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Dec

Splinter Cell: Conviction HD Makes A Stop By Gameloft, Still Not On Market

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

Oh, Gameloft - you and your shenanigans. It looks like they've just released the graphically excellent Splinter Cell: Conviction HD, but not to the market. At the moment, I've only been able to find it directly from Gameloft for $5. Still, if the following YouTube video is any indication, it looks to be one hell of a doozy:

This version of the game is a far cry from the previous Conviction game that was available on the market - whereas that appeared to be a cheap rip-off app, this bad boy reportedly needs over 500 MB and runs like butter.

For those unfamiliar with Conviction, it's a bit different than previous Splinter Cell games - it's more run-'n-gun than you're probably used to.

Dec

Get Into The Holiday Spirit With A Christmas Dock & Droid Icons

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

With Christmas just two (!) days away, it might be time to get in the holiday spirit. Enter XDA-Developers forum members Krynj and AZ2ENVY. Independently of each other, the two have come up with a perfect holiday theme - Krynj a few Christmas-themed docks, and AZ2 a series of Christmas-themed Android icons.

One of the docks (there are six):

A few of the Droids (there are eight):

_{These are the Droids you're looking for.}

To use the dock, you'll need a launcher with customizable docks (such as LauncherPro).

Taking the dive? Let us see what you come up with via the comments below.

Dec

HTC Hints At Its Next 4G Phone, Unveil Coming January 6th - A Verizon Phone At Last?

Posted by Brian O'Toole in HTC, News, Thunderbolt (Mecha)

HTC's released plenty of phones lately, but Verizon - arguably the biggest Android carrier - hasn't been getting any love since way back with the release of the Droid Incredible. What better way to bring it all back than with an LTE launch phone? Judging from HTC's rather smug (who can blame them?) teaser page, they're set to hit the ground running with a launch of the "Incredible HD" on January 6th. That coincides happily with the start of the Consumer Electronics Show, where Verizon are already expected to be pushing their LTE agenda.

It may not be the only LTE device readying itself for action with Big Red, but staunch HTC fans have been somewhat starved of choice on the famously reliable CDMA network of late.

Dec

Tunerfish Releases Android App, Aims To Be FourSquare For TV, Movies, And Videos (Complete With A Back Story - Read It)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

Tunerfish, which dubs itself "a social discovery engine for TV, movies, and online video," released version 1.0 of its Android app to the Market today.

The idea behind Tunerfish is similar to the one behind 4square, only if you replaced locations with TV shows, movies, and online videos. In order to use Tunerfish, you can create an account or log in using Facebook or Twitter. Once logged in, you can:

see what your friends are watching in real-time
see what they were watching in the past
check out trending shows, movies, and videos, i.e. what's being watched now by everyone
earn badges and awards
participate in discussions, view profiles
check in and share what you are watching on Tunerfish, Facebook, and Twitter

You can read more about Tunerfish here.

Dec

SlideScreen 2.0 In The Works, Beta Build Now Available For Download

Posted by Stephen Tenerowicz in Applications, Apps/Games, Development, News

Remember Larva Labs, the Android development team behind the awesome home replacement SlideScreen? Well, they're back and working on SlideScreen 2.0, a more advanced version of the original. With 2.0 (a beta preview is now available, get it here), things have been taken up a notch. For example, developers will now be able to write plugins using an API and release them on the Android Market - which means you no longer have to wait for the Larva Labs team to add new features. According to the LL blog, the API includes support for custom shortcut activities and real time updates to SlideScreen.

Dec

Carrier Billing Comes To Android Market On AT&T - Creates Audible Drop In The Paid App Bucket

Posted by David Ruddock in Apps/Games, AT&T, News

That's right, carrier billing is now available for some Android users on the least Android-friendly wireless carrier in the US. Huzzah. I guess I shouldn't be so cynical - I am an AT&T customer, after all. Unfortunately, I also run CyanogenMod 6 on my AT&T Nexus One, and have not yet received any Market update to allow me to use carrier billing, and doubt I will until an official Gingerbread build coaxes me off my custom ROM goodness.

The Android Developers blog has stated the carrier billing option will roll out to phones as part of the larger Market update that has been floating around in ZIP form for a couple of weeks - but it remains entirely unclear what phones or versions of Android will be eligible.

Dec

How To: Customize Your WidgetLocker Lockscreen

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Development, News

Many people who use custom themes or launchers are familiar with WidgetLocker. What many people don't realize, though, is that customizing WidgetLocker itself is a fairly straightforward task. Better still, there are plenty of existing customizations available, meaning that you have to do little more than shove your modified .PNG files into the APK.

_{Before / After}

Dalton Gore - better known as @colormeandroid - is responsible for gathering the individual mods and creating the guide. While the guide is a little too light on details for newbies, it does provide the luxury of choices - he provides instructions for 5 methods:

How to apply the images:

Personally I recommend using APKManager!

Dec

Firefox 4 Beta For Android Gets Updated, Finally Enters The Market

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Applications, Apps/Games, News

Mozilla's been pretty good about keeping the mobile version of its ever-popular Firefox browser up to date (both with the current beta and with the old Fennec Alpha), and it looks like they have every intention to continue that trend. Just today, the third beta of Firefox 4 went live in the Android Market, bringing a number of minor additions along with it:

Several UI modifications
Easier discovery of add-ons
The ability to save websites as PDFs so you can read them later
Support for complex scripts (i.e. Arabic and Persian) on devices with the appropriate fonts
The ability to copy and paste to and from the URL bar
A simplified setup process for Firefox Sync - less typing is necessary
Bug fixes

Additionally, this is the first release of Firefox for Android that's available in the Android Market, indicating that we are now one step closer to the final, non-beta release of the app.

Dec

OTA Update Fixes Bugs, Brings Latest Version Of Maps To Samsung Nexus S

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Gingerbread 2.3, Google, News, Nexus S (Crespo/Soju), Samsung

The Nexus S may have just been released, and it may be running the latest version of Android - but Samsung and Google aren't holding back on software updates. Instead, the two have teamed up to release the first OTA update for the device, which contains "important bug fixes" as well as the latest version of Google Maps. Don't feel like waiting for the update to hit your device? The file is already available to download from Google's servers, so after this, you can simply flash it as you would any other ZIP file:

After the file is downloaded, rename it to "update.zip".

Dec

Five New OpenFeint-Enabled Titles Launch Today, Six Existing Games Receive Updates With Feint Compatibility

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Games, News

OpenFeint, a social gaming network for Android and iOS users, already comes included with 158 Android games - not too shabby. However, it's about to get even better - five titles completely new to Android are launching today: