Another Saturday is upon us and that means it is time to take a look back at the highlights from the past week. There were some interesting, not to mention surprising stories that surfaced this week. One example appeared just last evening — the talk of Sprint considering a purchase of T-Mobile. Whether this would make it through the necessary regulatory approvals is another story, but nonetheless, seeing Sprint purchase T-Mobile could make for an interesting shakeup in the mobile industry.
We are going to have to keep watching and see how it plays out, but otherwise, we also saw a few new Google Play edition devices and once again, Motorola appeared on the site more than a few times this past week. Kicking off with some of the Motorola goodies. They updated the Motorola Camera and Touchless Control apps, both of which are available by way of the Google Play Store. Motorola also updated the boot services app and that meant a bit of winter snow in the boot animation on the Moto G and Moto X.
We took a look at the falling snow on the Moto G and even shared a short video earlier in the week. Sticking with the Moto G for another minute here, this past week saw our full hands-on review go live. At risk of giving the spoiler, the Moto G was a solid handset during our time and in fact, we have offered it as a recommendation to several friends and family members. We will also let you in on a little secret — despite the review having been wrapped and posted, the handset has remained on our desk and is still being used.
The new Google Play editions arrived in the form of the Sony Z Ultra phablet and the LG G Pad 8.3, which coincidentally, is the first GPe tablet. We have gotten both models in for review and while we have yet to spend enough time with either for a full review, we did share some initial hands-on thoughts with both devices. Google also quietly released a new color Nexus 7 the same day those GPe devices arrived in the Play Store. The new Nexus 7 is available in white and this particular one has WiFi for connectivity and 32GB of internal storage.
Sticking with talk of devices for just a moment longer, we also spent a bit of time with the Verizon branded HTC One max this week. That particular handset is large, but despite the overwhelming size, it does have some really solid perks. Our thoughts on the Verizon model can be found here, and our full review of the handset from when it was originally released can be found here.
There wasn’t an overwhelming amount of apps this week, though there was at least one worth mentioning given the time of year. That one is the Santa Tracker app. Also, Cover, the contextually aware lockscreen exited private beta and landed in the Google Play Store for those looking to play. Google also released the Android Device Manager app this past week. We also cannot forget the latest from Rovio, Angry Birds GO.
And a few last stories to highlight touch on issues with Android 4.4 and the FCC. The posts for these can be found here and here, respectively, and they are both worth a click. Not to mention, they both seem like stories that are going to be continuing and possibly turning up in future weekly wrap-up posts.
Otherwise, while we do expect thing to slow down a bit in terms of device and app announcements as we get closer to the holiday, things will only pick up as we move into the new year. After all, CES is in early January and we will let you all know — the Android Community team will be live and on-site.
