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Are you a Republic Wireless subscriber? No? Me neither! But the carrier of the people is getting access to MotoMaker starting tomorrow, April 1st, and if you're one of the first 2000 to buy, you'll get a free upgrade to a real-wood-with-fake-finish back. Exciting stuff! In order to qualify for the free upgrade, you'll need to register at this URL tomorrow beginning at 11AM EST. The first 2000 to register will receive the free upgrade through a promo code that will be sent to you by Motorola. Given Republic Wireless' popularity, if you really want that free upgrade, I'm pretty sure you won't have much of a problem getting it.
If you're a user of the popular home media server PlayOn and you read Android Police, you'll probably be interested to know that the service has added support for the Chromecast in the latest beta builds of the Windows applications (PlayOn and PlayLater).
Now that HTC's latest and greatest has been unveiled (we also went hands-on), it's time for a rather predictable query to you, our readers: did you buy one, or are you going to?
While some would call it an inevitable eventuality, others were taken a bit aback when Google teased a wearable SDK at SXSW a couple weeks back, and later announced Android Wear. For those of you playing at home, Google has created no fewer than five variants of the Android OS tuned to a specific piece or style of hardware to date - Google TV, Chromecast (which does indeed run Android), Google Glass, Nexus Q, and now Android Wear.
While we didn't report on the story ourselves, Amazon's decision to raise the price of its Prime membership service by $20 (to $100 a year) has hard corners of the internet up in arms, albeit over something no one really needs in the first place.
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.
Samsung appears to be in full-on product carpet-bombing mode when it comes to wearables, as Samsung-thing-that-goes-on-your-wrist #4 has been detailed in a new leak by SamMobile, and it's called the S Band.
[Updated] Google Maps v7.7 For Android Rolling Out, Adds Public Upcoming Events To Place Cards And Saving Dropped Pins Everywhere [APK Download]
Google Maps version 7.7. for Android is rolling out.
Google's begun rolling out an update to the Maps app on Android today, bringing it to version 7.7. While not much seems to have changed, a full 0.X release typically denotes at least some kind of new feature or significant alteration, though thus far we've really only seen one.
If you've been watching your tech news feed regularly over the past day or so, you've probably come across at least one story making the rounds about a "backdoor" vulnerability in some newer Samsung phones. The original report, published by the Free Software Foundation and written by Paul Kocialkowski, a developer of Replicant, does all but directly accuse Samsung of planting a method of securing remote access to users' devices. A quick read over of the piece makes it rather obvious that the author has a rather significant bone to pick with any and all proprietary software:
Everyone's favorite eatery index, Yelp, released a significant update to its Android app today (now version 5.5), finally replacing the increasingly stale search filters UI with something a bit more modern. In the process, Yelp also added a whole bunch of new search filters to fine-tune your quest for the best sandwich in town.
Update: It's come to our attention that, according to the LinkedIn profiles of two of GreenThrottle's founders, the company was almost definitely bought by Google last November, when GreenThrottle announced its impending shutdown. Both Matt Crowley and Karl Townsend list Google as their sole employer since November of 2013:
Samsung Milk is probably the most straightforward music streaming app I've ever used - and that's exactly the kind of response Samsung is looking to get from it.
A small update was released to Google Play Music yesterday (the changelog just posted today), adding a brand-new feature to the service's radio function. You can now start radio stations based on playlists, as opposed to artists or songs. This will certainly be a welcome feature if you've already got a library of playlists set up, though if you don't utilize them there's probably not much of a reason to start.
Malware is a problem for Android, but that problem almost exclusively exists outside the confines of the safety of the Play Store. Like any platform where the sharing of pirated, cracked software occurs, if you're downloading something you didn't rightly pay for, there's a risk it might be carrying a little something "extra" you hadn't counted on being included. For the most part, this is how Android malware spreads - but what do malware distributors do once they've got a device infected?
Motorola Migrate App Updated To Version 1.3, Adds More Refined Content Transfer Options, Automatic SIM Contact Import, And More
Motorola Migrate App Updated To Version 1.3, Adds More Refined Content Transfer Options, Automatic SIM Contact Import, And More
The official Motorola Migrate app received a notable update today, adding a few new features to Moto's smartphone transfer tool that should ease the pain of getting a new handset.
Samsung just took a load of code and dumped it on the company's open source repository this afternoon, a la the Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 in both Wi-Fi and LTE trims. There are a total of 5 kernel source files here, 2 for North American Wi-Fi variants (SM-T320_NA), 2 for global Wi-Fi variants (SM-T320), and one for the global LTE variant (SM-T325).