LG Nexus 5 (2015), next Flagship LG G5 to feature fingerprint scanner and Android Pay

After manufacturing Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 for Google, Korean electronics giant LG is now manufacturing another Nexus device for Google which will be next gen version of the 2013 Nexus 5. Although it is a “refresh” of Nexus 5, it will feature all the top technologies including Android M, Android Pay and a fingerprint scanner.

The Korea Herald reports that LG Nexus 5 (2015) will be the first smartphone from Google to sport the fingerprint recognition technology.  The fingerprint sensor will work with Android M which will offer native biometrics support and consumers will be able to use it for authorization in Google’s new mobile payment system, Android Pay. The report doesn’t mention any other specs except that the LG Nexus 5 (2015) is likely to have a 5.2-inch (13 cm) display.

After the fingerprint recognition technology is tested on Nexus 5 (2015), LG plans to incorporate it in its own future flagships, the next one probably being LG G5 if LG continues with its existing naming system. If an earlier rumor is to be believed, the LG G5 will also sport iris recognition technology. The rumored upcoming LG G Pro may also come with a fingerprint sensor.

Incorporating Fingerprint sensors will help LG to stay in competition against the likes of Apple and Samsung. Apple has the mobile payment system Apple Pay and Samsung is soon rolling out Samsung Pay but unlike both of them, LG will probably adopt Android Pay that will come with Android M.

The Huawei-made 5.7-inch Nexus phablet will also apparently have a fingerprint sensor as its prototype has allegedly appeared in a video showing a fingerprint sensor at the back.

The Korea Herald reports that LG Nexus 5 will be unveiled in October this year. If so, we can expect the release of Android at about the same time because Google is in the habit of launching a new Nexus device with the new version of its Android OS.

 

Via

LG Nexus 5 (2015), next Flagship LG G5 to feature fingerprint scanner and Android Pay

Alleged rear cover images of the upcoming LG-made Nexus phone leak

Rumors suggest that Google is planning to launch two new Nexus devices this year, one made by LG and the other by Huawei. It is also rumored that the design of the new LG-made nexus will be totally new and not be based on LG G4 as was believed earlier. It will possibly feature a 3D dual camera and a fingerprint scanner.

Now @OnLeaks has posted some images on twitter showing the rear side of the upcoming LG-made nexus. They are images of the rear cover of the Nexus device and have come from a case manufacturer. It can be seen that the rear side has three cutouts. There are two holes one below the other which could accommodate the rumored dual camera. There is also a rectangular hole by their side where the flash unit of the camera could be placed.

In addition to yesterday’s first #LG‘s new #NEXUS Phone leak… 😉 pic.twitter.com/kaU1DO09ng

— OnLeaks (@OnLeaks) July 30, 2015

Well, the images are said to be based on some “very early informations” and should be taken with a grain of salt as there may be several changes made to it by the time the final LG-made nexus is announced officially. It is rumored that both LG-made and Huawei-made Nexus devices will be running Android M out-of-the-box and could be launched in October this year.

Alleged rear cover images of the upcoming LG-made Nexus phone leak

Android M Developer Preview is Ready to Be Downloaded from Android Developer Website

In this year’s Google I/O Conference, it was announced that there will be a new version of Android OS which goes by the name of Android M.  Now, the Android M developer preview is available to download from here.

Since it is the developer version, it is not the final product which is going to be released to the public and expect a lot of new features which is promised during the conference is not fully developed or there is a lot of bugs on it or the features are not even implemented into the OS yet.  Therefore, even after all these warnings, you still want to install this version into your Android device, it is recommended that you backup your current content first before doing anything else. It is so that if some things happen and you can restore your Android device without any trouble.

There are a few differences between Android 5.0 Lollipop and Android M OS.  One of the differences is that in the Lollipop OS, the notification which pops up at the top of the screen cannot be customized according to users’ preferences, but with Android M, users are able to set them on per-app basis, which of course, will make them happy. It makes me happy. There is also an additional new “Tap & Pay” screen which seems to be meant for Android Pay.

Lastly, the developer preview of Android M can be reversed back to Android Lollipop by following the instructions here.

Android M Developer Preview is Ready to Be Downloaded from Android Developer Website

Android Pay Lets You to Make Payment Conveniently By Just Taping Your Device to the Terminal

Google has made mobile payment method a lot simpler than it used to be when the company first launches Google Wallet. Instead of having to open the app and key in a PIN to use it, Google just need you to simply tap your phone on the NFC terminal to authorize a payment. This way of mobile payment feature goes by the name of Android Pay.

On top of that, Android Pay is designed such that it can be embedded in apps like Lyft, Grubhub as well as Wish. The way that it works is that it relies on a virtualized credit card which acts like a proxy to your credit card, therefore the credit card information is not shared by merchants. It is also reported that Android Pay will be working with more than 700,000 stores in USA itself which have contactless payment terminals. Furthermore, Google has also partnering with mostly major financial institution in order to make the Android Pay working for the consumer.

Apart from using it with the contactless payment terminal while you are in the physical store, Android Pay can also be used for in-app purchases from online retailers. For example, when you are ordering food from Chipotle or paying an Uber ride, you can also use Google’s payment system.

Android Pay requires Android KitKat to operate at the very minimum; therefore the fingerprint feature is optional. However, with the upcoming release of Android M, it comes with the native fingerprint recognition standard API which is available to developers.

Android Pay Lets You to Make Payment Conveniently By Just Taping Your Device to the Terminal

Android M has got a revamped RAM Manager

The previous Android OS version the Android Lollipop is designed such that users can check the RAM status of their phone and the memory used by each of the apps. This feature still plays a big role and many users doing intensive multi-tasking need to monitor as to how much memory is gulped by some of their heavier apps. The latest Android M aims to improve this functionality by proving a more comprehensive way in order to check the average and the maximum RAM that each app can occupy.

However, in order to access the Memory section in Android M what it seems in the recent M Developer Review is that you need to navigate to Systems > Apps and then touch the three-dot menu at the upper right corner after that open Advanced and tap on Memory.

After accessing this and getting inside, users would be getting information about the per-app breakdown of the average and maximum RAM used by each of their apps, both pre-installed (system) and user installed. The dark green shade shows the average reading while the lighter green shade would show the absolute amount of operational memory occupied by the app. Users can even see that the app in question is rarely running or constantly running in the background. Tapping on the app would reveal all of its running process along with the amount of RAM they occupy. The apps that are trivial can be stopped by tapping of the “X” button to the right. The “Force Stop” button will allow you kill all the misbehaving apps.

Thus these changes coming from Android M we surely optimize the RAM usage to a great extent. Check the images below to get the idea.

via: PhoneArena

Android M has got a revamped RAM Manager

Google Photos is the new Google application for managing, sharing and editing your images

Just earlier this week, we saw the screenshots of the newly released Google Photos apps and the various features that it brings to the table. Yesterdays at the Goggle I/O event, search giant Google introduced its new photo application which is aimed to bring all your photos under one roof making it very easy for the users to have a quick access and share. The Google Photos would be serving as a centralized location for all your images and the images you would capture with the camera would be synchronized by this photo application and users would also be able to add images stored on other devices. The images could be uploaded in higher resolution with 16MP per image with no loss in the image quality. Up to these quality settings, users will get an unlimited space for storage. However, you can even upload large size images but this would be at the cost of occupying extra space of your Google Account. The great thing is that you can even upload videos with 1080p resolution.

The app in addition to just sharing your images can also manage them well. In addition to grouping the images with time, date or place, it can even group them when the same people are present in images by identifying the faces. No need of tagging the people, just tapping on the face will allow Google Photos to do the further magic. Additionally, this app can also look after editing of your images like color and light adjustments and others. It also allows users to make collages, animations, movies with sound tracks and many more things. There is a special Assistant feature that provides few suggestions made with the photos and videos like a story based on any recent trip.

However, if you want to keep your images secret in a vault, Google Photos even provide this facility. You can share the images via app to by generating a link to a gallery containing multiple images. The recipients can even add these images to their personal Photos space. Sharing of the images can be as fast as just holding your finger on an image and drag down to move to the sharing options . If you want to try out, this app is currently available for download on the Google Play Store. Check out the video below to get the better idea.

 

source: Google

Google Photos is the new Google application for managing, sharing and editing your images

Here’s everything you need to know about Google’s new smartphone OS Android M

You might be wondering that the Android Lollipop released by Google last year is yet to catch the heat in the market, and it seems to be pretty soon that the Android M has been released. Google has finally made its official by announcing the Android M at the Google I/O Developer conference and it seems that with the new OS, Google would be largely focused on enhancing the user experience of the handset further. Google this time seems to be working a bit more on the code structure of the OS thereby bringing in all the features to its users. So let’s check out what the new OS Android M has to offer.

No more annoying app permissions!

Unlike its previous OS the Android Lollipop, which was a major design overhaul over it’s the then previous one (Android KitKat), Android M is majorly focused on improving the user experience. At the start of the event, Google first declared about the important changes to the app permission that seem to be pretty annoying. The developer preview of Android M, which would be available as Android Lollipop, users can see that they need to respond less often to the app permissions.

This means that suppose you are using WhatsApp and want to send voice message, you just need to grant the permission once, and after which you would never be asked to make use of microphone in apps again. This would apply to all the categories of permissions that have been simplifiedto be more comprehendable for things like “Camera” and “Location”.

However, in case you want to revoke this permission back, you will surely be able to do it through Settings Menu, that allows you to control that whether all the apps or few select only have the access to such permission.

Google Now gets even better

One of the biggest improvements in Android M actually have to do with Google Now — the search giant’s digital assistant. The service is arguably already best-in-class, but thankfully, Google isn’t being complacent.

Google’s digital assistance Android Now is getting an update with its new Os Android M. Even though the service is pretty fine and seamless, Google seems not to have got into complacency and has worked to add new features to the platform. Newly introduced ‘Now on tap’ service will help you understand your context in a much better way than earlier. This will help the Android Now to work even more smartly for e.g. a new message received on Viber that suggests you to go to the restaurant or any such reminder for that sake, will now be followed by Google Now. Just a Home button tap would summon this service which would set a reminder for dry cleaning and would also search for reviews of restaurants and apps that would help you reserve a table in the restaurant.

Such a functionality has been implemented to other platforms as well! For example if you are listening to a music track and you activate the Google Now feature asking for the artist behind the track, Google Now will automatically know whom you are referring to! Another example would be the Google Chrome where if you just highlight the name of the movie star and long-press the Home button to summon Google Now, it would serve all kind of information about him/her.

Android Pay with the native fingerprint scanning support

Well, it seems that Google doesn’t want to be left behind and so to put the competition straight with Samsung Pay and majorly with Apple Pay, Google along with the Android M brings its own wireless payment system called as the Android Pay. The Android Pay will be the extended version of the Google Wallet that would allow for the mobile payments in stores. Android Pay like the Apple Way, is to use the NFC mode with communication to the terminals.

In addition to this, Android M also includes native support for fingerprint scanners, which means that the handset manufacturers no need to make an extra effort to bake a new support. This feature is getting coupled with the Android Pay which is likely to give a boost to the Google’s new mobile payment system.

 ‘Dozing’ a special mode to increase the power efficiency

The battery life for the premium handsets has always been a matter of concern for the users. Manufacturers are constantly working on how to improve the battery life of their devices. The latest Google OS Android M is designed to focus on this aspect and have introduced a special ‘dozing’ mode that would activate various sensors of your device that would determine that you handset is not being used and would enter into the sleep mode. Don’t worry, as even ‘dozing’ being active, it wont stop the notifications and alarms from reaching to your.

With this, Android M would increase the standby time to 2x than that seen on the Android Lollipop. Moreover additional good information is that Google is extending the support for Type C charging ports public.

Direct Share

The gist of the Android experience has always been in easy way of sharing content however this feature needed some serious improvement in case there is a lot many information to be shared or lot many apps. Google seem to have worked on this matter and with its new Android M has also incorporated some smarter suggestions for sharing of content every time. This means that if you share most of the content with a particular friend of yours, Google will put that friend on the first priority as you are likely to share the content in future.

Google is still said to be working on this area and coming out with some very smart idea so that they can be implemented before it is released to its users.

Category wise volume control

One of the other great features of Android M includes the category wise volume control. This means that you can set different volumes for music, alarms, ringtone and similarly to other platforms. This means that there would be a sliding volume bar for all such groups allowing you to set the volume controls as per your need.

Here’s everything you need to know about Google’s new smartphone OS Android M

Android M to focus on better battery life and less RAM usage

This will later, we have the Google I/O event and much talks for the upcoming Android M have already started building up. Well, however, we don’t expect Google to roll-out the update soon but any announcement regarding it would mean a update soon in the coming few months.

Now we have got some fairly reasonable rumors for the upcoming OS. The team at Android Police have shown that Google is focusing much of the “power efficiency” with the upcoming OS. Moreover, the reports show that the company is aimed to reduce the RAM usage during situations like when the screen is turned off or reducing the location checkings.

This reminds of the famous Stamina ode in the Xperia handsets that has managed to successfully reduce the battery life of the handset. It’s just a matter of short time when we would get you with some very official details regarding Android M. Till then stay tuned.

 

Android M to focus on better battery life and less RAM usage

Android M Rumored To Come With Updates and Security Patches For Some Nexus Devices

Android 5.0 is released not long ago and Google is already working on the next version of Android which is Android M. While Android 5.0 comes with some changes on the visual appearance of the user-interface, Android M will be the new cut-off point for the Nexus smartphones. This means that only Nexus devices which are released in a certain year will get the guaranteed update while the Nexus devices which are released before the year will stays at Android 5.0 Lollipop.

Apparently, Google will release Android M together with the launch of new Nexus device. The rule is that Nexus device will get major system updates for two years and security patches for three years from the OS release date.

As we all know, there are a lot of versions of Nexus which was released in different years. Nexus 4, Nexus 10 and Nexus 7 2012 for example, will not get Android M but the devices will get security updates for a little longer. The N7 2012 on the other hand,s at the very end of the rope. N4 and N10 which was released in November 2012 will not get the Android M since it past the two years OS cutoff.

Nexus 4 was released in Fall 2013, therefore the support for N4 will end this fall. Nexus 10 was out in Fall 2014 along with 2013 N7, therefore, it will get security updates until early 2016.  The 2012 N7 came out in summer 2012 but was dropped after a year, therefore it will not get the Android M update, but the security patches will end in this summer. The 2013 N7 will have system updates until this summer with the security patches updates will last until next summer.

It is rumored that Android M will be launched in October this year.

Android M Rumored To Come With Updates and Security Patches For Some Nexus Devices

What’s in store from Google’S Android M?

Google’s annual I/O developer conference is coming soon! This year it is going to be held in San Fransisco’s Moscone Center. There surely be a lot of announcement and showcase of products from Google be it service or product. It is rumored that Google is going to preview a new version of its Android operating system apart from other announcements like Android Wear, Android TV and Android Auto.

This year Google is going to release the next version of Android OS, Android M. Normally Google will name the version according to the candy name in alphabetical order. Android 1.5 was released by the name of Cupcake, while the next few versions comes by the name of Donut, Éclair, Froyo and some other names. The latest Android name version is named Lollipop while the version before this is named KitKat. There are a few speculations on what are the Android M will stands for. It could be Muffin, Marshmallow, Milky Way or maybe M&M.

Android M is seen as an enhancement from the existing features rather than revamping the whole Android system. The look and feel of the user interface will not be changed but expect more flat icons, shadows under objects and sliding transitions. On top of that, there will be a new feature that we know a little about it currently which is called Nearby. With this new feature, it will simplify the discovery and communication with other Android users. Moreover, the UI’s notifications and volume control system will also going through some changes.

Well, we are going to know more about it after the conference! Stay tune to find out!

What’s in store from Google’S Android M?

Android M is likely to arrive with finger-print authentication

This week ahead everyone must be eyeing for the Google I/O event, which is kick off on May 28^th, as to what does Google have this time to offer! The one of the most expected announcements is the new OS Android M. Google has earlier mentioned this new OS as “the power of Android to all kinds of workplaces.” Here is a new info which has arrived for this next Android OS.

BuzzFeed and Ars Technica have came with a report that Android M will feature the native fingerprint authentication. Now many of the Android flagship devices from different companies usually come with a fingerprint scanner and the software for this recognition is being developed by the handset makers themselves. Now with Android baking this recognition feature in the OS itself, it would be easy for manufacturers to just add the hardware for the fingerprint scanners to their devices.

We think that the first glimpses of Google’s Android M integration of fingerprint scanner would arrive with the next Google Nexus handset that is likely to come in the second half of the year.

We wonder what new sweet name is the new Android M to get. Well, things will be clear by the end of this week.

sources: BuzzFeed, Ars Technica

Android M is likely to arrive with finger-print authentication

Android M integrating Google services to the cars

Although Android 5.0 Lollipop is a dream of majority smartphone owners, rumors of next-in-line Android M are out. Google is now heading towards automotive dashboards with the objective of injecting Android directly into cars. It will be devoid of smartphones as well as dated proprietary interfaces on blurry displays.

Android M might be the next step after Android Auto which is scheduled to come next year.Currently,Android Auto is far from a seamless solution, since it requires pairing a tablet or smartphone to a compatible car with a built-in screen.

Reuters reported that Google’s digital car engine will be the new functionality added to Android M. This gives rise to new questions on Android. And is the iOS vs Android fight about to reach the motor segment as well? Apple is also working on CarPlay for a while, obviously with no less determinations.

Google has already inked contracts with automobiles giants General Motors, Nissan and Hyundai making more manufacturers believe in Android Auto 2. Moreover, Google has to make sure that the booting should be done instantly as users turn the car on. Also we can expect car makers will come with their own Android car interfaces to differentiate their operating systems somehow.

Functionally, Android M will integrate Google services with the car’s sensors, fuel gauge, camera, and internet connection, opening up all sorts of interesting possibilities. The smart service will make driving easier — like providing list of immediate gas stations directions once gas level reaches a certain threshold level.

The resources offered by the car ecosystem might be advantageous for Google’s advertising business. “You can get access to GPS location, where you travel, where you stop, everyday, your speed, your fuel level, where you stop for gas,” one of the sources said.

 

Android M integrating Google services to the cars