Time to send the home button home?

The mobile industry is not exactly known for the longevity of its design elements. After all, new developments and innovations are popping up all the time, making things bigger, faster, smaller, thinner, or whatever happens to be desired by that particular element.Then there’s the home button on iPhones. This represents quite possibly the oldest, most persistent design element in mobile. It’s the grandfather of smartphone controls. While others have tried physical buttons, capacitive buttons, soft keys, you name it, the home button persists. I have to wonder if maybe it’s time to put ...

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iPhone 6s DSLR-like camera, Nokia N1, Google Nexus 6 comments & more – Pocketnow Daily Recap

Pocketnow Daily gets an average of 300 to 500 comments a day, and sometimes even a thousand. We’d like to thank you all for participating in our question of the day, and we love your feedback so much, that we decided that since we can’t respond to ever single one of your comments, we should at least feature a couple in a weekly video.This is the Pocketnow Daily Recap. Since we only have 3 minutes on every Daily video to go through the hottest news, the weekly recap will serve as a more extensive discussion where we also include your thoughts on the subject. Sadly, for the sake of time, ...

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TLDR: I’m not impressed by material design

Sorry Matias Duarte. I’m not buying it. I know you came on stage months ago and all the geeks got all googley like preteens at a One Direction meet and greet, but what really did you bring to the table? It’s just a new UI for cripes sake. I’m just not buying material design.I don’t know. I guess it’s pretty. But Duarte went out of his way to show how everything was layered in material design. My first instinct then is still my reaction today – didn’t we want everything flat just a couple of years ago? Didn’t we criticize this UI and that UI for having layers and drop ...

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Octagonal Androids, luxury smartwatches and SO MUCH MAIL | Pocketnow Weekly 124 (Hangout)

Updated with the HQ audio version of the podcast (download and streaming links) as well as timecodes so you can navigate the whirlwind that is our podcast with ease. As always, thanks for listening, and see you next week!An octagonal Android smartphone, a lawsuit over the term “Milk,” and a phone camera that flips up like a deranged pancake. Oh, and luxury smartwatches. (Luxury smartwatch faces, anyway. Illegal ones. Or something.) Companies have waited until the end of the year to spring all the nonsense on us, it seems – and we’re lapping it up like the grateful tech ...

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Should you use antivirus software on your Android?

A while back, Jesper Jensen from Denmark wrote in to the Pocketnow Weekly Podcast with a question about antivirus software for Android, specifically, whether or not he needs it on his new Xperia Z3 Compact.I have just received my Sony Xperia Z3 Compact and I am infatuated with this little beauty. Coming from a Nokia Lumia 620 it is quite a leap ahead, though I do find I miss a few things about Windows phone. One of the things I didn’t miss about Android is the … more or less useful (apps that come pre-installed from Sony, such as) ...

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Apple Watch functions, Nexus 9 changes, LG results & more – Pocketnow Daily

Watch today’s Pocketnow Daily as we talk about LG’s recent executive changes, in addition to its current results. Then we talk about some of the recent possitive changes that the FCC will implement for mobile devices in the US. Google follows with the launch of the Nexus 6 Stand Folio Case for the Nexus 6. HTC then shows us that it can amend its mistakes with the Nexus 9. We end today’s show talking about the Apple Watch, and the new changes Cupertino has brought to the website.All this and more after the break.Stories:–

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LG G3 oversharpening fix arrives with a few kernel tweaks

This is just great: far too often we find ourselves reporting on issues with popular smartphones, only to see time go by without any fixes materializing. And after sharing news with you back in July about how the LG G3 was using a contrast-enhancing software filter to make on-screen text annoyingly “pop,” we went months without any sign of salvation. LG still may not be willing to do anything about the oversharpening, but the independent dev community has finally arrived with a fix, offering the solution ...

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LG G Flex 2 could be just over a month away

It’s been over a year now since LG introduced its curved-screen G Flex Android, and while it certainly wasn’t a phone for everyone, we found ourselves quite taken with it. In the months since we’ve been on the lookout for information about a possible second-generation effort, and while some rumors suggested the phone wouldn’t launch until February 2015, others claimed that

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Giant 12.2-inch iPad schematic, hardware details leak

Not too long ago we were talking about rumors of a 12.9-inch iPad, something that (whether rightfully or not) managed to pick up the name “iPad Pro” along the way. But then a few weeks back we heard some slightly different details, like how this could be a 12.2-incher, instead. Today the changes keep coming, as not only do we get to take a peek at a possible leaked schematic for the tablet, but hear a new name and check out some ...

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Black Friday deals: Save 10 percent on everything when you use code HAPPYBF10

It’s Black Friday at the Pocketnow Deals Store. Save 10% off everything in the entire store when you use the coupon code HAPPYBF10 at check out.  Save big on cool products like the Limefuel, VPN Premium Unlimited Plan, and the DGI Phantom FC40 quad-copter.Limefuel LP200XNever run on a low battery again with the Limefuel LP200X 20,000mAh dual USB battery pack. Charge your devices on the go in no time and save power to spare, just $34.99 with free US shipping (international ...

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Cyanogen blindsides OnePlus with side deal: no CM support for One in India

You ever get the feeling that OnePlus can’t catch a break? Despite the strong reception its One handset has found, a storm cloud of issues has followed the phone since its release, with complicated invites or pre-order-based sales leading the charge. This past week, though, things had been looking up. We just told you about this great Black Friday sales opportunity, and a few days back got word that OnePlus had recruited ...

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Samsung Galaxy A7 shows signs of life

A few months back we first started hearing about Samsung’s Galaxy A-series of smartphones, models that would build off the design of the Galaxy Alpha while offering some new hardware configurations. It looked like we’d see three such handsets arrive, the Galaxy A3, A5, and A7, but when Samsung finally got around to launching them right at the end of October, only the A3 and the A5 made the docket. Where was the ...

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Smartphones to start losing their label overload

FCC ID. Lead-free construction. Place of assembly. Do not dispose in the trash. Our mobile devices are positively littered with all sorts of messages, icons, warnings, and advisories. Manufacturers often do what they can to hide them away, tucking all this mandated gobbledygook away under battery covers or SIM trays, but there’s only so much they can do. Do we really need all these symbols and text marring our phones’ otherwise quite attractive rear panels? As it turns out, maybe we don’t, and ...

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HTC appears to have fixed the Nexus 9’s awful hardware buttons

There’s a lot to like about the HTC Nexus 9, from its stock Android software experience, to its high-end silicon, but one thing that’s managed to put a damper on the tablet’s reception has been its questionable build quality. That include issues with things like a loose, flexible back panel, light bleed around the LCD, and hardware power and volume buttons so low-profile that finding and pushing them can be a chore. But if you’ve yet to pick up a Nexus 9, there could be better news ...

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Rumored Samsung management changes driving internal unrest

Samsung’s selling a boatload of smartphones – that much, nobody’s debating – but is it selling as many as it could be? Or better yet, as many as it should be, given its resources and brand history? The numbers suggest “maybe not,” and that Samsung needs some new strategies if it wants to stay competitive in a market where resting on your laurels isn’t an option. Earlier this week we looked at rumors that Samsung’s response to this slump could include some

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