Barclays finally adds Apple Pay support in the UK

It's been 9 months or so now since Apple Pay first launched in the United Kingdom and Barclays is clearly a little tardy to the show. The major bank's absence from the original list of adopters, like HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Santander, as well as the following second wave came as an unpleasant surprise for the customers hoping to take advantage of it.

Better late than never and today the bank's customers were happy to discover that they can add their cards to the payment gateway. Barclays customers can finally enjoy Apple Pay, which despite its slow and controversial kick-off, can now boast over 2 million supported locations, across four markets and counting.

IKEA VR Experience lets you test drive kitchens before you buy them

IKEA has made a VR Experience app to help potential kitchen buyers with their decision. The IKEA VR Experience, which is available on Steam, lets you see the company's kitchen design offerings from different perspective and allows you to change the colors of the cabinets and drawers with literally a click.

What's even cooler is the option to modify your height down to 100cm tall and experience the kitchen like a child would. The VR Experience is currently in a pilot program, which will continue until August and is available for the HTC Vive.

IKEA also counts on the VR Experience users to help it out with ideas on how to further make use of the new tech. Martin Enthed, IT Manager for IKEA Communications, the in-house communication agency at IKEA of Sweden says:

We also see IKEA VR Experience as an opportunity to co-create with people all around the world. We hope that users will contribute to our virtual reality development, by submitting ideas on how to use virtual reality and how to improve the virtual kitchen.

If you happen to have an HTC Vive and wouldn't mind give the IKEA VR Experience app a try, please share your impressions with us!

Top deals for HTC phones in the US, One M9 for $399, hurry up though

HTC is offering substantial discounts on a few of its hottest devices in the US, valid today only. The promo includes three smartphones, the Nexus 9 and the RE action cam.

The deal on the One M9 saves you $250 off the usual off-contract price of $649 and the smartphone now goes for the rather attractive $399. The One A9 on the other hand, is $110 off, but at $390, it only makes a compelling case for the $9 more expensive M9. If you're on a tighter budget, the Desire 626 is being sold for $149.99, $30 off.

The Nexus 9 tablet is 40% off, but the 16GB version is out of stock. The 32GB Wi-Fi only variant gets a $287.40 price tag, while cellular connectivity will cost you an additional $72, $359.40 total. The RE camera is is the best deal, in relative terms at least, as it gets a 60% discount - retailing for $79.60.

All this is fine and dandy, but the promo expires at 11:59 p.m. PT today, so you better act quick.

Google updates Google Play icons

Google has updated the look of all its Google Play series of apps.

Starting today you will start seeing the new icons everywhere. This includes the Play Store, Play Movies & TV, Play Music, Play Games, Play Books, and Play Newsstand icons.

The new icons try to combine the skeuomorphic nature of the previous icons within the Play symbol. The Play Store and Google Play icons are mostly the same but with much brighter colors.

As of now none of these are live online or on the store but should be soon in the coming weeks.

Huawei P9 has its specs leaked one more time thanks to GFXBench

Huawei's P9 will finally be made official at an event on April 6, which is this Wednesday. The grand unveiling follows leaks upon leaks that we've seen of the device over the past few weeks. In fact, its back side got portrayed in all its glory mere hours ago, complete with Leica branding for the camera and new Huawei text-only logo on the lower side.

And now we've got a leaked list of specs for the P9, probably the last one before it gets official. It comes courtesy of a benchmark run, though it's not AnTuTu this time (like last month), but GFXBench.

Interestingly, the specs revealed today and the ones surfaced by AnTuTu in March do differ slightly, so perhaps Huawei will launch multiple versions of the P9 as many Chinese companies do (especially for their home market).

GFXBench says the Huawei P9 will have a 5.1-inch 1080p touchscreen, the HiSilicon Kirin 955 SoC (with an octa-core big.LITTLE CPU featuring four Cortex-A72 cores clocked at up to 2.5 GHz and four Cortex-A53 cores), the Mali-T880 GPU, 3GB of RAM, 32 GB of storage, 12 MP resolution for the dual-cameras on the back, an 8 MP selfie snapper, and all the connectivity options you'd expect.

The AnTuTu listing from a while back had the P9 coming with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, the rest of the specs being very similar. So maybe the model with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage will be the entry-level one, and you'll have to pay more to get more memory.

The P9 will have a 2,900 mAh battery, according to the FCC. It will run Android 6.0 Marshmallow underneath Huawei's own EMUI. In Europe, it's rumored to cost €599.90, though it's unclear which hardware version that amount will net you.

Meizu MX5E debuts in China with slightly watered down specs, lower price than the MX5

Earlier today we found out that the upcoming Meizu m3 note is going to cost CNY 1,099 ($169 or €148 at the current exchange rates), and now it's time for another bit of news regarding a Meizu smartphone.

This one is called the MX5E, and it's actually a new variation of the MX5 that has been released last year. It's slightly lower-end and also cheaper by a little, in fact.

Meizu has launched the MX5E in China without an official announcement or anything of the sort. It can be found in stores starting at CNY 1,399, which is about $215 or €189. Apparently that's CNY 100 ($15, €13) cheaper than the normal MX5.

However, the device you're getting comes with a 16 MP main camera (down from 20.7 MP), as well as a lower-clocked processor. Whereas the one inside the MX5 can go up to 2.2 GHz, in the MX5E it's only capable of reaching 2 GHz - 10% less, as it turns out. Otherwise, the MX5E is identical to the MX5, but it's unclear whether the paltry savings here actually make the performance hit worth it.

Another mystery is whether Meizu will ever sell the MX5E outside of China. That's not the case for now.

New HTC 10 video teaser says we should expect "the best BoomSound yet"

The latest HTC 10 teaser is here, ladies and gentlemen. And like one of those from last month, this is all about audio. However, this time around we're thankfully treated to more than just a cryptic image.

It's a full video teaser, this, and it expands upon the "we're obsessed" theme that we saw in the company's first ever video teaser for the HTC 10. Though obviously this obsession has everything to do with "bright, fat, crisp" sound now.

HTC promises "the highest-quality sound possible" and "flawless high fidelity on your phone", features which should be delivered by the HTC 10 through "the best BoomSound yet". These are all things that we hope HTC will be able to make good on with its next flagship device. We'll find out on April 12, when the official unveiling is going to take place.

BlackBerry starts taking applications for the Priv Marshmallow beta program

As rumored last week, BlackBerry has today started taking applications for a new Beta Program for the Priv's Marshmallow update. Essentially this means that you can sign up to beta test the Android 6.0 Marshmallow software for the Priv before it goes out to everyone who owns the Canadian smartphone maker's first Android device. You'll then receive an over-the-air update with the beta build.

The sign-up page is here. People will be accepted into the program in batches, and it looks like the first one has already been filled. You can however put yourself on the waiting list, and when a new batch of testers are let in you'll hopefully be among them. Registrations will be open for about two weeks.

The final release of Marshmallow for the Priv should make its way to handsets across the world either in late April or in early May. If you're accepted into the beta test, you can report bugs through an integrated app that's in the firmware for just that purpose. We assume that those who beta test will also get the over-the-air update to the final Marshmallow build when that is out, but that hasn't been made clear by BlackBerry at this point.

Apple unlikely to recover from falling iPhone sales in 2016

Apple analyst from KGI Ming-Chi Kuo, who has definitely proven a trustworthy source of information and predictions, forecasts year-on-year iPhone shipments will continue to fall in 2016. The total iPhone shipments for the year will likely fall below 200 million units ending up missing market expectations.

Furthermore, Ming-Chi Kuo predicts that Apple won't be able to recover from its peak iPhone times and as a result the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will see lower sales than its predecessors. The decline in sales for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus is a result of the rise of replacement demand from emerging markets not being fast enough to cover the low demand from developed markets.

In spite of the reports and rumors of the next iPhone 7 bringing new features to the table like adual-camera setup, KGI is pesimistic on Apple being able to recover.

Additionally, KGI is skeptical that the iPhone SE achieved 3.4 million pre-orders in China, as the company wasn't able to back that number with solid evidence. We'll see if this prediction will hold true once Apple's 2016 financial report comes out.

The Samsung Galaxy S7 is selling better than expected with 10 million units moved in March

It would appear Samsung has done its sales magic yet again. Despite a pronounced slowdown in the high-end market, its Galaxy S7 duo has managed to exceed sales expectations.

The figures are far from final, but according to Jay Yoo, industry analyst at Korea Investment & Securities, Samsung has already exceeded the initial 7 million unit estimate and has managed to ship around 9.5 million S7 phones. This has mandated some major forecast recalculations, which has naturally attributed for a raise in share value - 2.4% on Wednesday in an 18-week high.

It appears that the similarities with the Galaxy S6 line were not a deterring factor, as the prevailing opinion went, but rather a logical foundation, on which Samsung managed to construct two very appealing devices. The lack of major redesign has also helped lower production costs, so that will probably help boost profits as well.

Panasonic announces Lumix GX85

Panasonic has launched a new compact mirrorless interchangeable lens camera, the LUMIX DMC-GX85.

The GX85 has a 16 megapixel Digital Live MOS sensor without a low pass filter, which improves the detail by 10% over Panasonic’s previous 16 megapixel sensors. The camera also includes in-body 5-axis image stabilization. The shutter mechanism employs a new electromagnetic drive to reduce the shutter shock and sound. The contrast based AF system works with Panasonic’s Depth from Defocus to get autofocus time as low as 0.07 seconds.

The GX85 can also record 4K (UHD) video at 30 or 24fps and 1080p video at 60fps with full-time AF.

The GX85 has a 2764k dot electronic viewfinder with 1.39x magnification and 100% field of view. The 3.0-inch 1040k dot touchscreen can tilt up and down. The camera also includes Wi-Fi for wireless connectivity with smartphones.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX85 is priced at $799.99 with a 12-32 kit lens, and will be available end of May in black and silver.

iPhone SE's durability gets tested in another video, see it swim, tumble, bend, and drop onto a sidewalk

Love watching torture-test videos of the newest smartphones? Then you'll definitely enjoy this one. Coming just a few days after the first such video for the iPhone SE is a new one, with a slightly different focus. While last week we've shown you how Apple's latest 4-inch device has managed to withstand scratching, burning, and bending, this time around it faces an almost entirely new set of challenges.

The common thing between the two videos is the bend test, though today's showing is a lot more scientific. We don't just get a 'pass' or 'fail' evaluation, but we find out that the iPhone SE bends when 160 pounds of pressure is applied to it, which is 10 pounds less than the iPhone 6s and 20 pounds less than the iPhone 6s Plus. The SE reaches catastrophic failure at 178 pounds.

You can also see it being submerged, and losing audio immediately under five feet of water. It got bricked in less than a minute, which is a lot sooner than the bigger iPhone 6s (which survived for 30 minutes), and the 6s Plus (dead after around ten minutes).

The iPhone SE is then put through the paces of a "tumblebot", and it faces the pavement on a sidewalk - several times, no less. In the end, it's received a 5.5 score for breakability, placing it in between the iPhone 6s (with a score of 4) and the 6s Plus (with 6.5).