Something much more ambitious than Google Voice is coming.
Pretty soon you’ll be able to buy a Nexus smartphone that works with Google’s own wireless network. The company is close to offering its own mobile phone plans directly to customers, a move that would allow Google to control the entire phone experience from top to bottom.
Amazon has pulled the plug on its Apple Pay rival. Photo: Apple
Amazon jumped into the mobile payments market a few months before Apple Pay launched, but the company is already pulling the plug on its first mobile wallet solution: Amazon Wallet.
Emails were sent out to customers this week from Amazon, alerting them that the service would be shutting down soon. The service was still in beta but it came preinstalled on the Amazon Fire Phone. The move comes just six months after Amazon Wallet made its debut.
Going, going, gone! Photo: Google
If you’re looking for something to do with today’s public holiday, here’s an idea: why not seize the opportunity to buy a Google Glass headset, knowing that this could be your last chance to ever do so?
That’s right — from tomorrow, Google’s $1,500 Glass Explorer augmented reality goggles will no longer be available through Google’s Play Store. Headsets will continue to work, although users shouldn’t expect any official software updates for them.
Say goodbye to the swipe. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Android
Samsung’s fingerprint scanners could be some of the worst available in today’s mobile devices; they’re so unreliable that most people don’t even bother with them. But sources familiar with the company’s plans say it is working to change that for the upcoming Galaxy S6.
How? By copying Apple, of course.
A younger Jony Ive, pre-Apple. One former colleague once told me he looked like “a hairbrush.”
It’s not exactly news that Samsung would like be a whole lot more like Apple. And when you compare the sales figures from Samsung’s ailing mobile division to Apple’s thriving iPhone numbers, who can blame it?
But while the South Korea-based tech giant isn’t going to be able to steal away any of the design brains behind Apple’s must-have devices any time soon, it’s trying to do the next best thing: hiring a former boss from the company Jony Ive helped start before he set sale for Apple in the 1990s.
