Verizon HTC One Max Getting Android 4.4.2 on Monday, April 7th

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Some good news for HTC One Max users on Verizon today. According to @moversi, who is the executive director of Product Management at HTC, so he does know what he’s talking about. He took to Twitter today to let us know that they have received technical approval from Verizon for the Sense 5.5/Android 4.4.2 KitKat update. And that the update is expected to roll out on Monday afternoon, which is April 7th. The update should be pretty large, I’d guess around 300MB in size. Of course, the update will be rolling out via a staged rollout. So not everyone will get the update on Monday, some might be a few days later, which sucks but that’s how these updates roll out these days. There is a technical reason behind the staged roll out, which is to be sure the update isn’t bricking devices, because that can turn into a huge problem for HTC.

So far there’s no change log, but we should see the same changes as we saw in the Android 4.4.2 update for the HTC One. Which means on the Sense side there’s mostly only changes in the camera app. Otherwise it’s just minor UI fixes. However, the HTC One Max launched with Sense 5.5 on board, so the update may be even smaller than that. On the Android side, we’re looking at immersive mode and plenty of other great features coming to the HTC One Max.

Unfortunately the HTC One Max isn’t getting Sense 6 just yet, which is definitely a huge update over Sense 5.5 and I’m really liking it so far. But you should see the Sense 6 update later this year, which should make the HTC One Max fly even more, which will be amazing. How many of our readers are sporting the HTC One Max on Verizon Wireless? Are you excited to get the update to Android 4.4.2 on your Verizon HTC One Max? Be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments down below.

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T-Mobile CEO Mocking Sprint Over their Framily Plans and ETF Pay Offs – Big Surprise?

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Sprint announced their Framily plans back in January at CES. Which is actually a pretty innovative plan. It’s kind of like a family plan except everyone gets billed individually and you can add up to 10 people on your Framily plan. Additionally, the more people you add, the more your bill drops. So it’s a bit confusing to explain to people but once they understand how it works, it’s actually a pretty cool plan. Especially if you know a lot of your friends and family are on Sprint. Last night, Sprint announced that they will pay up to $650 for your friends and family to leave a carrier and come to Sprint and join the Framily plans. Of course this got John Legere’s brain going thinking that it sounded familiar.

It’s not really out of Legere’s character to bash Sprint, which he has been doing for months about their Framily plan. Saying how Sprint can’t spell and stuff like that. But now he’s going after them paying off ETFs for a few weeks. Here’s his latest tweet on the subject – I’ll admit I got a laugh out of the hashtags:

Hey @Sprint- Paying off ETFs 2 get people 2 switch is a great idea (I should know) but for just a couple wks? That’s #FruckedUp #Cheapskates

I do like how Legere played Sprint’s game on the first hashtag there, #FruckedUp. Because Sprint likes to say Framily a lot. So it’s a bit funny, but then again maybe Legere should be working on his network a bit more? Now if any of you have been following me for a few months, you’ll know I’m a big T-Mobile fan. But I’m also the first to admit that their network isn’t the best everywhere, and that Legere does go over the line sometimes with his antics. But he is doing good things over at T-Mobile, this time last year, we had only a handful of LTE markets, and still had contracts. Now look at us, Contract-free – sort of – and we can upgrade every 6 months. Plus we have LTE in a lot of markets now. I know Legere and T-Mobile say they cover 400 million Americans, but I don’t really believe that. That’s close to Verizon’s number.

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Driving Assistant App Automatic Can Help To Improve Your Driving Habits

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Android users can now have the pleasure of using a cool driving assistant app called Automatic, that can help them improve their driving habits. The app has actually been on iOS for a while now and it has finally made the jump to the play store, and the app combos together with a tiny little dongle called the Automatic link that you plug into your cars data port, and the dongle easily connects to your phone through Bluetooth. The mission of the team at automatic is as they say, to unlock our cars potential and redefine people’s relationship to driving. Alongside the safety features of Automatic and how it can help you improve the way you drive, it also has efficiency benefits, and can make driving more fun by making it easier to do certain things.

Like seamless car sharing for instance. If you have a friend or family member that you want to let borrow your car, but they don’t know where you parked it, they can simply find it on the map using the Automatic app, which is able to track your vehicle by finding the Automatic link. This can also serve as a great way to always know yourself where you parked, so you don’t have to worry about getting lost. The Automatic link/app pair can also help you with auto efficiency as we stated above, by helping you to save on gas just by adjusting your driving habits a little bit. For example, it learns from the way you drive, and when you do things that might waste gas it’ll notify with a light audio tone. You can then track your drive score from the app which receives data from the Automatic link, and narrow down where you need to improve.

Automatic can also help you with safety. Since it’s connected to your car, if the check engine light comes on it will alert you on your phone with a description of the problem and possible solutions to on how to fix it. If it’s an issue that you can take care of yourself, you can avoid having to take your car in to get serviced to fix a minor problem. In the event of a crash, it can also help to alert 911 with your location so they know were to find you, and notify family or friends so that they know your safe and help is on the way. The Automatic app itself is free, while the Automatic link dongle is $99. If you have been looking for an easy way to manage your driving habits, Automatic is the way to do it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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HTC: “We’re Happy with HTC One M8 Sales So Far”

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Last night, a report came out that the HTC One M8 was already seeing pretty bad sales. But what that report failed to mention – or maybe forgot – is that the HTC One M8 actually launches next week. Yes the device has been out for a week, but only on Verizon in the US and at Carphone Warehouse in the UK. So obviously sale numbers won’t be that high. But on April 11th, the HTC One M8 will be available at T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T and various other countries around the world. Around 100 other countries. So like I’ve said before, don’t believe those “early reports” as they are usually wrong, and/or biased. Now these numbers in this report weren’t necessarily wrong. As it’s coming from Chitika, which is measuring the web traffic of devices. And the HTC One M8 is sitting at 0.1%, while it’s not the best, it’s not the worst either.

Sure the HTC One M8 isn’t seeing the same success as the Galaxy S5 would see if it were in just Verizon stores and Carphone Warehouse, but that’s a whole other story, since Samsung spends a ton on marketing every year. That’s a ton of money that HTC doesn’t have. HTC America’s President, Jason Mackenzie went to Twitter last night to say that these reports coming out last night were wrong and that HTC is pleased with the initial sales of the HTC One M8.

Now if the web traffic from the HTC One M8 is still under 1% after a week of it being available on every carrier, I’d be worried, but at this point I’m not. HTC has an amazing device here. While the camera is somewhat controversial, it’s still an amazing camera – more on that later though. How many of our readers have picked up the HTC One M8 or have pre-ordered it? Let us know in the comments below.

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Electronics to Get Thinner and More Flexible Thanks to Samsung’s Breakthrough

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Chances are you’ve never heard of graphene, but you would definitely have heard of carbon. In seemingly unrelated news, we are very excited about Samsung’s breakthrough in graphene manufacturing. Before you think that we’ve gone bonkers, let’s bring both these statements into perspective. Graphene is a form of carbon – specifically speaking, it’s a crystalline allotrope of carbon – in which carbon atoms are densely packed in a hexagonal chain-like pattern. Graphene is similar to graphite in that it is a single-atom thick layer of graphite. The thing which excites scientists in that graphene has high durability – higher than steel even – and is highly conducive of electricity and heat while being highly flexible. In fact, graphene beats silicon hands down on conductivity being a hundred times more conductive than silicon. For the uninitiated, our entire electronics revolution is dependent solely on silicon chips for conduction purposes. Graphene’s durability, conductivity and flexibility make it a unique material for flexible displays, wearable devices and electronics in general. In fact, if the material gains wide-spread usage, we could even see mobile phones which could be rolled up in any which way, and TVs which could be as thin as paper. But we’re overshooting ourselves. Graphene was originally discovered in 2004 and in almost the last 10 years the material could not be brought into commercial manufacturing practices. One major factor was that graphene is most conducive when it is synthesized with a single crystal layer, which would then get expanded to a large area resulting in a single wafer of graphene which would be almost transparent and highly conducive. However, researchers found that if graphene was produced using the easier ‘multi-crystal’ method of synthesis (multiple crystals being used to synthesize a large are graphene wafer), the conductivity of the formed crystal was drastically reduced, which would not be commercially viable. Samsung Electronic’s subsidiary – the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology in partnership with Sungkyunkwan University have announced a breakthrough in graphene manufacturing technology wherein a single-crystal wafer scale graphene can be manufactured in a commercially viable manner. Nokia’s gets $1.36 billion for research in graphene manufacturing. “This is one of the most significant breakthroughs in graphene research in history,” said the laboratory leaders at SAIT’s Lab. “We expect this discovery to accelerate the commercialization of graphene, which could unlock the next era of consumer electronic technology.” So who wants a mobile phone, which can also double as a smartwatch or bracelet?

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Incipio Watson Case for the HTC One M8 Review

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HTC One M8 Unboxing and First Impressions

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Today, Fedex brought me a package which was the HTC One M8. It’s not the Verizon variant either, it’s the T-Mobile version, which isn’t even released yet. So I figured I should do an unboxing video – since so many of you always ask for them – and some first impressions of the device. I also wanted to take some time and talk about the review. With the HTC One M8 we are breaking the review down into two parts. Since Sense 6 is heading to last year’s One family, we are doing a review on the HTC One M8, which Tom is doing, and then one for Sense 6, which I’m doing. So that way those with last year’s HTC One, One Mini or One Max can know what to expect with the update to Sense 6 which should be coming soon.

So far, I’m very impressed with the HTC One M8. Of course, I haven’t had enough time to really go over the camera on the HTC One M8, but we’ll have plenty of posts for it, and comparing it to other devices we have on hand. So be sure to keep it locked to Androidheadlines.com. The HTC One M8 is a beautifully looking device, and it’s slightly larger than last year’s One, but I think it’s still a good size. Even with the Boomsound speakers. Don’t even get me started on those. I’m using those speakers right now to play Google Play Music, and I’ve fallen in love again with their front-facing speakers.

As far as first impressions go, they are all positive. Later on today and this week we’ll do a comparison between the camera on the One M8 and the G2 so we can see just how good it is. So look forward to that. We’re going to have a ton of HTC One M8 content. Many of you come to us for news, but we don’t just do news. We also do reviews and you can think of us as a reference desk. We want to be sure that everyone is using all the features of the HTC One M8 as it’s a great device and needs to be used to its full potential. As always, if you have questions about the device, let us know in the comments below.

Unboxing video:

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