Daily Roundup: HTC One M9 review, removing Galaxy S6 bloatware and more!
In today's Daily Roundup, we review the HTC One M9, learn how Samsung will let you remove bloatware from the Galaxy S6 and find out how Redditors uncovered a massive Archer Easter egg. Get the details on these stories and more past the break.
HTC One M9 review: Another year, another modest step forward
Let's say you're a smartphone maker and one year you cook up a formula for a beloved, game-changing device. The next year, you tweak that formula a bit to create a worthy, if slightly less exciting, follow-up of a phone. What do you do after another year has gone by? Try something completely different in hopes you'll catch lightning in a bottle again, or keep plugging away on the mobile DNA that made you such a worthy name in the first place? If you're HTC, the answer is obvious: You keep polishing and polishing that formula until you finally reach the ideal you've been working toward.
The Galaxy S6 lets you remove most apps (including Samsung's)
It's no secret that Samsung scaled back on bloatware with the Galaxy S6, reducing the clutter and hopefully giving you a leaner, meaner smartphone. However, there's one more treat in store: you can cull many of the apps that are included, too. XDA forum member Jeshter2000 has noticed that a pre-release Galaxy S6 edge lets him disable or uninstall many of the preloaded programs, including some of those from Google and Samsung. If you'd rather ditch S Voice entirely and rely solely on Google's (frankly superior) native voice commands, you can.
Holy shit snacks! Redditors find massive 'Archer' Easter egg
I'm not sure which is more impressive: the fact that the Archer series creators went through so much trouble to create such an elaborate Easter egg or the fact that someone was actually able to crack the multiple mind-bending puzzles needed to reveal it. And from the looks of things, we haven't even come close to the bottom of this rabbit hole.
Moto E review (2015): The best budget phone gets even better
If you want to get a sense of where the real innovation in smartphones is happening, you need to look past the high-end flagships and toward the cheap stuff. And with the new Moto E, Motorola has crafted one of the most compelling budget smartphones yet. Starting at just $150, it's a tad more expensive than last year's $120 model, but it makes up for that with upgrades that make it a far more usable phone.
Beyond Facebook: What you need to know about texting apps
If you live in the United States, you might've been surprised when Facebook purchased WhatsApp for $19 billion -- or, in other words, thing-you'd-think-you'd-have-heard-of money. Facebook identified what those of us in the US with texting plans and Apple Messages haven't noticed: There are whole ecosystems of social networking and instant messaging separate from those we customarily use.
'Halo 5: Guardians' hype train starts with a whisper
ˆ fans aren't strangers to alternate reality games, and it looks like Halo 5: Guardians could get something similar to Halo 2's I Love Bees treatment. The just released teaser trailer (embedded below) doesn't give much by way of clues, but ends with a #HUNTtheTRUTH hashtag.
Drone smuggling prison contraband gets stymied by stupidity
Smuggling contraband into prison via drone is a bad idea, even if you toss morals out the window: the aircraft are noisy, flashy, and require a good amount of skill to fly in undetected. However, some British crooks didn't get the memo. Police report that unidentified suspects tried using a drone (a DJI Phantom 2 Vision, to be exact) to sneak drugs, phones and weapons into Bedford Prison, only to be foiled when the machine got caught in barbed wire.
