How many of you own a droid?

[columbia]

Pandora? I bet you still have a Myspace account.

[Digitalgypsy66]

Like I said, I never use it.

The only time it ever gets used is to play Christmas music.

[DelPen]

Any recomendations for Twitter? My Note 3 freezes or reboots and the only thing I can see in common is something with the official Twitter app. I am looking for barebones that has the reply, retweet and fav buttons under each tweet like the official app but nothing I have tried yet have thet.

Bonus points if it doesn't have a ridiculous app icon.

[pittsoccer33]

Whats wrong with Pandora?

Now that I don't listen to music as much any more I think its great. I don't have to program playlists and whatnot.

Pandora on Tmobile is great because they dont count the data.

[PensFanInDC]

Whats wrong with Pandora?

Spotify exists

[Digitalgypsy66]

Whats wrong with Pandora?

Spotify exists

Google Play (all access) too...

[eddysnake]

what is spotify?

[tifosi77]

Whats wrong with Pandora?

Spotify exists

Neither of which actually pays proper royalties. This is because the labels, publishers and the streaming services negotiated agreements to treat each individual instance of a streamed song like a purchase. That means artists (be it songwriters on the publishing side, or the recording artists on the master side) get paid about 10%-12% of the revenue, after allowable deductions. (Which up to an alarmingly recent time, included packaging costs on digital downloads....)

In reality, the deals with streaming services constitute licensing agreements. And in a license agreement, the relevant artists tend to do much better, typically splitting the revenue 50-50 with the publisher or label, as applicable, and usually on a first-dollar basis.

I saw a story a few years ago that showed songwriter extraordinaire Desmond Child was paid $110 for 6-7 million plays of "Livin' On A Prayer" in one quarter of 2011 or 2012.

[eddysnake]

Anyone have experience with the Nexus 6 vs Note 4? I was just about sold on the Note 4, then as I started reading more and more about the Nexus, I've become torn...

[pittsoccer33]

I saw a story a few years ago that showed songwriter extraordinaire Desmond Child was paid $110 for 6-7 million plays of "Livin' On A Prayer" in one quarter of 2011 or 2012.

Nobody gets paid for FM radio plays do they?

[pittsoccer33]

Anyone have experience with the Nexus 6 vs Note 4? I was just about sold on the Note 4, then as I started reading more and more about the Nexus, I've become torn...

I'd get a Nexus just because they don't come full of bloatware (traditionally). I havent studied up on this one, but it seems like its going to have carrier branding, and potentially bloatware.

[tifosi77]

I saw a story a few years ago that showed songwriter extraordinaire Desmond Child was paid $110 for 6-7 million plays of "Livin' On A Prayer" in one quarter of 2011 or 2012.

Nobody gets paid for FM radio plays do they?

Songwriters do, but not recording artists. It balances out, because recording artists tend to make out much better than songwriters on digital streaming. Of course, that's a fairly recent innovation.

[DelPen]

Anyone have experience with the Nexus 6 vs Note 4? I was just about sold on the Note 4, then as I started reading more and more about the Nexus, I've become torn...

I'd get a Nexus just because they don't come full of bloatware (traditionally). I havent studied up on this one, but it seems like its going to have carrier branding, and potentially bloatware.

Depends on the carrier. T-Mobile is using the Pure Google edition since they added in wifi-calling so nothing extra and Moto will finance with no interest for 12 months. You can use the same phone on AT&T.

For Verizon, not sure what they will add.

[PensFanInDC]

Whats wrong with Pandora?

Spotify exists

Neither of which actually pays proper royalties. This is because the labels, publishers and the streaming services negotiated agreements to treat each individual instance of a streamed song like a purchase. That means artists (be it songwriters on the publishing side, or the recording artists on the master side) get paid about 10%-12% of the revenue, after allowable deductions. (Which up to an alarmingly recent time, included packaging costs on digital downloads....)

In reality, the deals with streaming services constitute licensing agreements. And in a license agreement, the relevant artists tend to do much better, typically splitting the revenue 50-50 with the publisher or label, as applicable, and usually on a first-dollar basis.

I saw a story a few years ago that showed songwriter extraordinaire Desmond Child was paid $110 for 6-7 million plays of "Livin' On A Prayer" in one quarter of 2011 or 2012.

Bands make money on touring.

[pittsoccer33]

Given that I had to unexpectedly buy a new tv, purchasing a brand new phone is out for now. I'd been hoping on an HTC One M8 Windows, but I'll have to hold on to mine a little longer.

I was thinking of going the used phone route, but a lot of phones are being banned by carriers the same way Xbox Live bans consoles. Typically its over non-payment of a finance phone, since all of the carriers have started doing that now.

So say I go buy a phone on a financing plan for $20 a month. I could sell it and quit paying the bill. Whoever I sold it to will suddenly have an unusable phone.

You can check and see if a given phone is banned before you bought it, but that doesn't mean it won't be banned in the future.

I'm wondering how much further carriers will take this to try stopping a used phone market.

[DelPen]

Given that I had to unexpectedly buy a new tv, purchasing a brand new phone is out for now. I'd been hoping on an HTC One M8 Windows, but I'll have to hold on to mine a little longer.

I was thinking of going the used phone route, but a lot of phones are being banned by carriers the same way Xbox Live bans consoles. Typically its over non-payment of a finance phone, since all of the carriers have started doing that now.

So say I go buy a phone on a financing plan for $20 a month. I could sell it and quit paying the bill. Whoever I sold it to will suddenly have an unusable phone.

You can check and see if a given phone is banned before you bought it, but that doesn't mean it won't be banned in the future.

I'm wondering how much further carriers will take this to try stopping a used phone market.

Moto G. Right around $200, no contract, 4G version of the new model is coming out soon. I hope we start seeing more competition for mid tier handsets and the flagship phones can still be the ones I finance.

[DelPen]

I was thinking about buying the Fire Phone at $229 since you get the free year of prime which I already pay for so it was effectively $129 for an OK phone for my daughter since it's the same OS as her Kindle. But they jacked the price back up to $449 for the unlocked version. Um, no.

[DelPen]

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Even better sale now just for today, Fire Phone including a full year of Prime is just $189. Unlocked to work on both AT&T and T-Mobile. Trying to wean the family off Apple and move to Android, which this essentially is, and it's faitly easy to get all the Google services and Play Store on to this.

Anyone have one of these? For really $90 I wouldn't have spent otherwise this is really worth it I think since I'm a Prime member and this will extend my subscription for a year.

[Hockeynut!]

Very tempted to get that Fire phone. My contract with verizon ends in Feb and I'm so tired of paying over $100 a month for a phone I rarely use.

[mac5155]

Any of you use NFC triggers with your smartphones? As I understand it, with an app like Trigger I could use NFC stickers to automatically set certain actions based on proximity. For example, if I'm understanding correctly I could put a tag on the phone holder in my car so that when I insert the phone it automatically turns on the GPS and then starts Waze.

So like I could put one on my door frame, when I walk in the house turn on WiFi, then when I walk out, turn it off? That would save a ton of my battery life.

[Digitalgypsy66]

All of a sudden, my Verizon S3 makes certain shortcuts disappear within folders. A handful of apps updated over the holidays - The Score and YouTube are the culprits in my case - and they disappeared from the folders I created for like-minded apps. So I long press and drag the app back to the folder, and TWO identical app icons appear. Delete one, and they both disappear...Anyone else have this happen to them?

[knives of ice]

Any of you use NFC triggers with your smartphones? As I understand it, with an app like Trigger I could use NFC stickers to automatically set certain actions based on proximity. For example, if I'm understanding correctly I could put a tag on the phone holder in my car so that when I insert the phone it automatically turns on the GPS and then starts Waze.

So like I could put one on my door frame, when I walk in the house turn on WiFi, then when I walk out, turn it off? That would save a ton of my battery life.

depends on the phone most likely but it really doesn't save you much battery life from my experience.

yes, you can use nfc tags to do what you describe but it is much easier to do it with automation apps such as tasker. for instance when i plug my phone into my MHL cable it turns bluetooth on, connects to my car stereo, turns the screen off and launches car home ultra since my phone screen mirrors to the head unit in my car. then when i turn the car off there are things it automatically does as well. the possibilites are really endless if you want to learn the program.

[DelPen]

Surprisingly easy to googlefy a fire phone. Juat can't use wallpapers for most launchers.

[columbia]

Which hack did you use, because it didn't go very well with my Fire tablet.

[DelPen]

Which hack did you use, because it didn't go very well with my Fire tablet.

No hacks for the phone, the 4 apps installed in order were all i needed to do with a reboot to get the google launcher to work. I know the tablets need rooted for this to work but the phone doesn't.