At the moment, Google is holding some limited time promos in its hardware store. Clearly the best deal is to be had for the Motorola Nexus 6. This smartphone is now $150 cheaper than its normal price.

That means the 32GB model can be yours for just $499, while the 64GB version now costs $549. There’s no telling how long these offers will last, by the way, so if you’ve always craved a Nexus 6 but couldn’t quite get yourself to pay the whole price, now may be the time to act – fast. Read more »

It’s already been rumored once before that the Android 5.1 update will bring RAW support to the camera of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. This update might make its way to devices this month or in July.

Today a new rumor comes to confirm the addition of RAW support in the camera arriving with Android 5.1 on Samsung’s latest flagships. Furthermore, lower ISO values will also be added. Read more »

Asus had the busiest day of the year today. Selfie phones, ZenPads, ZenWatches, and Transformer Books aside, the Taiwanese company also found time to make a new ProArt monitor official. It’s the ProArt PA329Q, which is in fact the successor to the PA328Q from last year.

If at this point you’re wondering why you should care, well, know that we’re talking about a monitor that delivers 100% of the Adobe color gamut. That’s incredibly important if color accuracy is required for your job description. Read more »

Tie-ups between smartphone makers and football teams are nothing new, as you may know. But this is the first we’ve seen Oppo go this route. The Chinese company has inked a partnership agreement with FC Barcelona, one of the biggest football clubs on the planet.

The deal has been signed for three years. During this time, the Oppo brand will be visible at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, and you should probably expect to see some cooperation in the field of TV ads too. Read more »

Well, this was bound to happen. Yesterday during its annual I/O developer conference Google announced that it would finally offer full offline support in Maps for Android by the end of the year. Nokia’s Here Maps division has obviously heard about this, and decided to make fun of the fact that Google Maps is still pretty much useless offline at the moment.

Here has had offline maps since the moment it launched. Even its predecessor, known as Nokia Maps (and Ovi Maps at one time), came with this feature built-in. Read more »

Google Maps for Android has had some sort of offline support for years now, but it’s definitely not good enough for most use cases, in the current iteration at least. At its I/O conference Google has announced that it’s working on bringing better offline support to Maps sometime before the end of this year.

So in the future you’ll be able to start navigating to places while offline. Currently navigation works offline, but you need to be online when you start it. Additionally, Google Maps will allow offline searches for places and points of interest (with autocomplete no less), something which you can’t do right now. Read more »

Get ready for the third “Pay” program. After Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, Google has today unveiled Android Pay at its annual developer conference. Just like its competitors, Android Pay is all about allowing you to easily make payments with your phone, by using NFC and even fingerprint sensors on devices that have them.

In a similar fashion to the other systems, with Android Pay you add a bank card to an app on your mobile device. When you’re at a merchant that accepts Android Pay, you simply unlock your phone and place it near the NFC terminal. The payment goes through without requiring you to open an app or do any other additional thing. Read more »

Today Google has announced that it’s brought its App Indexing feature from Android to iOS. What this allows is for you to jump straight to a relevant iOS app from Google search results. In the example showcased by the image below, a restaurant reservation is required, and following a Google search tapping on the first result will take you to the OpenTable iOS app that’s installed on the same device. In it you can then make the desired reservation, or go back to the search results with one tap.

The feature exists in both the Google app for iOS as well as Chrome for iOS, as long as you’re signed into your Google account. For now such links to iOS apps will be limited to a short list, with Google having worked with some initial test partners so far. Read more »

Today Microsoft has announced the expansion of its strategic agreements with Android OEMs for preinstalling its productivity apps on devices running Google’s mobile operating system. The first step in this strategy was revealed in March when we found out that Samsung and Dell agreed to preinstall Microsoft’s apps on their devices along with a few smaller, regional players.

And now the software giant is adding 20 more OEMs to the list, the most well-known of which are LG and Sony. This round seems to concern only tablets, by the way. So, “in the near future”, these companies will ship tablets with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive, and Skype preinstalled. Read more »

Since last fall when it launched, the Asus-made Nexus Player Android TV-running console has been offered for $99 in the Google Play Store. Now, though, it’s seeing its first price cut.

If you’re in the US, you can grab a Nexus Player for just $79. That’s $20 less than before, which doesn’t seem like much. On the other hand, consider that it’s in fact a 20% price reduction. Read more »

Periscope was launched by Twitter on iOS back in March, and today it’s finally become available for Android too. The app can already be downloaded from the Google Play Store, in fact. It should work on Android 4.4 KitKat or newer versions of the OS.

Periscope arrives on Android almost a month after its chief competitor, Meerkat (which was also iOS-only for a long while). Read more »

Once again, OnePlus is teasing something via its official Twitter account. This time it looks like we’re going to see a new announcement from the Chinese company on June 1, which is next Monday.

Obviously no big clues as to what that will be are given, but as you can see from the accompanying image OnePlus is talking the big talk. Read more »

A few days ago the latest version of Android Wear, 5.1.1, started rolling out to all smartwatches running Google’s platform. This release has many new features, chief among them being Wi-Fi support. What that means is that if a particular watch has the necessary hardware, it can connect to Wi-Fi networks directly, thus not being dependent on a Bluetooth connection to a phone.

The LG Watch Urbane launched running the latest Android Wear iteration, but the G Watch R is only now in the process of getting it. Intriguingly though, even if the G Watch R does have the required internals for Wi-Fi support, this will not be enabled after applying the Android Wear 5.1.1 update. Read more »

The lack of public transit directions in Apple Maps may be baffling, but it looks like the company is finally going to take care of this glaring omission soon. According to a new rumor, transit directions will be added to the Apple Maps app that will be part of iOS 9.

Apple’s next version of its mobile operating system should be demoed in June at the company’s annual developer-focused conference (WWDC). As in previous years, we expect iOS 9 to be released around the time the new iPhones ship, so probably in the fall. Read more »

Today AT&T took the wraps off a new Android tablet made by LG. It’s called G Pad F 8.0 and will be up for grabs at the carrier starting on May 29, which is next Friday. It bears some resemblance to the G Pad 8.0 from last year, both in terms of looks as well as specs.

The G Pad F 8.0 however comes with a built-in stylus and a full-size USB port. Those seem to be its main differentiating features. The screen is quoted as being an “HD+” IPS panel, which we assume means it has a resolution of 1,280×800. Read more »