Category: Android

While all of the Angry Birds hype these past few months has been on Angry Birds 2, the franchise itself still has a lot of older games that are just as fun.  The 2nd oldest in the series, Angry Birds Rio, received a somewhat rare update today, bringing with it 20 new Amazon River themed levels to the game.  The update is version 2.5 for those keeping score at home and it is available for both Android phones and tablets.  It is a freemium game so it won’t cost you anything to download but there are plenty of in-app purchases to further yourself along should you chose to do so.

Angry Birds Rio – Free (In-App Purchases) – Download Now

Earlier this week, Google dropped a pretty big update to Google Clock in the Play Store.  While most of us look at clock apps as pedestrian and not very exciting, this update to Google Clock actually brings a lot of new functionality and features that will make this utilitarian app a bit more useful and personal.  The update is build 4.2 for those keeping score at home and is available for both Android phones and tablets.

Among the changes in this update is the ability to have your alarms gradually increase in volume so you are gently notified or awaken instead of being jarred awake by a blasting alarm.  Speaking of alarms, you can now also select your favorite ringtone as your alarm sound instead of the standard ones the app offered previously.

Google Clock for Android – Free – Download Now

It has been a long time coming but EA Sports has finally released FIFA 16 Ultimate Team for Android today.  The updated game brings you access to 10,000 players across 500 licensed teams globally, meaning that you can build your ultimate football team to take on the world.  There are a lot of improvements to this years game, most notably the graphics.  The game play and graphics in FIFA 15 were not bad but FIFA 16 Ultimate Team really improves upon them both.

FIFA 16 Ultimate Team – Free (In-App Purchases) – Download Now

Google Text to Speech, the underlying TTS engine that powers many other apps on Android devices, has been updated today and coming with that update is support for four new languages.  You won’t find a Google Text to Speech app on your devices.  Rather, think of this as a service that runs in the background that other apps like Google Translate uses to translate text to spoken word or Google Play Books when you have the app read the book to you.  The update is build, wait for it, 3.7.12.2235583 for those keeping score at home and is available now in the Google Play Store.

Google Text to Speech for Android – Free – Download Now

Google has released an update to the Gmail app for Android and with the update comes some nice inbox management tools.  The update is in the process of being released into the Google Play Store and should be arriving on your Android phone or tablet over the course of the next few days.  With the update will come the ability to block senders (something you can already do but it is improved) and unsubscribe to a newsletter from the message menu.  It gives you a bit more control over your inbox and should help declutter it a bit.

Gmail for Android – Free – Download Now

OnePlus has started rolling out a significant update to the homegrown OxygenOS that is on the OnePlus 2.  The 2.1 update is starting to roll out to a small number today and will generally start rolling out in earnest tomorrow assuming there are no issues.  If you aren’t familiar with it, OxygenOS is the self built Android version that comes stock on the OnePlus 2.  They have moved away from Cyanogen so they can control things a bit better but they will still be supporting Cyanogen on the OnePlus One.