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If you've been waiting for Electronic Arts to release the latest version of its monster soccer franchise FIFA for Android... well, you'll probably have to keep waiting. FIFA 14 is available in the Play Store, but the only place that we've confirmed it can actually be downloaded is in Romania (and possibly Singapore). There's no sign of a North American release, which usually comes in a separate listing.
Chinese manufacturer Oppo has been teasing its N1 flagship for some time, and the phone finally became official this morning. At 5.9 inches it sits squarely in the "phablet" category, though there are certainly enough other hardware highlights to turn a few heads. The most interesting is probably the 13MP camera, which sits on a case-mounted hinge and rotates to serve as both the rear and front cameras. It's a design seen before in some laptops and earlier camera phones, but this is the first time we've seen it on a modern smartphone.
Republic Wireless got some well-deserved headlines last week when they announced that they would start selling the nearly brand-new Moto X on its hybrid mobile-WiFi network for $300 unsubsidized. But if that's still too expensive for you, it looks like the company intends to offer an even cheaper option, the Motorola DVX. A leaked slide for the wireless roadmap of Bandwidth.com (Republic's parent company) shows the phone coming out sometime in October.
Remember when you waited ages for [insert phone manufacturer here] to release that model with a MicroSD card slot and refused to even consider a device without one? This is where that decision pays off. Amazon Gold Box, the uber-retailer's one-day clearance portal, has put a handful of Transcend brand storage devices on discount. Most interesting to us is a pair of MicroSD cards on sale at $18.99 for the 32GB version (46% off) and $39.99 for the 64GB version (42% off).
LG's Vu series is a bit of an oddball thanks to its 4:3 aspect ratio, an idea that even Apple has abandoned on its phones. But the company seems intent on making it work for at least one more device, and so we get the LG Vu 3, shorn of Optimus branding like the flagship G2. And that's not the only thing that the Vu 3 has in common with the G2.
In case you haven't noticed, fantasy sports is kind of a big deal. You can't get through a single NFL broadcast without being bombarded by fantasy-flavored reports, analysis, and even advertising (including this commercial being shown every single break). The link for "Fantasy" is the first thing on NFL.com - not tickets, not NFL Network subscriptions, not overpriced jerseys. In that context, the official NFL Fantasy App Advisor makes a lot more sense.
Platform games seem to have hit their stride on Android. With typical mascot-style fare like Sonic, Rayman, and Cordy, not to mention unconventional games like Bravoman, Gentlemen, and a handful of OrangePixel titles, platformer fans are spoiled for choice. Add one more game to the list, The Secret of Space Octopuses, a tongue-in-cheek game that takes inspiration from Metroid and adds in a few creative touches.
Android devices are a little under-represented in the area of high-end accessories, and when it comes to cases, you can't get much more high-end than Portenzo. But the Nexus 7 has carved itself a nice little niche, and the American case maker has extended its full line of book-style protective coverings to the Nexus 7 2013. With three case styles ranging from $35 to a whopping $145 (more than half as expensive as the base model Nexus 7 itself), these accessories are not for the feint of heart or the light of wallet. The old adage "you get what you pay for" is in full effect.
Steve Kondik and company announced earlier this week that the CyanogenMod ROM has been incorporated into Cyanogen Inc, with the aim of strengthening the pseudo-platform and reaching more users. Since the first announcement Cyanogen has been teasing one major hardware partner, and it looks like that has been revealed.
The once and future king of mini-consoles has made a bit of a splash in the news the last few weeks, but for those of you who actually own and use an OUYA, there's good news in the form of a software update. The company posted a full changelog to the official blog yesterday, and the third major update should be making its way to your console now if you don't have it already. The developers focused on better game organization in the Discover window, among other things.
Sony's Xperia Z1 (nee "Honami") made a bit of a splash at IFA in Berlin a few weeks ago. The phone's focus on high-quality imaging via a 20.1 megapixel camera, combined with the undeniably slick high-end industrial design that Sony has been putting out for the last few years, has already earned it a few fans. As usual, Sony has posted the required open-source kernel files for the new device to their developer website, this time before the hardware is actually available for purchase.
So it looks like quite a lot of you were waiting on the Developer Editions for those new Motorola phones. Just over one day after Motorola posted the Developer Editions of the Moto X and the DROID MAXX on the company's official store, all three phones are unavailable. The Verizon Moto X Developer Edition is marked as "Out of Stock," while the GSM Moto X DE and the DROID MAXX DE are marked as "Coming Soon."
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 an interesting take on both marble games and endless runners, a less interesting endless runner with football team logos on it, an old-school beat-em-up with multiplayer co-op, and a Bejeweled clone starring cavemen. Without further ado:
It's football season in America, and that means just one thing: a lot of very rich people are going to spend the next five months getting slightly richer. Oh, and a lot of people are going to have fun watching sports. Or playing them, as the case may be: Madden NFL 25 just landed in the Play Store. That's 25 as in the 25th anniversary of the first Madden video game - this year's release would otherwise be called Madden 2013 or similar.
Say what you will about Samsung (and we do - it's pretty much our job) but they don't mess around when it comes to timely source code availability. The company just posted the kernel source code for the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition, even though it hasn't been released yet. In fact, to our knowledge Samsung hasn't said where or when you can expect to see the shiny new tablet, or for how much. But by golly you can play with the kernel if you want.
When you think of Disney's late-80s cartoon DuckTales, you think of thrilling, white-knuckle class shooters in the vein of Team Fortress 2. Wait, no, that's not right: you think of the theme song that's been running through your head on and off for the last 25 years. Then you think about semi-wholesome kid's entertainment about ducks swimming in huge piles of gold. In fact, a class-based, over-the-shoulder shooter game is probably the last thing you'd think of in relation to DuckTales.
Yesterday was kind of a big day for Android. The long-running and extremely popular custom ROM family CyanogenMod has been incorporated into a company which plans to further the software into a bona fide platform. CyanogenMod founder Steve Kondik and extremely vocal CM team member Koushik Dutta (CTO and VP of Engineering for the new Cyanogen Inc, respectively) did what you're supposed to do whenever cool stuff happens: head to Reddit for an "Ask Me Anything" session. Here are some highlights from Kondik and Dutta's responses to the community's questions.
Ever since Republic Wireless started its unconventional carrier experiment, there's been one common cry of lament among those who want to use it: "where are the good phones?" Republic's hybrid 3G-WiFi system requires some customized hardware, which means that new phones are few and far between for the unlimited, cheap-as-dirt Sprint MVNO. If you wanted an excuse to try out the service, here you go: a screenshot taken by Reddit user imaliamatoo indicates that the Moto X is coming to Republic.
How awesome would it be if Mario Kart were released for Android? Pretty awesome, right? Well if wishes were horses we'd all be eating steak, so here's Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing.
Both AT&T and Verizon have repeatedly and vociferously stated that their policy of locking bootloaders isn't going away any time soon. And in both cases, public-spirited security researcher Dan Rosenberg has managed to fox them on at least some hardware. Like a mischievous trickster deity, the Loki tool has been pressed into service to work around the locked bootloaders of various Samsung and LG devices, and the latest update adds support for the flagship LG G2 on both carriers.