Michael Hicks

4 days ago | androidcentral.com | Michael Hicks

Tech companies like Apple, Google, and Meta want smart and AR glasses to become as ubiquitous and essential as smartphones. Pulling that off will be a challenge, but let's assume they can. If the biggest tech brands all buy in and go to war over smart glasses, it'll be a much more fun tech battle to watch than any other. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Apple CEO Tim Cook wants to make Apple AR glasses the company's "top priority," so they can beat Meta to the punch.

4 days ago | androidcentral.com | Michael Hicks

Sunday RundayIn this weekly column, Android Central Wearables Editor Michael Hicks talks about the world of wearables, apps, and fitness tech related to running and health, in his quest to get faster and more fit. This week, I wore augmented reality glasses that showed my pace, heart rate, power, and other stats in the corner of my vision while running, the data ported over from my Garmin Fenix 8.

6 days ago | androidcentral.com | Michael Hicks

Knowing how many calories you've burned is crucial for weight loss or planning your workout regimen. But I've found that different smartwatches' calorie (kcal) counts vary significantly with the same HR data. So your choice of watch could make you pessimistic or overconfident about your progress.

6 days ago | androidcentral.com | Michael Hicks

Meta doesn't like to discount its Quest headsets. It used to give out gift cards on Black Friday while keeping the Quest 2 and 3 at full price, and the Quest 3 512GB hasn't fallen below $499 since its 2023 launch. That context should make it clear how rare this $30 discount on the Meta Quest 3S 128GB ($269) is!Meta did discount the Quest 3S 256GB in January, but that still cost $350.

6 days ago | androidcentral.com | Michael Hicks

Wear OS WeeklyMy weekly column focuses on the state of Wear OS, from new developments and updates to the latest apps and features we want to highlight. Google says that its Wear OS 5.1 update makes the Pixel Watch 3 and previous models much better at handling "challenging" step count tracking, like pushing a stroller or shopping cart. I put this new system to the test.