Google to wind down support for Wallet Card

Google has announced that it will drop support for the physical Wallet Card starting June 30. "You’ll no longer be able to add money to your Wallet Balance after May 1, 2016," the company said in a blog post. "Any transactions made with your Wallet Card after June 30 will not be processed. Any pending transactions made before June 30 will still post to your account."

Those looking for alternatives can opt for offerings from American Express or Simple, Google suggests, adding that both offer debit accounts with similar features, including a card. The Mountain View, California-based company has also teamed up these companies allowing you to get an added bonus after signing up.

For more information on the change, head to the Source link below.

LG G5 now available for purchase in the US

As scheduled, LG's newest flagship smartphone - the G5 - is now available for purchase in the United States. AT&T has listed the device on its website, and is selling it for $688 sans contract. Those opting for the carrier's Next plan can get the phone for as low as $22.97 a month.

As you might already know, the G5 comes with a free battery and charging cradle in the US. On top of that AT&T is offering a $49.99 LG G Pad X 10.1 on a 2-year agreement to those purchasing the phone on the carrier's Next plan.

You can also get a LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE smartwatch for $99.99 on contract. As for colors, the AT&T LG G5 is available in all four options including silver, titan, gold, and pink.

Apple releases iOS 9.3.1 to fix crashes caused by tapping links

iOS 9.3 was released to the public on March 21, the same day as Apple's big event where it unveiled the iPhone SE and iPad Pro 9.7 (both of which are now available, by the way). Yet here we are just 10 days later and the company has deemed it necessary to already issue an emergency update for its mobile operating system.

iOS 9.3.1 is now rolling out to supported iPhones, iPads, and iPod touch units across the world. Its only function is to fix a very nasty bug that somehow made the cut to the final version of iOS 9.3. This bug will render your Apple device useless after tapping on links in Safari and other apps.

Thankfully, after you update your device to iOS 9.3.1, the crashing and unresponsiveness associated with tapping on links in certain circumstances will happen no more. So clearly this is one update that you should apply as soon as possible, especially if you have been affected by this bug.

Nothing else is included in this iOS release, so you don't get any new features or anything like that. Then again, iOS 9.3 itself comes with plenty of those, and it's only been out for everyone since last week, so that makes perfect sense.

Apple iPhone SE and iPad Pro 9.7 now shipping worldwide

Apple iPhone SE and iPad Pro 9.7 went official a few days ago and were made available on pre-order shortly after. While just a few markets participated in the first week of pre-orders, two days ago Apple extended the list by adding many more countries.

The first batch of pre-orders was supposed to begin shipping today, and indeed it did. The new iPhone SE and iPad Pro 9.7 are now shipping as promised. Both devices are also available for purchase in Apple Retail Stores while other retailers should be offering them in few days, if not already.

The iPhone SE launch, as suggested by the worldwide traffic data, was a huge hit in China and India, while the rest of the key markets seemed a lot less excited. Naturally, China and India are not only the biggest markets in the world but also the ones where the affordable smartphones usually sell the most.

Bearing top-notch Apple hardware within a smaller chassis and with more attractive pricing, the new iPhone SE is also reported to attract more Android users than any other iPhone to date.

Anyway, there are millions of pre-orders worldwide, and some of the latest iPhone SE orders are being pushed from a week up to 4 or 6 weeks depending on the configuration. So, whatever the data is suggesting right now, it seems the iPhone SE will be selling well no matter what.

Suppliers say iPhone SE sales probably won't be enough to offset expected Q2 revenue drop

Apple's new reboot of the 4-inch iPhone factor is doing pretty well. The pocket-friendly device has reportedly received 3.4 million registrations in China and is expected to sell between four and five million units in the second fiscal quarter. Its more affordable price point is also serving great in attracting Android converts, so, in a nutshell, the little handset can be considered an overall success.However, industry supply chain sources have warned that the iPhone SE won't manage to overcome the already expected 11% or so decrease in Apple's revenue in Q2 this year. To quote the source itself:

Shipments for the new iPhone SE will be unable to offset the fall in shipments for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus devices in the second quarter ... The shipment target for the SE in the second quarter is four to five million units

So why is this happening? Well, one possible reason has to do with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Back in 2014, Apple had some trouble in keeping up with demands after their release and a lot of sales were inadvertently put off for January. This has resulted in an inflated year-over-year figure to beat. Also, an endlessly increasing market value isn't really possible and Apple has already over-exceeded market predictions in this respect.

In any case, we won't know any market figures for certain before the official report becomes available on April 25.

New update for the Samsung Gear S2 is now available for download

Last week, Samsung released an update for the Gear S2 smartwatch and now owners of the watch are treated to another one. The latest update weighs in at 20.39 MB and is available from the Samsung Gear app.

Sadly, the company didn't update the change log of the latest update and you can find the same bullet points from the one from a week earlier. We can only guess what changes the new update brings, but it's safe to assume that some bugs needed ironing out and there are no new features this time.

A screenshot from the new update shows an old changelog

The size of the update also points in that direction with the new release costing just over 20MB, while the previous one exceeded 80MB. Still if you notice anything make sure to drop us a line in the comments.

Xiaomi Mi 5 to hit India on April 6

Xiaomi Mi 5 was officially unveiled at the MWC in Barcelona last month, and we enjoyed having it in our office. The phone is already on sale in China, but India was promised to get it soon after.

Today, Xiaomi officially announced the Mi 5 availability and pricing for India. The flagship is going on sale through mi.com on April 6, 11 AM local time. Its official price is INR 24,999 or $378.

The pricing is for the 32GB model of the Mi 5, which in addition to the lower amount if gigs, comes with a Snapdragon 820 chip with a down-clocked processor - 1.8GHz instead of 2.15GHz.

Unfortunately, the so-called Prime (64GB, 2.15GHz) and Prime (128GB, 2.15GHz, 4GB RAM, ceramic) editions won't be sold officially in India. There is a good chance those get imported though through some retailers.

So, Xiaomi Mi 5 will become available for purchase on April 6 at 11 AM, the same day as the Mi Fan Festival celebrating Xiaomi's sixth anniversary.

If you want to get a Mi 5 in India, we suggest you get prepared, as the first batch of units will probably sell out in a flash.

Audiophile-targeted vivo X6S and X6S Plus are now official

Chinese manufacturer vivo has added a pair of new devices to its lineup today. The new handsets come as direct descendants to vivo X6 and X6 Plus and are all but identical on the outside. This is just as well, since the metal shell still looks elegant in silver, gold or pink and reusing the chassis should save some R&D budget, which could be better spent elsewhere.

The devices both come with an even better audio hardware than their predecessors. The smaller X6S is equipped with an AKM4375 32-bit DAC, while the bigger X6S Plus has a ES9028 DAC within a YAMAHA YSS-205X audio processor at its disposal (the same that is used in the vivo X5Max).

But the upgrades goes beyond audio as well. The MediaTek MT6752 powering the 2015 models has been swapped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652. While not the top of the line, it still packs four powerful Cortex A72 cores and another four A53 ones plus the Adreno 520 GPU. Displays seem to be unchanged at 5.2" and 5.7" respectively, both of the FullHD Super AMOLED type. The same goes for memory - 4GB or RAM and 32GB, 64GB of storage.

LTE is naturally present and so is the fingerprint reader on the back. The only other hardware upgrade seems to be a new camera in the vivo X6S Plus. The 13MP shooter has been swapped with a 16MP one with fast phase detection autofocus, promising speeds as quick as 0.6 seconds.

Update: Prices have been announced in the official store and are confirmed to be CNY 2598 (around $400) for the X6S and CNY 2,998 (around $470) for the X6S Plus. Shipping is said to begin on April 5.

Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) with S Bike mode launches in India

So, did you guess what #TapKickVroom is? If you didn't, here's the answer - the Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) is launching in India with a new S Bike feature.

It's a sort of Do Not Disturb feature that prevents unwanted distractions while riding a bike. The feature is enabled using the included NFC tag and will handle incoming calls.

Normally, the Galaxy J3 won't show any notifications so as not to disturb the rider. It will play a message, explaining that the phone's owner is riding a bike and can't answer. If it's an emergency, the caller can press 1 and the call will go through.

You still can't answer the call - Motion Lock makes sure you're completely stationary before the phone lets you answer.

Anyway, the Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) features a 5" Super AMOLED screen (720p), quad-core processor with 1.5GB of RAM, LTE and dual-SIM connectivity, plus a 2,600mAh battery. The phone has two cameras - 8MP/1080p on the back and 5MP on the front.

The J3 is available right now for INR 9,000 ($135/€120).

Deal: Buy Moto X Pure Edition or Droid Turbo 2 and get free Moto 360 (2014)

Are you a Motorola fan? Are you in the market for a smartphone and a smartwatch? If your answer to both these questions is yes, then here's a deal for you: Motorola is offering a free Moto 360 (1st gen) with every purchase of a Moto X Pure Edition or Droid Turbo 2.

What's worth keeping in mind here is that the promo is only available on purchase of the 64GB variants of the phones, meaning you'll have to shell out $499 for the Moto X Pure and $720 for the Droid Turbo 2. The Moto 360 (2014) currently costs $199.99.

After you've made up your mind on which phone to buy, just add it as well as the watch to your cart, and the $199.99 discount will appear. The promo is only available for a short time - it ends April 1 at 10:59 a.m. CT - so those interested in taking advantage of it should act fast.

Spigen cases for the Galaxy S7 edge – Video

We were recently able to get our hands on Spigen’s Galaxy S7 edge lineup of cases and decided to show you all some of our favorites and no-so-favorites. When the Galaxy Note edge first came out, I had many customers come into the Samsung shop within Best Buy only to become frustrated that Best Buy didn’t carry any cases for such a drastically different form factor.

A couple of years later, and three edge devices later, Samsung’s Galaxy S7 edge is a new generation of unique form factored devices that require a specially designed case. One that would be able to protect your device while still leaving the whole landscape of the phone open to accept any input without obstructing the edge screen.

Check out our video where we show you these cases first-hand, and which of these cases you might want to avoid if you are the kind of user who is constantly fumbling and dropping their device.

Samsung+ customer support app gets live video chat and remote assistance

Samsung+ is Samsung's customer support app, that you can find preinstalled on a variety of the company's smartphones and tablets, including the recently released Galaxy S7 and S7 edge of course. And today Samsung+ has received a huge update, which should make its way to the Google Play Store in the next few hours.

The first new thing is that you can live video chat with a Samsung customer support representative, or you can text or use a plain old voice call if you so wish. Remote assistance is built in too, which means you can grant a support rep permission to remotely operate and troubleshoot your device. This is called Samsung Assist and is right now only available for the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge. Other devices will have access to this feature after software updates that will arrive in the next few weeks.

The app's Device Diagnostics tab tells you useful things about your battery's health as well as data and security. FAQs and troubleshooting tips and tricks are also included in Samsung+ in case you want to fix things on your own. Tips and tricks are available for Samsung home appliances and consumer electronics in addition to mobile devices, so you can find out interesting tidbits about your refrigerator and TV too.