Welcome to the Android Police Week In Review - your source for the biggest Android stories of the week. Don't forget, you can catch a lot of these stories (and more) on our weekly podcast.
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There's an absolute plethora of keyboard options available for Android devices - in today's poll, phones in particular. You can use the Android (AOSP) keyboard, the stock manufacturer keyboard that ships on your phone, or one of the hundreds of third-party options available in the Play Store. And if you go third-party, there are all different styles, from quirky options like 8Pen, to trace-based keyboards like Swype, and traditional predictive tap-based choices such as SwiftKey.
Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.
This is the app roundup. The game roundup from this week can be found here.
Today's app roundup is sponsored by the Photo Wall FX live wallpaper by Handy Apps.
Since Android 4.2 introduced native lockscreen widgets, we've seen several devs already push out updates to their apps with support for the feature. The latest to do so is LevelUp Studio, which updated its Twitter client Plume. This is actually my personal favorite when it comes to Twitter clients on Android, especially for tablets. So I was pretty glad to see the 4.2 lockscreen widget show up.
The update also brings a few other fixes and enhancements to the app:
- add a lockscreen widget on Android 4.2
- fix the widget context on Android 4.2
- fix the display of the DM recipient
- fix Facebook timeline not updating in some case
- fix unread list item appearing multiple times
- improve the picture cache coherence
- make Halloween notification sound available all the time
Plume is, of course, a free app in the Play Store, though there's also a $5 premium version available for those who prefer an ad-free experience.
About a week after the Takju variant of Samsung's Galaxy Nexus got its 4.2 update, it looks like the same is rolling out to the Nexus' Yakju variant. The update (build JOP40C), for those not willing to wait, is also available for manual download and flashing (check the link below).
It should be noted that this update is meant solely for the Galaxy Nexus Yakju – that's the international version not from the Play Store – and your device should be running build JZO54K before you try to install the update.
For those interested, Google has also posted Yakju's 4.2 factory image here.
The Amazon Appstore has been updated to version 4.3.14.3C, and this release brings a few new goodies, along with a much-needed Android 4.2 compatibility fix. Previously, switching users on an Android 4.2 tablet would require you to log into the Appstore on each user account every time you switched, this has now been rectified. A battery drain bug has been stomped as well, along with the typical "other bug fixes and stability enhancements."
The UI of the Appstore has also received a light refresh, probably to be a little more in line with its appearance on the Kindle Fire HD and the latest iteration of Fire OS.
Most of the time when an app is updated, it's pretty clear what the update brings. New features? Enhancements and tweaks? Bug fixes? Whatever the case may be - it's right there in the changelog. However, there are those circumstances when that's just not the case. The recent update to HBO GO and MAX GO are a perfect example of this - especially the latter.
Why's that, you ask?
We're back! A new version of Android is out, and that means a new round of GTKAs. If you somehow haven't heard of GTKA, the recipe is fairly simple: make before and after comparisons whenever there's an Android OS update, and point out all the differences. It's fun, it's interesting, and you just might learn something. Today's target is the system-wide stuff: The Notification Panel, Home Screen, Recent Apps, etc. Let's get to it!
Like always, the old thing, Android 4.1.2 in this case, is on the left, and the new thing, Android 4.2, is on the right. Starting at the top, we see the date has been rearranged, and, for some reason, abbreviated.
We all love Android, and we also love when Google releases a new iteration of our favorite mobile OS. Sometimes, though, even Google screws up a bit, and Android 4.2 is looking to be one of the most bug-ridden releases since Honeycomb. And, let's be honest: 4.2 isn't exactly the leap that 2.3 to 3.0 was, either. Chances are, if you're on Android 4.2, you've experienced at least one of the issues here. Some aren't that bad, but some can just ruin your day, and we're a little shocked Google missed them.
We'd love it if you could confirm whether these bugs happen on a device not listed as "known affected," or of any other serious issues you've been experiencing since the bump to 4.2 on your Nexus.
For whatever reason, there are some users who absolutely can't stand Android 4.2's new lockscreen features, like widgets and the left-to-right swipe gesture that opens the camera. There's even a list of "bugs" with lockscreen widgets over at reddit, citing everything from simple widget removal to the glowing rectangle when the device is unlocked as reasons to hate the feature.
If you fall into that camp and wish you could just get rid of the new tweaks, we have good news: there's a new app that lets you do just that. It's called Lockscreen Policy, and, in a nutshell, disabling 4.2's lockscreen features is its sole task.
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