After yesterday’s map data update, Nokia’s Here team has some more news for us today – namely, that the Here maps app for Android has now left the beta state. As of the latest update to the app, which is already live in the Google Play Store, the beta tag has been put to rest.

So it looks like Nokia now feels very confident about the stability and performance of its app on Google’s mobile operating system. The update brings with it some new things, naturally. Read more »

Google’s #TogetherNotTheSame moved from cute animals to emulating Freddie Mercury – 300 smartphones and tablets were put together, each displaying a different Androidify character singing the same song through the devices speakers.

Instead of Bohemian Rhapsody, the Android Chorus did a rendition of The Hymn of Joy, set to a beatbox-y Ode to Joy. Read more »

Amazon is giving out paid apps for free again, this time the bundle costs $140 in total. Not that you’ll pay a dime of it, if you download the apps from the Amazon App Store. As usual it’s a varied bundle ranging from Office apps to health apps plus a lot of games

The big ticket items are the Longman Dictionary (Audio Edition), which normally goes for $30 and OfficeSuite Professional 8, usually $20. Read more »

The amount of Samsung Galaxy S6 details that has made its way to the public ahead of launch has reached critical mass for designers to be able to create a pretty accurate vision of what the upcoming flagship will look like. The leaked schematics left little to the imagination and it actually took too long for people to dress them in proper attire.

It’s not the first time we’ve seen the work of Martin Hajek applied in the field of mobile devices and now we are treated to his take on the Galaxy S6. Read more »

NVIDIA has released an update to the Shield Portable device that improves the performance of emulators on the device. The update is small, at just over 3MB, and is optional.

This is good news as the Shield Portable is an ideal device for running emulators. For those not aware, emulators allow you to run games from other platforms, such as classic Nintendo games, which otherwise won’t run natively on Android. Since Shield Portable has built-in controls, it is great for playing classic games on the move and it is good to see NVIDIA acknowledge the typical use case of the device and work on improving that aspect. Read more »

The award-winning video game Limbo finally made its way to Android. Created by the developers from Playdead, the creepy title is available in Google Play for $4.99.

Limbo has been available for iOS for quite some time now. Read more »

Today Nokia has announced a new map data update for its Here apps for Windows Phone and Android. This isn’t an app update per se, but rather an update to the underlying information that the apps use. So if you’ve downloaded maps in Here for offline use, you’ll need to update those to get all the new perks. Otherwise, if you’re only using Here in online mode, you’ll see the changes automatically.

You should get an update notification at some point, regardless of which mobile platform you use. Of course you can also manually trigger the download by going to Here’s settings (on Android) or, on Windows Phone, to Settings > Applications > Maps. Read more »

If you were wondering how well the Android Wear platform was doing in terms of sales, well, wonder no more. Well known analyst house Canalys has the answer. In 2014, 720,000 smartwatches running Google’s wearable platform were sold.

That’s not much. A grand total of 4.6 million “smart wearable bands” were shipped last year, according to the same source. Read more »

We’ve been hit by a ton of leaks about HTC’s next flagship smartphone lately, but so far official-looking press renders have not surfaced. Fret not, though, for that doesn’t mean we have nothing to look at. On the contrary. Thankfully someone decided to take all the recent leaks and rumors about the One (M9) and use that information to create some very nice looking renders of what could end up being the successor to the One (M8) from last year.

These aren’t official, nor are they leaked. They’re just exploring what the phone might look like, based on what we’ve heard about it so far (and what we’ve seen). Read more »

There’s plenty of rumors about the Galaxy S6 camera, now let’s hear a teasing-but-vague word from the horse’s mouth. Samsung is celebrating 15 years since it put a 0.3MP camera on the SCH-V200 with a post that traces the trajectory of the Galaxy S cameras, both front and back, over the years.

Samsung has taken on the challenge of making a camera module that produces good photos, but still fits in phones that become increasingly thinner. Read more »

According to a report in Korean media, Samsung Galaxy S6 accessories will feature authentication chips. The solution is said to be similar to the setup used by Samsung’s biggest rival, Apple.

The Korean giant will reportedly attempt to build a new ecosystem mobile accessories around Samsung Galaxy S6. Read more »

Mere hours ago Sony took the wraps off the new Xperia E4, and now the company is giving you the chance to win one. All you have to do is participate in Sony’s special competition, which is taking place on its Facebook page.

You have to answer a maximum of seven questions. The first one is up now, and for each answer you get one ticket for the draw. To win you’ll need to have answered at least one question correctly. Sharing the contest with friends also looks set to bring you some additional chances to win. Read more »

While not a flagship killer by vocation ZTE’s Blade S6 has a lot of potential for its $250 price tag.

It’s built around Qualcomm’s upper-midrange Snapdragon 615 chip that boasts a 64-bit architecture and octa-core prowess for on-demand power and battery preservation, 2GB of RAM, two nano-SIM card slots, a 13MP camera on the back and 5MP on the front along with a 5″ IPS display of 720p resolution. Read more »

Sony quietly unveiled the Xperia E4 and E4 Dual – entry-level smartphones with a 5″ qHD screen, quad-core processor and a surprisingly good 5MP/1080p camera. The phones will launch with at least Android 4.4.4 KitKat though Sony’s web site claims 5.0 Lollipop.

I’ll leave the two promo videos to introduce the Xperia E4 couple in more detail. Read more »

Skype has updated its Android app to version 5.2, bringing some really useful features including offline photo sharing, support for picture-in-picture view, reduced chat loading times, and call quality improvements.

The updated app lets you send photos to your offline contacts, something which wasn’t previously possible. “When they are back on Skype, photos you shared show up beautifully inline in the chat history, whether or not you’re online – allowing you to easily carry on the conversation,” said Skype in a blog post. Read more »