Hasta La Gadget!

The Play Store is officially 10 years old, and Google is eager to mark the occasion. On top of a new logo in line with the tech giant’s current aesthetic (see above), there’s a promotion starting July 25th that offers 10 times the usual Play Points to rewards program members who make purchases.

Google launched the Play Store in 2012 to unify all its online stores of the era under a single umbrella: Android Market (apps), music, e-books and videos. You could effectively buy anything Google offered through one website or a handful of apps. For a while, you could also shop a digital newsstand and hardware products like Nexus devices and Chromebooks. The service has unsurprisingly been popular given its importance to Android, with over 2.5 billion people using the store every month across 190 countries.

The anniversary comes as the service is evolving. The company rebadged Play Newsstand as Google News in 2018, and wound down Play Music in 2020 as it finished transitioning to YouTube Music. This year, Google is pulling the Movies & TV section to put its content in the TV app. The Play Store is still intact, but it’s considerably more focused than it was a decade ago.

The Play Store has also endured its share of controversy. While the Play Protect anti-malware system and data safety listings have made the store more trustworthy than in its early days, there are still occasional instances of shady apps dodging Google’s screening system. Google has also drawn flak for its policies. Fortnite creator Epic Games and others have accused Google of stifling the use of third-party payment systems, and even blocking manufacturer deals. Google even tightened its policies this June, requiring that a host of apps use the Play Store’s billing system.

The European Union partly reversed that approach with legislation requiring access to third-party payment platforms. Other regulators have demanded similar changes. As important as the Play Store has been to Android and Google as a whole, there’s a chance it will lose some of its clout in the years ahead.

Anker has revealed its third-gen gallium nitride (GaN) chargers, just over a year after the previous batch. The company is branding the new lineup of power bricks and portable chargers as GaNPrime. Anker said it worked with several partners to create products that last longer and are more sustainable. It claims the GaNPrime is the “most intelligent, most powerful and greenest multi-device charging system ever created.”

The GaNPrime chargers boast the latest version of Anker’s PowerIQ tech, which can detect the power needs of each device they’re connected to and automatically adjust the power distribution to each USB-C port every three minutes. Anker says that, when two 67W 14-inch MacBook Pro laptops are being charged simultaneously, a GaNPrime device will reduce the overall charging time by 62 minutes. It also says GaNPrime chargers are compatible with more than 1,000 mobile devices. 

On top of that, a feature called ActiveShield 2.0 will monitor temperatures and adjust the power output to protect devices that are connected to a charger. Anker says it has increased the temperature detection frequency by 75 percent compared with previous generations — it monitors temperatures 3 million times a day.

Anker claims its new devices are much smaller than comparable offerings on the market. For instance, it says the 150W 747 charger is 38 percent more compact than Apple’s 140W charger. Meanwhile, Anker says GaNPrime models improve the efficiency of AC to DC power by two percent compared with its previous GaN products. Switching from legacy silicon to new GaN semiconductors can reduce carbon emissions by up to 30 percent as well, Anker claims.

There are six devices in the initial GaNPrime lineup, all of which are available starting today in the US. The 65W 735 charger costs $60 and has one USB-A and two USB-C ports. The 615 USB Power Strip has has an additional two AC ports. That’s also a 65W charger and it costs $70.

Next up is the 737 charger, which has a maximum output of 120W and, according to Anker, can fully charge a 16-inch MacBook Pro in 1.5 hours. That model, which has one USB-A and three USB-C ports, costs $95. The even more powerful 747 charger has a maximum output of 150W, one USB-A port and three USB-C ports. It will run you $110.

Anker

The slim 727 Charging Station is a power strip with two AC, two USB-C and two 2 USB-A ports. Anker claims it’s 50 percent thinner than traditional power strips. It offers a maximum output of 100W via USB-C and it costs $95.

Elsewhere, the GaNPrime lineup includes the 733 Power Bank. It can output up to 65W via AC and offers DC output of 30W (i.e. when it’s in battery mode). It has one USB-A and two USB-C ports, and it costs $100.

Years ago, I wouldn’t consider a mid-range smartphone, because I knew the concessions I’d have to make. It used to be that you could only find one flagship-level feature on a smartphone under the $500 price point. Fortunately, things have grown exponentially in the past five years.

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