July 2010 Archives

Jul

Official ICQ Mobile For Android App Goes Live

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

ICQ, a still popular IM network that started it all, today released the official ICQ Mobile For Android v1.0.0 application to the Android Market.

While ICQ hasn't been at the top for a while, it still remains popular in Europe, and Russia specifically, with 100s of millions of registered accounts and 50 million active users as of 2008.

History

In 1996, ICQ became the first Internet-wide instant messaging service, changing the Internet chat, previously dominated by IRC, forever.

AOL acquired Mirabilis, the company behind ICQ, on June 8, 1998 for $407 million and then 12 years ...

Jul

Koush Releases Final Version of ClockworkMod Recovery For Samsung Galaxy S

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Captivate, Fascinate, Galaxy S, Mods, News, Vibrant

Koush has released his new version of ClockworkMod for the Galaxy S series of devices. Users who flashed older versions of CWM will have to reflash the stock kernel. However, CWM doesn’t touch the kernel – Koush says it’s “…Completely uninvasive” – rather than hard-installing, it installs to the ramdisk so that it’s gone when the phone restarts.

Installation is pretty simple – users download ROM Manager from the Market, and then flash CWM. The first time users run CWM, an additional reinstall may be needed. Koush’s instructions:

First things first, if you flashed a previous version of Clockwork Recovery

...

Jul

Sprint's Samsung Epic 4G Galaxy S Series Phone To Be Released By August 20th?

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Epic 4G, News, Samsung, Sprint

Last Updated: April 2nd, 2011

If the past is any indication of the future, it looks like we may now have the latest release date for the Epic 4G on Sprint. Let me explain.

You see, Samsung has so far posted 2 SPS TV (Samsung TV) videos of their hosts showcasing the Captivate and the Vibrant, with video post dates coinciding with the official phone release dates:

the Captivate video was posted on Monday, July 19th, which happens to be the first business day after the official launch date that fell on a Sunday (July 18th)
the Vibrant video was posted on Wednesday, July 21st,

...

Jul

[Hands On] Cyanogen Mod 6 Nightly For HTC EVO 4G (07232010 release): It Rocks My World

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in EVO 4G (Supersonic), Froyo 2.2, Mods, News

On Tuesday, we posted that the first nightly (experimental) Cyanogen Mod 6 (CM6) build for the EVO 4G was released the night before. True to the name, CM6 has released a new build every night since, bringing bug and feature fixes. After a number of you posted comments saying that you were running CM6 without any problems (other than the known non-functional features), I decided to take the plunge.

The ROM still lacks a handful of features – such as 4G, FM Radio, and full MMS support. Still, it seemed that the number of bugs was pretty low and I ...

Jul

Samsung Handing Out Free Galaxy S Phones To Disgruntled iPhone 4 Users On Twittter?

Posted by John Thompson in Captivate, Galaxy S, News, Samsung, Vibrant

Are you still death gripping your phone into oblivion, wishing that your signal would maintain long enough to make just one call? Don’t worry we hear you, and apparently, so do the folks over at Samsung!

There have been a few tweets flying around Samsung’s UK twitter page lately, handing out free Galaxy S phones to five lucky British individuals. Before you all rush to Twitter and start sending tweets out to Samsung though, you should probably know that all may not be how it seems.

Engadget has done some investigatory work on the people who have supposedly received these ...

Jul

Android’s First Gaming Tournament – AGC #1

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Apps/Games, Games, News

Gaming has progressed a long way since the first consoles were introduced in the 80's. Since then, PC and console gaming has grown to the point where televised tournaments are held for huge prizes and, for some [lucky] people, it can even be a full-time job! Now mobile gamers can join in on the fun, as Droid Gamers have announced the first ever Android Gaming Challenge.

The Android Gaming Challenge (or AGC1 for short) will put players against each other in the first ever Android gaming tournament and quite possibly the first ever mobile gaming tournament. The champion is to ...

Jul

E-Reading On Android Just Got Better – Nook For Android Now Available

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Applications, News

Barnes & Noble has already shown great interest in the Android platform by choosing it to run on their own e-reader, and this relationship continues to grow. B&N has just released Nook For Android, a full-featured app that includes access to their e-book store.

With plenty of e-reader applications on the Market already (including Nook’s main rival, Kindle) this may seem like overkill. However, the LendMe feature, which allows users to lend their e-books to friends for short periods of time, may be enough for some to make the switch. Check out all the features below.

More than 1 Million

...

Jul

[App Of The Week] Craigsnotifica by Widget, A Powerful And Customizable Tool For Navigating Craigslist

Posted by David Ruddock in App Reviews, Applications, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Introduction

We here at Android Police know how important apps are as a part of the overall Android experience. We also know how notoriously difficult the Android Market is to navigate. With these two things in mind, we decided to introduce the Android Police App Of The Week.

Every week, we'll take one app that we think is a cut above the rest, and give you an in-depth look at what we think makes it exemplary.

Like the idea of Craigslist? Don’t like actually using the website (especially on your phone)? Or like the idea of having a more powerful ...

Jul

AOL Chooses Android Over iOS For Newest Apps

Posted by Andrew Gould in Applications

Today, AOL released two new applications for Android as well as an HTLML5 web app for the other guys. The two applications, AOL Portal and AOL Daily Finance, are the latest in a line of mobile applications bridging platforms. The AOL portal app is the first application AOL has chosen to release on Android, but not on iOS.

When asked why the company chose Android over iOS and other platforms, David Temkin, VP of Mobile for AOL said “Momentum is the key reason.”

AOL is banking on Android’s momentum to carry their product to the greater body of users but ...

Jul

Oh, Snap – Chinese Carriers Removing Google From The Android Equation

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in News

Ars Technica, via TechCrunch, published an article yesterday on the state of Android in China. The good news: Android is set to explode in China – just check out these facts (direct quote from TechCrunch):

- Number of Mobile Internet Users in China (start of 2010): 233 million
- Number of Mobile Internet Users in China (projected for 2014): 957 million
- Population of USA + EU (2010): roughly 800 million

The number of mobile internet users in China today is roughly 80% of the population of the US, and according to TechCrunch, Android is gaining market share fast. That ...