About Ryne Hager
Ryne was ostensibly a senior editor at Android Police, working at the site from 2017-2022. But really, he is just some verbose dude who digs on tech, loves Android, and hates anticompetitive practices. His only regret is that he didn't buy a Nokia N9 in 2012.
Latest Articles
This new Wi-Fi mesh router costs $20, and that's not a typo
It may not be Wi-Fi 6 or support gigabit wireless speeds, but does it need to at that price?
You may not have heard of Vilo before, but barring any major issues, I think it's a name you'll be familiar with going forward. The company has just announced a new mesh Wi-Fi system — a boring subject, save one detail: The Vilo Mesh Wi-Fi System is a mere $20 per node (plus shipping) and $60 for a three-pack. It may not support the very latest Wi-Fi specifications, but that's a crazy price.
Pixels get July's updates a few days late and a few changes light
Blame the holiday for the delay, but some networks are picking up Pixel VoLTE support
July's updates for Google's Pixels are now rolling out, and functional patch notes for this (holiday-delayed) release are very light. In addition to the regular security patches, Pixel owners can look forward to precisely two extra changes: added VoLTE support for "certain" unspecified networks and a fix for "continued device reboots under certain conditions."
Nothing announces something: Ear (1) earbuds will have ANC and cost $99, coming July 27th
And this is the last we'll cover these drip-fed annoucements until then
Carl Pei's new company Nothing still has, well, nothing to show for itself, though the constant (and frankly quite annoying) drip of marketing in the lead up to its first product's launch has just spat out a new tidbit. Nothing's first product will be an active noise-canceling earbud called the Ear (1), set to cost $99 after it's launched on July 27th.
Weekend Poll: What screen size do you consider 'small' for a phone?
Somewhere around 6" seems to be our new cutoff for "bezel-less" designs — what's yours?
This is a holiday weekend. For many, it's the first big chance we've had to see friends or family in the last year and a half. So let's keep today's question simple, brief, and not too deep: What do you consider to be a "small" phone?
OnePlus Nord N10 5G review: Longer updates make a better phone
Seven months later, OnePlus extends security patches to three years — though I wish it got more OS version updates
Read update
Most phones get worse with time, and that's the nature of technology: New stuff comes out, requirements to do things increase, and old things get left behind. The N10 5G still has the same hardware it did at launch, but OnePlus has nonetheless made the phone better — or, at least, a better value. Now that the company promises three years of software security patches, the N10 5G is getting tough to beat, even if it doesn't quite live up to its namesake.
Google's new logo for Fuchsia looks awful
"a stylized design of a lowercase letter 'f'"
According to a recent trademark filing, Google's Fuchsia operating system is getting a new logo. Most of our readers probably wouldn't have recognized the old one (above) by itself, but the new replacement is a heavily stylized "f," for "Fuchsia," and honestly not great.
Ryan Reynolds's carrier introduces a 25-year data plan for optimistic boomers
That works out to $100 a year ($8.33 a month) over the next 300 months, and the deal expires tonight
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Deal hunters should take note today. Mint Mobile is running a very, very short-term promotional offer that expires tonight. For a slightly crazy $8.33 a month (or $100 a year), you can get a 4GB/mo plan through the MVNO with unlimited talk & text, but there is a catch. You'll need to sign a 25-year "contract" to get it, for an up-front total of $2,500.
Review: Aukey's portable generator and solar panel saved me during a power outage
The PowerTitan 300 is a big battery, and the PowerHelio Y100 is a big solar panel, and together they solve big problems
It's a slightly different sort of work day as I sit down to write this review. My power is out, the house is dark, and I'm outside on the deck with my laptop, phone as a hotspot, blogging and Slacking and what have you. But I'm fine, and excluding the distraction of a breeze and the nicer view, I'm still able to get my job done. In fact, the only reason I can is because of the subject of this review: The Aukey PowerTitan 300 and PowerHelio Y100.I know this sounds like the premise for some marketing copy or sponsored content, but it's not. I'm just a blogger who took way too long to get around to reviewing this big battery I got sent in the middle of January. Of course, it was winter, and testing a solar panel in the snow sounded like an awful time to me, so I marked my calendar for an outdoor trip this summer and forgot about the hardware in my closet until the power was scheduled to be out for an entire workday. "That's right," I thought, "I have something for that."
AT&T gives in, switching to Messages as Google starts to win the RCS war
All that's left in the US is Verizon — and Apple
RCS hasn't conquered the world just yet, but Google is winning the war. Earlier this year, T-Mobile announced that it was switching to Google's RCS messaging and app as the default for devices on its network, and now AT&T has revealed that it is also following suit. There's no firm schedule yet, but future AT&T devices, including Samsung phones, will ship with Google Messages as the default messaging app — and, if AT&T will finally adopt the Universal Profile standards and interconnect to other networks, customers can finally enjoy the perks of improved RCS messaging with out-of-network friends.
Samsung will give its enterprise-certified smartphones update support that rivals Apple
Recent Enterprise Edition Galaxy phones are promised up to five years of updates
Though the company hasn't made a big deal about it, sometime in the last year, Samsung changed its policies for Enterprise Edition "security maintenance releases," extending the window that devices like the Galaxy S21 and S20 series can expect software updates. The change dates back to at least March or January (if not earlier), but Samsung is now promising up to five years of updates for businesses that opt for them as part of the Enterprise Edition support. That's a software update commitment that almost rivals Apple, though unfortunately us general consumers won't enjoy the same duration of updates unless they happen to trickle down somehow.
Starred messages rolling out in latest Messages beta
Save information for faster-access later
A couple weeks back, Google announced that we'd be able to "star" messages in the Google Messages app to better keep track of important ones — you know, things like addresses, Wi-Fi passwords, or instructions. Though Google gave the feature fanfare at the time, it wasn't actually available. But reports indicate it has started rolling out for those using the Google Messages beta.
How Google Photos pulls, pushes, and polyblurs your pics to perfection
The tech behind Google Photos new denoise and sharpen tools is crazy and counter-intuitive
Photography has many enemies, but two of the biggest issues smartphones with their tiny sensors face are noise and blur. See, you can't just crank your smartphone's camera aperture wider in low-light or when moving. Outside a few exceptions, it's a fixed size. That means either a longer exposure or higher ISO to compensate — and that means blur and noise. We've all snagged disappointing shots at night because of it. But just a couple of months ago, Google Photos rolled out new tools meant to help combat both. Neither can magically make the issue go away, but the new denoise and sharpen tools work better than you think, and the "how" behind them is fascinating and entirely counter-intuitive.
Netflix now lets you start watching stuff while it's partially downloaded in case the Wi-Fi cuts o—
We've all been there, frantically downloading media just before the signal cuts off, you get out of Wi-Fi range, or the plane starts taxiing out from the gate. And it's a bummer if your download doesn't finish in time. Thankfully, if it's a Netflix download that gets interrupted, now you'll still be able to watch at least part of it next time that happens.
Weekend poll: Did Microsoft make the right choice with Amazon's Appstore for Windows 11?
It's good for competition, but are you happy with the decision?
The biggest news of last week was Microsoft's announcement of Windows 11 — and, more relevant to us, the fact that the new OS will run Android apps. However, there is one major catch: The app store Microsoft plans to use is Amazon's. While sideloading apps will apparently be possible, we don't know what sort of restrictions or difficulties that might impose. So for this week's poll, we'd like to know: Do you think Microsoft is making the right choice using Amazon's Appstore on Windows 11?I'm of two minds here because there is a clear consumer benefit in terms of competition. Yes, Amazon's Appstore doesn't have as good of a selection, and the company's recent practices are sketchy at best. In terms of tech giant conglomerates, Amazon's about as far down on the "evil" scale a company can go before it starts stealing candy from babies or starting fights in bars. But, Amazon's Appstore is also one of the very few third-party ones for Android that has managed to be successful at any level, and an uptick in customers via a Microsoft partnership could be the kick in the pants it needs to really compete with Google and provide us with a solid second choice.Of course, a Microsoft Engineer says we should be able to sideload apps, but that's not necessarily an easy workaround for Microsoft's choice of store. Chromebooks are a good example for comparison here. Yes, technically you can sideload Android apps on them, but it's a huge pain in the ass, and there's no proof yet that Microsoft will make things easy for us, either.Microsoft could likely have gone with the Play Store just as easily — after all, the company highlighted how closely it worked with Google for the Surface Duo dumpster fire — but Google's terms for such a deal would almost certainly have been more difficult for Microsoft to accept. Historically, Google's Play Store licensing imposes things like pre-installed apps, Google service integrations, and Google Search as the default search engine (though GMS licensing terms are usually confidential and vary by manufacturer and market). And when it comes to desktop services, search, and personal computing, Microsoft and Google are direct competitors.Lastly, Microsoft has a software storefront already: the Microsoft Store. In fact, that's how you'll get your Android apps on Windows 11, but Microsoft still isn't fully in charge. As the screenshot above shows, it's just a front-end for the Amazon Appstore. If the company wanted to, Microsoft could have just done its own thing from end-to-end.There's a lot to balance here as you consider the question, but what do you think of Microsoft's choice of Android app store for Windows 11, and do you think Amazon's Appstore is the right one?
dbrand's Damascus skins cause cell signal issues for some, but the company promises to make things right
'Precision Fit' wraparound cases in Holo Red, Holo Green, and Warzone can cause the problem
Over the last few days, we've seen reports that dbrand's new Damascus skin causes reduced cellular signal performance. The company has confirmed to us that certain wraparound Precision Fit versions of the new skin are affected due to a one-part-per-thousand metallic additive used to create the "holographic" reflective effect. Extensive testing to better understand the issue is ongoing, and the company promises to find an appropriate resolution for its customers.
Spotify remembers its widget exists, tests new version in latest beta
Now that iOS has widgets I guess Spotify cares about them again
Spotify sometimes seems to forget that its Android app actually has a widget to control music playback. A couple years back, the company even took it away for a little while, and its design is pretty dated. But now that Apple has invented widgets, they're becoming a hot commodity again, and Spotify is testing a new version of its widget in the app's latest beta update.
'Clone Phone' isn't just OnePlus's smartphone strategy, it's the new name for the OnePlus Switch app
The OPPOfication of OnePlus continues (beyond simply releasing OPPO clones as its own devices). The latest indicator of that blending is the OnePlus Switch app, used to set up devices when transitioning with a OnePlus phone. An update to the app renames it to "Clone Phone," matching OPPO's name for its similar app.
Google search will warn you when a topic is so fresh that there aren't reliable sources for news yet
"It looks like these results are changing quickly"
Misinformation online remains a big problem, especially immediately after big news lands. Unscrupulous folks can and do spread outright falsehoods, and not all sources meet the same standards of fact-checking or trustworthiness. In its ongoing efforts to bring you reliable and relevant information, Google Search is rolling out a new notice for "rapidly evolving" subjects, so you know to check back in later once the facts have settled.
Microsoft engineer: Windows 11 will let you sideload Android apps
We don't know if it will be easy or hard, but installing apps outside Amazon's Appstore will be possible
Microsoft's upcoming Windows 11 update brings a whole world of Android apps to your desktop computer, but there's a catch: The app store you'll be using is Amazon's. If the lackluster selection and the house of Bezos's business practices leave you preferring an alternative, an engineer at Microsoft has confirmed on Twitter that customers will also be able to sideload apps onto Windows 11, installing things they like from their own sources.
Six completely non-essential gadgets you don't need to buy this summer (but you know you want to)
Beyond food, water, and the self-affirmation of a blog well done, there's the simple love of stuff
It's officially been summer for the last few days, so everyone and their grandma is going to start slinging lists at your face for "essential" or "indispensable" things you should buy to truly enjoy the season, especially since this summer is set to be big for travel. To buck that trend here's a slightly different list. Everything on it is fully optional, completely non-essential, and just sort of nice to have in a discretionary way. On top of that, this isn't some list of things I've never touched that I'm just pushing for an affiliate sale; they're almost all things I personally use (with two justifiable exceptions — I used the older models).