Artem Russakovskii - 23/125 - 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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Mar

[Obituary] SprintFeed Closes Up Shop, Founder Moves To Another Site

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in News, Off-Topic, Sprint

SprintFeed, a site that sprung up 9 months ago seemingly out of nowhere, has been a solid source of Sprint leaks and rumors ever since. Outside of S4GRU, it was pretty much the only site dedicated to America's 3rd largest mobile carrier, but as of today it's closing its doors.

The founder, Mark Hearn, was offered a position of a full-time editor at TechnoBuffalo, a more general tech news site, which he accepted. Since he can't run SprintFeed and fulfill his editorial duties at the same time, something had to give, and that something ended up being SprintFeed itself.

Mar

[Updated] CyanogenMod 9 Nightlies Go Live For The HP TouchPad And AT&T LG Nitro HD / Bell LG Optimus LTE

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in AT&T, Bell, Development, HP, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, LG, News, Nitro HD, Optimus LTE, TouchPad, Videos

The AT&T Galaxy SII (i777) isn't the only Android device getting official CyanogenMod 9 nightly love today, as the first nightlies just went live for the HP TouchPad (codename tenderloin) and the LG Nitro HD (codename p930, also known as LG Optimus LTE on Bell Canada).

Definition: A "nightly" is a bleeding edge release that is built on a daily basis, usually at night after a full day's worth of new code has been committed.

It could oftentimes be unstable and not properly tested, lacking any changelogs, but eventually evolving into alphas, betas, release candidates, and finally stable releases.

Mar

[Updated] The Real Temple Run Finally Comes To Android - Download It Now

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Games, News

After countless fakes, the real Temple Run is finally here. That's right - it is legit and available right on schedule, March 27th (looks like it happened Eastern time).

Even better news - it's free. Presumably, there are in-app purchases or ads, but we'll figure that out once we give it a go.

Update: No ads so far, but you can purchase coins for $0.99 or more (see the last screenshot below).

In the meantime, why don't you do that as well? I'll see you back here in a few hours. Or days. I won't judge.

Just remember to register for Google I/O in the morning, if you're thinking of going - don't forget, registration starts 7 a.m.

Mar

37 Best (And 2 WTF) New Android Apps And Live Wallpapers From The Last 2 Weeks (3/14/12 - 3/26/12)

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

Last Updated: March 29th, 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 2 weeks or so.

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

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

EasyMoney

Today's roundup is sponsored by Handy Apps' EasyMoney. EasyMoney is a popular personal finance manager for Android, which has already been downloaded over 500,000 times.

Mar

38 Best New Android Games From The Last 2 Weeks (3/6/12 - 3/24/12)

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

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 2 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.

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

Tasks N Todos - ToDo List Manager

Today's roundup is sponsored by Tasks N Todos, a TODO manager from Handy Apps, the developer of such well received apps as Easy Money and Tip N Split Tip Calculator.

Mar

13 Best Android 3.0+ Apps For Tablets From The Last 2 Weeks (3/10/12 - 3/23/12)

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

Last Updated: March 26th, 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 2 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.

For Tablets

GO Launcher HD for Pad

Android Police coverage: GO Launcher HD Hits The Play Store, Bringing GO Goodness To Tablets Running 3.0 And Above

Android Police coverage: GO Launcher Team Enters The Tablet Launcher Arena With GO Launcher HD Beta, And It's Off To A Great Start

I covered GO Launcher HD in the previous tablet roundup, but at the time it was a beta APK available as a download somewhere off the Play Store.

Mar

[Video] Meet BPJ, World's Biggest TouchWiz Fan - Prepare A Fresh Pair Of Pants For This One

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Off-Topic, Samsung, Videos

We share most funny videos via our social accounts (you're following, right?), but once in a while a video comes along that is so beyond hilarious that it can no longer be the outcast doomed to bounce around social networks. It needs to be right here, on the front page. Such was the case with the best phone review on the Internet and such is the case with Mr. BPJ.

You see, Big Papa Joe loves Samsung. Specifically, he loves TouchWiz. Loves. BPJ is either a professional troll (if so, he needs get out on stage at a local comedy club) or is truly comical without even realizing it.

Mar

PSA: Google's Authenticator Updated To v2, Except It's A Brand New App, And You Need To Install It To Get Future Updates (Old One Is Dead)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

Google Authenticator, an important security tool that enables 2-step verification for your Google account, has racked up over 250,000 downloads over its lifetime, which is no small feat for any app in the Play Store. However, a few days ago, that version (previously available here) all of a sudden became obsolete and was consequently silently deleted.

Its replacement, which can be found here, bears version 2 (2.15 to be exact) and offers the following changelog:

New entry for Google Play, same great app

Updated look and feel

"Scan barcode" and "Manually add account" options moved to Menu > Add account.

Mar

AT&T Officially Starts The HTC Vivid ICS OTA (3.26.502.56710RD) - Sense 3.6, Beats, Face Unlock, And More

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in AT&T, HTC, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News, Vivid

Last week, AT&T made the Ice Cream Sandwich update available for the HTC Vivid, but rather than pushing it to devices over-the-air, the company let it sit and incubate, denying its availability.

Those with deeper knowledge of phone commands figured out how to get the Vivid to ask the update servers for this OTA (*#*#682#*#* - 682 stands for OTA, get it?) and successfully updated, but most Vivid owners to this day probably have no idea this method even exists.

As of today, however, no such trickery is needed - HTC USA just announced on Twitter that the ICS update for the Vivid is officially rolling out and provided this handy page with more details:

The #HTC Vivid on @ATT will receive an upgrade to ICS, along with @BeatsbyDre, starting today.

Mar

For Developers: ADT 17, SDK Tools r17, And Support Package r7 Released With New Features And Fixes For Lint, Build System, And Emulator

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, News

About a month ago, Google released the first preview versions of the latest ADT Eclipse plugin and SDK Tools which brought improvements and fixes to Proguard, Lint, and a few other cool things, like Network Usage. Today, the final versions, 17.0.0 (for ADT) and r17 (for SDK Tools), along with Support Package r7 are available for download from the SDK Manager or as part of the Android SDK.

The final release notes are as follows.

ADT 17.0.0

General improvements:

New build features

Added feature to automatically setup JAR dependencies. Any .jar files in the /libs folder are added to the build configuration (similar to how the Ant build system works).