The latest bit which the rumor mill brought on the HTC M8 is a possible glimpse of its homescreen. Alleged screenshot captured from the upcoming device made the rounds on Twitter, courtesy of @evleaks.
Alleged screenshot from HTC M8 (click to enlarge)
The purported screen capture from the successor of the HTC One showcases the previously seen on-screen navigation buttons, revamped Blinkfeed, as well as transparent docking area for apps a la Android 4.4 KitKat. The battery indicator on top has dropped its dual-color scheme for an all-white one like the clock and the network indicators it shares space with.
HTC M8 is rumored to go official in March at an event in New York City. However, considering the increased frequency of the handset’s unofficialappearances, we won’t be surprised if the HTC’s next Android flagship debuts during MWC this month.
This is just a peak at the M8's homescreen (credit: @evleaks)
The HTC One 2 is all but confirmed, thanks to a veritable truckload of leaks from every corner of the internet.
Among the more prolific leakers has been none other than @evleaks, and today the Twitter tipster is back at it with an image that may reveal the forthcoming phone's redesigned homescreen.
In characteristic fashion, evleaks has a short caption to accompany the pic, though this one may be one of its curtest: "M8" is all we have to go on to identify what this snap is showing us.
The overall design matches the scheme of HTC Blinkfeed, though the Flipboard-like tiles have been tweaked. The most notably change though are the virtual navigation buttons, a feature we've heard rumored before.
HTC One 2 in sight
Of course, this image is a leak from an anonymous internet source, so the final product could look very different from this find.
Images purporting to show the HTC One 2 leaked earlier today, and they don't line-up with what evleaks is showing us. However, Blinkfeed can be disabled, so the earlier images may in fact be a look at what the standard screen looks like.
The HTC M8 (internal codename for the One 2), should be here in the coming weeks, either at this month's MWC or during a late March event.
Unfortunately for HTC and those who like surprises, if bits and pieces of the new HTC One keep appearing the way they have been, there may not be too much to get excited about when it's finally revealed.
Mo Versi, HTC product manager, announced on Twitter that Verizon has approved 4.4 over-the-air update for the HTC and it will begin rolling out shortly. Coming with the 4.4 update is a slew of Sense 5.5 improvements to the phone.
Sense 5.5 already made its way to the HTC One on the 4.3 update, but it was curiously left out for Verizon customers.
One of the more notable Sense 5.5 changes is an off switch for BlinkFeed. Shutting off this unified news and social network feed will return the device to a standard widget and app filled Android homescreen.
For those that rather keep the on blinking, the update will also allow BlinkFeed to finally source posts from Google+, international news, and RSS feeds. To help users sort through all the content HTC added a sideswipe filters menu and improved search.
All new and shiny
Other improvements include some camera adjustments with a new dual shot mode for taking a picture with the back sensor and your reaction with the front snapper at the same time. Another camera upgrade is Zoe's new-found ability to make GIFs on top of short movie clips.
On the some more basic level UI improvements, HTC has revamped the notifications area to be a customizable space for 12 different options. It's also added a few new options for this pull down menu such as Do not Disturb and a data roaming toggle.
Up until now, only the global GSM, Developer Edition, and Sprint's versions of the outgoing HTC flagship have received the Andorid KitKat update. Hopefully the other carriers will follow suit and quickly break off a piece of that KitKat bar for the HTC One.
Verizon just announced that the Android 4.4 KitKat is now being pushed out in stages to the HTC One, so keep clutching that metal clad handset.
Want a phone that already has Android 4.4? Check out our review of the Motorola Moto G.
The Sochi Olympics opening ceremony could be a sea of this
Samsung has denied the accusation that it's demanding athletes cover up their iPhones and other non-Samsung logos during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
Samsung is heavily involved in the games, giving every athlete a Galaxy Note 3, sending a "Galaxy Team" of 80 athletes around the world on a large-scale marketing campaign, flying student bloggers to Sochi, and releasing a Samsung Wireless Olympic Works app for fans.
But the Swiss Olympic team says the gift of Galaxy Note 3s comes with a catch: that no other logos, iPhone or otherwise, appear on-camera during the opening ceremony. Athletes have even been instructed to physically cover their iPhones during the ceremony, Slashgear reports (the team originally spilled its guts to the German site Bluewin).
But Samsung has informed TechRadar that it has nothing to do with that.
Samsung responds
"Samsung has not been involved in any decisions related to branding on products used by athletes to the Games," a Samsung spokesperson told TechRadar. "All commercial marketing around the Games is overseen by the International Olympic Committee (IOC)."
In a previous statement, a Samsung spokesperson explained the reasoning behind giving every athlete a free phone.
"Samsung has partnered with the IOC to provide the official Olympic Games phone to all Sochi 2014 athletes, enabling them to capture, share and experience the Games in an innovative way through the new features of the Galaxy Note 3 and the added functionality of the S Pen," the spokesperson said.
The statement continued, "Athletes can collect photos and digital autographs of other athletes in the Village or use Note 3's drag and drop feature to easily include photos in texts to friends and family back home. The Galaxy Note 3 will create a global community of the athletes and support them to be connected at all times throughout the Games and beyond."
Whatever's really going on here, we'll know for sure when the Sochi 2014 Olympics kick off on February 7.
If all you see is Samsung logos, you'll know who to blame - according to Samsung, at least.
Apple's Retina displays helped the iPhone and iPad reach new resolution limits and soon they might do even more with the help of quantum dots.
The US Patent and Trademark Office published four new patent applications from Apple that were first spotted by Patently Apple. The most interesting of these new documents describes using quantum dots in tandem with Apple's microelectromechanical systems shutter control.
As noted in the patent, Quantum Dots may provide a way for enhancing the color gamut of displays. By replacing the regular LED phosphor, which often leaks out too much light and washes out colors, with quantum dots the screen can emit a much narrower and more specific spectrums of light.
Without getting into the scientific minutiae of nanocrystals, a quantum dot display, if used, would create richer and more accurate colors.
It's all about the backlight
Besides improving color, the other two patents suggest fine tuning the backlight with quantum dots. More accurately, a dot laden backlight sub-stack would produce a module with a mix of prisms, diffusers and light guides. Despite the added items it could be both thinner and more accurate.
Finally, a backlight dimming invention would fine-tune the enhanced backlight system using a stack of red, blue, and green quantum dot sheets to correct for any LED color shift.
Poppycock you say?
Before you blow off the concept as patent pipe dreams, quantum dot technology is already being used in the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7.
When Apple first introduced the Retina display powered iPhone 4 it blew everything out of the water. Since then, though, other device makers have been catching up with 1080p capable smartphones and even higher resolution 4K tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2.
It seems now Apple is looking into newer technologies to put its Retina display back on top, and better color accuracy could be the edge it needs.
But this is a space other device manufacturers like Samsung have managed to do using OLED screens on the Galaxy Note 3.
How do Retina displays look right now? Find out in our review of the iPad Air.
Steve and Steve, probably giggling about Apple Android phones in the 70s
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has suggested a novel way for the company to combat the march of the Android army... start building Android phones!
Speaking to Wired, the flamboyant computing whiz Wozniak said there's nothing keeping Apple from making Android phones that would out-style options from best-selling manufacturers like Samsung.
"There's nothing that would keep Apple out of the Android market as a secondary phone market," he said.
"We could compete very well. People like the precious looks of stylings and manufacturing that we do in our product compared to the other Android offerings. We could play in two arenas at the same time."
Being Steve Wozniak
Naturally, there's no chance of that ever happening unless things take a serious turn for the worst at Cupertino, or Eric Schmidt totally Malkovich's Tim Cook. It's also unlikely the brazen statement will bother too many folks at Infinite Loop.
Wozniak, whose only real involvement with Apple these days is collecting his dividends cheques, is known for his occasional jaunts to the other side of the tracks when it comes to towing the company line.
Beyond his latest wind up, Woz was super positive about the company's recent times, refusing to criticise the company's decision for the slow bleed of new iPhone features, amid Samsung's desire to cram their handsets with everything but the kitchen sink.
"If you have something really good, don't change it; don't screw it up. You pick up a Samsung phone and say smile and it takes a picture, but how much innovation is that? That's just throwing in a lot of features, he said.
The G Pro 2's speaker will reportedly be 30% stronger than its predecessor's
The latest LG G Pro 2 leak suggests that the upcoming LG flagship will sports impressive 1W speakers and a "thickened bass booster" that will blow the competition away.
This tidbit comes from ETNews, a Korean site that's spilled similar beans more than once in the past.
The speaker improvements will reportedly result in a stronger, fuller sound than other smartphones in general, and a 30% stronger sound compared to the LG G Pro 2's predecessor, the LG Optimus G Pro.
The G Pro 2 will reportedly also have a dedicated "Smart Listening" app to control sound output settings.
Other LG G Pro 2 specs
LG will unveil its G Pro 2 at MWC 2014 in Barcelona this month.
In addition to the awesome speaker, the new LG flagship is rumored to have a razor-thin bezel that will enhance its 1080p screen.
That display is reported to be anywhere from 5.7 to 6 inches, and with such a thin bezel it will look even bigger.
On top of that LG has confirmed that the G Pro 2 will sport a 13-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization and 4K, slow-mo video capabilities.
Other expected specs include a Snapdragon 800 processor, 3GB of RAM, and Android 4.4 KitKat, but the rest is still a mystery.
Watch out for more as Mobile World Congress gets closer and closer.
How did the G Pro 2's successor fare in TechRadar's review process? Read about the LG Optimus G Pro here!
2014 is the year that Apple gets fit, and it just published evidence of its intentions.
Apple put up a job advert for a "User Studies Exercise Physiologist" which could very well be tied to a little thing currently known as the iWatch.
There are a number of requirements for the role, including "Good understanding of physiological monitoring equipment, measurement techniques and interpretation of results."
However, the most interesting part comes at the end where Apple says the candidate will also need to apply knowledge to the "design of products and their testing/validation through user studies."
The job posting appears to have vanished but 9to5Mac managed to get a screenshot before it did.
On track
Apple's rumoured plans have been hitting the headlines a lot as of late. It has reportedly hired a sleep expert from Philips Research, and we've heard that the company has a health app called Healthbook in the pipeline for iOS 8.
Apple's ideal candidate for the new job will be carrying out research for "cardiovascular fitness & energy expenditure, including calories burned, metabolic rate, aerobic fitness level measurement/tracking".
The iWatch is still in a state of speculation - there's a chance that this new job could relate to nothing more than the iPhone and its fitness-friendly M7 chip.
But evidence of Apple's wearable plans is mounting up, and with both iOS 8 and the iWatch expected to arrive at some point in 2014, it looks like this is the year that Apple hopes to get us off the sofa and into the gym.
Does the iWatch even exist, and what do we know about it so far?
Which is the best Android phone for you? We've got the answers
Our verdict on the best Android phones - constantly updated
There's one key way in which Android is massively different from its Apple-branded smartphone competition - the number of phones out there running Google's hot mobile OS.
Samsung makes loads of them. Sony's cut the Ericsson ties but still is cranking out the Google-branded handsets. Then you've got Android-powered phones from Acer, LG, Huawei, Motorola, ZTE and many others, and while HTC has ceased the practice of releasing more phones than centipedes have shoes (they do wear them, you know) it's still one of the more prominent Android manufacturers.
The many variations in screen size, processor power, software features and design makes finding the best Android phone for you extremely tough.
Do you physically and emotionally need a QWERTY keyboard? Are you the sort of oddball who prefers the rough pressing needed to make resistive touchscreens work? If so, you won't find much luck here, as those technologies are sadly phased out of the Android world as buyers get enamoured by fancy, glossy capacitive touchscreens.
To help find the best Android phone for you, we've rounded up the best Android handsets out there today, rating the phones on hardware performance, OS upgrade potential and, of course, how shiny and nice they are to have and boast about to work colleagues.
So here they are - the best Android phones money can buy today. For many, many different reasons.
10. Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini
For those after some Samsung muscle but in a slightly more pocketable format, the S4 Mini's a result. It's had its display size chopped to just 4.3 inches - positively tiny in this age of 5-inch+ slabs - and although the resolution and internal power have also been reduced when compared with the S4 Large, the Mini's everyday performance isn't really compromised at all.
The 1.7GHz dual-core chipset is perfectly capable of handling both Samsung's software tools and the ever-increasing demands of Android, while it outdoes other phones in this mid-range price bracket by having 1.5GB of RAM onboard for solid app, gaming and multitasking performance.
Quick verdict
It's not quite a miniature Galaxy S4 in that it's been downgraded a little internally as well as externally, but the good news is the asking price has been chopped accordingly -- making it a low budget scorcher.
The Sony Xperia Z1 is another powerhouse of a phone. With a 20.7MP camera with G Lens technology, the ability to withstand rain, snow and sand and a superfast Snapdragon 800 processor running the show, it's clearly a great handset to have around.
It also comes in a variety of funky colours, has a pleasing build quality that helps justify the higher price to a degree and basically offers the best of the Sony brand in a smartphone.
We do have a few reservations insofar as the Z1 doesn't really carry the mantle the Xperia Z created; it's got a massively uprated camera and screen technology, but neither particularly wow.
Quick verdict
Don't think that this is anything less than a leading phone from Sony. It's just that the added thickness to accommodate the camera doesn't impress enough to plop it into the top five, and after the really great showing from the Xperia Z, we were a little disappointed.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is alive and kicking and breathes yet more life into a mobile form factor many thought would be dead on arrival, ramping up the specs and the size to give us a new monolith of mobile.
It may be big, but the 5.7-inch display is fantastic and the Full HD Super AMOLED technology makes everything pop from websites to movies.
What really impressed us with the Galaxy Note 3 though was its battery life and sheer speed under the finger. We're used to a day at best when hardcore using the device, but we got far past that without breaking a sweat throughout our tests.
Quick verdict
This is the best Galaxy Note smartphone to date, so if you're looking for a supersized handset with impressive power and a wide range of features the Galaxy Note 3 has got you covered.
As with Samsung's attempts at scaling down size, performance and the cost of ownership to you the punter, HTC's miniaturised HTC One reduces both size and internal performance a little to bring it in at a more affordable level than the original flagship.
The dual-core Snapdragon 400 processor, 1GB of RAM and smaller, lower resolution 4.3-inch display are compromises, but HTC's polished software and exemplary hardware design skills make this a strong contender regardless.
It has the same victory points as the large HTC One - the brilliant Boomsound audio output and front-facing speakers, the Ultrapixel imaging sensor for cracking photographs and particularly fine low-light performance, plus HTC's classy aluminium chassis is here once again.
It doesn't feel cheap, but it is a little bit cheaper. Win-win.
Quick verdict
The same quality exterior design as the full size HTC One, with internals that have only a little less punch. And a 4.3-inch display isn't exactly small, making it ideal for people after decent power in a more modest form factor.
The Moto G rocks up with a 4.5-inch 720p display, punchy 1.2GHz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM and pure Android 4.4 KitKat on board.
Add to that a 5MP camera, the choice of 8GB or 16GB of internal storage and connections such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS, and you've got a pretty decent mid-range handset. But wait...
... take a look at the price tag and you'll be astounded by how little the Motorola Moto G will set you back - £130 SIM-free, or £120 on PAYG, it's a steal.
Quick verdict
If you're looking for the best budget smartphone on the market then look no further, for the Android 4.4 toting Moto G gives you more than enough bang for your buck.
Motorola is now seeding the official Android 4.4 KitKat firmware update to the dual-SIM version of Moto G. It is available over the air and weighs about 230MB.
Currently the update is seeding in Malaysia, but we expect other markets to get it very soon.
Just as on the other Moto G versions, the update brings Android 4.4.2 KitKat with Project Svelte optimizations, new Dialer app, updated Hangouts with SMS/MMS support, updated Google Now and the latest version of Google's Photo gallery with Auto Awesome feature, if not installed already.
The standard model of Motorola Moto G has been already brought to the KitKat bandwagon, while the newly released dual-SIM Moto G is getting it just two weeks after its launch. It's nice to see Motorola is working hard to support its smartphones. Hopefully it will continue to do so once it becomes part of Lenovo.
XOLO, the smartphone and tablet manufacturer based in India, has announced today its latest smartphone based on the already availableA500.
The A500 Club ups the processing power of its predecessor to a 1.3GHz dual-core CPU, while keeping the same 4-inch 480 x 800 IPS display, 4GB of expandable memory, and 512MB of RAM. It's runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and is powered by a 1,400 mAh battery.
The main enhancement is in the audio department with dual front speakers that flank the screen, alongside the proprietary Float bar that gives you quick access to music throughout the interface.
The XOLO A500 Club will be available in white for INR7,099, or just under $115.
Sony's new quarterly financial report is out and it shows improving performance. The company's Mobile Products and Communications division responsible for Sony's Xperia and Vaio devices reports improving smartphone sales, but was dragged down by the stale PC business. If you haven't heard already, Sony is selling its PC business.
The Xperia line, however, moved 10.7 million smartphones during the quarter, up from 10 million units the quarter before. The Average Selling Price (ASP) of Xperia smartphones also went up, which along with favorable exchange rates resulted in 44.8% increase in sales for the division to $4.396 billion, but a net loss of $120 million, including $78 million impairment charges for the PC business.
Sony did cut its forecast for number of smartphones sold to 40 million units from 42 million. Considering it has already sold 30.3 million, this implies Sony expects to sell under 10 million units in the first three months of 2014.
Along with the smartphone and tablet business, Sony's Game division is responsible for the improved revenue. Following the launch of the PlayStation 4, the division raked in $4.207 billion in revenue and made an operating income of $172 million.
The imaging business isn't doing too hot and sales increased just 6% year on year to $1.886 billion, but the division posted an operating profit of $115 million compared to a loss the same quarter in 2012.
LCD TV sales bounced back, which along with reduced cost pushed Home Entertainment & Sound to 24.8% bigger revenue of $3.848 billion and $61 million operating income.
The consolidated revenue for Sony (including a strong Financial Services division) was $22.979 billion (up 23.9% year on year) and the operating income stood at $860 million.
But could this be the final time the two sign the papers?
It looks like Apple won't opting for its own GPUs any time soon, as it's just inked a deal to keep Imagination powering graphics in future iPhones and iPads.
Apple and Imagination have extended their partnership under a multi-year deal that will keep the two working closely together on future devices.
There have been persisting rumours that Apple has been working on its own in-house graphics, and it's certainly plausible that Cupertino could eventuall find its own solution.
But for the iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2, we know for sure that Apple will still be buying off the shelf.
Mozilla has certainly been busy lately. Not only has the company built its own mobile OS, but it's also working on an Android launcher and has just unveiled a screen grab of it in action.
Mozilla describes its homescreen replacement as a way to 'discover the content you want in any moment.'
It's powered by EverythingMe, another homescreen replacement, which makes smart folders based on your interests and suggests apps that you might want to use at appropriate times.
Based on the image shared by Mozilla, the Firefox launcher is very similar to EverythingMe, albeit with a more red panda friendly colour scheme.
It knows which apps you want before you do
The folders at the top of the screen are presumably smart folders, automatically grouping all your social apps together in one and all your music apps together in another for example.
Below that there's a prediction bar, which suggests apps that you might want to use based on where you are, what time of day it is and other variables. So in this case, as it's morning, the bar suggests an alarm clock and weather app.
The launcher also promises a personalised web experience which combines the Firefox for Android web browser with the contextual app searches of EverythingMe, with the aim of bringing you the most relevant results every time, whether you're searching your phone or the internet.
It remains to be seen whether this 'smart' launcher will be able to compete with the plethora of Android homescreen replacements that are already available, but with the might of Mozilla it certainly stands a chance.
Samsung has just launched the latest Android 4.4 KitKat update for the Korean Galaxy S4 LTE-A units that are based on Snapdragon 800 chips. Reportedly the new firmware is available both via Kies and OTA.
The new firmware is said to make the Galaxy S4 LTE-A phone even faster, with better RAM management and improved TouchWiz user interface. The latest TouchWiz version is also supplied with the release.
Now that Korean Galaxy S4 LTE-A model has got the KitKat treatment, here is hoping the international Galaxy S4 units - whatever the chipset - will get the new ROM very soon. Samsung missed its initial January deadline, but the leaked test ROM hints that the delay won't be too great.
The news comes hot on the heels of the new faux leather version of the S800-powered Galaxy S4 LTE-A model that will launch on all three Korean carriers this month.
On a side note, now that we have a Galaxy S4 with great looks, even faster chipset and KitKat, we wonder what the Galaxy S5 announcement will bring to justify the upgrade.
Two new images claiming to be of the HTC One 2 have surfaced, giving us our first clear look at the front of the device and revealing some deviations from the design of the HTC One.
The photos, found by Russian site MobilTelefon.RU, show a phone that looks remarkably similar to the HTC One. It's the same shape and has the same metal speaker grills at the top and bottom.
But there are a couple of differences. First up the bezel around the screen looks thinner than the One, giving it an almost edge-to-edge appearance.
The other change deals with the navigation buttons, on the HTC One they are below the screen but these new images suggest the HTC One 2 will have them on-screen.
The similar overall design and on-screen buttons both tally with previous rumours we've heard, plus moving the buttons on-screen would make sense anyway, as it would allow for a larger, 5-inch display without increasing the overall footprint of the handset too much.
Seems legit
So in that sense the photos seem like they could well be genuine and they certainly look convincing enough. But on the other hand it wouldn't take a Photoshop master to make such minor modifications to an HTC One image.
Curiously one of the images doesn't feature the navigation buttons at all, which suggests they can be hidden when not in use, even when on the homescreen.
That would make sense too, but rather than obscuring the bottom of the phone's wallpaper the images suggest that the wallpaper actually gets resized to accommodate the buttons, which seems somewhat less likely and raises a red flag as to the authenticity of the pictures.
Hopefully we should know soon enough whether this is the real face of the HTC One 2, as it's rumoured that the flagship phone will be revealed at either MWC or a late March launch event.
The regional director of HTC for the Benelux region, Mark Moons, tweeted that the leaked photos of the HTC M8 (One's successor) were fakes created in Photoshop. It's not clear if he's referring to the ones that show the back or the front, but probably both.
HTC doesn’t normally address rumors (just like most companies), so to call this out it must really be a fake. That's not to say that whoever shopped this didn’t get close to the actual appearance of the HTC M8 and Moons doesn’t discredit the rumored specs that came with them.
The latest rumors are that the next HTC flagship will be unveiled in March, but maybe another excited HTC exec can show off the device before it's official. You know, like Peter Chou did with the HTC One.
