Nobody likes a trollout. Perhaps the worst words you can see in an announcement about a new release or update to anything is "will start rolling out to users over the next few weeks," or something to that effect. It's called a staggered release. We call it a trollout. It plays with our emotions and, more accurately, our patience. And it's probably one of the smarter things that happens...
For as fast as we tend to move forward around here, the past few days I've caught myself looking back. Back an entire decade — something that I (usually) still don't feel old enough to be able to say. (Never mind that I'm easily feeling dated thanks to the sleeping wife, aching feet, two loud-but-adorable kids, and bacon traded for yogurt.) Ten years is a long time for some things, and...
Three cities, and a mountain of coverage We've done a lot of things and gone a lot of places in my five years of doing this job. New York. San Francisco. Las Vegas. San Diego. Chicago. Detroit. Orlando. Los Angeles. Seattle. London. Berlin. Barcelona. Seoul. Austin. Dallas. And that's just off the top of my head. I don't remember ever pulling off — or being anywhere near as tired, or...
We've reached that point of the year at which I'm required once again to remind you of the following: Shit's gonna get crazy. Let's recap the next couple of weeks: This week we've got the IFA conference in Berlin. I'm sitting it out this year, but Alex and Richard have it covered, with an able hand from the one and only Derek Kessler. They'll be on hand for Samsung's Unpacked event...
It's no secret that I was never a fan of Flappy Bird. Never mind that it basically was capitalizing on people's emotions — their frustrations, really — I just never found it to be a particularly good or fun game. And now we have Swing Copters. It's very much the same idea — your copter rises precariously; you tap to change its direction and keep it on course. Or not, because you'll...
Wherein I struggle with the issue of online protection versus education My kids are starting back to school this week — one in third grade, the other in pre-K. And as crazy as it seems, apparently 8 years old is where we start having the serious cell phone and Internet discussions. Now Mia, my eldest, has used an iPhone 3G has a makeshift iPod for some time. It's not hooked up to Wifi...
It's time to spill the deepest, darkest secret we have here at Android Central. It's one that folks get close to figuring out but for some reason have a hard time understanding with any real clarity. But it's simple. And I almost hesitate to share it in fear that others will emulate it. Are you ready? Here it comes. We're here to help. When you get down to it, it's that simple. Before...
You're only as good as the people you work with. Or some other such platitude. But that's certainly true among us here at Android Central — there's no way this site would be what it is without the help of the folks, new and old, whose work you read here every day. That's true for Mobile Nations on a larger level as well. And so it's been an honor and a pleasure to have worked with our...
I'll be perfectly honest, I walked into our most recent podcast not expecting all that much. We're still waiting on Motorola to announce its new phone and release the Moto 360. Yeah, the Amazon Fire Phone is out, but most of the hard-core folks don't want to hear about it, and while I think it's got a lot of interesting things going on with it, it's probably not a phone I'd actually...
Another tragic week in which I have a hard time concentrating on toys, and for that I beg your pardon. We'll get to the fun stuff in a minute. There's absolutely nothing I or any of the 298 people on board could have done to have kept that Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 from being shot out of the sky. There's nothing anyone could have done, save for the half-dozen or so people who...
Important life lesson: Take a little time away every now and then, even from the things you love to do. Do something else. Or do nothing. Just be sure to do something different. For me the past few weeks, taking a little break from this column meant a few things after three consecutive weeks traveling. It meant less time worrying about phones, and worrying about work. It meant spending...
We're headed to Google I/O this week in San Francisco. It'll be my fifth, which is a little hard to believe, and it's more than a little humbling. I still feel a little out of place around all the engineers and developers — the insanely smart people who make this dream job of mine possible. A lot of it's over my head, but at the same time I continue to learn a great deal about how the...
It's Father's Day here in the U.S. (there are fathers outside the U.S., right?), so I'll try to keep things short this week. We'll see how that goes. It's funny to see all these "Best Father's Day Gadgets" lists for something that's largely a made-up holiday. Do we do that for Mother's Day? I dunno. That said, here's what probably would be on mine: A proper tablet (and, seriously,...
Two or three times a year we get to kick our feet up and essentially take off the better part of a day and watch the Apple Circus. And I don't mean that in a pejorative manner — for me an Apple keynote is always a fun event. There's new software and new features to figure out. New tech — be it mobile or desktop — to salivate over. I like to think that most of us are able to separate the...
Giving this MobileFit thing another go ... Today is June 1, the start of Mobile Nations Fitness Month. It's our third-annual endeavor of this sort, if I recall correctly. Yet I am still fat. But it's a new year. We've got new blood in the ranks, not just at Android Central, but at Mobile Nations as a whole. So let's try this again, perhaps. It's important to set goals, I guess. I...
It's a holiday weekend, so I'll keep things short this fine Sunday. But I'm pretty stoked for this week's announcement of the LG G3 (and hating Alex and Richard for being so close to London it precludes me from going to the main event). And that's just the start of a crazy month — I'm on the road three out of the four full weeks of June already. So much fun stuff is on the way. Anyhoo...
Views: Beach > anywhere else. by Phil Nickinson That's a Photo Sphere I took at Pensacola Beach yesterday afternoon on the Samsung Galaxy S5 using the Google camera app that's available in Google Play. Why use Google's camera and not Samsung's? For the simple reason we pointed out weeks ago — Samsung's app doesn't have it built in, so you have to download it separately. From Samsung...
We have a lot of balls in the air here at Mobile Nations. That is, we've got a whole lot of things going on at once. (That's a juggling metaphor.) Some of these things you fine folks get to see. All the reviews we do. All the news we cover. The shift to a more centralized newsroom. All the public events we attend, and the private meetings needed to set them up. All the work on the back...
The longtime actor and director has turned his production skills to Android apps To be perfectly honest, I didn't know what he was doing there either. Why was Damon Wayans, the actor, writer, director, producer (and member of the legendary family) at the Samsung Developers Conference in December? Celebrity appearances (paid or otherwise) are nothing new at tech events — see Lopez,...
As we continue to search for the best smartphone camera, let's take a minute and enjoy the damn pictures When, exactly, did we become so damn cynical about smartphone cameras? In my lifetime we've gone from Polaroids and those point-and-shoots with the crazy five- or six-shot (I don't remember how many) flashes to friggin' computers with 4- or 16- or even 20-megapixel shooters in our...