David Ruddock
Contributing since June, 2010
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3358articles
Page 147
About David Ruddock
David is the former Editor-in-Chief of Android Police and now the EIC of Esper.io. He's been an Android user since the early days - his first smartphone was a Google Nexus One! David graduated from the University of California, Davis where he received his bachelor's degree, and also attended the Pepperdine University School of Law.
Latest Articles
Android’s massive worldwide popularity has, in large part, the availability of cheap, low-end handsets to thank. We all know this. In developing markets in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, Android powers almost all of the smartphones that are being purchased by growing numbers of prepaid subscribers.
OK, before I even get into this post, let me be clear: this is based on old news. However, it was news that no one seemed to pick up at the time, and when we discovered it, we thought it was quite interesting.
It appears an update to the Android Market is now being pushed out to handsets, and we've got the .apk file for you right now. Warning: this updated Market does not seem to work very well on Honeycomb tablets, there appears to be a number of glitches.
The highly popular news aggregator app News360 has received a major update, at least for phones (the update should be coming for the tablet version soon), and while the great looks of the app didn't need much improvement, the developers decided it was time to add a few new features.
The intrepid folks over at XDA are always tinkering away to try and make using your Android device a better experience. And a few weeks ago, one of them (namely, temasek) found that the Android Market has some issues trying to resolve DNS servers when your device is connected over Wi-Fi. This can cause the Market to load slowly, and it's definitely something I've experienced on my own phone.
A page from a catalog of the popular UK mobile retailer Carphone Warehouse was recently leaked, and it clearly states the Motorola XOOM 2 will be available in the UK in time for Christmas.
Update: It appears the widget for Google+ has disappeared in this update, and images now appear somewhat compressed and pixelated. It's unclear if this is intentional (It seems one of the app's developers has said the widget will return soon, over on Google+.)
We try to avoid excessive posts about FCC filings that may or may not be for Android goodies coming to the US, but this one was a dead giveaway for AT&T. Just take a look:
Likely not wanting to get left behind by the likes of Comcast, whose XFINITY for Android app has been quite well-received, Time Warner Cable is preparing to release a comparable remote control app for its cable subscribers at the end of November.
It seems earlier suspicions that Barnes & Noble would be unveiling a replacement for the NOOK Color on November 7th have been all but confirmed by an e-mail invitation the company has sent out to major tech outlets:
I wouldn't exactly say it's a secret, but I'm a bit of a closet audiophile. I've reviewed a couple of audio products for Android devices in the past (like portable speakers and headphones), and am always interested in Android-friendly sound solutions.
There's been some discussion of late that, perhaps, Android phone manufacturers are iterating handsets at a pace which is detrimental to product polish and subsequent software support. In fact, a couple of days ago I took a look at the state of Android phones on US carriers with a few simple charts.
According to The Digital Reader (confirmed by The Wall Street Journal), Barnes and Noble stores are expanding their NOOK areas in retail stores for the holidays, and likely in time for the next generation of NOOK.
After reading a couple of great pieces on Droid-life about how Android manufacturers seem to be moving at breakneck pace to advance hardware and iterate handsets like crazy, I had an idea - let's visualize it in different ways. First, we'll start with a pretty basic comparison, showing the US's four major carriers and the number of Android devices they currently offer.
I've never really thought racing games could work on tablets or smartphones with touchscreen controls, maybe the upcoming title Race of Champions will change my mind. I sure hope it does, because by the looks of it, this game is shaping up to be awesome. Take a look at some of these screenshots:
When Sprint confirmed that the iPhone 4S was headed to the US's Alamo of unlimited data, current Sprint subscribers feared that a tidal wave of iDevices could finally force the company to surrender to tiered data pricing.
We just posted up our review of the brand-new 3rd person shooter Shadowgun, by Madfinger games. Now, thanks to NVIDIA, we're celebrating the release with yet another amazing giveaway. One winner will receive the following:
It seems there's been some renewed interest in the subject of Block C LTE "no locking" provisions after news that the Motorola RAZR will come equipped with a locked bootloader per Verizon's request. About four months ago, I published an article on this very topic. To summarize: Verizon can basically do almost anything it wants with handsets on its network in the name of reasonable network management - subject to a few limitations and caveats.