latest
Smart home devices are some of the hottest items in the tech market right now. Everyone wants smart home appliances like AI assistants and smart speakers, but the industry is coming out with even more smart appliances, such as security systems, coffee makers, and even mirrors!
With each passing year, the futuristic contraptions of science fiction movies edge closer and closer into the realm of reality. Case in point: Braun has just made a smartmirror that runs Android. No, not that Braun — this Braun. An engineer at Google, Max Braun is someone who enjoys using his spare time in more productive ways than simply watching TV on the couch. Instead, he has been building his own smart bathroom mirror — and it looks amazing.The mirror displays information such as the time, weather forecast, and latest news headlines in a clean, minimalist UI. It's still a work in progress, and Braun is still experimenting with adding other things like traffic conditions and reminders. The display itself isn't interactive, but that's not really the point: Braun says the idea is for the mirror to automatically pull relevant data in the same way that Google Now does. For anything else, there's always voice search.
The setup is surprisingly simple: aside from a fancy two-way mirror, it's just a regular display, a controller board, a power button, and a Fire Stick. Other than that, it's just a bunch of glue, tape, and plastic holding everything together. The mirror itself is the most expensive part (depending on how large a mirror you get and where you buy from, you can quickly end up spending a thousand dollars), but you can get everything else for just a few hundred bucks. You could probably even get by with one of those Fire tablets.
It's worth noting that this isn't by any means the first DIY smartmirror we've come across — it isn't even the first one powered by Android: there are already guides, Reddit threads, and even dedicated apps for building your very own smartmirror. Still, it's one of the best looking ones we've seen yet, and I wouldn't mind having one myself. If you're also interested in pimping up your bathroom with an Android Wallable device, Braun has promised to post a how-to soon enough.Source: Max Braun (Medium)
Just over a week after its last update, it seems Google Play Services is receiving another bump - this time up to 6.1.71.
Pushbullet is an app that consistently has strong updates that work toward crafting, step by step, a better harmony between your devices (including your computer). EvolveSMS is an app with good design that takes a sharp focus on functionality and making text-based communication easier. It only makes sense, then, that the two would make a great pair.
Hey look, everyone - Google sent us all a treat tonight in the form of the first Play Store update in over 3 months. And we just love new things (hi, Kirill!). As usual, you'll find the apk for v4.6.16 towards the bottom of this post.
It's hard to overstate my love for AirDroid, the app that hosts a tiny, web-based interface for managing your phone with a desktop browser. And it just keeps getting better: the latest update has added notification mirroring, a la PushBullet and Notifications+. That means that once you enable the setting in AirDroid and Android, you'll get visual indications of incoming notifications on your AirDroid desktop.
Ever since the Chromecast came out, we've been wondering when an official screen mirroring feature would show up. Rather than wait, Koush is already working on that with the Mirror beta app. The functionality is limited right now, and of course, is still only accessible to those in the beta program. You might want to check it out, because Koush has pushed a new version with preliminary support for Chromecast mirroring.
It's that time again - Google has pushed out an update to the Play Store with plenty of enticing new features. We've got the APK, so after a brief rundown of some of the more notable features (we'll scour the APK in the coming days for any hidden goodies), we'll give you a link to download the app for yourself.
Following yesterday's unveiling of Android 4.4 and the Nexus 5, we've been enjoying a nonstop barrage of APKs which got here before any of us even got a chance to receive our own Nexus 5s in the mail thanks to the Nexus 5 factory image.
Earlier this week at a Google+ event, the company announced several important additions to Hangouts for Android. The updated version 2.0 comes with SMS support as well as location sharing, the ability to display animated GIF files, as well as the previously discovered in a teardown statuses and moods. AndroidPolice covered the rumor on October 7th following my initial Google+ report on October 4th.
Android 4.4 is out, and that means developers and tinkerers have already started digging through the code and various APKs in hopes of porting as many updated apps as possible for use with existing devices. The first and easiest app to extract is, unsurprisingly, the clock, which also acts as an alarm, timer, and stopwatch. I've installed it on my Galaxy Nexus without any issues and only had to clear data to get rid of the pesky force close, which is completely undestandable.
Yesterday Facebook announced that it was revamping its Messenger app, stripping it of SMS functionality and creating a more attractive, streamlined experience that the company hopes will draw more users to the app. The new version is currently rolling out to a limited number of users, with a wider release planned for the coming weeks. So when it arrives, what should you expect?
Earlier today at a livestreamed event in San Francisco, Google's SVP of Engineering Vic Gundotra announced a slew of new features slated for Google+ and Hangouts.
Google is quietly rolling out an update to YouTube for Android with version 5.2.27 on top of the current version 5.1.10. If you're eager to install it right now, we have some download links towards the end of the post.
Last week, we published the first look at Play Store 4.4, which most notably replaced the menu-accessible navigation buttons with a new slide-out UI. An APK teardown of this update also yielded the news of Google Play Newsstand and a special message to the AP teardown team that we humbly enjoyed quite a bit. Today, this update is live.
Google started rolling out a nifty update to Gmail with the Card UI earlier today, but since the update is staged, it may take a while to get to a device near you. Not to worry - we've gotten a hold of the APK (thanks, Kevin!) and verified it's indeed legitimate. You can find it below on several mirrors. As always, just download and install - simple as that.
A Google Play Music update v5.2 just popped up in the Play Store, though it's being slowly rolled out, as is the case with many big Google apps nowadays. The previous version is 5.1, and indeed I'm seeing quite a few changes inside that would warrant a point release.
About a week ago, Google released a fairly major update to the Play Store with version 4.3.10. The update brought combined update notifications, the new Recently updated section of My apps, and a bunch of other tweaks. Today, a minor update with version 4.3.11 is rolling out. As always, you can download and install it manually using one of the links below.
Google is rolling out an update to the Android Play Store with version 4.3.10. The new update follows version 4.2.9 which was discovered on July 25th, only a week and a half ago, and brought several very minor changes. Unlike the previous update, 4.3.10 is more significant in user-facing features (yay, new stuff!).
Simultaneously with the Android 4.3 release, Google started rolling out an update to the Play Store with version 4.2.9, which follows closely behind 4.2.3 from last week's Nexus 4 system dump leak.