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Ladies and gentlemen we have drawn our winner of the Samsung Galaxy Gear Smartwatch! We'd like to thank everyone here and on AndroidWatches.net for participating and entering this great giveaway!

The winner of the Galaxy Gear Smartwatch is...................... entry #30, dumpyloser!! Congratulations!! We hope you enjoy this beautiful smartwatch and get a lot of use out of it. Enjoy!

If you get bored easily then you will probably quickly find yourself bored with the UI of that shiny new phone you just purchased. No worries, you can quickly give your device a fresh look by installing a custom launcher and some custom icons. The "Focus" icon pack by developer "Kevin3328" will give your device that new feeling that you are after. This set of icons is designed to appear as if they are rendered in the lens of a focused camera. Just imagine staring at your favorite app icons through the view finder of a DSLR. This is what you get with the focus icons. Each icon includes a thick, circular, raised border. The logo of the icon pops off the background and cast a light shadow. These icons really appear to hover over your screen. You will need to be running a custom launcher such as Nova, Apex, ADW, Smart, Action, or any other launcher that utilizes the app filter system.

The icon pack includes a comprehensive dashboard which will make applying these icons a breeze. It also includes a custom wallpaper gallery with 5 unique wallpapers, icon mask which allows every app icon in your drawer to be themed, 325 hand themed app icons, and more. This icon pack will only set you back a cool $1.50. Head to the Play link below for the download.

Via Play Store

Team Gummy has just released their milestone 2.0 build to multiple devices. The latest build comes with several new features as well as plenty of performance and speed optimizations, and bug fixes. Milestone 2.0 introduces "Gummy Dark" which is a blacked out theme for the Gummy Rom. The option for Gummy Dark is built right into settings so you can toggle on and off this dark blacked out theme. Lock Screen Notifications and Active Display are also new in Milestone 2.0. You get all the information you need and fast with the Active display and Lock Screen Notifications. We are all pretty familiar with the Pie launcher by now. Gummy now includes this very popular navigation setup! App options gives you all the source built app settings you need. Status Bar and Quick Settings allows you to customize your battery, clock position, quick settings tiles and more. There are plenty more features that come with the Gummy Rom. In fact there are far too many to list here.

Via @kejar31

Development continues with on the Verizon Moto X with the Krypton Rom by developer "Kryptonite". This is a SafeStrap flashable rom, and will also work on the Dev version of the Moto X. This rom is based on stock Android 4.4.2. The Rom includes a whole list of features. Krypton has been fully debloated freeing up 240mb of space. The Verizon boot animation has been removed, rom is ART compatible, pre rooted with SuperSU, Blacked out frameworks background, AOSP signal icons added, Reboot options added to the power menu, removal of Safe volume prompt, all apps updated to most recent play store version, new ringtone added, addition of Nova launcher/ adaway/ and terminal emulator, set all animations to off by default in the framework, entitlement check bypassed, and more! Head to the link below for the rom download.


Via Rootzwiki

Some OEM camera apps are pretty sweet. I have really been enjoying the Sense 6 camera app which includes awesome features like "selfie mode", "pan 360" (which takes some of the best 360 panorma shots i've ever seen), and some awesome extras that make good use of the dual camera like "3D effect" and the ability to select the focus of your shot. Sometimes you just want a clean and simple camera app so you can quickly take shots without putting much thought into them. The Google Camera takes quick and easy shots and includes a few creative features. With the Google camera you get Photosphere, Lens Blur for SLR like photos with shallow depth of field, Panorama mode, 100% viewfinder for max res with no dropped pixels, and an intuitive menu system that gets out of your way when you don't need it. Google has decided to make their stock AOSP camera app available for mass consumption. You can grab it on the Play Store for free! Grab the apk from the link below.

Via Play Store

A recent interview with AT&T's Glenn Lurie, president of emerging devices, revealed that the company plans to bring working data/LTE smartwatches to market sometime this year. According to the Lurie, AT&T already has a group in Austin, Texas, developing thousands of wearable-device prototypes. He also confirmed that AT&T is exploring the possibility of certifying third-party devices for use on their network.

According to Lurie, AT&T has always taken the stance that wearables need to evolve to become a stand alone device, not just require tethering to an existing device. Here are several quote in which Lurie shares more details,

“I think you’ll see wide-area, high-bandwidth [smart]watches this year at some point.

"A majority of stuff you’re going to see today that’s truly wearable is going to be in a watch form factor to start. If smartwatch use takes off—“and we believe it can.”

“We’ve been very, very clear in our opinion that a wearable needs to be a stand-alone device.”

On the subject of other wearable devices like Google Glass, Luri said,

“It’s one thing if I’m buying it to go out for a job, it’s another thing if I’m going to wear it everyday. Those are the things people are debating right now—how that’s all going to come out. There’s technology and there’s innovation happening, and those things will get solved.”

Luri added,

"I think the future is you don’t have to hit a button because the band or watch will know it’s you, the car will know it’s you, and you’ve already pre-described when you walk up to the car what you want to do. That’s kind of where we’re headed.”

His perspective seems to be spot on. What do you guys think? Can AT&T shake up the industry with the first true LTE enabled smartwatches?

Source: techhive

According to a new report from marketing research firm, Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, T-Mobile's campaign to shakeup the mobile industry is finally having a noticeable affect on consumer numbers. Their report indicates that T-Mobile had the fastest growing marketshare of any carrier last quarter. This was the third highest overall share in the market with only 15%, but this is up from 13% in just the previous quarter.

In contrast, Verizon remained flat at 35%, while AT&T lost marketshare, shrinking from 29% in the previous quarter to 28% in this one. T-Mobile wasn't the only winner here. Sprint's marketshare grew marginally from 8% to 9%. CIRP cofounder Mike Levin attributed this growth to the following: “Both T-Mobile and Sprint have led the market with novel and disruptive offerings, and consequently seem to attract new customers.”

As we have seen from previous reports, Both Big Red and AT&T have been coming out with slightly more competitive rate plans and special offers. It seems probable they have been paying attention to these numbers as well and are slowly stepping up to do something about it.

Source: CIRP

There are hints from Samsung themselves that the Galaxy Note 4 will get a major redesign. Yoon Han-kil, senior vice president of Samsung's product strategy team, was recently interviewed by Reuters. He had some interesting things to say regarding future Samsung mobile products. Here's a quote with more of the details,

Slowing growth in the high-end smartphone market has been a source of consternation for manufacturers like Samsung and Apple amid intensifying competition from Chinese upstarts like Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and Lenovo Group.

"The slowing high-end market is indeed a concern for most manufacturers," Yoon said.

"But we're trying out a lot of new things like wearables, convergence with home devices and cars. I think there'll be synergies here some day and it'll eventually help us increase premium product sales longer term."

In the meantime, Samsung is hoping multiple variations of its flagship products will hit as big an audience as possible, while Apple sticks to the premium segment.

Apple is said to be preparing two devices with larger screens, at least one of which is expected to launch in the latter half of the year.

Yoon said Samsung was also planning to launch a new version of the Galaxy Note with a "new form factor" in the second half, without elaborating.

"Our ultimate goal is to make products that consumers really aspire to have. This is how we are trying to find a breakthrough in the stagnant premium market," he said.

Yoon points out something that many of us have been seeing in the mobile market for the last year. Even your friendly staff here at DF HQ have noticed the diminishing consumer interest in high-end mobile devices. It's getting to a point where consumers have less and less reason to upgrade to the "next big thing" because each new device is only incrementally better than the last.

Do you think Samsung can find a way to renew interest in the high-end segment by simply offering design changes, or is it going to take something dramatically more innovative than that?

Source: Reuters