Nextbit, the company behind Robin Cloud Phone gets Acquired by Razer

Nextbit came into the limelight a year ago with its seemingly unique offering, the Robin. This smartphone claimed to offer unlimited storage for customers and it offered a feature that would move the less used apps to the cloud and would restore them with a tap of the button. Razer seems to be eagerly expanding its portfolios and after acquiring the audio tech company THX, Razer has now acquired Nextbit.

The financial terms of the deal are yet to be revealed but it is likely that a generous exchange of equity was involved. Nextbit had earlier raised $18 million in funding from Accel, GV, and Dentsu along with another $1.36 million against the Kickstarter orders. In fact, Robin started out as a Kickstarter project and soon rose to fame.

Razer will be onboarding 30 of Nextbit’s staff and intends to develop more products with the Nextbit brand as the cornerstone. Thankfully Nextbit will still live as a standalone business entity even after the acquisition. However, Nextbit has already discontinued Robin but has assured software support for at least the next six months.

This sets us wondering what’s in the Nextbit’s pipeline, will it stick with the smartphone segment or diversify further and foray into other avenues. This is what Min-Liang, Razer’s co-founder had to say about the deal, “We’ve been huge fans of what Nexbit has been doing,” and he further added that “both the work on the phone technology and on the cloud-based storage side of things. There is a lot of potential and talent.” When asked about the future product portfolio Min said that they will be able to talk about it only when they are ready.

Razer is a well-known brand when it comes to gaming peripherals and has been on an acquisition spree and apart from buying THX, it has also acquired a gaming company called Ouya. Razer has disclosed around $125 million in funding with backers including Intel and Accel and is currently valued in excess of $1-Billion. It would be interesting to see how Nextbit and Razer will attempt to build a market for cloud-based hardware and software from ground-up especially after considering the fact that scale is an important factor in both.

  

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Top 7 Tips and Apps for Handling Big Phones Better

Huge phones have taken over the smartphone world. Even if you do decide to be a rebel, you can’t go below 4.7-inch which is the iPhone of course. However, OEMs, except for a handful, haven’t particularly paid attention to making them utilitarian in terms of software. Because let’s face it, our fingers haven’t really evolved along with these devices. Fortunately, developers have devised various applications to ameliorate the issues at some level. Hence, in this article, we discuss the top apps and tips for Android to handle big phones better.

1. Bottom UI Flag on Chrome Beta

We begin with a tip, not an app. However, this could be one of the most useful as it’s for your internet browser. Google’s Chrome Beta app on Android has a nifty little flag which brings the entire interface to the bottom. Therefore, you won’t have to struggle for pressing the new tab icon next time. For enabling it, fire up or download Chrome beta, head over to this link and under chrome home, select enabled. Do note that this feature is still under development and you may encounter bugs occasionally.

2. Fingerprint Quick Actions

Find yourself struggling with balancing that massive device while trying to bring down notifications? You can use the resting fingerprint reader. How? There’s a fair chance that your phone comes with an inbuilt feature, so looks for that in the settings first. If not, download “Fingerprint Quick Actions”. It’s a free Android app that lets you assign various actions such as pulling down the notification shade to the biometric scanner. You can configure gestures like double tapping or fast swipe.

3. One-Hand Mode

Another neat feature some OEMs have thankfully started including in their massive handhelds is a one-hand mode. Phones from companies such as Asus, Xiaomi, Samsung all usually pack a setting which shrinks down the screen to a size that doesn’t force you to extend your fingers.

There’s no third-party app available for this function. However, if you’ve a rooted phone, install this Xposed module for getting one-hand mode.

4. EasyTouch

Easytouch is an assistive tool for Android phones that groups together a series of useful actions in a hovering button, something which you can on iPhones by default. Easytouch is entirely customizable, hence, you can add your favourite buttons, navigation buttons, shortcuts for gestures like double-tap, and more. It’s definitely a must-have if you have a phone with an ungodly dimension.

5. Swipe Launcher / Omni Swipe

Another utility which can be useful if you switch between apps a lot is Swipe Launcher. The app lets you fire up a menu of your favourite apps, quick settings, recents by simply swiping from a defined corner. Swipe Launcher is quite straightforward, however, if you’re looking something more customizable, check out Omni Swipe.

6. All in One Gestures

Next up on our list is a free Android app that allows assigning various actions to gestures on the screen. Through “All in One Gestures”, you’ll be able to define functions to swipes on the edges, status bar, and hardware keys. I usually set the left edge to the back action, so I don’t have to repeatedly move my finger all the way to the bottom. One other setting you must establish is the location of these swipe trigger points, move them to a position you find the most appropriate and comfortable. The list of actions is too comprehensive and comprises all the common operations such as home, back, screenshot, volume, and others.

7. One Hand Mode on Keyboards

If you keep yourself scuffling with the phone while typing, enable the one hand mode which will shift the entire keyboard to either side. The feature is available on most keyboards out there including GBoard and Swiftkey.

For enabling it on Gboard, fire up the app, head into Preferences and turn on one-handed mode. On Swiftkey, turn the hamburger menu icon on the keyboard, tap settings, and change the layout to compact.

So, those were some of the tips and apps I find handy while using a phablet. Let us know in the comments section if we missed any good one.

  

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