The first time Android needs to open a particular file type, whether an image or PDF, you'll be asked which app you want to use. Having your phone know your preferences is handy, but it can be frustrating if you change your mind down the road. Here's how to get back the freedom of choice.
The latest iFixit smartphone teardown has been shared. The OnePlus One was the subject this time around and we are seeing a device that was given a repairability score of 5 out of 10 and described as having a "fairly modular" design. The modular design is said to "allow for less expensive replacement parts" however going back to that 5 (out of 10) score and it doesn't look like many will be doing home repairs.
In fact, the iFixit crew mentioned how the "battery is more of a chore to replace than necessary." This comes to to some adhesive, as well as several cables. The battery was also shown to have its connector stuck under a plastic panel with several screws. But on the flip side, the OnePlus One makes use of one screw head type -- and no proprietary screws.
Perhaps more to the point for many -- these iFixit teardowns simply offer a look that you will not get to see otherwise. For us they are not necessarily about learning to repair our devices, but simply to get a look at the components of the device. In this case the OnePlus One teardown is a 21 step process and comes complete with many images.
Looking back to some of the other recent iFixit teardowns -- there was Google's Project Tango and the Fire TV as well as the HTC One (M8), Samsung Galaxy S5 and the Gear 2. Those (and others) can all be found using the links sitting in the Story Timeline section below.
SOURCE: iFixit
Boost Mobile announced the Kyocera Hydro Icon 4G LTE earlier in the month. And as we had expected based on that announcement -- the handset has since come available for purchase. Boost Mobile has the Kyocera Hydro Icon 4G LTE priced at $149.99 and available for use with the Monthly Unlimited plans which begin at $40 per month.
As the 'hydro' portion of the name would suggest -- the Hydro Icon 4G LTE is a waterproof device. In this case the handset has an IP57 certification and that means it can handle being submerged in up to 1 meter of water for up to 30 minutes time. The IP57 certification also means the handset is dust proof. Otherwise, those considering a purchase can expect a 4.5-inch qHD display, quad-core 1.2GHz processor and 4G LTE connectivity.
The Hydro Icon 4G LTE is running Android 4.3 Jelly Bean and has 8GB of internal storage along with a microSD card slot (with support for cards up to 32GB in size). Other spec highlights include an 8 megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash and support for wireless charging. Kyocera also has the handset loaded with a 2000 mAh battery and using the Eco-Mode and MaxiMZR tools for power management.
Touching back on the monthly plans. Boost Mobile has the $40 per month "Monthly Unlimited" plan which includes unlimited talk, text and data. The first 500MB of data is high-speed on the $40 per month plan. Users can also up the high-speed data allotment by paying $50 or $60 per month for a plan that offers 2.5GB or 5GB respectively. That said, the Kyocera Hydro Icon 4G LTE is available with Boost Mobile at this time.
We saw news of YouTube live stream support coming to the Chromecast back in early-April. But at the time that support was a bit limited. And more to the point -- it did not include support for streams coming from mobile devices, which really meant that Android users weren't able to send YouTube live streams to their Chromecast.
Well, flash forward till the present day and it looks like Google has made an official announcement. Coming by way of the Google Chrome page on Google+; "YouTube live streams are #NowCasting." And to clarify -- this does include casting from a mobile device. Aside from casting from a YouTube live stream -- the process is a familiar one for current Chromecast users.
All you need to do is browse to any live event on YouTube and press the cast button within the app. Once the button has been pressed the video will be sent to the Chromecast, which is likely attached to a bigger screen that is able to provide a more comfortable viewing experience. To get you started, Google suggested a few live streams in the +Chrome post.
- Have a personal concert with Adam Levine during the AMEX EveryDay Live with Maroon 5 on 6/20: http://ift.tt/1r6Qjfo
- Dance your heart out while nobody’s watching all night with the Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) on June 20-22: http://ift.tt/SSQUFk
- Catch up on soccer action by casting Adidas - The Dugout Live from Rio on June 27, June 28, July 3 and July 12: http://ift.tt/1r6QlE6
- Get your surfing fix with the ASP World Tour on July 10 from South Africa and July 27 from Huntington Beach: http://ift.tt/1qs5Rgj
Little by little, Chromecast support is coming available on a wide variety of apps (and in this case, variety of streams). We've recently seen support added by Redbox Instant as well as Aereo. There was also news about how VLC for Android was planning to add Chromecast support sometime in the not to distant future.
SOURCE: +Chrome
It may not be the Galaxy F "S5 Prime" that was being leaked, but at least in the things that were important it might as well be. Samsung officially announced the newest member of its ever-growing smartphone family, the Galaxy S5 LTE-A, the first of its kind in its category in terms of its connectivity and Super AMOLED display.
One of the things that’s important for most mobile users is the connectivity speed of their devices and this new model, with its LTE-Advanced connectivity says it can offer its users download speeds of up to 225 Mbps, depending on your provider of course. Another concern is most users have multiple apps open at the same time and sometimes switching from one app to another bogs down the phone. The new Galaxy S5 features a Snapdragon 805 processor, the first one to do so, that makes your phone run faster with no danger of hanging when you have many apps open.
In terms of memory, it has 3GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage with the option of adding microSD cards for up to 128GB. Its screen is no lightweight as well, with the WQHD (2560×1440) Super AMOLED which gives the 5.1 inch-screen a 577ppi pixel density. The Galaxy S5 LTE-A is also supposedly water and dust resistant and has even received an IP67 certification for that. It also retains certain features from the last S5 model, like a 16-megapixel rear camera, a 2-megapixel rear-facing camera and it will be running on Android 4.4 KitKat as well.
But hold on a minute before you start selling your old S5 and fall in line for this new one. It will only be available in the South Korean market at first during its official launch. And it doesn’t come cheap either, with the initial price of $919, considering the $600 price tag of the previous S5 model.
SOURCE: Samsung
Samsung has its own TouchWiz homescreen exclusive to its smartphones so it comes as a bit of a surprise to see a new homescreen launcher replacement that has been funded by the manufacturer's startup accelerator. But will Terrain Home actually be able to make a name for itself in the crowded homescreen marketplace? Perhaps it could, if the subset of features it seems to have picked off from other launchers resonate with you.
Aviate without the brains. Fasthlane without the tiles. Everything.me without the recommendations. GEL without Google Now. It is almost hard to pin down Terrain Home to a single description because of the mix of features that it possesses, some of which seem to be inspired by other homescreen alternatives. But Terrain Home bills itself as a launcher that simplifies your smartphone by putting everything in a single place, and to that extent, it might have actually succeeded.
The two core features that Terrain Home is selling users is Search and Sidebar, though those two are, ironically, actually not front and center of the homescreen. By default, your homescreen will actually look like any other AOSP-based homescreen, Trebuchet or Google Experience Launcher, except for three rather new and conspicuous icons above the dock that also take you to the launcher's main features.. However, all the main features of the launcher is just a swipe gesture away. Swiping up will take you to Search. Swiping to the right will bring up the App list. Going the opposite direction will land you in Sidebar. And to keep things balanced, swiping down will unroll the Notification panel.
The Search feature is brain dead simple. Search-as-you-type will show up results coming from your Apps and Contacts, but if you want to do more, you can tap to search on Google, Maps, Play Store, Yelp, and YouTube. It is a bit like Everything.me's pervasive search functionality, except it isn't the core focus of the launcher and it doesn't make smart recommendations. It is also a bit like Google Search or Google Now, minus the voice recognition part. And speaking of voice, it is quite interesting that, by default, Terrain Home puts a homescreen shortcut to Voice Search instead of Samsung's own S Voice equivalent.
Compared to Search, the Sidebar is more active and more dynamic. This feature is like a mishmash of cards from Google Now or Aviate and dynamic content from Nokia's Fastlane. In fact, Terrain Home does call them "Cards". Here you can edit cards, add some, remove some, or rearrange some. Cards range from static content like Toolboxes for the most commonly used settings to forever changing ones like a Facebook feed, Weather, News, and even a world clock. There are different categories of Cards you can choose from, but it is a limited list. There will be noticeable things that are missing, like Email, Messages, Twitter, or Google+. The good news is that these cards are practically just Web apps and Terrain Home will soon be releasing an SDK for developers to add their own cards. Whether or not they will have to submit those to a curated Card store is still unknown.
The center homescreen might look plain and simple, but as the adage goes, looks can be deceiving. That space is surprisingly quite customizable, unlike other launchers that curtail your freedom in exchange for their own unique paradigms. Here you might see some resemblance to AOSP or Trebuchet, where you can set up a wallpaper, add widgets, and group shortcuts into folders. You can even add more homescreens if you wish, though that will naturally require more swipes to get to the Sidebar or the App list on the right, which looks eerily a lot like Aviate's. But Terrain Home goes beyond that. You can actually configure the number of rows and columns that will make up the homescreen grid, and even increase the number of dock icons to a maximum of 7.
Terrain Home, however, is far from perfect. Those used to smart contextual features from Aviate or Everything.me won't find it here. The voice-activated trigger of Google Now Launcher is also nowhere to be found. It also strangely disables the menu button of devices, relocating such functionality to a long press on the home screen or the App list overflow menu, breaking standard Android conventions. Terrain Home, however, remains an interesting and fresh option for those who won't feel the loss of the features too much. But best of all, it is free and isn't exclusive to Samsung devices. Theoretically, it should work with and any Android device running Android 4.1 and later, though exact availability and compatibility might vary.
Download: Terrain Home on Google Play Store
SOURCE: Terrain Home
It seems like Link Bubble's "background loading" idea is catching on, at least on non-mainstream Android browsers. Javelin Browser, the rather curious gesture-based browser we encountered last March, is just one of the few to add this functionality, boldly calling it a "true multitasking" feature.
Compared to most Android web browsers like Firefox, Chrome, or even Dolphin, Javelin might seem a bit small. Nonetheless, it still offered some unique and interesting features built right into the app itself, like Ad Block and Reading Mode. By using gestures to navigate the user interface itself, Javelin was able to hide away most of the tabs and buttons you'd still see in most apps. The browser, or rather its creator, even offered a proxy service, for a fee of course. But last month, Javelin unveiled its biggest feature yet called Stack.
The name might be a bit like a new tabbed browsing system, and in a way it is. But Javelin Stack is definitely more than that. Like Link Bubble, when you click on a link inside any app, Javelin will load that web page in the background so that you can keep on using the app. A floating bubble will indicate the progress and notify you if your page is loaded and ready. Tapping on the bubble will bring up the links you've just loaded, presented in a tickler visual style. Here you can flip through those pages, dismiss some of them, and load the rest to the fullscreen Javelin browser. Of course, you can also opt to hide the pages again inside the bubble and add more to the stack until you're ready to deal with them.
With this Stack feature, Javelin claims you can have less taps and less app switching when opening links, but you also have two apps running concurrently, which could be a bit of a drain on the battery and CPU clock cycles. But that would also be the case if you were simply jumping back and forth between the app and another browser, only that would be more cumbersome. That said, it might be a price that some users will be willing to pay just to get this type of power multitasking under their fingertips.
Download: Javelin Browser on Google Play Store
SOURCE: Javelin Browser