Artem Russakovskii - 15/125 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Artem is a die-hard Android fan, passionate tech blogger, obsessive-compulsive editor, bug hunting programmer, and the founder of Android Police.
Most of the time, you will find Artem either hacking away at code or thinking of the next 15 blog posts.

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Jul

Verizon Galaxy Nexus Is Closer Than Ever To Full AOSP Support - But It's Not There Yet

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, Galaxy Nexus, Jelly Bean 4.1, News, Samsung, Verizon Wireless

Earlier today, the Jelly Bean source code rolled into AOSP (Android Open Source Project). This is a big deal - one we've been waiting for since the great Google I/O unveiling. What does it mean exactly?

It means that ROMs that are built from AOSP, like CyanogenMod, can now start integrating the Jelly Bean code and release the first true JB nightlies. Not broken ports from the Galaxy Nexus builds - real ROMs. They can also work out bugs because they can see the source code.

Manufacturers can now start working on updating their devices to the actual Jelly Bean release - remember, Google was still working on the final touches to JB when they released the preview, so even OEMs didn't have what rolled out today.

Jul

59 Best (And 3 WTF) New Android Apps And Live Wallpapers From The Last 3 Weeks (6/17/12 - 7/9/12)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Best Apps/Games/LWPs Of The Week, News

Last Updated: July 18th, 2012

Welcome to the weekly roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Market or were spotted by us in the previous 3 weeks or so.

This is the app roundup. The game roundup from this week can be found here and the tablet app roundup here.

Nobody does app roundups like AP. If you like this post, consider voting for it on Reddit.

Please wait for this page to load in full in order to see the AppBrain widgets, which include ratings and pricing info.

Looking for the previous roundup editions?

Jul

PSA: No, You Don't Need To Defragment Your Android Device And Yes, Android Defrag Apps Are Nothing But A Scam

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News, Tips & Tutorials

Earlier today, an eager marketing person suggested we review an innovative new app that every Android user like totally needs, dude - Android Defrag. Created by Enlightened Software House, the app promised to "Increase your Android Mobile & Tablets Performance Speeds, Battery and Memory Today." There was a Pro version too, and it only cost a buck - what a deal! Here, check out this gem's full description:

Increase your Android Mobile & Tablets Performance Speeds, Battery and Memory Today with the NEW Android Defrag PRO version direct from Andriod Google Play Store!
★ Designed for Top Andriod Mobile & Tablet Performance!

Jul

73 Best New Android Games From The Last 3 Weeks (6/11/12 - 7/6/12) - You're Going To Need A Longer Weekend

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Best Apps/Games/LWPs Of The Week, Games, News

Last Updated: July 9th, 2012

Welcome to the weekly roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Market or were spotted by us in the previous 3 weeks or so.

This edition focuses only on new games. The app roundup is coming up soon, and you can find the tablet app roundup here.

Holy crap, there were a lot of quality games released in the last few weeks. This is probably the best collection I've seen in a really long time. Who says there aren't any good games on Android?

If you enjoy this post, feel free to upvote it on Reddit.

Jul

Word Lens Finally Comes To Android, And It Works Surprisingly Well As Long As You Aren't Epileptic [Hands-On]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News, Videos

I first saw Word Lens for iOS on TechCrunch back in 2010 and instantly fell in love with the concept - just point the camera at foreign words, and all of them get translated in front of your very eyes, live. Amazing, isn't it? If you haven't seen this promo video yet, watch it first:

Every month since, I searched the Play Store for Word Lens, hoping its developers brought it to our favorite OS, but found nothing. Eventually, during my trip to Spain, I started using CamDictionary, which did a decent job but was too cumbersome to use and lacked many words in the dictionary.

Jul

15 Best Android Apps For Tablets From The Last 6 Weeks (5/18/12 - 7/4/12)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Best Apps/Games/LWPs Of The Week, Games, News, Tablets

Welcome to the weekly roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Market or were spotted by us in the previous 6 weeks or so.

This edition focuses only on new tablet apps or ones that added tablet support. Regular apps and games are coming soon.

Please wait for this page to load in full in order to see the AppBrain widgets, which include ratings and pricing info.

Looking for the previous roundup editions? Find them here.

Featured App

Rogue AI

Today's tablet roundup is sponsored by a pretty awesome game called Rogue AI.

Jul

PSA: Developers, You Can Now Sign Up For Early Access To The New Android Developer Console

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, News

On day one of Google I/O, the Play Store team announced an upcoming brand new version of the Android Developer Console - a publishing interface developers use to, you guessed it, publish apps to Google Play. The completely redesigned UI contains improvements based on feedback from the past several years and is fantastic. For further details, hit the link above or just watch this video:

As promised, you can now sign up to be first in line to give the private beta a go by following this url. Approval is not immediate, but at least you'll get there before everyone else.

Jul

Jelly Bean Bumps Contact Photos To Hi-Res 720x720 But Google Sync Continues To Clobber It With Low-Res Mush

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Jelly Bean 4.1, News

One of the most starred Android issues of all time, currently #20 of 21363 from the top with 1191 stars, is the absolutely awful quality of synced contact photos (issue #3870, opened in 2009). ICS attempted to resolve the issue by bumping the quality to 256x256 pixels, but Google sync would without mercy squash it right back down to blurry pixel dirt (96x96).

To recap, there are actually a couple of issues:

Contact photos set in Gmail.com are downsized to 96x96. That continues to be the case, and this isn't really even an Android problem - it's up to the Gmail team to fix it.

Jul

Download: Latest Google Play Store v3.7.13

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

Last Updated: January 6th, 2013

The latest version of the Play Store is no longer 3.7.11 - say hello to v3.7.13. I haven't found anything different from 3.7.11 just yet - it likely only contains bug fixes. There's no reason to lag behind, however, so if you're running a Play Store with a version lower than 3.7.13, jump right to the download mirrors below. Before you do that, let me point out a few things.

Upon playing with the Store further, I did discover a new feature compared to v3.5.19 that I didn't mention last time - inline app links in search suggestions. Take a look at searching in 3.5.19 (on the left) and 3.7.13 (on the right) - direct app links are now mixed in with suggested spellings.

Jul

Google Play Store Increases Transparency, Now Lets App Developers Publish Privacy Policies

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

One of the changes to the Play Store announced at Google I/O as "coming soon" was the ability for app developers to publish links to their privacy policies, thus making their intentions more transparent right out of the gate. By using Android apps, we allow a lot of personal information to travel through the tubes, and it's in everyone's best interests to disclose just what exactly happens to it in an open way.

Here's the relevant bit from the Google I/O session I was talking about earlier: