Dan Seifert | Vox

LG Halts Sales of New LTE-Connected Smartwatch

2019-03-06T05:44:34-05:00

LG has just revealed that it is halting sales of the recently launched Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE smartwatch, citing a “a hardware issue which affects the day-to-day functionality of the device.”

The watch was the first Android Wear smartwatch with cellular connectivity and was launched by AT&T last week. Verizon was scheduled to put the device up for sale starting tomorrow. Neither carrier will continue selling the device. According to an email to The Verge from an LG representative, there is no set date for when the watch may return to store shelves.

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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Android Wear’s First Luxury Smartwatch Is the $1,500 Tag Heuer Connected Watch

2019-03-06T06:05:22-05:00

During an event in New York today, Tag Heuer officially announced the Connected Watch, its first smartwatch running Android Wear. A luxury watch through and through, the Connected costs $1,500 and carries much of the legacy of Tag Heuer’s watchmaking prowess. It shares many of its design attributes with Tag Heuer’s Carrera analog watch. The company says it went through great efforts to make the Connected not “look like a connected watch.”

The Connected is the first Android Wear watch to retail for over $1,000, and Tag Heuer isn’t shy in making comparisons to the Apple Watch, which can cost as much as $17,000 for a tricked out gold model. The Carrera Connected isn’t made of gold, but it is comprised of titanium, a metal prized for its high strength to weight ratio compared to steel. Tag Heuer says the watch can be personalized with six different rubber straps. The watch measures 46mm in diameter, putting it on the larger side of the spectrum.

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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Smartphone Camera Shootout: How the iPhone 6s Plus Takes On the Competition

2019-03-06T05:35:13-05:00

Deep trench isolation. Retina flash. 4K video. These aren’t just fancy terms used by Apple to market its new cameras — though, they are that, too. At this point, these are expectations. With smartphone makers offering increasingly advanced cameras to consumers, it’s almost easy to forget that when Apple first launched the iPhone eight years ago, the original smartphone’s two-megapixel camera was basically … functional. The oft-repeated cliché that the best camera is the one in your pocket wasn’t true yet, because in many ways, the best cameras were still the ones we slung around our necks.

Given Apple’s dominance in this space, it’s easy to overlook the fact that the cameras in the new iPhone 6s models are as much about Apple’s internal philosophy as they are about technical prowess and manufacturing partners. In other words: Apple’s smartphone cameras are not technically unachievable.

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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Apple iOS 9 Review

2019-03-06T05:41:10-05:00

Apple is a mobile device company. It makes the vast majority of its money from the iPhone, and everything else it does is starting to look a little like a side hustle. The real game for Apple is in these mobile devices, and the software that runs on them is the most important software that Apple makes. That software, of course, is iOS.

But iOS is much more than just the software that runs on the iPhone. It’s the closest thing we have to seeing what Apple envisions for the future of computing; heck, CEO Tim Cook said as much on stage when he introduced the forthcoming iPad Pro.

So Apple doesn’t take it lightly, and it very rarely makes drastic or sweeping changes to it. That careful approach is in full view with iOS 9, which will be available for download for free on most iPhones, iPads and iPod touches starting today. There aren’t any major visual changes in iOS 9, especially on the iPhone, and it feels very similar to iOS 8 and even iOS 7.

That doesn’t mean Apple hasn’t been hard at work — iOS 9 is a much more stable experience than iOS 8 was when it launched, and there are a few new features here that are genuinely useful. But if you pay close attention, you can get a glimpse at the future Apple is planning for computers. And that future looks pretty great.

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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

New Moto 360 Watches Are Sleeker, Smarter and More Customizable

2019-03-06T05:34:10-05:00

Last year, Motorola released the first smartwatch that truly turned heads, the Moto 360. A round watch in a sea of squares, the 360 looked great and became the poster child for Android Wear. But it wasn’t without issues, namely its large size, disappointing battery life and odd design details (such as those pesky internal strap mounts). Just about a year later, Motorola is taking the wraps off of its second-generation Moto 360. This time around, one size doesn’t fit all.

The new Moto 360 is actually three distinct smartwatches: A men’s version in two sizes, a women’s version and a dedicated sport version, complete with on-board GPS and outdoor-readable display. Motorola is now calling its smartwatch offerings a “collection,” a term borrowed from the fashion world that feels apt here. As with the first Moto 360, buyers will be able to customize the appearance and finishes of their watches, and this year Motorola says it has more than 300 possible combinations of looks with bands, colors, bezels and sizes all in the mix.

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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.