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While the Moto G launched just earlier this month with Android 4.3, Motorola isn't wasting any time keeping the device's OS up to date - they've just announced an Android 4.4.2 OTA for the company's super cheap entry-level handset, mere weeks after the phone itself was unveiled. Here are the changes Motorola's touting as part of the update:
Google removed the extremely popular app ROM Manager from the Play Store today for violation of the Google Play Developer Program Policies, specifically the subsection regarding in-app purchases, which requires developers to use Google's in-app billing system.
[Update: Winners Selected] Sprint And Android Police Are Giving Away 12 Android Devices, Including The GS4, Note 3, And Moto X
[Update: Winners Selected] Sprint And Android Police Are Giving Away 12 Android Devices, Including The GS4, Note 3, And Moto X
We're into awesome giveaways here at Android Police, and it so happens that one such awesome giveaway opportunity just landed in our lap this week: a whole bunch o' Sprint phones and tablets. We're giving away 2 Sprint Galaxy S 4s, 2 Sprint Moto Xs, 2 Sprint Galaxy Note 3s, 2 Sprint Galaxy Tab 3 7" tablets, 2 Sprint Vitals, and 2 Sprint Galaxy S 4 Minis. That's a whole lot of Sprint Android goodies.
Earlier this week, Google rather unexpectedly announced two brand-new Google Play Experience devices (for the US only, of course) - the LG G Pad 8.3 and the Sony Xperia Z Ultra. The G Pad 8.3 will set you back $350, while the Z Ultra is $650, though both devices rather undeniably fill niches in the Google device ecosystem. The G Pad acts as a mid-size tablet, a la iPad Mini, something a lot of enthusiasts have been asking Google to build for years now. The Z Ultra meets the growing demand for super-sized phones, aka phablets, though even in that category the Z Ultra is one of the largest devices on sale today.
[The Android Police Podcast] Episode 90: Crunk For Your Trunk
[The Android Police Podcast] Episode 90: Crunk For Your Trunk
Welcome back to another week of the Android Police Podcast. To catch us live on Hangouts On Air every Thursday at 5PM PST (subject to change as per the calendar widget below), just head over to androidpolice.com/podcast. For the unedited video show, click here.
Yesterday, the CTIA (America's wireless carrier consortium / trade group) and the FCC announced that they'd come to an agreement on network unlocking of cell phones. Hooray! So, we're all getting unlocked phones from here on out, right? Obviously not - the CTIA has no interest in giving you that much freedom, so instead it's released a plodding, incremental evolution of most carriers' existing device unlock policies to satisfy people in Washington who apparently don't really understand the absurdity of network locking in the first place.
LG G Flex Review: An Engineering Concept You Can Actually Buy, Not That You Necessarily Should
LG G Flex Review: An Engineering Concept You Can Actually Buy, Not That You Necessarily Should
LG G Flex is just like a lot of modern, high-end smartphones. It has a fast processor, lots of RAM, a big battery, and a large display. Using it isn't particularly different from any other Android smartphone. And yet, hand the G Flex to almost anyone, and they will immediately notice there is something very different about it, and I'm not talking about the buttons on the back.
After having been beta-tested for the last couple months, the new Twitter v5.0 app for Android has finally been released to all users, with a very mixed critical reception.
Google recently added a color descriptor to the URL of the black Nexus 7 on the Play Store, and we thought something might be up - turns out we were right! A White (and black) Nexus 7 has just been announced, though you can only order one version of it at the moment - 32GB, Wi-Fi only, meaning a retail price of $269 in the US. Behold:
[The Android Police Podcast] Episode 89: Industrial Sandwiches
[The Android Police Podcast] Episode 89: Industrial Sandwiches
Welcome back to another week of the Android Police Podcast. To catch us live on Hangouts On Air every Thursday at 5PM PST (subject to change as per the calendar widget below), just head over to androidpolice.com/podcast. For the unedited video show, click here.
With Google Play Music All Access coming to more and more countries around the world (though obviously still not all of them), Google is expanding the reach of its all-you-can-eat music platform into regions where services like Spotify reign supreme. Listening to music on your smartphone (or tablet) is probably an activity all of us partake in, too, so I'm curious to know what kind of services our readers actually like enough to pay for.
With a new Android release comes another one of Funky Android's crazy-detailed AOSP developer changelogs, this time detailing every commit made between Android 4.4 (build KRT16M) and Android 4.4.1 (build KOT49E).
Google's been on a roll when it comes to sending former AOSP apps to the Play Store for everyone to enjoy (and Google to close the source on), we've already seen properties like Google Keyboard and Calendar, but now it looks like the newly-refresh Email app could be on the way.
While we're not entirely sure what changes Android 4.4.1 will be bringing across the host of Nexus devices it's currently rolling out to (aside from an improved camera on the Nexus 5), we do know that the latest release of Google's mobile OS is hitting the repositories of the Android Open Source Project as we speak.
Android 4.4.1 is rolling out for a number of devices today, including the Nexus 5, but as with most Nexus device updates, it's happening in stages. As such, it could be a few days before you get the OTA if you choose to wait, and we all know what that's like: annoying. So, here's the Android 4.4.1 OTA for the Nexus 4.
[Download] Android 4.4.1 OTA (KOT49E) For The Nexus 7 2013 LTE
[Download] Android 4.4.1 OTA (KOT49E) For The Nexus 7 2013 LTE
Android 4.4.1 is rolling out for a number of devices today, including the Nexus 5, but as with most Nexus device updates, it's happening in stages. As such, it could be a few days before you get the OTA if you choose to wait, and we all know what that's like: annoying. So, here's the Android 4.4.1 OTA for the 2013 Nexus 7 LTE (must be the LTE model - this will not flash on the Wi-Fi version).
Imagine your perfect full-sized tablet. It's light, thin, has a gorgeous high-resolution display, multiple-day battery life, powerful speakers, and a cutting-edge processor. The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 is all these things and more. From a hardware and engineering standpoint, it is truly a marvel. And, for a certain class of buyer, it may very well be that "perfect" full-sized tablet.When I reviewed the Fire HD (7") last year, I came to a similar conclusion - I was wowed by the hardware (perhaps excepting the processor, which was a laggardly dual-core TI OMAP), but the software made it difficult to recommend for enthusiasts like you and me. Unfortunately, the story is largely the same this year, except Amazon's Fire OS feels all the more limited, I think, because the Fire HDX 8.9 really is such a great device.Multitasking is archaic even by iOS standards. Amazon's home-brewed browser, Silk, is still painfully bad. User customization options remain stripped down to the bare essentials - you can't even change the wallpaper in Fire OS. Much of this is by design. Amazon wants a tablet that's easy for almost anyone to pick up and use, regardless of age or technical experience. It does not want users to get lost in a seemingly endless array of menus and settings, rather, Fire OS is all about putting content front and center, and guiding you into Amazon's various content-distributing properties.That's not to say Fire OS is a complete failure in the functional sense, though. Quite the contrary - Fire OS is easy to navigate, runs very smoothly on that Snapdragon 800 processor, and I personally find the layout to be a welcome departure from Android, iOS, or Windows. It's not the most beautiful interface ever designed, but it feels bespoke to the Fire in a way that even the heavier UI layers from the likes of Samsung and LG can't approach. Once you get used to the way things are done in Amazon's world, some of it even starts to make a lot of sense.
[The Android Police Podcast] Episode 88: Wishful Thinking Party
[The Android Police Podcast] Episode 88: Wishful Thinking Party
Welcome back to another week of the Android Police Podcast. To catch us live on Hangouts On Air every Thursday at 5PM PST (subject to change as per the calendar widget below), just head over to androidpolice.com/podcast. For the unedited video show, click here.
Hard to believe, but 2013 is drawing to a close. And with the end of the year comes that same arbitrary question we ask in so many consumer product segments: who did it best? This is a hard question to answer in a truly objective sense, so that's why we're leaving the voting to you.