Artem Russakovskii
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.

11
May
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Beginning and experienced developers will appreciate the latest altruistic move by the core Android team member Roman Nurik who, now that the Google I/O conference is over, revealed the full sources for the I/O 2011 Android app for everyone to see.

If you haven't used the app yet, I am here to tell you that it's an Android masterpiece, in both UI/UX (user interface/usability) and coding paradigms. The app utilizes the new Fragments API heavily, so the source should provide plenty of implementation guidelines for those just picking it up. Thanks to the said Fragments, it runs great on both Honeycomb tablets and phones, making its code the perfect example of a relatively complex Android app done very-very right.

11
May
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Ahh, Google I/O, how we'll miss you for the next 365 days or so. The last 2 days have been filled with anticipation, knowledge, surprises, excitement, and fun - the perfect recipe for happy developers. As a developer myself, I've picked up heaps of new information, especially from the SDK Tools and ADT session by Tor Norbye and Xavier Ducrohet, and viewing the keynotes was simply a blast.

As you may have seen yesterday, day 1 keynote and sessions were already posted last night, and now the same fate reached the sessions and keynote from day 2. As before, you can view the whole list by visiting the YouTube page of GoogleDevelopers or simply watch the embeds on this page.

11
May
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  • The International market is taking over - U.S. 70% majority in 2010, but now international is 60% in 2011

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  • The new Market dashboard for developers will now let them view and exclude any of the 300+ Android devices, per app
  • Starting in June, a new format called Multi-APK will be launched to bundle multiple APKs into one package

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  • Starting June 2011, individual app size is increasing from 50MB to up to 4GB. Hello, giant games
  • Android app sales reports are now backfilled to last year, rather than just last month
  • Starting today, the Android Market will have new lists - Trending, Top New Paid, Top New Free, and Top Grossing (<30 days)
  • These are now is now live at https://market.android.com/
  • The lists will be regionalized per country

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  • 2 new lists - Users Also Viewed...
11
May
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The Galaxy Tab 10.1 hasn't even been in our hands more than 12 hours, but it has already been rooted. Turns out Samsung left absolutely no protection on the device, and rooting it is even easier than rooting a XOOM, and that says a lot (the XOOM was meant to be easily unlocked and rooted).

For comparison, the XOOM root requires fast oem unlock and data wipe, while the Galaxy Tab 10.1 root process is as simple as mounting the file system for writing and copying su and SuperUser.apk to it, all of which is packaged into a nice flashable zip file.

11
May
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The first day of Google I/O 2011 is now over (see our highlights) - in fact, the next one is starting in mere 7 hours (4 hours of sleep - check). That doesn't mean, however, that the information presented was lost forever - on the contrary, Google has archived most, if not all, of the footage and made it available to you on YouTube via the GoogleDevelopers channel.

You can find the full keynote, filled with Android goodness to the brim, along with the most interesting Android sessions below.

Keynote Day 1:

Fireside Chat with the Android Team:

How to NFC:

Android Protips:

Honeycomb Highlights:

And, of course, Jane's Addiction live in concert at the after party (this was awesome):

Source: YouTube

11
May
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While it doesn't affect those of you who have no idea what FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is, today's Android 3.1 announcement (see the SDK release here) will make a lot of people who gave up MP3s for FLAC files happy. Forget happy - think ecstatic. Unlike MP3s, FLAC is a lossless codec, meaning it does not degrade in quality after compression, making it the perfect solution for audiophiles who really care about the quality of their sound.

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After staring at the issue (#1461) (and I'm sure working hard on implementing support for it) for over 2 years, the Android team finally added native FLAC decoding to Android starting with Android 3.1, the latest iteration of Honeycomb.

11
May
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If you've been following the Google I/O coverage today at all, you are probably aware that Google and Samsung gave out about 5,000 Galaxy Tab 10.1 units early to all conference attendees. I didn't take the XOOM with me to the conference to avoid carrying extra bulk, so I didn't have a chance to compare the 10.1 to it while doing the deep dive first look.

Now that I got home and put the two side-by-side... let's just say it's not even funny how much bulkier the XOOM is. The 8.6mm Galaxy Tab 10.1 is not here to mess around, making the 13mm XOOM looks like a year-old clunker.

10
May
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Holy mother of all hotness - Amazon has been absolutely killing it in the mobile deals lately, already firmly capturing our Deal of the Week spot with the sweet $174.99 HTC Thunderbolt deal.

Update 5/10/11: The deal is back for a limited time again! Judging by the last promotion, this one will expire sometime before May 15th.

Forget that - the new $129.99 Thunderbolt deal that just went live on Amazon Wireless is the lowest recorded for this phone to date, making the price of the first 4G LTE Verizon handset almost half of what you would pay at Verizon ($250).

10
May
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Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Wow, what a day! Music, movies, APIs, alliances - the list of exciting announcements from Google I/O 2011 goes on and on today. While the rest of the Android Police crew is blasting through the bulk of the new stuff, I decided to unpack and play with the "Oprah moment" Limited Edition Galaxy Tab 10.1 that everyone here at I/O received as a gift. And let me tell you, this baby is fast, sleek, slim, and gorgeous. Let's see what we've got here, shall we?

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This 32GB Galaxy Tab 10.1 is running a 1GHz dual-core processor - from the looks of it, it's the Tegra 2 rather than the Exynos, at least according to the Quadrant benchmark, which reports an NVIDIA GPU (see towards the bottom).

10
May
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With Google I/O 2011 around the corner - in fact it starts in less than 8 hours - I can barely contain the excitement (the 5 beers at today's Samsung and Lookout parties failed to numb that feeling).

Google Music (and movies?), the new Google TV, the next-gen Android dubbed "Ice Cream Sandwich," new games, and possible tablet/phone giveaways are among this year's rumor chart toppers. Will all of them come true? It's likely. Will some? Most definitely (Music and the next-gen Google TV are pretty much sure things now). Stay tuned to Android Police, and we'll make sure to bring you the full event coverage and as much on-location content as possible.