01
May
2012-05-01 11h37_14

Droid Does Campaign Decides To Trade In World Domination For A More Family-Friendly Image

Posted by in News, Verizon Wireless

There comes a time in every action hero's life where he gets tired of the explosions and the fighting and race horses duct taped to SCUD missiles, and longs for a simple life. Camping and going on road trips with the family, getting a nice office job, sending your daughter off to get kidnapped in Paris. Verizon's Droid Does campaign has hit a similar milestone. After very successfully selling a metric ton of Android devices with harsh, scary looking robot arms and not to mention evil, horror-esque iPhone taunts, the ad campaign is going for a less threatening and more heart-warming approach.

29
Sep
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Skype For Android Updated To v2.5 With Whitelist For 13 More Devices, Landscape Support, More. Oh Yeah, And Ads

Posted by in Applications, Atrix 4G (Olympus), Bionic, Droid 3, Galaxy Tab 10.1, Iconia Tab A500, News, Optimus 2X (Star, p990), Optimus 3D (p920) / Thrill 4G (p925), Optimus Black (p970), Photon 4G, XOOM

Skype for Android, an app that gets almost as much love as it does hate, was updated to version 2.5 a few minutes ago. Because the last update unofficially opened up Skype to all 2.2+ devices, this time around Skype simply listed 13 more devices as whitelisted and approved for video chat capabilities:

  1. Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (T-Mobile)
  2. HTC SHOOTER (KDDI)
  3. Sony Ericsson Xperia Live with Walkman
  4. Sony Ericsson Xperia neo V
  5. Acer Iconia Tablet (A500)
  6. LG Optimus Black LANDSCAPE ONLY
  7. LG Optimus 3D LANDSCAPE ONLY
  8. LG Optimus 2x LANDSCAPE ONLY
  9. Motorola Photon
  10. Motorola Droid3 LANDSCAPE ONLY
  11. Motorola Bionic LANDSCAPE ONLY
  12. Motorola Xoom
  13. Motorola Atrix

Notice how the list contains 13 devices, even though the changelog says 14.

12
Apr
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[Let's Discuss] How's This For A Paid Game/App Model? Play For 10 Hours And Permanently Disable All Ads ("180" From Headcase Games)

Posted by in Applications, Apps/Games, Editorials, News

Paid app models have always been fascinating to me - I've even had a TODO sitting around in my post ideas list to explore various methods of distributing software without inundating users too much. Pro features, time trials, disabling ads for money, in-app key unlocks, lite versions, paid-only ones without trials - these are all on the list and all have their pluses and minuses.

This new idea, however, is so radical, brilliant, and crazy compared to the rest that I think it might just work, and I'd like to run it by you to see if I'm not alone. Headcase Games' new action-puzzle game "180" has 2 versions, just like you would expect - a free one with ads and a $1.99 one without.

18
Nov
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Best Buy Takes Over And Peels Off The Yahoo Homepage In A Holiday Campaign, EVO 4G Leading The Pack

Posted by in EVO 4G (Supersonic), News, Off-Topic

Here I was, innocently browsing the Yahoo homepage today (I use it as a random site to test my tethered connection), minding my own business. Imagine my surprise when the main navigation column suddenly started peeling off to reveal a so-dear-to-my-heart EVO 4G. Continuing to watch this technique, I observed a flat screen TV and a Blu-ray player before finally seeing the perpetrator on the right - Best Buy. While I'm not usually a fan of Flash ads, this one amused me and reminded me of the upcoming holidays with all the presents that still needed to be bought. Have you gotten your holiday presents ready yet, like that EVO 4G?

12
Nov
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QuickOffice Spamming Your Notification Bar, Sign Of Things To Come?

Posted by in Android OS, Applications, Apps/Games, News

When you use free software, ads are usually part-and-parcel of the experience. However, typically developers are considerate enough to limit the advertising to within the app itself. Sadly, whoever programmed the popular document viewing application QuickOffice lacks such scruples and has decided to start pushing notifications to users, inviting them to upgrade to the paid version of their app. In many cases, QuickOffice is pre-installed with a phone's version of Android - even something carrier agnostic like the Nexus One - and is difficult to remove, leaving non-root users at the mercy of the app's creators.

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Credit to TheFunkyMonk of reddit for the image

While the notification has only appeared once on people's phones so far, and is easy to dismiss, this really seems like an over-stepping of the bounds.

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