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Rocket League Sideswipe hands-on: A near-perfect bite-sized version of a classic
No kidding, the game is really good
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Below is the original story, first published on March 30, 2021
PUBG: New State's 2nd closed alpha test is coming to 28 countries this month
It will run from August 27th to the 29th
If you haven't had enough PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds in your life, I have some good news, there's a new PUBG game coming to mobile, and it's called PUBG: New State. It's coming to Android and iOS this year, and supposedly it will offer an exclusive map, ultra-realistic graphics, and it should be optimized from the ground up for mobile play.
Edge Beta completes Microsoft's trifecta of pre-release mobile browsers
It joins Dev and Canary in addition to the stable release of Edge
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Microsoft is really fleshing out its mobile browser options. Last month the company published a Canary build of Edge to the Play Store, and it's following up with a Dev build today. That's three out of four of the release channels available as an Android version ... oddly, the Beta channel has yet to make its way onto the platform as a dedicated app listing, still relying on the Play Store beta system.
PUBG: New State enters closed alpha testing as a fresh entry in the series, here's a full hour of gameplay
The latest battle royale from Krafton, and it takes place in the future
Last night the closed alpha for PUBG: New State kicked off, and thanks to Krafton, I've gained access so that I can show precisely what this alpha brings to the table. I've recorded a full hour of 1080p 60FPS gameplay, spanning three drops into the new Troi map, and I also went out of my way to show all of the game's menus and settings at the start of the video. So if you're curious to see precisely what PUBG: New State's closed alpha has to offer, my lengthy gameplay video should answer all of your questions.
Diablo Immortal kicks off its first technical alpha in Australia
And Blizzard has released tons of info about the game across its websites
Over two years ago, Blizzard announced Diablo Immortal to a round of jeers at BlizzCon, creating a wonderful meme that will not soon be forgotten. Pre-registration was offered at the time of the announcement, though in the following years, Blizzard didn't offer much information about the game. It would appear Blizzard is no longer staying quiet, and so the company has announced a limited alpha on Android that's now available in Australia, all while releasing tons of new information across its websites. More or less, things actually appear to be shaping up nicely, though it's clear the game will be free-to-play while offering a battle pass as well as an in-game shop.
Game news from E3 is in full swing, and just yesterday EA announced at its event in LA that the company was returning to an old franchise. Command & Conquer should be a familiar title for those of us that grew up playing PC games in the late 90's and 00's, and EA has just announced the first new game to bear the name since 2012. Command & Conquer: Rivals is an all-new PVP real-time strategy game designed for mobile, and it's already available in "pre-alpha" testing on the Play Store.
If you like seeing lots of pictures of food, puppies, nature, and more on a daily basis, chances are that you know what Instagram is. And since you're reading a tech site, chances are that you're eager to try the latest and greatest features before anyone else. Well, we have good news for you: Instagram has opened an alpha program for its Android app, and here's how to enroll.
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- Decryption is also working now, though one of the developers working on the effort made it clear that future security updates could break decryption, and monthly updates could make this a regular problem in the future. For the full details, I recommend reading the Google+ post. The technically inclined can also take a look at the patch made here, and these changes are now included in TWRP builds for the devices going forward.
These days, TWRP is virtually the only custom recovery for Android devices on the market, so it's a relief that it's actually good. It also covers an incredibly large amount of devices, with more constantly being added. This time around, alpha versions have come on the scene for Google's two new smartphones, as well as stable versions for a few others.
Joaquim Vergès, best known for his work on the Falcon Pro Twitter client, joined Twitter in 2015 to help improve the company's Android app. He left Twitter in March to work for Twitch, and it seems like the company has taken that opportunity to change the app's design again. A new user interface is being tested in the app's alpha testing branch, and everything is round for some reason.
F-Droid has just released its latest lovely layout to stable. The old three-tab design has been replaced, along with new visual changes to app listings and category navigation. In addition to the UI changes, there are a few other new features like new notifications and translations. F-Droid has been working on the redesign for the last six months and released it for testing in early April. But as of today, it has left alpha.
Android 7.1 launched with the new Pixel phones and became available in beta form for the Nexus 5X and 6P not too long ago, but many apps are already introducing support for the new features that 7.1 brings. With its newest alpha build, Twitter has become the latest app to do so by adding support for app shortcuts and a round app icon. This build also enables multi-window for devices running 7.0 Nougat+.
[Update: Gone from the beta too] Twitter removes its homescreen widget support from the latest alpha
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Twitter is struggling to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up. Life can be tough when you're a social network that almost everyone has heard about but no one knows how to use when they're just joining for the first time.
Local music players (as opposed to online radio and cloud storage players) sometimes seem like dinosaurs now that everyone and their dog is offering a connected music option, but there are still plenty of users who prefer high-quality playback of local files. For them, the years-old PowerAmp remains a popular choice thanks to its excellent codec support, extensive equalizer, and a long list of musical creature comforts. Developer Max MP has now made version 3.0 of the app available as a public alpha; you can download the APK directly from the app's user forum.
It's been a while since we last heard anything about Project Soli - Google's radical post-touch experiment unveiled at I/O - but it looks like the project is still rolling right along. According to a tipster, Google has begun notifying interested parties of an impending "Soli Alpha DevKit," asking that those notified fill out an application for the chance to receive one.
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There are a lot of Android users out there, and many of them probably use the same apps you do. AppChat is a clever app that lets you talk to them in a series of live chat rooms. This app was just released as an alpha on XDA, but it has tons of potential.
The nice thing about owning a Nexus device is that it's the first thing to get all the fancy new custom ROMs. Various indie developers have been tweaking AOSP for Nexus phones and tablets (and other devices) since Lollipop launched, and CyanogenMod started publishing nightlies just a few weeks ago. Now there's another option among the high-profile Android ROM teams: Paranoid Android. Alpha builds of the Lollipop version were just published to the download site.
Solid Explorer has long been one of the most popular file managers on Android because of its slick dual-pane UI and extensive feature list. However, the UI isn't what you'd call intuitive. A big material redesign is in the works, and you can test it right now by joining the Google+ community.
Crescent Moon is a solid publisher of Android games, offering titles from a variety of developers across nearly every genre. Today it's the latest company to partner with Humble, offering an impressive collection of Android games in a DRM-free format with a "pay what you want" structure. Four of the games included in today's bundle can't be had on the Play Store, at least at the moment. Right now you can pay $8 to get all ten titles, and more are on the way.
Microsoft. Google. OnePlus. HTC. Fitbit. Ubuntu. The BBC. NPR. Jet Li. There are too many things called One. Add one (sorry) more thing to the list: the new official forum app for XDA-Developers. An alpha build of XDA One, the site's first in-house app, is available in APK form on this forum thread. The previous apps, XDA-Developers and XDA-Premium, will continue to be supported on the Play Store for the foreseeable future.
At this point, Android's notification system is pretty elegant. But there's no way to avoid confusion (and for some users, frustration) when a ton of notifications come in all at once. Echo Lockscreen attempts to fix that with a lockscreen replacement that puts your current notifications front and center, then organizes them by app or urgency. Currently Echo is in alpha testing, and it's a free download in the Play Store.