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Twitter Blue arrives in the US, leaves a lot for Android users to desire
Blessed to be undoing tweets
It's been speculated for many blue moons. Now, after testing the deep blue waters off of Australia and Canada since June, the Twitter Blue subscription service is finally crossing gulfs to New Zealand and the United States with a bevy of new bells and whistles though Android users will be left feeling a little blue with this launch.
$3 'Twitter Blue' subscription may include Scroll news and better bookmarks, but not editable tweets
Twitter's acquisition of Scroll is a precursor to a premium tier of the service
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Last year, Scroll was launched as an all-new way to pay for some of your favorite publishers — including us! — while blocking ads. The app tells sites not to deliver advertisements to your browser using third-party cookies, improving the experience immensely. Big changes for Scroll are on the horizon, though, as Twitter has announced its plans to acquire Scroll.
Mozilla launches Firefox Better Web extension powered by Scroll's ad-free subscription service
The war against online ads just kicked up a notch
For digital publishers like Android Police, online ads provide a vital stream of revenue that helps us keep the lights on, despite taking up extra bandwidth for our readers and forcing content to load at a slower pace. Luckily, companies like Scroll have been working to disrupt the online ad industry, and they've reached an exciting new chapter in their journey. Mozilla is rolling out a very special extension for the Firefox browser — Firefox Better Web Beta — with Scroll baked in, and you can try it out today.
Ad-free news subscription Scroll now hides unsightly toolbar by default (Update: AMP dark mode)
Android Police just keeps getting better
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- After we rolled out our dark theme earlier this month, many of you asked when the Scroll bar would match the theme. You'll be glad to hear that Scroll is now rolling out dark mode support, so if you don't have it already, you should soon.
If you haven't heard of Scroll by now (where have you been?), it's this nifty service that removes ads from 300 of your favorite news sites, including Android Police. Although the service is quite young, its developers have been quick to implement changes that readers have been begging for. In the latest update, the unsightly Scroll bar along the bottom edge of the app is no longer activated by default while reading content.
A new subscription service called Scroll launches today, offering advertisement-free access to over 300 sites, including The Atlantic, BuzzFeed News, Gizmodo, The Verge, and even us: Android Police. Eventually, it will run you $5 a month, but you can try it out for the next thirty days for free, and those that sign up early get a 50% discount on their first six months of service.
It seems like Motorola's latest just can't catch a break. Following the unfortunate news about the hardiness of the ShatterSheild display, it turns out there may be another problem with the screen. The Moto Z2 Force may also suffer from the "jelly" effect which results in a slight distortion of the screen on certain animations.
OnePlus has finally made a statement about the reported "jelly" display issues. We reached out to them yesterday about the problem, and today we received a response from the company. Unfortunately for any users suffering from the strange display distortion, OnePlus has stated that the effect is apparently "natural and there's no variance in screens between devices."
Last week, I traded my Google I/O Chromebook for an ASUS Eee Pad Transformer/keyboard dock combo and started exploring the fascinating laptop/tablet hybrid. Overall, my impressions so far are more positive than I thought they would be, and I'll most likely end up selling the 3G XOOM that has none of the features the Transformer with the dock have to offer. The only problem with the Transformer that I've experienced is a relatively poor battery life compared to both the XOOM and the Tab 10.1, which I can't explain yet... but I'm getting carried away.
Some of us noticed today that our Android Market received an OTA update to v2.3.4 sometime last night. Before, when on the main page of the Market, the big 'Featured' section at the top would stay put. Now, we scroll down and - poof! - it vanishes (though, only on the main page and not on Apps/Games/etc pages for some reason).
If you remember, during Google's Honeycomb showcase in the beginning of the month, one of the tablet-optimized apps demoed was made by CNN. Considering CNN is one of the Honeycomb/XOOM launch partners, the new app showed up in the Market like clockwork for an easily digestible price of free. For those who need a refresher, here's the video from the presentation again: