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Oct

[Updated] Google Starting To Flip The Switch On Purchasing Paid Android Market Apps In New Countries

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Apps/Games, Games, News

Last week, Google announced that over the next 2 weeks, support for purchasing paid apps was coming to 18 more countries: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, and Taiwan.

This morning, reports are trickling in that the switch has been indeed flipped, at least in some of these countries. So far, we've been able to confirm Sweden, Denmark, and India. Tightly coupled with today's rollout is a Market update that converts all application prices to buyers' native currencies.

In case you were wondering why the Danish and Swedish currencies are the same, I did some research and found out that "ca." means "approximately," and both Swedish and Danish currencies are shortened as "kr" - Swedish krona and Danish kroner or krone.

Oct

OpenFeint Unleashing 12 New Android Games Into The Android Market

Posted by Brad Ganley in Games, News

We just got word that the cross-platform social gaming network OpenFeint will be releasing the second round of games and delivering the best gaming experience Android has to offer. With their first few games taking the market by storm when they were released, this bodes very well for OpenFeint and the Android gaming community in general. OpenFeint has added a whole new level to cell phone gaming by adding achievements and leaderboards so you can show the world just how well you can fly those planes and slice that fruit.

Just to be clear, OpenFeint does not produce the games - they merely power the social aspect and help promotion, quite successfully at that.

Oct

Android Market Now Shows Application Prices In Your Native Currency

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Apps/Games, Games, News

Today, Google flipped the switch on paid app purchases in more countries, such as India, Sweden, and Denmark, just as promised, and with that came another subtle, yet important, change. Instead of showing prices in developers' native currencies, all application prices are now converted on the fly into your own currency.

Here's what the Market looks like for me in the US now - notice the tilde (~) symbol next to converted prices:

Here is Sweden:

And here's Denmark:

Image credits: [1] [2]

Oct

[Breaking, Hands-On] Skype For Android Now Available For Download In The Market For All Phones! Still No Calling Over Mobile Data In The US

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

After months and months of waiting for a voice-enabled Skype to be out on Android and giving Verizon users an evil eye for that exclusive deal Skype signed with the largest US carrier, I am here to tell you that less than 2 hours ago, Skype officially hit the Market. This time, the long-awaited app is no longer restricted to Verizon, so download away (Android 2.1+ required)!

Update: the official Skype blog post is now live, including an intro video. It also acknowledges problems with Galaxy S phones.

Download

Without further ado, fire up that download and then read on for the details.

Oct

Motorola CLIQ XT OTA v1.32.20 Rolling Out Now - No, It's Not The 2.1 You've Been Waiting For

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in CLIQ XT (Zeppelin), Motorola, News

CLIQ XT owners may experience slight excitement reading this, but only slight - the OTA update version 1.32.20 rolling out now to CLIQ XTs around the country does not contain Android 2.1 - it's merely an incremental update over its existing ancient OS (what is it, 1.5 nowadays?). This update showed up a couple of days ago as a limited beta test, and, thankfully, it didn't take Motorola long to open the flood gates to all CLIQ XT owners.

If you remember, Motorola has been promising 2.1 for a while but recently updated the projections to late Q3 (fail)/early Q4 (Q4 started 4 days ago).

Oct

T-Mobile Expands HSPA+ To Cover 16 New Markets

Posted by Nate Kimmey in News, T-Mobile

T-Mobile is certainly not resting on their laurels when it comes to bringing 4G speeds to all of their customers! Hot off the heels of the release of their first HSPA+ capable phone, the G2, T-Mobile has turned on their powerful 4G network in the following 16 markets:

Biloxi and Gulfport, MS
Denver, CO
Huntsville, AL
Knoxville, TN
Myrtle Beach, SC
Norfolk, VA
Omaha, NE
Phoenix and Tucson, AZ
Salt Lake City, UT
San Francisco, Sane Jose, Oakland and Sacramento, CA
West Palm Beach, FL

If you still aren't covered, T-Mobile plans to continue expanding their 4G network, ending the year with 100 major markets and 200 million people covered.

Oct

Phantom Black HTC Legend And Brilliant White HTC Desire Launching In Europe

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Desire (Bravo/BravoC), Legend, News

If you live in European markets, you may be glad to hear that HTC is offering a new color for two of their phones: the HTC Desire, which will soon come in "Brilliant White", and the HTC Legend, which will soon be available in "Phantom Black."

There's no doubt that each phone looks really slick, but you've got to wonder the purpose of a black Legend: wasn't its main appeal the gorgeous metal finish? The white Desire, on the other hand, is sure to be a lot more exciting than the plain old brown color it launched with. Check out pictures of each device and the full press release below.

Oct

Google Announces Boatload Of New Partners For Google TV

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Apps/Games, Google, Google TV, News

According to Google’s announcement today, it seems that content providers really, really like the idea of Google TV – which is a good sign, as content can often make or break new platforms. Specifically, Google say they've "been overwhelmed by interest from partners on how they can use the Google TV platform." And by "partners," they mean a fairly significant number of big players:

Turner Broadcasting has been hard at work optimizing some of their most popular websites for viewing on Google TV, including TBS, TNT, CNN, Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, available anytime through Google TV.

NBC Universal has collaborated with Google TV to bring CNBC Real-Time, an application that allows you to track your favorite stocks and access news feeds while enjoying the best financial news from CNBC directly on the TV screen.

Oct

FroYo's Share Grows to 33.4%, Eclair Still Dominates In Latest Android Platform Versions Chart

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Cupcake 1.5, Devices By Manufacturer, Donut 1.6, Eclair 2.1, Froyo 2.2, Gingerbread 2.3, News

The latest Android platform numbers are out, and thanks to carrier support of updates (Verizon and Sprint, anyway) FroYo has made an impressive boost to capture 33.4% of Android devices. This isn't enough to upset Android 2.1, which remains on top with 40.4%, but it's a good sign of diminishing Android fragmentation nonetheless.

When Gingerbread hits this fall/winter, however, this chart is bound to get pretty ugly - while Donut and Cupcake continued their decline, together they still make up a decent portion of Android devices, at 26.1% combined. Fortunately, while phones running these outdated operating systems will probably not be updated in the near future, they will be discontinued by carriers and replaced with newer models running newer versions of Android (for example, T-Mobile is discontinuing the original myTouch, Motorola CLIQ, and CLIQ XT today, and has already done it to the G1).

Oct

Napster, A Subsidiary Of Best Buy, Launches Official Android App

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

Last Updated: October 10th, 2010

Do you guys remember Napster, the music sharing service that started it all, made huge headlines, was sued into oblivion, went legit as a radio with a monthly subscription fee, and later got picked up by Best Buy? Of course you do, and I'm willing to bet most of you downloaded at least one song using Napster back in the day.

The app, quietly launched over the weekend, offers access to over 11 million songs using your Napster account, which costs $10 a month. Considering that this $10 "Napster plus mobile access" plan offers offline listening, it's not such a bad deal at all.