Author: Kaluka wanjala

WhatsApp has been evolving and still is with some major changes expected this year. Some of the changes affect the key components of the app but others will not affect how we use the app in any way. We will notice some of these changes but there are some that will be added without us realizing. Name Change Some adjustments are expected in the name but nothing serious that will leave the app unrecognizable. According to Blomberg, the messaging service will be adding “From Facebook” to its name to become, WhatsApp From Facebook. At a time when most apps are…

Earlier today, Xiaomi announced the Inter-Transfer Alliance group through which it has joined forces with Oppo and Vivo to launch an AirDrop-like service for Android. This is a peer-to-peer file transfer service that uses Bluetooth and will support multiple file formats. This platform is still in open beta and when rolled out, it will make it easier for users of different smartphones from different manufacturers to share photos and documents with each other. According to Xiaomi, this protocol can deliver transfer speeds of up to 20MB/s. No third-party app will be required to achieve this and the speeds are impressive.…

We have decided to start a new series that recaps the top stories of the week here on TechArena. I will be highlighting the top 5 popular stories for that week or just stories that you should know about. Let’s get to the top stories for this week. Vivo Y15 Goes on Sale in Kenya Earlier this week, Vivo announced that its phones are officially available in Kenya. The first phone the company has is the Vivo Y15 that is available in the country for Ksh 22,000. This is not cheap and puts it in direct competition with the Samsung…

SWVL is one of the two main app-based mass transit services in Nairobi. The other one is Little Shuttle which falls under Little, the taxi-hailing service. With both services, you can book a scheduled shuttle in Nairobi and its immediate environs. The one big drawback with either of the two services is that they charge the same amount for all passengers. This is not really fair for those who may alight before getting to the shuttle’s final destination, they are still required to pay the same amount as those going all the way to the end. SWVL is exploring ways…

The smartwatch market has been growing steadily for the last two years or so. With this growth, we expect to see more options available as more players will want a slice of this pie. Oppo is one company that is set to join the smartwatch market. The company has plans to unveil its first smartwatch sometime next year. This was confirmed by one of its executives, Shen Yiren, who shared the news on Chinese social platform, Weibo. This will be Oppo’s first smartwatch that will definitely be a much-needed addition to the market. Yiren did not share details of what…

Launched about a week ago, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and the Galaxy Note 10+ are the latest flagship devices from the Korean manufacturer. The phones were announced at an event in New York and will be making their way to Kenya soon. With almost every smartphone these days, you have the chance to pre-order and be among the first people to own it when it is unveiled in the country. The Galaxy Note 10 series is not any different and you can pre-order it right now in Kenya from a number of Samsung partner stores across the country. At…

You may not have heard about it yet but KaiOS is one of the new operating systems for smart feature phones. It’s not really an Android competitor and you should not be comparing the two at this point, let’s see how it grows before we start the comparisons. Since this OS is made for feature phones, it is pretty basic but has a target market. The feature phone market is massive especially in developing countries such as Kenya. Not everyone can afford a smartphone and even though their prices have been coming down, not everyone is able to get one…

When HMD Global introduced the Android-powered Nokia smartphones, the company promised at least 2 years of monthly security updates (3 years for Android One devices). These are the monthly updates released by Google and help keep your device up to date and secure. Even though monthly security updates are necessary, not every Android smartphone manufacturer pushes out the updates to their device. HMD is one of the few companies that has been pushing the updates to its devices, even the entry-level ones. This meant that it does not matter which device you can afford, you stand to get the update…

The smartwatch market did not pick up as most people had expected it to. A few millions of them are sold every year but the number is not that high as we had expected. One reason may be that they are expensive for most people or the fact that people do not see the reason of owning one. Whatever the reason is, it looks like the slow growth period is over and things are changing for the better. The smartwatch market is growing at a steady pace and according to the research firm, Strategy Analytics, over 12 million units were…

Dark Mode is the new wave and we are seeing developers implementing it on most of their apps. Some of the top developers including Google and Facebook have added a Dark Mode option on most of their applications. Google has plans to include a system-wide dark mode feature on the next version of Android, Android Q, that will be unveiled very soon. Facebook has already rolled out Dark Mode for its messenger app, the company did so back in March but surprisingly it did not roll out the same to its official app for Android. This will be changing soon…