The Starbucks for Android app has been updated today, bringing substantially improved eGift redemption within the app. The update, version 3.1.1 for those keeping score at home, promises “seamless” eGfit redemption for users. This will be a welcome change to many as the previous builds of the app struggled to get the eGift applied properly to accounts. That, hopefully, is a thing of the past with this update.
The Instagram for Android app has been updated once again this morning, bringing with it three new filters for your photo sharing pleasure. The new update, version 6.21.2 for those keeping score at home, brings the new Lark, Reyes and Juno filters to the app. There is nothing you need to do as a user to get these new filters other than install this new update.
With this update the total number of filters in the app moves up to 22 so you have plenty of choices to add to your photos to convey your story better.
The RSS reader/curation app Feedly for Android has been updated today, bringing several new features to the app. The latest update, version 27.0.4 for those keeping score at home, has several new features including integration to Google Now if you are using the Google Now Launcher or have a Google device. If you are not familiar with Feedly, it is a service that allows you to curate all of your RSS feeds into one place for easy reading. For Windows Phone, the best Feedly reader is NextGen Reader while the Feedly for Android app serves that platform very well.
Any smartphone you buy today be it Android, iOS or Windows Phone, will come with a camera app for the built-in camera of the device. Some of these are appallingly bad while others are fantastic. Fortunately, regardless of the platform you chose, you have a lot of camera apps available in respective app stores to help fit your needs a bit better. In the case of Android, one of the simplest yet easiest to use camera apps is Google Camera. Yes it is made by Google and it is a robust camera app alternative. It doesn’t have the huge number of filters or other special tricks but it does do one thing really, really well: Take photos. With its simple user experience and focus on the taking of the photo itself, Google Camera gives you all you need to take a great picture with your Android phone, leaving it to other apps for post processing. Personally, I’m good with this approach and having used this app for a week or so now, I’m pretty pleased with it. I think you would be too.
Over the past couple of weeks I have been using the BLU VIVO IV Android phone as my primary device. While I still remain skeptical of the Android platform for a lot of reasons (I’m not a fan of the UI for example), that could not detour me from this phone. BLU, a US-based company, has an outstanding device in the VIVO IV. It is sexy slim, solidly built and has some outstanding features that make this $299 phone (I picked mine up for $199 from B&H) one everyone should consider if they are looking for an affordable phone. While the BLU VIVO IV isn’t perfect, a lot of what I didn’t like about it can be adjusted through other apps available in the Play Store. It means you may have to do some customizing to get it the way you want it but performance wise, you are not going to be disappointed.
Alright peeps, this one has a short fuse but is one to jump on if you are in the market for a new Android phone. Now through 10:59 AM Central Time (US) today, you can pick up the Motorola Moto X 2014 Android phone with 32GB of storage for $349.99. That is a $200 savings from the regular price of $549.99. There is no special coupon code or anything of that sort. Simply go to the Motorola Moto X website, build your own and the price will be applied to your device.
The Netflix for Android app has received a minor update this morning, bringing with it some UI tweaks and various bug fixes. The update will vary in version number based on your device, but on my Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 running KitKat, it is build 3.12.0 build 4529 for those keeping score at home. The updates are not going to be overly obvious but is still a worthwhile update to get if you use the app frequently. In my case, I had issues with it crashing when I had multiple apps open. That appears to have been resolved in this update.
The Swarm for Android app has received a huge update this week, bringing a whole new line up of stickers to the app and a new sticker book. The update will vary in version number depending on your device. In my case, my KitKat running BLU VIVO IV is on version 2015.05.04.19 for those keeping score at home. The update brings back many of the elements of Foursquare before the company decided to split up the apps last year. Swarm is the dedicated check-in app while Foursquare is the local content app (which is pretty good BTW). When they did this split, things like Mayorships and stickers went away from a collecting point-of-view. While Mayorship still hasn’t returned, you can now at least see in one place all of the stickers you have earned (use to be called badges) in one place, the Sticker Page.