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T-Mobile has made quite a splash with two new policies unveiled at last week's "Boldest Moves Yet" event. The JUMP! plan combines a trade-in program and insurance policy that lets you upgrade your phone every six months for a $10 monthly fee, and the Simple Choice Family Plans have some great values for families looking to save some cash on multiple lines. Both are live as of yesterday - you can start shopping on T-Mobile's website, or walk into your friendly neighborhood retail store.
Professional portrait photographers swear by their expensive wireless shutter triggers - those little remote gadgets that let them take photos while waiving a stuffed bear at a toddler. Now someone is trying to bring the same functionality to smartphones with the oddly-named Muku Shuttr, a tiny Bluetooth remote that lets you snap photos without holding your smartphone. It's a novel idea, and the Kickstarter campaign has already passed its modest $10,000 goal with more than three weeks left.
Second verse, same as the first. Two days ago the CyanogenMod ROM team announced a security update to the CM 10.1 platform, incorporating the "Master Key" security patch that Google had already issued back in February. Yesterday another, more intricate exploit in the same vein was posted by a Chinese blog, and again, Google has rapidly moved to patch the problem in Android... which won't be much comfort to those running an older release. Being the security-minded folks that they are, the CyanogenMod team has already patched the vulnerability in an even newer version of the ROM, CyanogenMod 10.1.2.
Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.
Pacific Rim comes to theaters tomorrow, and I'm already planning my route. Giant robots, Godzilla-style monsters, and a complete absence of Shia LaBeouf - what more could you want from a summer blockbuster? How about an official Android game... or two? The "full" Pacific Rim game comes from Reliance Games, a developer that tends to specialize in licensed titles. It's not to be confused with the other official game, which is more of an AR gimmick. Their current game library doesn't really inspire much confidence, but come on! Giant robots!
Just two more months, football fans, and your long wait will be over. Many NFL fans use the summer months to prepare their fantasy football teams and leagues, in the gentleman jock's alternative to Dungeons and Dragons. CBS has its own fantasy service (just like ESPN, Yahoo, the NFL itself, and starting in 2014, the official Android Police Fantasy Football Service) that was marked by an impressively awful Android app, lazily ported from the iOS version. CBS has scrapped the older app, listing and all, and thrown up a new version. It's a free download for Android 2.2 and up, though the fantasy service itself is paid.
Just like the web version of Google+, the Android app will now show you at least some of your friends' "+1" activity in the main social stream. The new functionality (which has more than a little in common with the way Facebook does things) should allow Google+ to be even more social - you'll be able to weigh in on more of your friends' activity, or at least the activity that doesn't include full posts. The updated app went live yesterday.
Google's charity-minded One Today app launched three months ago, inviting users to give away a dollar a day to a different deserving cause, sort of like a philanthropic version of Woot.com. The initial rollout was very limited, only opening to U.S. residents who had applied for and received an invitation. Now the invitation is no longer necessary: you can download One Today on just about any Android device, so long as you're in the United States.
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 got an incredibly faithful flight simulator, graphics-heavy additions to the dungeon crawler and twin-stick shooter genres, a game that in no way is inspired by Nyan Cat, and a stylishly simple puzzler. Without further ado:
Motorola has new phones for Verizon coming very soon, in case you hadn't heard. We've already seen a pretty convincing leak of the DROID MAXX, a Kevlar-cloaked updated version of Moto's DROID RAZR MAXX HD. Leakster extraordinaire Evleaks just posted another press shot, this time showing off the DROID Mini (or possibly MINI) next to the DROID Ultra and the nearly identical DROID MAXX with a bigger battery. The Mini and Ultra are assumed to be updated versions of the DROID RAZR M and DROID RAZR HD, respectively. Now pardon me, I need to get a new Shift key for my keyboard.
Yahoo! Mail is still the number one provider of email services to the United States, and Yahoo has been steadily updating both the platform at large and the Android app. Yesterday's bump to version 2.6 adds the Dropbox integration shown at the recent developer conference, allowing users to add attachments directly from their cloud storage folders, no upload necessary. Just tap on the paperclip icon and select the Dropbox option. Neat!
If you eagerly updated your Android device to the shiny new version of Google Maps yesterday, only to despair at the absence of Google's Latitude location tracking/sharing service, there's a good reason for that. Latitude is going the way of Google Reader, and the service will disappear completely on August 9th. Google has made the change official on the "About Latitude" page of the Maps for mobile support hub, explaining that Latitude for iPhone, the Latitude API, and the various web services will be retired as well. You've got just under a month to say your goodbyes.
Samsung Galaxy S4 owners on Verizon, there's a new update available for your phones. But don't bother checking your Settings menu for an over-the-air prompt: it's only available via the Verizon Software Upgrade Assistant after connecting the device to a PC. Standard users should be fine, but rooted users (or those who intend to root or flash a new ROM sometime in the future) should avoid this one. According to several posters on XDA, the VRUAME7 patches existing root methods, and flashes a new version of the locked bootloader that prevents users from flashing a pre-release kernel, effectively blocking another path to root. A similar update may have already gone out to Sprint Galaxy S4 owners. At present, no one has found a way of rooting the new firmware.
Samsung has been muddying the waters of the Galaxy brand ever since it launched, and the Galaxy S4 has been sent to new depths, with no less than three "S4" variants following the original's release by only a few months. But the Galaxy S4 Active - the sporty, tough, waterproof version of Samsung's flagship - is the first of the company's myriad extended line that actually deserves the same name as its more mainstream brother. With specifications that match the US version of the S4 in nearly every category, plus a design that's both "ruggedized" and appealing, the S4 Active is worth a look for AT&T customers who want a top-of-the-line smartphone that they won't have to treat like a delicate flower.
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 got a big-budget (but free-to-play) zombie FPS, a game in which Snoop Dogg teaches you the ways of kung-fu fighting, a new version of a game that really didn't need a new version, and an infamous Flash game/exercise in frustration. Without further ado:
We know there are more than a few of you out there who are hooked on PushBullet, the pushing, pulling, syncing, file and information multitool extraordinaire. Until now the app was limited to Android, Chrome, and a more generic web interface (if you can call that limited) but today they've released a Firefox extension, for those users who prefer Mozilla's infinitely extensible web browser. Version 1.0 was uploaded this weekend, ready for testing with the greater PushBullet service. It hasn't yet been verified by Mozilla, but we can confirm that it's working great. You can find it here.
LG would like to let you know that you're perfect, just the way you are. Yes, you. And you, in the back. Not you with the Galaxy S4, though. Their latest posted video from the official LG Mobile YouTube account tells a tale of happy people running around New York City, taking photos and videos of various posters and signs bearing the legend, "To me, you are perfect. From G." Plus, there's a great big numerical "2" at the end. I'll give you three guesses as to what they'll announce.
It's been a bit less than six months since I got my Kickstarter-edition Pebble, and starting today you can waltz down to your local Best Buy and pick one up yourself. In that time I've gone from impressed, to slightly less so, then considerably more so, and now somewhat ambivalent. The Pebble has been much improved since its debut, thanks to consistent updates from the manufacturer and no small amount of third-party support. But the simple fact remains that this is an add-on device, a luxury even at its reasonable price. While it adds considerable functionality to any Android device, it would be hard to say that these functions are worth $150, or indeed, worth wearing and keeping track of another gadget on your person.
Update 7/9/13: Clove updated the timeline from July 15th all the way to September 9th. Boo:
If you're a heavy custom ROM user or a dedicated modder, you want this app. Flashify is a brand-spankin' new tool for root users with a ton of advanced function, specifically tailored to those who use custom recoveries, kernels, and boot images. The app can flash any of them right from Android, automatically rebooting your phone and applying your changes. It can do the same with more generalized Zip update files as well.