Bertel King, Jr.
Contributing since April, 2013
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3518articles
Page 172
About Bertel King, Jr.
Bertel is a Linux user who likes budget smartphones more than flagships, uses a custom ROM, and gets his apps from F-Droid. When he isn't writing short stories for Android Police, you might find him penning the fictional kind. Otherwise, look for him reading pixels that were converted to ink and paper.
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Google has crept on all of us over the course of developing Google Maps into the ubiquitous product that it has become, and now the company is enabling us to start creeping on each other as well.* Today Google has kicked off a pilot program opening up use of the Street View Trekker to third parties. If you're a member of a tourist board, non-profit, university, research organization, or something otherwise interesting, you can apply to borrow the Trekker and help capture images of the hard-to-reach places Google has yet to access.
Today's update to Play Movies introduces a sleeker experience for Android devices. Unfortunately, the experience is too sleek for the Nexus Q to handle. For the few of you that have one of those endearing little spheres, your movies are now joining your music as content you can no longer stream to the device.
You know who you are. While the rest of us were waiting for the Google Play Edition HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4 to arrive, your mind was elsewhere. You want to get your hands dirty, and now you can. Google has released the kernel and platform open source code for both the HTC One and the Galaxy S4.
This is a niche product, the kind that may appeal to only one in every fifty people, and even they may only use this thing a total of twice before forgetting they bought it. It's a good idea, no doubt about it - I'm just surprised it's getting made. It looks funny, it sounds funny, and, frankly, the itch it scratches is also kind of funny. But these things have not mattered. The BubblePod, a Kickstarter product for taking perfect 360-degree photos, has met its funding goal with a dozen days left to go.
Google Apps Device Policy doesn't have a sexy name, and it doesn't need one. It's intended for businesses, schools, and governments that use Google Apps. Administrators can use the tool to enforce security policies and enact other policies that personal users have come to expect from Lookout and Where's My Droid. They are empowered to locate lost devices, cause them to ring, lock them remotely, and wipe all of their content. The latest update permits administrators to remove corporate Gmail, Contacts, Calendar, and Docs without deleting the other data contained on a device. Conversely, users can now wipe MicroSD cards in addition to internal memory.
I just recently made the jump to an HTC One, but my last two phones were real stinkers. It's with this bad taste in my mouth that I am glad to see things improving on the budget end of things. US Cellular is debuting the ZTE Imperial, an Android 4.1 handset that doesn't make me hold my nose while reading its spec sheet. It comes with a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, a 5MP rear-facing camera, and a front-facing camera for video chatting. It is the 14th 4g LTE-capable phone from US Cellular.
CloudAround isn't the music player you grew up with. Sure, it can play the files saved locally, but that's not its purpose. This is a music player for people who are tired of shifting files back and forth between every new device. They've made the effort of saving their music to their computer and, wisely, backing it up. Now they're putting their foot down - they just don't want to have to move their music over yet again to enjoy the native music app that came with their shiny new phone. It's all going to be okay. Just pat them on the back and introduce them to CloudAround Music Player, which has benefited from a set of updates turning what was once just a functional app into something that is both nice to look at and fun to use.
Samsung's third iteration of the Galaxy Tab series of tablets isn't exactly mind-blowing, with each entry rocking specs that rival that of the aging Nexus 7. While we're mildly offended that Samsung would stick a 1280x800 resolution on a 10.1-inch screen, that doesn't mean we're going to stop you from buying one if your heart so desires. The 7-inch, 8-inch, and 10.1-inch versions of Sammy's largely identical slates have all popped up for pre-order online and at several big box retailers. The prices are the same across all of the distributors, and they all ship on July 7th.
Humble Bundle With Android 6 was already a good deal before, as it offered seven games, five of which were debuting on Android for the first time. Now, three additional titles are joining the ranks. Those who have already bought the bundle will see McPixel, Waking Mars, and NightSky appear in their Humble Bundle libraries automatically. Those who haven't yet bought the bundle just have to pay over the average price paid thus far, which has yet to exceed $5. To sweeten the deal further, all ten games come with digital versions of their soundtracks.
Sony has handed out Jelly Bean to a number of devices in the past month, but it has taken a while for the update to reach the Xperia Ion. That's now changing. Build number 6.2.B.0.211 has started to roll out to the device that, until now, was missing out on all the fun that its Xperia siblings were having.
I've taken a less conventional path into the world of Android. I owned a Honeycomb tablet long before I finally got my hands on my first smartphone, and before that, my first Android device was a Nook Color (I booted CyanogenMod from a microSD card, so it was legit). It is due to this background that I am sad to see Barnes & Noble end in-house development of its Nook line of tablets.
In today's world of widespread broadband and increasingly ubiquitous WiFi, some people frankly balk at the thought of using flash drives. Those of us who ignore the naysayers still have had to accept the reality that our trusty flash drives that proved so useful while we sat at PCs aren't quite as useful when transitioning to smartphones. A 32GB flash drive filled with music is awesome when I want to pump music from my laptop, but it's a brick when I want to listen through my phone instead. This is why the new Leef Bridge flash drive for Android devices, Macs, and PCs is a pretty big deal, despite coming in a small package.
Need more proof that a Nexus 7 refresh is on its way? The deals are just flowing in. Adorama has knocked $50 off the price of a new 32 GB Nexus 7, bringing the beefier version of the tablet down to just $199. This price is part of a special email promotion, and it's quite lower than the $230 price point the tablet currently goes for at the site. The Nexus 7 may no longer be the peppy little device it used to be, but it's still a good deal for the money.
Privacy Guard, the feature formerly known as Incognito Mode for apps, will make its way into CyanogenMod starting tonight. Steve Kondik, Mr. Cyanogen himself, has merged the ability to enable Privacy Guard support into all future nightly builds. Just to be clear, this new feature is not included in the 10.1.0 RC or stable releases currently available. Only those who like to walk on the wild side are getting their hands on this feature right away.
The HTC One is a beautiful device. At a time when most Android phones are made of plastic, HTC betted on aluminum for its flagship device. The handset just exudes style and class, but there is something it's missing. It screams premium, but it doesn't quite say ... elite. If only it were made of gold. Now that would be a quality device. While we can't expect HTC of all companies to have the visionary mindset necessary to deliver such a product, the fine folks over at Goldgenie understand class. They have produced an HTC One available in 24ct gold.
Google Play for Education is starting to come together. Last week, Google threw up an 8-minute video detailing their new initiative. Today, developers can now mark their apps for "Google Play for Education" in the Play Store Developer Console. This is how Google intends to seed their new store, which will be heavily monitored and curated, quite unlike the Play Store itself. Marking an app will place it in a queue for evaluation by a third-party network of educators. These educators will assign the apps the appropriate subject, grade level, and applicable common core standards metadata.
The summer is here, and that means plenty of uses for a massive external battery pack. Whether the entire family decides to stay out at the beach for a few hours longer than your over-powered smartphone can last or a particularly nasty hurricane decides to knock out power for a few days, you could use some extra juice to fall back on. That's why now's a good time to snatch up the RAVPower 5600mAh battery pack that's currently available from Amazon for only $19.99 with a coupon code.
Some of the features found in Technogym's newly announced UNITY Android-based cardiovascular user interface are nothing we haven't seen before. Things like tracking a user's heartbeat, how many miles they've ran, and how many calories they've burned have been around for years. Other aspects, like its gesture-based Android-based interface and app support turn a treadmill into a tablet competitor. The UNITY interface is built on top of Android 4.0, and the apps will be distributed through Technogym's own App Store.
GPSes used to be expensive and uncommon, but now half of the population carries one around in their pockets. That new Android smartphone you bought? It has GPS-functionality built-in through Google Maps. So does that new tablet. But get this - dedicated GPS units are still a thing, and I'm not talking about the kind that you mount on your dashboard. Today Garmin announced Monterra, the company's first Android-powered handheld outdoor GPS with WiFi.
Few people probably saw this one coming. Microsoft Windows has long faced off with Mac OS X on the desktop, and while only a distinct minority adopted Apple's platform, the conflict has captured the interest of the tech industry for years. Open source advocates have even entertained the idea that Linux desktops would one day topple Microsoft's empire. Far fewer people speculated that it would be a mobile operating system that would start to replace Windows on desktop machines. Yet we've already seen Acer move in this direction, and now HP is doing the same. Today HP announced the Slate 21 AIO, a 21.5-inch tablet that wants to sit not on your lap, but on your desk.