Eric Ravenscraft  
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Eric is a snarky technophile with a taste for the unusual. When he's not obsessing about Android, you can usually find him obsessing about movies, psychology, or the perfect energy drink. Eric weaves his own special blend of snark, satire, and comedy into all his articles. |
Welcome to the Android Police Podcast, Episode 48.
Don't forget - the Android Police Podcast's live broadcast is every Thursday at 5PM PST (www.androidpolice.com/podcast). The unedited video version of the podcast can be found here - and will likely include various verbal expletives, technical snafus, tangents, and probably a good 5-10 minutes of pre-podcast banter as we prepare. Watch at your own risk!
Tower defense games are great. Tired and done to death, sure, but the good ones are really fantastic. Anomaly Warzone Earth and the sequel Anomaly Korea are two of the better entries in the genre, having the distinguishing factor of playing role reversal. In these, you're not building towers, you're trying to slip past them. Now, both titles are half off on the Play Store, each costing a mere $2.
Normally, each game individually is priced at $4 and now you can get both for the same price. Not a bad deal! Back when Ryan reviewed Anomaly Korea, he loved it.
The rumors continue to fly about the HTC M7, which we expect will be announced before too long. The latest tidbit comes from the usually-reliable @evleaks. According to the ever-mysterious entity, the company's newest flagship will simply be called 'HTC One.' Nice and clean, just the way we like it.
HTC M7 coming to market as simply the HTC One.
— @evleaks (@evleaks) February 8, 2013
This would diverge from HTC's previous naming scheme of having its most "high-end" phones bear the One moniker. Though, since the One V was actually a pretty mid-range phone (very nice for mid-range, but mid-range nonetheless), it wouldn't be a surprise if the company would like to get its brand back under control.
I'd by lying if I said I missed the days when blasting invading space craft with 8-bit energy beams cost a pocket full of quarters. The gameplay itself, however, remains a treasure of nostalgia. One that Syder Arcade HD is blatantly exploiting to get $1 from me and I will happily pay it. Why? Because blowing crap up is awesome.
The game is a top-down free-scroller, which means you actually have a level of control over your movement. You'll also get a number of weapons for killing aliens, shields to defend yourself, and multiple ships to choose from. Oh, and best of all?
The Pebble sure wasn't the first smart watch, but it's been getting a lot of attention lately. In fact, wearable computing as an industry is seeing a bit of a resurgence in general. The trouble, at least as one company sees it, is that smart watches require you to already have an expensive phone. That's two batteries you have to keep charged! Craziness! That's where the Neptune Pine comes in.
The idea here is that your watch can have a micro-SIM of its own. It will connect to a data network and even make phone calls. Oh, and it runs Android.
One of the biggest problems Google faces with Android is avoiding a situation where one manufacturer controls so much of the market that everything else falls by the wayside. As study after study shows, though, this is becoming an increasing risk as Samsung gobbles up more customers. To wit, this survey from Localytics—a company that provides analytics for mobile apps— showed that of the top ten Android devices its customers used, eight were made by Samsung, and seven had the Galaxy brand attached.
The trend is staggering, but not surprising. After all, between Samsung and Apple, the two companies account for somewhere between most and more than all the smartphone profits.
One of these days, we're finally going to figure this whole buttons problem for Android devices. While touchscreens are great, the tactile feeling of physical controls will always have its appeal. Some solutions are better than others, but maybe the Wikipad can find the sweet spot. The tablet comes with an attached set of game controls that can be removed, leaving the player with a regular 7" Tegra 3 tablet. The entire unit costs $250.
Here are the specs for the tablet itself:
The attached buttons actually make this look a lot like a Wii U tablet, but this one is running Android 4.1.
Update: As we suspected, this really isn't official. In fact, it's a fan render that was published on The Verge's forums two and a half months ago. Mystery solved! (Thanks, c3vzn!)
-- end of update
The closer spring gets, the more rumors we can expect to see about Samsung's next-Next Big Thing (TM). Today's alleged leak comes to us via Twitter, and let's not beat around the bush - this is almost certainly not the Galaxy S IV. We'll begin where any photo analysis starts: the pixels. Take a look at the USB port in particular.
The long-awaited Carbon for Twitter app landed on the Play Store a few days ago, but some were of the opinion that it wasn't quite finished yet. This happens in software development. Nothing to be worried about. What should cause worry is if problems persist for months or years at a time (*coughGoogleVoicecough*). On that note, it should be very encouraging that the developers have already rolled out an update that includes a variety of bug fixes.
Here is the complete list of changes:
Bug Fixes:
- Notification bug that crashed after tapping
- Repeat Notifications
- Notification bug that crashed app when Avatar couldn't be loaded
- Direct Messages Delete bug wasn't saving changes
- Long press bug on Messages
- Composition Screen Account Selector bug
- User Profile Bio: tapping on Mentions & Hashtags bug.
A doctor did this. Before I get any deeper into this story, I want to point out that a person with the prefix "Dr." in front of his name—Dr. Christopher Culligan, a Canadian ER physician and instructor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine, to be precise—is responsible for this mobile app that promises to infer a man's size based on a variety of factors. This criteria includes but is not limited to height, shoe size, butt size and whether the man is gay or straight. Seriously.
I can't believe I actually get to write these words, but of all the apps I've seen that promise to measure a man's member, this has to be the best.
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