Cyanogen Inc. Founder Koushik Dutta Gets Allcast Working On Amazon Fire TV

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Chromecast isn’t the only streaming device that’s getting Allcast support. Today Koushik Dutta announced that he was able to get Allcast working on the Amazon Fire TV streaming box. Amazon Fire TV launched earlier this week, and as opposed to running on a different software that isn’t quite android like the Chromecast does, it runs android just like Amazon’s Kindle Fire line of tablets. This has all sorts of benefits past the reasons why this is great for Koush’s Allcast app, but for now we’ll stick to what it means for Koush and the future of Allcast.

In the short of it, Koush points out that the Amazon Fire TV while having a more complex API to use, it has much more flexibility than that of the Chromecast APIs, and was immensely more familiar than the Chromecast since it just runs android. He also points out that Amazon Fire TV’s performance is better than that of the Apple TV, which should make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. The most important note to mention is that the screen mirroring capbility, something that Koush has been working on for a little while now with the Chromecast HDMI streaming Dongle from Google, is also better on the Amazon Fire TV because of it’s more flexible API. This means that we could end up seeing a fully working screen mirror feature from Allcast to the Amazon Fire TV in the near future.

The APIs may be harder to work with, but it sounds like the payoff is a much greater reward in the long run. Alongside the short description of his first use experiences with the Amazon streaming box, there is a short little YouTube video that shows him opening the Allcast app on his Nexus 5, and then pairing it to the Amazon Fire TV to stream a movie. It looks like it works pretty flawlessly, which should end up being great news for any of you that are planning on picking up the Amazon Fire TV, especially if you have already have the Allcast app installed. If you’ll end up being a newcomer to both, Allcast will end up costing you a one time fee of $4.99, but from then on you can stream as much content as you wish without limits. You can try the app out for free first, but you’ll be limited to playing a short snippet of a video and then be prompted to upgrade.

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Internal Apple Documents Express Concern Over Market Share War with Samsung and Android

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The Apple-Samsung patent war rages on, and at this point, it seems like it may never end. The latest development in the case brings something of note, however: it would appear that Apple was worried about the aggressive marketing of Android manufacturers like Samsung, and that the market was shifting away from devices like the iPhone. So say internal Apple documents Samsung’s lawyers presented during a cross-examination of Apple Vice President Phil Schiller, at least

These aren’t long-buried worries, either, as one of the documents presented was from a fiscal year 2014 meeting, while other snippets were taken from an email Schiller himself sent out after the 2013 Superbowl. It would appear that Apple’s worries about Android are still relatively fresh, which may explain why the company is pursuing this litigation against Samsung so vigorously. In that document from the FY 2014 meeting, one Apple salesperson pointed out the company’s competitors had “ drastically improved their hardware and in some cases their ecosystems.”

That same document pointed to sales trends favoring high-end phones with large screens and budget-priced devices that fell under the $300 mark – two categories which the iPhone doesn’t really fit into all that well. Schiller’s personal concerns centered on Samsung, and they seem to have been set off by the ad Samsung ran around the time of the 2013 Superbowl. “I watched the Samsung pre-superbowl ad that launched today,” Schiller wrote in an email from last year. “It’s pretty good and I can’t help but thinking ‘these guys are feeling it (like an athlete that can’t miss because they are in a zone), while we struggle to nail a compelling brief on iPhone.”

If there was any doubt before, these documents and emails will definitely lay it to rest: Samsung’s success had Apple at least a little on edge. What did Schiller have to say in response? Concerning the document from the FY 2014 meeting, he said he didn’t agree with much of what the document said, continuing on to claim that it doesn’t represent Apple policy. We’ll have to wait and see if Samsung’s lawyers have more of these interesting documents to present to the court, so keep it here at Android Headlines for more.

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Two More Apps Receive Official Chromecast Support, You Can Now Stream Music With Rhapsody And Napster

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More apps are being added to the list of officially supported apps for Chromecast. This time around we’re getting access to Rhapsody and Napster. You thought Napster was dead right? So did I. Nope. They were bought out by Rhapsody in 2011 apparently and still remain, although it is operated independently from Rahpsody. But enough about that, lets talk about the Chromecast support. Honestly in that regard, there’s not much to tell. You’ll now just be able to stream you favorite tunes right to your big screen or what ever you have your Chromecast plugged into, so you can listen to music all throughout your home with these two services. Both android apps are being updated today so you’ll be able to use either one with the Chromecast as soon as the app updates.

So now lets talk about what you get with Rhapsody and Napster as opposed to competing services like Play Music All Access and Spotify. You get access to Rhapsody’s library of over 32 million songs, without ads, and seamless streaming playback which you can send to you Chromecast. As of right now other services that have Chromecast support that compete with Rhapsody are Real Player Cloud, Google Play Music All Access, and Rdio. We would add in Songza and Pandora, but they’re not really similar to Rhapsody as they’re both just internet radio apps. Just like all other apps with Chromecast support, to cast to your Chromecast all you’ll have to do is open up the app and hit the cast screen button that hangs out in either the top or bottom right corners, and you’re done.

Rhapsody costs $9.99 a month just like Play Music All Access, and you get to start out by getting a 30-day free trial, after which you’ll end up paying the monthly fee. There is certainly no shortage of ways to stream music to your Chromecast, and the addition of these two new apps just adds more to the list of options. It is especially good news for those who might already be subscribers of the service and use a Chromecast dongle, and just might save any customers that may have considered switching services due to the lack of support. As of right now it doesn’t look like the app is updated, as the Cast Screen button doesn’t pop up in the Rhapsody app for me just yet. Sit tight if you were wanting to use this service as it will probably show up soon.

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Xiaomi Ranks In Top 10 Global Best Selling Smartphones List For February 2014

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The Woz may have been right when he said that Xiaomi was ready for the US market. The up and coming Chinese manufacturer of smartphones that run the android operating system, and the company behind the popular aftermarket android firmware called Miui, just recently released their newest addition to the lineup of phones they’re offering, the Redmi note. The key thing to pay attention to here is that Xiaomi has just landed themselves on the top 10 global best selling smartphones list done by Monthly Market pulse. Not only did they make the top 10 ranking, but they landed on the list twice, and all this with only selling devices in the Chinese market. Xiaomi devices are officially sold in China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong, so the fact that they could make it on the list with other bigger name brands that offer global accessibility of their devices, is quite an amazing feat.

Neither of the phones that actually made it to the list were the recently released Redmi note, but rather the older Xiaomi Redmi and the Xiaomi Mi3. The Mi3 brings up the rear of the list snatching up the number ten spot, while the Redmi actually comes in at number seven, ahead of not only another phone from its own brand, but the Samsung Galaxy S3, and the Samsung Galaxy S3 mini. Lets take a second to let this sink in for just a moment. The Xiaomi Redmi actually came in ahead of a top flagship Samsung device. No matter how you slice it, that’s impressive. Probably more so because the Galaxy S3 was virtually available everywhere on the planet, yet the Redmi was only available to a select few Chinese markets.

Xiaomi continues to wow us with what they have pumping out of their fledgling three year old company, which is all the more reason consumers and other bigger competing brands should take notice. Xiaomi has only been around a few years, and they’re shaking things up, in a big way. Now just to keep things clear, this list is only made up of the best selling phones for February of 2014. So that means the list can and probably will change for March once the list gets put out. With that said, we think the team at Xiaomi deserves a round of applause for their hard work, because they have consistently been putting out awesome devices at a fraction of the cost of other OEMs, and the devices are performing extremely well. Have you ever used a Xiaomi device before?

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US Smartphone Marketshare Numbers For February Dominated By Android

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We already knew that Android grabbed the biggest slice of pie when it came to US smartphone marketshare, but according to these new numbers from ComScore for the numbers from February, Android not only holds the biggest slice yet again, but it grew from last November when the numbers were previously put out. The ComScore numbers show that Android’s gain went from 51.9 percent to 52.1 percent. It’s a small gain, but a gain is a gain. Apple’s iOS holds its number two spot of course ahead of Windows Phone 8 and Blackberry with a score of 41.3 percent, which is actually a gain of 0.1 percent. Windows Phone rose a little to grab up 3.4 percent marketshare, and Blackbery actually fell some and now only holds 2.9 percent marketshare. Interestingly enough, Symbian still has a place on this list, and still holds 0.2 percent marketshare.

While the three major smartphone operating systems all grew their marketshare for users on their platforms, Android clearly has the dominant lead and continues to do so. When it comes to hardware sales though things take a little bit of a different turn as Apple holds the top spot here, with 41.3 percent of the US smartphones sold. This puts Samsung in second place, with only 27 percent marketshare for smartphones sold, and finishing out the top five of ComScores list for smartphone OEMs are LG with 6.8 percent marketshare, Motorola with 6.3 percent marketshare, and HTC with only 5.4 percent marketshare. Both Apple and Samsung grew their percentage numbers here, with Apple seeing another 0.1 percent gain, and Samsung gained a flat 1 percent. LG also grew their numbers as they saw a 0.3 percent gain in marketshare. Both Motorola and HTC lost numbers, and saw a decrease of 0.4 percent and a flat 1 percent respectively.

It probably wasn’t any surprise to learn that Android once again holds the number one spot for smartphone OS marketshare in the US, but it might have surprised some to see Apple take the lead of actual smartphones sold over Samsung. Especially since Samsung devices run Android which is holds the largest amount of marketshare for the different OS platforms. It was also disappointing to see HTC get a decline, but hopefully their numbers will turn around once they start selling the MTC One M8 in more places.

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ASUS Chromebook Pictures Leak Out

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We’ve known that ASUS is working on a Chromebook that should be coming out this year. Now we have some pictures of their Chromebook, which appears to be the C200. From the pictures it looks like another 11.6-inch Chromebook, and we also have no idea what specs are inside. However, you can see an Intel sticker on the laptop, so it’s likely we’ll have the same SoC that we had in the Acer C720 and a few of HP’s Chromebooks late last year. Which is a Haswell chip, and provides a ton of battery life. Yes, Intel has a newer chip for Chromebooks that they announced this week but I don’t think it’s quite ready for mainstream just yet.

Looking at the ASUS Chromebook here, it looks just like a regular ASUS laptop, which we all know and love their build quality for laptops. ASUS is the one that a lot of us had been waiting on to get our hands on. It’s also hard to tell what kind of ports it has, but we do know it has a HDMI port as well as probably a couple of USB ports. Likely 2.0, but I’d love to see USB 3.0 on-board. It also comes with 100GB of Google Drive for free for 2 years. Which is standard with Chromebooks these days.

There’s still no release date on the ASUS Chromebook C200 yet, but it looks like we’re getting close to an announcement and possible release. Which I’m excited to check out ASUS’ Chromebook, as I love the build of their PC laptops and even their tablets. In my opinion, they are right up there with HTC and Apple as far as build quality goes on their devices. How many of our readers are interested in an ASUS Chromebook? Let us know in the comments down below.

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Featured Review: Incipio’s Watson Case for the HTC One M8

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The HTC One M8 is out, well it’s on Verizon right now but will be hitting other carriers next week. And many case manufacturers have already announced their own cases and have them ready for purchase. Among those are Incipio, who are pretty big fans of Android Headlines. They’ve sent us a few of their cases to review – and giveaway. The first one we’ll be reviewing is the Watson case from Incipio. this is a wallet Folio case for the HTC One, which seems to be a pretty popular style of cases as of late. The Watson case is available in White/Teal as well as black. Obviously, I have the black on here that I’m reviewing.

The Watson case is a very nice looking case from Incipio, but then again so are all of their cases. It’s kind of like the Dot View case, or the S View Case in the fact that it flips around the front. Which inside the front are about 3 pockets for you to add your own cards, like your ID, credit cards, etc. Now the back of the case is actually two parts. There’s a hard plastic case then there’s the leather-like case that goes around the entire thing. This is because the Wallet Folio acts as a stand. So you can stand it up to watch a video on YouTube, etc. Which is definitely a nice feature to have, especially given how amazing this display is and the Boomsound front-facing speakers on the HTC One M8.

This case is available now from Incipio’s website for $44.99, or Amazon for $39.09. So you can take your pick. It’s a really nice case, even though I’m not a fan of the wallet cases on my devices, I’d still use it everyday on the HTC One M8, it looks amazing. We’ve got a few more cases from Incipio that we need to review, so make sure you stay locked on Android Headlines.

Video Review

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Gallery

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