshow-317057
I say “controversial” because the Gear S2 runs Tizen, a decidedly different beast than the Android Wear most of Samsung’s rivals have been cranking out lately. Thankfully, Samsung finally fixed one of the Gear line’s biggest flaws with the S2 — you won’t need a Samsung phone to use this thing. The Gear S2 is compatible with just about any Android smartphone with at least 1.5GB of RAM that runs Android 4.4 and up. The test units we fiddled with were connected to Galaxy S6s, naturally, but the company warns that certain features and notifications won’t work properly if another smartphone maker implemented things differently. This Tizen foundation also means Samsung has had to woo developers into crafting apps for a completely different platform, but the company says to expect about 1,000 apps available at launch, many of which should take advantage of the S2’s sweet, sweet rotating bezel.
The bezel, by the way, is amazing. It’s the biggest addition to an otherwise minimalist smartwatch design, and I’m sort of in love with it. Crank it to the left from the homescreen and notifications will pop up on that bright 1.2-inch circular AMOLED; turn it to the right and you’ll see all your selected widgets. And the best part? There’s a very satisfying click that punctuates each turn of the bezel. You’ll still be tapping on icons all over the place, but dedicating the bezel to navigation makes more sense than transplanting the touch-and-swipe-and-touch-and-swipe experience to a smaller screen like Android Wear does.
Samsung’s previous Tizen-powered Gears were, shall we say, a little clumsy looking. This time Samsung ditched the clunky, power-user aesthetic in favor of a sleeker, more traditional smartwatch design. Both the dark gray and silver versions of the bog-standard Gear S2 are lightweight and come with comfortable elastomer bands, but the Gear S2 Classic seeks to class things up even more. It’s a hair smaller than its cousins — the body is 40mm wide instead of 42 — and it comes with a handsome black leather strap and a little knurling on the bezel for a slightly more masculine aesthetic. Your mileage my vary, but the Classic seems like the most thrilling option of the three… unless you count the bigger, 42mm 3G version that’s coming too. What’s inside the thing matters just as much, so Samsung tossed in WiFi, watch faces you can customize with news tickers and ESPN sports updates and NFC for all those Samsung Pay transactions (this’ll get unlocked via software update in November).
All told, the Gear S2 is the best-looking smartwatch Samsung as has ever made, and Tizen is growing to the point where people — normal people! — won’t mind it as an alternative to Android Wear or Apple’s watchOS. Of course, we won’t pass proper judgment on this thing until our full review, so stay tuned to see if Samsung finally nailed the smartwatch formula.
Filed under:
Mobile
Tags: gear, gears2, handson, ifa, ifa2015, mobilepostcross, preview, samsung, smartwatch, tizen, wearable
Bang and Olufsen’s BeoPlay A6 is a $1,000 wireless speaker
Luxury audiovisual brand Bang & Olufsen (B&O) has just announced a pricey wireless speaker, the $999 BeoPlay A6. The style evokes the back of a chair, gently curving and covered in designer fabric from Danish studio Kvadrat. Apparently, this isn’t all about looks, though. B&O says its unique shape “enables sound to fill an entire room whilst creating ambience in multiple areas of a house.” The interface for the A6 is pretty interesting too. It’s all based around swiping and tapping the top of the speaker. A swipe right, for example, turns the volume up. Holding the center mutes, and a quick tap skips the track. Perhaps not the most intuitive control scheme ever, but a cool talking point nonetheless.
Inside the BeoPlay A6 there’s a pair of 60 watt 5.5-inch woofers, a pair of 30 watt 0.75-inch tweeters, and a single 60 watt 1.5-inch “full-range” speaker, each with its own amplifier. That full-range unit’s actually positioned in the opposite direction to the others; B&O says that “allows us to maximize the spaciousness of the sound you experience,” which is another way of saying that they’re bouncing sound off the wall behind the speaker. That music can come from a number of sources: it supports AirPlay, DLNA, Bluetooth, and has “integrated access” to streaming services like Spotify, Deezer and TuneIn radio. Of course, it’ll also play nice with the company’s new multi-room setup, allowing you to look down on those “cheap” Sonos users from your penthouse.
So there you have it. B&O has made a very pricey take on the wireless speaker. It looks very attractive, it probably sounds good, and it costs a small fortune by regular standards (although it’s a fair bit cheaper than some of its other products). Tempted?
Check out all the news from Berlin at our IFA 2015 hub.
Source:
Bang & Olufsen
Tags: BangAndOlufsen, BeoPlay, BeoPlayA6, IFA, IFA2015
T-Mobile lets you dial up a video chat just like a regular call
T-Mobile has launched a video calling feature that you can access straight from your smartphone’s stock phone dialer. With T-Mobile Video Calling, “there’s no need to search out, download, configure and register additional apps,” said CTO Neville Ray. It seamlessly switches between LTE and WiFi and automatically drops to voice-only when bandwidth is low, switching back if you get a better connection. There’s a serious catch, though: It only works on Samsung’s brand new Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Note 5 phones now, with support for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge coming next week.
Contacts who can receive your video calls will get a camera icon next to them. On top of the hardware restrictions, video calling is limited to fellow T-Mobile clients, though team Magenta said it’s “working with others so you can eventually enjoy built-in video calling across wireless networks.” That means for now, you can’t place a video call to Verizon users, even though that network has had its own video calling service for nearly a year. T-Mobile said the service will work on three additional handsets by the end of the year, though it didn’t specify which.
Filed under:
Cellphones, Mobile, T-Mobile
Source:
T-Mobile
Tags: mobilepostcross, t-mobile, Verizon, Video Calling
Canyon Smart Bike Computer brings power of Android to cycling
Bicycle manufacturer Canyon has announced a new concept for a bike computer called the Canyon Smart Bike Computer. With the device, Canyon has partnered with Sony to produce a device targeting cyclists that runs Android Wear and will offer a better alternative than smartphones. Through use of Android Wear on the cycling computer, users can load and use popular apps like Strava, Komoot or Google Maps. The device itself is made to withstand the elements and easily snap into a sleek connector on a bicycle.
Using a Bluetooth connection to a smartphone that a rider can safely stowaway on their body. Canyon says the device can last 8 hours on its battery, has built-in GPS and a 1.6-inch display with 4GB of storage, so it is possible to use it even without a smartphone being in close proximity if data access is not needed.
Canyon is still referring to the device as a “concept” with a projected 2016 release date and an estimated price of €200 ($222 USD). Any cyclists out there think this would make a better solution than wearing an Android Wear powered smartwatch?
Click here to view the embedded video.
source: Canyon
Come comment on this article: Canyon Smart Bike Computer brings power of Android to cycling
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