Android 4.4 Kitkat overview/impressions.

Hey guys! If you have read my previous article on the Google Nexus 5, I will be using the same style of writing and if you haven't read it, go ahead, I am sure you will like it!

Introduction:
Google announced that the next version of Android (4.4) will be named Kitkat around the start of September. Everybody was in for a shock as generally the names of Android versions were of  generic desserts and not brands. Also, it was pretty much confirmed at that time that Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie was going to be the next version of Android. But, hey, this is Google!

The Good:

• Lower Specifications required: Usually when a new operating system comes out, it needs more hardware power and old/legacy devices are left behind. But, this is not the case with Kitkat. Google made sure that almost every Android device would be capable of running 4.4(Noticed how I emphasized on 'capable'? This means that it is not compulsory for the device manufacturer to update it. I will give an example later in this article) 
• UI changes: Kitkat brings the biggest UI change to Android since Ice cream Sandwich(4.0) ICS brought the 'holo' user interface and much polish that was needed to Android back in the day. 4.0, 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 were pretty much identical visually except for a few minor changes. This dissapointed a major portion of Android users(including me). Kitkat gives us a redesigned Phone application, translucent navigation bar and notification bar and many many more UI changes. 

• Immersive mode: Imagine this and tell me if it sounds familiar. You are playing a game and a text is received. You have to now close/minimize the application to open your notification drawer and THEN decide if it is important and you want to read it or not. With immersive mode, you just swipe down from the top of your screen and BOOM! There are your notifications! Now, if you think it is not important, just close the drawer and continue with your game!

• Better Google Now integration: Google Now was introduced in 4.1 Jellybean. It gives you information you need (like weather, traffic, places nearby, sports scores and many more things)even before you search. It was so useful, many people considered it the best product of 2012. With Kitkat, you just have to swipe right at your left-most homescreen and there is Google Now! Previously, to get to Google Now, you had to swipe up from your navigation bar and it works now as well. Also, as your homescreen itself is Google Now, when you are at any page, just say 'Okay Google' and voice search gets activated.
• IR blaster support
• Wireless Printing support: If you have a HP e-print printer or any other printer that has an app on the Google Play Store, you can print from it wirelessly. This also works with printers connected to Google Cloud Print.  

• Phone App improvements:  The new phone app automatically prioritizes your contacts based on the people you talk to the most. You can also search for nearby places and businesses, your contacts, or people in your Google Apps domain. Also, whenever you get a call from a phone number not in your contacts, your phone will look for matches from businesses with a local listing on Google Maps.

                     4.0-4.3 dialer                     4.4 dialer                    

The Bad: 

• No Kitkat for Galaxy Nexus: This is very ironical to me that Google told Kitkat would be able to run on older hardware but it will not update the Galaxy Nexus.. Seriously, Google?? -_-
• No multiple widgets on lockscreen: I missed this feature even on  previous versions of Android. I don't know why Google doesn't come up with this. Basically, the idea is to use the extra free space in lockscreens. As you can see in the screenshot, I can only add upto 1 widget per page and even if there is tons of extra space, I have to use another page to add another widget.

• No icon pack support in stock launcher: If you have read my article on 'Launchers and icon packs', you probably know that I love custom icon packs. But if I want to use an icon pack, I have to download a launcher first. I know this is a feature of custom launchers but incorporating it into the stock launcher doesn't hurt anyone, does it? Afterall, that is the greatness of open source!
• Offline speech recognition: Offline speech recognition is pretty good if you are not connected to the internet and want to speak out a text message. But, it only works  in certain languages and if you don't want to use English(US), you have to download a language first. I use English(India) for voice search and Google Now but if I want to download that and use it offline, it isn't available! 

I know that the 'bad's I wrote weren't as much bad as 'missing features'.

If you liked this article, please also read my other articles below and share it with your friends who love Android too! Also, if you want to make sure you are one of the first persons to get notified when we write more awesome stuff like this, +1 and follow the blog via e-mail!

Nexus 5 released!

Finally!!!! This Halloween was by far the best one till date for Android lovers like me!

I will write this article in 5 parts: Specifications, my impressions, the good, the bad and the conclusion.

Specifications: 

My Impressions:

First thought when I saw it on the Google Play Store, "Google, take my money!" Yes, I am THAT desperate to get a Nexus 5. I think this is the best phone of 2013.

The good:

• Very reasonably priced: At just 350$ for the 16GB model and 400$ for the 32GB model, this is by far the phone with the most bang for the buck.
• A Nexus device: Being a nexus, it will receive OTA updates directly from Google as soon as a new version of Android is announced. 
• Optically stabilized camera: One of the top Android devices for shutterbugs along with the Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and the LG G2. OIS means even if you have shaky hands, the pictures you click will no longer be blurry or out-of-focus.
• The display: With a 4.95" 1080P display, your eyes will be in for a treat with the sharpness of images.
• Android Powerhouse: With a 2.3 GHz quad core Snapdragon 800, Adreno 330 GPU, 2 Gigs  of RAM and with the optimizations of Android Kitkat, you will not be able to break a sweat even with the best of the CPU-intensive apps.
• Wireless Charging: You don't need a description for this, do you? :P
• Connectivity: With Wifi 802.11AC, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, NFC, wireless printing support, HDMI SlimPort support, you will surely not feel detached from the rest of the world.

The bad:

• Online Availability: It will be hard for you to find a Nexus 5 in an actual store because Google just sells it on the Play Store (play.google.com)
• Not very famous: If the Nexus 5 was manufactured by Samsung, you would see huge billboards, online advertisements and even people who are not that much into technology, would know it. Google is not a smartphone seller. This is sad that many people would not even come to know of this great product at this very much affordable price point.
• No Contracts: People in the US tend to buy subsidized phones on 1/2 year contracts. Unfortunately, this is one of the reasons the Nexus 5 might not perform as well as other famous Android devices in the markets.

Conclusion:

You have 2 options. Buy it or envy other people who buy it. I think that the pros overcome the cons by a large extent.

I will write a similar article about Android Kitkat as soon as possible. If you liked this article, please also read my other articles below and share it with your friends who love technology! Also, if you want to make sure you are one of the first persons to get notified when we write more awesome stuff like this, +1 and follow the blog via e-mail!

6 advantages and disadvantages of rooting your Android device!

Hey guys! I am sorry, I haven't typed an article in about 5 days due to my exams... Anyways, tomorrow is Halloween! And as '666' is called the beasts's number, today, I give you 6 advantages and 6 disadvantages of rooting your Android device.

Advantages:

1. Customization: After you have rooted your phone, you can make your phone "different" from the usual. Looking at you, Apple ;) Just for naming a few, you can put a background in your notification drawer, make it transparent, customize your quick toggles screen and the tiles' behavior, change your boot animation, selecting from thousands of themes available in the Play Store, make your status bar/navigation bar transparent, etc.
2. Added software features: If you are not new to rooting, you may have already heard of +Paranoid Android . If you have not, it is a custom ROM which is based on AOSP (Android Open Source Project) with tons of added features like halo(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5WljHcOyXs) and Pie controls(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F7l4d3bjFM). There are many other ROMs with tons of other added features! 
3. Overclocking: For improved battery life and stability, phone manufacturers generally underclock or keep the frequency of the processor significantly lower than the maximum capacity. Overclocking means to amp up your phone processor's frequency to help improve performance in games, other processor intensive apps or just for overall UI smoothness.
4. Software updates: Android is infamous for software fragmentation and mostly in lower-mid end devices to delay the OTA updates to bump up the software version. And even if the manufacturers have the software update ready, many times the phone carriers have to add their 'bloatware'. A good example of this is the Samsung Galaxy S4 (international version) received the 4.3 version update just about a week ago but the US versions still don't have it yet. Another example is the HTC One. But, in this case, none of the versions has still received the 4.3 update. But, if you root your Android device, you no longer have to wait for the manufacturer to update your device via OTA.
5. Bloatware/Manufacturer's skin: Samsung's Touchwiz and HTC's Sense are the most famous Android custom 'skins'. In the initial years of Android, it didn't have much polish and that 'polish' was provided to Android by HTC in the form of Sense. But after 2010, Android and it's developers have improved drastically and it no longer needs the much hyped polish as it already has it out of the box. On the contrary, sometimes these skins come in the way of our tasks and take up too much of RAM and storage. After having rooted your Android device, you no longer have to put up with these skins!
6. Other improvements: After rooting, you don't only have advantage of software improvements but also hardware improvements. An ideal example of this is applications like DSP Manager and Viper4Andorid. Both these applications have the same basic concept, to improve the audio performance of your device byb adjusting the base, treble etc. as per your liking. Another example is for phones which have capacitive navigation buttons (like HTC phones) and it is called Swipe/Sweep2wake. Basically, you don't have to press the power button but just swipe across the capacitive keys of your phone.

Disadvantages:

1. Void of warranty: If you have any problem in your phone that is covered in the warranty, you won't be able to claim it.
2. Shortage of developers: If you have a famous high-end Android device then you don't have to read this but if you own a low-mid end device, the no. of developers can be quite limited. And this means that you may not have as many ROMs as other famous devices have.
3. Bugs: No custom Android ROM is bug-free. Literally, there are NONE. It may have a very minor one, but it HAS to have one. Also, before ROMs are released to public, they generally go through minimum 2 phases(maybe more): Alpha and Beta. Alpha versions generally have very little things working but it is for the people who just want to experience something new. Beta builds are comparatively significantly more stable and has much less bugs.  
4. Chances of bricking: If you are new to rooting Android, you might as well take help from a friend who is experienced in all this stuff or follow EXACTLY as the person who made the video explains STEP-BY-STEP. Bricking is generally caused by skipping a minor step that might not seem important to you but it might be the most crucial step of the rooting/modding process or by simple carelessness.
5. No consumer support: If you have a problem, there is no"helpline" or "consumer support" to get help from. If you have a problem, search on the internet for it and ONLY if after finding for a long time, you don't get it, post the problem(in the appropriate category) in a community like XDA. And, if you are lucky, you have to wait for someone else to fix it for you if you don't know how to do it. Although, 90% of the times, people don't search in the proper places and post their problems, whose solution is already present on the internet.
6. Time consuming: I remember, when I rooted my first Android device,the HTC Explorer, it took me about 2 hours. And this is mostly the case for non-geeks. Also, as I stated before, there is a chance of bricking your phone by not doing it properly.

Conclusion: If you are the kind of people that overlooks the cons of a thing(like me), I would recommend you to root your Android device. But, it takes patience and also, not all Android devices are easily rootable. Nexus devices are basically meant for rooting and that's why Google makes sure not to make the process of rooting one a pain in the ass. The decision is totally upto you! Let me know in the comments section if you are already rooted or you made your mind after reading this article. :) 

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How to create a music playlist in Google Play Music

If you are like me and listen to music on your android phone, you should know that Google Play Music is one of the best music players. Personally, when I had to create a new playlist except from the favorites, I got frustrated. I had to find a lot and when I finally found it, I thought it was kind of a stupid way..
Note: I have installed a CM12 theme so your Google Play Music may not look the same as mine!

So, lets begin:

1) Go to My Library

2) Go to "Songs".Next to the song you want to add, you will see a 'menu' button, press on that.

3) Select the option "Add to queue"

4) Do this for all the songs you want in your playlist.

5) Swipe up from the bottom.

6) Click on the music like icon(look in the screenshots)

7) Press the menu button and select "Save queue"

8) Select "New Playlist" and give your playlist a name.

Voila!
If this was a help to you, please comment below or follow me or our blog's official page on Google+ to be one of the first ones to know whenever we post more awesome content! :)

Themer and Aviate beta code giveaway!

Hey guys!
If you have read our second post about Android launchers and icons packs, you most probably know that we are CRAZY for new Android launchers!
As celebration of ~350 pageviews in the last 7 hours, we are hosting a giveaway for Themer and Aviate launcher closed beta codes!
You can learn more about both of them at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mycolorscreen.themer and https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tul.aviate respectively.
"When will you give the code?" you ask?
The moment we reach 1000 pageviews on our blog, we will give them away right here, on this blog. But, be wary that if somebody used the code already before you, you cannot use it as it is a one-time access only. If you want to be notified as soon as we post the code, follow the blog and you will be the first ones to know whenever we write a new post! Also,  we will be giving away 2 themer codes and 4 aviate codes, so you can tell your friends to follow us too!
So what are you waiting for? Share this blog with your friends using the button on the top left of the page and enjoy the beta code! :D

Launchers and icon packs in android

Okay, so if you use Android, you may have heard of launchers and wonder what are they. Well, today we are going to talk about them.
So basically, launchers are your home screens. The part of your phone you look at most of the time while using your phone. So you may ask, "What is the hype about?", "Why are there so many launchers?". Well, the launchers that come built in with your phone are not very customizable. You cannot really do anything exciting with them.
Here is my top list of features custom launchers provide that some stock launchers(anything that comes built-into your phone is referred to as 'stock') cannot:
1) Gestures
 You can set some certain custom gestures to do certain tasks. For e.g: swipe down to open          notifications(this is really helpful incase your phone is too big), rotate counter-clockwise to call someone
 or swipe up to access recently used applications and so on..
2) Icon packs
 Icon packs give your phone a new feel. They basically change the look of all of your icons to your liking.  Please note that most of the good icon packs will be paid and they will only work with custom launcher I  will provide at the end of the page.
 Here are some of the best icon packs for android:

• Minimal UI https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.launchertheme.kxnt.ui
• Click UI https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.launchertheme.kxnt.click
• Goolors https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ds.goolors
• Stark icons https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kov.theme.stark
• Square Icon pack https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.heavyfork.sq
• Nox icons https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kov.theme.nox

3) Customization

 There is a ton of customization options in custom launchers in Android. Here are some:

• Change app drawer behaviour(default is horizontal)
• Change app drawer transparency
• Multiple pages in docks
• Shortcuts to other pages
• Overlapping widgets(if you want to save screen space)
• Hide apps in app drawer

Now that you know about Android launchers, here are some to name a few:

• Nova launcher https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teslacoilsw.launcher
• Apex launcher https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.anddoes.launcher
• Themer(in closed beta as of 21/10/2013) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mycolorscreen.themer
• Buzz launcher https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.buzzpia.aqua.launcher
• Trebuchet (stock launcher of cyanogenmod)
• Solo launcher https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=home.solo.launcher.free

There are many more,  if you want search on play store.

Okay, so I think that you guys finally understood what an Android launcher is and hope to see you soon!