Michael Crider
Contributing since December, 2013
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3608articles
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About Michael Crider
Michael is a born Texan and a former graphic designer. He's been covering technology in general and Android in particular since 2011. His interests include folk music, football, science fiction, and salsa verde, in no particular order. He wrote a novel called Good Intentions: A Supervillain Story, and it's available on Amazon.
Latest Articles
The HTC One M8 is one of the more desirable Android phones available at the moment, and if you're looking to find a good deal on one, "qualitycellz" (may not a be a real name) is happy to oblige on eBay. The seller has at least a few refurbished AT&T-branded One M8 models going for 9.99, a full $220 off of the new retail price at AT&T. You can have any color you want, so long as you want silver.
Timex Announces The IronMan One GPS+, A Smartwatch With Its Own AT&T Data Connection And Qualcomm's Mirasol Display
Timex Announces The IronMan One GPS+, A Smartwatch With Its Own AT&T Data Connection And Qualcomm's Mirasol Display
We've been wondering when conventional watchmakers would jump into the smartwatch game. Timex, a company that's no stranger to advanced wrist-mounted functionality, appears to be the first. They've adapted some of the technology first seen in the Qualcomm Toq developer device into the IronMan One GPS+. This watch combines the features of GPS watches that have been popular with runners and bikers for years with typical "smartwatch" functions like email alerts and an MP3 player.
In what will surely be a crushing blow to at least four, maybe five gamers across the globe, Sony has announced that it is ending support for its branded PlayStation Mobile game store and platform. If you'll recall, that's the app and control setup that is (or was) exclusive to Xperia phones and tablets, plus a few select models from HTC and Sharp. In a statement posted to the Japanese PlayStation website, the company said that devices running versions of Android past 4.4.3 would not be supported.
Update 8/5/14: The sale has been extended from July 31st to August 7th.
The official Wordpress app for Android got a significant bump to version 3.0 today. Users who host a free blog on Wordpress.com will see the greatest benefit from the added features, but just about everyone will see something new, and the bug fixes don't hurt either. The app doesn't have much to show in the user interface department, though it's been pretty solid since the Holo redesign in any case.
Tucked into the end of an otherwise unremarkable promo video for the G3 Beat is a fleeting glance of a new, unannounced variant of LG's latest flagship device. The phone is unapologetically labeled the G3 Stylus. It looks identical to the G3 save for a slightly larger screen and, well, a stylus. This is the first we've heard of this particular phone, though it's hardly a surprising addition to the lineup.
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.
When it comes to Android tablets on US carriers, you're lucky to find anything that isn't Samsung. But LG has been making a determined push as of late - in addition to expanding its G Pad lineup with three new models, they landed last year's G Pad 8.3 on Verizon. Today AT&T announced that it would make the smallest and cheapest current LG tablet, the G Pad 7.0, available on its LTE network starting this Friday, August 8th.
It seems like one out of every four searches I make sends me to Wikipedia for one thing or another - for example, the metric prefix atto- means 10 to the negative eighteenth power, or one quintillionth, or really quite amazingly bloody small. Google itself defaults to a lot of Wikipedia pages for its Knowledge Graph info, and you'll get small cards full of Wikipedia content for many searches from Android Wear. But developer Dheera Venkatraman (whose previous Wear apps Wear Camera Remote and Matrix face we've already written about) has an even better solution.
Update: In a timely interview with The Next Web, Blass stated that his reasons for ending his current work were mostly financial. He said that his attempts to monetize his Twitter stream, and later his website, were not successful enough to be sustainable. You can read the entire interview at The Next Web.
July saw the release of what's probably the biggest (or at the very least, the most high-profile) game of the year: Modern Combat 5. You can check out Ryan's review here, but there are a lot of other entries to Android's game catalog that you should consider playing. Our top seven picks from this month are below, in no particular order, with honorable mentions thrown in as well. Students, load up on them so you'll have something to play in class on the bus.
For a lot of our readers, July is really freakin' hot. It was also a surprisingly hot month for new app releases, especially if you're a fan of advanced tools and alternates to built-in apps. Below are our seven favorite apps from July, in no particular order, with a list of honorable mentions as well. It won't make you any cooler (figuratively or literally), but your phone will appreciate the attention.
Writing about the XBMC media center software almost always takes a little explanation. The open-source XBMC was formerly known as the "Xbox Media Center," because its first release way back in 2003 was based on the "Xbox Media Player" and intended to run on modified Xbox game consoles. Because the software no longer officially runs on the Xbox, and has never run on newer consoles like the Xbox 360, and in fact runs on a heck of a lot of hardware that bears no X at all, the creators have renamed the software "Kodi."
At this point, it's likely that everyone who really wants a Nexus 5 already has one. But if by some chance you don't, an eBay seller is offering it at a small discount that could add up to significant savings. The Daily Deals page is selling the standard 16GB Nexus 5 for 9.99, $10 off of the price you get in the Google Play Store.
If you own any of Amazon's Android-powered devices, and you buy new apps or in-app purchases regularly, you might want to take advantage of the latest Coins promotion. Amazon is selling 10,000 of its self-branded credits (equivalent to $100 USD when buying apps) for just $75 today. If you spend at least some money every week in the Amazon Appstore, this should be a good deal that will cover you for quite a while.
Vine isn't a platform known for outstanding videography, on account of being limited to mobile cameras (not to mention the time limit). But starting today, users on Android should notice a definite improvement in the quality of uploaded videos, at least according to the latest app update. Of course, the quality will still be limited by your phone or tablet's camera and the shooting conditions in any particular location. Exactly how video quality is being improved (bitrate bump? Resolution? Post-processing?) hasn't been addressed.
I really like my LG G Pad 8.3 Google Play Edition (or as we call it 'round the office, the LGGP83GPE), and it's a bit disheartening that the standard version isn't getting more traction. But at least Verizon's LTE model is now on Android 4.4, as confirmed by Google+ users. Verizon's standard upgrade page says that the KitKat 4.4.2 OTA update adds a few changes to LG's software skin as well.
Welcome to the latest entry in our Bonus Round series, wherein we tell you all about the new Android games of the day that we couldn't get to during our regular news rounds. Consider this a quick update for the dedicated gamers who can't wait for our bi-weekly roundups, and don't want to wade through a whole day's worth of news just to get their pixelated fix. Today we've got a good-looking platform-puzzle game, an old-school 2D hack-and-slash title, and a unique take on the Tempest formula. Without further ado:
Many fans of the original PS1-era RE-VOLT were thrilled when a port was released on Android last year. The portable version included all of the goofy kart-style racing that made the original a sleeper hit... with one exception. Both the remastered version and the free-to-play edition lacked online multiplayer, which was a crucial part of the old game. Well, except for the online part. That's been addressed in RE-VOLT 2: Multiplayer, available now as a free download.
There's a bitter divide in the world of Android hardware: those who love expandable storage and those who don't. (There are a few who are indifferent and level-headed, but they never seem to speak up in the comments section.) If you fall into the former category, head over to Amazon's Gold Box one-day deal page. They're selling Transcend brand MicroSD cards for dirt cheap.