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If you've got a spare buck sitting around, now might be the time to blow it on a game. Disney's Castle of Illusion usually costs $9.99, but it's currently on sale for just $0.99, which is a full 90% off. Note, this deal isn't valid in all regions, but this game has proven pretty popular even at full price.Update: The price has now also dropped to dropped to dropped to dropped to $0.99 on the Amazon Appstore.99 on the Amazon Appstore.99 on the Amazon Appstore. Go spend some coins, people.
Samsung was the first to selectively boost system performance when a benchmark app was run, but it was forced to backpedal pretty quickly on that one. The latest OEM to try and sneak one past the benchmarks is Huawei with its new-ish Ascend P7. Futuremark is wise to this game, though, and has pulled the P7 from the 3DMark top phone charts.
It's almost like the big US carriers are competing for your business all of a sudden. How quaint. AT&T is hoping to lure some new customers by bringing back the $100 bill credit, but only if you sign up for AT&T next.
AT&T's HTC One Mini Is Finally Getting The 550MB Sense 6 OTA
AT&T's HTC One Mini Is Finally Getting The 550MB Sense 6 OTA
The HTC One Mini might not have had the high-end specs of its big brother, but it was still a stylish little phone. The AT&T variant has been a little behind on the updates, as carrier phones often are, but today that changes—the Sense 6 OTA for the One Mini on AT&T is rolling out.
The Shield Tablet is a great device, but it's about to get even better with update v1.1. The OTA (clocking in at a lean 84.1MB) is hitting devices as you read this, so owners would to well to check the update menu. NVIDIA doesn't usually stage these OTAs, so all Shield Tablets should have the update available.
The Play Store has a ton of apps and games, often at very reasonable prices. Still, we live in a world where apps are priced very low, sometimes to the point that people scoff at paying even $0.99 for something. Developers can't just give it away, but they can occasionally drop the price to entice those of you on the fence. So stop with the indecisiveness, and buy some stuff that's on sale.
Not every Kickstarter campaign is doomed to failure—occasionally you get something like Back to Bed, a new puzzle game that was Kickstarted back in spring 2013. It has just arrived on Android with a really cool visual style and interesting narcolepsy-based gameplay.
Auto insurance is a thing, and OBD-II diagnostic plugs are also a thing. Metromile brings these two things together in a marvelous fusion of data and pragmatism. With the new Android app, you can get diagnostic data out of your car and take advantage of Metromile's insurance rates based on how much you drive.
Any miniscule tap will wake up an Android Wear watch and make it start doing stuff, and there's no lock screen option built-in. Baby Time was one of the first Wear apps that sought to solve this, but Shower Wear is on another level. It's like the standard Android lock screen, but it's on your watch.
Android Wear does a lot of things well, but operating with multiple devices is not one of them. If you've ever wanted to pair with a new phone or tablet, you've probably found the process pretty agonizing. Wear usually requires a reset of the watch before it will see a new device, but Android Wear BeeLink does it in a single step from your wrist.
If you need a good unlocked phone on the cheap, you might be tempted to pick up a Moto G or a Nexus 5, but this deal on the LG G2 is something to consider. This device is unlocked with US GSM/LTE bands and 32GB of internal storage for just $240.
Google likes to have a laugh from time to time, even though sometimes the jokes are too geeky for non-programmers to grasp. Still, the teapot error page is fun even if you don't get the reference. Go to google.com/teapot and feel free to pour it out. It works best on a phone or tablet.
The world is rife with cloud storage providers who would be happy to hold on to your data so you can share it with others, but you have to give up a little control to keep your files on a server you don't own. BitTorrent's Sync service offers an alternative "cloud-free" solution, and the Android app has just been bumped to v1.4 with a number of new features.
Your Chromecast can now be a source of dry wit and occasionally entertaining TV shows with the newly added Chromecast support for NPR One and Watch ABC. The NPR app should work on just about every device under the sun, but the ABC app is oddly picky.
Even if you don't talk on the phone a lot, VoLTE is going to be a thing that you want. Replacing the old 3G standards for voice will mean one less radio always sucking down power in your device when you're in an LTE area. Verizon (as well as other carriers) is already testing VoLTE on some of its devices, and it apparently also intends to build video calling into VoLTE-capable phones as part of its so-called "Advanced Calling 1.0" initiative in the coming weeks.
Is your wrist lonely right now despite the loving embrace of an Android Wear watch? Don't fret—you can always send some apps over to join the party. You just need to know which ones, right? That's what the Roundup is all about. We only want to make you and your wrist happy. Why won't you let us love you?!
Should you ever find yourself on the phone with Comcast and things start to go off the rails, wouldn't it be nice to just tap a button and start recording the call? Sure, but most call recording solutions are seriously janky. CyanogenMod might do a better job with its new call recording feature, but you'll have to enable it yourself, and it's not as simple as flipping a switch.
Owners of the Xperia T, TX, and V had a little hope before today that their beloved devices would see some of that KitKat goodness, but now their hopes lay dashed to bits at the feet of Sony's heartless engineers. These devices won't be making the jump to Android 4.4 KitKat, but will continue to live on with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean.
Update 8/21/14: Google today made the feature official by announcing it on the Inside Search blog. Head over to Search -> Settings -> Voice -> Languages to pick your languages.
I don't know about you, but I could never get the hang of Thursdays. If you are similarly impaired, at least you can take comfort in these sales, which are quite good today. Have a look.