Aaron Gingrich - 39/72 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Aaron Gingrich

Aaron is a geek who has always had a passion for technology. When not working or writing, he can be found spending time with his family, playing a game, or watching a movie.

Follow @angingrich

Feb

[Updated] Track, Manage, And Pay For Your Trenta White Chocolate Mocha Latte With Unofficial Starbucks Card Widget

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Apps/Games, News

Update on 2/18/11: birbeck, the developer of the app, has been issued a Cease & Desist order by Starbucks for intellectual property infringement. He's running a "Rename This App" contest, and the prize is a $25 Starbucks e-Gift Card. If you're interested, get a move on - the contest ends at Midnight on Wednesday, Feb. 23. He also asked us to highlight the app's privacy and security policy.

Yuppies of the world rejoice: there's a new(ish) way to pay for your overpriced cup of coffee, albeit an unofficial one. Although Starbucks has an official Card app for BlackBerry and iOS, they've yet to release anything for Android.

Feb

Amazon Appstore Developer Blog Is Packed With Details, From The Appstore Requirements & Layout To Tips To Help Your App Succeed

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Apps/Games, News

Things are really winding up for the Amazon Appstore, and the Developer Blog is proof of that fact. In the last few weeks, the blog has been a hotspot of activity about Amazon's newest creation, and quite a few details are revealed. As I'm not a developer, I'm simply going to pull out the highlights of the posts - let's take a look.

When submitting an app, developers must include two icons (small @ 114x114px, large @ 512x512) and a minimum of three screenshots (854x480), with a maximum image size of 3Mb. They encourage (but don't require) a video to be uploaded as well, with a max size of 30Mb when uploaded via FTP.
The same marketing tactics used throughout Amazon will be used for apps.

Feb

[Updated With Internal PDF] Confirmed: Samsung Epic 4G & Sanyo Zio Receiving Android 2.2 (Froyo) Update OTA On February 21

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Epic 4G, Froyo 2.2, News, Sprint, Zio

Earlier today, Android Central caught word that the Epic and Zio would receive an over-the-air (OTA) update to Froyo on February 21, but had nothing more than copied and pasted text from the Sprint system. Fast forward a few hours, and we now have more concrete evidence in the form a screenshots from Sprint's internal system that confirm the update is coming:

The image is courtesy of XDA member bentiger, and confirms his earlier statement that there was a Sprint internal announcement that the updates were rolling out:

I just saw an official release from Sprint Dealer News.

Software Updates: Samsung Epic (EB13, Froyo) & Sanyo Zio (2.200SP, Froyo)
Effective 2/21/11, software updates will be available for both devices Over-the-Air (OTA).

Feb

Battle Of The Best: AnandTech Benchmarks 27 Devices, Including 4 Dual-Cores, 3 iPhones, An iPad, A Blackberry, And A WP7 Device

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Atrix 4G (Olympus), Devices By Manufacturer, Galaxy S II, News, Optimus 2X (Star, p990), Optimus 3D (p920) / Thrill 4G (p925)

In what's sure to be a hit with hardware nerds, AnandTech has run a suite of benchmarks on 27 different devices. The line-up is dominated by Android, but also includes the iPhone 3GS (both on 4.1 and 4.2.1), iPhone 4, iPad, Blackberry Torch, and the WP7-powered HTC Surround. The results? Broadly speaking, Android comes out looking damn good. As for the dual cores - well, as you'd expect, they performed even better.

The hardware was all over the map, including dual-core devices such as the TI OMAP 4430-powered LG Optimus 3D, the Tegra 2-powered Optimus 2X, and the Exynos 4210-powered Samsung Galaxy S II, all the way through today's run of the mill (single core) high(er)-end devices packing A4's, Hummingbirds, Snapdragons and beyond.

Feb

PSA: XFINITY App Exposes Your Comcast Username & Password In System Log

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Apps/Games, News

Before you panic, you should know that this isn't a huge deal, and Comcast is aware of the situation and has promised a fix "within a week or two." There, feel better? Good, because if you use the XFINITY app, any other app that has permission to read logs can read your Comcast username and password (aLogCat, for example).

The details, courtesy of aBSuRDiST, who discovered the issue:

My system log shows <userName>MYUSERNAME@comcast.net</userName> and <password>MYPASSWORD</password> on a line that starts with "D/HTTPManager". I read the log using aLogcat (app available in the market). Open aLogcat, press menu and filter for "password".

Feb

[Hands-On] Make Your Clock Widget: Because Everyone Should Have A Totally Customized Clock

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Apps/Games, Development, News

The open-endedness - particularly, the customizability - of Android is exactly what makes me love it so much. And Make Your Clock Widget is a perfect example of that, offering seemingly infinite possibilities for what you can create. Don't believe me? Take a look at the sample screenshots:

Intrigued, I took a few minutes to play with it, and came away hugely impressed (note: I didn't include a picture of my final clock because... well, I made a goofy clock just playing around with the app.)

You can add the date and time in nearly any fashion or format you can think of - there are tons of options available.

Feb

[Videos] WireFly Reviews The HTC Thunderbolt, Compares It To HTC EVO 4G And Verizon iPhone 4

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

Last week our friends at WireFly unboxed the HTC Thunderbolt, but spent little time actually using the device. They left us with a few tantalizing tidbits though, saying "this phone cranks," and promising a full video review, as well as head-to-head comparisons with the iPhone 4 and the EVO 4G. Yesterday, the last of the three videos went up - let's take a look.

Video Review

The review video is just over 8 minutes long. The first few minutes are spent running through the system, and from the 4:10 mark onwards, they run some benchmarks and compare the scores to other devices.

Feb

HTC Thunderbolt Rooted With S-OFF, Successfully Running ClockworkMod Recovery

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

The gang at AndIRC - lead by Jamzelle and TheEndGame7 - has already managed to completely root the HTC Thunderbolt, and with Koush's help, has ClockworkMod Recovery up and running on the device. Apparently, it was a surprisingly easy task in just about every way.

The team started with a pre-production, unbranded Thunderbolt running a January 3rd ROM. What they found was that the phone had a bootloader with S-OFF, although they note that it's not an engineering bootloader, and that it's likely a different one than production models will ship with. Even more surprisingly, the phone had no write protection.

Feb

[Weekend Poll] Is The Nokia/Microsoft Alliance A Threat To Android?

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Development, Polls

Last Updated: September 3rd, 2011

This is the newest in our Weekend Poll series. For last week's, see The Great Divide: Is The Tablet/Phone Split Going To Hurt Android?

It's official: Nokia and Microsoft have formed a strategic alliance. Which, in layman's terms, means Nokia smartphones will be powered by Windows Phone 7, and search across all Nokia devices will be powered by Bing. What does this mean for Android, though?

Well, who knows. On the one hand, this is a move by Nokia to try to stop hemorrhaging customers, especially from the highly profitable smartphone segment. But it may already be too late; they've already given up an awful lot of ground.

Feb

Android Intervention, Part 2 Of 4: Cohesiveness, Uniformity, And The Little Things

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Editorials, News

Last Updated: August 1st, 2012

This is part two in a series of editorials addressing our editors' biggest gripes with Android. Click here for part one, on fragmentation.

Android has advanced by leaps and bounds with the last few revisions. Android 2.2 (Froyo) famously brought massive performance improvements, 2.3 (Gingerbread) brought many subtle (and in sum, quietly substantial) usability and UI improvements, while 3.0 (Honeycomb) is bringing an entirely new UI to the OS.

I have to admit - I laid out this editorial weeks ago, when Gingerbread was still in its infancy and Honeycomb had yet to be officially revealed. Having used Gingerbread-powered CM7 for nearly a week now, I can say that Google is really starting to make progress on my gripes.