XDA Member Achieves Root And Recovery For Sony Xperia Z2

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Just in case you were worried about the Sony Xperia Z2 and the lack of a root method, you can put those fears to bed. Thanks to XDA member DooMLoRD and his crafty ways, the Sony Xperia Z2, although still absent from US soil, has now gotten root access and Clockworkmod recovery. Some might see this as pointless since we don’t have official access to the phone yet but we say that it never hurts to be prepared. Thinking about picking up an Xperia Z2 upon it’s launch in your local area? If you like to mod and tweak your devices, now you’ll be all set upon picking up one of these new phones from Sony.

There are a few things that you will need in place for root and recovery to be an achievable task. First off you will need to have the phones bootloader unlocked. You of course won’t be able to do this until the phone is physically in your hands but, you get the idea. With the bootloader unlocked, you can move on to the root method and get your device enabled with root access which is based off of Clockworkmod version 6.0.4.6, and proceed with empowering your device. Never rooted a device before? No problem, as long as you follow all the steps and instructions properly that walk you through the process you should be OK, but it always goes without saying that users assume any risk and take responsibility for whatever happens.

This is quick work from the developer community on a phone that is yet to be available to regions far outside Sony’s home market, but all the better because those of us that would like to root immediately will be able to do it the moment we open the box and power on the device. With root access you can use tons of useful apps that non-rooted devices can’t take advantage of, like Titanium Backup. You can run over to the original XDA thread to follow the entire process once you get your device, or if you already have it by other means, and proceed to get your phone the root it deserves.

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LG L90 Hitting T-Mobile Stores on April 23rd

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LG announced a trio of mid-range and low-end devices at Mobile World Congress back in February. One of those was the LG L90, which appears to be heading to T-Mobile. Likely to even out their lineup and bring a few more affordable smartphones in for those that just need a phone that works, without all the bells and whistles of the LG G2, or the Samsung Galaxy S5. The LG L90 will likely be very popular with their prepaid plans, which are already pretty popular. I believe the asking price – unlocked of course – is around $200-250 for this device, so it’d be pretty cheap if you get it with a monthly payment.

The specs of the LG L90 are pretty much what you’d expect from a low-end or mid-range device. That includes a 4.7-inch qHD (that’s 960×540) display, 1GB of RAM, 1.2GHz quad-core processor – likely a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset, Android 4.4.2 KitKat and a 5-megapixel camera on the back. It even comes with LG’s famous Knock Code, which was new on the LG G Pro 2 which was announced in February. LG had stated that they are putting Knock Code on every device, even their low-end and mid-range stuff like the LG L90, which is definitely nice to see.

So far, this is all just a leak. There’s nothing confirmed about the LG L90 hitting T-Mobile later this month. However, we have seen leaks from Evleaks about the LG L90 with a T-Mobile logo on the back. So it’s likely coming, just the launch date is still up in the air. It looks like a pretty nice device, especially if its around $200. But then again the Moto G is less than $200, and has slightly better specs, like a front-facing camera and a HD display. However there’s no LTE, which the LG L90 will have LTE if T-Mobile is going to sell it.

How many of you are interested in another LG low-end device on T-Mobile?

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Google Now Photobombs your Auto-Awesome Photos with David Hasselhoff

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Let the April Fools jokes continue. Google loves to have some fun on April the 1st, every year. In fact, this year they got started a bit early with a few jokes yesterday from the Gmail, and Maps teams. Now we’re seeing one from the Google+ team and it relates to the Auto-Awesome photos feature in Google+. Over the past year, we’ve come to love how great auto-awesome is. Google has made it snow on snowing pictures, made our Christmas trees sparkle and much more. Now they’ve added a new affect, which will photobomb your photo with David Hasselhoff.

Naturally, all you have to do is take a photo, back it up to Google+ and Google+ will take care of the rest. We’ve already seen plenty of Google+ users posting their pictures with David Hasselhoff photo bombing them. So while it is an April Fools joke, it’s an actual feature that works, which is pretty cool. What’s even more awesome is that some of the Hasselhoff sightings have been pretty natural, while others are just plain spooky, but it’s all done in good fun which is one reason why we love Google.

We all love Google+ and Auto-Awesome here, at least amongst the staff, how about the rest of you? Be sure to upload some portraits of people today and let’s see if we can get David Hasselhoff to photobomb you. If you do, be sure to post it on Google+ and tag +Android Headlines so we can check it out. This should be pretty interesting! How many of you are liking Google’s April Fools jokes today? Let us know your thoughts in the comments down below. You can get more information by checking out the Google Blog about this new feature, maybe it’ll be called Auto-Hoffsome?

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Sony Giving Away Michael Jackson’s new XSCAPE Album for free to those who Purchase a Xperia Z1s/Z2

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Launch day for the Sony Xperia Z2 is now set for May 13th after Sony had to push it back a bit since they couldn’t keep up with the demand of the pre-orders. Sony is offering something that Michael Jackson fans everywhere will love, for those that purchase a new Xperia Z1s or Xperia Z2, you’ll be getting his new album XSCAPE for free. The album will be available for free from the Sony Xperia Lounge app, for those looking to get their free Michael Jackson music. This isn’t just for people who buy the Xperia Z1s or the Xperia Z2 on May 13th, but for those that buy it between now and then.

According to Sony, those that pick up the new Xperia Z2 – which they announced at Mobile World Congress in February – will be in for a treat with “exceptional audio experience” which is accessible via the ClearAudio+ mode on the Xperia Z2. Additionally, the audio on the Xperia Z2 has been finely tuned for the headset that comes in the box with the Xperia Z2, so make sure you use those earbuds before trying any others to see how good they feel.

The Xperia Z2 was announced in February, and has a 5.2-inch 1080p IPS display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. It’s also running on Android 4.4.2 KitKat. So far Sony hasn’t made any plans for bringing the Xperia Z2 to the US, but many of us are hoping that changes rather soon as we’d love to get our hands on that brand new handset from Sony. We’ve been impressed with the Xperia Z and Z1s on T-Mobile and would love to see more handsets available in the US. Not just so we can get Michael Jackson’s XSCAPE for free.

Are any of our followers planning to pick up the Xperia Z1s or the Xperia Z2 in the next month or so? Be sure to let us know in the comments below.

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BBM For Android and iOS Updates with Stickers, Larger File Attachments and More!

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Late last year, Blackberry Messenger finally went cross-platform. While many people thought it was a few years to late, and rightfully so, Blackberry has shown that they aren’t just going to release the app and forget about it. We’ve been seeing regular updates for both the iOS and Android versions ever since it launched. Today, they’ve pushed out another update which brings stickers, larger file attachments, and Group photo sharing to the app, which is definitely nice to see.

Let’s start off with the stickers. We all know what stickers are, since we’ve seen them in many other apps. I think Path was first to introduce them, which was a way for them to bring in revenue. Since then, quite a few messaging apps have included it like Facebook Messenger, and now BBM. BBM has a few sticker packs as well, like the WWE Superstars and Shaun the Sheep which are both exclusive right now. These sticker packs are either free or $1.99. Which isn’t bad, and it’s also a way for Blackberry to drive in some revenue which they desperately need, especially if you paid attention to their last few quarterly earnings.

As far as file attachments go, you can now attach files up to 16MB in size on any platform. Which still may seem small, but if you’re sending anything bigger, I’d suggest uploading to Dropbox, or Google Drive and then sending that person the link. It’ll be much faster. Then there’s also group photo sharing, which I don’t think I need to go into great detail about right now. But basically they are allowing you to share photos with a group of people, pretty self-explanatory right?

The update to Blackberry Messenger is now available on the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store depending on the platform you are using it on. Unfortunately it still doesn’t work for tablets, hopefully that’ll get updated soon.

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Xiaomi’s MiPad Tablet Leaks Out

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While today is April Fools day in the US, there’s going to be a lot more jokes than news. However, we think this leak is legit and not an April Fools Joke. Lately, Xiaomi has really been in the spotlight a lot lately, mostly after hiring Hugo Barra from Google. Xiaomi is a Chinese OEM who is pretty popular over in China and makes some pretty good devices. However, we haven’t been able to try them out since they aren’t available here just yet. Although I think that’s going to change rather soon. Xiaomi usually puts some rather good specs in their devices and sells them rather cheap, like the Redmi Note is about $200 and has flagship specs, which is definitely nice to see.

The specs for the MiPad sound pretty respectable. The screen is supposedly around 6 to 7 inches – which some might say that’s the size of a phone. 32GB of internal storage, 2GB of RAM and a 13MP camera on the back and a 5MP camera on the front. The Xiaomi MiPad supposedly is going on sale next week, April 8th, for about $209 USD, which is $1299 Yuan in China. So not a bad price at all, although the Nexus 7 is only about $20 more, however the MiPad does double the storage. So there’s that.

Xiaomi’s MiPad actually looks like a really nice device, but you won’t see it over here in North America unless you import it. The Xiaomi MiPad is going to be basically China only, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear next week when it goes on sale, that they sold a few million in a matter of seconds. Because that’s typical for China. They get a batch of devices, sell them out and then wait for the next one. I believe last week Xiaomi sold about 4 million in 3 minutes. That’s pretty crazy.

How many of you are interested in the Xiaomi MiPad? Let us know in the comments below.

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On Launch Day, Google’s Chromecast Sold Once Every 4.5 Seconds in the UK

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Googles’s Chromecast is a great little device that has made streaming media from online outlets like Netflix (and now many more) for ridiculously great value. At $35, the Chromecast was an instant success in the US, selling out the moment they went on sale. It’s not surprising that Google has a winner on their hands here, it’s a simple and easy-to-use solution to get media onto the best screen in the house. It’s discrete, affordable and works with existing technology with only a couple of minutes set-up time needed. Having been on sale for some time in the US, it’s no surprise to us that the Chromecast is taking off in Europe as well.

The Chromecast has been a hot-seller in the UK particularly, with retailer PC World and Currys revealing that on launch day they were selling a Chromecast once every 4.5 seconds. No matter how you look at it, that’s incredible. For a device that might be easy enough for anyone to use, the Chromecast doesn’t have the sort of mainstream appeal as the Roku or the Apple TV just yet, so it’s definitely a shock to see it sell quite this well. I recently bought my own Chromecast here in the UK, and mt local Currys store isn’t exactly in a bustling metropolitan area, yet the staff did tell me they were surprised how quickly they were selling. There was also lots of stock there, so it looks like Google is ready and willing to keep on selling in these volumes.

Elsewhere in Europe, the Chromecast has been popular in Norway, where it hit the front page of a leading newspaper, and sold out in its first week. The “Chrome” branding here seems to have really done its magic, as Google Chrome is the most popular browser by far and for a lot of people these days it’s the first stop on the Internet train. If you’ve yet to get your hands on a Chromecast – what are you waiting for!?! – then now’s a good time to buy one. Lots and lots of apps now support the Chromecast and they’re still just $35 from Amazon in the US.

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