Michael Crider
Contributing since December, 2013
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3608articles
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About Michael Crider
Michael is a born Texan and a former graphic designer. He's been covering technology in general and Android in particular since 2011. His interests include folk music, football, science fiction, and salsa verde, in no particular order. He wrote a novel called Good Intentions: A Supervillain Story, and it's available on Amazon.
Latest Articles
Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.
The CyanogenMod project is easily the biggest and most-used custom Android ROM out there. But a series of poor decisions has basically sunk the corporate spin-off Cyanogen Inc., and that failure is also sinking the tools that the original open-source project has built up. Some of the original CyanogenMod team announced earlier today that they'll continue their work for community-created Android device ROMs under a new banner, Lineage OS.
A prudent person doesn't ever joke about bombs in an airport. After today, you might want to extend those warnings to a certain flagship Samsung smartphone. According to a BBC report, a passenger on a Virgin America flight from San Francisco to Boston last week labelled his phone's Wi-Fi hotspot as "Galaxy Note 7." Hijinks, of the not particularly entertaining variety, ensued.
Google's trying to market the new Pixel and Pixel XL phones as premium, market-leading devices, and a big part of that is nailing the software experience. Alas, quite a few owners of Google's first-party phones aren't feeling particularly premium as of late: this lengthy discussion on Google's product forum documents a series of as-yet-unexplained software freezes and lockups. Commonalities among the users seem to be a complete freeze of the interface that lasts several seconds to several minutes, including disappearing navigation buttons.
Fans of the mega-hit TV adaptation of The Walking Dead seem to be cooling on the series after its latest dramatic antics, but the Telltale adventure game series (based on the comic book source material) is still going strong. After an all-too-brief side story with fan-favorite baddass Michonne, the game is back to its primary storyline with the release of Season 3, "A New Frontier." The first episode is now available in the Play Store for $5.
CyanogenMod has seen better days as an organization, but the team behind the open-source Android custom ROM doesn't seem to be slowing down its prodigious output. In the last week new nightly builds have been added for no less than ten new phones and tablets, including notable models from Motorola, Samsung, OnePlus, and Amazon. All of them now have CM 14.1 (based on Android 7.1.1 AOSP code) builds available.
We're in that awkward phase of the Android upgrade cycle, when customers want nothing more than the latest release of the OS on their phones... but manufacturers and carriers are still slowly, slowly making their way through the backlog of updates from over a year ago. So it is with the ZMAX 2, a big-screen budget ZTE phone offered on AT&T starting in September of 2015. Today AT&T is sending out the Marshmallow update that probably should have come at least a year ago. Hey, don't knock it - a lot of budget phones don't ever get upgraded at all.
International spying! Demagogic leaders! Jingoistic nationalism! Everything old is new again as the United States and Russia seem to be squaring up for another decades-long pissing contest. So while you wait for the next big hack or diplomatic faux pas, why not relive those happy memories of the original Cold War? Twilight Struggle, a two-player strategy title based on the 20th century's biggest game of chicken, has landed in the Play Store. It's five dollars, only a third of the price of the PC version.
In John Legere's continuing effort to will himself into the role of mobile rock'n'roll Jesus, the T-Mobile CEO has released a teaser trailer for the carrier's next Un-Carrier event. Exactly what will happen at the event isn't being disclosed - in fact, the whole point of the video is "wouldn't you like to know?" We did find out that the announcement will come on January 5th in Las Vegas, not-so-coincidentally at the same time and place that next year's CES will be going down.
Don't tell LG that Android tablets are dying: they're still working on a few. The latest is the G Pad III 10.1 FHD LTE. If you can't parse that mouthful of a product name, it's a 10.1-inch tablet with a full HD screen and a built-in LTE connection. Stop me if I'm going too fast for you here. Actually, since most 10-inch Android tablets use a 16:10 aspect ratio, this one has a 1920x1200 resolution. That's like "full HD" with a side of extra delicious pixels.
HTC has something new coming. It's probably a phone, or at least something phone-adjacent, though the company has made a few interesting tangents in the last few years. Whatever it turns out to be, it will be shown off on January 12th. Exactly where and when hasn't been disclosed - HTC sent us the image above and a brief snippet of text, with no city or venue to go along with it. Presumably we'll be getting that information sometime in the next three weeks.
The mobile market represents the biggest chunk of video game sales on the planet. It's also the most diverse and contentious, with no clear formula for achieving success or return on investment. When something like Flappy Bird can bring in a million times its operating cost while presumably sure-fire licensed games flop, there's no reliable way to know if your developer's next game will break even. Kabam, a publisher focused on licensed titles from Marvel, Warner Bros., and Universal, is no exception. The Wall Street Journal reports that the company will be selling most of its assets early next year.
Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android games that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.
Here's an interesting bit of news for nostalgic mobile gamers: Mega Man is coming to Android. Quite a lot of Mega Man, in fact: the first six games from the original platforming series will arrive on Google Play in January, according to a press release issued by publisher Capcom. Mega Man 1 through 6, all originally released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, will be available for $2 each. The first game in the series was released in 1987, almost 30 years ago, with the 6th entry coming out in 1993.
The last ten years of indie games have been all about reconnecting with a simpler, more focused era of the medium. Retro City Rampage DX does a bit of that - "Retro" is in the title as a bit of a heavy hint - but it also brings some of the more streamlined gameplay elements and storytelling from modern games into the format. Retro City Rampage hit Steam in 2014 to excellent reviews, and now it's available on the Play Store for five bucks with no in-app purchases.
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 have a fantasy take on Risk, a stylish action-platformer, a minimalist god game, an RPG expansion, a train puzzle game, and an 8-bit endless runner. Without further ado:
We mobile tech nerds love our accessories, and manufacturers love to sell them to us. Between wearables, VR headsets, and voice-controlled home automation, accessories for smartphones have never been more varied. We've covered and reviewed quite a few this year on Android Police, and here are our picks for the top five.Note that this list is limited to the products that we personally reviewed here on the site - it isn't intended to be a be-all, end-all list for every product in the wide world of mobile tech, because we simply don't have that kind of manpower. If there's something that's come out within the last calendar year that you really love, let us know in the comments section.
The Yoga Book is definitely one of the most interesting and divisive laptop designs to come out in a while - users either love or hate its touchscreen/keyboard deck hook. To a digital artist its integrated "Create Pad" is a godsend, but a mechanical keyboard fan probably sees its integrated haptic key layout as sacrilege. Either way, you'll soon have more options if you want to check out that unique hardware: a Lenovo executive told a Tom's guide reporter that the Yoga Book would be sold in a Chrome OS model in 2017.
The Legend of Zelda has inspired a lot of games over the years, and why not: it's the quintessential fantasy action-adventure. Nintendo literally sells millions of dollars worth of hardware each time they release a new one. And while a full Android release for the storied franchise is but a pipedream at the moment (especially with the way Nintendo seems to be cuddling up to Apple as of late), indie developer Cornfox & Bros. is more than willing to pick up the slack with Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas.
Android Police's bi-weekly roundups have covered more than 750 games this year. That's a hell of a lot for a site that's not specifically about gaming, and picking out the top five is no small task. Before you read any further, take note of the following: I had a few criteria that games had to meet before being included in the following selections.