Take A Look At This Latest Preview Of Lollipop Running On The Samsung Galaxy S5

Everyone wants to know what Android 5.0 Lollipop looks like on their devices and we don’t blame them. The Material Design, the smooth animations, all of it. It’s just gorgeous looking and really elevates the Android OS to a level of style that it has never had before. If you own a Samsung Galaxy S5, your device is on the list of future supported devices for the software update, so keep your eyes peeled for the details on when Samsung is looking to push it out to carriers who will then push it out to users. In the mean time, while you wait for Lollipop to officially drop, you can check out this latest video of Android Lollipop running on a Samsung Galaxy S5 from Sammobile so you can see just how Lollipop and Samsung’s TouchWiz UI play together.

While I am not personally a fan of the TouchWiz UI, I will admit that Samsung has done well to move the Kit Kat based version of TouchWiz on the Galaxy S5 and the Galaxy Note 4 into a smoother experience for users. It does look a lot nicer than previous versions of the interface and it feels a bit snappier too. So how does it look running on top of Android 5.0 Lollipop? It appears to run smoother than TouchWiz on top of Kit kat, and it certainly has the Material Design shine through. You can still tell that it’s TouchWiz of course, but what else would you expect? It does seem that with this final preview of Lollipop on the Galaxy S5, things are much snappier than they were before and things appear to be more fluid and animations look like they’re more noticeable Transitions between screens and apps look smoother too.

In addition to some visual changes coming along with the Lollipop update, the video shows off a brand new toolbox setup with newly added tools that you can place on the homescreen. For those that are unaware of the toolbox, once turned on it sits essentially on top of other applications and is basically a floating app, and once you tap on it it opens up the drop down which includes quick access to certain apps or tools. In Lollipop the toolbox adds 5 new icons, including screenshots, zooming, the flashlight, quick connect, and S search, although you can add your own selection of apps or tools into the toolbox and aren’t just limited to those five. Are you excited for Android 5.0 Lollipop on the Galaxy S5?

Click here to view the embedded video.

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YouTube Music Key quick look (video)

Play Music now shows relevant YouTube suggestions to All Access subscribers

Android Epic App Battles: Evolve SMS vs Textra SMS

The default messaging apps have arguably gotten quite a bit better over the years, but they still don’t have the level of customization of third party SMS apps. Text messaging is something that many of us do on a daily basis, so we decided to go with a battle of two of the most popular SMS apps to see who comes out on top. We’ll highlight some of the features of both apps here, than make sure to cast your vote in the polls on G+ and let us know which SMS app you prefer.

Evolve SMS

Evolve SMS from klinker apps is on highly customizable SMS app. While like every other app for text messaging you can choose things like ringtones and notification settings to tune just hot you get notified about messages, Evolve SMS has a huge list of available themes that one can download to give their messages a more personalized look. There are a number of preset themes inside the app too, with a wide range of colors, or you can you can look for something a little more custom in the Play Store. Evolve also makes messaging simple and swift, allowing users to swipe with their finger through all open conversations, instead of having to go back to your inbox and find the one you want.

Evolve also supports a full list of multimedia, so you can send pictures, video, contacts, audio and GIFs inside of messages without a problem. There’s also full support for Light Flow so you can get just the right color for LED notifications with Evolve messages, and it supports group messaging too so you can lump a few people into one message when needed. Archive old messages if you like to hold on to things, or batch delete stuff if your inbox needs some spring cleaning.You can also use messaging from the desktop with Evolve SMS through Yappy or Pushbullet, and there’s Android Wear support so you can send messages and reply to them from your wrist. Did we mention the Material Design UI?

Textra SMS

Textra SMS is another great SMS app that gives you some customization options. It also carries a Material Design UI to give you a little taste of Lollipop even if you aren’t running it. Like Evolve, Textra supports quick reply messages through Android Wear and Pushbullet, so you can send text messages from your desktop or your wrist. It doesn’t support the capability for user submitted custom themes from the Play Store, but it does have a load of custom color themes that are pre-installed so you can personalize your messaging a little. It also supports full multimedia which means pictures, videos, and GIFs too of course.

There’s a quick reply popup to make messages smooth and fast, and you can get rid of conversations fast by swiping to delete them from your list. You can use group messaging with Textra too, so if you have to message a few people at one time Textra makes it easy and possible. Sometimes you just don’t want to talk to certain people though, and that’s where Textra’s SMS blocker and blacklisting features are useful, allowing you to block specific people from sending any messages. If you like every single person to have their own customized look, you can change bubble colors, style, icon color, vibrate pattern, LED color, Sound and more for each contact, or you can just stick with default and choose a look and style that applies to everyone.

So there you have it. Two popular third party messaging apps, both with heaps of awesome features and some customization to make things more personal. Both have support for Android Wear, and Pushbullet, and both offer a Material Design style UI. Which ones do you use the most, or which one do you simply prefer? Who deserves the crown and title for best SMS app between these two awesome options?

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LG G Pad 8.3 GPE And NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet Get Chromecast Screen Casting Support In What Continues To Be The Slowest Rollout In History

Google added screen casting support to a select few devices earlier this year, but the wide rollout has been very, very slow. Today there are two new devices listed on Google's screen cast support page—The NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet and the LG G Pad 8.3 GPE.

You don't need to do anything to get your tablet ready for screen casting. This is a server-side change of some sort. Both these devices should have a tile in the quick settings for screen casting, but you can also use the Chromecast app to accomplish the same thing.

LG G Pad 8.3 GPE And NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet Get Chromecast Screen Casting Support In What Continues To Be The Slowest Rollout In History was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

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New Chromebook Purchases, Even As Low As $199, Will Come With 1TB Of Free Google Drive Storage This Holiday Season

If you're like me, you keep quite a bit of the files you interact with on your mobile devices saved on Google Drive. The service has gotten spiffier over the years, and Google has done its best to make interacting with the storage feel as though you're tinkering with something saved locally.

When I bought a Chromebook Pixel, it came with 1TB of Google Drive storage for three years. With the price of the service at the time, that was a savings of more than the cost of the laptop, which was and remains an expensive piece of tech.

New Chromebook Purchases, Even As Low As $199, Will Come With 1TB Of Free Google Drive Storage This Holiday Season was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

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