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It's time to fire up those M preview devices again—Google is in the process of rolling out the second M preview build today. The OTA should arrive on all supported Nexus devices that have the first M build in the next few days. If you're the impatient sort, you can grab the system images right now.
John Legere just got done announcing yet another uncarrier initiative, and now we see what all those changes have earned the smallest national carrier—it's not actually the smallest anymore. T-Mobile reports 2.1 million net customer additions in Q2, bringing its subscriber count to 58.9 million. Sprint has only 57.1 million customers.
Pop over to the Play Store website on your computer real quick. I'll wait. Notice anything different? It's very likely that you're seeing the new app pages that started showing up months ago for users who weren't logged in. Now it sounds like almost everyone has the new look (everyone at APHQ is seeing it as well).
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The Chromecast is a neat little device, even two years after it was released. However, the 2.4GHz N WiFi isn't ideal for all wireless environments. There's not a new Chromecast with better wireless yet, but Google has just released an ethernet adapter for the original Chromecast. Neat!
There aren't a lot of Sony phones on US carriers, so there's some attention focused on Verizon and its upcoming Xperia Z4v release. The phone was announced a few weeks back with hints of a strong marketing push and special PS4 gaming capabilities. One thing we didn't get was a date. Now we might have one.
NVIDIA partnered with several game developers to release four premium mobile games last week that were optimized for Tegra chips. Three of those games (Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Never Alone, and Funk of Titans) showed up on time, but Q.U.B.E. was nowhere to be found. Well, it's here now.
Google's default keyboard has gotten really good, to the point that it's hard to actually charge for a keyboard app even if it has a few tricks up its sleeve. Just like SwiftKey last year, Fleksy has now gone free in the Play Store (and Amazon Appstore). Instead of paying an upfront price, there are themes and extensions that you can purchase if you so choose.
Here's the full changelog from Fleksy.
Disney has an unstoppable marketing machine at its disposal, and there's a new Star Wars movie coming out later this year. You can probably see where this is going. Yes, there's a new Star Wars app from Disney that aims to get you all hot and bothered for the new film. It's actually kind of neat, though.
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Googler Kirill Grouchnikov likes to show off the little UI flourishes in the Play Store, sometimes even before they are live for users. We like the small stuff, and you probably do too. So you'll be happy to know there are two subtle UI tweaks incoming with the next Play Store update. One is in the kids "character" section and the other is in the What's New box we all know and love.
The upcoming Star Wars mobile game was announced about a month ago, and now we've gotten our first look at the gameplay. It's not KOTOR, but Star Wars: Uprising looks somewhat better than I was expecting. Granted, my hopes were low, but here you go.
Not everyone needs an expensive flagship smartphone, and for those people, Sprint and Samsung have a new option. The Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime is launching on July 10th with admittedly modest specs, but a competitive price (for CDMA carrier phones).
I'm going to assume that most of our readers have used Pushbullet, or at least have a general idea how it works. Hooks is a new app that offers a more configurable version of Pushbullet channels so you can get notifications when any number of things happens on the internet. So take Pushbullet, add a dash of IFTTT, and you've got Hooks.
Motorola hasn't let its sale to Lenovo put an end to steep discounts. The company just knocked another couple bucks off the Moto X, and there's a coupon code that can get you a slightly better deal on already discounted phones like the Nexus 6 and Moto G.
Action Launcher is getting an update as we speak with a completely new feature. It's called the Quickbar, and it finally puts that search bar on the home screen to good use. In v3.5 you can add your own shortcuts and custom actions to the bar for easy access.
Google really wants you to know that voice searches are a thing, so it's taken to rolling suggestions out to some users in the home screen search bar. We covered that the other day, but since then we've gotten a few tips that similar messages are appearing inside the Google app itself. See for yourself.
Mapping and navigation app Waze is trying something new, and as with many new things, you need to start small. So the Google-owned company is starting with commuters in the Gush Dan region of Israel. If you need a lift to work, just grab the new RideWith app and another Waze user can pick you up on the way.
There are millions of smartphones out there with the processing power to get real work done, but they spend most of their time idle. That's what you want for battery life, of course, but Folding@Home offers a way to contribute some of those unused cycles for the greater good while your phone is on the charger. [insert Snapdragon 810 overheating joke here]
Microsoft is striving to be more experimental and branch out to other platforms with the Microsoft Garage project, which means we get some interesting stuff on Android. Not all of it is probably going to last, but hey, some good short-term fun. The latest app from the garage is Tossup, which can be used to gather opinions from your friends so you can make plans quickly and easily.
You don't usually think of HP as a company that makes desirable Android tablets. And in fact, when you go to the HP site and peruse the tablet section, you'd be proven right. However, tucked away in the business-oriented side of the site are some devices that might qualify as lust-worthy for certain Android fans.
Free OnePlus Cardboard (With $5 Shipping Fee) Is Now Live, Only 30,000 Available [Update: It's Gone]
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OnePlus announced recently that the unveiling of the OnePlus 2 later this month would take place in VR. Why? Why not, I guess. To support this effort, OnePlus will be giving away free-ish Google Cardboard VR headsets. They are available now and all you have to pay for is shipping.