According to research from financial firm Bernstein Google will be paying up to $3Billion this year to remain the default search engine on the iPhone and iPad. These numbers come factors reported to the media by Apple and Google. Apple has retained as much as 34 percent of traffic revenue. Google paid Apple $1Billion in 2014. According to High Street firms Google will make $50 Billion this year which is up from $16 Billion in 2014 which is roughly three times as much. This means that Google may be paying Apple $3 Billion. In the end it is probably worth it. Most people end up using what comes up first. Somehow chrome on my Dell defaults to Yahoo?! I generally end up just using Yahoo unless I need Google for something specific. Of course it would be easy enough to go change the default in settings. Apple is looking to double their 2016 service revenue by 2020, and can probably achieve this with licensing default apps. In case you were wondering companies are paying big for that prime real estate which is your phone.

via Pocketnow

LG is looking to greatly improve their camera's quality with an f1.6 aperture lens. This will allow for more light to be processed giving the camera better low light performance. It looks like LG isn't the only one stepping up their camera game. We know that Samsung will be including a dual lens camera on the Note 8. We now have more details regarding the camera setup.

Korean news website ETNews is reporting that the Note 8 will include a 12MP optical lens with dual-image pixel sensor and a 13MP telephoto lens. Each would include optical image stabilization and support 2x optical zoom. Optical zoom on these lenses will mean that we will be able to zoom in without adding noise and losing sharpness. Samsung will likely continue this dual lens camera approach in future phones like the Galaxy S9.

via AndroidAuthority

This month is slated to be a pretty big month for Android. We are looking forward to the release of both the LG V30 the Galaxy Note 8 as well as the Nokia 8. It looks like Google will be adding to the fun with the release of Android 8.0 O for the original Pixel and Pixel XL.

According to sources Google is planning a spectacle event for the unveiling of the Android 8.0 name which will go beyond the traditional statue unveiling. This could mean we are getting a recognized brand name (ie Oreo). Evan Blass tweeted that the release of the new version of Android to the Pixel and Pixel XL will be during the week of August 21st and will likely be on August 21st.

When the update drops for the Pixel and Pixel XL it should also be available for the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P. The new Pixel devices won't be announced until later in the fall likely Septemeber and October.

via BGR

The Note 8 will be announced world wide on August 23rd at a live event taking place in New York, this much is certain. We now have a bit of intel suggesting the device might actually go live on August 24th just 24 hours after the official announcement! This was confirmed by a best buy employee who claims to be familiar with Best Buy's plans. This is in direct contrast with a report from a reliable Korean publication who claims the device will be available in south Korea starting September 15. There have been other reports suggesting that Samsung will begin a 2 week preview period at certain retail locations where you can touch and try the phone, but won't be able to purchase it. Maybe releasing the phone so quickly could be Samsung's way of getting ahead of the iPhone release. If the Note 8 will be available the day after announcement I will surely be finding my place in line.

via Technobuffalo

The Note 8 may go down as the best phone of 2017 with its Infinity Display, dual lens camera system, improved S-Pen functionality and more. There is one special reason this device will be loved around the world. The Note 8 will be the first Note device to hit the European market in years! Samsung decided not to sale the Note 5 in Europe back in the day because um Europe isn't productive enough?? The Note 7 as we all know was recalled before it was able to pick up any steam so Europe wasn't able to get their hands on that device either. Fans of the series have had to patiently wait for the next iteration of the industry defining phablet device.

The will be over in just a few short weeks as Samsung has plans to release the Note 8 in European markets. While the direction this device is going with a smaller 3300mah battery and poor fingerprint scanner placement may be disappointing to some it is certainly a major overhaul from the last available Note device in the European market, the Note 4.

via SamMobile

Samsung is gearing up to launch the Galaxy Note 8 on August 23, and we now have an official Teaser video! The 30 second video entitled "Do Bigger Things" strikes through negatives replacing them with positives. This suggest the Note 8 will be the tool you need to get some serious work done. At the end of the video we get an animated silhouette showcasing the Infinity Display design. The video ends with the date of the unpacked event and link for watching the event live. It's time to get excited folks!

The video above demonstrates an annoying issue on the Moto Z2 Force we saw earlier this year with the OnePlus 5. When displays in these two devices are mounted upside down at the factory it causes this jelly scrolling effect which makes the phone seem laggy and stuttery. This is not a good thing when you just spent a good bit of money on a flagship device. Apparently these phones are programmed to refresh content from bottom to top which is the underlying cause of the issue. OnePlus's response was basically "you're holding it wrong, its not a bug". It will be interesting to see how Lenovo responds to this issue. I personally don't think this is a major deal. What are your thoughts? Is this a deal breaker?

LG loves to tease us as they get close to announcing their next big device. Today they released some images showing off the new Floating Action Bar. This will presumably be replacing the secondary display on the LG V30. The floating bar will be collapsible to the right side of the screen when not in use. You will have use to many functions in the action bar much like what we had with the second display on other V series devices. The new always on display will feature new customization options. You will be able to add things like floating tools, music player, or pictures to the always on display. The V30 is shaping up to be one of the more exciting devices being released this month.

via AndroidPolice

As is to be expected Samsung will have the Snapdragon 835 in the US for the Note 8 and the Exynos 8895 for international markets. These chips are indeed different chips with Samsung being able to tweak the Exynos chips in house. Both chips will have 8 cores. Interestingly enough according to the benchmarks that appeared on Geekbench earlier in the week the Snapdragon version is clocked at 1.9GHz while the Exynos version is clocked at just 1.69GHz. Both devices have 6GB of RAM. The Exynos version was able to edge out the Snapdragon version in both single core and multi core processing. The Exynos version scored 1984 in single core and 6116 in multi core while the Snapdragon was only able to achieve 1815 in single core and 6066 in multi core. Both devices were beat by the OnePlus 5 in multi core processing as it received a score of 6687. While Touchwiz isn't astatically heavy like it used to be you can see that it can still slow things down substantially.

Does it worry you that Samsung is using different chips in different markets which may cause you to have a bit slower of an experience?

via SlashLeaks

I for one have not rooted a device in at least 6 months. This is mostly due to the fact that Verizon and some OEMs have made it very difficult and in some cases impossible to achieve root on some devices. That coupled with the fact that many of the things we needed root for years ago are possible without root today. That being said if you are still rooting devices you will be happy to know that the Root king himself "Chainfire" has just update SuperSU. This update brings SuperSU to version 2.82-SR3 and brings many bug fixes to the table.

Some bug fixes include a fix to external sdcards. Some Samsung users were reporting loss of external sdcard access. This issue appeared primarily for users running CyanogenMod/LineageOS based Roms. The issue has been fixed. FlashFire was also updated for better compatibility in SBIN mode. Some extra support for compression formats for kernel binaries and ramdisks have also been implemented among other fixes. Grab this latest update from the link below.

via +chainfire