Google gives us a look at how Notifications will work on Android Wear OS

Google’s been letting the details of Android Wear trickle out pretty slowly. First the company released a flashy video teasing the new wearables OS. Then we went behind the scenes with Android Wear earlier this month, and now Google has released a new video highlighting how the OS will support third-party app notifications.

Any app currently running on Android will automatically work with Android Wear, but to full take advantage of the new platform developers will have to work with a few extra lines of code. Notifications for the new OS will come in three forms: Stacks, Pages and Replies. Stacks group together multiple notifications from the same app in case multiple emails or messages come in at once, while Pages lets you include multiple info cards in a single notification. Finally, Replies are what let you interact with notifications on Android Wear. It’s similar to actionable notifications in regular Android, but focuses on voice recognition rather that typing or swiping.

We also get to see Android Wear in action, and get a sense of how navigation within the app will work. It looks like you’ll be able to swipe up and down to scroll through a mix of notifications and Google Now-based contextual updates. If you want to interact or learn more about a specific card just swipe to the right to pull up more options. We’re sure app developers will find ways to differentiate themselves in Android Wear, but it seems like Google is doing its best to promote a uniform UI.

BlackBerry Passport Smartphone Revealed

We already knew that BlackBerry was planning to launch a new device called the BlackBerry Classic this year, but now it’s official that it also is going to launch a new and bizarrely shaped phone, the BlackBerry Passport, as well. The device seems awkwardly square, though looks enticing thanks to its massive QWERTY keyboard.

These devices will join the Z3, which already launched during BlackBerry’s fiscal first quarter of 2015. The phones were revealed during BlackBerry’s annual shareholder meeting this morning. We’ll keep you in the loop if we hear anything new in the way of specs for the BlackBerry Passport, but look for it the coming quarters.

iOS 8 to Offer Best iPhone Camera Experience Yet

One of the more attractive features of Nokia’s high-end Lumia smartphones is that they offer near total granular control over the camera. You can tweak the white balance, exposure, shutter speed and focus all with ease. While Apple’s iPhone 5s offers one of the best cameras on the market, one of its weak points is that Apple has so far locked down access to a lot of the manual controls, instead preferring to make the camera experience much easier for Joe Consumer. That changes in iOS 8.

Anandtech recently dug through the iOS 8 code and found that it will “expose just about every manual control possible.” That doesn’t necessarily mean Apple will make them available in its default app – in fact, it doesn’t in the iOS 8 beta – but it does mean third party app developers can create more robust apps that let you tweak those sorts of controls.Apple’s tools allow developers to skirt around camera controls that typically lock access to the shutter speed, exposure values and white balance settings.

This is great news for folks who have otherwise shied away from the iPhone 5s because of the inability to manually control a lot of the camera actions. Also, for folks who don’t care, it appears that Apple’s camera UI will remain as simple as ever, without making things too complicated out of the box. Hit the source for a more detailed look.

Amazon Announces Fire Phone

Amazon on Wednesday officially introduced its own smartphone, as expected, and it offers several unique features that may help it stand out in the crowded smartphone market. The device is called the Fire Phone and it sports a 4.7-inch IPS LCD HD display with Gorilla Glass 3 for extra strength, a rubber frame, aluminum buttons and injection-molded steel connectors that Amazon says “ensures a tight and precise fit,” which the device is charging.

Under the hood, the Fire Phone is powered by a 2.2GHz quad-core processor with Adreno 330 graphics and 2GB of RAM. It also has a 13-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization, a feature that has helped phones like the original HTC One, the LG G2 and LG G3 capture amazing images. Also, another feature we love, the device has a dedicated camera button and will offer unlimited photo storage on Amazon Cloud Drive.

Apple Launches New, Cheaper iMac

There was some early speculation that Apple was going to unveil a more affordable iMac computer during WWDC 2014, though the company ultimately did not. Today, however, it finally announced a new cheaper iMac that will set you back $1,099. Apple didn’t simply drop the price on an existing model, this is a completely brand new computer with different components that may help cater the iMac system to consumers who found the other models too expensive.

 

The $1,099 iMac sports  a 21.5-inch display with a 1920 x 1080-pixel resolution, a 1.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost up to 2.7GHz, 8GB of RAM, a 500GB 5400rpm hard drive, Intel HD 5000 graphics, a FaceTime HD camera, two ThunderBolt ports and more. It also ships with an Apple wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse in the box, and is pre-loaded with OS X Mavericks.

 

Amazing New OS X Yosemite Feature Won’t Work on all devices

Handoff, one of OS X Yosemite’s standout features, makes it super simple to create a deeper relationship between your Apple devices. Working on a project on your Mac? You can pick up right where you left off on your iPad, and vice versa. For the sake of productivity, it’s a really convenient feature, and means you can get work done no matter which device is available to you at that moment. Unfortunately, it won’t be quite as accessible to everyone, depending on the devices you own.

As first noted by Apfeleimer, the only way users can take advantage of the continuity/Handoff feature is if they have devices with Bluetooth 4.0 LE support. For most users of newer devices that shouldn’t be a problem, but going back to the 2011 MacBook Air, Mac Mini and before, the feature likely won’t be supported. Besides that, anything before the iPhone 4s and iPad 2 won’t be compatible with iOS 8, so it might finally be time for you to upgrade; the iPad 2 won’t support continuity because it lacks Bluetooth 4.0 LE support, so bear that in mind.

So those who want to take the advantage of continuity should change their older devices to new one.

Apple hasn’t yet confirmed which of its machines will support what is possibly Yosemite’s best feature, and there’s nothing available on the company’s site just yet. For power users, the lack of continuity will be sorely missed, but I imagine many of these users will be upgrading soon anyway. There is, after all, reports of a MacBook Air with Retina screen coming later this year.

Apple Sapphire Plant Reportedly Set to Produce for iPhone 6 and iWatch

Apple’s sapphire glass plant in Mesa, Arizona looks set to begin production this month, and it should have enough capacity to cover both versions of the iPhone 6 and iWatch this year according to one report.

Matt Margolis of Seeking Alpha has done some supply chain checks, and what he found is a sapphire glass facility with an enormous capacity. According to his findings, the facility has over 2,5000 glass furnaces and should have the capacity to produce enough sapphire glass for 200 million screens this year with production even starting halfway through.

As to what Apple will do with all of these screens, Margolis feels it will be enough material to cover the projected production runs of the rumored 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 models as well as the endlessly speculated upon iWatch.

All of this is of course unconfirmed at this point beyond the fact that Apple is indeed getting into the sapphire glass production business. Exactly how many panels it can produce in a given year and what their final use will be is all still up for grabs. With how much Apple is investing in this venture, however, it does seem safe to speculate that it will be making its way to the company’s products in the near future.

Apple is expected to introduce new products in both September and October of this year, so we only have a few months to wait until we find out for sure what the company’s plan is.

New Samsung Galaxy S5?

Is Samsung already going to release a brand new Galaxy S5? A new report suggests yes, it will, and the device may pack even beefier specs than the original model that just launched a few months ago. The device will likely serve as an LTE-A variant of the original Galaxy S5 for markets where LTE-Advanced networks are already operating, like SK Telecom in South Korea. Still, it sounds a bit like this is the Galaxy S5 Prime, also known as the Galaxy F, we’ve been hearing about.

According to Yonhap News, the new Galaxy S5 LTE-A will offer GB of RAM, a faster Snapdragon 805 processor, Android 4.4.2 and a 5.1-inch WQHD display with a sharper resolution than the 1920 x 1080p screen on the Galaxy S5. Also, as a reminder, the original Galaxy S5 has 2GB of RAM and a Snapdragon 801 processor, so there are quite a few bumps in specs across the board. We don’t yet know if this is the “metallic” device we’ve heard so much about, but it seems plausible.

Samsung is apparently gearing up to bring the new Galaxy S5 LTE-A variant to the market just three days from now, on June 19 — that’s what the teaser above basically confirms — though it may first launch in markets where the Galaxy S4 LTE-A hit, like South Korea. It’s certainly possible a variant will also hit the U.S., especially since it packs a Qualcomm processor. Hopefully Samsung details more on the 19th.

 

Microsoft’s Secret Android Destroying Patents Revealed

A couple of years ago Microsoft went on a warpath suing dozens of device makers who were using Android and infringing on its patents, often using a patent troll named Rockstar. It sued Google, Barnes & Noble, Nokia, HTC and others, forcing competitors to collectively cough up billions in licensing fees.

Many of those device makers now pay Microsoft a certain fee for each handset sold, believe it or not, and that’s how — at least a few years ago — Microsoft was making more off of Android than it did Windows Phone. Few people knew just how many patents Microsoft owned that gave it so much control over Android device makers, until now.

Google is going to Redisign android completely

 

Android is an open platform where you can edit each and every corener of the interface as of your wish. Still, Google is allegedly working to completely redesign the entire mobile operating system in an effort to make sure all of its apps across all platforms look and operate similarly.

New reports from many websites confirms that Google is going to name its new design “QUANTUM PAPER”

 

a report from Android Police explained that Google isn’t just looking to make sure all of its own apps and user interfaces look uniform, but that the company will also provide tools so that developers can make sure that their apps reflect the same design language. Polymer, a kit of dev tools that are already available, may play a huge role in future of Android. In the end, apps designed for iOS, Android and Chrome (and other places on the Web) will all offer similar design traits. You can see what we mean in the screenshots above, which show different versions of Gmail for the Web and for Android. The shots were first revealed by Geek.com in April.

Apparently Quantum Paper is going to hit Android devices when Google decides to release the next full version of Android. We’re on KitKat right now, so it’s expected to hit whenever Android L makes its debut — and we don’t know when that will be. Google I/O kicks off soon, but it seems like it may be a bit early to hear about this total redesign.