Worldwide Android News 08/15/14 - Three Release WiFi Calling App, OnePlus One Gets Cloned and More!
As we reported earlier in the week, LG have put together an LTE version of the G Pad 8.0 and it will be launching in Europe soon. LG have told us that they have started shipping the tablet and "key" European markets will see a launch very soon. The G Pad 8.0 isn't to be confused with the G Pad 8.3 as it's more of a budget affair powered by a Snapdragon 400 with a 1280 x 800 display, however as there isn't an LTE version of the G Pad 8.3 available in Europe this might be the best bet to get online everywhere with an LG tablet, if not the only current option.
In what's yet another example of how modern Football in the UK is driven by money, sponsorships and the usual, the Premier League has now warned fans from sharing goals and such on Twitter, Vine or other social media. Speaking to BBC's Newsbeat, Dan Johnson, Director of Communications for the league has said that "You can understand that fans see something, they can capture it, they can share it, but ultimately it is against the law. It's a breach of copyright and we would discourage fans from doing it, we're developing technologies like gif crawlers, Vine crawlers, working with Twitter to look to curtail this kind of activity. I know it sounds as if we're killjoys but we have to protect our intellectual property."
It seems that Fleet Street might be to blame for this as The Sun and The Times have online rights to goals recorded during matches, with apps from The Sun costing £8 a month or so to get access to goals 2 minutes after they're scored. This is hardly surprising, but no less discouraging. If a fan has paid to watch a match and then records a goal himself to share online, then is said video of the goal not the creation and therefore property of whomever recorded it?
If you're one of the many that thinks that OnePlus' publicity and promotional tactics are hilarious, than perhaps this Chinese clone of the OnePlus One is the ultimate irony. For just $115, you can fool people into thinking you were chosen to own a OnePlus One, but the 5.5-inch qHD display and MediaTek CPU will probably give things away pretty quickly. The fake is made by Doogee, a company known for such things in China and at $115, it might be hard to pass up...especially if you're still waiting for an invite.
As someone who has just recently switched to Three, I have no complaints with their great value for money and excellent data speeds (I even get 4G at home where no other network offers me the same). However, there are times when I find myself out of signal, but this isn't an exclusively Three problem. To help with this, Three have released inTouch, a free app that you can download from the Play Store that allows you to make texts and calls over WiFi when out of signal. You can get it from the Play Store and then set it up by connecting to Three's network once, and then use it whenever you're on WiFi.
In what has to be one of the most ridiculous changes to how a network handles support calls, EE have now introduced jumping the queue for a fee. For the small price of 50p, you can be kicked to the front of the line when calling EE for customer support and pretty much immediately, someone from EE will answer your call rather than have you sit there listening to a poor choice in music. Quite who thought this was a good idea remains to be seen, but it's a horrible practice at best. After all, you're calling for help with an issue that's more than likely caused by EE in the first place, not to line their pockets further. Hopefully, the policy goes away quickly as this is pretty ridiculous.