Articles about Android

It has been a while since Twitter was treated to a new lick of paint, but that all changes today. A new look is rolling out, and "round" is the word that springs most readily to mind.

Think back to the look of the web around 15 years ago -- all rounded corners and the like -- and you're in the right ballpark. Online there are not only rounded buttons and round profile pictures, but also redesigned, wireframe icons. Mobile users are also treated to a new look.

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Developers building enterprise apps for Android and iOS can now embed BlackBerry's messaging system with ease, the company has announced.

The Canadian firm has released an SDK for its famous BBM app, which it hopes can bring secure communications services for users around the world.

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If you look at the flagships the media loves to talk about, you may be inclined to believe that the Pixel and Pixel XL are two of the most popular high-end smartphones today. It is easy to think that when you have so many major outlets comparing them to the Apple iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus and the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ like they're in the same league somehow or as attractive to consumers.

In reality though, Pixel and Pixel XL sales are abysmal. How do we know that? Well, for one, you do not see Google showing up as a leading vendor in any of the quarterly reports issued by IDC and Gartner, and, second, Google itself has confirmed their niche appeal. This is another great example why you shouldn't put an equals sign between mindshare and market share -- especially when it comes to Google-branded devices.

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Google has launched a new scheme which sees the company highlighting the very best games and apps to be found in Google Play. This is not simply a list of the most downloaded or, necessarily, the most highly rated titles; Google has a new batch of criteria by which to judge developers' offerings.

The real aim is to heap praise on those apps and games which exude quality, and deliver the best user experiences. Google says that titles which "use many of our best practices, and have great design, technical performance, localization, and device optimization" will also feature in the regularly-updated list.

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Emoji offer a great way to spice up your chats, and the Android version of Gboard has been updated to make it easier to find the perfect ones. The update means you can now use the emoji search box to draw the sort of emoji you're looking for, and Google's keyboard will track down what it thinks you mean.

Google uses machine learning to interpret even the most primitive of squiggles, so now there's no need to think about how you would describe a particular emoji in order to perform a text-based search for it -- just draw what you want! But there's more.

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Nearly a year after unveiling the Moto E3, today Lenovo officially announces its successor. It's called the Moto E4 and it is offered in two versions, with some major differences between them.

There's the base Moto E, which comes with a 5-inch screen and a 2,800mAh battery, and the larger 5.5-inch Moto E Plus, which features a 5.5-inch display and a massive 5,000mAh battery.

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It’s been known for a long time that using dark wallpaper on devices with AMOLED screens can save energy and extend battery life. Exactly how much you’ll save depends on the wallpaper, your device and how it’s used, but typical figures are 5 to 15 percent.

AMOLED mnml Wallpapers is a straightforward ad-free Android app which provides a host of minimalist wallpapers to explore.

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On the tenth anniversary of the arrival of reCAPTCHA, Google announces the first reCAPTCHA Android API as part of Google Play Services. The API makes it easier for reCAPTCHA to differentiate between humans and bots.

Just as reCAPTCHA has evolved over the years into Invisible reCAPTCHA, the aim with reCAPTCHA Android API is to cut down on spam and abuse in as unintrusive a way as possible.

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BlackBerry has endured a checkered last few years, as the company dialed down its original smartphone offerings to focus more on software and security offerings. However, the former smartphone icon has recently returned to the mobile market after signing a number of partnership deals to get the BlackBerry name back out there.

The BlackBerry KEYone is the latest product of this, as the company once again joins forces with Chinese firm TCL to reveal a new business-focused smartphone.

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Researchers at Kaspersky Lab have released details of a new trojan being distributed via the Google Play store that is able to inject malicious code into the system runtime libraries.

Named Dvmap, the trojan is believed to have been downloaded from Google Play more than 50,000 times since March this year.

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We're now only a couple of weeks away from the launch of the OnePlus 5, but concrete details about the smartphone are still a little thin on the ground. And "thin" is an important word -- OnePlus CEO Pete Lau has said that the OnePlus 5 will be the thinnest flagship phone.

Ahead of the launch, and after sharing samples of photographs taken with the smartphone, the company has finally shared an image of the OnePlus 5. The picture shows that the handset is indeed thin, and confirms that there is a dual camera setup.

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The launch date for the OnePlus 5 has officially been announced. The big day is June 20, and the latest flagship will be revealed online after an exciting teaser campaign, but there are also 10 pop-up events taking place around the world.

This time around, OnePlus is referring to its upcoming smartphone as "our next flagship phone," with no reference to it being a "flagship killer" as has been the case in the past. While details keep trickling out about the OnePlus 5, in announcing the launch date, OnePlus is giving little more away other than suggesting the importance of the camera by saying: "Focus on what matters."

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After selfie taking, the act of face swapping is an incredibly common use for smartphones. iPhone users have a plethora of tools to choose from -- as, indeed, do those who prefer Android devices, and Microsoft has decided to get in on the action with the appropriately-named Face Swap app for Android.

The free app does very much what you would expect -- combining the joy of selfies with the fun of face swapping. Snap a selfie and you can then swap faces from another photo -- it's a simple idea, and Microsoft has put its own twist on it by integrating Bing Image search.

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For a newcomer, it is reassuring to know that HMD Global cares about software updates. The company has announced that the Nokia 6, Nokia 5, and Nokia 3, which were unveiled earlier this year, will all receive an update to Android O.

HMD Global has not provided an estimate as to how long it will take for the Android O update to be available for the Nokia 6, Nokia 5, and Nokia 3 but, in the past, large manufacturers have needed a few good months to push out such major software releases.

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AUTOSET is an interesting $2 app which enables altering your Android device settings when you run an app, when an event happens, on a particular schedule, and more. This opens up all kinds of possibilities. Choose a navigation app in AUTOSET’s list, for instance, and you could increase the screen brightness and media volume.

You could use Wi-Fi more selectively by configuring your device to turn it on when you run YouTube and similar apps, and turn it off when they close.

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