Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Top 5 most popular Android apps from last week: Boxer, HTC Clock

Every week we cover new Android apps with Fresh Meat on Wednesday, followed by Android Gaming on Thursday and Top 10 App Updates on Friday. When Monday rolls around, we look back to see which apps were the most appealing to our audience. Read on for the 5 most popular Android apps from last week. These apps are ones that are most likely new and haven’t appeared in the Top 5 list more than 3 times.

1. Hangouts Dialer

App info: Now call any phone number in the world from your Hangouts app using your data connection. Download and install the Hangouts Dialer to activate phone calling functionality in the Hangouts app.

2. HTC Lock Screen

App info: Swipe right to BlinkFeed, swipe left to Widget Home and swipe up to previously used app. Frequently-used information such as notifications, clock and weather are also available on lock screen. No need to unlock and type in password every time for these applications.

3. 123D Catch

App info: Use your camera to capture people, places and things around you as amazingly realistic 3D models. Capture friends, sculptures, buildings or anything else you can photograph. Automatically transform them into interactive 3D models that can be shared with friends, family, and an ever growing community of 3D photographers.

4. HTC Clock

App info: HTC Clock offers better time management functionalities including World Clock, Alarm, Stopwatch and Timer. World Clock: Time of current location as well as time of other cities.

5. Boxer

App info: Boxer is a faster, smarter mobile email app that adapts to the way you work. Boxer supports your Gmail, Exchange, Outlook, Yahoo, Hotmail, iCloud, AOL, Office 365, IMAP and POP3 email accounts.

Note: To ensure that all apps receive a fair chance to make the list, we will retire any app that has made the list for three consecutive weeks and will place it in our Android and Me App Hall of Fame. We will post this Hall of Fame list in a dedicated series. Any app with * next to the title indicates it will now be added to our Hall of Fame list and will no longer be listed in this article.

New Moto X preorders go live at AT&T, Motorola sales will begin at 11:00 AM CT

If you’ve been itching to hand over some cash to add Motorola’s new flagship smartphone to your gadget utility belt, well, you can now do just that.

AT&T is now accepting preorders for the Moto X (2nd Generation). You can choose from Black Resin, Black Leather or Bamboo body options, and AT&T says that all three units will ship on September 23. Pricing for the Black Resin model is set at 24 monthly payments of $21.96 with AT&T Next 18, 20 monthly payments of $26.35 each with AT&T Next 12, $99.99 with a 2-year contract or $526.99 without a commitment. The Black Leather and Bamboo units will set you back 24 monthly payments of $22.80 with AT&T Next 18, 20 monthly payments of $27.35 each with AT&T Next 12, $119.99 with a 2-year contract or $546.99 without a commitment

Motorola will also take preorders for the new Moto X today. In addition to the regular model, Moto will offer the Moto X – Pure Edition, a SIM unlocked unit that comes with an unlockable bootloader, as well as the Moto Hint and Motorola Turbo Charger. Motorola will also replenish its stock of Moto 360 units today. All of that will go down at 11:00 AM CT.

Motorola’s new Moto X features many improvements over the original model, including a 5.2-inch 1080p display that’s larger than the 4.7-inch 720p screen on the first X. The new version also packs a 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor, 16GB or 32GB of storage, 2GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel rear camera and a 2-megapixel front-facing shooter. Overall the new Moto X looks like a very respectable flagship for 2014, especially for $100 on-contract and $500 or so without a commitment.

NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet with LTE up for pre-order, ships Sept. 30

We are still working on getting an NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet to review for you, but if that 16GB base model wasn’t cutting it for you then you’ll be glad to hear that the 32GB model with LTE is at last up for pre-order and will begin shipping September 30.Again we haven’t gotten our hands on it yet, but based on our last year with the SHIELD Portable we have every reason to believe this is an excellent piece of hardware. NVIDIA did their homework and seemed to deliver everything that a gaming enthusiast could want with an 8-inch 1080p display, Tegra K1 processor, front-facing stereo speakers and of course, NVIDIA’s GameStream to bring your PC games to the tablet.And for those of you that don’t feel like you want a dedicated Android gaming device, the SHIELD Tablet is a high-powered, basically stock Android tablet. NVIDIA has shown that they are going to keep their hardware up to date with the latest version of Android, so you are essentially getting a Nexus tablet with all of the amazing gaming features as a bonus.You can pre-order the 32GB LTE version of the SHIELD tablet today from NVIDIA for $399 or AT&T will be selling the tablet on contract for $299. I can’t see going on contract for a $100 price cut, but it’ll be available to you if that’s tempting.

Have any of you already picked up a Shield Tablet? If not, does the LTE model tempt you?

Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile a few days later HTC Desire 510 for Sprint launches September 19,

At the tail-end of August, HTC officially announced the Desire 510. While taking several design cues from the other Desire-branded family members, the new device lacks the high-end BoomSound front-facing speakers that several other HTC devices have launched with recently. Sprint has seen fit to give the mid-range device a launch date and a strikingly low price tag along with it.

The Desire 510 will officially launch on Sprint’s network beginning Friday, September 19. On that date, potential buyers can either order the device online or head into a Sprint retail shop to check out the new handset in person. The Desire 510 will run $0 on a new, two-year contract, or $199 sans any contract at all. The Easy Pay installment plan means a customers will be paying $8.34 for 24 months, with $0 down to kick things off.

The key features, as noted by Sprint, look like this:

1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon® 400 Processor
Sprint Spark enhanced LTE was designed to take full advantage of all three bands of Sprint LTE to deliver our fastest data speeds ever and improved in-building coverage
4.7-inch TFT display for an outstanding visual experience
HTC Blinkfeed® aggregates the consumers’ chosen news feeds into a user-friendly experience on their home screens
5-megapixel rear-facing and 1.3-megapixel front-facing cameras for high-quality photos you’ll be proud to share
HD Voice for crystal clear call quality with reduced background noise while calling another Sprint HD Voice-enabled phone Sprint network upgraded areas

Boost Mobile will be launching the Desire 510 as well beginning September 22, with their device being an exclusive white variant. It will run new buyers $99.99. Virgin Mobile will be launching the blue option on September 23, and it will cost for $99.99 as well.

Do you plan on picking up the Desire 510?

Custom firmware brings iOS 7 features to really old iPhones

OS has a growing developer community and while it's very far from the jungle of custom ROMs available for Android, here's a start. The Whited00r firmware brings iOS 7 look and feel to devices that are no longer supported by Apple.

The supported devices include the original iPhone, the iPhone 3G, the first and second-generation iPod touch. The related Grayd00r project supports the third-get iPod Touch and the original iPad.

Note that despite the looks, Whited00r is actually based on iOS 3.x. That said it includes multitasking, control center, Siri, lockscreen notifications and new camera app with video recording.

Both the official App Store and Cydia are available, though keep in mind that many apps will not run on the older OS. That's where the AppTimeMachine feature steps in and gives you access to applications that no longer support iOS 3.x.

The custom ROM is currently at version 7.1 and will get over-the-air updates via Cydia. The installation process can be done from a Windows PC or a Mac. For locked iPhones there is a special version of the software that will unlock the device first.

This probably goes without saying, but Whited00r is anything but official so installing this is done at your own risk.

wow wow wow 4 million pre-orders in 24 hours.

Apple iPhone 6 won't meet demand until November

Apple's is on the verge of filling stores with its latest iPhone (the "smaller" iPhone 6) and as experience has taught us there is a lot of demand for the latest iGadget.

But according to sources Apple will not be able to meet initial iPhone 6 demand and may struggle to catch up to the market until as late as November.

The high demand should come as no surprise - the iPhone 6 marks an end to Apple's stubbornness to launch a big-screened phone - and the first 24 hours showed a huge interest in the 4.7" and 5.5" iPhone duo - 4 million pre-orders in 24 hours.

When the iPhone 6 becomes available in walk-in stores this Friday there will be some stock available but not much and users are expected to wait beyond September 19 to get their hands on the device. No word on how well the iPhone 6 Plus will be stocked.

Selfie-obsessed Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime leaks

The selfie is easily the most popular genre of photo these days and Samsung may try to capitalize on that market with the Galaxy Grand Prime. Photos of the handset reveal its front-facing camera boasts 5MP resolution, a sizeable improvement over the 2MP shooters of previous Grands.

The unofficial info about the Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime also reveals an 8MP main camera with 1080p video capture. The phone will be powered by a Snapdragon 400 chipset with 1GB RAM, running Android 4.4 KitKat. So far, so Galaxy Grand 2.

Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime in the wild

The new model will have a different screen though – 5" big but with qHD resolution. That's a bit of downgrade compared to the 5.25" 720p screen of the Galaxy Grand 2 but a slight improvement over the 5" WVGA of the first-gen Grand.

Like other Grands, the Galaxy Grand Prime will be a dual-SIM device with 3G connectivity (HSPA going up to 42Mbps down, 5.76Mbps up). Other connectivity includes dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0. There's also 8GB of built-in storage expandable via microSD card slots.

This info comes from Vietnam where the Galaxy Grand Prime is expected to arrive in October. This is Samsung's first phone with a high-res front-facing camera but the competition will be waiting for it – the bigger Sony Xperia C3 Dual is already available and the Nokia Lumia 730 Dual SIM should arrive by then too.