News: Android 5.0 Lollipop Being Rolled Out to Nexus Devices

Source: Android Central, Gizmodo

Google's latest Android Operating System was announced at Google I/O in June 2014 under the codename of "Android L." In mid-October 2014, Google said that updates for the Nexus 4, Nexus 5, and 7 (both 2012 and 2013), and Nexus 10 would be available in the coming weeks. Early in November 2014, Google announced that the first devices with the latest Android revision would be the Nexus 6, Nexus 9, and Nexus Player. Reports have been coming in of older Nexus devices receiving the Lollipop update, though our Nexus 7 (2013) still have not seen anything yet. Comment below if you have received the 5.0 Lollipop update goodness!

Review: Pebble Smart Watch

Buy Pebble Smartwatch at Amazon

I really should have done this review a long time ago, but today's review is on the Pebble Smartwatch. The Pebble Smartwatch is one of the most well-known Kickstarter campaign success stories which met it's $100,000 goal within 2 hours. There was (and still is) a high demand for smart watches.

What's unique about this little smart watch is it's e-ink display which requires less power to run than a smart watch with a full color LCD display. The battery's life is advertised to last for "7+ days." When it first came out, it retailed for $249, but as of the time of the review is now $99. Let's take a look at what this little smart watch has to offer.

Features and Specs
Before we get down to the nitty-gritty, let's take a look at the features and specs of the pebble watch.

• Screen - 1.26" e-Ink display at 144 x 168 px
• Other Hardware: backlight, accelerometer, magnetometer, ambient light sensors, and vibrating motor for feed back and notifications.
• Pebble SDK for third party apps and clock faces
• Water resistant

Software

Pebble connects with both Apple and Android phones (sorry Windows) with a corresponding Pebble app. For this review, we'll be using the iOS app for iPhone. This is where you manage everything with your pebble from notifications, clock faces and apps. Actually the software is extremely intuitive, easy to use, and looks really nice.

Once you've paired Pebble with your phone, you're all set up to receive notifications from SMS, e-mail, and phone calls. The watch does not have a speaker, but you're able to accept and deny calls quickly, something I didn't realize would be as handy as it actually is.

With advanced notifications, you can setup any app that does notifications to show up on your watch. You have to have a second bluetooth connection (which get's setup automatically from the app) which requires the App to be open to use. I found this to be hit or miss with connections dropping occasionally on the advanced notifications, not to mention that I would inadvertently close the app when I am closing all my apps or restarting my phone.

Sometimes I'm surprised at what actually shows up, for instance, the Amazon iPhone app sends a notification when a package has been delivered and shows up on my watch. Pretty cool.

The software updates are handled through the app which will automatically check and update your phones software. The process is pretty painless.

Pebble Store

One of the big selling points is third party apps and custom watch faces. There are eight storage slots which can be filled with watch faces and/or apps. As far as I could tell, all apps and watch faces are free. I did notice that there were come direct links to PayPal to essentially tip the developer.

There are a lot of third party app options including fitness trackers, games, remotes, notes, stocks, store gift cards with QR, scores, news, and more. Though I found that really any of the useful apps would require a companion app on the phone which is kind of inconvenient, but it's understandable given the Pebble's limitations, especially for fitness tracking.

Selecting new watch faces is half the fun of the Pebble. There are thousands of watch faces to choose from. Some of them also show weather, date, and other useful (or not) information. I found that some watch faces drain the battery much quicker than other apps, especially the ones with animations or changes every second. The way e-Ink works is that when the screen is idle, there is minimal power draw and en the screen transitions is where most of the power draw occurs. If you want longer lasting charges, opt for the ones that change on the minute.

Day-to-Day Use

The Pebble has been an overall very positive experience. I love the customizations to make it feel more personal. I have found the seven day charge to be mostly true (depending on your watch face) and that charging once a week to not be that big of a deal. It would be cool if we could eventually hit the one month mark with it, though batteries still have a ways to go still for that to happen.

The notifications are extremely handy. Yes, you could read all of these on your phone, but there are situations where it is nice to just take a quick glance at your watch to decide if it's urgent enough to deal with from the phone. Again, it falls into the #FWP category, but I found it to be less rude checking the notification on my watch than it would be to pull my phone out of my pocket in a meeting at work.

Really, the Pebble is a great value, especially now at $99 at the time of this writing. It's simple, it's fun to use, easy to see, and useful.

Poll: What kind of phone are you currently using?

I noticed today that I few people I work with were still using flip phones are did not have smartphones. The latest poll is to see the spread of the different types of phones used by my readers.

Which type of phone do you have?

Android

iPhone

Windows

Blackberry

Amazon

Non-Smart Phone

Other

Please Specify:

Poll Maker

Discussion: Apple Watch

Source: Apple, GSM Arena

Let's face it, the Apple Watch has been a long time coming. It's been one of the longest rumored devices by Apple that I can remember, second to the iPhone. So what's all the fuss about with this new wearable by Apple.

The Apple Watch was September 9, 2014 with a "Spring 2015" release date, which some rumors of that being around Valentine's Day 2015 with a starting price point of $349. Apple Watch comes equipped with an Apple made S1 processor.

Looks and Variations

It will come in two sizes: 38mm and 42mm. There are also six varieties including: silver aluminum, space grey aluminum, stainless steel, space grey stainless steel, 18K yellow gold, and 18k rose gold. There are also six types of watch straps. There are technically three separate Apple Watches: Sport, Apple Watch, and Apple Watch Edition.

Technical Specs
There are still some unknowns at this point since the device is not yet available, but here's what we do know:

• Processor - Apple S1
• RAM - 512MB
• Storage Capacity - 4GB
• Battery Capacity - Unknown
• Battery Life - Unknown (Though it's been heard that a daily charge will be required.)
• Resolution - 38mm @ 340 x 272 px and 42mm @ 390 x 312 px
• Sapphire-Crystal Display
• Mag-Safe Charging
• Compatible with iPhone 5, 5c, 5s, 6, and 6+

Features

The Apple Watch comes equipped with a variation of iOS software that works closely with your iPhone. Here's a list of features from Apple's website:

• Messages
• Phone
• Mail
• Sketch
• Walkie-Talkie
• Tap
• Heartbeat
• Fitness
• Apple Pay
• Calendar
• Maps
• Passbook
• Music
• Apple TV Remote
• Remote Camera
• Timer
• Stopwatch
• Alarms
• Stock
• Weather
• Photos
• Siri
• Glances
• Actionable Notifications
• Third-Party Webkit Apps (The SDK was released 11/17/14)

Thoughts

The truth is, Apple is entering a market that is already starting to crowd, with devices already available from Samsung, Microsoft,  Asus, LG, Sony, and Motorola. These other smart watches are typically $250 or less while Apple's comes out on top of the heap, starting at $349. They have been in this situation before with the iPhone however and we all know how that played out. 

There's a couple of concerns that I keep coming back to: battery life and water resistance. A daily charge for your phone is one thing since you don't actually wear it, but a watch on the other hand (no pun intended), is typically something you put on and forget it's there type of device. Also, if you're charging it overnight, it's kinda hard to do sleep metrics which I think Apple may have missed the boat on.

Then the issue of water resistance, it's likely that you'd have to take it off before baths, showers, and swimming. Again, the inconvenience is pretty high, you could be taking your watch on and off twice a day, potentially. In a first world problem sort of way, you should not need to be taking your watch off that frequently.

Will I buy one? The answer is yes, but that's probably the engineer in me wanting to get my hands on first article builds more than anything. What Apple did right for sure is playing the fashion side of it. A watch is supposed to look good, something Apple excels at and the competition seemed to not focus on as much (I'm looking at you Samsung). I have not seen one in person, yet, but from what I've seen it's a remarkable looking device.

The jury is still out there for me on the Apple Watch. On one hand, you have cutting edge technology, style, 3rd party apps, Apple Pay, and usability. On the other hand, you have a high entry point ($349 is up there), battery life, and possible lack of water resistance. I personally cannot wait to try one.

Stay posted for a full review when they come out.

News: iOS 8.1.1 OTA Download Available

Just checked my iPhone today and noticed an update to iOS to version 8.1.1. Release notes show improvements for iPhone 4s and iPad 2 performance and stability.

This release includes bug fixes, increased stability and performance improvements for iPad 2 and iPhone 4s.

 To update, go to Settings > General > Software Update to check.