Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Sep

Report: Android Police Visits Aurora Feint To Learn About OpenFeint And Its Vision About The Future Of Android Gaming

Posted by Ian G. Clifton in Apps/Games, News

OpenFeint

About a week ago, Aurora Feint, the team behind OpenFeint, publicly unveiled their Android SDK, allowing Android developers to easily incorporate things like leaderboards and achievements into their games. With that announcement came the promise of twenty new games, and we have already seen significant successes like MiniSquadron and Fruit Ninja jumping to the top of the Android charts. But now what? I flew down to the OpenFeint offices in San Francisco to find out first-hand.

Jet Car Stunts

Jason Citron, CEO and founder of Aurora Feint, showed off Jet Car Stunts (see video below) on iPhone to explain what OpenFeint could currently do and open the conversation about its future.

Sep

Samsung Posts An Official 9 Minute Galaxy Tab Hands-On Walkthrough Video

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Galaxy Tab, News, Samsung, Videos

If you have 10 minutes to spare today, take a look at this new official Samsung video of the Galaxy Tab. It's professionally shot but this time instead of the marketing presentation that we saw before, we have an actual hands-on 9m20s walkthrough of:

the build
the UI
emailing (that 2-pane view looks nice!)
typing
using a calendar
editing documents
using the keyboard dock
calling (for non-US users)
video conferencing
reading books
listening to music
watching videos
utilizing Flash
HD streaming
using Android applications
GPS capabilities

Grab a coffee (if it's morning) or a beer (if it's night time or if that's just how you roll) and take a look:

Besides that, we have another video from SamsungMobileUSA, which is essentially a report from the Samsung Galaxy Tab press conference in New York that we attended last week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbE26Cmcz_8

Now feel free to go back to your regular scheduled programming and start saving up for that Tab.

Sep

Box.net App Lands In The Android Market

Posted by Brad Ganley in Applications, News

Last Updated: July 2nd, 2011

The official app for Box.net made its entrance into the Android market today, giving you a powerful alternative to Dropbox. While the free service offered by Box.net only offers half as much storage capacity as Dropbox (1GB), the Business offering ($15/mo) gives you a litany of awesome features that Dropbox just can't touch.

Official press release follows:

Palo Alto, Calif. – September 23, 2010 – Cloud content management provider Box.net today announced that its Android app is now available for free on the Android Marketplace. The Box for Android app makes it easy for users to access, share and manage their business content on-the-go from all devices that support Android OS 2.0 and above, including the HTC Droid Incredible, Motorola Droid X and Samsung’s Galaxy S series.

Sep

Apple, Motorola, And HTC Land Top Spots In JD Power Smartphone Satisfaction

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Devices By Manufacturer, HTC, Motorola, News, Off-Topic, Samsung

A bit off topic as there's nothing directly Android-related here, but interesting nonetheless: JD Power & Associates has released their findings for the Q2 2010 Wireless Smartphone Satisfaction Study, and Apple, Motorola, and HTC have grabbed the top spots (respectively), all landing above the industry average of 764 points (out of 1000).

Coming in below average? RIM (Blackberry), Samsung, Palm, and in last place, Nokia (note: not all companies are shown, just the big dogs). The results are still fairly close, though - Apple (at #1) scored 800, while Nokia (last, #7) scored 711 - certainly not a lot of variation.

Sep

Modder's Column: The Hunt For The Best HTC EVO 4G ROM

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Development, Editorials, Other Reviews, Reviews, Tips & Tutorials

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Modder's Column, formerly known as Modder’s Monday, is a column dedicated to rooting, hacking, and other forms of modifying Android and is written by Jaroslav Stekl, a man who spends his days coding, hacking, hiking, and of course, writing for Android Police.

As I mentioned in the last edition of Modder's Column, one of my favorite things about Android is how customizable it can be, even for novice users who would rather not spend all day hacking their phone.

Unfortunately, one thing Android does not allow you to do right out of the box is install custom ROMs, which allow you to further customize your device by adding features, removing useless apps, and possibly even speeding it up or improving battery life.

Sep

T-Mobile G2 Pre-Order Now Live For Existing T-Mobile Customers - $199.99, Order By October 4th For Delivery By The 6th

Posted by Brad Ganley in G2 (Vision), News

As promised and exactly on time, the pre-order page for the upcoming T-Mobile G2 has gone live on T-Mobile's website. Unfortunately, it looks like only existing T-Mobile customers are allowed to submit their preorders, with everyone else being left to dry for now.

The upcoming flagship Android phone will cost you $199.99 after a mail-in rebate on a contract or $499.99 without. That is inline with Best Buy's preorder deal from 2 weeks ago and $50 more than Radioshack's preorder, which is currently the best deal available.

Those in need of a refresher on this bad boy's specs can find them below:

Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ MSM7230 mobile processor
Slide-out QWERTY keyboard, unique Z-hinge design
Android 2.2 OS
3.7” S-TFT WVGA display
512 MB of RAM, 4 GB of internal memory
8-GB SD card, expandable to 32 GB
5-megapixel camera with LED flash and autofocus
720p HD video capture
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR + A2DP stereo
3.5-mm stereo headset
4.68” (L) x 2.38” (W) x .58” (H)
Weight: 6.5 ounces
Included battery: 1300 mAh Li-ion
Talk time: up to 6.5 hours
Standby time: up to 17.5 days

Whether you will want to reserve now or try to wait for deals which Amazon Wireless and Wirefly will undoubtedly launch soon is up to you.

Sep

Under The Radar: HTC’s DLNA Companion Box Lets You Wirelessly Stream To Your TV

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Devices By Manufacturer, HTC, News

In the excitement of HTC’s unveiling of the Desire HD and Desire Z in London, we missed out on this sweet little gadget. HTC announced plans to release a Media Link wireless DLNA adaptor in Q4 2010, as a companion piece to its continued expansion of the Sense experience.

Credit: SlashGear

What this little box purports to do is allow you to stream media from your DLNA-equipped phone to a suitable TV, irrespective of whether that TV has DLNA or not. There doesn’t appear to be a whole lot to the device: plug in the microUSB power cable, and connect the box to your display with the mini HDMI output.

Sep

HTC Desire HD ROM Now Available For Droid Incredible, Desire, And EVO 4G

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Desire (Bravo/BravoC), Desire HD (Ace), Desire Z (Vision), EVO 4G (Supersonic), HTC, Incredible, Sprint, US Cellular, Verizon Wireless

HTC's new version of Sense UI - which runs exclusively on the Desire Z and Desire HD (officially, at least) - is really shaping up to be an exception to the tradition of custom Android skins turning the operating system into a nightmare.

As of today, users of the HTC EVO 4G, the Droid Incredible, and the original GSM Desire, can thank the clever forum members over at xda-developers for five-second boot-up times they can call their own, along with all the other great features of HTC's latest skin. Unfortunately, there are still a few bugs to work out, including:

the camera - it doesn't work on any of the three devices
the dialer apparently looks "a little weird" on all three phones
the version for the Desire appears to have quite a few apps added in that aren't included in HTC's official version of the skin, like apps2SD and ADW.Launcher
WiFi is confirmed to be an issue on the EVO - getting it set up on the Desire appears to require a separate download, and we haven't been able to confirm anything regarding the Droid Incredible
4G doesn't work on the EVO

Regardless of all the above issues, the quick boot feature and those sexy new customization options are enough to push me over the edge - I know at least one EVO user who'll be spending the night flashing this here ROM!

Sep

Mozilla's Stunning Seabird Mobile Phone Concept - This Is What Dreams Are Made Of [VIDEO]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in News, Off-Topic, Videos

Last Updated: August 13th, 2011

Folks, I wish I could have the pleasure of telling you that what you're about to see is available now or even that it will be available in the next couple of years. Unfortunately, at this stage, this Seabird mobile phone concept, designed by Billy May for Mozilla, is just a dream. A dream, so beautifully projected in this video that it made me feel both sadness and happiness, inspiration and despair, awe and... well, you'll know what I mean after you watch it.

Without further ado, allow me to introduce Seabird:

If you happen to have 3D glasses, Billy May put together a 3D version of this video, available here.

Sep

Fresh ROM 3.3.0.1 Based On The Latest EVO 4G OTA 3.29.651.5 Now Available For Download

Posted by Brad Ganley in Development, EVO 4G (Supersonic), News

Last night we posted about Flipzmod3's caffeine-fueled rampage on the new OTA update for the HTC EVO. The OTA got rooted really-really fast, and now we have a fully-working, stable ROM based on it.

Last night, flipz, the author of Fresh ROM, sent out a test version of Fresh ROM 3.3.0 to all the donors/testers, and we did our job well. We nitpicked every tiny little bug, and the result is that tiny little .1 at the end of the public release flipz announced this morning, with fixes for all known bugs. Here's the changelog so you know what to expect going from Fresh 3.2 to 3.3.0.1:

Changes from Fresh Evo 3.2.0.0 to 3.3.0.1:

Based on a new Sprint OTA (3.29.651.5)

New kernel by HTC (ge2fb08e)
Modified slightly to allow apps2sd and remount to work

Has fps unlocked by default, straight from HTC’s source!