Eric Ravenscraft - 23/104 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Eric Ravenscraft

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.

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Feb

MoviePass Releases Its Android App, Allows Theater Addicts To Track Movies, Perks And More

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

MoviePass sounds like a pretty fantastic service for movie buffs. Pay a set fee every month, and you can go to the theater as much as you would like (with a fairly lengthy list of caveats). It's Netflix, but for all the movies that are out now. While it wouldn't be of much interest to the casual viewer who might only see one or two flicks a year, the avid viewer could save tons of money. What's a sweet subscription without an Android app to go along with it, though?

Most of the functions of this app can probably already be performed by your theater app of choice, however being able to look up listings that only include participating locations is a handy filter to have.

Feb

FreedomPop Wants To Give You 500MB Of Free LTE (Great!) Via A Rumored, Ugly, Tablet-Clip Hotspot (What?)

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Accessories, News

Wi-Fi-only tablets are pretty popular and for good reason. No one wants to pay for a second data plan just for their slate, and the hardware is cheaper if you get it without 3G/4G radios anyway. Seems like a win. Until you get out of your house and curse your disconnected device and its inability to Google Jeff Goldblum's height at the drop of a hat. Enter FreedomPop.

The service may not be new, but it is novel: 500MB of free data per month. That's it. The end. No strings. Oh, sure, there are overage fees. And you can pay to get more if you really want to.

Feb

Google Shifts Developer Payments To The 15th Of Every Month, Provides A Transition Schedule To Help Devs Pay Rent

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Google, News

If you make money on the Play Store, you should probably check your email. Google is sending out a notification to developers to let them know that in the future, payments will be sent out on a 15 day delay instead of the one or two days the company has been using for a while. What does this mean for you? Well, if selling apps is a primary source of income for you, then you'll want to do some planning. Before you panic, though, Google is implementing an intermediary schedule to make the transition a little easier.

Here's how it works.

Feb

[The Android Police Podcast] Episode 47: Tiny Mermaids Poked Holes in My Boat

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in News, Podcast

Welcome to the Android Police Podcast, Episode 47.

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!

Feb

OpenFeint Co-Founder's OpenKit Launches In Private Beta Today, Promises Ubiquitous Game Save And Backup Services

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, Games, News

If you've spent any time gaming on Android, you probably remember OpenFeint. Nearly every major game integrated it in some way, usually allowing players to log in with a single username, collect achievements, and post scores to a global leaderboard. It was handy for what it did, but if you didn't care about competing, it felt a lot like obnoxious spamware. Unsurprisingly, it closed down in December of last year. Today, however, it's being sort of reborn as OpenKit, a project headed by one of the co-founders of the original service. Only this time, the idea is much cooler.

For starters, OpenKit will provide one of the most desperately needed features in mobile gaming: cloud backup of game state and save data.

Feb

Ping: Hey Samsung, You Ever Gonna Release That Developer Edition Of The Galaxy Note II?

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in News, Samsung

The year was 2012. A mere two days before the alleged Mayan apocalypse—and about nine days before people stopped making tired old jokes about it—we got wind of the Developer Edition of the Galaxy Note II for Verizon. There were three differences between this handset and the version you could buy in the carrier's stores: it had an unlocked bootloader, it's unsubsidized, and it was not available for sale yet. Even though the locked version had been available for nearly a month. Oh, and it's still not out yet.

Here's the timeline:

September 26th, 2012: Galaxy Note II first released internationally.

Jan

From The Ashes, Blockbuster On Demand Rises In A New, Play Store-Competing Form, Probably Isn't A Phoenix

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

Blockbuster, the former golden child of movie rentals, is feeling left out lately. No one is paying attention to its online offerings, no doubt partially because it's been broken into a thousand pieces. However, today the company launched a new, central service for renting movies online with just one app for all devices: Blockbuster On Demand.

When we say "rent", we do mean that. There is no subscription option that we see yet, and every movie costs a few bucks to check out for a 24-hour period. This firmly pits it against the Play Store and Amazon Instant Video.

Jan

Sprint Rolls Out An EVO 4G LTE OTA With MHL For Your HDTV (Plus Various Bugfixes And Improvements)

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in EVO 4G LTE (Jewel), News, Sprint

While it's not a major Android version update, Sprint is rolling out a pretty good upgrade to Evo LTE customers. The over-the-air software will add the ability to stream audio/video to a television set or other display via an MHL cable. Neat!

The update will also bring a variety of improvements, including to WiFi, Bluetooth compatibility, and the proximity sensor while listening to voicemail. So hopefully you won't have to worry about your face pressing buttons now. Additionally, an issue where certain processes or applications shutdown unexpectedly should be resolved.

The OTA (3.16.651.3) is rolling out to users right now.

Jan

Google+ Update Gives Notifications Their Own Special Tray, Adds Community Management Features, And More

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

Can we be honest with ourselves for a bit? Notifications on Google+ have sucked for a while. It's never clear what's new and what's old, they're cluttered with information, and up until recently, they've been tucked away in the app underneath the sidebar navigation. Well at least one of those problems is getting fixed today as the Android app gets an update that creates a special new section for notifications on the right-hand side of the app. Also, you can access it in more places! Not everywhere, but a lot more!

^{Left: Old style notifications, below the side bar navigation.}

Jan

Minecraft Pocket Edition Updated To v0.6, Brings New Blocks, A Better Sky, Signs, And Awwww! Baby Animals!

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Games, News

Mojang may have a mortal fear of giving releases full version numbers, but that hasn't stopped the company from cranking out new features like mad. Today's update brings a slew of new blocks (including Nether Brick, Block of Quartz, and Sandstone), as well as the ability to build staircases in corners. Oh, and one other thing: the sky finally has clouds now.

The new goodies don't stop there, though. Gravity is also finally in full swing, so now things like sand will fall when the foundations beneath them are removed. Finally, no Minecraft update would be complete without new creatures, would it?