HTC One Max on Sprint Gets a Taste of KitKat!

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For those of you on Sprint, with the HTC One Max, we’ve got some good news for you this morning. It appears that HTC and Sprint are rolling out the Android 4.4.2 update for the HTC One Max. This comes just a day after they began rolling it out for the HTC One Mini on AT&T. This is definitely great timing by HTC, as most other OEMs are stilling rolling out KitKat to their flagships, while HTC has moved on to others that they released in 2013.

For those interested, the build number is 2.09.651.1. It also features some security enhancements in this update as well as cloud printing improvements and new Bluetooth profiles to support more media interactions. The update weighs in at about 343.93MB, so it’s recommended to use WiFi – even Sprint says so in the update screen, even though they have unlimited data for most everyone.

The update does not bring Sense 6 to the HTC One Max, but I’m sure it brings some bug fixes for Sense 5.5 which debuted on the HTC One Max. We should be seeing this update rolling out to everyone now. It’s likely a staged rollout, so we should see it in the next couple of weeks for everyone with the HTC One Max.

I’ve gotta say that HTC has really stepped up their updates in the past year or so. Lately, they’ve been the first to roll out updates, right after Motorola. Although some will argue that Motorola had an unfair advantage there. It’s definitely a welcomed change over the HTC from 2012 and prior. Where we never knew if we’d get an update or not. It’s definitely a move in the right direction I think.

How many of you are on Sprint with the HTC One Max? If you’ve gotten the update, be sure to let us know what you think about it in the comments down below.

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Entry-level OPPO R1001 Appears at the FCC

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Chinese manufacturers, in the recent past, have been trying to claw their way into the Western world very diligently. Of these, it is the fairly-unseasoned OPPO who had wowed us last year with their premium handset – the OPPO Find 5. The Chinese manufacturer has managed to captivate us once again this year with their current flagship, the OPPO Find 7. However, premium handset notwithstanding, OPPO seems to have laid its sights on getting their devices into as many hands as possible. While trawling through the depth of the FCC, information has come to light about a device code-named the R1001 by OPPO, which appears to be an entry-level phone.

The FCC papers reveal a lot of interesting information regarding the OPPO R1001, however the device has not been announced by the Chinese manufacturer yet. OPPO has an entry-level series for smartphones with the ‘R’ moniker, as a result it would be safe to assume that the R1001 may retain this same name, if and when, the device gets officially announced. In terms of specifications, the device has a screen size of around 4.5 to 4.7 inches of undefined resolution. The OPPO R1001 is powered by the cheaper (or lower costing) Mediatek MT6572A SoC with a dual-core Cortex-A7 processor clocked at 1.2 GHz, an ARM Mali 400-GPU is present to handle the graphics needs of the device. Device photos reveal a front facing camera for video calls and selfies, whereas the back camera is supported by a flash LED. The device is powered by a 1700 mAh battery and includes a charger, a USB Cable and earplugs which would suffice for mundane activities and is as expected for an entry-level device.

Unfortunately, the FCC documents do not reveal any further information regarding this phone. Even which Android version – if this is an Android device – would come pre-loaded onto the device. However, being an entry-level device, if it ever gets announced, the OPPO R1001 would be a mediocre device to be used either as a backup handset or to be gifted to someone to meet a basic telephony need.

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South Korea to See Samsung Galaxy S5 Before the Rest of Us

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The anticipation has been brutal to most, as we await to get our hands on the flagship devices we want. Both HTC and Samsung have announced their flagship devices, and in an attempt to be different HTC announced and launched their flagship in one day. As for those waiting for the Samsung Galaxy S5, well the wait will end on April 11th. However, for consumers in South Korea, the wait is just about over.

The three major carriers in South Korea have announced that they have moved up the launch date of the Galaxy S5 to Thursday March 27th 2014. There is an especially interesting reason behind this move too, and it has nothing to do with consumer anticipation. Instead it has to do with a ban that has been placed on the three major carriers. The ban placed by regulators prevents SK Telecom Co Ltd, LG UPlus and KT Corp from enrolling new customers or even replacing devices for existing customers for a spread out amount of time. That time totals 45 days, and is between March 13th and May 19th.

Those 45 days are not consecutive, but will still hurt the sales of the Galaxy S5, and in Samsung’s home country to make things worse. For example, SK Telecom has only one week between launch and next ban period to sell as many Galaxy S5s as possible. They have even lowered the amount of the device to below the launch price of the Galaxy S4. This problem for Samsung is in addition to the reviews and comments already made about the new flagship device. It has not received the warmest welcome so far, with polls showing more people are looking to get the HTC One M8, or just not buy a new flagship this year. This all is just salt in a wound to Samsung since the Galaxy S4 didn’t sell as well as planned at launch. So the question is, are we watching the fall of Samsung from the number one Android OEM in the world? Or is this all just a hiccup for the company? We won’t know for sure until numbers are released for quarterly earnings. However speculation is more than welcomed, so speak up down below or on our Google+ page.

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FCC Considering a Limit on Amount of Spectrum Bought at Auction by Carriers

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The spectrum auction that every US carrier is waiting for is still being planned. We have had T-Mobile asking for a fair ground rule, by breaking down the spectrum to a lower band. They have even made blog posts about the matter, and it may have worked, in some way.

It has to be known that spectrum is like gold to wireless carriers, it is essentially the way they make money. That being said, T-Mobile has valid fears that the two biggest US carriers being Verizon and Sprint, could walk away from the auction with an unfair amount of spectrum bought. Possibly in response to T-Mobile, but not a confirmed response to T-Mobile, the Commission’s wireless bureau chief says they are considering placing a ceiling on the amount of spectrum carriers can buy at the auction.

Placing an allowed limit on the amount of spectrum one carrier can purchase, could directly affect Verizon and AT&T more so than it would T-Mobile or Sprint. Which has been the goal of both the FCC and the Department of Justice since the beginning of the auctions. Not to say the FCC and DOJ are against Verizon and Sprint, rather they are for a fair business atmosphere, or at least as fair as it can get. Where are they getting the spectrum to auction off in the first place?

Television stations have plenty of spectrum that is more powerful than they currently need, so, they are given the opportunity to essentially donate that spectrum to the FCC. Once the FCC has it, they repurpose it, and auction that spectrum off to wireless carriers who are in desperate need of more and faster spectrums. SOme of that money earned from the auction goes to those same broadcasters and the rest goes towards a public safety network. That public safety network needs all the help it can get, seeing as how it is a $7 billion project. The direct quote on the matter comes from Roger Sherman, acting chief of the commission’s wireless bureau, “ The FCC retains its authority to design these auctions in a way that promotes competition including ensuring licenses are available only to certain kinds of carriers and a cap on how much spectrum you can acquire. All those things are being considered.”

The smaller carriers in the US will just have to keep pushing for a cap at the very least. We will all be affected directly by what happens at the auctions, it’s just a matter of how, which depends on what carrier you are on in the end.

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New Twitter for Android Update Delivers Multiple Photo Uploads, Photo Tagging

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Frequent users of Twitter on Android have a couple of new features to look forward to. The social media company announced a new update for the service today, revealing that Twitter now allows users to tag other users in their uploaded photos. Facebook users have enjoyed this ability for quite some time, so we’re seeing Twitter playing a little bit of catch up at the moment. That being said, we’re sure Twitter users who upload a ton of photos will be happy the feature is finally available, despite the delay.

The announcement post on the official Twitter blog says uploaders can now tag up to 10 different users in their photos. The company points out that tagging people doesn’t count toward the 140 character limit, which is probably a good thing since we imagine tagging so many users would eat up a fair amount of the available characters. If you’re not too keen on the idea of being tagged in a bunch of photos, Twitter says you can change who can tag you in your Settings. That’s also where you’ll be able to change your notification settings as they apply to tagged photos.

Not only is Twitter adding the ability to tag other users, but it’s also allowing users to share up to four photos in a single tweet. Gone are the days of uploading a single photo at a time, as uploading more than one will now create a collage within the tweet. It seems like a pretty good feature for people who take and upload a bunch of photos, and Twitter says that tagged users and multiple photos will appear in embedded tweets as well.

While photo tagging should be available on Android right now, the multiple uploads feature is only available on iOS at the moment. Twitter says it should be coming to Android soon, but didn’t give a specific time frame for release. Just as well, it seems users on PC will have to wait for both features to arrive. The update adding photo tagging should be live on the Google Play Store now, so head on over there to either install the app or update it. As always, keep it here to Android Headlines for more!

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Featured Review: Carbon Fiber Slickwrap for the LG G2

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Lately, wraps for your smartphone, tablet and other electronics have become very popular. Thanks to a couple of companies like dbrand and Slickwraps. We’ve already done a few reviews for dbrand and their skins. Now we’ve got a couple of skins from Slickwraps. This time we’re taking a look at the Carbon Fiber Blue Slickwrap for the LG G2. Now this does fit all the variants of the LG G2, but the particular one that I have is for the T-Mobile G2, since that’s the model that I own. But Slickwraps does have it available for the Verizon, AT&T and International versions as well.

The Carbon Fiber Blue comes with three parts. There’s the back, then the top and bottom for the front. Compared to the skins I’ve had to put on the Nexus 4 and Nexus 5, this skin was a breeze to put on, and made me love having buttons on the back of the device even more. Thanks LG! It also comes with a mesh cloth to clean off your device before applying the skin, that way it’ll actually stick. Installation only took me a couple of minutes, but when you install yours be sure to get all the air bubbles out, or it’s going to drive you crazy.

As far as how the skin looks once applied, man it looks amazing. Of course it helps that my favorite color is blue, but man it looks nice. I wasn’t a big fan of skins before, mostly because i could never get them on there right, but this carbon fiber skin really changed that. Of course, that was also thanks to LG in the way they made the G2. I’ve been using it on my G2 for a few days and so far it seems to be working just fine. No wear or tear at all, which is great to see.

You can pick up this skin, and plenty of others from Slickwraps website for $17. How many of you are using Slickwraps skins on your devices? They also have skins for many other devices out there.

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Here Are Five Attributes The HTC One M8 Offers The Galaxy S5 Does Not

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While everyone begins to let yesterdays HTC event and unveiling settle in and we attempt to collect our thoughts over everything we have taken in, we have looked at all the HTC One M8 has to offer in contrast to this years other most likely candidate for most popular flagship, the Samsung Galaxy S5. We have come up with five things that you won’t find in the Galaxy S5 that HTC can offer you with their newest device. So, if you find yourself at odds with an impossible decision and want some help trying to weigh out what you should choose for your next device, maybe these five things can help to play a part.

First off is the most obvious and probably one of the most coveted of the HTC One M8 and last years HTC One, the Boomsound stereo speakers. This particular feature really helps to amplify the audio experience one can have with just about anything on the device that gives off sound. You’ll experience richer, more explosive audio for things like movies, games, and of course music. Boomsound is highly revered as one of the biggest reasons people love the HTC One devices, because the speakers are stereo and placed on the front, so the audio is shooting out directly at you. Next up is one you’ll most certainly hear from a lot of people and that’s the build quality. One of the other big reasons people have loved the HTC One devices is because of the premium feel of the design. While this doesn’t matter to everyone, plenty of people really appreciate the nature of having a really nice looking device. The all metal body and brushed metal finish with rounded edges and corners of the HTC One M8 is one not to be forgotten.

The HTC One M8 also has a more true to life color quality within the display. It still uses a slightly higher color range than the standard sRGB color space, which is what gives its display those really eye popping vibrant colors, but when compared to the AMOLED display used in the Galaxy S5, it’s more accurate and still manages to pull off looking exceptional. The last two things you won’t find within the Galaxy S5 are the seamless uniformity of the Sense 6.0 user interface,(Touchwiz has been improved over previous versions of the UI, but it still lacks the elegance that Sense 6.0 has managed to elevate to)and the refocus feature effect for photos that is found within the HTC One M8 duo camera. The value of these features and specs may be more preference, but they are all things the Galaxy S5 lacks. With that said, either device could still provide a stellar experience to users, and the Galaxy S5 will undoubtedly have plenty of happy fans as it will have its own set of compelling attributes. So what say you tech lovers? HTC One M8 or Galaxy S5?

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