Tag: Android

Age of Empires: Castle Siege has been available on Windows Phone since 2014 and was a banner game for that platform.  The developer, Smoking Gun Interactive, worked closely with Microsoft on the real-time strategy game and up until last week, you could only get it on Windows Phone and Windows 10.  Last week it launched for iOS and now it looks like we Android users will get the game in March.

For those not familiar with Castle Siege, the game is a top-down tower defense style game where you select a civilization and begin building your empire.  The game starts with plenty of step-by-step tutorials so even if you have never played AoE you will get the hang of it pretty quickly.  Picking your civilization is important as each one has unique skills or technologies to it over others.  If you have played in the past then again, this will feel familiar.

Like many aspects of healthy living, understanding your blood pressure and the impact it has on your body is critical.  This is especially true for those with a genetic predisposition to heart disease and high blood pressure.  High blood pressure can have long term damaging impacts on your body that can include heart attack and stroke.  Monitoring your blood pressure and your pulse can be done at home with the Withing Blood Pressure Monitor.

The Withing Blood Pressure Monitor allows you to take your blood pressure at home, leveraging the Withings app on your Android or iOS phone to keep track of it on a daily or weekly basis.  While it is not as accurate as a medical office checking your blood pressure, it does serve as a solid tool to help you understand what you eat, drink, weight and exercise do to your blood pressure.  I’ve been using the Withings Blood Pressure Monitor for many months as part of keep track of my blood pressure as heart disease runs in my family.  It has become an valuable tool, giving me information that I can readily share with my doctor to discuss and make dietary or lifestyle changes.  Here is my review of this great medical tool.

Good news for those who have the unlocked variant of the HTC One A9.  Android Nougat is coming your way!  HTC’s Mo Versi, VP of Product Management, took to Twitter yesterday to announce that starting last night, the unlocked phone would start having the latest version of Android pushed to it via an OTA update.  The announcement comes after the HTC 10 started – then stopped – getting the Nougat update and it comes nearly six months after it was released by Google.

HTC One A9 Unlocked Owners! We have received technical approval on the Nougat OS update, and OTA will begin tonight!

— Mo Versi (@moversi) January 16, 2017

The update takes the One A9 to version 7.0 with the latest security patch for that build.

Sleep is a critical part of any healthy lifestyle.  Getting the proper amount of restful sleep not only helps with your psychological wellness but also has other health benefits when it comes to general well being and fitness.  Sadly, most Americas struggle to get the proper amount of sleep each night or have poor quality of sleep.  Sleep as Android is an app that allows you to measure your sleep, the quality of that sleep, and integrate that data with apps like Google Fit.  By having the app running on your phone next to you as you sleep, it will track your sleep cycles, see trends and even record noises as you sleep to see if you are snoring or, worse, suffering from Sleep Apnea.

Sleep as Android, however, is so much more.  It can serve as your alarm clock, can play soothing sounds to help you relax and get to sleep and gently wake you up in the morning.  It is an all-in-one app for your sleeping.  I’ve been using the app since the beginning of 2017 as I am focusing on making sure I get the right amount of sleep each day.  It has been an eye opening app for me and has become a daily part of my life as I try to live a healthy – and rested – lifestyle.  Here’s my review.

Microsoft has once again pushed out another big update to their Android launcher app, Arrow Launcher.  The update is in the Play Store now and has a number of improvements and new features.  In fact, there are three big features that users of the launcher will likely enjoy immediately.  First is the ability to customize the icon and name of individual apps.  All you have to do is long press the icon and it will pop-up a menu that gives you these options.

Next is an all new backup and restore feature.  This gives you the option to save your app layout and settings and restore them if you need to reinstall the launcher.  This is a huge win as you no longer have to recreate your home screen layout if you delete and reinstall the app.  This is something many other launchers do so it is great to see Microsoft bring the feature to Arrow Launcher too.

Today’s Deal over at Amazon is on the well appointed entry level Asus ZenFone 3 Max.  The 5.2″ phone has 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage but what is really impressive is the battery.  It comes with a whopping 4100 mAh battery for all day performance.  Right now you can pick up this phone for $149.

The ZenFone 3 Max is powered by the Mediatek MT6737M quad-core processor running at 1.25 GHz.  It has a 5.2″ IPS display and as mentioned, has 2GB of RAM.  The 16GB of storage can be expanded thanks to the Dual-SIM/MicroSD slot.  You can add an additional 256GB of storage with a card.  The phone runs Android Marshmallow and it is unclear if Nougat will be coming to this phone.

The phone is sold unlocked and works on GSM carriers here in the United States like AT&T and T-Mobile.  Sorry Sprint and Verizon customers, the phone doesn’t support CDMA.

Camera wise, the rear shooter is a 13MP auto-focus unit with flash while the front selfie camera is a 5MP shooter.

The ZenFone 3 Max is in silver and if you are an Amazon Prime customer, shipping of this phone is free to you.

Head over to Amazon to get all the details.