Hey folks! This is Will, reporting live from the Edinburgh Fringe. If you're here, I highly recommend a show called John Robertson's The Dark Room - essentially a live action video game, based on text adventures you might remember from the 80s. Now, onto the news - including Samsung's three big announcements, iPhone 6C rumours and more!
Samsung announce Galaxy S6 Edge Plus, Note 5
Samsung announced two big new smartphones as expected this week. The Galaxy S6 Edge Plus and Note 5 share almost everything - a 5.7-inch 1440p display, an octa-core Exynos processor, 32 or 64GB of storage, 4GB of RAM and Android 5.1.1. The phones can also stream directly to YouTube, which is pretty cool. The big difference is that the Note 5 has a (clickable) stylus and the Edge Plus has a curved display. The Plus is the only one to see a UK release, with the Note 5 shipping in the US, South Korea and not many other places.
Samsung launch Samsung Pay this month
Samsung Pay, the Korean firm's mobile payments service, launches this month. The service works like Apple Pay with contactless cards over NFC, but can also emulate a magnetic stripe to work with the millions of stripe card readers used across the world. This unique capability could give Samsung an edge against its more established opponents, which are still only supported in a small fraction of businesses.
Samsung tease Gear S2 smartwatch
In the closing moments of Samsung's press event, they showed a few brief shots of their upcoming smartwatch, the Gear S2. The photos showed a circular display and a new UI. The watch will be announced on September 3rd in Berlin, and will likely run Samsung's Tizen OS.
Motorola accidentally reveal 2nd-gen Moto 360
The Motorola Moto 360 remains one of the best Android smartwatches, with a stylish circular design that has found a lot of fans. This week Motorola appears to have accidentally leaked its successor, the Moto 360 2, in a video. The watch pictured has a crown higher on the right hand side, with lugs top and bottom. The "flat tire", the small missing section from the bottom of the circular display, remains intact.
Fallout Shelter ported to Android
Fallout Shelter, a mobile game created to promote Bethesda's Fallout 4 game for consoles and PC, has been released on Android two months after its iOS debut. The game has you running a post-apocalyptic underground shelter called a vault, constructing rooms, collecting resources and exploring the wasteland. It's quite entertaining and free of the usual mobile annoyances (timers, connectivity requirements) so give it a go.
iPhone 6C rumoured for September
Prominent leaker @evleaks has suggested that the iPhone 6C is being prepared for a September launch alongside the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. The phone would come with a metal body and be as powerful as its brothers, a big change from the underpowered, plastic construction of the 5C. The phone would be announced at an Apple event on September 9th.
Google Play Services ported to Windows 10 mobile
One of the coolest parts of Windows 10 mobile is that both iOS and Android apps will one day run on the system. Some enterprising developers have already made significant progress ahead of Microsoft's efforts: they've essentially ported Google Play Services, the framework of many official Android apps, to Windows 10 mobile. It even installs the Play Store, allowing you to download and install other Android apps. With more development, running Android apps on Windows 10 mobile should become very easy indeed.
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