Sprint offering to pay ALL fees for you to switch to their network

Sprint’s giving folks a very good reason to consider switching to their network with their latest offer. They’re willing to pay any and every expense associated with leaving your carrier before fulfilling your commitments, whether that’s paying the ETF on a two-year contract or paying for the rest of your payment plan on a financed phone.

Here’s how it works:

• Bring your number from any other carrier with an early termination fee or phone installment plan balance.


• Activate a device on Sprint Easy Pay, iPhone for Life Plan, Sprint Lease or pay full retail price with a new line of service.


• Complete an online registration www.sprint.com/joinsprint and upload a bill that shows applicable charges for reimbursement within 60 days of activation.


• Customers are required to turn in competitor phones (in good working condition) tied to the bill they submitted. Sprint will provide a pre-paid kit to make this easy.

And that’s it. Sprint says they’ll hook you up no matter how much you owe, so if you’re only two payments into that Samsung Galaxy Note 4 they’ll pay it off for you no problem.

That’s a hard offer to turn down if you’re looking for a new wireless home, but you’ll have to evaluate Sprint’s network in your area, their service plans and other factors to see if the carrier is a good long-term solution for you. Be sure to do the proper research before you jump to make any big moves.

[via Sprint]

 

Samsung’s committed to using premium materials in more of their products going forward

The talk of Samsung using premium materials in their devices has been going on for a long time. People have been begging Samsung to ditch the faux materials and go with metal and glass. With the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge they finally built a device that looks premium, and they’re not looking back.

At an annual shareholder’s meeting Co-CEO Shin Jong Kyun reiterated Samsung’s commitment to premium materials. They plan to offer more devices with metal casing, slim designs, and high-definition displays. This new focus on quality is important for Samsung to bounce back after being down the last few quarters. It already rose Samsung shares by 1.9% when the new Galaxy S6 devices were announced.

We’re happy to hear that Samsung is taking build-quality more seriously. Manufacturers like HTC and Sony have long out-classed Samsung in terms of premium devices. Samsung has been able to create huge market share with massively successful marketing campaigns and offering tons of different devices. The designs were starting to feel bland, but the new S6 devices have breathed some life into Samsung.

[via Bloomberg]

T-Mobile is adding extra data to their affordable Walmart Family Mobile plans

For those looking for wireless service on the cheap, T-Mobile has long offered one of the best values in mobile with unlimited voice/texting plans exclusive to Walmart starting at just . T-Mobile announced today that they’ll be giving these postpaid plans a 500MB bump in data, bringing that plan up to 1GB of high-speed 4G LTE data, and 3GB for the plan.

The bump goes into effect tomorrow, April 18th and, as usual, is contract free and doesn’t require auto-pay or anything like that to gain a discount. However, T-Mobile will give customers a discount for every line they add, so there’s that. You can find Walmart’s Family Mobile plans (powered by T-Mobile) linked below.

[Walmart Family Mobile]

TAG Heuer teams up with Intel and Google to build their first real smartwatch [UPDATE]

High-end watchmaker TAG Heuer is building a smartwatch, but they can’t do it on their own. The watch is said to be officially revealed tomorrow, with CEO Jean-Claude Biver telling Bloomberg in an interview that the Swiss company had to rely on key partnerships inside Silicon Valley to help build the smartwatch, as Switzerland was lacking the necessary tech know-how.

Exactly who are these partners? According to Reuters, Intel has already signed on to supply the processor, while Pocketlint is reporting that Google is also onboard, who we guess will likely provide the OS. That means, we could be looking at a luxury Android Wear smartwatch to compete with the Apple Watch.

Biver notes that while the internal components and OS will be American, the rest of the watch (casing, dial, crown, and design) is all Swiss. The watch will be a near replica of their current black Carrera watch, which retails for around ,000 depending on the exact model. Needless to say, we don’t expect this new smartwatch will come cheap.

We expect to learn more tomorrow when the new smartwatch is officially unveiled.

 UPDATE: Annnnnnnd… it’s official.

Google wants to buy your unwanted patents with their latest initiative

Are you brilliant enough to have come up with a patented idea but don’t have the means to utilize or protect it? Tired of people infringing on your ideas and having to deal with expensive legal fees and extensive court procedures to battle it out?

If all of that headache moves you to sell your patent, Google wants to make the process of selling it somewhat easier. Instead of dealing with the strenuous process of finding a buyer for a patent on your own, Google is creating an open submission platform that’ll allow you to submit your patents to them for review. Should Google want to snag it (for whichever price you’re asking) they’ll contact you and whisk you through the process to take it off your hands. You get some good money, they get their technology — everyone’s happy.

Google will open a patent submission form from May 8, 2015 through May 22, 2015. Once the portal closes, they’ll undergo a review process to identify which patents they want to buy. You’ll get an email by June 26th, 2015 letting you know whether Google decided to bite the bullet and buy your patent, and payments are expected to be made to lucky souls by the end of August.

Google says this is to be considered an experimental program and attributed its existence to the result of the lawyer equivalent of their “20% time. If you’re not aware, 20% of a Google engineer’s work time each week can be spent on experimental projects that they’re interested in pursuing. Some of Google’s best apps, services and platforms — such as Gmail and AdSense — are the result of 20% time.

What’ll happen if this takes off? Who knows — perhaps Google will find themselves with a very effective and solid foundation for a Craigslist-like patent marketplace. Whatever the case may be, it’s great that Google is giving people who want to ditch their patents an easy out (even if Google’s biggest reason for doing it is because they simply can’t get enough of them).

[via Google]

Apple plans to steal more Android customers by accepting their trade-ins

One annoyance for many folks looking to leave the Android camp is that they can’t trade their device in if they plan to do their business at the Apple store — Apple only ever cared to buy back their own phones and tablets. A new rumor suggests that could be changing, though.

According to 9to5Mac, Apple is looking to introduce a trade-in system for folks who might own Android and Windows Phone devices. The process will be just like your typical trade-in at any retail store or carrier: you take your phone in, they give you a trade value based on its condition, and you decide whether you want to keep your device or fork it over for store credit.

You’re probably vomiting at the thought of letting Apple judge the value of a device that wasn’t conceived within their Cupertino halls. Believe me, I’m with you. But the company partners with BrightStar to monitor the trade-in values for their own products, and there’s no reason that partnership wouldn’t extend here (in fact, we’d say it’s almost necessary for Apple to team up with existing trade-in valuation companies to execute this ambitious undertaking).

Apple’s already had themselves an unfathomable quarter, and giving Android users an easier way to transition certainly won’t hurt. Would you or anyone you know be more willing leave Android and give the “dark side” a shot through the sheer ease of being able to swap your hardware at one destination?

Create your own Sense 7 themes for the HTC One M9 using their handy web tool

If you’ve got a little time to kill this weekend, why not create a theme for the now available HTC One M9? HTC recently launched a handy web tool which allows anyone — both novices and pros alike — to build their own Sense 7 theme. The site is pretty intuitive and easy to use, while at the same time providing enough customizable UI elements that you can take it as far as you’d like.

You can pick different wallpapers (or your own) for placement on several HTC apps: home screen, lock screen, app drawer, Dot View app, or messaging apps — then tweak all the colors and icons to your liking. From there, you can even change up the sounds and font, then save everything to your account and post online for other Sense 7 users to download. Veteran themers can try out HTC Themes’ Maker Pro section to really get in depth.

According the landing page, HTC Themes will soon have its own app for theme creation on the go, although it’s currently linking to the BlinkFeed app on Google Play. In either case, HTC Themes is something to check out while you debate picking up an HTC One M9.

[HTC Themes]

Samsung confirms their next smart watch is circular and invites developers to help them

Yesterday, a pair of Samsung trademarks hinted that the company was finally ready to try their hand at a circular smart watch. It didn’t take long for Samsung to come out and confirm those suspicions.

The company has issued an open invitation for developers to help them build their next wearables platform ahead of launch. They’ve confirmed that it’s for the 7 generation of their Gear lineup, and while they didn’t exactly spell out the word “circular” the teaser you see above should do enough to convince you.

Developers who want to get their apps going on the upcoming watch can get started as soon as today by heading here and grabbing the SDK. Unfortunately that’s as much as we know right now as Samsung didn’t even give us an idea as to when this product might be ready for consumers. All we know is that if the Samsung Galaxy S6 is anything to go by, Samsung’s first circular Gear smart watch could turn this market on its head.

[via Samsung]

Is Google unveiling their wireless service today?

Google hasn’t been shy enough not to reveal that they’ve been working on launching a wireless service, but the company has understandably been a bit hush on the details. But if the Wall Street Journal’s information is accurate we could be seeing Google’s first unveiling as soon as today.

Previous rumors and information suggest Google will enlist T-Mobile and Sprint for the airwaves necessary for wireless service, though it won’t be your typical MVNO experience. We’re told to expect innovative cellular capabilities such as the ability to seamlessly hop from one network type to the next without any hiccups, and for the phone to automatically detect which network performs better in any given area. Leveraging WiFi calling will also be an area of focus for Google.

More details about the service leaked earlier this month thanks to the revelation of an app called “Project Fi.” It told of wireless service that could be switched between multiple different devices without switching SIM cards, data buckets where you only pay for the exact amount of data you use, the ability to opt-out of cellular data sharing and other cool features that most carriers have yet to explore.

It’s important to remember that Google’s not expecting to become king of wireless overnight with this move. Their desire is to help push cellular technology forward much in the same way that they’re doing for cars and broadband landline internet here in the United States. Good on them to think about the greater good, we’d say, and we can’t wait to see what exactly they have planned for its supposed launch later this year.

LG changed their mind, will launch the quirky LG AKA outside of South Korea starting next week

Originally designed exclusively for South Korea, LG has announced that they’ll soon be bringing their quirky AKA line to new markets, starting first in Hong Kong. The phones definitely have personality, something we never thought we’d say about a smartphone. Each LG AKA features a different character that peeks out from the top of their own accessories, showing off their own unique personas. There’s 4 characters total, which LG describes as:

• Eggy (yellow) who falls frequently in love


• Wooky (white) ever-so-impulsive


• Soul (navy) music lover with a soft-heart


• Yo-Yo (pink) who is always on a diet

It’s more than just cartoon eyes and cases, with the characters woven into the phone’s wallpapers, ringtones, and widgets. With soon to be global release of the device, LG has also added something they’re calling an “emotional UX element.” Essentially, users can further customize their AKA’s eyes with glasses or different eyebrows. They’ll even be including stickers and an “Art Toy” figurine which can be digitized by snapping a picture of it, then adding it to selfies or other photos taken by the phone.

The phone isn’t a high-end powerhouse, but it isn’t exactly low-end either, with the same laser auto focus found on the LG G3, as well as LG’s touch & shoot and gesture shot camera features. Here’s everything you’ll find in the LG AKA:

LG AKA specs

• 1.2GHz quad-core processor


• 5-inch HD IPS display


• 16GB internal / 1.5GB RAM / microSD slot


• 8MP rear camera with Laser Auto Focus / 2.1MP front facing


• 2,610mAh (removable)


• Android 4.4 KitKat


• 138.7 x 71.9 x 9.9mm


• 135.5g (without font slide cover) / 157g (with front slide cover)


• 4G LTE connectivity


• Wi-Fi / Bluetooth 4.0 / NFC / A-GPS / USB 2.0

The LG AKA was first introduced in South Korea towards the end of 2014, where it would later receive an iF Design Award for it’s quirky design. Apparently, customer feedback and sales have been so good, that LG decided to bring launch it elsewhere. The LG AKA will be launching in Hong Kong next week, then soon China, Taiwan, Singapore, and eventually Turkey. LG said they’ll announce new markets once they’re ready.

Google’s Sundar Pichai confirms plans to launch an MVNO wireless carrier and their motive behind it

Before we had our bit of morning fun over at the Android booth, Google’s Sundar Pichai — who heads the Chrome and Android teams — took to the stage at the Mobile World Congress opening keynote. The full talk was quite interesting and chock full of discussion about the now and the future.

Most of what you care about is in the future. Thankfully Pichai confirmed a few different rumors we’d been hearing since 2014 and earlier. The biggest confirmation was that Google certainly is exploring opportunities to introduce a new wireless service that leverages WiFi technology to facilitate ultra affordable mobile service.

Google’s not trying to become the next Verizon, nor do they expect to. Instead, the company will look to work with those carriers in an effort to help push connectivity and network stability forward.

Solving issues like seamless hand-offs between WiFi and cellular and the ability to have two calls automatically reconnect in the event of a drop are just a couple of the things Google wants to explore in their venture. We know it’s not purely about money — Google’s revenue stream is healthy enough as is — so we know their motives are fueled by their never-ending desire to innovate.

Google didn’t confirm who they’d be working with to get this off the ground (rumors suggest Sprint and T-Mobile are likely candidates), but the company will hopefully have more formal details to share at Google I/O later this year.

Microsoft reportedly discounts smartphone licensing fees for OEMs who pre-install their apps

We weren’t sure what Microsoft offered Samsung to convince them to pre-install their apps on Samsung’s latest phones and tablets, but new information reported by DigiTimes suggest a very valuable deal could have been made.

According to them, Microsoft has started offering OEMs discounts on smartphone licensing fees in exchange for getting Microsoft apps preloaded on their devices. If you’re not aware, Microsoft commands a great deal of essential mobile-related patents and force many Android manufacturers to pay for the privilege of using them.

They make a lot of money doing this, with estimates being anywhere between to per device. When you consider the hundreds of millions of Android devices sold by the top manufacturers, that’s a lot of dough (so much so that they actually make more money on Android’s success than they do their own mobile platform).

Lowering the price tag for companies who agree to install Microsoft apps is a very smart move. While it helps, Microsoft doesn’t really need the extra bit of revenue that they get from these deals.

In their quest to transition to a software and services company it’s increasingly important for customers to be exposed to these apps. It helps Microsoft capture mind share in the absence of market share. Some would say that is far more valuable than a few extra dollars being made for every Android device being sold, and they wouldn’t be wrong.

Whether this is the deal Samsung, Dell and the 9 other Android OEMs agreed to in order to accept Microsoft’s apps on their devices remains to be known, but we’re finding it hard to think of any other reason to get in bed with a company they don’t otherwise need to get in bed with to be successful.

Here are the new themes making their way to the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge [VIDEO]

Themes seem to be the new software feature smartphone makers are (finally) including in their custom Android UIs. We love themes. The ability to completely change up the look of your device on the fly is just one of things that make Android great (and sets it apart from iOS).

When the Samsung Galaxy S6 initially became available to reviewers, it featured a modest amount of themes for the user to apply to their device, about 12 total. But Samsung promised more would be on the way and as it turns out, the boys at SamMobile have stumbled upon a few new ones already making their way to the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge. The themes, which will be available in time for the devices’ official April 10th launch, showcase a variety of styles and color palettes.

While most fall a little more on the girly side (there’s literally a section for girl tailored themes), our favorite would have to be the blacked out them with wire frame icons. Aside from looking slick, the dark colored background and see through icons will further help minimize battery drain caused from brighter themes. We could definitely see ourselves switching to this theme before heading out for a night on the town.

Samsung is preparing to publish an SDK later this month that should get designers up and running with themes on the Galaxy S6. At that point, expect to find a smorgasbord of free and paid themes — hopefully more that are a bit more masculine/unisex.

Google releases their own watch face for Android Wear called “Street Art”

Back in December Google officially opened the doors for custom Android Wear watch faces. Since that day we’ve seen many creative and unique watch faces fill up the Play Store. Now, three months later, they have released their own watch face.

The watch face is called “Street Art,” and it brings artwork from dozens of artists within the Google Art Project. You won’t get a ton of customization options, but there are three different time modes: analog, digital, and minimal. With the different time modes and many backgrounds to choose from there are many configurations to choose from. There’s not a lot to say about this watch face. If you’re looking for something artsy and simple you can download Street Art below for free.

Street Art Watch Face | Google Play Store

SanDisk was able to stuff 200GB of storage space inside their latest microSD card

You thought SanDisk’s 128GB microSD cards were insane? The company has just announced another huge milestone — a whopping 200GB of data inside a chip smaller than the size of a nickle. It’s a UHS-1 Class 10 chip, which means it can transfer data at up to 90 megabytes per second.

So why not 256GB, the natural step up from 128GB? It’s likely SanDisk was unable to physically fit enough circuitry, doodads and whatever else makes these things tick inside such a compact form factor. It’s possible that could change with refined engineering techniques in the future, but for now this is as high as it gets.

You shouldn’t bat an eyelash at 200GB. It’s absolutely insane, and it’s even crazier to know that it can work in any device that supports microSDXC cards of 64GB or higher (which includes the newly-announced HTC One M9, but unfortunately not the just-as-fresh Samsung Galaxy S6).

Of course, you’d have to be willing to spend the 0 that this thing will cost to start so if you have that sort of money to throw around on micro storage chips you’ll likely be able to afford a smartphone that can utilize it. The chips are due Q2 2015.

[via SanDisk]

Speck unveils Galaxy S6 cases for their popular CandyShell and MightyShell lineups

Yesterday was a doozy in the land of mobile. We saw Samsung announce the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge. We saw HTC announce the One M9. And we saw a popular accessory maker strike while the iron’s hot as Speck announced their product lineup for all three devices.

There are 9 different cases total and the Samsung Galaxy S6 gets the majority of the love, with 7 of the 9 cases made for it and only the CandyShell Grip case being made available for the Galaxy S6 Edge and HTC One M9.

• Galaxy S6 CandyShell Case (.95)


• Galaxy S6 CandyShell Case + Faceplate (.95)


• Galaxy S6 CandyShell Grip Case (.95)


• Galaxy S6 Edge CandyShell Grip Case (.95)


• HTC One M9 CandyShell Grip (.95)


• Galaxy S6 CandyShell Card Case (.95)


• Galaxy S6 CandyShell Inked Case (.95)


• Galaxy S6 MightyShell Case (.95)


• Galaxy S6 MightyShell Case + Faceplate (.95)

These are iterations of previously available and quite popular phone cases that – if you haven’t taken notice of before – you may want to now.

The CandyShell Cases are the glossy, colorful cases with a hard outer shell that offer military grade protection:

The CandyShell Grip – the only one made for the S6, S6 Edge, and M9 – is similar to the CandyShell but it includes patterned rubber gripping areas that not only offer a cool look, but help make sure your sexy slim device doesn’t slip out of your hands.

Then you’ve got my personal favorite: the CandyShell Card. It securely holds up to 3 cards such as credit cards and your drivers license. Everyone I know who has this case absolutely loves it, which leaves me wondering why I’ve never owned one myself.

Then you’ve got CandyShell Inked which essentially offers a vibrant, printed design for a upcharge on the CandyShell and the MightyShell which offer 2X military grade protection for those with a rugged lifestyle or ultra-clumsiness.

A recent poll shows that 70% of our readers plan to buy the Samsung Galaxy S6 or the HTC One M9… will you be buying one of these Speck cases to go along?

Cyanogen announces partnership with Microsoft that will bundle their apps on Cyanogen OS

OK, so Cyanogen was only half-joking about their operating system being “powered by Microsoft” on April Fools day. The company today announced that they’ve entered a strategic partnership with the Redmond-based company to have their apps pre-loaded on Cyanogen OS.

Bing services, Skype, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook, and Microsoft Office will all find homes on devices that come with Cyanogen OS (and not necessarily CyanogenMod, the community-focused ROM). The apps will be “deeply integrated” with Cyanogen OS at its core, though we’re not expecting them to enable you to do anything that simply downloading the apps from the Google Play Store doesn’t already.

And that’s it folks — Cyanogen and Microsoft definitely are a thing, no matter how many rumor-busting reports wanted to deny it. Let us know how you feel about that in the comments ahead.

[via Digital Journal]

Real-time tweets making their way into Google search results, but only on mobile

It’s official: starting today, you’ll begin seeing tweets sprinkled into your Google search results. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. We told you guys about the deal Twitter struck with Google back in early February in hopes of bringing fresh, new meat to the social network. What better way to do that than by teaming up with the internet’s biggest search giant?

Don’t worry about seeing Twitter results for any search query, only specific keywords will pull them up. Google says only things like “NASA Twitter” or “#MadMenFinale” will display tweets as they appear in real-time. Oh, and keep in this mind content from Twitter is only being displayed on mobile for now, which includes searches performed in the Google app or in your browser.

That being said, you might be careful what you tweet. Wouldn’t want a prospective employer Google searching your name and pulling up tweets about how wasted you and your friends got the night before.

[Google]

Google’s self-driving cars have been involved in 11 accidents in 6 years, and none were their fault

“Self-driving cars? Madness! What happens when the cars get hacked? Or the electric circuitry gets all weird? Or, even worse, they become sentient evil beings? These cars must be banned before they even hit the road!”

Those are the lines we imagine many people have had run through their heads when they first heard Google was working on self-driving vehicles, but Google’s cars have actually proven to be much safer than many people could have anticipated. Head of the project Chris Urmson revealed that Google’s cars have only been involved in 11 accidents in the past 6 years.

While that number alone should be low enough to quell fears, this fact should drive that point home: none of the accidents were caused by fault of the vehicles, and they all resulted in 0 injuries and only minor damage. The most common cause of accidents were other drivers rear-ending the driverless cars, which Google says accounted for 8 of the 11 accidents.

Those are some pretty strong numbers to be able to tout, and Google’s sure to keep it in their back pocket should they ever face strong resistance from road regulators due to questions of safety.

Other choice statistics from Urmson’s latest blog post:

• Google self-driving cars have traveled a combined 1.7 million miles in testing combined


• Of the 1.7 million miles, nearly 1 million were autonomous, the rest being manually controlled by the test drivers


• Google is averaging 10,000 self-driven miles per week, which is just less than a typical American drives in a year


• Driver error causes 94% of road crashes


• In America, 660,000 people at any given moment have their attention split while behind the wheel (texting, calling, eating, etc)


• Meanwhile, Google’s self-driving cars have 100% of their attention focused over all 360 degrees of their surroundings

You can read Urmson’s full post over at Medium right now if you’re interested in a deeper look at how their self-driving car project has evolved to become one of the most safe driving experiences on the road today.

Google highlights their favorite Material Design apps on Google Play, here’s the full list

Hot of the heels of Google I/O 2015, Google’s Design Team is ready to talk about, what else, but design. During I/O, they gave their entire site a fresh new Material design overhaul. As most of you know, Material is Google’s new design language that was introduced last year in Android 5.0 Lollipop and bled out into all of Google’s web services.

Material design focuses on clean, minimal design with bold colors and typography that emphasize depth and are brought to life with gorgeous animations. Still confused? Simply put, it’s a lot like paper. Well, maybe the Google design team can explain it better in their latest video:

While we’re just now seeing more and more Android apps follow this design philosophy, some definitely do it better than others. There’s no better way to show what Material Design is than by simply showing you. That’s why Google’s Material Design team decided to showcase their favorite apps adhering to their guidelines in a new featured page in the Google Play Store.

There’s 18 apps total ranging from fitness to messaging and everything in between but Google hand-picked 6 which they felt excelled in specific areas for their first ever “Material Design Awards.” Here are the top picks:

B&H Photo Video Audio Pro for Immersive Imagery

New York Times for Elegant Typography

Pocket for Adaptive Layouts

Pocket Casts for Seamless Browsing

Tumblr for Delightful Animation

Weather Timeline for Crafted Simplicity

If you’d like to see all the others are featured, the full list can be found over on Google’s landing page here.