Google's Play Points scheme are meant to get you spending on anything and everything in the Play Store with the hopes that a freebie every so often will keep you engaged and open you up to something new. But if you're already paying out for Google One cloud storage, the company will further reward your buying with a big upgrade. And if you aren't, you've still got plenty of time to get that bonus.
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Much like PCs, smartphones have become a mature enough platform that there's little benefit in upgrading every single year. Most buyers already keep their phones for around two years, and according to data collected by Samsung, the trend is shifting to three years.
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With Black Friday behind us and Cyber Monday just ahead, odds are a good chunk of you just bought a new phone — or you're planning to. Whether you've got spec envy, you're moving carriers, or your old phone is just broken, there are plenty of reasons for wanting an upgrade. It may have been just yesterday or two years ago, but was your motivation the last time you bought a new phone?
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Back in 2016, T-Mobile rolled out the T-Mobile One plans, which replaced the senior (and often cheaper) Simple Choice plans. Many subscribers from the era still have the old plans, and a further subset is being notified starting yesterday of a pretty swanky complimentary upgrade: unlimited high-speed data. The lucky "loyal T-Mobile customers" will get bumped to the new plans on 3/16, unless they opt out for some reason.
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Manufacturer infotainment systems are, by and large, not good. More and more automakers are picking up the standardized solutions of Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, which is s step in the right direction. Mazda started shipping the interface in some new vehicles this year, and now dealerships will be able to install it in model year 2014 or newer Mazdas.
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There's an old saying that goes, "never attribute to malice what can be explained by carelessness." So I'd rather not accuse Android game publisher Noodlecake of carelessness, since they usually release games that are fun, technically sound, and sometimes even lacking those $100 in-app purchases. But since they've made the Android TV version of snowboarding endless runner Alto's Adventure a $3.99 paid game, while the phone version is free, I'm not left with many other options.
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Sometimes US operators do nice little things to brighten up your day. Sure, they're still making a ton of money out of your contracts or prepaid plans, but they'd still like to keep you as a customer so they have to make improvements and additions to their offers to do so. So is the case with AT&T's latest update to its prepaid GoPhone plans.
Prior to January 8, GoPhone customers had 3 plans to choose from, all with unlimited talk and text in the US and unlimited messaging to Canada and Mexico. The $30 base plan didn't have any included 4G data, but the $45 plan had 1.5GB and the $60 had 4GB (both had a few more perks like unlimited 128kbps data after the allocation is used).
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Sometimes old stuff is too old. It's sad, but companies don't have unlimited resources, and they can't provide new software updates and service forever. That's especially true of smaller companies like Dropcam (though it's technically owned by Nest, which is technically owned by Google, so I'm not sure if it qualifies as a "small" company anymore). But instead of simply leaving owners of older hardware in the dust, or compromising on new features for the always-on home monitoring service, Dropcam has decided to simply upgrade the old models for free. Neat!
Here's the gist: if you own the original Dropcam or the Dropcam Echo home security cameras, they'll stop working on April 15th after the company cuts them off from its remote access servers.
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So AT&T's Next plans, with their $0 down and phone trade-in/upgrade after a year, are nifty for customers who always want the latest and greatest. They're also a valuable tool for enticing new customers away from the likes of Verizon and the ever-advancing T-Mobile. But what about AT&T customers who are stuck in a contract? Ma Bell hasn't forgotten about you: starting today, at least some AT&T contract customers can switch to a Next plan with no penalty.
The only conditions are that you must be a contracted customer in good standing, and you must be at least six months into a contract.
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This afternoon, Motorola's Punit Soni shared a post on Google+ to follow up on the company's earlier "more to share soon..." post. Soni's post pointed users toward Motorola Mobility's online upgrade checking interface, which tells users whether or not their Motorola device will be receiving any planned updates.
The tool now confirms that Android 4.4 KitKat will be coming to the Moto X along with the DROID Mini, Ultra, and Maxx.
Of course, the site mentions nothing about a timeline, but does have the option to sign up for email alerts for when the updates do become available.
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