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Google Wallet update brings material design and automatic bank transfers

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Google Wallet has been updated with several nice features. One of them is the option to set up a recurring bank transfer to automatically add funds to your Wallet account.

You can set up the recurring bank transfer on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis and cancel it any time. Google says that there are no fees or minimum balance requirements for the automatic transfer. If your balance gets low, you can set an alert to remind you to add funds. Read more »

Google Play Movies & TV app for Android gets Material Design and info cards

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Today Google has announced a new update for its Play Movies & TV app for Android. The new version of the app will roll out over the next week, and will bring with it a couple of important new features.

First off, like all of the recently updated apps made by Google, Play Movies & TV will get a do-over inspired by the company’s own Material Design guidelines. Read more »

Google Fit app lands in the Play Store

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Google Fit has arrived in the Play Store. The app is meant to be the central repository for all your fitness-related data. It automatically detects whether you’re walking, biking, or running.

It lets you set and monitor fitness goals based on your activity levels, and it can be connected to other apps too – Strava, Withings, Runtastic, Runkeeper, and Noom Coach being name dropped by Google in its official announcement. Read more »

Meizu seeks 5000 MX2 and MX3 owners to test Flyme 4.0 on their phones

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Via its official Weibo account, Meizu is gathering 5000 beta testers with MX2 and MX3 smartphones to run a beta build of Flyme 4.0.

Currently, the Meizu MX2 and MX3 are running Flyme OS 3.8.5A, but hopefully the sooner the company cleans out any bugs Flyme 4 might have on those devices, the faster it releases it. Read more »

Pixelmator now available on the iPad for $4.99

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Popular image editing application for OS X – Pixelmator – was announced for the iPad back at the iPad Air 2 launch event. The app is now available on the App Store and can be purchased for $4.99.

Pixelmator on OS X is a full fledged image creation and editing application. It can do most of the things that you can with Photoshop but at a fraction of the cost. But most importantly, it is beautifully made and works seamlessly with the OS as if it’s a native app. Read more »

Rooms message board app by Facebook launches for iOS

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Facebook launched a brand new app for iOS dubbed Rooms. The newcomer allows users to create or participate in message boards that cover any topic they might be interested in.

The app consist of rooms that are organized by area of interest. Read more »

Microsoft makes a lockscreen app for Android

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Microsoft is on a roll these days… making apps for Android. Made by the same Microsoft Garage division that brought us this comes the new Next Lock Screen.

As you can tell from the name, it’s a lockscreen app. It presents notifications on the lockscreen similar to the way Android Lollipop does. You can see them at a glance or swipe them away. But more than showing notifications, the lockscreen also shows relevant information from your apps directly on the lockscreen so you don’t have to go hunting inside the app. Read more »

Torque by Microsoft is a nifty search app for Android Wear

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Microsoft launched a crafty search application for Android Wear devices dubbed Torque. The app activates on the Android Wear device via a twist of the user’s wrist.

Of course, the search engine used by the app is powered by Bing, not Google’s own solution. Read more »

Google Earth 8.0 for Android adds new 3D tech, quicker map updates

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Google has just announced a pretty big update for the Google Earth app for Android. The new version will be rolling out over the next week, bringing with it faster and smoother transitions as you’re zooming in.

Mountains and cities get sharper 3D views too, thanks to an overhauled 3D rendering technology that was built from scratch. This is, in fact, the first big upgrade for the 3D tech since Google Earth launched 10 years ago. And more 3D updates are promised for the coming months. Read more »

Google launches Inbox by Gmail, a brand new take on email

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Google has just unveiled a new service. It’s called Inbox, and it uses the data in your Gmail account. But it presents this to you in some pretty interesting new ways.

It’s designed to “focus on what really matters”, the company says. It does this by surfacing important information from emails, and by letting you add reminders to your new inbox. Read more »

Google Play Music gets contextual music stations, Material Design

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Google has announced a big update for its Play Music service. First off, the Android and iOS apps have received a new, Material Design-infused coat of paint. Second, the service now brings you contextual music stations.

These have apparently been “hand crafted” by a team of music experts, including DJs, musicians, music critics, and ethnomusicologists, to give you exactly the songs you need for a particular moment. Read more »

HERE maps beta officially released for all Android devices

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Nokia’s HERE Maps launched on Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones recently to offer “true” offline navigation and an alternative to Google’s preloaded Maps.

But the app was in testing only on Samsung’s smartphones even despite the leaked apk file that allowed us all to sideload the HERE navigation on non-Galaxy smartphones. Now that’s about to change – Nokia is releasing the apk for all Android smartphones so you can try HERE maps for yourself. Read more »

Google publishes a guide for users transferring from iOS to Android

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Apple published a switch from Android to iOS guide? Two can play that game – Google has a dedicated page that helps new users switch to Android.

It’s not Google’s first guide though, last year Eric Schmidt himself posted an iOS to Android guide. Read more »

Ambient display mode spotted in Android Lollipop [Update: Only for Nexus 6]

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One of the cool features of iOS is that the screen lights up whenever you get a notification. This does consume a bit more battery than just having a notification light but it’s far more informative, and you know not just what the notification is about but can also get a brief look at the contents of the notification, making it easier to decide if you should act upon it or ignore it.

With the updated lockscreen notifications in Android Lollipop, Google has now also added a feature called Ambient display mode. This will allow the phone to light up the display when notifications arrive. Even better, it will wake the screen when you pick up the device, similar to the Moto X. Read more »

Next Gmail app for Android will handle all your email accounts

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The next version of Google’s beloved Gmail app for Android will feature a a lot more than new material design. Gmail 5.0 for Android is bound to make most email clients for the OS redundant by offering support for accounts beyond those hosted by Google.

Gmail’s hot new feature appeared in a short walkthrough video. Read more »