Nexus 9 in Stock and Shipping Tomorrow!

If you've been thinking of picking up a new tablet, you could certainly do worse than what looks to be possibly the most well-designed Android tablet ever. Right now, it's in stock and "leaves [the] warehouse in 1 - 2 business days." The Nexus 9 truly seems to be the best of both worlds in terms of hardware and software. It's designed by HTC -- the only Android manufacturer that can rival the iPhone in terms of build-quality -- and it's a Nexus, which means, of course, that it gets immediate, "stock Android" software updates straight from Google. No waiting on OEMs to get their act together and spend months altering the design and functionality before it reaches you. 

The Nexus 9 has cutting-edge specs and is a noticeable shift in the Android tablet world for several reasons. It's the first Android device to take advantage of the new support for 64-bit architectures built into Lollipop, in the form of the NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor. It's also part of Google's new school of thought for Nexus devices: premium feel and quality. Though Nexus devices of yesteryear were nothing to sneeze at, each one felt as though they had a bit of a ceiling in terms of overall build quality and parts, in order to hit the low price point they were known for. 

This year, Google's also emphasizing the value of the Nexus 6 and 9 in terms of productivity. For the Nexus 9, they're pushing an accessory they call the "keyboard folio," a keyboard case that allows you to effectively transform the tablet into a small laptop. Meanwhile, the idea is that the comically large screen of the Nexus 6 displays more content and allows you to accomplish more than you previously felt comfortable doing on a smaller mobile device. 

Twas the Night before Lollipop...

On the eve of the consumer release of Android 5.0 "Lollipop," we're seeing Google's few remaining KitKat-esque apps undergo a Material Design transformation. The beautiful new Gmail, complete with support for exchange, finally began rolling out this week. Now we're seeing leaks of the new Google Calendar, and it includes what looks to be the most comprehensive redesign yet. It contains many colorful new illustrations of landscapes in the style first seen in Google Now -- flat, playful, and scattered with cheerful details. Below are just a few from the large album posted on Google Plus by Steve Albright of Neverstill Media.

 

There's a whole lot of artwork like this within. Google seems to have designed several different illustrations for each season. 

 

At this point, most of the apps have been brought up to speed in time for tomorrow's release. There are still a few remaining outliers, though, such as Hangouts and YouTube. Others still, like the Play Store, have been receiving more incremental updates rather than sudden and dramatic makeovers. At any rate, tomorrow's going to be a big day in the Android world. 

Google Fit: For All Your Beta, Somewhat Accurate Fitness Needs

If you've been using an Android Wear device and wondering when that little multicolored heart icon would become useful, well, today's (kind of) your day.

Although, to be honest, the app still lies on the simple side: at the moment, it claims to track your activity while walking, biking, and running, using built-in sensors to differentiate between the three. You can add your height and weight, and there's a function for manually inputting other activities. 

Like many emerging Google products, Fit seems not quite fleshed-out, though it's certainly been treated with a nice dose of Material Design. Some users are reporting that their phones are counting their steps, despite wearing fitness bands or even Android Wear devices -- which are the devices these duties should be relegated to when possible. Hopefully, Google will fix this redundancy in a future update. 

Pushbullet Updates to Material Design

Pushbullet, the ever-useful notification mirroring service, has evolved into Google's new Material Design language, and it looks as gorgeous as you would expect. 

Aside from the generally clean and elegant look, you'll notice the Material Design elements of the card view, the transparent status bar, the toggle for Android/PC notifications, and the floating hamburger icon that we're beginning to see on more apps.

For those of you who are in the Android ecosystem but aren't familiar with Pushbullet, I almost wish I was you so that I could have the pleasure of discovering this app all over again. It's possibly the most useful third-party notification mirroring service around, making it incredibly easy to push notifications, links, and content between your various devices. To top it off, the developers are some of the most diligent and prolific in the Android world, constantly innovating upon Pushbullet and pushing frequent updates to users. 

For my uses, Pushbullet's best feature is that it eliminates the need to check a specific device to find out what notifications you've missed. Instead, those notifications are sent directly to the device you want them on: the one you're currently using. Say you're working at your desk, and you feel your phone vibrate in your pocket. Pushbullet will pop up as a Chrome notification, alerting you of exactly what happened on your phone, whether it's a Facebook wall post or a new Snap. In the case of text messages, you can even reply to the text straight from you desktop. 

Here's another use: Let's say you come across an interesting article while browsing on your phone. But look: it's seven pages long, and the site is poorly designed for mobile reading. No problem, you can push the article directly to your computer or tablet, and it will be there waiting for you when you reach that device. 

In short, Pushbullet will have you wondering how you ever navigated the internet-enabled world without it. 

Inbox: Are you on board with Google's email of the future?

Still using the Gmail app to check your email? There's a competing app now, and who better to compete with Gmail than the people who made Gmail? Inbox is what happens when you combine Gmail, Google Now, and a little touch of Material Design. But wait, there's more! If that wasn't enough Google for you in one sentence, there's one important caveat: it's only compatible with your Gmail account, for now.

Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. After all, the service is still invite-only, which has proven to be a rather (read: tremendously) successful marketing campaign for Google. Current users have each been awarded 3 invites to pass onto their friends, and they're in high demand. And if you don't have friends? Well...

The most interesting thing about Inbox is that it doesn't function as a traditional...well, inbox. It's not the familiar list of recent correspondence going from top to bottom. Instead, it's more of an interface that sorts your email into what Google hopes is a timely, pertinent to-do list. Your calendar events and Google Now reminders will show up, floating at the top when you need them. Inbox will automatically crawl your mailbox to find similar emails, sorting them into folders together. These "Bundles" can be composed of anything from receipts, to social media notifications and travel arrangements. 

And for those of you that truly enjoy the feeling of an empty mailbox, Inbox is good at that too. The aforementioned bundles make it easy to archive huge collections of email -- Google calls it the "sweep" function. I was able to quickly archive massive backlogs of email in minutes, while preserving specific emails of importance. For those emails that you know you'll need again in the future, it's easy to snooze them, which allows them to resurface again when they're relevant, whether that's by time, date, or location. 

One of the interface features you'll immediately notice is the "pin" toggle at the top right-of-center. This is the true to-do list aspect of Inbox. You can pin those emails or tasks of importance, keeping them in the pinned tab until you're ready to be done with them. This tab also includes your reminders set by Google Now.

My largest issue with Inbox is simply that I can't yet extend it to my work email, which, for task-related information, would be more helpful than my personal email account. However, the app is still in its infancy. We don't yet know what Google has planned for it. But if you're looking for a smarter way to handle your email -- or even just a pretty, Material Design alternative -- Inbox may be what you've been looking for. 

Review: The LG G Watch

As I'm sure you saw during I/O, Android Wear is Google's first big push to attach itself to your wrist. Though it's not the first screen-bearing wearable device we've seen from the company (that title belongs to the ever-controversial Google Glass), the Android Wear devices are available to consumers right out of the gate. Whether you should buy one of these devices in its current form, however, is a separate issue altogether.

The LG G Watch appears to be Google's stock reference device for the first line of watches, and it could not be more plain at that -- Which is not necessarily a bad thing. If Jony Ive worked for LG, he might call it unapologetically minimalist. The G Watch avoids the Apple watch's rounded contours and golden accents. It doesn't strive to look like the more classically-styled Moto 360. It doesn't even have a single button, unlike its companion device: Samsung's re-purposed Gear Live. Instead, you simply get a black rectangle with black bands.

Hardware

Beneath its unassuming surface, the G watch has comparable if not better specs than any smartwatch thus far. It sports a Snapdragon 400 SOC, the same chip used by the aforementioned Gear Live. It's also the same processor used in Motorola's Moto G smartphone, so you can be rest assured that as an accessory to your phone, this is not an underpowered device. The display is a 1.65-inch LCD IPS at 280 x 280 resolution. While that screen's not exactly the LG G3 of watches, it's certainly sharp enough for a display this small, and I never caught myself thinking that the screen looked fuzzy or of poor quality. The battery of the G Watch -- arguably the most important aspect of these early wearable devices -- clocks in at 400 mAh, a substantial 25% larger than both Samsung's and Motorola's Wear devices. Though size is not *all* that matters when it comes to battery life, it's generally safe to assume that it's a good indicator when it comes to comparing similar devices. The only feature that this watch lacks is a heart rate sensor, which is present in both of the other aforementioned Wear devices.

Battery & Performance

Let me begin by saying this: Battery life is of the utmost importance to me. Smart devices are incredibly useful, fun, and amazing tools (or toys, depending on how you use them). But absolutely nothing else matters about the device if it's dead. The G watch uses a magnetic charging cradle that works painlessly: you set the watch down on the cradle to charge it; pick it up to remove it. Though there were early reports of skin rashes as a result of the underside charging pins, I experienced no such thing, and all reports indicate LG has since fixed this problem with an OTA. 

So, what's it like wearing the watch on a typical day? Well, you're not going to be able to get the battery life of the Pebble with an Android Wear watch. You will, however, easily make it through a full day of use as long as you're not constantly poking at the screen at full brightness for hours on end. I've used the device every day for a several weeks now, and after a 16 hour day, with frequent notifications, music/podcast controls, and voice dictation for texts, reminders, and search, it's usually around 55% by the time I go to bed. Even on days where I'm out later or use it more heavily, I have yet to see my battery gauge go below 40%, ever. For the record, I had always-on mode activated, and kept my screen brightness at 3, on a scale of 5. 

As for performance, the watch is smooth, doesn't lag, and operates...well, pretty much as advertised. When you rotate your wrist towards you, an accelerometer activates the screen, switching from the always-on black-and-white mode, to the brighter, full-color display. Though I sometimes found myself having to be a little more deliberate in my arm movements, it works as expected 9 times out of 10. Google Now voice recognition is surprisingly accurate. In fact, I found myself feeling more limited by the lack of "PUNCTUATION!!!" or subtlety... that you can parse out in typed text rather than any sort of mistaken words. However, the step-counter feature is in dire need of some calibration. It thinks any movement is a step. You'll have gotten an eighth of the way to your daily step goal just by brushing your teeth.

In Use

But what does the device actually do? Simple: it's a convenient and easy-to-access notification center on your wrist in the style of Google Now. Simply put, if you're a fan of Google Now and all of its functionality, an Android Wear device will probably be a familiar yet enjoyable experience for you. Just like the full-fledged phone app, it'll keep track of the weather, give you traffic alerts, and remind you of birthdays and calendar events. 

"That sounds pretty decent," you might say, "But I already have a phone that gets notifications and Google Now cards. Why would I want redundant functionality on my wrist?" And I get that. For many of you, Android Wear is still missing some sort of killer, exclusive feature that would truly make it a must-have platform. My best answer to this is that it offers the convenience of a smartphone without the addictive, time-consuming aspect of one. 

Think about it: when you feel your phone vibrate in your pocket and you reach to investigate, how often do you promptly reply to the singular notification and then immediately go back to what you were doing? Sure, it works like that sometimes. But maybe you want to check Twitter while you've got that beautiful 1080p phone staring up at you. Maybe you then want to scan the top posts of your favorite subreddit. Oh, and look, your friend's putting up the photos from last night's show on Facebook. Before you know it, you've spent fifteen minutes in mobile-internet land as a result from one notification, which was probably just an email from a site you keep forgetting to unsubscribe from anyway. 

When you get that same notification on your watch, all it takes is a single glance to evaluate whether it's something that requires your immediate attention, or if you can just swipe it away and get on with your day. As an added bonus, you might also notice an improvement in your phone's battery life by the simple fact that you'll be using it less often for frivolous browsing and app-jumping. We're still in the early stages of wearable tech, and the G Watch is both a reference device and a first-generation device. But it's got enough going for it to get me excited about the potential of this market.