Phil Oakley
Contributing since March, 2016
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369articles
About Phil Oakley
Phil is a freelance writer from the UK, studying Creative Writing at university. When he's not writing, Phil is usually fiddling about with his phone, tweeting, or obsessing over anything with four wheels and an engine.
Latest Articles
[Update: Out of beta] Music Mate from DJiT finds the music video for the song you're currently listening to
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- Music Mate is now out of beta and officially released on the Play Store (same link as below). The interface has changed considerably since we first looked at it, with black and orange replacing the white and blue dominant colors. There's also a new option to mark videos as official or non official to help the app find better content, and a way to follow your favorite artists as well.
What are you listening to right now? Me, I'm listening to the 2012 album Battle Born, by The Killers, specifically the song 'Runaways.' But what if I wanted to find the music video for that song? Now there's an app that can do that: Music Mate, from DJiT.
Free stuff is free stuff, no matter what it is. All the better, then, when you like what's being offered. In this case, Google Play is offering HBO's Game of Thrones season 5 in standard definition, which should please a large proportion of people.
You may remember that, last month, Google tested and released details on a new way for developers to put their apps or games on sale for a limited amount of time. It seems like a few developers have been taking advantage of this, as there's a handful of items available for free.
Sony's XZ Premium and the XZs are not the only new kids on the block for its 2017 smartphone lineup. The company has also got the 'super mid-range' XA1 and XA1 Ultra devices, for those searching for a good-looking phone on a budget.
Google is having issues with account sign-in, resulting in errors with Android devices, OnHub, and Wifi
My Google account is the key to much of what I do online, so not being able to use it is a bummer. Since yesterday, many people have been having issues signing in to their accounts - we at Android Police have been seeing this across the US and Europe. However, Google has confirmed on the Product Forums that this is not the result of a hack or malicious activity.
Bank of America update adds sending or receiving money with almost anyone, using your phone's address book
The Bank of America Android app had its material overhaul last year, so it already looks better than a ton of banking apps. However, today it's getting better, with the new ability to send, receive, or request money from almost anyone in your contacts.
[Update: It's live] Titanium Backup tweet confirms Adoptable Storage is coming to the powerful app
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Titanium Backup is one of the most popular apps for backing up important data or files, so it's great to see official confirmation from the developers that the app will soon support Android's Adoptable Storage feature, which means external storage can act like internal storage.
A few weeks ago, we reported on Facebook's testing of a new bottom navigation bar, showing 'Home' and 'Explore' feeds. We've now received word that Facebook is testing some more bottom tabs, except this time, they've been moved from the top.
Everyone enjoys making music of some kind, from children hitting pots and pans together to an experienced musician performing to a sell-out crowd. I'm tone deaf and even I enjoy it. Today, Google announced it has a new experiment, A.I. Duet, which uses machine learning to respond to music that you play.
Asmodee Games releases two new titles, Mage the Ascension: Refuge and Vampire: Prelude
Asmodee Games are the makers of some pretty big hits, including the video games adaptations of Pandemic, Ticket to Ride, and Mysterium. The developer now has two new games out on the Play Store, both of which look pretty good.
Camera company Kodak went bankrupt a while back, but managed to save itself by selling its brand off to anyone who wanted it. Since then, the Kodak name has been pilfered and used to market cheap Android devices. It's a sad state of affairs for the once-great manufacturer, but maybe it's about to get better (or worse, depending on your point of view): ARCHOS has been signed as a brand licensee in Europe, following the release of the Kodak EKTRA smartphone last year.
Meizu unveils the M5s in China with an octa-core processor and 3GB RAM for under $120
Meizu is one of those Chinese smartphone manufacturers attempting to make a name for itself in an increasingly busy, crowded market. While not as big as giants such as Huawei, it's still got some recognition, and will hope to increase that with the announcement of the latest device in the M-series, the M5s.
Facebook's had video for a while now, and while it doesn't yet rival YouTube for overall views, it's definitely seeing more and more people watching things as they browse. Accordingly, we're all used to scrolling through the Facebook News Feed and flicking a video's sound on. Everyone is going to have to get used to not having to do this anymore, as Facebook has announced sound will be on by default for any video as it's scrolled past.
[Update: Winners] Two new games added to Humble Mobile Bundle RPGs, and we've got ten free codes to give away
The Humble Mobile Bundle RPGs came out last week, packing 7 great games that total almost $50 on the Play Store. The Bundle has now had 2 new games added to it, and even better, we have 10 free codes to give away.
Content suggestion thumbnails on YouTube while playing full-screen video are rolling out slowly
Google seems to be trying many new things in terms of content on YouTube, including video thumbnails once a video has been completed, cards at the top of searches, video recommendations as notifications, and numerous tweaks to the now playing screen. We've been made aware by multiple readers of a new video suggestion feature while watching a full-screen video.
The Huawei Watch was many people's favorite Android Wear smartwatch back when it was released in 2015, and it remains so because of its round screen and 'classic' watch look. Huawei CEO Richard Yu has now confirmed on Weibo that the Huawei Watch 2 will be unveiled at MWC, following earlier speculation that this would be the case.
[Update: OnePlus 3T too] LineageOS 14.1 hits new devices, including HTC One M7, Samsung tablets, LG G3, and ZTE Axon 7
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- The OnePlus 3T is also seeing LineageOS 14.1. The build for the 3T has been merged with the OnePlus 3, so both phones now use the same .zip file, which is good - have a look on the wiki entry for both devices for more information. The download link is above.
LineageOS is still a relative newcomer to the Android world, but since it's descended from the legendary CyanogenMod, builds for various devices are coming thick and fast.
Cloud storage is all the rage these days. So is fingerprint security on mobiles. Box, a cloud storage provider, has caused these two to collide, adding fingerprint authentication support to its Android app.
Facebook is well known for being a rather liberal user of A/B testing, having seemingly hundreds of tests going on at any one time across its increasingly diversified product line. We've come across a new one, courtesy of Google+ user Fedor von Bock, which sees Facebook testing out a navigation bar at the bottom.
It was a good seven months ago now that we saw evidence of a tweaked YouTube UI, exposing video buttons and rearranging things slightly. As of YouTube version 12.03, it appears this has now rolled out more widely, although it is vaguely different from the UI shown in August.