LG’s Disney-themed smartphone launches in Japan
LG Electronics announced a Disney-themed smartphone in Japan on Monday. This high-end smartphone will be sold exclusively by Japan’s most popular mobile carrier, NTT DoCoMo. The LG smartphone has been dubbed the DM-01 and is the eighth Disney mobile device on the company’s lineup.
The LG DM-01 G comes with a 5.2-inch Full HD IPS display along with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of onboard storage. It runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, with a 13.2 MP rear camera and a 2.4 MP front shooter. The LG DM-01 G also comes with a removable 2920mAh battery.
It also comes with a custom designed Mickey Mouse smart-cover that has cutouts in the shape of Mickey’s head. This is similar to LG’s Quick Circle cases found in its G series of smartphones. The “Wow” factor of the cover is the Swarovski crystals that are on the front which can be seen rising from Cinderella’s castle all the way up to Mickey’s head. The cover is available in multiple color options such as Pink, Blue and White.
The Disney phone runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop with LG’s custom UI on top and contains a collection of themes including “Frozen”, “Cinderella” and “Alice in Wonderland” for fans to choose from. It will also come bundled with LG’s trademarked features like the “Gesture Shot”, which allows users to take photos by curling one’s fingers into their palm while facing the camera.
There is no word on pricing or availability in other parts of the world yet, but it sure looks like fantasy filled treat for all Disney fans in Japan.
Would you buy this smartphone if it’s released in your country? or will you harass a Japanese friend to ship it to you? Let us know in the comment section below!
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Massive 6.8-inch Lenovo phone visits TENAA
With the leaks season in full swing it’s now time to see what Lenovo is up in the smartphone game. As you’ll see below a giant Lenovo phablet with the model PB1-770N has been spotted at TENAA. Indeed, this one could have an absurdly huge 6.8-inch display.
Measuring 186.6 x 96.6 x 7.7 mm, it’s nice to see Lenovo has maintained a relatively thin device at 7.7 mm. This is pretty impressive stuff considering there’s a huge 3500 mAh battery inside.
Reportedly, the device comes with 4G LTE connectivity, with support for TD-LTE, FDD-LTE, TD-SCDMA, WCDMA, CDMA2000, CDMA 1X and GSM network bands. Lenovo’s huge phablet is said to be running a version of Android (probably Lollipop) with Lenovo’s custom UI on top.
The body from the back looks much like that of an iPhone 6, a metal unibody construction perhaps. In regards to the display, the whopping 6.8-inches puts it merely 0.2 inches short of being declared a tablet with calling capabilities. The Lenovo phone is similar to Huawei’s recently announced P8Max.
The TENAA listing doesn’t mention any other specifications about the phablet, but it is expected to be running on a high end processor, probably a 64 bit octa-core and at least 3 GB of RAM. Will you prefer Lenovo’s phablet or Huawei P8Max? Do you think such a big phone is overkill or unwieldly?
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Fingerprint scanner hinted in latest Moto X 2015 pics
Motorola’s next-gen Moto X has been catching our eye for quite some time now with all the leaks and rumors that have been showing up recently. We had a report about Moto X 2015 being imported to India few days back and also a recent spec leak hinting at a QHD display.
The Motorola Moto X 2015 is one of the most anticipated devices of this year. As with the success of its predecessor, the Moto X 2014, we expect Motorola’s Moto X 2015 to make quite the buzz. With improved features and an upgraded OS, it’s bound to be a hit.
Today we have some fresh pics of the chassis of Moto X 2015. While it doesn’t show much or reveal the components of any sort other than what we already know, it does show one interesting thing.
If you look carefully you may see a square cut-out beneath the camera. It could mean one of two things – i’s either a fingerprint scanner or space for the Motorola ‘M dimple’ as we call it.
We would love to see a fingerprint scanner there, seeing as its now a trend with the latest smartphones to have one. Although, we could be entirely wrong and nothing as been confirmed.
Would you like to have a fingerprint scanner in the Moto X 2015? Let us know in the comments.
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Omni Swipe: the one-hand launcher with infinite possibilities (review)
The pool of Android devices are extensive, you can purchase devices of all functions, sizes, colors and price points. The majority of them have large bright beautiful displays that are great for doing cool things socially and productively.
At times screen, real estate can get consumed quickly by all of the shortcuts to your favorite apps you frequent. Or on the other hand, your device is so large that your finger can’t access that hard to reach app on the other side of the screen using one hand.
Omni Swipe formerly known as Lazy Swipe is all grown up and ready to put on its serious face. Redesigned and redeveloped the Omni developer team revealed their app has infinite possibilities for what users can do with just a single tap or swipe with one hand.
So what is Omni Swipe? Omni Swipe is one of the most promoted apps in the Technology category on the Google Play store being featured on the Play Home page over 30 times!
The Features
Omni Swipe allows convenient access to your favorite apps, contacts, settings, and incoming notifications using just one hand.
With just one finger swipe you trigger a customizable radial menu. The radial menu can be triggered from the following areas: bottom left, bottom right, middle left, and middle right. This menu keeps what’s important and most useful to you in hands reach.
While in use Omni Swipe is categorized into 3 clever sub-menus Favorites, Interact, and Toolbox.
Interact: Get your latest notifications without having to swipe down the notification bar, and keep your most important contacts as well as their various contact methods convenient.
Although on initial use it will pre-populate your most recent SMS contacts you conversed with so beware.
Favorites: Add and arrange up to 9 of your favorite apps to access quickly and easily.
Favorites category is ultra convenient. It prevents you from having to leave your home screen and search for apps that aren’t quite essential enough to be shortcutted on your home-screen.
Toolbox: Customize commonly used phone settings and switches that also can be accessed with a single swipe. Quickly access your flashlight, WiFi, rotation lock or adjust your display brightness. Keep your Android fast and responsive with the memory-cleaning speed-boosting “Booster” tool!
My suggestion to Omni Swipe would be to rename this category “Life Saver”. Life saver might be an exaggeration, but this category is sweet. Using the toolbox category, I was able to quickly turn on/off my devices flashlight and find my phone charger without waking anyone or stumping my toe on my bedpost. Also, I had the ability to adjust the sound/volume and even take a picture within the Toolbox category.
To add to the customization features, Omni Swipe includes a variety of colorful themes that you can choose from.
Only issues I came across while using Omni Swipe is at times I inadvertently triggered the application when scrolling or using the lower portion of my devices. Another issue I had was when the application is open at the top of the screen there is a yo-yo or maybe a kite not quite sure what it is. I do know that it’s forever present while using the app when you pull down on it or swipe it left to right circles fill your screen and magically an advertisement appears.
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The bottom line is Omni Swipe is no longer “Lazy” and has grown into an application that is unobtrusive,interactive,useful and allows you to have features that are usually coveted, only to rooted devices via a one finger swipe.
With a Google Play Store Rating of 4.5 out of 5 and over 50 Million installs not to mention it’s free. Omni Swipe everything within reach on your Android device.
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Apple’s ‘Move to iOS’ app makes it easy to switch from Android
Apple’s upcoming mobile platform apparently comes with a new app called “Move to iOS” that wirelessly transfers data from Android devices to iPhones and iPads. It was curiously skipped over during the company’s WWDC keynote earlier, but Daring Fireball points it out buried underneath all the new features on the iOS 9 preview page. The page doesn’t go into details, but “Move to iOS” will presumably be available on the Play Store, so you can download it on an Android device — right next to Apple’s other upcoming Android app — to enable wireless transfer.
Apple says the process can securely copy over “your contacts, message history, camera photos and videos, web bookmarks, mail accounts, calendars, wallpaper, and DRM-free songs and books.” Plus, it marks your free apps like Facebook as suggested downloads in the App Store, adds paid ones to your iTunes Wish List and “helpfully” suggests recycling that old Android phone. It’s unclear when the app’s Android part will hit Google’s app marketplace, but you might be able to check the iOS 9 version as soon as July if you sign up for public beta access.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile, Apple
Via: Daring Fireball
Source: Apple
Apple’s ‘Move to iOS’ app seeks to peel people away from Android
The battle to switch users from competing platforms will intensity with the arrival of Apple’s Move to iOS app. The app, as the name suggets, will transfer just about everything in some form from an Android device to an iOS device. This includes contacts, messages, photographs and videos, songs, and books. Really, Apple will handle it all for you. Paid apps, however, will have to be purchased once again and Apple will pin them to a user’s iTunes Wish List.
Here is how Apple describes the Move to iOS app:
Just download the Move to iOS app to wirelessly switch from your Android device to your new iOS device. It securely transfers your contacts, message history, camera photos and videos, web bookmarks, mail accounts, calendars, wallpaper, and DRM-free songs and books. And it will help you rebuild your app library, too. Any free apps you used — like Facebook and Twitter — are suggested for download from the App Store. And your paid apps are added to your iTunes Wish List.
Source: Apple
Come comment on this article: Apple’s ‘Move to iOS’ app seeks to peel people away from Android
Oppo announces 2015 gen Neo 5 and Neo 5s
The Chinese tech giant has just taken the wraps off the Neo 5 and its sibling Neo 5s. These handsets will target the mid-ranged marked and will compete alongside Xiaomi and Huawei. The all new 2015 Neo 5 offers a minimal upgrade over last year’s Neo 5. On the other hand, the Neo 5s offers pretty decent specifications for a budget-oriented smartphone.
Both the Neo 5 (2015) and Neo 5s have almost identical specifications. The Neo 5 (2015) and Neo 5s both have a 4.5 inch screen with a density of 218ppi. Both phones have 1GB of RAM and a 2000 mAh battery which should be sufficient enough to get a day’s usage.
Now the main difference between these two is the different processor. The Neo 5 (2015) is powered by Mediatek’s quad-core MT6582 SoC along with dual-core Mali-400MP2 GPU. While the Neo 5s is powered by Qualcomm’s 64-bit Snapdragon 410 SoC along with an Adreno 306 GPU. Now the presence of Mediatek’s chipset makes the Neo 5 (2015) incompatible with LTE support. On the other hand, the Neo 5s is LTE compatible thanks to the Snapdragon chipset. Both the phones have 8GB of internal storage and can be further expanded with the help of a micro-SD slot. But here is the catch, even with the presence of micro-SD slot, the memory of the Neo 5 (2015) can only be expanded up to 32GB while, on the other hand, the memory of Neo 5s can be expanded up to 128GB. Thought the added memory support comes at the cost of a higher price.
Now in the optics department, both phones include 8-megapixel rear facing cameras with an aperture of f/2.2 and 5-megapixel front facing cameras for all selfie lovers out there.
In the software department, the smartphones are both running Android Kitkat 4.4.2 with Color-OS with no official word on an Android lollipop update. Oppo also cares for the health of its users and that’s why the company is also including an eye-protection feature embedded into Color-OS, which filters out all the harmful blue light that will allow you to use your phone for a longer period of time.
These two handsets have only just been announced by the company with no official word on release dates or prices yet. But it’s safe to assume that Neo 5s will cost a bit more than the Neo 5 (2015). In my opinion, the specs for both handsets are outdated, even for the mid-range category. If Oppo aims to be in the competition, it has to learn from other companies, which are doing great in the tech industry.
Are you willing to buy an Oppo device? Let us know in the comment section down below!
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Apple Music launches June 30th, comes to Android this fall
You won’t have to wait very long to give Apple Music a spin… even if you don’t use any Apple gear. The Cupertino crew has announced that the $10 per month streaming service will be available on iOS, Macs and Windows PCs on June 30th in 100 countries, and it’ll arrive on both Android and Apple TV this fall. Yes, you read that last part correctly — for the first time, an Apple-branded app (not just Beats) will launch on Google’s mobile platform. The move was undoubtedly necessary if Apple wanted to take on Spotify and other rivals, so we wouldn’t call this a kind gesture. Still, it’s good news if you’ve ever wished that Apple would branch out and give you a chance to try some of its bigger services without buying its devices.
Filed under: Internet, Mobile, Apple
Source: Apple (BusinessWire)
Blocks customizable smartwatch shown off at Computex
Wouldn’t it be great if you could customize your smartwatch beyond just the apps and build materials? How awesome would it if you were able to choose hardware specifications, too? If you answered yes to these questions then Block Wearables might be for you.
Blocks is a modular watch that gives you ability to customize your watch. At Computex Taipei 2015, the head of variables at Qualcomm in collaboration with Block Wearable revealed the first ever modular smartwatch.
The wearable will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 400 processor and will run a customisable version of Android Lollipop, which will be compatible with both Android and iOS. The first Block smartwatch will use a circular touchscreen; the “core module” will include processor, Bluetooth, Wi-fi, motion sensor, microphone and battery. The “core block” will be necessary to attach any other modular block and will be made available soon by the company.
“The wearables market is in an incredibly exciting phase and will see a diverse range of forms and functionalities. Their one commonality is that all will require ultra-low power intelligence to ensure battery life is attractive to end users. Blocks’ modular approach is a great example of the creativity and innovation that is possible on the ARM architecture.“
The things that makes this watch more unique is the swappable modular parts. The functionality of this watch can be increased by using the swappable modular parts such as e-ink display block, battery block, motion sensor block, location or GPS block, block for contact less payment, even a flashlight block and there are much more to choose.
In my opinion, the only thing holding the wearable industry back is battery life. With modular battery blocks, however, this problem conceivably goes away.
Block will be able to do all the basic function that a regular smartwatch does but should offer considerably more functionality. Blocks will be released in a crowdfunding campaign later this summer. You can Sign-up on their website to get an early bird discount on launch.
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Android Pay will not collect transaction fees
Android Pay has been a popular topic of conversation in the days following its unveiling at Google I/O 2015. Designed to provide a seamless transaction option over credit cards and payments, it plays on the same field as Apple Pay. While the two services have similarities there are also unique selling points for each.
Apple’s deal with banks sees them collecting a small fee for transactions made through Apple Pay. For transactions made through credit card, Apple get 0.15% of the value; for debit cards, Apple gets a better 0.5%. It doesn’t sound like much, but when we consider the number of Apple Pay users, it amounts to really big money over time.
Android Pay, on the other hand is free from such fees thanks to the standardized tokenization security features of Visa and MasterCard. Tokenization is a method that swaps card and transaction data with unique sets of numbers that validate a purchase. In short, it protects your data, as merchants never get access to any sensitive data eliminating any and all chances of data theft.
The dominance of Visa and MasterCard and credit and debit card market may force Apple to renegotiate the terms if they wants to continue to be a competition to Android Pay. At least that is a theoretical way of looking the situation.
In short, Google won’t be earning any money from Android Pay with tokenization in place. Although, it may prove fruitful at a later time in the market when Google expands to other markets pushing for global acceptance of Android Pay. Then again, Google doesn’t directly collect for all that much.
Can mobile payments via Android devices force Apple to adapt or adopt new strategies? How long until average customers are even considering this as a payment option on a regular basis? I would love to hear your thoughts below.
Via PhoneArena
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