John Thompson - 11/22 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

John Thompson

John's been addicted to technology ever since he tinkered with his first custom built PC when he was 10 years old. He's also the proud owner of seven Amazon Kindles, but only because he destroyed the first six.

Follow @british_geek

Mar

[Updated x2: Captivate, Vibrant Too] CyanogenMod 9 Nightly Builds Now Available On The Samsung Galaxy S i9000/i9000B, Captivate, And Vibrant

Posted by John Thompson in Development, Galaxy S, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News

The CyanogenMod team has certainly been busy this week; a few days ago we saw the first CyanogenMod 9 nightly builds appear for the AT&T Galaxy S II and HP Touchpad, and now the original Samsung Galaxy S can join in the party, too.

Definition: A "nightly" is a bleeding edge release that is built on a daily basis, usually at night after a full day's worth of new code has been committed.

It could oftentimes be unstable and not properly tested, lacking any changelogs, but eventually evolving into alphas, betas, release candidates, and finally stable releases.

Nightlies are available for both the i9000 and the i9000B, which is the Brazilian variant of the device, from the CyanogenMod downloads site.

Mar

Dungeon Hunter 3 Now Available On The Play Store For Free, Better Late Than Never!

Posted by John Thompson in Games, News

When Dungeon Hunter 3 was originally advertised all the way back in December 2011, we were promised an Android release in "January 2012". Unfortunately, those plans didn't quite come to fruition, but fast forward a couple of months to the end of March and you can finally download the game for your Android device from the Play Store for free.

Like the iOS version, there are 16 arenas for you to fight through, and each of these can be played at 5 levels of difficulty so that you can return to them on a higher difficulty level as you get better.

Mar

[Deal Alert] Philips Android Connect 16GB Available For $99.99 Plus $5 Shipping On Woot.com

Posted by John Thompson in Deals

The last time we saw the Philips Android Connect media player discounted, it was available for $110 from Best Buy. Today, we're going one (or five) better, as you can pick up the same media player for just $99 plus $5 shipping from Woot.com.

The Connect normally retails at $219.99, although it's available on Amazon for just over $160. That means that if you buy it from Woot.com today, you'll be saving at least $55.

Although its video playback abilities are somewhat limited thanks to its 3.2-inch display, the Connect can play back a wide array of audio files, including MP3, WMA, AAC, 3GPP, AMR-NB, APE, FLAC, MIDI, and Ogg Vorbis.

Mar

Google Play Movies Goes Live In France

Posted by John Thompson in News

Last Updated: August 1st, 2012

People living in the US, UK, Canada, and Japan have been able to enjoy renting and purchasing movies from the Google Play library for some time now, and today, anyone living in France can use the service to get their movie fix as well.

If you have a French Google Play account, you will now have a link to purchase movies both online at play.google.com and through your Android phone. To celebrate the French launch, French classics such as 'La Grotte Des Rêves Perdu' and 'Le Bal Des Actrices' have been added to the store for everyone to enjoy.

Upon the launch of Play, Google said that it wants to bring different content categories to as many countries as possible, but didn't specify a timeline for this to be achieved.

Mar

[Review] Temple Run (The Real One!) Finally Makes It To Android, Was Definitely Worth The Wait

Posted by John Thompson in Game Reviews, Games

After countless bad copies, the official Temple Run game has finally hit the Google Play store! Like the iOS version, it's available for free and contains no adverts anywhere in the game. You can, however, make in-app purchases of coins to help you buy various items from the store as you progress. We'll cover that in a bit more detail later on, but for now, let's jump right in to the review!

Gameplay

When you load Temple Run for the first time, you're thrown straight into a game with a few pointers that allow you to get to grips with the controls and the aims of the game.

Mar

Ice Cream Sandwich Leaks For AT&T's Original Galaxy S II, Available To Download Now

Posted by John Thompson in Galaxy S II, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, Leaks, News

Some owners of the original AT&T Galaxy S II may have been left feeling unwanted when Ice Cream Sandwich leaked for the GSII Skyrocket a couple of days ago, but now they have their very own version to download and play around with.

This morning, RootzWiki posted a leaked built of Ice Cream Sandwich for the original Galaxy S II, and looking at the build.prop file alongside the screenshots of the build, it seems to be the real deal from Samsung, just like the leak for the Skyrocket.

ro.build.description=SGH-I777-user 4.0.3 IML74K 117 release-keys
ro.build.fingerprint=samsung/SGH-I777/SGH-I777:4.0.3/IML74K/117:user/release-keys

If you're running Windows and have a copy of Odin on your PC, then you will be able to go ahead and use the one-click installation file available at the source.

Mar

Panasonic Eluga Coming To Japan On March 29th, Europe In April

Posted by John Thompson in Eluga, News, NTT DoCoMo

Last Updated: January 21st, 2013

Panasonic is set to enter the high-end smartphone market in Europe and Japan in the coming weeks with the waterproof and dustproof Eluga.

We first saw the Eluga at Mobile World Congress last month, and although it looks like a great phone on paper, with a dual-core CPU and qHD display, it disappointed us when we went hands-on. Nevertheless, this is still big news for the European market, where Panasonic isn't known as a smartphone brand at all. The waterproof feature is sure to give the phone a head start against its competitors; in case you didn't know, it tends to rain a lot in England...

Mar

[Deal Alert] Save Over 40% On The Philips Fidelio AS351 Android Speaker Dock, Available For $75.00 At Amazon

Posted by John Thompson in Deals

If you're in the market for an Android speaker dock for your phone, then you'll want to pay attention right about now. The Philips AS351, the little brother of the AS851 that we reviewed and loved a few months ago, is currently available for $95 on Amazon with a $20 coupon that takes the price down to just $75. That's over 40% off the list price of $129.99.

Like its more expensive counterpart, the AS351 comes with Bluetooth functionality built-in which allows you to listen to your music without having to physically dock your phone, although there's no remote control with this model so you'll have to change any volume settings on the unit itself.

Mar

LogMeIn Rescue To Be Pre-Installed On All Future HTC Devices, Provide Remote Support To Customers

Posted by John Thompson in Applications, HTC, News

LogMeIn has announced a partnership with HTC that will see its Rescue software pre-installed on all future Android smartphones and tablets. Using a combination of an applet on HTC devices and support software across the company's worldwide call centers, customers will be provided with remote support that allows the person on the other end of the phone to take control of your device and run various tests.

To protect customers from inadvertently handing their phone over to a stranger, the applet will only "securely connect their devices to HTC customer care representatives during active support calls."

Once a technician is connected to a device they will be able to run remote diagnostics, push common device and network configuration settings, and remotely control the customer's device to resolve issues.