Android

Keeping with the trend of being the company’s “fastest selling smartphone ever”, Samsung has just announced that the Galaxy S4 has sold 40 million units world-wide.

Samsung CEO JK Shin revealed this data earlier today while speaking to Korean media regarding speculation that the Galaxy S4 had not sold as well as Samsung had originally expected. The device has been on the market for about six months now, and within the first month, the device had shipped 10 million units worldwide.

For comparison’s sake, the Galaxy S3 had shipped 30 million units after just six months on the market. So despite some speculation that the Galaxy S4 was too similar to its successor to sell at the same rate, the device is clearly doing just fine.

One thing worth noting is that it’s somewhat unclear as to whether JK Shin is referring to sales or shipments of the device. Should it be the latter of those, then Samsung has not actually sold 40 million Galaxy S4 units to customers, but rather shipped them to retailers to sell. 
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While the app has already been available for iOS since first launching back in August and also on Android with a soft launches in China, Australia, and New Zealand, today the app has finally arrived for all Android users through Google Play.

The app is now available for free on Google Play, and like the iOS version the Android version of Plants vs Zombies 2 moves the franchise to the freemium model with extra content available to purchase through in-app purchases. There’s also exclusive offers for in-app purhcases in the app offering up to 65% off some items to celebrate the launch of the app on Android.

While from the outside, the most recent YouTube update looked rather minor, Android Police has done some deep digging and discovered a couple of very interesting tidbits regarding future features coming to the app. First off, the APK file makes several hints at background audio support. This means that you will be able to start a video within the YouTube app and navigate to another app and not have your content disrupted. Currently, leaving the YouTube app makes your video automatically pause. Android Police notes that the feature should work when the device’s screen is off, as well.

Within the YouTube app now, the settings option for background audio is hidden, but Android Police managed to reveal the options for a very brief period of time. Regarding the upcoming offline feature, the APK teardown also revealed some of the dialogue messages users will be presented with, though they’re all pretty standard.

Background audio support will be huge for listening to music via YouTube, in addition to other things, such as podcasts and videos. It’s unclear when the feature will launch, but between this and offline video support, YouTube for Android is about to get a lot more useful.
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Samsung is addressing one of the biggest issues with its Galaxy Gear smart watch it introduced earlier this year: device compatibility. Several Samsung devices including its Galaxy S3, S4, Note 2, and Mega smartphones will receive compatibility via a software update in Android 4.3.

Samsung’s Galaxy Gear smart watch debuted alongside Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 smartphone and Galaxy Note 10.1tablet with support limited to those devices. Initial reviews overwhelmingly disapproved of Samsung’s smart watch offering, but widening device compatibility is surely a step in the right direction. (Full press release below)

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Samsung could see itself getting priority access to new glass technologies after taking a 7.4 percent stake in Gorilla Glass maker Corning and simultaneously signing a 10-year supply agreement.

The net effect of a complex series of share swaps and cash investments, allied to a long-term procurement commitment from Samsung, is a $2B deal that will enable Corning to boost its R&D investment, accelerating the pace of development of new types of display.

With closer cooperation between the two companies, Samsung may prove well positioned to gain access to those new technologies ahead of the rest of the market … 
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A new report out today from French publication L’Expansion claims that Google has acquired 5-year-old startup FlexyCore, the company behind DroidBooster and other tools used to improve performance on Android devices for users, OEMs, and carriers. According to the report, which was later confirmed by Google in a statement to GigaOM, Google has been integrating the FlexyCore team into its Android projects over the last year and just completed the purchase worth approximately 21.3 million earlier this month.

“The FlexyCore team has strong expertise in building software to optimize Android device performance, and we think they’d be a great fit with our team.”

The Droid Booster app, made to optimize java code performance on Android devices, was previously distributed through Google Play but has since been removed. 
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After the BBM apps prematurely started rolling out for iPhone and Android and were abruptly pulled late last month, BlackBerry finally confirmed today that it’s officially kicking off the roll out of the apps. In a blog post, the company announced that the BBM apps will be available for both iPhone and Android within the next few hours through the App Store, Google Play, and Samsung’s App Store:

The demand for BBM on Android and BBM on iPhone continues to be amazing. About six million people signed up for information about BBM at BBM.com. As you know, in just seven hours, about one million Android users were using the unreleased version of BBM for Android. What you don’t know is that more than one million people have found creative ways to “side load” BBM on their iPhone. This is incredible.

While the app is available to download starting today, it will utilize a staggered rollout that will see users reserving a spot in line by entering their email address. BlackBerry says users that signed up previously through its website can start using the app immediately, but we’ll have to wait to see how many people sign up today in order to estimate how long the queue will be. 
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After rolling out a new Live TV streaming feature to its U-verse iPhone and iPad apps earlier this month, AT&T announced today that it’s expanding the feature to Android  devices and other users through Uverse.com. The feature, which brings over 100 live TV channels at home and 20 channels outside of the house for U-verse subscribers, comes to the U-verse Android app alongside a new version of the app for Androdi tablets.

AT&T’s press release says the service is now available on over 30 Android devices and the updated U-verse app for Android is available on Google Play now. The updated app also includes “new ratings-based Parental Controls” and more:
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When Google rolled out a big new update for iOS on Friday, it introduced incoming and outgoing voice calls through Google Voice and number of other new features for the app. Android users made it clear that they weren’t exactly happy that they didn’t receive an update, but since Google’s Vic Gundotra responded with a hint that a new Android version of Hangouts is on the way.

In a comment responding to complaints from Android users on Google+, Gundotra hints at upcoming announcements for Android saying, “I promise you will be happy soon.”

He also asked Android users to not get upset when the company releases iOS products and urged Android and iOS users to get along with each other. “There are a lot of them. And they are good people.”

Gundotra’s full comment is below:
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Everything about the new Kindle HDX is better than the previous HD version. The screen is brighter and has more pixels. It is lighter, thinner, has a better case, and has an improved OS. The buttons are now around the back vs. on either side (which takes a few reps to get used to). You can now jump down to the apps in much similar way to what you can in a normal Android tablet.

But that’s the problem. The OS just isn’t as good as the one you’ll find on the Nexus 7 with similar specs. And with the Nexus 7 you’ll get Google’s extremely productive Google Apps including Google Now, Google Maps, Gmail, Translate, and on and on. With the Kindle line you get a lot of nice apps, including many of the more popular ones like Facebook, Hulu, Netflix.  But you don’t get any of the long tail apps you get from the Google Play Store, and that’s kind of a bummer.

Also, I’m personally not feeling the Mayday feature. It was probably awesome when there were only 20 reviewers getting service, but I had to wait on hold for around 10 minutes before I could talk to someone – for me, that’s not worth it. Your mileage will vary, obviously.

Amazon has a ton of good content including a very passable App selection, full music and movie libraries, and of course tons of ebooks.  If you are okay with just Amazon, then you are looking at the best tablet you can find.  If you want more, then head over to Google Play. Pricing options below. 

A listing appeared in the Google Play Store this evening for the Nexus 5, but was pulled just moments later. The listing puts the device’s price at $349 for the 16 GB model. Apparently the page went live prematurely but the can probably be expected to launch some time in the near future. A high-resolution press shot is available below.

The device has also been spotted in white today in leaked shots allegedly showing packaging for the Nexus 5.

via Engadget

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We’ve heard a lot about the upcoming Nexus 5 over the past couple of weeks, and now we have some  supposed press renders of the device, courtesy of Mobile Syrup. The press images show what appears to be the Nexus 5 for Canadian carrier Telus.  In terms of design, the images don’t show too much that we didn’t already know. You can see that the volume rocker is located on the left hand side of the device, while the power button is on the right. Above the display is a circular speaker, in addition to the front-facing camera.

The renders do, however, give us a very clear look at the Android 4.4 Kit Kat home screen design and layout. The notification bar is now transparent and all of the icons are white, while the dock is much simpler and houses  camera, Chrome, Hangouts, and Phone shortcuts.

While missing in this image, Android 4.4 is also expected to introduce a transparent app drawer, meaning that you will see your wallpaper instead of a black background. Also new are dots to indicate the amount of home screens you have set up, similar to what we’ve seen on iOS for years.

The Nexus 5 is expected to be unveiled later this month, and according to several reports, will cost $299 and $399 for 16GB and 32GB of storage, respectively. 
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Over the past few weeks, everyone has been heavily focused on the forthcoming KitKat update and Nexus 5, but Android Police has obtained screenshots of something that should be rolling out to everyone soon. According to the site, Google is currently in the process of redesigning the Play Store, yet again. The changes will keep up with what Google has been doing to its other apps.

The biggest user-interface change comes with the new slide-out navigation panel, which is commonly referred to as “hamburger-style” navigation. In the current version of the Play Store, all of the options are put into a single menu in the upper right corner. With this Play Store update, the menu options will be reduced to just settings and help, while everything will move to the navigation panel.

• Store home
• My apps, My movies & TV, etc., (varies depending on what section of the Play Store you are in)
• Shop (only appears at certain times)
• My wishlist
• Redeem

As far as release timeframe goes, Android Police expects the update to go live with Android 4.4 at the very minimum, but notes that it may go out earlier. It will compatible with all versions of Android back to Froyo. The blog also notes that the design is a work in progress and may very well change several times before release. 
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Following leaked images allegedly showing off Android 4.4 and an eight-minute video hands-on with the Nexus 5 and the next version of Android, KitKat has done its part in hyping the chocolate-branded version of Android with a few notable tweets.

The candy bar maker dropped a couple of cryptic tweets yesterday and today, which Pocket-lint believes it has decrypted, hinting at Android 4.4 possibly launching on October 28th.

KitKat tweeted an image early Tuesday morning of an Android made out of the chocolate candy bar with a caption containing a magnifying glass (for Google Search or a sign that it’s meant to be a clue?), and the tweet itself read ‘Everybody dance now!’ This references the song “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” by C+C Music Factory, but their original name was The 28th Street Crew.

The original tweet alone would be quite a stretch for assuming Android 4.4 would debut on October 28th, but roughly 24 hours later KitKat tweeted, “Sometimes you have to look for the signs…”, which clearly explains the nature of the tweets. This time it included KitKat bars arranged to say “THIS IS IT”, the Michael Jackson concert-film released on October 28th as Pocket-lint notes.

Could we see more clues ahead of the anticipated launch of Android 4.4? We’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, check out the tweets for yourself below the fold, and let us know what you think:

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