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Thursday, April 30, 2015

Sony has reported earnings for its 2014 fiscal year along with forecasts for the next, and the numbers don’t give much reason for the company to stick with certain struggling products. Sony made an operating profit of ¥68.5 billion ($571 million) off ¥8.22 trillion ($68.5 billion) revenue in the year ending March 31st 2015, but lost ¥126 billion overall mainly due to various restructuring charges.

Although Sony predicts a 3.8 percent drop in revenue over the next year, it expects to make ¥320 billion in operating profit and ¥140 billion in net profit. But it’s worth looking at where that money will come from. Sony is expecting its Devices division, which includes its successful image sensor unit that produces components for the iPhone and other products, to bring in 16.5 percent more revenue and achieve a 36 percent higher operating profit. The profitable movie business, too, is expected to perform better over the next year. Gaming will be more or less flat as the PlayStation 3 generation winds down and the PS4 accelerates.

The mobile division is another story. It was by far the company's biggest black mark in fiscal 2014, making an operating loss of 217.6 billion yen following a ¥176 billion ($1.47 billion) impairment charge from the smartphone and tablet business, and restructuring costs from the sale of the VAIO PC unit. While things shouldn’t get that bad next year, mobile is still the only core division that Sony is expecting to lose money, forecasting a 7.1 percent slip in revenue and an operating loss of 39 billion yen.

Sony is predicting slipping revenues and falling profits in its camera and home entertainment/audio divisions, but you can make the case for keeping both around; the critically acclaimed Alpha and RX cameras have clear synergy with the market-leading image sensor business, and lines like Walkman and Bravia are important to Sony’s identity and brand. Neither is necessarily harming the company's focus. Mobile, however, doesn't seem like it's going to make a positive impact on the company any time soon, if ever, and the Android-dependent devices have little scope for differentiation. Is Xperia the next VAIO? Don't bet against it.

Sony should stop making phones

2:02 PM Android, Android Device

We’re approaching the end of April and with it came very exciting Android apps and games. It was arguably the most exciting month yet with big name releases from Google, Blizzard, and other big name titles. Let’s take a look at the best new Android apps and games from April 2015. If you want to see the freshest releases every week, don’t forget to subscribe to the Android Apps Weekly newsletter to catch the big names as they come out!

Amazon Prime Instant Video

[Price: Free with Amazon Prime Subscription]
Amazon has officially added tablet support to Amazon Instant Video. It’s a little wonky to use because it’ll redirect you to the Instant Video website in your mobile browser where you then pick a video and then it’ll come back and stream in the app. It’s not the most ergonomic solution and there’s still no Chromecast support, but if you have Amazon Prime, it’s worth a shot.

Android for Work

[Price: Free]
Android for Work is a platform for companies to manage work flow. Earlier this month, Google released the platform on Android devices. Included is admin control support along with dedicated Android for Works apps such as Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Docs, and Chrome. You can also password lock it to prevent access and admins can remote wipe if need be. The only issue right now is a lack of supported devices.

Adventures of Poco Eco

[Price: $1.98]
Adventures of Poco Eco is an adventure puzzle game that revolves around looks and music. The premise is that you’re to help Poco and his tribe find the sounds that they lost. The design is pretty good and the music isn’t half bad for a mobile game. Some have lamented that the puzzles are a bit easy but the general consensus is that this is a pretty decent game. It costs just shy of two bucks and it has no in-app purchases.

Google Handwriting Input

[Price: Free]
Google Handwriting Input is a keyboard that allows you to actually write out your messages instead of typing them on a keyboard or speaking them out loud. It works pretty well even if your handwriting is pretty bad. It’s also totally free to use with no in-app purchases and could be a fun keyboard to use if your device has a stylus although finger writing does work too.

Heartstone Heroes of Warcraft

[Price: Free with in-app purchases]
It’s true that Hearthstone was actually releases several months ago but back then it had one glaring issue: there was no support for mobile phones. Earlier this month, Blizzard updated the application to work on phones and all rejoiced. There were ways to surpass the prior 6-inch limit but it’s much nicer to have official support for smaller screens. If you haven’t tried it yet, it’s available for download right now.

Hello Caller ID and Blocking

[Price: Free]
Hello is a new app from Facebook that acts as a dialer replacement app. It not only replaces your stock dialer and lets you make actual phone calls, but it integrates very closely with the Facebook Messenger service so you can make calls over that as well when you want to. It’ll also help organize your contacts based on their Facebook info. It’s very similar to Hangouts Dialer but for Facebook.

Joe Danger

[Price: $2.86 with in-app purchases]
Joe Danger was a hit game on iOS before making its way to Android where it’s had limited success so far. It’s a stunt game where you must pull off tricks and navigate obstacle courses to get the highest score. It has okay graphics, easy-to-use controls, and around 20 hours of game play according to the developers. It’s a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously and it’s also relatively inexpensive.

KX Music Player

[Price: Free]
KX Music Player is a music player with an equalizer. It supports a wide range of codecs and includes bass boost, virtualizer effects, reverb, presets, and more. In terms of UI, it’s a fairly simple and new users shouldn’t have any problems navigating the interface. There are a few bugs here and it is a bit simple compared to something like Poweramp or N7Player. However, it’s a solid option for those who don’t need a lot of flashy features.

Magica X Magica

[Price: $0.99 with in-app purchases]
Magica X Magica is a 2D infinite runner style game with an actual story line. You play as a girl who is looking for her kidnapped friends and you must defeat a bunch of bad guys in order to do it. The game features okay graphics and soundtrack and easy controls. The game also includes boss fights and some good artwork as well. It calls itself the saddest game in this genre although there are a few bugs here and there so beware.

Mortal Kombat X

[Price: Free with in-app purchases]
Mortal Kombat X has finally been released to the Play Store after months of leaks and announcements. Unfortunately it’s currently in the midst of a soft-launch so it’s not available for all markets yet. The classic fighting game features many of your old MK favorites, a familiar battle system, fatalities, and other odes to the franchise. When it’s released to everyone, it’ll be free with in-app purchases but until then, patience.

Riff

[Price: Free]
Riff is a new video platform released by Facebook (they’ve been busy this month). The idea is pretty simple. You upload a video of something you’re doing, then someone on your friends list can add some video of their own. Then their friends can add even more. It continues this way until the post dies. There are some bugs and compatibility issues early on but this is actually kind of a fun idea if you have friends that aren’t terrible people.

Servicely

[Price: Free / $2.16]
Servicely is a root-only application that helps you manage the processes on your device. The idea is to keep processes from running when you don’t want them to run and to help save battery life by closing down apps that keep waking your device up. You can get all the pro features without paying for the pro version although we recommend that you do to support development. If you have root, you should try this out.

Tomb Raider I

[Price: $0.99]
The original Tomb Raider has been remastered and re-released to Android by Square Enix. Those who enjoyed the good old days of Lara Croft can do it again. For those who have never played Tomb Raider, this is an action adventure game with some puzzle elements. The controls aren’t the best but you do get used to them after a while and there are a few device compatability issues. Otherwise, this is a classic and quite cheap for a Square Enix game.

Source: Android Authority

Best new 13 Android apps and games from April 2015

1:04 PM Android, Android App

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

The LG G4 is finally and officially here. Now that we got the full scoop, it seems that LG's next flagship smartphone is all about three things - design, display and camera. The LG G4 body is slightly curved and comes with an optional leather back for some extra flair; there's a new IPS Quantum display for improved color accuracy and the camera has a new lens with improved OIS, wider aperture, a new Color Spectrum Sensor for more accurate white balance and a new manual mode.

The new LG G4 is closely related to the LG G Flex2 - to the extent we're not quite sure which one is the flagship. We see again a curved body design, though the curvature is much more subtle. The screen size is the same, but the G4 comes with a much higher resolution.

The camera on the G4 is better too, but then the Snapdragon 808 chipset is a step down. This leaves it a bit unclear as to which device is the flagship, though the LG G4 certainly has the more recognizable brand name thanks to the success of its predecessor.

LG G4 at a glance

Dimensions: 148.9 x 76.1 x 6.3 - 9.8 mm, 155g
Screen: 5.5" Quantum dot IPS screen with 1,440 x 2,560 resolution, 538ppi; Gorilla Glass 3
Chipset: Snapdragon 808, dual-core Cortex-A57 plus quad-core Cortex-A53, Adreno 418 GPU, 3GB RAM
OS: Android 5.1 Lollipop; Optimus UX 4.0
Camera: 16MP with OIS 2.0, f/1.8 aperture, 1/2.6 sensor size, laser autofocus; manual controls and RAW mode; 8MP front-facing camera, f/2.0
Video camera: 2160p recording
Battery: 3,000mAh
Storage: 32GB built-in; expandable via microSD card slot
Connectivity: Cat. 6 LTE (300Mbps down, 50Mbps up), Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1, NFC
Misc: Optional leather back, Knock code, optional wireless charging

The LG G4 will come with a plastic back cover with a "hammered pattern," but the eye-catching optional leather backs are LG's big design play. They are made of vegetable tanned genuine leather and feature decorative stitching uses Gütterman thread, a high-end product from Germany used in leather clothes and shoes.

The second focus was the display - LG kept the size and resolution the same as on the G3 - 5.5" QHD - but switched to a quantum dot LCD matrix, promising accurate colors with 98% coverage of the RGB spectrum.

The new LG G4

The third pillar of the LG G4 is its camera. It has a new 16MP sensor and improved lens with wider aperture and 3-axis image stabilization instead of 2-axis like on the G3 (they even call it OIS 2.0). The selfie camera got an even bigger resolution bump to 8MP. The camera comes with a new interface with manual controls, a histogram and RAW mode.

The LG G3 (left) vs. G4 (center) vs. G Pro 2 (right)

The one point where LG got defensive was the chipset. The company claims it worked with Qualcomm to customize the Snapdragon 808 specifically for the G4 and LG claims it's faster than the Exynos 7420. It didn't back that up with benchmarks though and we doubt any amount of customizations can make up for the two missing Cortex-A57 cores.

Source: GSMarena

LG G4 hands-on: First look

10:33 PM Android, Android Device, Device

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Instagram has just announced a new update to its Android and iOS applications that brings three new filters and the ability to use emojis in hashtags.

The three new filters available in the app are called Lark, Reyes and Juno, and are quite subtle compared to the multitude of other filters currently available. Here’s how Instagram describes each new addition:

Lark desaturates reds while punching up blues and greens to bring your landscapes to life. Reyes brings a dusty, vintage look to your moments. And finally, Juno tints cool tones green while making warm tones pop and whites glow for vibrant photos of people.

In addition to the new filters, Instagram is also gaining the ability to use emojis in hashtags. Just like with any other hashtag, simply type in a ‘#’ followed by the emoji you’d like to use.

The version 6.20.0 update is now live in the Google Play Store, so follow the link below to grab it!

Source : Android Authority

Instagram brings three new filters and emoji hashtags

3:26 PM Android, Android App

Update: Google’s support page “Link your phone to Google” indicates that, in addition to the four commands mentioned below, you can also use the “set a reminder” command. We couldn’t get it to work on our devices, but it’s worth trying for yourself.

The page also clarifies the requirements for the feature to work:

“For now, you have to be in the United States with your browser language set to English.

The Android device you want to link needs to have:

The most recent version of the Google app
Now cards turned on
Web & App activity turned on
Google Now notifications turned on
Location reporting on “High accuracy” mode”

Original post:

It’s not just “send directions” and “find my phone.” It looks like Google is adding a slew of commands that let you control your Android phone from Google Search.

As discovered by Google Operating System, you can now quickly set alarms and send notes to your Android phone by typing in some simple commands.

For now, the features are only available in the United States, though “find my phone” works worldwide so there’s a good chance the others will follow. If you want to try them out from elsewhere, you can try adding “&gl=us” at the end of the URL of your search query, like this: “https://www.google.com/search?q=set+an+alarm&gl=us”

To set an alarm on your phone, just type “set an alarm” or “set alarm” and you will be shown an interface that lets you pick the hour and the device that you want to set the alarm on. You can also type “set and alarm for 12pm” to pre-select the hour.

It’s just as simple to send a note: type “send a note” or “note to self” and you will be shown a text field where you can type in a brief note. Click the send button and a notification with the note will appear almost instantly on your device. You can also include the note text in the main command, like “note to self visit Android Authority.” From there, you can either copy the text or share the note to Gmail or Google Keep.

To recap, you can now use the following commands in Google Search:

“send directions”
“find my phone”
“set an alarm”
“send a note”

We’ll keep an eye for more functionality, so stay tuned and let us know if these work for you.

Set alarms and send notes to your phone from Google Search

2:57 PM Android, Tips & Tricks

Facebook has just announced that it’s bringing free video calling to its Messenger application on both Android and iOS. The update, which is rolling out now in the Play Store, will allow you to simply tap the video camera icon on any existing Messenger conversation to instantly connect with your friends and family.

The update is now available in the U.S., the U.K., Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Laos, Lithuania, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal and Uruguay. Facebook says that more countries will be added in the coming months.

Facebook adding free video calling to Messenger is big news, especially because it now pits them up against other popular video chatting applications like Skype, ooVoo, Tango and many others. Facebook has been introducing many other features to Messenger lately, such as third party app integration, launching Messenger as a standalone website and more.

Be sure to head to the Google Play Store to grab the newest version of Messenger!