March 2011 Archives

Mar

Hide Your Squares, Hide Your Rhombi: PewPew 2 Hits The Android Market

PewPew, a beautiful retro style shooter (think Geometry Wars), was released for Android early February of this year and has found a rather receptive market. With its chaotic gameplay, attractive visuals, great frame rate and $0 price tag, it managed to bag a well deserved 1 million+ downloads in less than two months.

Yesterday, Jean-François Geyelin released PewPew 2, a follow-up to the popular game, onto the Android Market. While it is a little pricier at $2.81, it looks to be definitely worth it. This upgrade to the polygon-slaying good time of the original comes with many enhancements, including an increase in the number of game modes from 4 to 7, 5 unlockable ships, and multiple difficulty levels.

Mar

It's Official: RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet Will (Sort Of) Support Android Apps

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Android OS, Apps/Games, News

Some combinations are as natural as peanut butter and jelly - Avatar & 3D, Apple & dictatorship, and Conan O'Brien & late-night comedy, to name a few. But are Android apps and the BlackBerry PlayBook also such a sweet match? If you ask RIM, the answer is a firm, definitive "yes."

The BlackBerry maker just confirmed the age-old rumors - it's announced that the upcoming QNX-based PlayBook tablet will support Android apps. There are, however, certain limitations - while the process doesn't sound overly complicated, developers of existing Android apps will need to put some work in to porting their software over, namely "repackaging, code signing, and submitting" it to the BlackBerry App World.

Mar

In-App Purchasing Now Open For Private Developer Testing, Launching Publicly Next Week

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Apps/Games, Google, News

February 2nd was an exciting day for Android fans - we were given an in-depth preview of Honeycomb, laid our eyes on some stunning 3D tablet games, and were even treated to a much-anticipated online version of the Android Market. But 2/2/2011 was also the fateful day that spelled "doom" for lite / demo versions of Android apps, as Google unveiled their new in-app billing system.

Today, Google made another announcement regarding in-app purchases: the feature will launch publicly next week. In addition, developers can now upload apps utilizing the service to the Android Market Developer Console, though said applications won't be published until next week.

Mar

HTC To Launch Two Bigger, Better Flyer Tablets With Honeycomb This Summer?

Posted by David Ruddock in Flyer, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, HTC, News

There's not a whole lot of specificity that comes with this information, but at the same time it seems pretty likely that HTC isn't putting all of its tablet eggs into the Flyer and EVO View 4G basket. DigiTimes is reporting that HTC is planning to release two Honeycomb tablets bearing the Flyer moniker later this summer, both with larger displays than the incoming Gingerbread version.

This doesn't come as much of a surprise, as the Galaxy Tab and other small, non-Honeycomb tablets have demonstrated that consumers want a device with a bigger screen and a proper tablet operating system. HTC, it seems, is going to be last of the major manufacturers to enter the Honeycomb tablet foray.

Mar

WiFi-Only Motorola XOOM Will Be Available At Costco March 27 (Sunday) For $599

Posted by David Ruddock in Motorola, News, XOOM

Great news for those of you holding out for that WiFi-only XOOM of your dreams: Costco has moved up its availability date for the LTE-less version of the tablet from April 1 to this coming Sunday, March 27. So if you walk into your local Costco this weekend, presumably the WiFi XOOM will be there to greet you for the reasonable price of $599.99.

But, if you order online, you'll get a couple of perks (even if it does mean you won't be getting your XOOM on Sunday). Namely, $10 off ($589.99), a free gel skin case, and free shipping. If you can't wait, you can pay $10 more at your brick and mortar location this weekend and let your XOOM go case-less.

Mar

Video: CyanogenMod 7 (Gingerbread) Gets Unofficially Booted On HTC Thunderbolt, Not Yet Usable

Posted by David Ruddock in Gingerbread 2.3, HTC, Mods, News, Thunderbolt (Mecha), Videos

DANGER: There is a link to download this unofficial, unsupported CM7 ROM in an XDA thread linked at the bottom of this post. Use of that software is 100% at your own risk, and unless you're a developer, there's not much reason to be playing with at this point. There is no data connectivity, no sound, and no Google Apps. Consider yourself warned.

A number of Gingerbread-hungry developers (including some from the CyanogenMod team, particularly Slayher) are hard at work preparing CyanogenMod 7 for its Thunderbolt debut, and progress is steadily being made. In the video above, you can see CyanogenMod 7 successfully booting up on the HTC Thunderbolt (albeit without the signature boot animation) and running through various simple tasks in Android.

Mar

Verizon, Sprint Rule Android Market Share Among US Carriers. AT&T? Downright Embarassing

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Carriers, News

According to the latest from ad network Chitika, Android market share is far more lopsided than you probably imagine. That Verizon is the largest is perhaps not surprising, given the data we've seen time and time again. What is surprising is just how much of a lead they have: the company accounts for a whopping 51.4% of the market. Sprint comes in at second with 25.3%, while T-Mobile pulls up third with 16.8%. Meanwhile, AT&T checks in with a measly 3.6% - embarrassingly low, to say the least.

Given how much of a push T-Mobile has made with Android, it's perhaps surprising to see that they only have 16.8%; then again, they are the smallest of the four, and it's understandable that their market share would suffer commensurately.

Mar

PSA: Don't Blame Root And Unlock For Thunderbolt's Network Issues - Verizon Is Suffering From 3G And 4G Outage

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in News, Thunderbolt (Mecha), Verizon Wireless

Droid-Life has just confirmed what Justin's been hearing: that Verizon's network is having issues. Apparently both 3G and 4G are affected, and Thunderbolt activations are also reportedly being held up. No word on what the issue is or what areas are affected, but Droid-Life has asked readers who are experiencing issues to drop a line with the details in the comments, so that would be a good place to check.

Justin Case and TeamAndIRC have been fielding complaints/accusations/questions from angry rooted Thunderbolt owners who think their root method may be to blame. Don't worry - that's not the case; your rooted Tbolt has nothing do with it.

Mar

ATRIX 4G To Receive First OTA Update - Doesn't Include HSUPA Or Call Quality Fixes, But You Can Sign Up To Test It

Posted by David Ruddock in Atrix 4G (Olympus), Motorola, News

Motorola is preparing to release its first over-the-air update for the ATRIX 4G (beta signup link here, open until Friday at 12PM EST), which should be exciting news for owners of the device, though it may end up inspiring more angst than joy.

The ATRIX 4G has been known in particular for two problems since its release: first, a lack of HSUPA (high speed upload) support in the software and, second, poor voice quality on phone calls. Motorola has promised to address both of these issues - just not right now. Moto has yet to release the change log for the incoming update, but the admin on the Moto forums who posted on it has made it a point to confirm that neither of the ATRIX's biggest annoyances are being taken care of in the impending release.

Mar

[New App] Aix Weather Widget Helps Visualize Weather In An Original And Useful Way

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

"Do we need yet another weather widget?" you might say, glancing at the title of this post, and while I would usually agree, I am going to urge you to take a look at Aix Weather Widget that came out today. I myself don't even have a weather widget on my homescreen, and frankly, this is the only one so far I have seriously considered adding.

Unlike traditional weather widgets that show max and min temperatures together with some flashy picture of the sun or clouds, the 4x1 Aix Weather Widget actually contains enough data for a full day (for now - a week view may come later).