That makes two Facebook apps in Google Play hitting a billion! Jan Koum of Evernote tweeted yesterday: WhatsApp crossed 1B Android downloads. btw our android team is four people + Brian. very small team, very big impact. pic.twitter.com/sW4F9SlKKv — jan koum (@jankoum) March 11, 2015
Evernote has updated their Android version of their note-taking app; the new version features a major overhaul, including a material design courtesy of Android lollipop. The material design provides app guidance and has a visual design that is clean and intuitive. Tactile elements like shadows and depth make the interface more user-friendly while still giving you the “Evernote” feel.
Just a few hours ago, Verizon announced that they will finally release their Nexus 6 today, March 12th online. After months of whispers and speculation the time has finally come.
This week’s flurry of news and smartphone announcements, combined with the impending launch of the Apple Watch, has me thinking a great deal about my next phone. Now, Android versus iOS versus Windows Phone is one part of the debate, but even when I narrow it down there’s another piece: how many accessories are out there?
Last year we celebrated 20 years of ordering food online (pizza – surprised?), and by now most of us have ordered some sort of food online – and many have used smartphone apps to place and track orders. Now Domino’s (is leading the way by allowing customers to place and track their order via Pebble and Android Wear smartwatches.
After being pulled from the App Store in 2011, and a brief return before being removed in 2014, the popular open source media player “VLC for iPhone” is now back! VLC allows you to play nearly every kind of video format you can possibly think of.
In January, Omate announced their $99 Racer smartwatch with much fanfare. Earlier today, Omate Announced what looks to be a first in a blooming Smartwatch community, with their limited edition Omate Racer X VMK. It has been announced that the new smartwatch will be heading to Africa in locations in Congo, Ivory Coast, and Cameroon to begin in June of this year for assembly. Thanks to the Congolese mobile startup company VMK who hopes to become a major player in the mobile industry in Africa, the Omate brand intends to be both cost effective, while giving you all of the…
In an unsurprising announcement, IDC revealed their latest smartphone sales research indication that iOS and Android accounted for more than 96% of smartphones sold worldwide for both the fourth quarter and for the full year of 2014. Everyone else? Once again they were left scrambling for table scraps – not just in sales but in profits as well!
More Marvel comic book characters are on the way to iOS and Android phones and tablets! DeNA and Marvel Entertainment have announced Marvel Mighty Heroes, a fighting game with cooperative gameplay in real-time.
The Motorola Droid Turbo mobile phone, a Verizon Wireless service contract exclusive, packs great power into less than 6 ounces of prime technology.
Last week we learned iPad sales declined … again. It was another sign of a shift in the tablet market different from the smartphone market. Now we hear from the IDC that the broader tablet market shrank with both Apple and Samsung along with ASUS and Amazon taking large hits and only Lenovo and ‘others’ gaining share. We asked ‘why’?
I loved Duke Nukem 3D from the moment it was released for the PC in MS-DOS, which was 19 years ago this week. Since then I have played it on Mac, Windows, OS X, iOS, Android, the Nintendo GBA version, and most recently the Playstation Vita. VoidPoint has acquired the rights and is publishing a ‘Hail to the Chief’ collection!
We all know that Apple is doomed… it must be, people have been saying so since the Mac vs. PC days of the late 1980s. In spite of their inevitable demise, Apple chose yesterday to announce that it had exceeded profit and revenue estimates while selling 74.5 million iPhones and 21.4 million iPads last quarter.
Last week I sold my Moto X 2014 on Swappa in anticipation of receiving a Nexus 6 I from the Google Play store. The Nexus 6 has been in short supply and often is available only for a few hours at a time on Google’s site. Devices are often available each Wednesday but only recently have they stayed in stock more than a day.
If you’ve been looking for a fitness tracker, your budget is probably in the $50 to $150 range. That’s reasonable for a connected pedometer/fitness data collector, but Pivotal Living disagrees. They see the value of fitness tracking in the service, not the hardware, so they sell a subscription model instead. $12 gets you one year of service and one Pivotal Life 1 band!
I am starting to worry my phone is becoming sentient. See, on a typical day, the battery holds up just fine all day. But if it’s a busy day, that’s when my phone drains the battery like a hungry vampire. Luckily, Bracketron is working on their Snap2.0 chargers, an affordable way to snag fast charging with compatible phones!
I admit, as much as I love my 7 year old Prius, I get a little jealous hearing about the amazing ways smartphones are being integrated with newer cars. Satechi clearly feels my pain, and they’ve come up with a much more cost effective solution than a brand new car in their newly announced BT Button Series.
Lenovo has been on fire the last few years with some amazing consumer offerings. They’re expanding even further this year at CES, announcing 10 new devices, from YOGA tablets and laptops to ultraportables, smartphones, and even a smartwatch/fitness tracker. You can check out their full lineup at their CES 2015 site, but here are a few of my favorites!
Huawei has been going from strength to strength of late, and the Huawei Ascend P7 looks to keep pace with the company’s ambitions. The latest flagship devices from Huawei are anything but cheap feeling, using a combination of metal, glass and high-quality plastic to give their devices a solid, premium feel.
For the past month I’ve been reviewing the future. As it turns out, the future is cheap, reliable, and nearly indestructible. It’s not terribly flashy, but it gets the job done. The future is a Motorola E on Republic Wireless, a prepaid carrier using WiFi calling to lower the monthly cost.
My experience using my Sony Xperia Z2 on vacation as my in-pool ebook reader and underwater camera prompted me to pick up the Xperia Z3 when I got home. That meant I need a Sony Xperia Z3 case. That’s where Poetic came in. Their FlipBook is inexpensive protection simplicity. The poetic FlipBook for the Z2 surprised me. It was inexpensive but far nicer than its low price suggested. That’s why I immediately ordered the version for the Z3. At $16 it’s anything but pricey. And yet it looks and feels great. There is, as you will see in the video…