We’ve reached another Sunday. The beginning of a new week, or maybe the end of the last one, depending on how you roll. We’ve got a ton of phones on our desks, so many words to be written, and a few more trips hitting the itinerary.
So, let’s not dilly-dally. A few quick hits for this week’s effort:
Galaxy S4 or HTC One?
That’s the question of the moment. If we had to choose, which would we choose? The editor in me wants to hedge and say “Do you really have to pick one? They’re both great!” And they are. And I could happily use either one. But we’re gonna have to pick one, aren’t we?
I’m still using the Galaxy S4 almost exclusively right now, trying to get a better handle on it. So … many … features. And it makes the HTC One design stand out that much more when I pick it back up. I have a feeling it’s the camera options that are going to make the difference for me. Maybe even more so than overall picture quality. We’ll see.
That latest LG leak
An intriguing leak late Saturday from evleaks. Mulling it over with some coffee this morning, I’m still not convinced there might not be capacitive buttons flanking that LG logo. Or volume and power buttons that you just can’t see in this single picture. But stranger things have happened, and I’ve been wrong before. On the other hand, is it too tall to not have on-screen buttons? Quite possibly.
Regardless, that’s one sexy design. It’s tough to tell where and when this design might show up without any more context — it’s too easy to see something we don’t understand and shout “Nexus!”, and LG makes a lot of phones destined for a lot of places — but this one’s got me a tad excited, until I stop and think about how big it probably is.
The all-new Android Central app
Beta testing of the all-new Android Central app is going well. We’ve got more bugs to squash, and more features to try to cram in. It’s been an interesting experience to say the least, especially when you’re working with a (kick-ass) developer a dozen time zones ahead. But it’s coming along nicely.
Check out this forum thread for the latest build. Hopefully we’ll graduate things to Google Play in the near future.
Oh, and I’ve finally unpublished the old Android Central widget and clock that we’d left up for nostalgia sake. Those hadn’t been supported in years, and it was time for them to go.
The Android Central Podcast
In case you missed it, we’re trying out a new day and time for the live recording of the Greatest Android Podcast in the Word. We’ve switched from Thursday night to Friday afternoon. Hopefully that’ll relax things a little bit, and, frankly, it’s easier on those of us who have kids trying to get to bed right then. (And by “those of us” I mean “me.”) Funny how we were a little rusty this past week, though. It’s easy to fall out of that rhythm.
We’ll still get the recorded version up on the RSS feed ASAP, and the video will follow shortly thereafter, so be sure to subscribe if you can’t wait to get your fix. You can subscribe to our podcast (and all of our other feeds) here.
200k on Twitter
None of us even noticed the rollover, but the Android Central Twitter account eclipsed 200,000 followers last week. That’s just incredible. Never thought we’d reach that many. Thanks to everyone who follows.
Big news for Nooks
Probably one of the bigger (and underappreciated) stories last week was that Barnes & Noble’s Nook tablets will be getting an update to add Google Play. I’m not sure that’ll save the Nook from oblivion (on the other hand, so long as BN is around, it’ll have an e-reader/tablet), but it’s the first time (that I know of) that a non-Google Play device has come back onto the reservation.
There must have been some interesting discussions involved in that one.
What’s next …
Things are about to get a little crazy. A full week of work is ahead, then off to Google I/O in San Francisco, followed by CTIA in Las Vegas. And that pretty much takes care of the month. Plus, we’ve still got this #tm13 thing going on behind the scenes.
And with that, back to work …