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[ThatObviousUser]

Not sure if I am late to the party or if this is breaking news but it looks like Google Voice has been rolled in to Google Hangouts...



...well at least, on the desktop. Mobile app update next?

Making calls from the Chrome extension and the iOS app was added a few months ago. However, texting using your Voice number is still M.I.A. on all platforms, and Voice calling (VoIP) is still missing from the Android app.

 

[Talon]

was this posted before?

It kinda surprised me that z1 is not that bad as it seems and even iphones have more bezel compared to screen size

I actually think that the top bezel makes a difference for the camera on the iPhone. If you look at the Android phones, the camera modules are partially or completely behind the screen - this is true for the G2, Note 3, HTC One, and S4.

As a result, there's a tendency to have camera bumps for many of the flagship Android phones - the G2 does't really.

The iPhone's camera module is at the top, not competing for space with the screen module itself, and it's also flush with the back. Apple may be making more of an accommodation for their camera sensor than the Android manufacturers, and the results show with the camera quality.

Obviously Nokia literally put the camera ahead of everything else on the phone with the 1020.

Looking at the Z1S, the camera modules at the top bezel as well.

 

[Doopliss]

HTC One 2014

Hey all other OEMs: This is what the fronts of your phones should be like.

Good job HTC.

 

[gcubed]

Reporting it everytime I get the error, so I've been doing my part

I even checked the stack trace so I know exactly where in the code the app fails(seems to be trying to call a class that doesn't exist), not sure why it's taking Google so long to fix this, or even how it got through their QA process.

i report it every time, and when i get pissed i will make it crash and report it quite a bit. You can make it happen by refreshing Google Now. I also mark all negative reviews mentioning it as helpful.

Google is pissing me off on this one

 

[VoxPop]

Hey all other OEMs: This is what the fronts of your phones should be like.

Good job HTC.

I mean its essentially the same thing minus the HTC logo.. the extra screen space is still taken up by virtual buttons. Unless its bigger of course. I hope they have a better LED light this time. Like the Nexus or Blackberries. Damn those things were super bright and glorious.

 

[navanman]

i report it every time, and when i get pissed i will make it crash and report it quite a bit. You can make it happen by refreshing Google Now. I also mark all negative reviews mentioning it as helpful.

Google is pissing me off on this one

Glad its not just me who has this error. Happening on my N4 and N7.
Using the Google Now Launcher and every hour or 2 or on manual refresh, Maps will crash.

 

[navanman]

Google Music updated with some good UI changes and fixes:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/0...licate-chromecasts-bug-and-more-apk-download/

 

[jobber]

Not sure if I am late to the party or if this is breaking news but it looks like Google Voice has been rolled in to Google Hangouts...



...well at least, on the desktop. Mobile app update next?

You can make phone calls through hangouts on iOS

 

[Sora_N]

Is there an app to set ringtones generally? I don't see a way to do it.

I want one ringtone for people on my contacts and one for people who are not.

 

[Old Gimlet Eyes]

Hey all other OEMs: This is what the fronts of your phones should be like.

Good job HTC.

Front facing speakers, yes. Software keys no. I really do prefer my physical home and capacitive menu/back buttons on my gs3.

 

[The Faceless Master]

Hey all other OEMs: This is what the fronts of your phones should be like.

Good job HTC.

their only good job was making 32GB standard in 2013.

 

[tzare]

Front speakers, yes. Software keys no. I really do prefer my physical home and capacitive menu/back buttons on my gs3.

After my note 8 home button stopped working and backlight on 2 motorola defy‘s capacitive buttons died i changed my mind. Maybe does not happen too often but is really annoying.

 

[MattDoza]

The back of that M8 leak is ugly, though. The second camera, still don't get it's point, is placed so damn high. Redundant as fuck.

 

[MarkusRJR]

The back of that M8 leak is ugly, though. The second camera, still don't get it's point, is placed so damn high. Redundant as fuck.

Holy shit, so ugly. The weird white plastic horizontal lines (what will stain, like prior HTC phones), the high up second sensor, and the small white plastic line that connects to the main camera, yet not the secondary one. Looks so unappealing compared to the super good looking front side.

 

[Ydahs]

Google Music updated with some good UI changes and fixes:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/0...licate-chromecasts-bug-and-more-apk-download/

Play Next
Play Next
Play Next

 

[Battersea Power Station]

Play Next
Play Next
Play Next

Truly we live in the age of tomorrow.

 

[3phemeral]

I personally want a feature where it indicates if a song has already been added to a playlist.

 

[w1ck3dn1nj4]

We just had the article about how aosp doesn't include Google apps for good reason. I can accept that. Now there's this news. It's just another way of Google strong arming its way into everything. Shitty company. They should have just been honest about Android from the start. Then we'd have webOS and who knows what else.

Everyone will believe this news is good for consumers. But that's short term thinking. This move is just another step in their long play of getting more control.

So what if Google exercises more control if the main beneficiaries are the end users at the end of the day? Nah, I just don’t see why anyone should be up in arms about this or even construe this kind of control by Google as some form of shitty power play. You know what’s infinitely more shitty in my opinion?

The kind of shit whose system is designed around the concept of wrangling CONTROL away from users, cleverly sold as a benefit to all under the guise of quality control, when the biggest beneficiaries of this sort of control scheme are corporation themselves, with their prospects firmly secured to act as gatekeepers.

The kind of shit with the iron grip control on the OS level, of dictating what shit we can or cannot run on our device, meaning the kind of freedom we take for granted on our PCs today, will likely evaporate tomorrow (or become a costly niche only privilege) with the way things are going; with rising popularity of smartphones/tablets and decline of PCs where devotees of this kind of restrictive type of vending machine OS sing their praises nonstop, and ignoring the fact they’re helping to propagate this “loss of freedom” implication for the long term.

The kind of shit where we not only have the trend of mobile computing going in the direction above, we also have to contend with similar threat on pc space, with MS desperately trying their to shepherd their herd in this direction, by concocting a “one size fits all cock-tale” in the face of desktop users in hopes of savoring their slice of the pie.

What is the above kind of shit known as? A fucking Walled Garden, that’s what. The kind of shit where we’re effectively empowering corporations with a solid base from which they can build on various depressing shit to keep a chokehold on consumers, to strong-arm developers, to dictate terms or stifle competition as they see fit. That’s the scary shit we should be concerned about, not some farfetched Google shit. Because that is what it will come to in the end, after 2 wonderful decades of internet progress and 3 decades of PC evolution; a warm embrace by the masses of devices with the price tag, freedom, depth and flexibility of a fucking console if those in the know don’t help steer the sheep types away from that pen enclosure.

 

[The Faceless Master]

was this posted before?

It kinda surprised me that z1 is not that bad as it seems and even iphones have more bezel compared to screen size

aaaaannnnnddddd

With a stunning 5.9-inch Full HD IPS display and extra slim bezel of 3.3mm, the G Pro 2 offers an industry-leading screen-to-frame ratio of 77.2 percent.

http://www.androidcentral.com/lg-officially-unveils-g-pro-2-korea

- Memory: 3GB DDR3 RAM / 16GB/32GB eMMC ROM / microSD slot

fail. win.

- Battery: 3,200mAh (removable)

epic win.

 

[Fjolle]

ROM.. As in Read-Only Memory?

Or has the definition changed?

 

[w1ck3dn1nj4]

I don't know, but I have seen the sentiment around lately. The more inline they have worked to get GPS, the more some people rail against it in its entirety.

I cannot pin it down but I reckon that the draw for a lot of people for the OS was heavily seated in it being 'the most open source OS' for phones. Sort of like an imaginary badge of honor or something. It holds little to no value to me though.

• Phones shouldn't be shipping outdated OS versions, fixing that is a good thing IMO.
  
• Games and apps released should run on the majority of devices used to access the store, anything that helps that is a good thing IMO.
  
• First party services that I rely on for personal and business use (email, cloud storage etc) shouldn't be hamstrung and linked to large updates. Those updates should bypass my carrier and hit my device directly. If separating the Launcher, search, browser and other apps from the core of the OS does that, then its a good thing IMO.

I don't understand the beef at all. Unless I'm missing the quote where someone from Google stated that GPS and all of their first party applications would be open source on Android. But last I checked they were closed from the start. /shrug.

Seriously though... Enforcing policies that ensure the end user gets updates operating systems seems like a real plus to me. I still very clearly remember the cries of "Google is losing control of Android lolololo" and now as time passes things get more streamlined and improved overall, and now its "Oh noes Google has control of Android". This is jokes man.

Haha, exactly. It’s baffling to see some people stir this shit up like it’s some great detriment to users, when it’s actually the opposite! Looks to me like the result of some deliberate FUD mongering, stealthily dispersed out there by certain interest groups. A more sophisticated form of Scroogled if you like, but no less cringeworthy. Sad thing is, some people seem to have bought into the shit without any thought process.

Whose viewpoints are these pretentious cautionary tales supposed to champion anyway? Consumers? OEMs? That Arsetechnica article about Google decoupling aspects of its apps and services was a whole lot of rambling about nothing, heavily skewed towards OEMs’ POV, without even any sensible analysis of how it impacts the most important group of the ecosystem, the consumer’s perspective.

It’s sensationalist FUD preying on ignorance and hoping people would latch on to the mantra of “not completely open=bad news” but completely fails to argue why it’s even bad for consumers. So not only did it conveniently avoided any mention of obvious benefits to end users like the examples you cited above, it also neglected any basic consideration of how the process deters easy forking and how forking itself, is a threat in an open system which can be exploited by companies to create their own gatekeeper enclosures which fragment the ecosystem further. Overall the article does seem rather fishy to me like it’s some corporate sponsored slant to OEMs with no regard for consumers. Why preach to OEMs instead of championing end user’s POV? Who sees OEMs as customers I wonder? LOL l think we all know who don’t we? Just like iVerge has their inclinations, Arsetechnica has been known to slant a certain way too :-D

 

[Blackhead]

What are the recommended keyboard apps for Chinese, Korean and Japanese?

 

[Nicktendo86]

They've updated the twitter app icon to a square to fit in with google app icons1 Pleases me way more than it should...

 

[Doopliss]

Have you guys seen that new Twitter icon? I don't know if it's the lack of a drop shadow on the logo or what but it looks extremely bland. And I hate that it goes against the trend of the vast majority of Google apps which have distinctive icon shapes.

 

[Talon]

So what if Google exercises more control if the main beneficiaries are the end users at the end of the day? Nah, I just don’t see why anyone should be up in arms about this or even construe this kind of control by Google as some form of shitty power play. You know what’s infinitely more shitty in my opinion?

The kind of shit whose system is designed around the concept of wrangling CONTROL away from users, cleverly sold as a benefit to all under the guise of quality control, when the biggest beneficiaries of this sort of control scheme are corporation themselves, with their prospects firmly secured to act as gatekeepers.

The kind of shit with the iron grip control on the OS level, of dictating what shit we can or cannot run on our device, meaning the kind of freedom we take for granted on our PCs today, will likely evaporate tomorrow (or become a costly niche only privilege) with the way things are going; with rising popularity of smartphones/tablets and decline of PCs where devotees of this kind of restrictive type of vending machine OS sing their praises nonstop, and ignoring the fact they’re helping to propagate this “loss of freedom” implication for the long term.

The kind of shit where we not only have the trend of mobile computing going in the direction above, we also have to contend with similar threat on pc space, with MS desperately trying their to shepherd their herd in this direction, by concocting a “one size fits all cock-tale” in the face of desktop users in hopes of savoring their slice of the pie.

What is the above kind of shit known as? A fucking Walled Garden, that’s what. The kind of shit where we’re effectively empowering corporations with a solid base from which they can build on various depressing shit to keep a chokehold on consumers, to strong-arm developers, to dictate terms or stifle competition as they see fit. That’s the scary shit we should be concerned about, not some farfetched Google shit. Because that is what it will come to in the end, after 2 wonderful decades of internet progress and 3 decades of PC evolution; a warm embrace by the masses of devices with the price tag, freedom, depth and flexibility of a fucking console if those in the know don’t help steer the sheep types away from that pen enclosure.

This is some Eric Schmidt-level zealotry.

 

[Alpende]

Can someone explain me how the heck you're supposed to remove contacts from your SIM card? I can't find it.

I'm on KitKat.

 

[Battersea Power Station]

Can someone explain me how the heck you're supposed to remove contacts from your SIM card? I can't find it.

I'm on KitKat.

You're going to need a flux capacitor.

 

[AndyD]

Can someone explain me how the heck you're supposed to remove contacts from your SIM card? I can't find it.

I'm on KitKat.

What phone?

 

[Alpende]

What phone?

Nexus 5.

 

[Karish]

Anyone else enjoying the Aviate Launcher? Once I realized you could have different widgets in each section that sealed the deal for me.

 

[Fatalah]

Google Music updated with some good UI changes and fixes:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/0...licate-chromecasts-bug-and-more-apk-download/

The Play Store change log says you can now share to your favorite social networks, but it's still just G+. Boo!

 

[ThatObviousUser]

The Play Store change log says you can now share to your favorite social networks, but it's still just G+. Boo!

G+ isn't your favorite social network?

Spoiler

I <3 G+

 

[Crisco]

So what's the phone to wait for and buy in 2014? Is there a snowball's chance in hell for the Xperia Z2 (Sirius) to be on AT&T?

 

[Schlep]

Google Music updated with some good UI changes and fixes:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/0...licate-chromecasts-bug-and-more-apk-download/

For almost six months now I've had an issue of Play Music not playing on my S4. Closing the app, killing the app, skipping tons of tracks...eventually it may work. Sometimes requires a reset and may not even work after that. Would be nice if that was eventually fixed...

 

[DrBo42]

Just ordered a Note 3 from T Mobile and completely abandoned AT&T and my Windows Phone. Am I moving to the promised land? Anyone have a Galaxy gear? Thing is so damn pricey but with the software update it appears pretty legit.

 

[popeutlal]

Why does the price of Droid Maxx keeps going up, from $450 to $500 and now to $600 lol.

 

[Crazymoogle]

Just ordered a Note 3 from T Mobile and completely abandoned AT&T and my Windows Phone. Am I moving to the promised land?

Seems like it so far...still struggling to adapt to various android use mechanics but the note 3 is a great device.

 

[PlayALLtheGames]

Not sure why I didn't do this earlier but I just loaded up SNES and PSX emulators on my note 3. So. Awesome.

 

[Zeppu]

Do you guys know if it's possible to turn an LG G Pad 8.3 into the google play edition.

I'm in Europe you see...

 

[Nicktendo86]

Do you guys know if it's possible to turn an LG G Pad 8.3 into the google play edition.

I'm in Europe you see...

Must be, no idea how though. Checked xda?

 

[Zeppu]

Must be, no idea how though. Checked xda?

Yeah been looking but It's hard to search cause any queries just return results on how to mess about the the GPE G Pad or how to sideload 4.4.2 on it.

I did find an older topic which said there was no known method to it yet, but it's a couple of months old. I do know that the standard is the v500 and the GPE is v510.

 

[DrFunk]

Nokia X:

Nokia X: Snapdragon (1GHz x2), 4" WVGA, 512MB/4GB (+microSD), 5MP, 1500mAh, Android apps from Nokia Store + 3rd-party stores. Six colors.]

https://twitter.com/evleaks/status/434364508262649856

 

[Threi]

So its cheaper than moto g right

 

[kharma45]

So its cheaper than moto g right

It's not even in the same league of phone.

This is Asha level in Nokia's range.

 

[Talon]

Like Warren said:

If you don't care about Asha phones, you shouldn't care about the Normandy.

 

[TrAcEr_x90]

I haven't kept up on all the latest phones for awhile. I had a HTC One S a few years ago and loved it. Of course I ended getting water damage and I had to take a replacment in the Nexus 4 which I don't like that much. But held on and its finally paid off with T-mobile. I now work for a company that pays my phone bill so I was figuring I'd upgrade my phone since ...why not! It'll be basically free.

The Galaxy Note 3 looks siiiiiick!!! But from the reviews they mention the AMOLED screen quality is not the best? After having my Nexus 4 with shitty camera I really want something that will take really good photos.

I am also looking at the latest HTC One you all are talking about. Is that out yet? Out of those two which should I get? Or is there a better phone I am missing currently?

 

[Testicular Sound Express]

Anyone else using Muzei? I am endlessly amused with this app. Its the same guy who made Dashclock. It makes your background a different work of art every day. The photo is blurry, but if you double tap it sharpens. It just came out and theres already a bunch of plugins for i.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.nurik.roman.muzei

 

[Testicular Sound Express]

I haven't kept up on all the latest phones for awhile. I had a HTC One S a few years ago and loved it. Of course I ended getting water damage and I had to take a replacment in the Nexus 4 which I don't like that much. But held on and its finally paid off with T-mobile. I now work for a company that pays my phone bill so I was figuring I'd upgrade my phone since ...why not! It'll be basically free.

The Galaxy Note 3 looks siiiiiick!!! But from the reviews they mention the AMOLED screen quality is not the best? After having my Nexus 4 with shitty camera I really want something that will take really good photos.

I am also looking at the latest HTC One you all are talking about. Is that out yet? Out of those two which should I get? Or is there a better phone I am missing currently?

The HTC One has been out for a while haha. The successor actually ocmes out soon.

 

[AndyD]

Anyone else using Muzei? I am endlessly amused with this app. Its the same guy who made Dashclock. It makes your background a different work of art every day. The photo is blurry, but if you double tap it sharpens. It just came out and theres already a bunch of plugins for i.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.nurik.roman.muzei

I would but it has some issues on the G2. Also the double tap on that phone turns off the screen.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Like Warren said:

If you don't care about Asha phones, you shouldn't care about the Normandy.

Nokia is giving up the high end market after the Lumia sale to MS.