Author: Clinton

Microsoft has officially – and finally – released an official Xbox app for Android.  The new app, which is more-or-less a replacement for the current Smartglass app (which you can still use), brings you an all new Home experience with an activity feed, see trending content, find friends and other Xbox centric activities all from your phone or tablet.  For those of us who have the console, this new app is very much a welcome addition and shows, again, Microsoft’s commitment to their “mobile first” strategy by offering apps on both Android and iOS in addition to their own beleaguered Windows Phone platform.  Up until this point, you could only get the app for Windows Phone.

Samsung has announced that starting this coming Thursday, June 16th, customers will be able to use Samsung Pay at a wide range of merchants throughout the country.  The announcement means that the contactless payment option from Samsung is now accepted in an ever increasing number of countries as phone-based, contactless purchases continue to gain momentum.

“Since the introduction of Samsung Pay last year, we have seen great momentum and experienced significant consumer adoption. Samsung Pay has redefined the way consumers pay and use their smartphones,” said Thomas Ko, Vice President and Global Co-General Manager of Samsung Pay at Samsung Electronics. “We are excited to bring this service to Singapore consumers and we hope to introduce value-added services to drive and lead innovation in mobile commerce, giving consumers a safer, smarter and better mobile wallet.”

Because of the way Samsung Pay works – leveraging Magnetic Secure Transmission – it can be accepted a significantly larger number of pay terminals than the likes of the NFC secure based Android Pay or Apple Pay.  It will even work on non-contactless terminals.  It’s a big leg up but, to this point, has only been available on Samsung devices.

Good news for those who have the Nextbit Robin.  The June software update from the startup has been released for their first phone and is rolling out to devices now.  The update contains several improvements and fixes for the Robin.  The update also includes the June Android Security update which makes the Robin one of the first devices out there to get the security update that was released on Monday.

If you have downloaded the official app for the site, there is a new update in the Google Play Store that brings some much needed improvements around navigation.  The ClintonFitch.com app was updated to version 5.0.8(15) yesterday and with it comes a new side swipe menu to navigate to other parts of the site right from within the app.  For example, if you want to just look at reviews you can select Reviews by swiping from the left side of your display and choosing it.  The idea is to make the app a bit easier to navigate and find the content you are most interested in reading.  You can, of course, use the search function too for something specific.

Good news this morning for those of you who have the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge on Verizon.  The Android Marshmallow update for the device has been released by the carrier and is starting to roll out to devices now.  The update you are looking for is build VRU2CPD1 for those keeping score at home and it comes in at just shy of 1GB in size.  That means you will have to download the update while your device is connected to Wi-Fi.  After the download, it will take about 20-30 minutes to upgrade your Note Edge to Marshmallow and will require a reboot.  As always, I recommend you have a backup of any important files on your phone prior to starting the upgrade.

Google appears to be set to not only match the new developer revenue sharing model that Apple has announced, but to one-up it.  The hubbub started yesterday when Apple announced that developers would move from a 70/30 split to an 85/15 split on revenue share.  This is a very good thing for developers and came as a bit of a surprise from Apple.  Almost immediately the question became if Google would match it for those developers on Android.  The answer appears to be yes and to be even better.