Google Play Services 5.0 rollout now complete, Android Wear apps should start showing soon

It usually takes a couple of weeks for each Play Services update to fully rollout, but Google has announced that Play Services 5.0 has “rolled out to devices worldwide.” One of the biggest features of Play Services 5.0 is Android Wear services. Developers have been asked to hold off releasing Android Wear apps in the Play Store until July 7, but with the rollout completed, hopefully we will see some apps sooner.

Google Play Services 5.0 also provides a dynamic security provider, which is a replacement of the secure networking APIs. This will allow Google to update security patches more rapidly. Also, Google Play Games will get Quests, which will reward players without the need to update the game, and users will also get the ability save game progress.

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For more info about Google Play Services 5.0, hit up the source link.

source: Android Developers

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VLC for Android Beta Finally Makes Google Play Store Debut in North America

The VLC for Android beta is finally available to install from the Play Store if you live in the U.S. or Canada. The app has been available to the rest of the world for months, but you couldn’t access it normally if you lived in North America. That’s all over now, as the app is now available in the Play Store all across the globe.

The VLC team says they can make it available to those of us over here because they finally got enough devices in Canada and the U.S. to test the app and make sure it works. The VLC team resides mostly in Europe, and they just couldn’t verify that the app would work for us. They’ve been able to do that, and now we can get in on the VLC love. The app is now available worldwide.

VLC is probably the most versatile media player on the planet. It will play just about anything you throw at it. I’ve been able to get it to play every video and audio file format I’ve ever seen. I’m sure there is something out there that VLC can’t handle, but I don’t know what it. It’s also lightweight, so it won’t weigh heavily on your system resources. This is a place even on current high-end Android devices. The current VLC for Android version is still in beta, but it’s been pretty good for me so far. The VLC team says that they are going to be adding in Chromecast support and dropping the beta tag with the next Android release.

If you want to, you can still grab the app directly from the VLC website. I don’t know why you would do that, only because it’s easier to keep the app up to date if you download the Play Store version. But either way, get you some VLC for Android action. The source link below will send you to the Play Store and you can download it from VLC’s website here.

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Nova Launcher Beta update brings Android L goodies to our casual devices [DOWNLOAD]

TeslaCoil developer Kevin Barry is back with another update to the world famous Nova Launcher Beta. Announced on the app’s Google+ Community page, Barry lists off some of the new features now available in the Nova Launcher 3.0.2 Beta 1 update, many of which bring a few Android L goodies to us non-Nexus users (as well as better compatibility for those running the Developer Preview). Here’s the short list:

-”L” Folder Preview (Nova Settings – Folder – Folder Preview – Line)

-”L” App Drawer Icon (Long-press app drawer – Edit – Tap Icon – All white icon under “Built-in”)

-”L” App Animation (Nova Settings – Look and Feel – App Animation – Slide Up)

-Minor tuning for running on Android L Dev Preview

-Optimizations and bug fixes

This should help those of you without the gall to run the new Android L Developer Preview, which really isn’t meant to be used on a primary Android device (although we found it to be more than stable). You can either join the Nova Launcher Beta community to get in on the latest betas as they arrive in Google Play, or download direct from the developer here .

Nova Launcher (Playboard) | Nova Launcher (Play Store)

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Google Is Making Android A Beautiful, Dynamic Scrapbook - A Closer Look At Material Design

Google didn't spend enough time on Material Design during the keynote. We saw a beautiful video and learned a little bit about the intent and thought behind Google's new cross-platform look (which we actually saw a bit earlier than anticipated), but there's so much more to be said. Having attended as many design sessions as possible during I/O, I think it's worth taking a somewhat closer look at Material Design. In this post we'll attempt to scratch a little bit deeper into what Material means, why it's awesome, and why it's a forward-looking move for Google.

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Could Meizu Be The Next to Launch an Android Wear Smart Watch?

Ever since Google announced their OS for the smartwatch-Android Wear- one by one companies have announced plans to use it. We now have a handful of OEMs with Android Wear smart watches. The first two were Motorola, and LG, and Samsung released their smartwatch known as Gear Live. Now there’s another company that may be working on an Android Wear smartwatch-Meizu.

When Android Wear was announced, Google also released a list of companies that will be working with the software. The list had all the big names, Motorola, Samsung, LG, HTC, and Asus. Many of these companies have either said they’re working on the smartwatch now, or released a smartwatch already. If a recent ad is interpreted correctly than consumers may have another name to throw into the hat.

Meizu’s domestic advertising team has released an image on Weibo that can be interpreted as a hint towards a smartwatch. The ad is written in Chinese and is translated to say, “Look at your watch. Do you have this type of habit?” As you can see in the image above, the artwork associated with the writing is a watch drawn on a wrist. There is also the top half of a Meizu Mx3 smartphone. The top half is where you’ll find the time, and the notification bar, which is what would be present on an Android Wear smartwatch. While this could be a hint at a future smartwatch, there’s another interpretation that is less exciting.

The ad from Meizu could also try to show consumers there is no need to have a smartwatch. Suggesting that your device is all you need, and that your device should be the Meizu Mx3. However, Meizu may have a hard time fighting off the trend of Android Wear. The software and the already released smart watches have already been getting plenty of attention. While smart watches seemed limited at first, Android Wear has opened up a world of possibilities through the devices.

Currently, there is no official word from Meizu in regards to the ad, or a possible smartwatch. What do you think Meizu is intending from the ad, are they hinting at a future smartwatch or trying to bring back attention to the original Android?

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RUMOR: OnePlus working on a Tablet

OnePlus is one of those companies that you want to see succeed but they just can’t pull it together. Every time you think that the OnePlus One is going to be available, they turn around with another delay. Right now, you still need an invite for the OnePlus One, which is pretty crazy and a bit difficult to get hands on, but we should be seeing a huge influx of invites going out over the next week or so.

Now there are rumors coming out of Evleaks today, that OnePlus is working on a tablet. Now that’s not really a surprise since most companies have a tablet out these days, unless you’re HTC. But the funny thing is that their smartphone isn’t even widely available yet, how are they going to do a tablet? I really do wish them the best of luck, and I’d love to see a tablet from them modeled after the OnePlus One, especially with CyanogenMod 11 on there. Or perhaps CyanogenMod 12S by the time it comes out, which I think would be based on Android L.

So far there’s no word on specs or anything like that. In fact the only leak we have about the OnePlus Tab is the alpha version of their website. Which we have a screenshot from Evleaks, which was supposedly done on June 29th, as stated at the top. You’ll see that in the main navigation at the top of the page it states “OnePlus Tab”. If they take the same approach to their tablet as they did the OnePlus One, I think they’ll sell quite a bit, given there’s no invite system. Hopefully we’ll see a 128GB tablet, since their parent company is already making 128GB smartphones and so are many other Chinese OEMs. How many of you are interested in a OnePlus Tablet? Let us know in the comments below.

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[New App] Radical.fm, An Ad-free 'Pay-What-You-Can' Music Service Touting 25 Million Songs, Launches On Android

Just like traditional radio, listening to internet radio without paying money requires putting up with ads. Well, usually. Radical.fm tosses this entire concept out the window by letting users stream music for free. If listeners would like to donate to the company to help out, it would be nice, but such generosity is not required. There's a catch, though. The Android app, despite just launching, already looks like it hasn't received an update in three years.

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OnePlus Tab leak suggests a tablet is in the works, but will it settle?

If the process of buying a OnePlus One wasn’t frustrating enough, how ’bout trying your luck at one of their upcoming tablets? Still not official, @evleaks posted a screen grab of the OnePlus website, showing a link for a OnePlus Tab, right next to the link for their hard-to-get smartphone.

While there’s no details provided just yet, we’re sure OnePlus will once again use their grassroots marketing and rock bottom low pricing to lure in prospective buyers. If you guys had to build the perfect tablet — one that didn’t “settle” — what kind of hardware would you like to see?

[Evleaks]

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Without Motorola, Lenovo Looking to launch 60 Smartphones this year

As most of you already know Lenovo is buying Motorola from Google. Although the deal hasn’t been approved yet, we’re already beginning to see changes over at Motorola. Lenovo has big plans for Motorola. In fact, Lenovo tried to buy Motorola before Google did back in 2012. Lenovo is currently the fifth largest phone manufacturer, and with Motorola they are looking to move up the ladder a bit more. Motorola has been around forever, and have made some of the most memorable devices, like the Motorola Droid in 2009.

According to a new report coming out of Digitimes it appears that Lenovo is going to be launching 60 smartphones this year. Holy cow that’s a lot. And that doesn’t include any from Motorola. That makes the number seem even higher. It’s important to remember that back in 2011, when everyone had exclusives, HTC did about 84 different smartphones in that year. Between all the carrier exclusives and different variants of the same smartphone. But what’s interesting here is that Lenovo doesn’t really exist in the smartphone world in the US. They are mostly only in Asia right now. We haven’t really seen any Lenovo smartphones make their way into Europe or even North America. But that should change soon.

For now, Lenovo is planning to operate Motorola separately from Lenovo. So we likely won’t see any smartphones made jointly between the two companies until next year or later on down the road. It’ll be interesting to see how everything plays out, but it’d be great to see some more Lenovo smartphones make their way into the US as they are built well and have some pretty spectacular specs. In the meantime, we’ll have to stick to their tablets, like the Yoga 10HD+ that just launched.

How many of you are interested in seeing Lenovo bring their smartphone business over to North America and Europe? Let us know in the comments down below.

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Sponsored App Review: 1nka Icon Pack

Description: Thanks to Android’s flexibility, it’s easy to make your smartphone or tablet feel truly yours, with lots of themes and icon packs available to easily change around whenever you like. 1nka is one of those icon packs and features over 540 icons as well as a handful of wallpapers to complete the look. It works with Apex, ADW, Holo Launcher and most other major launchers out there. It also works great with Unicon, a nice touch for those that prefer the Google Now Launcher. With so many icons on offer, is 1nka your next favorite Icon Pack? Let’s take a closer look.

How it Works: As with other icon packs, you’ll need to download 1nka from the Play Store. It’s worth checking if you have a launcher compatible with the pack, but most of them are. I prefer the Google Now Launcher, so I use the Unicon Xposed Module, whic is a good choice for icon packs as well. once you’ve done that, you can take a look at the 1nka app.

Once you have the theme setup, you’ll see how nice it looks on your homescreen.

Lots of different apps and games are all themed with their own icon with 1nka.

Opening your app drawer you’ll see that many of the apps you have installed have a nice new icon to them.

Also, don’t forget that there are a handful of wallpapers available as well.

Opinion: I like to play around with the overall look and feel of my smartphones and tablets, and 1nka Icon Pack is definitely one I’ll keep in rotation. The whole pack reminds me of icon themes I used to use when running Linux, which is certainly not a bad thing and they all look really great. With a slightly Mac-ish look to them, 1nka is one of those themes that’s playful but also very tasteful, it’s a nice balance. The colors look good, and the icons have a sort of subtly to them which is nice.

Ratings

• Speed (4/5) – No problems with speed here, these icons will leave your device running as normal.


• Features (4/5) – With 540+ icons available here, there are a lot of icons available here, but it would be nice to see some more wallpapers.


• Theme (4/5) – The artwork here is what really matters, and the selection on offer with 1nka is really nice, with an almost Mac-like look to them. The Icons here are playful, while also being nice and tasteful at the same time.


• Overall (4/5) – A solid icon pack that will bring a new look and feel to your device, the icons here are good-looking, but it would be nice to see some more wallpapers.

Pros

• 540+ icons should cover the vast majority of apps installed by most users.


• Works great with major launchers as well as Unicon.


• Good-looking set of icons that have a subtle, yet playful feel to them.


• Handful of wallpapers help bring the theme together.

Cons

• Dashboard type app doesn’t feel as fully featured as others.


• More of a wallpaper selection would be nice.

Conclusion: There’s already a massive selection of icon packs available for Android, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for one more and 1nka certainly has a lot on offer for those in the mood to try out a new type of icon pack, the icons are all subtle with a nice playful theme to them and they just look really nice. Well worth taking a look, the 1nka pack doesn’t cost a lot and has over 500 icons included.

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T-Mobile to start offering equipment installment plans for accessories on July 20

Need a payment plan for some accessories? T-Mobile customers will be happy to hear that on July 20, the carrier will start offering equipment installment plans (EIP) for accessories. Not only accessories will be eligible we assume. Would a $15 case really require a payment plan? Probably not. But for things like headphones or a smartwatch, this would be really helpful and make products much more accessible. T-Mobile will likely implement a minimum for eligibility and it does not seem that the carrier will attach any interest to the cost.

Source: TmoNews

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T-Mobile to get 8-inch LTE Samsung Galaxy Tab 4

T-Mobile has announced that they will be joining the ranks of carriers offering the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 8.0 to their customers. The LTE enabled version of the tablet can be added to a T-Mobile Simple Choice Plan for no additional cost. T-Mobile will give customers an additional 1.2GB of data per month through the end of 2014, but that will drop back to only 200MB free per month after that for the life of the tablet.

T-Mobile will start accepting online orders on July 16th and retail locations will start selling the Galaxy Tab 4 8.0 on July 23rd. The device will be priced at $16 per month for 24 months, or $384. This announcement comes about one week after Verizon announced the device would be coming to their network. Hit the break to read the full press release.

Samsung Galaxy Tab® 4 8.0 Coming Soon to T-Mobile’s Data Strong Network

The affordable Galaxy Tab® 4 8.0 and America’s fastest nationwide 4G LTE network — a multimedia match made in heaven

July 02, 2014 09:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time

BELLEVUE, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–T-Mobile US, Inc. (NYSE: TMUS) today announced preregistration is open for the Samsung Galaxy Tab® 4 8.0, an affordable new family-friendly tablet, which – through the Un-carrier’s Tablet Freedom program – can be added to your existing Simple Choice Plan at no additional cost with nearly 1.2 GB of free LTE data every month through the end of 2014 and 200MB of free data per month beyond that for the life of your tablet. The Galaxy Tab® 4 8.0 will be available to order at www.t-mobile.com beginning July 16th and will be available for purchase in participating T-Mobile stores nationwide starting July 23rd.

“The Galaxy Tab® 4 8.0 is perfect for the family who needs a tablet for all their multimedia use – priced so you won’t break the bank in the process”

“The Galaxy Tab® 4 8.0 is perfect for the family who needs a tablet for all their multimedia use – priced so you won’t break the bank in the process,” said Jason Young, Senior Vice-President of Marketing for T-Mobile. “And only the Un-carrier offers true Tablet Freedom, so you’ll get free LTE data every month for the life of your tablet.”

The Galaxy Tab® 4 8.0 is designed for multimedia use by multi-tasking families that stream movies, music and TV shows, and who take and share loads of photos—and is also a perfect match for T-Mobile’s Data Strong network. And at $0 down and 24 monthly payments of $16, the sleek new tablet is an affordable choice for customers looking to get the most value and utility out of their new family tablet.

The tablet’s Multi-User Mode and Kids Mode allow everyone in the family to have a personalized tablet experience, while Multi Window™ allows for easy multi-tasking for families on the go. Running on the latest Android Kit Kat operating system, the Galaxy Tab® 4 8.0 also features a brilliant display with 3-megapixel camera and 1.3 -megapixel front camera. The 1.5GB memory and 4450mAh battery provide seamless multimedia use for video play and internet consumption.

The Galaxy Tab® 4 8.0 is the latest addition to T-Mobile’s expanded tablet lineup – now including a range of Samsung devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition – offering customers a range of tablets for every need and every price point.

About the Samsung Galaxy Tab® 4 8.0

Something for everyone. Designed with the whole family in mind, the Samsung Galaxy Tab® 4 8.0 offers virtually endless entertainment options. The new Multi-User Mode, brilliant display and lightweight design make this tablet easy to use and difficult to put down.

Always entertaining. Watch your movies come to life and take your games to the next level on the 8-inch display. You can also browse online, read a book and easily stream videos to your TV to share with the whole family.

Family friendly. Now everyone in the family can have a personalized tablet experience with their own music, games, apps, photos and more. It’s the best way to keep everything organized and make sure your personal selections are available at the touch of a finger.

Better by design. A lightweight build with a fresh design adds a touch of elegance to the Galaxy Tab® 4 8.0, while making it easy to hold and comfortable. Plus, Multi Window™ makes it even easier to operate.

Device Pricing for well-qualified customers. Down payment + 24/mo payments req’d. If you cancel wireless service, remaining balance on phone becomes due. Total: $384.00 0% APR O.A.C..

Limited time offer. Taxes & fees addit’l; total device tax due at sale. 200 MB free data avail. every 30 days for as long as you own and use registered device with T-Mobile. No roaming. Qualifying mobile Internet & voice plan req’d for free 1GB of data. See T-Mobile.com for specific offer and service details

Samsung, Galaxy and Galaxy Tab are all trademarks of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

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Google’s DevArt exhibition starts tomorrow with unique code-based pieces

Tomorrow, some very unique pieces of art will be put on display in London. Google’s DevArt exhibition showcases art that was entirely designed using code. At the start of the year, Google opened up applications and now it is ready to put on display what people have completed.

One of the more interesting pieces is from Zach Lieberman. He has designed a digital piano that utilizes live radio feeds from across the world for notes. Cloud servers grab sounds similar to the musical note and return to be played on a 360-degree speaker. This is so that the sound resembles the area where it is coming from relative to where the user is standing.

There are a ton of cool pieces, so be sure to check out the source link.

Source: Google DevArt

Via: Engadget

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Google Play Gift Cards Coming To Portugal, Greece, And Poland "Soon"

Just a quick bit of info for our readers in Greece, Portugal, and Poland - soon, you'll be able to pick up Google Play gift cards at your friendly neighborhood retailer (well, unless they're jerks, then your unfriendly neighborhood retailer). There's no exact timing information, but the Play support page for gift cards was just updated with those three new nations. Greece and Portugal will be getting the same 15, 25, and 50 Euro denominations as the rest of Europe, while Poland will have gift cards at 50, 75, and 150 Złotych.

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