Super Mario Run Update Adds Google Play Achievements

The first significant update to the popular Super Mario Run game is now rolling out to Android players.  The update ups the version to 2.1 and brings several improvements and additions to the game.  For those who haven’t kept up, in the game, you are the ever popular Mario and you are doing what you do best:  Collecting coins and progressing your way through six worlds in the game.  The way gameplay works is that you can only move forward, up or down so no going back to get coins you missed for example.  The object of the game is to collect as many coins as you can before get to the flagpole at the end of the level before time runs out.  Sound familiar? Oh, and yes you still can save Princess Peach and defeat Bowser too.  There are two other game play modes as well to keep you entertained.

With this update, the number of toads (which you collect through Toad Rally playing in the game) has now increased to 99,999.  This should make it limitless for casual players.  You can now also use your customized Mii character as your player icon that you have created in Miitomo.  Finding friends also got easier with this update as you can now find them with your associated Nintendo account in the game.

Microsoft Teams Update Brings Improved Chat Management

Microsoft has rolled out a pretty significant update to their enterprise chat & messaging client, Microsoft Teams.  The update, version 1.0.0.201742301 for those keeping score at home and who like to play version Bingo, and it brings some features that make it much more productive and useful.  First, you can now add and remove team members, something that was only available on the Teams site.  You can also create new channels in the app.  This was also something that was web-only when Teams launched and frankly, was a bit of a handicap for the app.  The ability to quickly create channels while on the go is a critical feature for this type of app, especially if Microsoft is positioning it as a Slack competitor.

Other improvements around chats include the ability to rename group chats and add members to existing chats.

Android Messages Update Improves Group Messaging

Google has begun rolling out an update to their text messaging client, Android Messages.  The update, version 2.2 for those keeping score at home, has a few minor UI tweaks but the big news is around group messaging.  With this new update, when you are in a conversation with someone via SMS, you can add another person quickly and easily to the conversation.  To do this, while you are in a conversation, go to the overflow menu (the three vertical dots) then tap on People & Options.  At the bottom of this page there is a button which you can tap to open up your contacts and add them to the conversation.  This is a big improvement over the previous build which essentially required you to start an entirely new conversation for group messaging.

This update also has added the ability to create a group message from the FAB (Floating Action Button) from which you can add your contacts to the conversation.  Both of these improvements lower the number of taps required to start a group MMS.

Android Nougat 7.1.1 Rolls Out to The Sony Xperia XZ and X Performance

Good news this morning for those of you who have the Sony Xperia XZ or the Xperia X Performance.  Sony has released the Android Nougat 7.1.1 update for both of these phones and it is already rolling out to users.  The updated build is 41.2.A.2.199 for both devices and along with the improvements that come with 7.1.1, the April Android Security patch is also in this build.

The big change with 7.1.1 is the support for app shortcuts.  This allows you to long press an icon and be able to get to a particular part of an app (for example, in Gmail you can tap-and-hold to start composing an email in a particular account).  The problem is that the Sony launcher doesn’t support app shortcuts, at least not yet.  If you are using a launcher that does support them on either of these phones (like Nova Launcher), then you will get to use the new feature.  Also, the 7.1.1 update brings Unicode v9 emoji to these devices.

T-Mobile Reports Over 1 Million New Customers in The Last Quarter

T-Mobile continues to be a growing force to reckon with here in the United States.  The carrier reported their last quarter financials yesterday and in it, pointed to so heady numbers both financially and with their customer base.  In the last quarter, the “uncarrier” added 1.1 million total new customers, 914,000 of which were postpay while an additional 386,000 were pre-pay thanks to the MetroPCS division.  That marks four years straight in which the carrier has added over 1 million new customers per quarter.  Perhaps even more impressive, the company only had a 1.18% churn rate (the rate of customers leaving) which is shockingly good for any service provider, let alone a mobile carrier.

Financially, the carrier is on solid footing.  T-Mobile reported $9.6 billion in total revenue with $698 million in net income.  That revenue number is an increase of 11% while the income was up 46%.  The company also has $1.7 billion in net cash available with $185 million in free cash flow.

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