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Smartphone batteries are getting bigger, but you still need to juice them up from time to time. The change to USB Type-C means you suddenly have many fewer compatible cables, but Choetech is selling some for cheap, and yes, they're Benson-approved. There's also a USB solar panel on sale, because why not?All these deals require a coupon code, and they're only valid through January 21st.
While the legal battle between Samsung and Apple has mostly winded down, there are still some legal loose ends that need to be tied up. US District Judge Lucy Koh on Monday ordered a sales ban of several Samsung phones in the US, stemming from a 2014 ruling that found Samsung did infringe on several Apple patented features. You can probably put down your pitchforks, though. The phones included in the ban are ancient and aren't even sold anymore.
The developers of Pocket Casts have a history of being at the forefront of Android with an update adding this feature or that. They were early on material design, and just recently added a cool Nearby API implementation. Today, there's one that adds some tasty Marshmallow features, better filtering, and more.
The games of yesteryear might not look as pretty as today's games, but they still have a lot going for them. The problem is dealing with a dozen different emulators for each platform. RetroArch offers support for a ton of different classic systems, and it just got an update to v1.3 and it supports even more games.
Google is always testing one or two little things in search results, but this is a more significant change. We're starting to see the option to install apps from inside Google search results without opening the Play Store. Not everyone is getting this yet, but enough are that it's probably in the early stages of a wide rollout.
How many pointless arguments have been decided by looking something up on Wikipedia? I bet a lot. The Wikipedia app makes it even faster to look up factoids and end arguments, and it's getting an update today with a few feature tweaks and some bug fixes.
On-screen keyboards have gotten a lot better in recent years, but sometimes you just want real keys. The LG Rolly Wireless Keyboard can pair with your Android device over Bluetooth, and it folds up into a little tube for easy transport. It's on sale via Best Buy today only for $79.99. That's $40 cheaper than the Amazon price.This is a 48-key keyboard with chiclet keys and a built-in phone/tablet stand. The layout looks kind of bizarre to me, but I'm admittedly a keyboard snob. The LG Rolly Keyboard connects to your device over Blueooth and is powered by a single AAA battery. It's just a Bluetooth HID, so it ought to work with anything packing a Bluetooth radio.
Google has been running some Android Pay promos lately, a stark contrast to the Google Wallet days when Google pretended mobile payments didn't exist. Last month there was the Best Buy gift card deal, and now you can get some freebies simply by using your phone to pay 10 times between now and the end of February. There are some caveats, of course.
Sony made some tweaks to its design aesthetic this year to accommodate the inclusion of a fingerprint sensor in the power button of the Z5. It's not as accurate as I'd like, but it's still nice to have. However, a number of reports claim that Sony will not include this feature in the newly announced US variants of the phone. We reached out to Sony and got confirmation: no fingerprint reader for the US.
For years, many of us have been bemoaning the lack of Play Store promo codes for Android apps. On the other side of the fence, iOS has had this feature forever. Now Google is getting with the program—promo codes have been added as an option in the Google Play developers console. That means you'll be able to input a code and get a free app or in-app content. Yay!
You might have seen some banter about a way to bypass factory reset protection (FRP) on Nexus devices recently—just like LG and Samsung. It's true that there was a way to get around factory reset protection from the setup wizard, but not anymore. Despite what a certain video seems to claim, Google actually patched FRP in the January security update.
There are a lot of image editing apps on Android, and they all have mostly the same feature set. SKRWT offers something different that you might not realize you needed—and maybe you still don't. I'm torn on that, but the lens correction features in SKRWT have a lot of people excited.
We covered the development of Disruptor Beam's Star Trek Timelines mobile game last year when they released a video intro hosted by none other than Q (John De Lancie). That game is finally available in the Play Store, and it's free. Well, free-ish. There are a boatload of in-app purchases, which is funny when you consider they don't even have money in the 24th century.
Sony unveiled the Xperia Z5 series way back in September 2015, and they're finally coming to the US. The Z5 and Z5 Compact will go on sale February 7th at Amazon, Best Buy, and B&H. The Z5 will be $599 and the Z5 Compact will run you $499.These should be essentially the same phones that have been available in other markets for the last few months. Although, there's no mention of the Z5 Premium. Perhaps that phone won't be making it to the US at all. Here are the specs of the Z5 and Z5 Compact as a quick refresher.Xperia Z5:
DotEmu is in the habit of porting older but well-liked games to Android. With titles like R-Type, Double Dragon, and Another World under its belt, now we get something a bit more serious. I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream was released on PC in 1995, based on the 1967 short story of the same name by Harlan Ellison. You can probably gather from the name that this is not a feel-good sort of game.
The open source code from Motorola's third-gen Moto G was first made available back in August, but now the company has added the Marshmallow version to its Github. Interested parties can head over and download all the code to begin poking around inside.
I've been struggling to find something that can replace Circa on my phone ever since that app shut down last year. It's not quite the same thing, but I think Wildcard might scratch the right itch. It's an app that relies on human editors to find the right stories and present you the best sources the get a quick overview of events.
Plex is getting an update today that will be of interest to regular users of the app. There are a pair of new features, but also a boatload of fixes and tweaks.
Remember the days when Microsoft kept all its favorite toys in its own playground? Ah, those days are long over, and now we've got the full suite of Office apps on Android. All three—Word, Excel, and PowerPoint—are getting nice little updates today.