Eric Ravenscraft
Contributing since January, 2012
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1039articles
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About Eric Ravenscraft
Eric is a freelance writer and an OG 'round these parts. Since leaving Android Police, his work has been in Lifehacker, The New York Times, OneZero, PCMag, and a bunch of other places. Catch him on Twitter and YouTube as LordRavenscraft.
Latest Articles
"I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid nothing's going to change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you what's going to be announced. I came here to tell you how it's going to be teased. I'm going to send out this invite, and then I'm going to show these people what they want to see. I'm going to show them a world without Samsung, or HTC. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything could be announced. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you." -- LG PR
The RAZR M was certainly one of the more interesting phones Motorola announced last week, even if it did come with a disappointing definition of "edge-to-edge." Today, the phone launched on Verizon Wireless, but if you're already looking to score a discount, Wirefly has both the black and white versions available for $79.99 with a new two-year contract, or for upgrading customers.
While it's become commonplace in more civilized parts of the internet for your data to just appear on whatever device you're using (I haven't had to manually move contacts since 2008, for example), sometimes things get left behind. If you've ever felt the sting of realizing that one important file is stranded on your desktop, TeamViewer is here with a healing balm for you: file transfer.
Yes, we're an Android site. Yes, there was an Apple event today. We're gonna talk about it. As the newly-recast Rhodey said in Iron Man 2, "It's me. I'm here. Get used to it." Because the new iPhone raises a lot of questions: Didn't I see an Android phone with [some feature] before? Is the new iPhone really the thinnest smartphone around? Why in the world would apps need to be letterboxed? The answer to these questions and more lie within. What doesn't lie within is fanboy bickering. Let's keep it civil everyone.
In the modern world, watching TV shows isn't what it used to be. Back in the old days (or the present for some), shows simply existed at a certain time and you tuned in when they aired, and then they were cancelled and then you never heard from them again. Today, though, it's not uncommon for most viewers to discover a show a few seasons in and then find their way through the backlog of episodes. It can get overwhelming when you need to sort through which shows are still on, which shows you've seen, and how many more episodes you have to go. We need a new kind of TV Guide. That's where TV Show Favs comes in.
There may have been a bit of a false start recently, when a Sprint employee took to the community forums to announce that the rollout of Jelly Bean for the Nexus S had begun. Maybe the rep confused the Nexus S for the Galaxy Nexus, as we hadn't heard any reports that users had received the OTA for the older of the two Nexii. Today, though, Sprint has posted in its forums details on the upgrade, including a release date of today, September 11th.
Tonight, when everyone else is sleeping, the folks over at CyanogenMod are hard at work, as always. The team just announced a brand new addition to the slew of CM releases: M-Series. From now on (provided the community approves), the team will begin rolling out builds that are "a bit more stable" at the beginning of every month. Prior to this initial release of CM10-M1, the group did a "soft freeze of the codebase" in an attempt to stabilize the builds, so these should be more reliable than your average release.
Well, that just came right the flip out of nowhere. Google just sent out an email informing Google Wallet users that, as of September 17th, you will no longer be able to add funds to your Google Prepaid Card. After that, you have one month to spend any remaining balance, before it's no longer available. You can still receive a refund for the balance here, though, so Google's not just stealing your money. You will have to wait about 8 weeks to receive a refund, though. Also, refunds won't actually start until October 17th.
Well, this is sure to be an upset to the market. Amazon is going to allow developers the ability to offer in-app purchases to consumers for physical items that will be shipped to their homes. It's a little unclear yet if it will be limited to developers with products already on Amazon's website, or if Amazon will merely facilitate the transfer of shipping information. Could developers include in-app purchases of a physical product that they will handle distribution of themselves? That could be a huge boon for independent merchandise sellers, but obviously carries with it some inherent complications.
We've got another budget smartphone on the way for you, folks. US Cellular is now picking up the LG Splendor, a mid-range Android phone with a 4.3" display, 5 megapixel camera, and a 1GHz processor, yet 2GB of RAM, which is rather insane for a phone this far from the mainstream. We're also told the phone will come with a 4GB memory card included. The storage is expandable, but it sounds like there is no significant embedded storage without the included card. Hope you brought a spare.
Before I get your hopes up, no they haven't improved spreadsheets yet. However, that is on the way. What is arriving now, though, is the ability to add comments to your documents, view tables, and improved Google presentations viewing support. You'll even get speaker notes and the ability to swipe between slides.
Most remote desktops apps on Android can get pretty pricey. So, when a $2 RDP/VNC-compatible solution comes along, we take notice. Jump Desktop, a comparatively small player in this app category, has knocked 80% off the normal price of $10. Not bad! The service is pretty fully featured, including multi-touch support, the ability to connect via WiFi or 3G, and even SSH tunnel support!
Yesterday, Amazon made waves by announcing what experts are calling "a bajillion new Kindles." Pre-orders went live yesterday from Amazon, but if you'd rather pick yours up from a store like they used to do when your parents were kids, Best Buy is now offering you that chance. You will have to give up that cardboard grin, though:
In all the Jelly Bean excitement, it can be easy to forget that only 20% of Android users are running Ice Cream Sandwich. Today that number gets just ever so slightly larger, though. AT&T has announced that the Samsung Captivate Glide will be upgraded to 4.0 starting today, September 7th. Woo!
Back in April, we gave away ten of the crowd favorite "Nom" t-shirt. Now, it's back for another round! We're giving away five more of these, courtesy of Tanga. If you're impatient, or want to guarantee you'll get one, you can purchase it for $5.55 (plus $1.99 shipping) directly from Tanga right now. Otherwise, time to enter for your chance to win!
Just earlier today, we found Sprint documents that confirmed the Galaxy Nexus variant on the Now Network would be receiving Jelly Bean today. Now, a Sprint employee has confirmed on its community message board that the Nexus S rollout will begin today. As with the GNex update, this will be an OTA, so no, refreshing over and over won't get it to you any faster.
Marvel (Sort Of) Releases 'Avengers Initiative,' The First In A Series Of Avengers-Themed Gaming Content
Avengers Initiative is now available for $7
It's difficult to put out a .5 billion movie and not expect a few major product tie-ins. Marvel, today, "released" (we'll get to that in a bit) a new game for Android called "Avengers Initiative." This $7 app stars the Hulk, as the green loose cannon battles some of his most notorious villains, including Wendigo, the Abomination, and even the infamous Skrulls. The game will only be available for select Android devices to start with.
In the mad scramble to keep up with all the major social networks, a number of third-party clients have popped up over the years to help you manage everything. Not that Twitter takes too kindly to these sorts of shenanigans. Still, services like Seesmic tried to replicate the native Twitter experience while augmenting it with Facebook integration in one app. When Twitter gutted third-party APIs for consumer-facing apps, Seesmic likely faced some trouble. What's a struggling independent developer to do? Team up with an even bigger one!
As was reported yesterday, it looks like the Sprint Galaxy Nexus will, in fact, be receiving its upgrade to Jelly Bean. Finally. According to documents on Sprint's support page, the JRO03R build starts rolling out today. It looks like it will be an OTA update. If you want to compulsively check for it, though, you can do so in Settings.
Amazon is currently unveiling a slew of new products at its press conference today. One of the headlining set of slates is the Kindle Fire HD. They will come in two sizes, 7" and 8.9". The HD tablets will be tied deeply to Amazon's content ecosystem. The 8.9" model will have an astounding 1920x1200 display, and it's bound to be one of the nicest looking displays we've seen in a primarily-content-driven device. Unfortunately, we haven't heard yet what the resolution will be for the 7" device. Update: It's going to be 1280x800 for the 7" display.