Google News Redesign Focuses on UX, Facts and User Control

Since the introduction of Material Design to Android 5.0 Lollipop, Google has adopted this design philosophy throughout the entire company. This was a radical move at the time because Google has always been a function over form type of company. There have always been plenty of other services that looked better than Google’s counterpart, but it was their focus on performance that generally made their work come out on top of the competition.

This changed a few years ago when Google hired designers such as Matias Duarte to come up with what is now called Material Design. The success of Material Design sparked an interest from Google’s executives to bring this design to all of their other services. The process has been slow but it’s proven to be quite successful as its brought renewed interest in many of the company’s older services. The latest to get a new paint job is the Google News web portal.

As you can see from the before and after preview image, the new look of Google News is what you would expect from a Material Design website. Most elements are shown in a card format that that the content itself can be clean and easy to distinguish from the rest. The three main focuses for this new redesign were cleaning up the navigation elements, making sure there was a dedicated Fact Check card, and letting the user control the type of content they see.

So one of the main navigation options at the top is a For You section that you can control which interests and topics that you want to see more of. Among these changes, Google also wanted to highlight some diverse topics, which has been a focus for the entire company of Google for a while. The new redesign hasn’t been made public yet, but Google says it will be rolled out globally “in the coming days.” So be sure to check the Google News website in the next week to see Google’s new redesign in action.

Source: The Keyword

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Wearbttn Adds Two Complications to Android Wear 2.0 for the App Drawer and Google Assistant

You’ve likely seen the trend of new Android Wear smartwatches having a physical button on the side of the watch. This wasn’t on many Android Wear devices before the big 2.0 update, but now it’s a vital piece of hardware for new watches. With the Android Wear 2.0 update, this button is used to both open the application drawer as well as launch Google Assistant. Before, these actions were done with swipes on the screen but that isn’t the case anymore.

This requirement of a physical button on new smartwatches that use Android Wear 2.0 won’t be a problem, but we’ve seen the new updated ported to older devices. For instance, the Lenok2Dory Wear 2.0 ROM was made for the original LG G Watch and can be found right in our own forum here. These efforts are greatly appreciated by the community at large, but that has left those who use it without a way to open the application drawer or launch Google Assistant.

This is where the Wearbttn Android Wear application comes into play. Once installed, this adds two complications to your device that act as virtual buttons for these two actions. So you can setup a complication on your watch face that will open the application drawer, and then you can set a different complication to launch Google Assistant. This will even work on Android Wear devices that actually have a physical button, but for those who just want a complication to launch Google Assistant.

Wearbttn is even an ideal solution for those who have a broken physical button on their Android Wear smartwatch. The complication to launch the application drawer does require that your Android Wear device have root access. So be aware of that ahead of time, but the Google Assistant complication does not require root access at all.

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Via: /r/AndroidWear Source: Google Play

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Refurbished Galaxy Note 7 is Rebranded the Galaxy Note 7 FE, Coming to South Korea on July 7th

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last year, you likely already know about the issues Samsung has had with the Galaxy Note 7. What initially seemed like a teething process for a new smartphone quickly turned into something the company wishes they could have avoided. This resulted in Samsung having to pull all Galaxy Note 7 units from store shelves and then a promise was given saying they would dispose of the waste properly.

Many felt the issue would loom over the company and ruin the launch of the Galaxy S8, but early reports of sales numbers shows that could not have been further from the truth. With the whole faulty battery debacle behind them, you would think that Samsung would like to distance themselves from the Galaxy Note 7 phone as much as possible. However, then we some reliable reports about Samsung wanting to sell a refurbished model just a couple of months ago.

Some fans of the Galaxy Note 7 loved their phone so much, that many didn’t even want to send it back to the company. These customers knew the risks that were involved and it resulted in Samsung having to disable charging completely just to keep customers safe. Samsung knows there are people who truly feel the Galaxy Note 7 was the best phone they had ever owned, so it somewhat makes sense for them to want to sell refurbished units of the device.

The new device is said to be called the Galaxy Note 7 FE, with the FE standing for Fandom Edition. Sources close to The Wall Street Journal say it will be priced lower than 700,000 South Korean won (which is about $616). It’s believed that Samsung will be producing “at most” 400,000 units of the Galaxy Note 7 FE, which will be divided among the three major South Korean wireless carriers.

Since a Samsung representative has declined to comment, it’s unknown if Samsung will be releasing the Galaxy Note 7 FE in other countries.

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Source: The Wall Street Journal

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Qeexo Wants to Replace Your Proximity Sensor With EarSense

We have often heard how smartphone design has stagnated over the past few years with many smartphones bearing a stark resemblance to each other. Some companies such as Xiaomi have been trying to change this with the introduction of smartphones with radically different designs such as the Mi Mix. Other companies are slowly creeping towards a more bezel-less design, such as the Essential Phone or the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, however the screen alone isn’t what made the Mi Mix so unique. One of the biggest design changes that the Mi Mix pioneered was the removal of the earpiece speaker which was replaced with what the company calls a “cantilever piezoelectric ceramic acoustic technology.”

It’s changes like this that OEMs are looking for to make their device look and feel unique from the rest of the market. This is where a company called Qeexo comes into play with their EarSense technology. You may not have heard of them before, but one of their products may already be on your smartphone. Their previous technology, FingerSense, is what powers Huawei’s Knuckle Gestures. EarSense is a new technology by Qeexo which aims to aid OEMs in replacing the traditional proximity sensor found in our devices.

Compared to a traditional proximity sensor which is a piece of hardware that is generally packed in the top bezel of our smartphones, EarSense is a software alternative – so it doesn’t take up any space on the phone. The goal of this proprietary software solution is to allow OEMs to free up space from inside the phone (for other components) as EarSense will be able to recognize contact with someone’s face and ears so that it can turn off the screen during a phone call – a function normally accomplished through use of the proximity sensor. You can see a demo of this in action in the video below.

By freeing up this space inside the device, Qeexo hopes that it will enable OEMs to use that space for some other innovative hardware. We saw Samsung start to add an iris scanner to the top bezel of their phones so software like this could enable future devices to feel less cramped in this area of the phone. It could also allow for future devices to more easily transition to the true bezel-less design that we’re currently seeing a trend towards.

In an interview with XDA-Developers, the CEO of Qeexo, Sang Won Lee, told us that EarSense, much like FingerSense, is a software solution that is licensed out to OEMs for implementation in their devices. That means it’s ultimately up to the OEMs to implement EarSense into their OS, and to provide an API so third-party voice calling applications such as Hangouts, Google Duo, or Whatsapp can also take advantage of it.

Currently, these applications assume that any given smartphone is operating with a hardware proximity sensor in place, as such hardware is universally present on mobile devices. However, if EarSense, a software-only alternative, were to take off – then these applications may need to rethink that assumption. It’s possible that OEMs may implement EarSense in a way that it seamlessly replaces the hardware proximity sensor – such that third-party applications do not need to be updated – but we’ll have to wait and see how the first OEMs to implement the technology play this out.

Although some way not be a fan of proprietary software replacing the tried-and-true proximity sensor, the potential physical benefits that removing this hardware may bring can’t be denied. But, given that there are legitimate uses of the proximity sensor outside of turning on/off the screen during voice calls, it may not be worth the trade-off for some users in the end.

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The OnePlus 3/3T Will Receive Android O by the End of 2017

The OnePlus 5 may be the the talk of the town right now, but OnePlus still has a lot to prove to consumers when it comes to updating their older devices. OnePlus previously confirmed that the company would be updating their previous flagship smartphones to Android O, but thanks to a recent AMA that the company held on Reddit, we now have a due date as to when we can expect that update to hit.

After Reddit user The_Malteser asked, “Will the OP3 and OP3T be forgotten now that the OP5 is out?” a OnePlus representative from the OxygenOS product team responded by saying, “Nooo. 3/3T will get Android O update within this year.” OnePlus unfortunately didn’t get any more specific than this, but a confirmation that the update will be available before 2017 is over is at least slightly reassuring.

We say slightly because, although the OP3 and OP3T have received regular software updates since their release, we still have to deal with the fact that OnePlus has no official plans for updating the OnePlus 2 – a phone that could have been updated to Nougat but won’t (at least officially).

Assuming OnePlus sticks with this claim and does deliver Android O to the 3 and 3T by the end of the year, just what can we expect? Android O still hasn’t officially released outside of a few Developer Previews on Nexus and Pixel devices, but thanks to these previews we know that the 3/3T should get picture-in-picture support for watching videos while doing other tasks, icons that can adapt to certain shapes for a more consistent look, the ability to snooze individual notifications, and plenty more (not to mention any extra goodies that OnePlus decides to throw on top with OxygenOS).

We, along with most fans of OnePlus phones, do hope that the Android O update is released in a timely manner for the OnePlus 3/3T.

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Source: OnePlus

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Honor 9 Versus the Competition

The Honor 9 has been announced as the followup to the popular Honor 8 from last year. This new phone comes at the same time as other powerful phones within the same price hit the market. Let’s check out these different phones and see how they compare to the new Honor 9.

Like the OnePlus 5, the Honor 9 has elected to go with big processing power with the Kirin 960 while only having a 1080p screen. You don’t see many flagship devices going with the 1080p resolution anymore, but the ones that do still sell without any problems. That’s because most users value speed and battery life more than higher pixel density. By putting the latest hardware in the Honor 9 and skipping out of the higher resolution screen, they’re creating a much faster phone.

In this video the Honor 9 is put through a speed test with the OnePlus 5.

Honor 9 – €429/€449 ($488/$511)

Honor 9	Specs
CPU	HiSilicon Kirin 960
RAM	4/6GB
Storage	64/128GB
Cameras	Dual 20MP + 12MP, f/2.2 (rear) 8 MP, f/2.0 (selfie)
Battery	3200 mAh

OnePlus 5 – $479/$539

OnePlus 5	Specs
CPU	Qualcomm MSM8998 Snapdragon 835
RAM	6/8GB
Storage	64/128GB
Cameras	Dual 20MP + 16MP, f/1.7 (rear) 16MP, f/2.0 (selfie)
Battery	3300 mAh

LG G6 $549

LG G6	Specs
CPU	Qualcomm MSM8996 Snapdragon 821
RAM	4GB
Storage	32/64/128GB
Cameras	Dual 13MP f/1.8 (rear) 13MP, f/2.4 (selfie)
Battery	3300 mAh

During the launch event, the Honor 9 was shown to be faster than even the Galaxy S8, opening and reopening apps much faster than the much more expensive phone. Honor is proving that it can stand up to the competition and with the Honor 9.

Honor 9 Forums on XDA!

THanks to Honor for their partnership with XDA

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European Commission Orders Google to Pay $2.7 Billion for Manipulating Shopping Results