After spending the past couple of months in a closed beta, Microsoft has release Hyperlapse for all Android users in the Google Play Store today. For those who aren’t familiar with the app, it is a simple app that allows you to quickly and easily capture time lapse videos on your phone. Not only do you have a wide range of speeds you can use (2x to 16x normal speed) but the quality of the videos is outstanding.
Google has released an update to the Google Play Music app for Android that brings several key bug fixes that many users struggled with in the app. Chief amongst those issues and now resolved is a bug which would prevent all of your music library appearing on your devices. I personally ran into this one and am certainly glad to see it resolved. The update is build 6.0.1950S for those keeping score at home and is available now in the Google Play Store. If you use Google Play Music for your streaming music or music library playing & syncing, I highly recommend you get this update.
We may only be a week and a bit away from seeing the all singing-and-dancing OnePlus 2 but there is still a great deal on the superbly spec’d OnePlus One. Right now you can get yourself a OnePlus One with 64GB of storage for only $299. Let’s put that in perspective peeps: That was the price of the 16GB unit when they released. It’s a deal. Flat out and no further explanation needed.
The OnePlus One has been my daily phone for months now and I’ve commented many times, including in my review of it, that it may be the best smartphone I’ve ever used out of the hundreds I’ve reviewed over the years. I rated it at a 4.9 out of 5 stars. Performance meets outstanding specs meets an outstanding 5.5″ display running Android Lollipop. There’s not much to hate on this phone.
If there was one thing that really tripped people up on the OnePlus One it was the invitation system at the launch of the new “flagship killer” last year. Many people struggled to get an invite mostly because OnePlus themselves simply did not make a lot of the devices. As they clearly and openly state, we didn’t know how people would react to it. We had no clue how many people would actually want to buy it and had the challenge of managing our cash flow and inventory risk. The hope of course is that with the OnePlus 2, things are better.
Fast forward a year and we are just days away from the launch of the OnePlus 2. While the company expects to have 30-50 times the amount of inventory on the OnePlus 2 over what they had with the One, an invitation system will still be used. As I put in my article on why the OnePlus 2 must be a success for the company, the invitation system isn’t the greatest but I get why they do it. It’s better to have higher demand and low supply than the other way around.
For what we know so far about the OnePlus 2, be sure to check out my article outlining it to date.
In a post on the OnePlus blog, the company outlines some key changes they have made to the invitation system in an effort to avoid some of the challenges they had previous. Clearly the company is listening to fans, readers and tech writers and I for one think that the changes will certainly help smooth things out a bit.
The Google News & Weather app is one of those apps that doesn’t get a huge amount of airtime but it is actually a pretty good little app. Curating news from over 65,000 sources, it gives you one touch access to headlines, sports, financial and world news quick and easy. It is also pretty customizable to the content you are interested in seeing and this latest update, version 2.3 for those keeping score at home, brings one new feature that has been missing for a long time from the app: Push Notifications for important news events. As one who uses the app, it is a great new feature and for those who haven’t given it a go, it is certainly worth a look for your Android phone or tablet.
We all have those apps that we can’t see how we would get along without them and for me, Transit App for Android is one of them. The app provides bus, training and city bike information for a wide range of metro areas globally and given that I do not actually own a car I’m very reliant on buses, trains and what we call our B-Bikes. That’s where an app like this one comes in handy and Transit App is in my opinion one of the best.
This week the makers of Transit App have released a new build of the app which brings an all important reminder feature so you know when your next bus or train is leaving or, more importantly, when the last bus or train is leaving so you don’t get stuck paying for a taxi home. This latest update, version 3.7.1 for those keeping score at home, brings this easy-to-configure alarm along with some other improvements that bike riders will appreciate.
I should point out that Transit App isn’t just about public transportation but gives you all the options to get from point A to B including services such as Uber and Car2Go.
Many like to compare Google Play Newsstand to Flipboard, the news and information curation app and service. While Flipboard certainly has its strengths and features that Google Play Newsstand doesn’t offer, the Google alternative does have some great features. Frankly I look at these as complementary apps more than anything because Google’s app, while Flipboardesque in many ways, equally has some features that make it stand out. Most notably, it is your source for magazine reading for your Google Play subscriptions through the Play Store.
The latest update to Google Play Newsstand is available now and it brings a great new feature that allows you to pin a news source from the app directly onto your Home Screen, saving you from having to tap into the app. You love everything you read on AP (Associated Press)? Then pin it to your Home Screen. To get this new feature you need to be running the latest version of Google Play Newsstand, build 3.4.2 on Android phones for those keeping score at home, which is available as now in the Play Store
With over 3 billion downloads and a host of theme and mini-sequel games, Angry Birds is arguably one of the most popular download ever for mobile devices let alone a game. Now Rovio Entertainment, the company behind the franchise has announced “the mother of all sequels”, Angry Birds 2. The announcement came on the company’s blog and while few details were given on how the game will play, Angry Birds 2 will be released on July 30th. That’s right peeps, a mere 14 days from now. Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you I have an Angry Birds addiction problem. Angry Birds 2 will keep that addiction going, I’m confident.