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We don't always write about serious things here at Android Police, so this post is not going to stress your brain or teach you a new trick. Instead, just relax and spend 2 minutes watching this collage posted by Dan Morrill, one of Google's most recognizable Android engineers (actually, he posted it to Picasa, and we took the liberty to export it to YouTube for easier sharing and embedding). All original commentary which makes this collage that much funnier has been preserved - turns out Dan is quite a comedian.
On March 31st, the Android Developer Console, which developers use to publish their apps to the Market, started experiencing issues that ranged from 404s and disappearing applications to missing statistics and apps that no longer obeyed.
Samsung's Nexus S, the first Gingerbread device, was a T-Mobile exclusive in the U.S. until last month, when Sprint announced the Nexus S 4G - a CDMA (and WiMAX) counterpart of this sleek stock Android device. Can Samsung pull the same trick it did with the Galaxy S phones that came to all U.S. carriers? It sure looks like it.
MT3G Slide owners, you won't believe your eyes today. April Fool's has passed, and T-Mobile is not trolling you - the Froyo update is indeed available for the poor younger brother of the original myTouch 3G which already received Froyo almost 6 months ago. Don't let the name fool you, as there are, apparently, quite a few differences between the 2 devices - enough to tie up the release for such a long time.
Personally, I both love and despise April Fool's day. On one hand, it is a lot of fun, but on the other, it makes me waste entirely too much time trying to see as many jokes as I can and then figure out which stories are real and which ones are not. Alas, such is life, and April 1st will keep coming every year (at least until 2012 :-S), so we'll just roll with it and link the best Android-related trolls of the day.
You've already seen the very early unboxing of Sprint's upcoming dual-screen Kyocera Echo, and now Wirefly went for an even deeper, more detailed look at the UI itself and all the arguably cool things you can do with such an unconventional interface. The Echo has many people skeptical, but now you can at least try to decide for yourself whether the 2-screen design is a complete gimmick or not. One thing is for sure - if the manufacturer has to include 2 batteries straight in the box, don't expect any world records out of this power-sucker.
Among all the awesome (or really bad, depending on your mood) April Fool's jokes today, Google's web form for submitting Android Market copyright infringements towers above all, especially considering it's not a joke, at all. We really doubt that it's intentional because this behavior was present before April 1st arrived to California, and it is mind boggling that something like this would fall through the cracks and get past Google's Quality Assurance. Alas...
HTC Flyer, also known as the HTC View 4G in the U.S. on Sprint, is one of the more interesting Android tablets coming out within the next few months, due to its superfast 1.5GHz processor, a perfect for many (as the Nook Color and Galaxy Tab showed) 7" size, palm rejection technology, and the Scribe digital pen.
When the Nintendo 64 emulator first came out, many users were overcome with joy - it was the first and only emulator for Android, and nostalgia was overwhelming. However, a short time after, N64oid simply disappeared. Worried threads popped up around the Internet, and with today's disappearance of PSX4Droid, we couldn't help but wonder whether the two incidents are related.
If there is one thing I despise in the world of Android, it is piracy and specifically Android sites that let you download paid apps, oftentimes for a monthly membership fee. Most Android developers are not large corporations, but rather independent, smalltime individuals to whom every download counts. Today's story, therefore, gives me added pleasure, because in it, pirates are implicated in one of the most embarrassing ways I can imagine.
If you use Dropbox on your Android device and either like to live on the edge or help the company test out the latest betas, you will want to check out this post on the Dropbox forums, announcing a new public beta v1.0.9.3 with some new translations, Honeycomb improvements, new Lock Code support for the security-conscious, and other fixes. Forum replies also indicated that some sort of a folder opening bug got fixed in the process, though I am not sure what exactly that bug was in the first place.
If you've ever needed to identify a song that is playing somewhere around you, you've probably already used SoundHound or Shazam which both listen to your surroundings and pop up the best guess - usually right on the money.
"Great news, everyone!" Last week, Google launched the new in-app billing capability of the Android Market into private beta testing, promising a public release this week, if all went well. Apparently, all did go well, as the company today opened this most-exciting feature to everyone. To be fair, iOS users have been enjoying in-app billing in the App Store since 2009, so Google's move is quite a bit late (don't make me bring up the whole copy-paste thing to balance the argument!).
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 2 weeks or so. Due to CTIA last week, we decided to postpone last week's roundup and roll all the apps into one big 2-week post.
If you read today's Amazon Cloud Storage announcement carefully, you may have noticed that Amazon threw in a special offer allowing a free 1-year upgrade for your Cloud account from 5GB to 20GB with the purchase of any MP3 album. Why pay $20 a year when you can buy an album cheaper and achieve the same thing without spending the extra money (otherwise known as taking advantage of a loophole)?
One of the most popular Android games, Angry Birds Seasons, by everyone's favorite developer Rovio Mobile went on a 1-day sale today as the free premium app of the day over at the Amazon Appstore. The only difference between the already-free version of the same name and this one is the absence of those annoying ads that pop up in the most ridiculous locations at the most inopportune times.
Today is starting out pretty well - minutes ago, we finally got the HTC Thunderbolt kernel source, and now Sony Ericsson decided to lift our spirits even further via a blog post announcing their commitment to the Android development community. And a commitment it is - Sony Ericsson may just be the first large manufacturer truly listening to us.
After bickering back and forth with the Android community about the terms and timelines of kernel source releases and getting flooded with emails, HTC finally put together the source code for the Thunderbolt kernel and uploaded it to their developer portal.
Update: Linux devs are not happy about this.
One of the ways Android protects application users from unwanted activities is by requiring every app to declare a set of permissions and allowing users to view those permissions during the installation phase. Don't like what an app can do? Just don't install it.