These are some of the best apps and games that came out this week. Read more »

The Android 5.1.1 update for the Samsung Galaxy S6 has been out for a while and it finally landed in our grasp so we updated our unit and took it for a quick spin. And we do mean quick as the changelog is particularly short.

We dug around the interface, tried shooting a RAW image and ran some benchmarks. Our findings are pretty slim – the 0.1 update brings only a handful of features. Read more »

Microsoft released an update to OneDrive for Android. Version 3.2.0 of the cloud storage app brings support for Chromecast.

The new build of Microsoft OneDrive will allow users to stream their multimedia from their mobile device to a TV that’s connected to a Google Chromecast or an Android TV set top box. Read more »

Today BBM for Android finally starts looking like an Android app. Following a period of less than stellar looks, the app now fully embraces Google’s Material Design principles. A beta version with the new UI went out at the beginning of the month, and now it’s stable enough for everyone to use.

Thus, you can already find it in the Play Store. But the new paint job isn’t the only changed thing about BBM for Android. It also comes with a new feature called Private Chat. Read more »

Google has pushed a new update for its cloud storage syncing Drive app for the Android devices. The key feature is brings is the option to download and send multiple files at a time.

Along with that, the Sharing interface gets a face-lift. You can now share a document to many people at once, while adjusting their editing rights. Added folks appear as a label stack making it much easier to see if anyone has been missed. Read more »

Now that Asus has unveiled the ZenWatch 2, its predecessor is probably (slowly) on its way out. Before it gets discontinued, though, it’s getting its price cut. And rather substantially. In fact, this is the biggest price drop we’ve seen so far for the original ZenWatch.

You can now purchase one from Amazon or Best Buy for only $149.99. That’s $50 below its launch price, and $30 less than the previous lowest price we’ve seen for it. Read more »

Another Google app for Android has passed the 1 billion install threshold today. This time it’s Hangouts, following other apps such as Gmail. Apparently up until this point there have been only ten apps in this exclusive club, and only three of those aren’t made by Google.

Interestingly, all three are made by Facebook – we’re talking about the social network’s main app, Messenger, as well as WhatsApp. The last two of those are direct competitors to Google’s Hangouts, and it definitely seems like they are a lot more successful right now. Read more »

Amazon has really been trying hard to expand its vast online store to the realm of Android apps – a niche mostly monopolized by Google. The etailer giant has been continuously running major promotions giving away select paid application for free and todays sees the latest such giveaway.

We have seen Amazon offer as much as $140 worth of software in previous promotions, so, it is definitely worth checking each bundle out as it comes. The latest installment has a value of just over $50, but includes quite a few quality apps worth owning, especially free of charge. Read more »

WhatsApp and similar mobile-first (or mobile-only) messaging apps have pioneered the concept of using your phone number to log in years ago. But so far Facebook’s Messenger has required people to have a Facebook account in order to use it. Not anymore.

Starting today, you can sign up for Facebook Messenger even if you don’t have a Facebook account. After you install the Messenger app, when you run it for the first time, you’ll see the screen above. You can choose “Not on Facebook?” to be able to sign up using your phone number. Read more »

The original price for the LTE-capable HTC Nexus 9 tablet with 32GB of storage was a whopping $599. We’re quite far from its launch, though, so understandably that has gone down. But you probably weren’t expecting it to have dropped as much as it has.

Right now Expansys USA is selling this exact model for only $379.99. That’s $220 less than the initial price, and $120 less than this retailer’s previous pricing for the tablet. Read more »

We’ve already heard that the One M9 is doing anything but great for HTC in terms of sales, and now Sprint may have sort of confirmed that through its latest move. The carrier is now offering HTC’s latest flagship smartphone for just $99.99 with a new two-year contract.

That’s the pricing territory of mid-rangers you normally don’t consider unless you can’t afford more expensive top of the line offerings. Generally when a price cut like this occurs so soon into a product’s life, poor sales can be to blame. Read more »

The Android version of popular messaging app WhatsApp now allows you to search across all your conversations. According to an Android Police report, the feature was possibly added in the version 2.12.134 of the app.

Previously, you could only perform a text search in a single WhatsApp conversation, but now when you start a search in the app’s Chats tab, you are also presented with results from within various conversations in addition to your contacts. Read more »

Instagram 7.0 for iOS and Android has been made official today, and it should become available in both the iTunes App Store and the Google Play Store within the next few hours. The newest version of the popular photo sharing app comes with some pretty big changes, though unfortunately one of them is US-only for now.

The Explore page inside the app has been completely revamped. It now shows trends as they emerge, making it easy for you to follow current events and conversations through Instagram. You will see trending tags as well as trending places. Read more »

Clearly meant as a response of sorts to the launch of Apple Music, Google has today announced it’s adding a free tier to its Play Music streaming service. Previously, this was accessible only through a subscription.

From this point on, however, it also has a free, ad-supported radio version. Unfortunately it’s only going to be available in the US for the foreseeable future (Google has yet to announce when it will go international). Read more »

The Android version of Twitter’s live video streaming app Periscope – which was launched last month – has scored yet another update. It bumps the application to version 1.0.2, and brings along several new features as well as bug fixes.

The updated app now not only lets you edit your profile information, including your photo, display name, and description, but also allows you to watch your personal broadcast history. In addition, it brings along improved comment synchronization for replays, as well as new sound/vibrate/silent notification settings (see image above). Read more »