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

May

37 Best (And 1 WTF) New Android Apps From The Last 2 Weeks (4/21/11 - 5/5/11)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Best Apps/Games/LWPs Of The Week, Games, News

Welcome to the weekly roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Market or were spotted by us in the previous week or so.

This is part two of this week's roundup; it covers apps - for games and live wallpapers, please see this post: 20 Best New Android Games And Live Wallpapers From The Last 2 Weeks (4/21/11 – 5/4/11).

Please wait for this page to load in full in order to see the AppBrain widgets, which include ratings and pricing info.

Looking for the previous week's roundup? Find it here: 42 Best (And 2 WTF) New Android Apps, Games, And Live Wallpapers From Last Week (4/14/11 – 4/20/11)

Apps

Google Docs

This app needs no introduction - I love it.

May

[Updated] HTC Flyer Digital Pen Shows Up On The Web, And It Will Set You Back $80.00

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Flyer, News

Last Updated: July 4th, 2011

One of the more interesting features of the HTC Flyer is its use of a digital pen, but up until now there has been little talk of its availability. The Digital Pen allows you to write on basically anything you see on the Flyer, including web pages or input boxes, using HTC Scribe technology. I think that there was speculation that the Flyer would come with the digital pen, but that doesn't appear to be the case. The pen has popped up on BestBuyBusiness.com for the not-so-low price of $80, which, given the $500 price tag of the tablet itself, brings the entire package up to almost $600.

May

Sony Ericsson Refreshes The Mini Line - The New Xperia Mini And Mini Pro Are Official, Set To Launch In Q3 2011

Posted by Cameron Summerson in News, Sony Ericsson, Xperia Mini / Mini Pro (Smultron / Mango)

If tiny smartphones that pack a punch are your thing, then today is your lucky day. Sony Ericsson just officially announced the new Xperia Mini and Xperia Mini Pro, which are both essentially the same phone, except the latter has a full slide out QWERTY. The new line succeeds last year's X10 Mini and X10 Mini Pro, but drops the X10 monicker and heavily beefs up the specs. Here are the details:

3 Inch 320x480 display
1GHz Snapdragon processor
320MB internal storage (ouch), SD Card slot with 2GB card included
5MP rear camera with 720p video capture and face detection
Sony BRAVIA engine
Android 2.3

While the pair may not be the hottest thing to hit the streets lately, they definitely have the whole smallest-HD-smartphone thing going for them.

May

Zipcar Beta Hits The Market, Renting A Car Has Never Been Easier

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

It has been about a month since we first mentioned that car rental company Zipcar was working on an Android app, and the first beta has now arrived. With this app you'll be able to find and rent a car directly from your Android device, but that's not all - it will also allow you to lock/unlock the doors and honk the horn. That last part may seem like a bit of a novelty, but you have to admit that it's still pretty rad.

Even if you're not a Zipcar member, they encourage you do download the app just to "have some fun." The app is free in the Market, so go ahead and take a peek, see if there are any cars in your area, and learn what Zipcar is all about.

May

Sprint And Motorola Unveil Two New Blackberry Style Devices For Business Users: XPRT And Titanium

Posted by Cameron Summerson in News, Sprint, Titanium, XPRT

If you were a billion dollar company that had a smartphone design laying around that didn't do so well, what would you do with it? Motorola's going with "rebrand it and release it on a different network" with the "new" XPRT that's set to hit Sprint in June. The global-ready XPRT is basically a rebranded DROID Pro, as it has near identical specs:

3.1 Inch display
1GHz Processor
Global Ready
Mobile Hotspot with support for up to 5 devices
5MP Rear Camera
Android 2.2 with Motoblur

The XPRT is geared towards business users, and it's the first Android handset on the Now Network to sport enterprise-class security and data encryption.

May

Killswitch: Automatically Put Your Device To Sleep When You Put It In A Case Or Turn It Upside Down

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

One neat feature of BlackBerrys is that when you put the phone in its case, the screen automatically shuts off. The effect is only part novelty; after all, by shutting the screen off sooner, you're saving battery (although in all honesty, it's doubtful you're saving that much battery). Developer Fahrbot Mobile has devised a solution for Android that "uses a combination of sensors to control the sleep state and screen lock of any device... at the moment, it uses the proximity sensor, light sensor and accelerometer."

Sleeplessninjas has provided a video overview of the app (disclaimer: it's 6 minutes long):

Hit up the widget below to check out the free version, or jump right into the paid.

May

Mobile Research Firm Predicts Android Market Will Surpass Apple App Store In Number Of Apps In August 2011

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Apps/Games, News

Analyst Egle Mikalajunaite of research2guidance has modeled the growth of the Android Market and Apple App Store, and based on his predictions, the former will overtake the latter in August of this year. While we're generally pretty weary of these sort of predictions, the short-term nature certainly makes this much more plausible.

The graph largely speaks for itself, but there's a bit more to be said in terms of specific numbers. First, according to their numbers, the Market has been adding more apps per month since October of 2010. Second, it's since continued to pick up the pace (notice that you can see it ramp up quite dramatically beginning in August of 2010).

May

PowerAMP Updated To Build 369, Brings Crossfade, True Gapless Support, Bug Fixes

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

PowerAMP, hands down the best music player in the Android Market, was updated today to include a couple of long-sought features, most notably true gapless playback and crossfading between tracks. Gapless playback is pure joy for people who listen to a lot of mixtapes broken down into individual songs, and crossfading is the icing on the cake, preferred by many music lovers.

Other notable additions include .cue file support, a silence remover, backing up and restoring settings into the cloud (finally someone's implementing this functionality available ever since Froyo!), and a host of bug fixes. Full changelog along with the app widget and download links awaits you below.

May

20 Best New Android Games And Live Wallpapers From The Last 2 Weeks (4/21/11 - 5/4/11)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Best Apps/Games/LWPs Of The Week, Games, News

Welcome to the weekly roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Market or were spotted by us in the previous week or so.

Last week, I went for a nice vacation in the Caribbean and because of that, there was no Best Apps issue at all. Instead, I've rolled 2 weeks' worth of stuff into this week aaaaaaand because it's turned out so long, I am splitting it up into multiple posts (apps are coming soon after this, most likely tomorrow).

Additionally, most people preferred the old roundup format instead of the abridged new one I tried in the last roundup, so I'm bringing it back.

May

LiveJournal Is Alive And Kicking, Brings App To Android

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

I'm going to be really honest about this one: I had no idea that anyone still uses LiveJournal. Much to my surprise, though, it has been going strong all this time - it's even ranked #71 in the world according to Alexa. After realizing that tidbit of information, it's not surprising at all that there is now an official LiveJournal App for Android.

For a mobile blogging app, I must say that this one seems quite feature rich: you can post new journal entries and photos, create polls, edit entries, create drafts, and manage settings. From just a quick look, I think that this may be the best on-the-go blogging app that I've seen thus far.