Yesterday Facebook announced that it was revamping its Messenger app, stripping it of SMS functionality and creating a more attractive, streamlined experience that the company hopes will draw more users to the app. The new version is currently rolling out to a limited number of users, with a wider release planned for the coming weeks. So when it arrives, what should you expect? What's New? To get started you're going...

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Earlier today at a livestreamed event in San Francisco, Google's SVP of Engineering Vic Gundotra announced a slew of new features slated for Google+ and Hangouts. While we're still waiting for the Hangouts update that will enable SMS support, animated GIFs, and location sharing to hit the Play Store, which should happen in a few days, the Google+ update 4.2 is already live. What's New? G+ Photos is...

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Android is now the undisputed champion of mobile marketshare, but certain companies are still releasing exclusive iOS apps, like the JARVIS-themed Iron Man 3 companion. It's a bummer, but iOS users can't make sweet custom boot animations like the one that Redditor hypd09 posted to /r/Android yesterday. It won't turn your phone into a suit of weaponized armor, but it will look pretty sweet with your elaborate...

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Background audio So, without further ado, I'm glad to report that background audio should be finally coming to a YouTube app near you, if all goes well during testing. This feature will let you start a video, exit the app, and switch to something else without the audio stream dying, which is incredibly useful when listening to podcasts or music videos, or just quickly checking an incoming text. Moreover, it should...

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Recently, an unreleased version of Google's Play Store 4.4 update and discovered that Newsstand, an upcoming Play service we first learned about back in March, had made some progress. When we first saw Newsstand, it was in the midst of Javascript and CSS in the web Play Store. At the time, it looked like Newsstand would be an addition to the existing apps, books, tv/movies, music, and magazines categories, adopting...

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BlackBerry has announced that it will finally start rolling-out BBM for Android in Google Play later today. The BlackBerry Messenger should become visible in the store in the next few hours.  “The demand for BBM on Android and BBM on iPhone continues to be amazing. About six million people signed up for information about BBM at BBM.com,” the company noted in a blog post. BlackBerry has also revealed that in order...

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Getting interrupted because of an incoming text message is never fun. And replying to that text usually means switching to your messaging app and then switching back to what you were doing previously. While the sender may think that his or her lolspk is more valuable than your Angry Birds time, you may not always be inclined to agree. Thankfully Paranoid Android had something to say about that with the revolutionary Halo,...

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The Xposed framework has opened up some interesting mods. Most of them do only a few things. Some of them do a lot more. GravityBox does a lot more than that. This module from XDA Developers member C3C076 (keep 'em comin, guys) seems to incorporate all the little tweaks that people generally flash a custom ROM for, but it's built for stock Nexus devices and "clean" AOSP ROMs. Here are a few of the highlights...

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