Author: Jared Peters

The HTC One is launching on carriers all over the world, and now we’ve got the official announcement for China. As we’d previously heard, the Chinese variant of the HTC One is still packing dual sim slots and that coveted microSD card slot. The battery is still completely non-removable, but the SD card is a very, very nice addition. There’s no word on carrier subsidies, but you can expect the device to be available directly from HTC on April 26th.

As we’d heard before, this customized version of the One is probably not going to hit any other parts of the world, so don’t hold your breath.

source: Engadget

Come comment on this article: HTC One heading to China with dual-sim and microSD card support

Well, looks like HTC isn’t the only one who is going to experience supply problems with their flagship device this year. According to some emails sent out this morning, Sprint will not carry the Galaxy S 4 in retail stores this Saturday like originally planned, due to “unexpected inventory challenges from Samsung.”  The silver lining is that Sprint still expects to offer the device via online orders and phone sales, but if you were planning on waiting outside your local Sprint store when it opens, you’re out of luck.

And when it rains, it pours, of course, as T-Mobile has said they’ll have to push back their online availability of the device as well. Online availability is expected Monday, April 29th, with select stores to receive the handsets on May 8th and full retail availability by May 15th. Even with all of these delays, Sprint and T-Mobile will still likely have the S 4 on shelves before Verizon, though.

Come comment on this article: Sprint and T-Mobile both delay Galaxy S 4 retail launch

Today, Facebook has updated their Messenger application to include stickers. Yes, you read that right. Emojis are boring, let’s start using stickers. There’s also support for new sticker packs and a sticker store. So if you’ve been enjoying using Messenger’s chat heads, you can now spice up some of your conversations with some stickers. Is it a huge update? No. But who doesn’t like stickers? Hit the download link below to check it out.

Play Store Download Link

Come comment on this article: Facebook updates messenger app, adds new stickers

Are you the proud owner of a new HTC One? Is your only complaint the weird button layout? Developer tbalden at XDA may be able to solve your problem with his new kernel tweak which turns the HTC button into a sleep button (which also enables the home button to wake the device) or a menu button, depending on your preference.

This little tweak is possible since the digitizer of the HTC One extends a bit under the HTC button, which allows a different function to be assigned to it with a custom kernel. Currently, the hack isn’t 100% functional, and there’s been a tiny amount of weird behavior with it, but it’s definitely going to be a great mod as it’s further developed and tweaked. Hit the break below to check out the forum post to get the mod working on your shiny new phone.

source: XDA

Come comment on this article: Use a custom kernel to turn your HTC One’s logo into a functional extra button

If you’ve ever run into Netflix’s cap of two simultaneous video streams on your account and wished you could increase that cap, Netflix has an answer. Today the company announced that there will be a new pricing tier to allow a single account to deliver video to four separate devices simultaneously, up from the current cap of two. The pricing is just a tad higher than their current plan at $11.99 per month. You won’t be forced to move to that tier, and Netflix expects only about 1% of their subscribers to use the new tier, but having options is always nice.

Personally, I’ve never hit the current streaming cap, even sharing an account with family members. I can see how it might be an issue for larger families who rely on internet streaming exclusively for entertainment, though. What are your thoughts? Are any of you going to move up to the new subscription price?

source: Netflix

Come comment on this article: Netflix to offer $11.99 per month subscription supporting up to four simultaneous video streams

If you made a New Years resolution to get in shape this year, and you’ve managed to stick to it so far, we’ve got a pair of apps that might help you along a bit. The developers of Runtastic Pro, who have also collaborated with Google for some nifty Google Earth features, have released Runtastic companion apps for mountain bikes and road bikes.

Both apps feature specific features to whichever kind of biking you plan on doing, The apps features excellent GPS tracking, live data tracking, and interfacing with popular Runtastic fitness accessories. Both apps also feature a lite version with fewer features, and a paid version that has all the features in each app. If you’re already the exercising type or just looking for something to help you get started, these apps are worth checking out. Hit the break below for the download links.

Runtastic Road Bike Lite

Runtastic Mountain Bike Lite

Come comment on this article: Runtastic Mountain Bike and Road Bike now available in Play Store

Cricket has announced today that they will be offering a new family unlimited plan, complete with unlimited text messaging, unlimited calling, and unlimited data, and it’ll only run you $40 per line. What’s the catch, you’re probably asking yourself? The unlimited data is throttled after 1 GB of usage, and you have to opt in to the automatic bill pay. Oh, and it’s strictly for family plans, not individual plans. Still, it’s $10 cheaper than the single-line plan, and Cricket is throwing in a free subscription to Muve Music, so it’s an excellent deal, even with the relatively minor caveats.

You can also go with a $60 plan that offers 2.5 GB of non-throttled data, and a $70 with 5 GB of non-throttled data. Both of these plans also include the mobile hot spot capabilities. If nothing else, it’s good to see some other carriers try to take on the big guys with better value bundles. Hit the break below for the full press release.

Spring into Value with Cricket’s New Family Plan

~ Money-Saving No-Contract Plan Includes Two Smartphone Lines for $40 per Line per Month and Muve Music

SAN DIEGO, April 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Cricket is providing added value for families this spring with an affordable family plan to go along with the coolest phones Cricket already offers. The new plan is available now to customers who purchase two or more smartphone rate plans[1] with Cricket’s Automatic Bill Pay feature. The new family plan is available in Cricket company-owned stores and select dealers nationwide.

“The Cricket family plan is half the price of AT&T, and value like that makes this plan a great way for families to save money by spending a lot less on their wireless bill,” said Tyler Wallis, senior vice president, product and marketing for Cricket. “Each line includes unlimited minutes, texts, data and unlimited downloads from Muve Music. Cricket is the only carrier in the US to offer Muve Music, one of the leading on-demand digital music services in the country.”

The family plan is available to new and existing Cricket customers and is also available to Cricket Lifeline customers.  Customers may choose which Cricket smartphone plans best fit their needs and still get a family plan discount. Each family plan line includes all the stand-alone features of the $50 smartphone rate plan.

Cricket’s all-inclusive smartphone rate plans start at $50 for unlimited talk, text and data (1GB of full-speed) per month. The $60 smartphone plan contains up to 2.5GB of full-speed data per month and the $70 smartphone plan offers up to 5GB of full-speed data per month. The $60 and $70 plans come with Mobile Hot Spot capability so that, customers can attach additional wireless devices to their smartphone. All Cricket smartphone plans include unlimited music with Muve Music featuring unlimited song downloads, ringback tones and ringtones. Each family plan must include Automatic Bill Pay. With Automatic Bill Pay a customer’s monthly bill is automatically paid using a designated credit card, debit card, or bank account on file.

Muve Music

Muve is available on all Cricket smartphones and is included in the new family plan.  With Muve Music from Cricket, customers have millions of songs at their fingertips, will never pay per song and the music service is built in to Cricket’s no contract rate plans.  Muve Music customers have the added benefit of discovering new music through its monthly artist programs such as Muve First and Muve Headliner, where featured artists offer exclusive commentary, music and videos every month only available to Muve Music.

Cricket Phones

Cricket offers a full range of high-quality, affordable devices, with solutions for every budget. The device portfolio continues to expand with well-known brands including Apple, HTC, LG, Samsung and BlackBerry.  In 2012 Cricket became the first pre-paid carrier in the U.S. to offer iPhone to its customers.

About Cricket

Cricket is the pioneer and leader in delivering innovative value-rich prepaid wireless services with no long-term contracts. Cricket offers nationwide wireless voice and mobile data services over high-quality, all-digital 4G LTE and 3G CDMA wireless networks. Cricket’s innovative products and services, including the award-winning Muve Music® – the first music service designed for a wireless phone, are available nationwide at Cricket branded retail stores, dealers, national retailers and at www.mycricket.com. For more information about Cricket, please visit www.mycricket.com.

Come comment on this article: Cricket shows off unlimited family plan, only $40 per line

Back in March, we heard the announcement that Twitter was pulling the plug on TweetDeck in May. Well, now we’ve learned that TweetDeck’s final day will officially be May 7th, due to Twitter retiring their Twitter API 1.0, which TweetDeck relies on. On the 7th, TweetDeck will stop working the app will be pulled from the Play Store that day. Instead of updating the application, Twitter apparently think it’s a better idea to cut off the application entirely, hopefully convincing you to use their official Twitter application. If you’ve been putting off replacing TweetDeck as your daily Twitter app, now’s the time to start looking.

source: Posterous

Come comment on this article: Twitter to kill off TweetDeck application on May 7th

If you’ve been trying to find a great dock for your Nexus 4, the search may be over. German industrial engineer David Hawig has introduced his Andock, which is more of an entertainment hub than a dock on Startnext. The dock cradles the Nexus 4 horizontally and provides an HDMI out, NFC, and a fan for CPU cooling. I think it’s safe to say we’ve never seen a dock for mobile phones that comes with external CPU cooling. 

The dock is showcased watching movies, playing high def games, and turning your Nexus 4 into an almost-replacement for your laptop. It’s fairly similar to Samsung’s smart dock with a few key differences.

If you want to support the project, you can chip in a few extra bucks, or €79 ($103) to guarantee you’ll get one of these docks when they’re ready. Target price for retail is €89 ($116) with an extra €10 for international shipping. If you’re interested in backing the project, hit the links below.

source: Startnext

via: Phone Arena

Come comment on this article: Pitch in to make this Nexus 4 crowd funded dock a reality

If you’re on the fence about picking up a OUYA console when they become available in the next few months, you should know that OUYA has reached 10,000 developers officially on board for their console. That’s an extraordinarily large number of developers working to bring their games to the little Android-powered box. If game selection has been one of your worries for the console, I think you can safely put that fear to rest.

The OUYA box has received quite a bit of interest from partners, developers, and consumers alike, and the anticipation for that June 4th release just keeps growing with news like this. Are any of you picking up one of these? Let us know in the comments.

source: Games Industry

via: Phandroid

Come comment on this article: 10,000 game developers now on board with OUYA

The rumor mill spotlight is on Samsung today, as some details have popped up about another 10 inch tablet manufactured by Samsung. The device is code named Roma and is expected to essentially be a TouchWiz version of the Nexus 10. It packs the same internals, from the 2560 x 1600 10.1 inch screen to the dual core Exynos 5 processor. It will, however, have a micro SD card slot and on-board LTE, which is a plus. No official word from Samsung, but now that the S4 is out in the open, we should expect to see some confirmations about the next tablets in Samsung’s lineup fairly soon.

source: GSM Arena

Come comment on this article: Samsung Roma will be LTE-equipped tablet with Nexus 10 specs

Today, Google has it’s Q1 earnings call. And, as everyone expected, Motorola is still a bit of a sore spot as far as finances go with Google, especially considering Motorola hasn’t actually put out any new phones in several months. However, Larry Page took some time to talk about how Google is making a solid effort to turn Motorola around and into a profitable company, and he’s impressed with the future pipeline of products.

He also talked about the need for phones to be more durable and have better battery life, and if there’s one thing Motorola is good at, it’s battery life and durability. Page has talked about phones that simply don’t break . He predicts a move to flexible displays within the decade, but until then, companies should focus on making current technology more durable. While it’s not official, it sounds like a heads up that Motorola is going to continue to focus on those characteristics of their devices. Unfortunately, no references to the X Phone, but we can always hope it’ll be nearly indestructible, too.

source: YouTube

Come comment on this article: Larry Page talks future Motorola devices in Google’s earnings call, pleased with upcoming phones

If you’re anticipating Gameloft’s Iron Man 3 game that’s set to be released on April 25th, be excited. Gameloft has released a new trailer showing off more gameplay and a few of the other features in the endless shooter game, including some of the armor and weapon upgrades. Check out the video below for the full trailer.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Come comment on this article: Gameloft shows off Iron Man 3 gameplay with new trailer

Verizon has made it official that they will be announcing something on May 22nd at CTIA. There’s no word on what the actual announcement will be, but it’s probably going to be a big enough deal to warrant a formal invitation like this.

A Galaxy S 4 announcement would be unlikely, since we all pretty much know it’s coming, so it could be some other device announcement. Droid DNA Plus, anyone? It could also be something related to Verizon’s new device payment plans, or something network related, like VoLTE. We won’t for another month, but we’ll be sure to keep you updated as soon as we hear anything.

Come comment on this article: Verizon to make a special announcement on May 22nd

If you’re waiting on your Google Glass unit to ship, you can get prepared for it by taking a look at a new API that Google has released for Glass developers. The Mirror API has been released with complete documentation and some code examples for developers to get their feet wet so they’ll already have something ready for when Google Glass does arrive. Getting a head start never hurts, and I’m sure Google knows that. Google has highlighted some major features in the API as well as given some examples and guidelines for ensuring the best user experience.

With all the rumors of smartwatches lately, it’s pretty obvious wearable technology is going to start making waves in consumer markets fairly soon. But, like we’ve seen with some mobile OSes, if there are no developers or applications, it’s tough to get the platform off the ground. Google made sure that wasn’t a problem for Android, and it looks like they’re taking steps to make sure Glass is a repeat experience.

source: Google Developers

Come comment on this article: Google releases Mirror API to developers, complete with documentation and code examples

Google has recently sent out an email that the Explorer Google Glass units are ready to begin shipping. So if you signed up as a developer for the project last year, it shouldn’t be too much longer before you can start making fashion statements in your town.

This news matches up with what we’d heard previously about Glass shipping dates, so we can expect the early supporters to have their units by the time Google I/O rolls around. It should be pretty exciting to see what everyone does with these.

source: Android Central

Come comment on this article: Google Glass Explorer units now ready to begin shipping

Facebook recently tried to allay some privacy concerns over their Facebook Home app and what it could and couldn’t access on your phone. Well, fast forward to the latest Facebook app update, and it looks like some of that data collection has potentially bled over into the standalone app from Facebook Home.

Some new permissions in the update are essentially to let you know that Facebook does have permission to view all of your running apps on your device. At first glance, that seems pretty invasive, but the Facebook app is the backbone to Facebook Home; Facebook Home itself requires no special permissions because it pulls everything through the Facebook app. So, it is a possibility that those permissions are only used when Facebook Home is installed on your phone as well.  It’s also a possibility that Facebook has accidentally crossed a privacy line. Until we get some clarification from Facebook or another source, there’s really not much else we can dissect from those permissions, but it’s a great reminder that you should always be wary of what you’re installing on your phone, even if it’s from a big company like Facebook.

source: The Next Web

Come comment on this article: Facebook application can now see other apps running on your device

If you’ve been itching to preorder the Galaxy S 4, you might get that chance starting this week. According to some internal material for Walmart, preorders for the device start this Tuesday, the 16th. There’s no word on pricing, but it will launch on multiple carriers. Nothing really groundbreaking there, but it’s good to see some dates.

AT&T has already announced the 16 GB version of the device will run $199, while the 32 GB will be $249. I can imagine that pricing will be similar on the other carriers, and in Walmart. I guess we’ll know in the next few weeks, either way.

source: Phone Arena

Come comment on this article: Walmart to begin taking Galaxy S 4 preorders on Tuesday

Deutshe Telekom, who is already in the process of overseeing the T-Mobile/MetroPCS merger, was recently approached by Dish Network’s chairman to discuss a possible merge between Dish and T-Mobile. This proposition was before April 10th, when Deutshe Telekom announced their revised T-Mobile deal. Currently, there’s nothing concrete about these “talks.” Deutshe Telekom is fully invested in taking care of their current merger, and will only consider the deal after the current MetroPCS transaction is over and after they’ve verified a deal with Sprint Nextel isn’t possible.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Dish try to wedge themselves into the mobile market, and I seriously doubt it’ll be the last, assuming this merger never happens. We’ll be sure to keep you updated as soon as any other details come to light.

source: Bloomberg

Come comment on this article: Dish Network in talks with Deutsche Telekom about T-Mobile merge

The last information we heard about the fabled X Phone’s release date had it pegged for  July. Unfortunately, that release date appears to have been pushed back to at least August, but it could possibly be even later before we see the device. The device is reportedly still in the early prototype phase, so it just wouldn’t be ready for a mid-summer release. Unfortunately, this probably means we won’t see it at Google I/O, either, but I suppose it’s best for Google and Motorola to put out a device that can storm the holiday season instead of rushing something out the door that doesn’t live up to Google’s standards.

source: Phone Arena

Come comment on this article: Motorola X Phone release date pushed back a few months