Android Police Team - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Oct

Android Community Keeps Growing - Reddit.com’s Android SubReddit Now 20,000 Strong!

Posted by Android Police Team in News, Off-Topic

We couldn't help noticing that as of a few minutes ago, the Andreddit community reached a nice, healthy, round number 20,000. What this means is 20,000 of you clicked the little button from your reddit accounts and are regularly getting Android stories mixed into your front page.

You have helped a lot with our continued growth and have proven yourself as a great source of news, readership, and participation. In fact, some of you even went as far as joining our ranks - Brad Ganley and Brett Gmoser, we're looking at you (the door is always open for more).

Jul

[Updated] Want To Join The Android Police Team? We Are Looking For Quality Community Contributors

Posted by Android Police Team in News

Last Updated: October 18th, 2011

We here at Android Police love writing original content, scoping out and delivering news, and developing useful site tools and features. We also pride ourselves in taking time with our articles and maintaining high content quality.

We love crafting and sculpting our articles so much that it doesn't leave enough time in the day to cover everything we want and some news goes unpublished, some apps unreviewed, and some Android fans end up missing out on the info they wanted.

Android Police aims to be a community site, maintained and contributed to not only by the site founders but also by you - the user, the reader, the fan, and perhaps the writer?

May

TechCrunch Spies A Wrapped Froyo Sculpture At The Googleplex. Forget That - Here Is The Unwrapped Sculpture Caught On Camera In Its Full Glory

Posted by Android Police Team in News, Videos

So today TechCrunch apparently tried to send their reporter to the Googleplex and unwrap the wrapped sculpture that was sitting next to all the other Android related creations, all in the shape of existing Android version codenames - Cupcake, Donut, and Eclair.

When the reporter tried to unwrap the sculpture to peak inside, some Googlers threatened to call security (deservedly so, may I add).

What TechCrunch didn't know, however, is that the sculpture was already leaked to Youtube a whole week ago. Here it is, in its full glory:

Update: the video has been set to private - at least the screens I saved below are still visible.

Apr

Samsung Moment Android 2.1 ROM Leaked, Available For Download

Posted by Android Police Team in Development, Moment, News, Samsung

We just got word that the long awaited Samsung Moment 2.1 update ROM was leaked and is available for your flashing pleasures. Android Police seems to be the first Android blog to break the news.

Head over to this SDX-Developers.com forum post to download it. Here is the ROM download link, in case the forum goes down.

SDX forum members have tested the ROM out and found it working, with the exception of some of them not being able to log into the Market. A phone reset reportedly fixes this problem. Of course, proceed at your own risk.

The leaked ROM comes after Sprint earlier this week reportedly began internal testing of Android 2.1 on the Moment by releasing it to some of its employees.

Apr

Motorola Droid 2.1 Already Rooted, Get Yours Now (With A Catch)

Posted by Android Police Team in Development, Droid (Sholes), Motorola, News

Last Updated: August 1st, 2012

A day barely passed since the over-the-air (OTA) Android 2.1 update for the Motorola Droid was converted into a simple download installable without having to wait your turn in Verizon's rollout line, and we're already getting word on the 2.1 firmware getting rooted.

Speeddymon over at AllDroid.org forums, together with one Zinx Verituse have figured out a way to root the new version of the OS (2.1) by slightly tweaking the update.zip file that is used to upgrade the Droid from 2.0.1. to 2.1.

Note that this root method only works when updating from an unrooted 2.0.1.

If you already upgraded to 2.1, you have to revert back to stock 2.0.1 first and then apply the update below.

Apr

HTC Posts an Evo 4G First Look Video - We Share It, Yawning

Posted by Android Police Team in EVO 4G (Supersonic), HTC, Videos

Last Updated: May 12th, 2010

HTC likes professionally shot videos - they've released at least one for each new phone announced in the recent history.

We have no problem with that - we can appreciate a good quality HD video showing this desirable beast up close.

What we do have a problem with is how boring this video is. Evo is flying around the screen to some lounge music in the most mind-numbing way possible; there is no voice-over - just a rundown of the main features.

The features are, as we already know, really nice. Here are the ones the video covers:

first 4G phone
8MP camera
HDMI output
kickstand
cinematic experience
new generation of HTC sense - doesn't really look that much more exciting than in 1.5 - combines Twitter, Facebook, and flickr into one widget but looks generally the same
live wallpapers
4G sharing with computers around

You can do better, HTC, so much better.

Apr

Exclusive: Google Android 2.5 Froyo ROM And Upcoming Features Leaked!

Posted by Android Police Team in News

In the land of Android, things are really happening today.

Verizon continued to roll out Android 2.1, not without some smart folks figuring out how to skip the whole OTA business and install it without waiting in line.

A few confirmed reports of HTC Hero successful upgrades to 2.1 have surfaced as well, even though the latest rumored rollout date was thought to be April 9th.

But that was not the biggest news of the day.

Thanks to an anonymous tipster who works for Google, we now have a leaked document with planned Android 2.5, codenamed Froyo, features as well as the alpha version of the Froyo ROM.

Mar

Confirmed: HTC EVO 4G Will Run Froyo - The Next Version Of Android

Posted by Android Police Team in EVO 4G (Supersonic), HTC, News, Sprint

Last week, after the announcement of HTC EVO 4G at the CTIA conference, Sprint quickly dropped a bunch of developer documentation onto their Android dev site. Having dugg in a little deeper, we saw confirmation from the horse's mouth itself (Sprint) that the EVO 4G will be running on Froyo - the version of Android following Eclair (2.1).

Here is the relevant part of the developer document v0.10 (also unchanged in v0.11):

According to the above, TYPE_WIMAX - a constant used for dealing with WiMax connectivity features - should be added in the Froyo SDK. While developers can use a temporary workaround (the value 6) to trick their apps into thinking WiMax is supported and carry on developing, actual SDK support for it will not be coming until Froyo is released.

Mar

Don't Wait For Verizon To Update Your Droid To 2.1 - Do It Yourself And Do It Now

Posted by Android Police Team in Development, Droid (Sholes), Motorola, News, Tips & Tutorials, Verizon Wireless

Yesterday, Verizon released the Motorola Droid 2.1 update schedule which turned out to be so drawn out that by the end of it, we would have seen Android 5.0 (OK, not really but it could take 2-3 weeks).

Who wants to wait this long? It didn't take long for some smart folks over at AndroidForums to figure out where the update was located on Google's servers and provide instructions on how to accomplish it in a few easy steps. Here they are:

If you have rooted your phone, the 2.1 update will unroot you back.

Download https://android.clients.google.com/updates/voles/signed-voles-ESE81-from-ESD56.fa406da6.zip onto your computer.

Mar

Updated: Verizon Finally Starts Upgrading All Motorola Droid Users to Android 2.1 Today, Pinky Swears This Time

Posted by Android Police Team in Droid (Sholes), Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless

Earlier today Verizon started rolling out the long awaited and repeatedly delayed Android 2.1 upgrade to the selected few Motorola Droid customers - 1,000 to be exact.

The Rollout

According to the internal document obtained by Android Central, the rollout schedule is the following:

the first 1,000 very lucky Droid owners should have already gotten their OTA (over the air) updates today, March 30th, at 9AM PST/noon EST.
If you are one of the lucky few, please share your experience with us, as soon as you stop calling all your friends to share the joy but right before you go on a spree of making fun of all the Hero owners with their ancient 1.5s.