Very early Android L on the Galaxy S5: gorgeous but raw

Android L should be, if the rumors pan out, just a month away, but of course it will be coming much later to OEMs and their flagships. The folks at SamMobile, however, were able to get a hold of an alpha build for the Galaxy S5 and took it out for a test, and the results are both impressive and a tad disappointing.

Of all the Android OEMs, Samsung is the most notorious for diverging from the Android experience, especially in the visual department. With Android L, however, Google is bringing a new design language and is more intent on keeping custom skins in check this time around. So it is quite interesting to see how Samsung intends to marry Android L's Material Design with its own TouchWiz aesthetic.

Given that this is from a very early Android L build, it isn't surprising that there is an uneven mixture of the two design. For the most part, however, it seems that Samsung is behaving well and applying the principles of Material Design even in its own apps. Perhaps it helps that Samsung has already switched to a flatter, more minimalistic design since the Galaxy S5. It is definitely encouraging to see that Samsung's custom apps are slowly getting a Material Design facelift as well, and one can only hope that the trend continues and improves in future builds.

That said, not everything is compliant with Google's own practices. In particular, the total of lockscreen notifications have been limited to two, versus Google's four, supposedly because of Samsung's fancy yet unnecessary unlocking animation. The Settings app is also still a jungle and it is unlikely that Samsung will ever be fixing that.

SamMobile notes that the build was quite slow and buggy, unsurprising for an alpha quality version. That said, things are expected to speed up, considering Android L's ART runtime promises performance and speed improvements all around. Hopefully, that will also be the case for Samsung's version, especially considering that TouchWiz is also infamous for being bloated and slow.

SOURCE: SamMobile

Story Timeline

• Top five Samsung TouchWiz features you might be missing on Android


• Android L and Material Design: tactile, bold, dynamic


• Did Google confirm that Android L will be Lollipop?

GroupOn pays users to shop with new Snap app

It's probably the dream of every shopaholic (or come to think of it, every person) to get paid cash for shopping. And that is basically what the new app from group buying site GroupOn called Snap does. Whenever you buy any of the featured items, you get a cash rebate off them and also a chance to win free groceries for a year worth $13,000.

How it works is pretty simple. After you download the Snap app, you need to look through the products and offers before you go to any grocery or supermarket. You can even build a grocery list within the app so it would be easier to keep track of what you need to buy. Head on over to any store and buy the featured items. Take a picture of the receipt, upload it to the app and they will put money into your account. As soon as you've saved up to $20, you can already opt to cash out and they will send you a check for the necessary amount.

Products include grocery items like bread, personal care, cleaning supplies, diapers and other household products. Some brands like Country Crock, PF Chang's, Glad and Huggies have introductory cash back offers as well. You can also earn $1 cash back everytime a friend or loved one opens an account and redeems their first eligible offer through your referral through Facebook or email.

To entice more people to download the app, those who submit receipts until November 11 are eligible to join the sweepstakes where the price is a year worth of groceries with a value of $13,000. Unfortunately, this app and all the offers it entails is only available for US and Canada residents. So if you live in those two countries, download Snap from Google Play Store and start earning money while shopping.

SOURCE: GroupOn

Google Play Newsstand gets new look, material design

If you're a fan of curated news apps that look just like a magazine as you flip through all the relevant news just like you would a magazine, then the new look of Google Play Newsstand just might convince you to use it. The app, built-in for some devices and downloadable for others, has just updated with a new look and improved services to appeal to users to make it (one of) their news reader of choice.

If you're used to using Flipboard or Zite or Feedly to get your daily feed of news from your favorite sites, it should suit you to check out what Google has done with its Newsstand. It has adapted the material design that will eventually herald the upcoming Android L. But more than just the design, even the reading experience is enhanced with the update to the app. You don't need to zoom in and out anymore just to be able to read an article when you're on your mobile device. You can now see a list of articles from sites that you've marked and they're already resized, both text and pictures to fit the gadget you're using.

The material design has also made the app look better, with contextual headers, bigger images and smoother transitions from one story to another. Aside from subscribing to certain news sites, you can also now add even more cards for those topics that interest you, from something as general as vegetarian recipes, to something more obscure like Brony (look it up!). You can swipe left and right to look at topics, then swipe up and down to look at the news items on the topic you chose. You can also choose to use mini-cards to just browse through headlines before clicking on something that you want to look at in-depth.

There are over 2,000 free and paid publications on the app, but not all countries have access to the paid and full-length ones. Google Play Newsstand can be found in more than 40 countries and if you don't have it built-in to your device, you can download it from the Google Play Store.

SOURCE: Android

Story Timeline

• Google updates Drive and Newsstand with new widgets, better performance


• Google Currents app officially replaced by Newsstand


• Google adds four more countries to paid content on Newsstand

Samsung Galaxy Alpha gets the iFixit teardown treatment

So we’ve been a bit disappointed with the specs of Samsung’s new “premium feel” device, the Samsung Galaxy Alpha – a device which marks the first time the Korean gadget giant has been willing to ditch plastic for a more “fruity” metal design. Maybe Samsung was doing an “anything you can do, I can do too” with Apple, hence a spec line that doesn’t really stack up to flagship level. Popular teardown specialists iFixit give the new metal-bound phone the full treatment.

As we have mentioned many times before, the Galaxy Alpha was built to “feel” like a premium phone, and for all intents and purposes it has achieved that. The phone has a decent enough processor and RAM combo – the international version torn down by iFixit rocked an octa-core Exynos chip with presumably 2GB of RAM. The middling 720p display is where it was scaled down from the 1080p display of the flagship Samsung Galaxy S5, as well as the 1,860mAh battery. For comparison though, this battery is still better than the iPhone 6’s 1,810mAh power source.

The iFixit teardown shows that the Galaxy Alpha has inherited the Galaxy S5’s midframe sandwich design when it comes to internals, although Samsung seems to have done away with the IP67 waterproofing here as there are no waterproofing measures seen on the inside of the Galaxy Alpha. The new phone also has a very tedious “display first” entry into the main PCB elements, although iFixit was very clear that upon entry via the display, all parts were visibly modular and could be replaced easily – once you beat the display first.

The Galaxy Alpha gets a middling score of 5 for repairability – with the tedious “display first” entry contributing to the score. But there is some redeeming value in the modular design of the PCB elements, allowing for quick repair and replacement, but only once you gain entry to the main PCB area itself.

SOURCE: iFixit

Story Timeline

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha: a mediocre metal-bound oddity?


• How it's Made: Samsung Galaxy Alpha metal frame


• Galaxy Alpha smartphone lands on AT&T website

LG leaked to have webOS smartwatch in the works

It seems Samsung isn't the only one who wants to strike off on its own with an alternative mobile platform. In an accidentally published and quickly pulled down developer preview webpage, LG has been revealed to be working on a smartwwatch platform that is based on the similarly troubled webOS operating system.

webOS, like Tizen, has had a colorful and tumultuous history. It started as the successor to Palm OS before parent company ACCESS was bought by HP. HP briefly continued its development, even open sourcing it, before eventually halting development on its side and selling the platform to LG. Since then, LG has been using it to power some of its smart TVs, but now it seems that LG has more ambitious plans for it.

Like Android and Tizen, webOS is a Linux-based operating system but it has more in common with Tizen in that the platform revolves more around web-centric technologies and languages, in particular Javascript. Its card-based interface, first seen on the relatively few webOS devices such as the Palm Pre and the HP Touchpad, in theory makes for a good UI idiom on a smartwatch, not unlike Google's own card system for Android Wear. Unlike Tizen, webOS has had a bit more exposure in actual commercial devices, from smartphones to tablets to TVs, though Tizen has the advantage of more or less being well-tested by now on Samsung's Gear smartwatches.

This move by LG is quite unexpected, considering that the company has given no indication that it is interested in taking webOS beyond the current smart TV implementation. Perhaps it is fueled by its rivalry with Samsung, though it should probably also be aware of Samsung's precarious relationship with Google over that matter. LG claims that it has many internal projects that never really see the light of day, but a developer portal for webOS smartwatch development still hints that the company is at least mulling over that possibility.

VIA: SlashGear

Story Timeline

• HP webOS TouchPad VS Motorola XOOM, TABLET WAR


• HP going open source with WebOS


• HP sells WebOS to LG, only it won't be for smartphones


• WebOS port now renamed LuneOS, releases new version

Check Out Android L in Action on a Samsung Galaxy S5

It's been months since Google first gave us a glimpse of Android L and the Material Design manifesto. But now, the slick-looking operating system is finally getting close to primetime. At least that's how this new video from SamMobile of a Samsung Galaxy S5 running Android L makes it seem.

Read more...

Framelapse brings Hyperlapse capabilities to Android devices

If you were suffering from Hyperlapse envy from iPhone users ever since Instagram released the video app, then you don't have to wait much longer. No, they still haven't released a version for the Android platform, but there is an app that basically performs the same function. Get ready to introduce your smartphone to Framelapse, an alternative to Instagram's baby.

We're not really sure what's taking Hyperlapse developers so long to come up with an Android version, but for the meantime, we'd have to be content with this pretty basic but useful alternative. Not that Hyperlapse in itself is a very complicated app. It's been referred to as a "dead-simple" point and shoot video app, and so Framelapse is basically the same. You will be able to set a time duration for recording and it will stop after set time has elapsed. You can also control frame interval and it has basic zoom and autofocus functions.

You can take videos from both main and front-facing cameras and you also have options for the video resolution and rotation. There is no rendering time for the video and can automatically playback after recording. The output is in high quality mp4 format which can be played on any device. There is of course several sharing options, which includes Facebook, Twitter and of course, Instagram.

The PRO version costs $2.99 and comes with more features like custom frame interval of up to 24 hours, white balance lock and exposure lock. Plus some part of your payment goes to a charitable project (they did not specify though what it is). But if you're satisfied with the basic features, then the free version should be enough. You can download Framelapse from the Google Play Store.

VIA: Lifehacker