theScore eSports can now help you keep up with Super Smash Bros. and Street Fighter

If you’re a fan of watching coverage of competitive fighting game tournaments, theScore eSports can now help you keep up with at least two of them: Street Fighter and Super Smash Bros. The eSports coverage app just added live scoring for both games, coming just in time EVO Championship Series taking place in Las Vegas this weekend.

In addition to the new live scoring and news coverage for Street Fighter and Super Smash Bros., theScore eSports also provides coverage of a number of other major games, including:

• League of Legends (NA LCS, EU LCS, LCK, LPL, LMS and more)
• Dota 2
• Counter-Strike: GO (CS:GO)
• Heroes of the Storm
• Call of Duty (CoD)
• StarCraft II
• Hearthstone

In any case, you can now grab the latest version of theScore eSports to start keeping up with your favorite competitive gamers.

A message to our daily Android Central readers about POKÉ-GATE!

Greetings, Android Central Reader!

If you’re reading this, it’s safe to assume you read Android Central on a regular basis — thank you! — and were likely surprised by the onslaught of Pokémon content that’s flooded the site over the last few days. We were caught by surprise, too!

In all our years of running Android Central, Pokémon Go has been the biggest product launch we’ve ever seen. The same is true of our sibling site, iMore. Bigger than a new Android release or Galaxy S device launch. Bigger than a new iPhone. More active users on Android than Twitter or Snapchat, and some are even saying more than Google Maps. It’s B.I.G.

Here’s the thing — We live in a world where literally billions of people own smartphones now. So, an app launch of this magnitude attracts the interest of more than just Galaxy S7 or HTC 10 owners. More than just a single carrier, region, or even platform. It attracts the interest of everybody. That’s why it’s driving greater demand for Android Central content than any single hardware or software release we’ve ever seen before. It’s something that can appeal to practically everyone, almost everywhere. And that’s why we’re covering the heck out of it.

Pokémon Go is bigger than a new Android release or Galaxy S device launch. Bigger than a new iPhone.

Now, we understand that many of you don’t like that Android Central appears to have become Pokémon Central. We totally understand that, and we’re working together so the next time a phenomenon like this happens again, we’re better prepared to continue to deliver you an Android Central experience that you value and love, while also doing our jobs to serve the mainstream smartphone consumer.

Heck, we’re starting now. Here’s a new, special RSS feed that includes everything on Android Central except Pokémon. We call it the Pokémon NO feed. So, if you’d rather not read anything about it again, this is for you:

Subscribe to Android Central’s Pokémon No RSS feed

I get Pokémon, but why so much of it?

Android Central is just that — Central. We’ve always seen it as our mission to do the absolute best coverage possible about everything Android and Android-related. That includes bandwagoning any and all major releases. We’ve done it before, and we’ll do it again. It’s simply that the nature of major releases has changed.

We do, and always have, serve many types of Android owners at Android Central. Our most engaged community is the daily reader who views and treats us a publication — those of you who see us as a daily destination, use the AC app, or follow us on RSS or social. You’re likely an early adopter and tech enthusiast and you value Android Central for its news, reviews and editorial analysis, and you value our awesome community of users.

When we launched Android Central, you were the only audience for our content, which is why we love you so much. Today, though, our early adopter core — those of you reading this — represent approximately 1% of the visitors who access Android Central on a monthly basis.

For many years now, we have also served the mainstream consumer technology audience, which has grown to make up a whopping 99% of our visitors. These are just average people — not readers in the same sense — who use Google to search, or see something shared on social and want help or advice.

This Pokémon coverage lead to Mobile Nation’s highest trafficked Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and likely Thursday EVER.

They don’t read the homepage or daily news, and we don’t have a dialogue with them the way we do with you. They view our content as a service helping them in the moment. There’s a reason that, in addition to our news and review coverage, we also produce so much help, product and app recommendation content — because there is a tremendous demand for it, and we’d rather be the ones delivering that content than another outlet (and we know we can do it best!).

Both our core and mainstream audiences are extremely important to us, and we do our best to cater to the needs of all of you. If we only picked one audience to address and not the other, we wouldn’t be here today doing what we love to do. It takes both to make this a sustainable business.

Coming back to Pokémon Go, the reaction to the game and demand for Pokémon Go content has been like nothing we have ever seen before, and we had to react to it quickly. Our editorial team shouldn’t be criticized for that, but commended for it. They gave up their weekends and abandoned their previous plans to come in and write what we think is the best Pokémon Go content on the web. It was an everyone on deck, day-and-night effort to get it done, and they did it — and did it well!

It lead to Mobile Nation’s highest trafficked Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and likely Thursday EVER. The ~100 Pokémon-related articles we produced literally doubled, maybe even tripled our entire visitor base. This is us producing content as a service to match the real-time needs of Android and iPhone owners looking for help with Pokémon Go.

It’s not link bait and it’s not click bait. The “bait” part in both means “bait and switch” — teasing one thing and delivering something else, much less desirable. We didn’t and never would try to trick any of our readers. We wouldn’t stick Pokémon on a Nougat article or Samsung on a Pokémon article. We’re delivering exactly what we promise: advice and assistant for those looking for it.

Tech media is a tough business, so when opportunities like this happen you either seize the moment or somebody else does. As a company, we always strive to our best so we can keep doing what we love to do for years to come. It’s not always fun, but crushing something like Pokémon is what helps to pay the bills so we can keep serving our core community, which is what we love to do most.

Yeah, yeah, yeah … so how are you going to fix it for me so I can quit seeing the stuff I don’t want to see?

Prior to Poké-Gate, our product team was already cooking up some ideas on how we can better serve both our audiences. The challenge we have today is that in order to reach the mainstream (as in, get the help and recommendation content published to the web), we still need to show it to our homepage, regular reading audience (you). As it gets mixed in with our news, reviews, and editorial coverage, it can get a little bit… messy. Especially for you, the core reader. For those of our visitors who come into our articles and content sideways, whether from google or social referrals, it’s less of a problem.

Short Term:

One immediate fix was already created by an Android Central member in the form of a Chrome Extension that hides content that mentions Pokémon. Brilliant! For those of you who follow us via an RSS reader, we created the new feed sans Pokémon stories.

Subscribe to Android Central’s Pokémon No RSS feed

For those of you using the AC app, we’re also looking at a way to block Pokémon stories via our API from hitting the app, which will keep the AC app Pokémon free. If none of those solutions help you in the short term, then we appreciate your patience; the good news is it’s easy to scroll or swipe past a story you don’t care about.

Longer Term:

In the latter half of 2016, you’ll see us roll out many changes that better position Android Central to serve both our audiences better than we ever have before. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll get the stuff you want in the way that you’ve always loved it before, without any of the content you care less about. And for our ever-growing mainstream audience, we’re going to deliver that content in a manner that’s more approachable and friendly than ever before.

Expect a mix of both product, feature, branding, design, and content changes through the back half of the year.

That all makes sense. Thanks, Android Central!

You’re welcome! Again, thanks for the Pokémon patience and more importantly, the passion! We can’t please everybody all of the time (even though we wish we could), but it’s the dialog and passion from our most hardcore users that we love and cherish the most.

Thank you,

Kevin Michaluk
Chief Media Officer, Mobile Nations

Google to host its first Play Indie Games Festival on Sept. 24 in San Francisco

Google has announced that in September the company will hold its first Google Play Indie Games Festival in San Francisco. The event is aimed at showcasing recent and upcoming releases of top indie games in front of consumers and industry influencers and give them the chance to try them out. This will allow the indie developers an opportunity to expand their networks, gain real-time feedback and improve discoverability in Google Play for their app.

If you are an interested developer, you can submit your app now for a chance to attend the event. There are some limitations as to who can submit though. You will need to be a U.S. or Canadian developer with less than 15 full-time staff members, and games have to be published after January 1, 2016 or anticipated to be published before December 31, 2016.

Fallout Shelter adds quests, enhanced combat, and much more

For its first anniversary, Fallout Shelter has received a major update, adding a new combat system, new enemies, and most notably, quests. With quests, you can now take a group of Vault Dwellers and venture outside the confines of your Vault, exploring the Wasteland and finding new items.

Here’s what you can expect from the latest Fallout Shelter update:

• Introducing Quests! Now you can travel OUTSIDE the Vault with your Dwellers to explore new locations!.
• New and Improved combat gives you more control over your Questing Dwellers.
• Battle new enemies like Ghouls and Radscorpions and take on powerful boss enemies.
• New items added to the store!

You can grab the new version of Fallout Shelter from the Google Play Store now.

AT&T brings back its offer of a free phone when buying another

AT&T has brought back its Buy One, Get One promotion with select phones, allowing you to get a second phone for free through bill credits when buying one. To make the deal even sweeter, AT&T is will also throw in a free Gear S2 (or slash the price of the Gear S2 Classic to just $50) when buying a new Galaxy smartphone. There are a number of catches with this promotion, like the free phone has to be on a new line of service, the two phones must be from the same manufacturer, and more.

From AT&T’s announcement:

• Purchase both phones on either AT&T Next Every Year, AT&T Next or, for business customers, on Equipment Installment Plans (EIP):
  • Both phones must be from the same manufacturer.
  • The first phone can be a new line or an upgrade.
  • The second phone needs to be a new line.
  • The phones may be bought on any combination of AT&T Next (30-month contract for up to $695 or $23.17 a month), AT&T Next Every Year (24-month contract for up to $695 or $28.96 a month), or for business customers only, EIP (24-month contract for up to $695 or $23.17 a month) or EIP (36-month contract for up to $695 or $19.31 a month).

Included in the offers are Samsung Galaxy S7, Samsung Galaxy S6, Samsung Galaxy S6 active, LG G5 and the LG V10. The offer is available through August 31, so be sure to visit your local AT&T store if you are interested in this deal.

This is the Moto Z’s USB-C headphone jack adapter

The Moto Z doesn’t have a 3.5mm headphone jack. But this little doohickey will take care of that for you.

One of the biggest stories from the announcement of the Moto Z at Lenovo’s TechWorld event in San Francisco back in June was that the phone does not have a 3.5mm headphone jack and instead relies on the USB-C port to pump out audio. Most folks are in two camps on this. That’s either a nonstarter, or it’s not a big deal at all.

And in reality it’s sort of both. It doesn’t have a headphone jack. But, Motorola is providing a USB-C adapter so that folks who prefer to listen to audio via a wired connection aren’t left out in the cold.

Today, we’re getting our first look at that adapter courtesy of the Moto Z Droid Edition and Moto Z Force Droid Edition on Verizon.

And guess what. It’s a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter. There’s really not much more to be said that that. You get about five inches of cable, with one end plugging in to the phone, and the other for your headphones. There’s also a little rubber piece that (I think?) is for helping make sure they stay connected. It’s one more thing (OK, two, I guess) to lose, sure. But it’s also not a horrible compromise.

Moto Z and Moto Z Force

• Our hands-on preview
• Moto Z specs
• Moto Mods custom backs
• Moto Z and Moto Z Force will be Verizon exclusives until the fall of 2016
• The latest Moto Z news
• Discuss in our Moto Z forums

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Collect digital cards based on your favorite wrestlers in WWE Slam

The WWE and Topps have launched WWE Slam, a new card-collecting app based on your favorite WWE wrestlers. Wrestling fans can use the app to start building up a collection of digital cards and trading with other fans around the globe.

Here’s a quick look at some of what you can expect from WWE Slam, from the app’s description:

• New cards and series released every day! Come back and use your free daily coin reward to collect your favorite WWE Superstars!
• Including the most dynamic card stores in the world, collect new series, designs, and editions of cards that are released multiple times per day!
• Authentic and Official Collecting: Collect today’s hottest WWE stars on high-definition cards.

In addition, fans can look forward to new monthly box releases, along with “Signature” and “Relic” cards throughout the rest of the 2016 season.

If you’d like to get started collecting cards based on John Cena, Ric Flair, and many others, you can grab the WWE Slam app on Google Play now.

Facebook’s Instant Articles are coming to Messenger

Checking out articles your friends share through Facebook Messenger is about to become much faster. Facebook has announced today that it is bringing its Instant Articles to Facebook Messenger, meaning links from participating publishers should open much faster going forward.

From Facebook:

When you tap on an Instant Article link in Facebook, it loads up to ten times faster than a standard mobile web article, so it was important to make sure everyone on Messenger could have the same great reading experience. As we roll this out over the next several weeks, people using Messenger will see a lightning bolt on the top right corner of some links shared in Messenger, which indicates the link is an Instant Article.

It’s definitely good to see Instant Articles, which work much like Google’s own Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) in Search, make their way from Facebook proper to Messenger. Of course, you’ll only be able to take advantage of the vastly reduced loading times and data consumption if the publisher is part of the Instant Articles program, but it’s a step forward nonetheless.

Facebook notes that Instant Articles will become available for Android first, while iPhone users will get the feature in the coming weeks.

Galaxy S7, S7 edge now receiving July 1 security patch from Verizon

Verizon is now pushing the July 1 security update to both the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge. This month Google is offering two security patches, one dated July 1 and one dated July 5 which included a few extra things. While it would be nice to see Samsung pushing the July 5 update, it is still great to see the patches pushing out so quickly.

No other major changes are noted by Verizon, but it is likely there are a few other bug fixes included as well. If you haven’t already received a notification to update, you can check manually for it. To do this, head into the Settings, then About phone, and finally check for updates. Be sure to let us know once you finish the update how it works for you.

Thanks for the tip, Kevin!

Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge

• Galaxy S7 review
• Galaxy S7 edge review
• U.S. unlocked Galaxy S7
• Should you upgrade to the Galaxy S7?
• Best SD cards for Galaxy S7
• Join our Galaxy S7 forums

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