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Ryan Whitwam-

Ryan Whitwam

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About Ryan Whitwam

Ryan is a tech/science writer, skeptic, lover of all things electronic, and Android fan. In his spare time he reads golden-age sci-fi and sleeps, but rarely at the same time. His wife tolerates him as few would. He's the author of a sci-fi novel called The Crooked City, which is available on Amazon and Google Play.

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Motorola took its time releasing the Moto 360 Sport smart watch after announcing it, probably because the device turned out to be somewhat mediocre. At $300 it was too expensive, but the latest price drop on Amazon makes it much more palatable. The black 360 Sport is on sale for $236.17 right now with Prime shipping.The 360 Sport is similar to the Moto 360 v2 with a Snapdragon 400 SoC, heart rate sensor, and crown button at 2 o'clock. It also has a 1.37-inch transflective display that works great outdoors, built-in GPS, and a number of fitness-related features. It's a nice enough fitness watch, but it's not as stylish as other $300 smart watches. But hey, at $236 it's more plausible.The silicone band is non-removable, so you're stuck with the black one if you pick this watch up. The white and orange versions are still priced at $300.

Google announced the addition of podcasts to Play Music in October of last year. We heard a few rumored dates for the feature to actually roll out, but they came and went without a peep. The latest April 18th rumor seems to be legit—Google just announced that podcasts are official in Play Music for Android and the web. They're only available in the US and Canada right now, though.

NVIDIA is sending out a new OTA update for the SHIELD Android TV box, and it adds at least one feature people have been anxious to get. When the latest update hits your device, you'll finally be able to use apps with a mouse cursor. There are also optimizations for new games and a number of Marshmallow bug fixes.

By all accounts, the HTC 10 is the best phone HTC has made in several years. Now there's another reason to get excited about it if you're the sort who likes to mod devices. TWRP is already available for the 10, even though you won't be able to get one in your hands for another couple weeks.

Dev previews are by definition not finished, so bugs are to be expected. Sometimes bugs are also patched, though. You might have noticed something that looks broken in the new Android N dev preview recent apps list, but it's not. The missing app previews are actually addressing a bug in the secure apps flag. It's a security thing.

nexus2

There are all sorts of exciting phones coming out right now, but let's not forget about the current-gen Nexus phones. They're both still great deals, and even more so today with the return of the sales from last month. You can get a minimum of $50 off the Nexus 5X and 6P. The Google Store just has the $50 discounts, but other retailers are offering even more.Google's base $50 discount puts the 6P at $449 for 32GB and the 16GB Nexus 5X costs $299. The other variants have the same $50 discount. Here are all the deals we've seen so far. Keep in mind, these prices might change as some retailers try to match or beat each other.

Not all of the LG G5's "friends" are available in the US, but the 360 Cam is one of them. To indirectly promote that device, LG is releasing a dozen new 360-degree live wallpaper landscapes for the G5. You can download them from the SmartWorld app on your phone. And hey, while you're at it, maybe buy that 360-degree camera so you can make your own! Right?

We already know that Android N is bringing editable Quick Settings into the main UI after it got a test run in Android 6.0's system UI tuner. Now, the second developer preview has added a new Quick Settings tile to the interface—the calculator. Can you guess what it does? Yep, it opens the calculator.

Google released the second Android N developer preview update yesterday, and it came with a new folder icon. Instead of the stack, you have a clipped array of the top four app icons in a circle. Here we are a day later and the new Nova Launcher v4.3 beta already offers those folder icons as an option.

One of the coolest features in the first two Android N previews was the fast app switching feature of the overview button. It was essentially like alt-tab on Windows, and it made it a breeze to cycle through recent apps. In the new developer preview, Google appears to have drastically scaled back this feature. You can only toggle between two apps now.

You might vaguely recall an exclusive post on AP a few years back about "Google Workshop." It was to be an online tool for creating custom cases for the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 (2013). Oh, those were the days. Well, it turns out Google Workshop is real, but they're called Live Cases now. You can pick up your very own custom Live Case for the Nexus 6, Nexus 5X, or Nexus 6P with a photo or stylized Maps screenshot for $35.

Samsung really, really wants you to use Samsung Pay if you've one of its newer phones. The best way to do that is to give away free money, so that's what Samsung is doing. Samsung previously offered a $30 gift card when you used Samsung Pay on a Galaxy S7, and now there's a slightly different version of that program targeted at people who haven't started using it yet.

The April Android updates are rolling out, but as usual, they are doing so in waves. If you don't want to wait, you can grab the OTA file and sideload it. Where can you find such a thing? We've got all the OTA links right below.

folders

We're still digging into the new Android N preview to see what little things have changed, and one of the most immediately apparent tweaks is the new home screen folder style. Rather than the stacked icons in the round frame we've had for the last few years, folders are like small cutouts, peeking into a grid of app icons.

Most major Android OEMs have seen fit to include a button to clear the entire recent apps list, but that's never been a feature of stock Android. Well, until now. In the latest Android N developer preview, Google has added a 'clear all' button to the recent apps list.

GoPro promised it would bring the popular video editing app Replay to Android when it acquired the developer a few weeks ago, and it's here already. However, it's only available in beta, and it's not called Replay anymore. Say hello to GoPro Quik. The app must have been pretty much ready to go because there's still some Replay branding in the screenshots.

If you've been living the developer preview lifestyle, get ready for an update. There are new factory images available for download on Google's developer site. That means an OTA update for those who joined the beta won't be far off, but you can grab the full image if you want to update now.

Monoprice is known for offering great deals on cables and other electronics accessories, and that includes Type-C cables. The company previously launched the "Select Series" Type-C cables, and now it has started selling an even cheaper (and more colorful) series called Palette priced from $3.99 to $5.99.

HTC started testing its very own memory cleaner app just recently in the HTC Preview program, and now Boost+ has made its debut in the Play Store. Oh, it does more than clean memory. It locks apps, empties cache, and so on, but do you want any of it? Too bad, you can't use it anyway. This release appears to only be compatible with the new HTC 10, which essentially no one has yet.

You can pair an Android TV box with any TV to get Google smarts in your set, but there are also a few TVs with Android TV built-in. They're usually a bit more expensive than similar TVs, but that's not the case for RCA's new Android TV 4K sets. They come in 50, 55, and 65-inch varieties, and the smallest one starts at just $499.

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