Samsung Teases New Galaxy Watch; Time Spent on Apps; Logitech-Secret Handheld Gaming System; Apple Pay Coming to Chrome

Samsung has started teasing a new Galaxy watch for people with a ‘passion for the outdoors.’ Androidcentral.com reports that a new Galaxy Watch 5 series should bow at Samsung’s upcoming Unpacked event next week. Samsung appears to be adding a more rugged Watch version, but they noted the Watch will still keep a focus on Samsung’s Health Connect. The Galaxy Watch should get a boost in battery life with a larger battery that they say may last multiple days. 

Firms have measured for years…or actually decades…the number of hours a day people listened to radio or watched TV. Now, people (especially parents) have a new number to fret about…the hours spent using apps! According to techcrunch.com, there are now 13 countries around the world where people are spending over 4 hours a day using apps. The US is one of them. There are actually 3 countries where people are buried in apps over 5 hours a day…Indonesia, Singapore and Brazil! App use grew during the pandemic, then seemed to taper off a little…but its back up again….by 5% here in the US. 

People have been using their mice, keyboards, and gaming headsets for years…now, it looks like Logitech is working on a new hand held gaming system. Bgr.com says it is being developed in partnership with Tencent Games. The box will use cloud gaming software to deliver titles in and on the go friendly format. With the huge success of the Nintendo Switch, and now the Steam Deck, Logitech sees an opening. (Although Google couldn’t seem to get much traction with their Stadia system.) The Logitech partnership was announced in a blog post yesterday. 

In what would be a major expansion for them, Apple is preparing to release software that will let people make purchases from their phone even if they use Chrome or MS Edge. Mashable.com reports that code was spotted in the latest beta of iOS 16. So far, nothing like that yet has been spotted for desktops…desktop browsers use their own web render engines. The iOS versions of Chrome (and Edge) use Safari’s render engine. The feature could drop soon.