Win VIP access to an unreleased Huawei device [CONTEST]

It’s not every day you get offered the chance to test drive a shiny new Android device before anyone else. But that’s exactly what Huawei, as well as your friends at Phandroid and Android Forums, are offering you. To help kick off their new Huawei Community forum, Huawei Device USA is giving away a limited number of invites to join their exclusive Friendly User Testing program, where you can help test one of their new devices before it’s even launched or announced!

Three ways to win:

We’ll have 5 lucky winners overall with 3 methods of entering.

(1) Share Phandroid with your friends!

Normally, Friendly User Testing is limited only to Huawei reps and partners for internal testing, but we have 3 invites to give away to lucky Phandroid readers. By far the easiest way to enter is with the below Rafflecopter sweepstakes, exclusive for Phandroid readers. Simply follow the directions in the embedded contest form below:

• each task will earn you 1 entry


• you’ll earn more for friends you refer!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

(2) Are you the most deserving Android Fan?

The community at Android Forums is absolutely amazing- people are constantly helping each other out with troubleshooting, insights, tips, and great discussion. We want to reward the best of the best in the Android universe so we’ve reserved 2 prizes exclusively for Android Forums members.

• If you haven’t already, sign up for Android Forums


• Tell us why you should win!

Read the rest of the rules on the official contest thread.

(3) Join Huawei’s brand new community

That’s already 5 prizes, but Huawei will be giving away even more invites on their new Huawei Community! Simply head over there to get all the details.

Huawei Community members receive exclusive benefits like being able to test out the latest Huawei products, earning invitations to fan parties, participating in Huawei’s launch events, receiving information on the latest software updates, and of course — earning the opportunity to beta test new products before anyone. Huawei says even more benefits are coming soon, so be on the look out.

To keep up on all the going-ons of Huawei Device USA, you can follow them on their social media accounts linked down below.

Huawei Device USA: Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Instagram | YouTube

What is the mystery device?

The FUT program is so top secret that not even Phandroid staff know what upcoming/unannounced devices will be included. But we do know three things:

• Huawei has an April 15th event and the company was previously rumored to be launching the next Nexus


• The Huawei watch is a super sexy Android Wear device that we saw at Mobile World Congress


• It may be neither, but Huawei has been on a tear lately so it’s sure to be awesome!

Sony gives developers an official path to bootloader access on select phones

In Sony’s ongoing quest to make their phones more developer friendly, the company has opened up bootloader access for a handful of their current Android smartphones. FXP has found that Sony’s official Mobile Flash tool now offers up an “Open Devices” bootloader option alongside the standard consumer-shipped bootloader.

What will this enable? It’ll allow developers to install custom recoveries right to the devices’ recovery partition. This enables the use of custom ROMs and operating systems without the need to use tricky and clunky bootstrap solutions. In fact, it’s so open that it would be possible to flash recoveries and ROMs for non-Android operating systems such as Ubuntu and Firefox OS (if one has the wherewithal to figure that out, of course).

Sony has only rolled out support for devices with chipsets based on ARM Cortex-A7, so that effectively limits it to the Sony Xperia T3, Sony Xperia M2, Sony Xperia T2 Ultra and the Sony Xperia E3.

That’s not to say more won’t come down the line, though, and we hope to hear something official from Sony soon. In the meantime, you can find the mobile flash tool right here. We wouldn’t recommend using it to do anything immediately, but you’ll likely want it on-hand once the development community takes proper advantage of this new level of access.

Chromecast support arrives on FOX Now, FXNow, CBS All Access, and more

The Chromecast is about to get a slew of new content. Google revealed today that their affordable little dongle is now officially supported by a handful of new TV streaming services, as well as their Android apps on Google Play.

Announced on the official Google Chrome Blog, streaming on FOX Now, FXNow, CBS All Access, HGTV, Pluto TV, or Haystack will now display that familiar Chromecast icon on the video controls. If castin’ from your computer is more convenient, you should have no problem when visiting any of the new respective websites above.

Of course, not all the above services are free, so you may have to subscribe to enjoy some of their shows on your Chromecast. While the Chromecast is probably the best we’ve ever spent on a video streaming device, we’re still anxiously awaiting the Chromecast V2 with 5GHz support. Hopefully that’s coming very soon.

To check out all the apps and services that officially support the Chromecast, check out Google’s full list here.

Google I/O session reveals ‘Voice Access’ feature coming soon to Android

Earlier today, Google posted the official Google IO 2015 schedule. The schedule simply highlighted a list of the day’s events taking place during the developer convention. We already know Android M will be making an appearance at the event with Google officially making mention of the next version of Android during their “Android at Work” session. But it seems the schedule is also revealing a few other tidbits as well.

A “Voice Access” talk is also scheduled, described as “Your app, now available hands-free.” The description doesn’t reveal specifics, just that developers will be able to take advantage of the new service, presumably a feature set to debut in Android M. It sounds a bit like Google’s Voice Actions, only Voice Access wont be confined to only the Google app. Instead, Voice Access will allow developers to add voice actions inside their own apps, for truly hands-free use.

Although it wasn’t mentioned in the sessions description, it’s easy to imagine Google planning some sort of global voice actions throughout the entire Android OS, something Android M could finally bring. The convenience angle is clear, but it could be a great option for handicapped users who otherwise wouldn’t be able to interact with a touch screen device.

[Google I/O 2015]