Artem Russakovskii - 33/125 - 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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Dec

[Updated] Instagram For Android "Is On The Horizon" According To CEO

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

Instagram, a widely popular photo manipulation and sharing service available exclusively on iOS (for now), has Android in its sights. Every graphic designer I know with an iPhone is obsessed with it for some reason, and those using Android phones have been pleading for an Android app for quite a while now. Not to worry - turns out that their prayers are going to be answered in the near future.

Update 12/7/11: Kevin confirmed at LeWeb 2011 that the app is being worked on by 2 Android developers, though no updated timeline was given.

In an interview with UK's Guardian newspaper, Instagram's CEO Kevin Systrom announced that the Android app, for which the company gets a large number of requests every day, is "on the horizon." It's taking some time for a small team of 6 to attempt to satisfy everyone while keeping the core product running perfectly, and it's a relief to find out Instagram will not be locked into the i-world in the future.

Dec

34 Best New Android Games From Last Week (11/28/11 - 12/6/11)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, 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 week 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.

Games

Android Police coverage: Twisted Physics Game 'World Of Goo' Now Available In The Android Market

World of Goo Demo

World of Goo is the most awaited game since Minecraft.

Dec

5 Best Android 3.0+ Apps For Tablets From Last Week (11/28/11 - 12/6/11)

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

Last Updated: December 8th, 2011

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 week or so.

This edition focuses only on new tablet apps or ones that added Honeycomb 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

Google Catalogs

Shop All Your Favorite Catalogs in the Same Place. A new, rich, and engaging way to interact with all your favorite catalogs.

Dec

[Download] Highly NSFW - "Dick" Returns As A Downloadable APK After Android Market Ban

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications

First things first - if you're easily offended or recently had your appendix removed, with stitches that could come apart from excessive laugher, stop reading right now, hit the Back button, and erase the title from your memory. Cool? Alright.

So, a few weeks back, an app called "Dick" showed up in the Market, only to be quickly banned by Google (what a dick move, eh?). We called it the most WTF app to ever hit Android, and Google seems to be in agreement. Since there's a sexual connotation (who would have thought?), the Market's ToS are pretty clear - no porn is allowed, so nobody should have been surprised when the app got ejected.

Dec

Verizon Wireless Says It Isn't Blocking Google Wallet, Blames Integration Issues - Orly?

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Galaxy Nexus, News, Verizon Wireless

Yesterday, a Google representative confirmed that the upcoming Verizon Galaxy Nexus will not support Google Wallet, Google's NFC payment service. The news was disappointing - it is a Google phone after all, but understandable to a degree, since Verizon Wireless is part of the competing Isis consortium, which also partners with AT&T and T-Mobile.

Verizon Wireless, however, today posted a statement and wants everyone to know that it isn't blocking Google Wallet (they actually say "Verizon does not block applications" - orly?). "Instead, in order to work as architected by Google, Google Wallet needs to be integrated into a new, secure and proprietary hardware element in our phones."

Update: "Verizon asked us not to include this functionality in the product," a Google representative told CNET.

Dec

Deal Alert: Motorola Atrix 4G Lapdock Only $50 From AT&T - That's $450 Off Its Ridiculously Inflated Original Price

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in AT&T, Atrix 4G (Olympus), Deals, Motorola, News

The Motorola lapdock for the original Atrix 4G is being blown out of the AT&T store starting today for $250 off its $300 list price. Yup, just $50 after an instant discount gets you a laptop shell with a 36Wh battery inside.

Plug your Atrix into it, and the dead frame comes alive with a desktop-grade Webtop experience (it's really a custom, though severely cut down, Linux flavor), including desktop Firefox and virtual access to your phone's screen and data while docked.

Now that the Atrix 2 is out, AT&T is likely seeing a huge drop of demand for the now obsolete OG Atrix, and nobody likes being stuck with a large stock of unsold and highly overpriced accessories of questionable value.

Dec

AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Motorola, And Apple Are Also Sued Alongside HTC, Samsung, And CarrierIQ In A New Class Action Lawsuit

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in AT&T, HTC, Motorola, News, Samsung, Sprint, T-Mobile

Yesterday, we caught early wind of two class action lawsuits filed against CarrierIQ, HTC, and Samsung in Chicago and St. Louis. You can now add a whole new class action suit to the pile, except this time it also names AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Motorola, and Apple in addition to the aforementioned three companies.

Led by law firms from Delaware and New Jersey - Sianni & Straite LLP, Eichen Crutchlow Zaslow & McElroy LLP, and Keefe Bartels L.L.C. - the lawsuit "asserts that three cell phone providers (T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T) and four manufacturers of cell phones (HTC, Motorola, Apple and Samsung) violated the Federal Wiretap Act, the Stored Electronic Communications Act, and the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act." CarrierIQ is not named in that quote, but it is listed in the press release's title, so don't worry - the whole gang is included.

Dec

Google Employees Are Receiving Ice Cream Sandwich OTAs On Their Nexus S Phones - Dogfooding Has Begun

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News, Nexus S (Crespo/Soju), Nexus S 4G (Crespo4g), Samsung

Google has started the dogfooding process of testing the Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" update for the Nexus S, according to one of Google employees Adel Saoud. Dogfooding is a practice of having company employees use products before releasing them to the public ("eat your own dog food" in this sense apparently originated in Microsoft back in 1988), thus weeding out bugs while the products are still revolving in a relatively contained environment.

The tweets and Google+ posts are now deleted, but thanks to several screenshots, re-shares, and caches, we can reconstruct these 2 messages that were posted by Adel:

Just got Ice-cream Sandwich update on my Nexus S & it's looking great :)

and

Yeah an OTA, but it's an early one for Google employees so we test it further so it's even more awesome when you guys get it.

Dec

Dolphin HD v7.2 Update Now In The Market, Brings Double-Tap Back To Exit, Encrypted Backups, Privacy-Friendly Webzine Opt-In, And More

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

Dolphin HD, one of the most popular Android browsers, was updated in the Market today to version 7.2. The updated app contains a toggle to enable the Webzine functionality, which following the privacy fiasco is now opt-in rather than opt-out.

UI-wise, the Exit popup can now be turned off and replaced with a simple back button double-tap, which finally lets you easily exit the browser by interacting with just a single button. As before, you can also hold the back button to exit at any point, which is probably my favorite featured compared to the stock browser.

I'm glad to report that v7.2 fixes another privacy issue that was spotted by one of our readers (thanks, TOMMMMMM) - on-demand backups that were previously written to SD in a completely unencrypted form wide open to any malicious app are now password-protected.

Nov

[Updated: Not An Easter Egg But A Screensaver!] Weird, Star Wars-Like Light Speed Launcher Found Hidden In The Depths Of Ice Cream Sandwich

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Galaxy Nexus, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News, Off-Topic, Videos

Apparently, this and Nyan Droid are both part of a new screensaver feature Google called "Android Dreams" that was disabled by them before Ice Cream Sandwich was released (presumably because it wasn't ready for prime time yet). Here is a picture of the re-enabled feature in CM9, courtesy of Steve Kondik who stopped by our G+ post.

We're not sure whether what you're about to see is yet another Easter egg in Ice Cream Sandwich (remember the Nyan Droid?) or the next amazing launcher that will do your dishes and fly you into space, but it turns out the stock ICS launcher actually has another launcher buried inside.