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Update: Apparently the update should also bump HTC One Max owners up to Sense 6. This may turn out to be quite the OTA.
When a product on Amazon says it takes two days to arrives, Sunday typically doesn't count. Hey, that's no jab against the company, as this is standard practice in the shipping industry. But now Amazon is expanding Sunday delivery to fifteen cities, giving millions of customers the chance to see this new delivery date show up at checkout.
Sprint or Verizon customers in the market for a new Galaxy S5 might want to meander on over to Amazon right about now. Currently the site has the handset available for just $99.99 with a two-year contract, half of the usual upfront fee. This deal is applicable both for new customers and people looking to upgrade to another device.
Zen Studios' CastleStorm captured fans when it hit consoles last year, and now it's ready to try its hand with mobile gamers. CastleStorm - Free To Seige takes the same gameplay and packages it in a free-to-play, ad-supported, in-app purchase-containing Android package. Players who can overlook these now familiar elements of mobile gaming are in for an experience that combines tower defense with 2D physics and straight-up brawling. The graphics may not be quite as sharp as the console equivalent, but they could fool someone.
Flappy Bird is a game with only a single button. Players tap their fingers against the screen repetitively to get this plump little bird to flap its wings fast enough to resist the gravity of whatever massive planet it must live on, but not so fast quickly that it flies up into pipes hanging from the ceiling for who knows why. The game takes seconds to learn, and it still manages to be frustrating as $%&#.
We all remember Tiny Thief, but let's set those memories aside for a moment. Rovio Stars is back with another Android title. Word Monsters is a puzzle game that's so social, it requires players to sign in using Google or Facebook immediately after completing the initial tutorial. The game itself is an adorable take on word search. Look for words on-screen and swipe them to get points. Doing so will cause them to disappear, sometimes removing letters needed for future words and adding some degree of strategy to the experience. In typical Rovio fashion, Word Monsters is easy on the eyes, even if it is undeniably basic this time around.
The Amazon Android app has just received an update that should affect more than just your shopping. Now the company's apps support single sign-in. When you log into one, you're automatically signed into the other ones that are installed on your device. This works with the main shopping app, Amazon MP3, the Amazon Appstore, and the Kindle app.
Yesterday Pebble-wearing Android users gained the ability to control Pandora from their wrists. This was cool stuff for Pandora listeners, but now the brainy watch is getting an update that will affect all owners, regardless of their listening preferences. A 2.1 firmware upgrade is rolling out to devices via the Android companion app.
Listening to the radio has been a social experience since families first gathered around them in their living rooms, and now TuneIn Radio is ready to fully embrace this aspect. The Android app has received an update that injects a fresh dose of social features. Some of these build upon the way the software previously functioned, while other aspects are entirely new.
The last time an RBI Baseball game hit store shelves, it was for the Sega 32x. Even in its heyday, few people knew what that Genesis-era console add-on was, and even fewer owned one. Now, two decades later, the game has returned for Xbox and PlayStation consoles, along with mobile devices.
The Sony Smartwatch 2 companion app received an update last month that introduced a new watch face editor and some other enhancements. Now Sony is updating its SDK for developers to take advantage of these goodies. With the Sony Add-on SDK 3.0, developers can enable their apps to run in low-power mode, extending how long a user can go before having to plug in their watch. The change lets the app run in the foreground while the backlight is off. During this time, content is shown in grayscale.
Today Todoist has rolled out an update for its Android app that introduces the ability to attach files to notes natively. This includes data stored locally, along with audio recordings created on the fly. More appropriately for a cloud-based to-do list service, the app can also pull files directly from Dropbox or Google Drive. To give it a go, just hit the paper clip icon when creating a new note.
Greyhound's BoltBus service lets boarders ride without first purchasing tickets from some strange guy at a station. Instead, the company offers its services through this new invention known as the Internet. For a while now, passengers have been able to purchase tickets online for prices starting at a dollar (but realistically hovering around $20 - $40). Now they can do so using a bright new Android app.
Each version of Android is assigned a tasty treat to identify it by: Donut, Eclair, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, Jelly Bean, Jelly Bean, KitKat, so on and so forth. This is great for casual reference, but short build codes are provided to refer to more specific versions. This has been the case since before the DRC83 build of Android. Don't know which one that is? Check out our new Android Build Number Date Calculator to find out!
As one of Sprint's prepaid mobile offerings, Boost Mobile's big draw is that it's affordable. But competition has ramped up as of late, and now the carrier has rolled out three new "Monthly Unlimited Select" service plans to shake things up. The offerings range from $40 to $60, and all are technically unlimited, only not really.
Since officially announcing the OnePlus One late last month, OnePlus has found that people were far more interested in the 64GB version of its phone than the smaller, 16GB option. This has led the company to re-evaluate its priorities. Now instead of rushing to get the 16GB Silk White option out as early as possible, it is pushing production back in favor of getting the 64GB Sandstone Black model out sooner. With any luck, the device should now be available by the end of this month (instead of sometime in June, the company's previous goal).
The number of weeks between us and this year's World Cup are wilting away, which makes now the time to get prepared. Snag some tickets to Brazil if you can, or, more practically, go snatch up the new Android App ESPN has just released for keeping tags on all of the goings-on. This way you don't even have to watch the games to know who's kicking whose butts, and how hard.
It's a good thing originality isn't a pre-requisite for a good game, otherwise there would be far less enjoyment to be had on our mobile devices. Heroes: A Grail Quest is yet another clone, this time inspired by Heroes of Might and Magic, but that shouldn't prevent it from being a fun little experience. Game Dev Team, aside from having perhaps the most straightforward and honest name in the industry, has also developed the moderately well-received Sky Aces series and a 3D RTS based on mechs. Now it's ready to apply those skills to a turn-based strategy game.
People who bought the un-flattened LG G Flex on the un-carrier T-Mobile should be on the lookout for a chocolate dose of new features. The carrier has announced a software update is hitting devices starting today, bumping them up to Android 4.4 and software version D95920d.
The developer and unlocked versions of the HTC One M8 are now receiving an update that enables the device's Extreme Power Saving Mode. This feature extends the phone's battery life by disabling all but the essential services, shooting users out of the standard interface into one that provides access to phone calls, text messages, email, calendar events, a calculator, and nothing else. This feature did not ship on the HTC One M8 out of the box here in the US, but updates are turning that situation around. The Extreme Power Saving Mode is joined by a few enhancements to the camera and gallery apps.