Author: Alvin Wanjala

Apple announced its list of the best apps of 2019 across its platforms recently, and Google has also followed suit. The company revealed the best apps in different categories, including the game of the year, eBooks, best-selling movies, and TV Shows, among others. Unlike Apple, Google only picks the best app and game of the year, then leaves the rest for users to pick. For Google’s Editorial picks, Ablo emerged as the best app of the year while Call of Duty: Mobile was picked as the game of the year. So the rest of the titles are actually based on…

Huawei has had a rough time this year ever since the US trade ban kicked in. The company was forced to stand alone without its long-term partners from the US. The ban was significant, and to some, this meant that the company wouldn’t be able to produce any devices at all. But that has not been the case. According to an analysis by UBS and Japanese technology lab Fomalhaut Techno Solutions, the company managed to make the Huawei Mate 30 with no parts from any US-based company. Huawei resolved some of its in-house components and outsourced what they do not…

Google Photos is a one-stop photo cloud storage service that most people rely on these days. Especially if you use Android – which accounts for most of the smartphones out there – there is a high chance you rely on Google’s free photo storage service. The platform is great, but it has long had an issue while sharing images with others. For long, to share images, one had to create a shared album or library. The easier option was to share images via a private link. This is still not intuitive and Google thinks they can do better. Google has…

Apple might be launching iPhones twice a year in the future. This is according to a report from CNBC that details the company might change its launch strategy by 2021 according to a J.P Morgan analyst who has cited supply chain checks. According to the analyst, a strategic change in the launch cycle is expected to happen, whereby the company will be announcing two iPhones in the first half of the year and two other new iPhones in the second half of the year. The new launch cycle will reportedly give the company more flexibility to how it develops its…

Samsung’s custom skin One UI is now easier to customize than before, thanks to the new Good Lock module. On top of Samsung’s Good Lock, which lets you customize various aspects of your phone skin, the company has brought a new module dubbed Theme Park that allows you to theme your UI by creating custom themes. The new module lets you create a custom theme solely based on your wallpaper. That makes it pretty simple to use. Tap on the Design new theme button, and the module will pick primary colors in your current wallpapers. After that, you are given…

2019 is coming to an end and Apple’s recent event, as expected, was not just about the announcement of new hardware. Instead, it was about shedding some light on the year’s most stand out apps across various platforms including iOS, macOS, and tvOS. Here is the list of the top apps on various categories and platforms; iPhone App of the Year: Spectre Camera by Lux OpticsiPad App of the Year: Flow by Moleskine by MoleskineMac App of the Year: Affinity Publisher by Serif LabsApple TV App of the Year: The Explorers by The Explorers NetworkiPhone Game of the Year: “Sky: Children of the Light” by…

When it comes to sales figures; Xiaomi is killing it. The company has stated that it has already shipped 10 million units of the Redmi Note 8 series phones in just three months. Xiaomi launched the Redmi Note 8 series in August with almost immediate availability in some markets like China. The Redmi Note 8 series succeeded the Redmi Note 7 series which performed well in the market as well. But compared to the Redmi Note 7 series sales, the new milestone is impressive. In comparison, Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 7 series hit the 10 million unit’s milestone after 129 days.…

Facebook has today launched a photo portability tool that will enable its users to share images directly to Google’s photo storage service – Google Photos. The new tool relies on an encrypted transfer protocol that ensures the media files are shared securely between the two services, according to the company. The service is currently only available in Ireland, home to Facebook’s international HQ. As per now, the service is under testing but the company says it will be launching the tool globally by the first half of 2020. Facebook’s new tool is said to be created based on the code…

Unlike Nokia and Google’s own Pixel devices and some few manufacturers, Android updates are still an issue to many Android OEMs. Samsung performs reasonably, but given that the company is the number one smartphone vendor around the world, we expect more from them. Months after Android 10 was officially unveiled, Samsung has detailed its update timelines. And what’s even surprising is that the update timeline is not Samsung’s official announcement, rather its just a leak from one of their websites in Israel. Which means the update roadmap may differ in other markets. An example is India, where the company has…

Google Photos has long been able to automatically tag faces when it identifies them. However, this feature was not perfect since the app itself is not able to recognize faces at times, and you were not able to correct any tags. But according to the latest update, Photos is finally rolling out manual tagging to help combat the issue. Although the feature makes it possible to tag faces by yourself, there is a caveat around this; Google Photos will first have to identify that the image contains photos for you to tag them. If Google can’t find any faces, then…