OneDrive for Windows Phone updated with bug fixes and performance improvements
OneDrive for Windows Phone has snagged an update today with — wait for it — bug fixes and performance improvements.
OneDrive for Windows Phone updated with bug fixes and performance improvements
OneDrive for Windows Phone has snagged an update today with — wait for it — bug fixes and performance improvements.
ZRRO is an Android console that’s controlled by a hover and touch-based gamepad
Android gaming consoles are certainly not a new concept, though most that come to market never really seem to stick around for too long. Sure, we’ve seen the Ouya and the M.O.J.O. make a dent in the micro-console world, but could there be a another major offering that truly brings something new to the table? Enter ZRRO: the Android console that’s controlled by a special hover/touch-based controller.
ZRRO just recently surpassed its $200,000 goal on Kickstarter, and will hopefully make its way to backers sometime within the next few months. So what exactly is it? ZRRO is made up of three main parts – the ZRRO Pad, the ZRRO Box and your TV. The ZRRO Pad is by far the most interesting part of this project. It’s a controller that uses hover and touch technology to mirror your finger movements on the television. The ZRRO team says that the hovering feature enables you to target your finger to the right place without making you take your eyes off the TV. You can still touch to make selections, and pinch, swipe and drag motions are also supported. The idea is to offer up compatibility with most Android games on the Play Store, not just the ones that were specifically developed to be used with a normal controller.
Next up is the ZRRO Box, which is the console portion of the package. It supports up to 4K resolution and offers up a sleek tron-like design. It’s powered by a quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of on-board storage and also has a microSD card slot. It can also connect to any TV with an HDMI port. It’s running Android 4.4 KitKat, so you’ll be able to access the Google Play Store to download games right to the console.
The ZRRO might not be for everyone, but it does offer up a new concept on the controller front. With that said, Android smartphones and tablets can already use touch controls, so this might be a hard sell for most people. But if it does sound like an interesting idea to you, the Kickstarter campaign still has 4 days left. You can score yourself a ZRRO Pad and Box for $149, or pay $50 extra for a second controller. If you’d like to learn more, head to the source link below.
LG Urbane LTE launching tomorrow in Korea
The LG Urbane was announced last month as the world’s first LTE smartwatch, and it is primed to go on sale tomorrow in South Korea. The non-Android Wear device packs the ability to support SIM cards allowing it to make its own phone calls. However, to do such things it looks like users will have to pay a pretty penny.
The device looks to be going on sale for 650,000 KRW or about $590. For those doing the math, that’s more than double for most Android Wear watches and considerably more expensive than the $349 Apple Watch.
For those that just want the watch to be connected their phone, it does so via Bluetooth as well. Well, for any device running Android 4.4 or above. The watch does feature stainless steel, a 1.3-inch P-OLED circular display at 320×320 pixel, 1GB of RAM, a quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor, and a 700 mAh battery. It comes with the dust- and water-resistant IP67 certification for those worried about damaging it.
But the question still remains, if the Urbane LTE comes in at a similar price point in America, will you get one? Let us know below.
source: LG Korea
via: Phone Arena
Come comment on this article: LG Urbane LTE launching tomorrow in Korea
Android customization – improve battery life, identify battery killer apps
Last week on our Android customization series, we took to the ultimate in cleaning up your Android device, walking through how to perform a factory reset on your device. While a reset is a pretty extreme measure for repairing some issues, we would like to look at a few battery drain repairs you might consider trying before you go all the way.
Today, we will dive into a few built in Android tools (non-ADB) to help identify if there is a rogue app that is eating up your battery. For the advanced user, dedicated to getting the absolute most battery life out of their device, today’s article may be a little basic for your needs.
Before we begin
We are not doing anything that requires any third-party apps today. However, we will be working from our typical stock vanilla Android 5+ Lollipop device. Your manufacturer or carrier skin may have eliminated, hidden or simply over-written these tools with their own offerings. Nonetheless, the theory of what we will discuss today may still work for you, even if the exact steps do not.
What’s eating my battery?
If you are still reading this, I suspect you have experienced, as I have, the battery on your Android device dropping rapidly for no apparent reason, or just dying faster than normal. Perhaps your device went unused all day, but died in a few short hours anyway. This is sadly a fairly common experience that can be caused by any number of things, including Android’s built-in services or the apps that you have installed.
There are many things you can do to identify the cause of rapid battery drain, from the built-in battery usage graph all the way up to advanced apps and debugging services and tools for developers. Today, we will keep it simple, looking at a few features built into stock Android.
Battery usage graph
In addition to the simple battery level indicator in the top bar of your Android device, your OS keeps careful tabs on which apps are using up your battery. This info is presented in a fairly general format when you head into Settings -> Battery.
When it really boils down to it, the info is a tad confusing if you are researching a rogue application. My stats show that Google Play Music has kept my device awake for a little shy of two hours. But I’ve been listening to music for over 3 hours now. The remaining time lives within the listing for Mediaserver and I suspect into Android OS and Android System as well, but there is no way to tell from here.
Aside from the idiosyncrasies of the basic Battery usage chart, this is a great place to start, and may reveal your rogue application that is eating up your battery.
RAM usage in Apps
Aside from the actual battery usage list, you may be able to hunt down a problematic app in your running apps list. Head into Settings -> Apps, then swipe over to the Running tab.
What you see is a list of the apps that Android reports as currently loaded into RAM on your device, thus, the apps that are ‘running.’ Although this view does not offer actual battery usage, assumptions can be made with the visible RAM usage numbers, as well as the up-time counter.
What do we see above, oh yes, I now see that I have been streaming my music over Bluetooth for just shy of three and a half hours. That is more accurate for sure.
Have a look for a rogue app that is eating up too much RAM or has been running for far too long and you may find your battery killer. I wouldn’t outright recommend using the force stop button here, as this is akin to killing processes in your Windows Task Manager, kill the wrong one and the system will crash. Instead, check the app itself for a proper quit button, change settings to prevent background processes/syncing or swipe back to the left in the Apps Settings and stop or uninstall the app in your list of installed apps.
Let me share a small example of a service stoppage that might have saved me some battery. You see in my example that Bluetooth Share is running with just 1 service. My audio equipment, which is my only Bluetooth accessory running at this time, is equipped with only the A2DP protocol. By default, the Bluetooth service fires up all of the Bluetooth protocols, which I chose to stop as a test for today. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I would still get music, but it works and the phone hasn’t crashed. Trial and error wins again, and upwards of 9 unnecessary services are no longer potentially draining my battery.
Once again, this method is great for identifying rogue battery draining apps, you are better off using the in-app settings or un-installing the app as a means to fixing your battery life.
Developer Options – Process Stats
Taking things to the next level, there is a feature within Android’s Developer Options called Process Stats which, in its own words, provides “Geeky stats about running processes.”
This list of running apps is interesting to look at, and a little more detailed than the other tools, but perhaps less practical for the average user. What you see here is the exact breakdown of what the app is doing, or at least how it is using RAM.
Look at that, seven of those services within the Bluetooth service were reduced when I manually stopped the services earlier. Did I really save any battery? Logically, I would think so, but that was not really my purpose today, I was just looking for apps that were acting up, eating too much juice, my Bluetooth is in good order.
Look through the list, be sure to hit the menu button and swap Duration and Stats Type to see all of your foreground/background/cached apps and services.
What’s next
As you can imagine, the steps we took today are not very advanced or effective for fine tuned battery saving management. There is also plenty more that can be done and surmised from the tools presented. We do hope that you find the reason for your battery drain concern using one of these methods, and that it is an obvious concern with an easy fix – like a rogue app that you will happily uninstall.
Before you jump into external measures, have a look through Developer Options for more tools that might help you. For example, you may turn on Show CPU usage and look through the list of running apps for something that shouldn’t be.
From there, as you branch out into other tools, keep in mind the word “wake-lock.” I’ll have more to say about this in the future, especially as we explore root tools and options. If you want to know more now, check out this Android Developers post for a good overview.
Next week
We hope that the relatively simple steps above helped you identify a rogue app that was eating up the battery on your Android device. Next week on our Android customization series, we will assume that your efforts today did not solve your battery drain concerns, let’s dive a little deeper into more non-root battery drain identification techniques.
What app did you find was eating the most battery on your device? Did you uninstall it?
iTunes Store, App Store and Other Apple Services Experiencing Outage [Mac Blog]
According to Apple’s System Status page, several of its services are experiencing downtime. Some users may be unable to access the iTunes Store, App Store, Mac App Store, and iBooks Store.
The page also suggests some users may be experiencing issues with the Apple TV, iTunes Match, iTunes Radio, iTunes U, and OS X Software Updates.
The downtime appears to have started just after 3pm and is ongoing. We have received several emails and tweets from users who are unable to access the App Store or can only access certain parts of the App Store.
App Store Top Charts, for example, have been unavailable since the downtime originally began, and while some app categories were also blank, those seem to be reappearing, suggesting the outage may be short.
Today’s App Store outage is the second Apple has seen this week.
Verizon opens Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge pre-orders on April 1st, hopefully not a joke
Verizon has announced that they’ll be opening up pre-orders for the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge on April 1st in all storage sizes and both black and white colors.
Pricing for the devices is about where you’d expect them to be. The cheapest, 32 GB Galaxy S6 will run $199 (after a $50 mail-in rebate, standard for all of these phones), and you can expect to shell out an extra $100 for the 64 GB or an extra $200 for the 128 GB. The S6 Edge runs $100 more, so the devices cap out at $499 for a 128 GB Galaxy S6 Edge. That’s pretty pricey for a device that you’re buying with a two-year contract, but I doubt anyone will be surprised by these price tags.
Full retail on these devices start at $599 and cap out at $899, which actually isn’t too bad for a brand new phone on Verizon’s network. You can always finance the device through Verizon Edge, too.
Will you be pre-ordering the S6 on the 1st?
source: Verizon Wireless
Come comment on this article: Verizon opens Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge pre-orders on April 1st, hopefully not a joke
Leaked screenshots show off Project Spartan on Windows 10 for phones
While we’re still waiting for Project Spartan browser to launch on Windows 10, some leaked screenshots have given us a peek at what it will look like on mobile devices.
The folks over at WindowsMania.pl managed to get their hands on the Project Spartan browser running on a Windows Phone, and have provided some screenshots that are a hint of what’s to come.
Deal: JBL Pulse Bluetooth Speaker for only $80 (60% off)
The JBL Pulse Bluetooth Speaker is currently being offered for 60% off the normal retail price on NoMoreRack. For only $80, you’ll be able to score this unique speaker that pretty much doubles as a light show. The speaker is equipped with 64 programmable LED lights that move along to your music.
It supports both Bluetooth and NFC, so you’ll be able to connect your devices whichever way you prefer. It will give you high-quality output from its two 40mm drivers while the built-in bass port gives you powerful lows. Measuring in at only 7.9 x 3.9 x 3.9 inches and 1.1 pounds, it’s easy enough to carry if you’re going out on a trip to the beach or hanging out in your backyard. It also comes with a 4000mAh battery that JBL is quoting will last up to 10 hours of playback.
The JBL Pulse Speaker has earned itself 4.5/5 stars on Amazon and great reviews all across the web. Normally the price hovers around $200, but NoMoreRack is selling it for only $80. That’s even $80 less than Amazon’s price. The deal ends at 4 p.m. CT on March 27th (tomorrow) so you may want to hurry on this one.
If you’re in the market for a new Bluetooth speaker, you may want to take advantage of this deal. Head to the link below if you’re interested. Also, be sure to check out SoundGuys for the best Bluetooth speaker reviews!
Root method for the Droid Turbo released for $20
A root method has finally been released for Motorola’s Droid Turbo, with a small catch. The program costs $20 per phone you plan on rooting, which is pretty rare to see with root methods on Android devices.
The root tool was developed by maiko1 on XDA and allows you to flash any system image to your Droid Turbo, included pre-rooted system images. It won’t disable write protection, but if all you’re looking for is a simple root method to use some of your favorite root apps, this should do the trick.
Whenever you start dealing with rooting devices, you run the risk of doing some permanent damage that won’t be covered by the manufacturer warranty. If you’re still interested, hit the links below to get started.
source: mofo
Come comment on this article: Root method for the Droid Turbo released for $20
AIVAnet 