Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.
This is the app roundup. The game roundup from this week can be found here.
Today's roundup is presented by Clueful from Bitdefender. Clueful is a privacy app that does more than most of the similar Play Store offerings we've seen thus far.
If an official AOSP build and CyanogenMod support have got you hot and bothered to try out Sony's latest entry into the tablet world, there's good news. The Xperia Tablet Z is now officially available through Sony's partner channels worldwide, according to a press release issued this morning. This much-anticipated 1080p tablet is the larger brother to the Xperia Z smartphone, in both design and hardware terms. Sony's US store still shows a pre-order doesn't list any retailers, but Amazon shows the 16GB and 32GB models at $499 and $599, respectively, arriving on Friday the 24th. Newegg has it coming in the day after.
Just a day after Sony threw developers a bone by posting the Android Open Source Project code for their flagship Xperia Tablet Z, the industrious folks at CyanogenMod have one-upped them with a release of their own. Both a release candidate (RC) and a test build of CyanogenMod ROM 10.1 (Android 4.2) have been posted to the download site, ready and waiting for you to flash to your unlocked tablet.
It's no surprise that CyanogenMod is supporting the Xperia Tablet Z; Sony has been historically friendly with the developer community, and in any case, the 1080p tablet runs on the same chipset as the more far-reaching Xperia Z smartphone.
Have you finished downloading CyanogenMod's 10.1 RC1 release for your device yet? If not, hit cancel and refresh your browser. Just three days after RC1 started rolling out, CM 10.1 RC2 has hit the download center, going up over night for forty seven devices at the time of writing, including devices from the Galaxy SIII to the Nexus Q.
the list goes on
For those not sure why they should care about CM10.1 RC2, an RC or Release Candidate is basically a firmware release that the CyanogenMod team believes is up to snuff for a daily driver – a new-but-not-bleeding-edge release that's stable enough to rely on.
Have you got a shiny new HTC One in your pocket, but the company's lackluster advertising has only made you more aware of your hatred for Sense 5? Do you long for stock Android, but crave power user features? Does your heart know no fear of voided warranties? Then today is your lucky day, assuming you're using an international GSM or Sprint model. The CyanogenMod custom ROM is now available in 10.1 (Jelly Bean 4.2) flavor for both versions of the One, albeit only in a test build (pre-nightly) format. Update: The first nightly builds just appeared.
These builds are so early that even the most daring of our readers might want to hold back on them.
Get ready to start downloading, as the CyanogenMod team has started pushing out its first release candidate for 10.1. The CM team only uses the RC moniker to describe software that is believed to be stable and reliable enough for regular daily use. If you are looking for a rock solid version of Android 4.2 for your phone, this is probably the one to get.
The timing is no coincidence, as this lands exactly one week before a new version of Android is expected to be announced at Google I/O 2013 (probably v4.3). As with previous OS releases, the CyanogenMod team usually pushes a final RC or stable release shortly after the launch of a new version from Google, immediately before integrating the latest code base with their own modifications.
A couple of months ago, a number of team Hacksung/CyanogenMod members expressed frustration and doubt regarding the fate of the popular custom ROM when it came to Samsung's newest flagship - the Galaxy S4 (see our review). Other CM members quickly put an end to the misinterpretation, but not before some prematurely jumped to incorrect conclusions. Needless to say, when Steve Kondik, a.k.a. Cyanogen, took to G+ to announce the first upcoming S4 builds, he couldn't resist the opportunity for a healthy dose of sarcasm:
His follow-up messages confirmed that the T-Mobile and Canadian S4s were first in line, followed by the international i9505 at some point in the future when the team gets a hold of the hardware, though it's not clear whether the i9500 or other Exynos Octa variants will be supported.
After some teasing, Paranoid Android has unveiled (in a lovely promo image) their plan for multi-window functionality on Android, which they promise to "get right," – Halo.
The premise is simple, yet extremely ambitious in scope – allow apps to give you notifications right on top of your screen, which allow you to pop into that app without leaving the one you're in (no matter what it is), take care of business, and resume your experience uninterrupted. The general concept, which rejects the notion of a distracting notification shade, and shuns implementations like "whacky s-multiwindow," is no doubt inspired by Facebook's admittedly awesome Chat Heads functionality, perhaps the most compelling feature of its new Home app.
If you bought/plan on buying AT&T's variant of the Galaxy S4, we have some bad news for those of you who like to flash custom ROMs, kernels, and the like: it's locked down tight.
Historically, Samsung devices – up to and including the SIII – have been bootloader-unlocked on AT&T. The Galaxy S4 brings a major change in that respect, as Steve Kondik (Cyanogen) has confirmed that it is indeed locked, in that it "authenticates the recovery and boot images before executing them." In layman's terms, that essentially means that it won't allow any sort of custom recovery or boot image to be flashed and/or run.
Oppo Find 5 is one of the sexiest Android phones in recent history - just take a look at some of the photos in our review published earlier this year. At $499.99 ($569.99 for the 32GB variant), it's also cheaper than most unlocked high-end modern devices, yet it manages to pack a quad-core 1.5GHz Krait, Adreno 320, 2GB of RAM, a 1080P 5" display, a 13MP camera, NFC, and a 2500mAh battery.
![find5[5]](http://cdn.androidpolice.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/nexusae0_find551.png "find5[5]")
One of David's main complaints in the review of Find 5 was the software. As of today, this bullet can be crossed off if you're the adventurous kind not afraid to dabble in flashing custom ROMs.
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