Androidifying

Android and Google TV have some pretty good integration. Unfortunately the setup is not always as a simple as some competitors, namely Apple TV. Android users have been asking for true device mirroring for years. AirPlay works seamlessly to connect iOS devices with an Apple TV. With Google’s recently released Chromecast, it’s easier than ever to stream content to your device with Android, but it still doesn’t give us true mirroring from an Android device. If you’re someone who prefers Apple TV over Chromecast or Google TV, you are completely out of luck. Until now. Developer Koushik Dutta recently posted a video and several Google+ posts ( here  and  here ) showing off AirPlay mirroring, built in to the CyanogenMod ROM, streaming content to an Apple TV. He’s been hard at work on getting this working for a little while now. Koush released the AllCast app that worked with Chromecast for streaming and mirroring, but that Chromecast support was short-lived. Google disabled it with a Chrome

Last night we found a few Android 4.4 images. Mainly of the dialer and Messaging apps. Now there are a few more images that have cropped up, depicting Android 4.4 on what appears to be a Nexus 4. Now we aren’t sure if this is the Nexus 4 that was released last year, or if they’ll be calling the new Nexus coming next month the Nexus 4 as well. They did it with the Nexus 7, so it wouldn’t surprise me. The images here show us some new icons too. They all look more flat, similar to the new Google logo, which looks really nice in my opinion. The status bar is also different now. It appears to change colors to match the app that you are currently in. Which is a nice touch, although I think I’d rather have a transparent status bar like Touchwiz and LG has in their launcher. In these pictures you can see a different looking status bar in each one. And it looks like some apps have a gray navigation bar while others are still black. It would be cool if that changed per app as well. It’s defin

Apple’s iPhone 5s is three times more popular than the iPhone 5c, according to recent data  from Localytics . It’s certainly unsurprising news, as preorders for the “low-cost” iPhone 5c appeared to be unimpressive and subsequent demand for the handset in the Apple Online Store seemed weak. On the other hand, Apple’s high-end iPhone 5s sold out in the Apple Online Store, and shipping estimates have been  pushed back to October . Localytics explains that the iPhone 5s appears to be outselling the iPhone 5c by a factor of 3.4, with the data collected based on some 20 million Web impressions made by iPhone handsets. TechCrunch explains : Localytics also broke down iPhone 5s and 5c adoption by carrier, and found that AT&T had the highest buy-in rate, with the 5s and 5c making up 0.67 percent of all phones on the network. And probably not surprisingly, given the number of stock outages reported for the iPhone 5s, it is leading the way on the Localytics platform by a fairly wide margin

Before Microsoft completes acquisition of Nokia, the Finnish company wants to release a few devices and has even scheduled an event for October 22nd. One of the things they’ll launch may be a Windows RT tablet codenamed Sirius (aka Lumia 2520) and another – Lumia 929, which has just been leaked and which is heading to Verizon Wireless. Compliments to  EVleaks , we know this smartphone will be available in black and white, sporting a fairly large (1080p) screen while running Windows Phone 8 GDR3. In addition — according to  The Verge  — the Lumia 929 will also come with a 20-megapixel PureView camera on the back. Little else is known about this model but it’s safe to assume it will pack 4G LTE connectivity, Wi-Fi, GPS and a ton of built-in storage. We’re just not convinced the Finns will manage to convince enough users to buy their hardware now that they’ve become a part of Microsoft. Or I’m wrong? What do you think?

Earlier this year when T-Mobile announced Jump!, they started a revolution. They got AT&T and Verizon to begin their early upgrade plans as well. Next and Edge respectively. While none of these really look all that appealing. We are going to see which one is the best for the customer. As expected, AT&T and Verizon’s cost the most money. $2928 and $3051 over 2-years respectively. For the most part, Sprint, AT&T and Verizon’s are all the same. You pay nothing up front (except Verizon, you pay your first month’s payment when you purchase your phone). Then pay a monthly payment each month to pay off your phone, that is in addition to your service fees. You know for data, texting and your minutes. T-Mobile actually charges you the least. While the other three are over $300, T-Mobile is around $240 for 12 months. Which isn’t bad. Although, T-Mobile does charge you monthly to use JUMP, they also provide full insurance for your phone with JUMP. So the insurance you’re paying betwee

Naming a product can be very difficult.  There’s usually a creative process associated with a name, and then there’s of course always a logical one that forces you to choose something appropriate for the product.  So in this case it comes as some sort of irony that Focal, the camera that was once packed in with CyanogenMod, started life as Project Nemesis.  If you haven’t been following all the news and drama behind the CyanogenMod team’s decision to incorporate lately, basically the developer behind the Focal camera app, Guillaume Lesniak, had some disagreements with that decision and decided himself to part from the team.  That decision has prompted Guillaume to put his Focal app on the Google Play Store for everyone to try, whether you have CyanogenMod installed or not.  If you haven’t used or even seen Focal before, we did a full breakdown on the features in late July after it launched, and it’s quite a rich experience; when it works that is. Focal has unfortunately been the bru

It’s almost that time of year. Time for a new treat from Mountain View. Last year, we thought we’d be getting  Key Lime Pie , instead Google gave us another serving of Jelly Beans Android 4.2. Then came Google I/O in May of this year where we thought we’d get Key Lime Pie Android 5.0, instead we got nothing until July when we got a third serving of Jelly Beans Android 4.3. We know that this fall, Google is going to serving up some tasty KitKats for us. Since they made it official earlier this month. Android 4.4 will be named KitKat. However, we have no idea what is going to be in KitKat. Maybe a new lockscreen? Perhaps new notifications? Or maybe just a new lighter, cards UI theme for the entire system? That’s what we are here to talk about today. What do we want to see in KitKat! Features We Want Fix the Fragmentation This seems to be a feature we want in every release of Android. But it’s something that Google is clearly working on, since we see many new features in the Google Play S