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At the end of May, language-learning app Duolingo hit Android with hopes of bringing "a college-quality education without the price tag" to the mobile scene. As useful as it was at the time, however, it had a couple of fairly major shortcomings: lack of a tablet-optimized interface and/or landscape support. In about a month's time, however, the company has already managed to cough up an update that not only brings both of those features to the table, but also an all-new leaderboard feature that lets you compete with your friends.
Back in December of last year, Fuhu announced two new members of the nabi family: the jr. and XD. While the latter is designed for tweens and sports a larger form factor, the former is an itty-bitty device designed for the itty-bitty hands of a pre-schooler. At the time, two versions were announced: a 4GB variant for $99 and 16GB for $129. A lot has changed since that announcement, including the specifications of the unit with the larger storage capacity.The device was spec'd like this at announcement time:
If your device has Android 4.1 or higher, a new Google Search update is rolling out in the Play Store that brings a handful of new and useful features, which includes a couple of additional voice actions:
A little over a week ago, rumors of yet another Galaxy S4 variant hit the web, but this time it was packing support for LTE Advanced, the successor to the LTE we all know and love. That device is now official on Korea's SK Telecom, and it not only has support for the fastest mobile network on the planet, but also Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 800 chip. Early benchmarks of the device are in, and it crushes everything we've seen thus far – up to and including the "original" Galaxy S4. Take a look:
So maybe a refurbished 16GB Nexus 7 for $150 wasn't exactly what you wanted. It could be that you want more storage. Or maybe you just want a brand new unit. If either (or both) of those is the case, then how about a brand-spanking-new 32GB N7 with the official N7 folio for $189? You'll have a difficult time finding a better deal than that, for now at least.
Kernel source code is an important part of a ROM developer's everyday life. It's what enables them to bring new features to your favorite device. What gives them with the opportunity to improve battery life, overclock (underclock) the processor, and so much more. For the average Joe, it's no big deal; for developers, however, it's a valuable asset.
We've covered GoBank (and its competitor, Simple) rather extensively here at AP, but up until now, the service was invite-only. You may have seen GoBank's #gimmegobank campaign across Twitter for those who were seeking an invite, but as of today, the online-centric bank exits its beta program and is available for everyone.
Do you find that your devices constantly need more juice while you're out and about? There's a good solution for that quandary: a portable charger. As a day-one Verizon Galaxy Nexus owner, I quickly learned how important always having one with me is, and now I never leave home without one (even though the N4 is extremely battery efficient by comparison). If you're in the market for just such a charger, Amazon has a couple of good deals going right now for EasyAcc's 10k and 12k mAh chargers, at $28 and $37 respectively.
The portable Bluetooth speaker market has exploded lately, with new offerings seemingly popping up everyday. Despite this, the guys at Killer Concepts couldn't find something that had all the features they were looking for, so, like any logical human being would, they set out to create their own. The end result was the Rocksteady XS, a speaker that claims to be "louder, clearer, and longer lasting" than the competition. The original iteration brought some interesting features to the table, including a removable/replaceable battery; it also has pause/play/forward/reverse controls directly on the front of the unit, which is something all BT speakers should offer. The newest release – which keeps the same name and tacks a "1.5" to the end – also brings a few new features, including a speakerphone, the ability to connect up to two devices at once (and on-board memory of the last four devices), and a dual-function USB port that also works as a portable charger. Unfortunately, the unit only houses a 1050mAh battery, so the latter feature is of little use on a modern smartphone, though I guess it could supply some extra juice in a pinch – say, during the zombie apocalypse, for example.
If you're in the market for a new gadget but can't justify paying full price, refurbished hardware is a good way to get the most bang for your buck. While the word "refurbished" is somewhat tainted with a negative mental association, the odds are that you'll get a problem-free unit that will provide the same life as if you bought it new (in some cases the unit has simply been returned and can't be re-sold as "new"). If you can leap over the mental barrier and pick up a refurb, you can get a 16GB Nexus 7 for $150 from eBay right now.
If you're in the market for a new phone on AT&T, the time to buy is now. The company is running a promotion that knocks 50 percent off of all smartphones – including top-tier handsets like the Galaxy S4/Active or HTC One. To make this deal even more enticing, all activation fees are also getting waived through the end of the month. That's a hell of a deal.
We're always looking for new and practical ways to prop tablets up (or otherwise use them without tying up at least one hand). While we've looked at several different tablet stands in the past, we've never seen anything quite like the MonkeyKit ($99) and WhaleKit ($49) for Octa's TabletTail. Before we get into that, though, a little explanation of the TabletTail is in order.
What's that? You've never heard of the Pantech Flex? Don't sweat it – it's just a little AT&T freebie sporting various mid-range specs. But today, it becomes something more. Something better. Something Jelly Bean-ier. The handset is currently receiving its version bump to Android 4.1.2, which of course brings all sorts of goodies to the table.
If you haven't heard of Aio Wireless, here's the skinny: it's a new AT&T prepaid carrier (think of it as an MVNO), and it actually offers some pretty enticing features. Initially, we expected that Aio wouldn't offer LTE service since that would be reserved for a "premium" AT&T experience, but it looks like that plan has been changed – Aio just announced that it is activating LTE coverage for its current userbase (which is currently limited to a few areas in Texas and Florida). An OTA is on its way to current Aio handset as I type this that will enable high-speed mobile access on compatible handsets.
If you like to tinker with Sony Xperia devices, things just got a little more fun (funner, if you will). Thanks to Sony's newly-released Illumination API, developers can now tweak the illumination bar settings on compatible devices, including the Xperia SP, ZL, ZR, UL, A U, L, S, SL, P, sola, ion, acro HD, go, M, and M dual.
I think we can officially say there's a market for smartwatches. The first major player in the game was Pebble, which received a massive $10 million in funding throughout the duration of its Kickstarter campaign; now, Agent joins the million dollar club, as it just hit $1m mark – a full ten times its $100k goal (which it actually blasted through in less than 12 hours).
Dual OS devices featuring Windows 8 and Android are nothing new (if anything, they're becoming more and more common), and Samsung decided it was time to throw its name into the we can do two things at once arena with the just-announce Ativ Q. At its core, the Ativ Q is a 13.3-inch laptop/tablet hybrid, but the real allure here is its insane 275PPI display that runs at a massive 3200x1800 resolution.
Short-length videos are quickly becoming the new picture thanks to services like Vine, so it only makes sense that Instagram would also want to get in on the action. Today, the now Facebook-owned company announced videos for Instagram, a new feature that will let users capture up to 15 second clips (almost thrice the length of Vine's capture window).
While Spotify has likely seen a fairly dramatic drop in subscribers since the launch of Play Music All Access, the all-you-can-eat streaming audio service hasn't quite given up on its Android users just yet. The last significant update finally brought landscape support (which, honestly, should've been baked in from the beginning), and today's version bump brings another feature long missed by Android users: notification controls for Jelly Bean devices (4.1+).
HTC must've been doing a bit of spring (read: summer) cleaning when it suddenly stumbled across some source code that should've been released to the public ages ago. First up is the AT&T HTC One's kernel source, which was nowhere to be found back in late April when all other One variants' source hit the scene.