amazon - 21/26 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Apr

Exclusive: Amazon To Introduce 4.3-Inch Dual-Core "Blaze" Smartphone This Summer [Leak, Pictures]

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in AT&T, News, Verizon Wireless

Last Updated: August 1st, 2012

Update: If you haven't caught on yet, you should probably check out the date on which this post was published.

This special Android Police project was brought to you by:

The amazing Grant Garrison, who tackled the design side
Jaroslav Stekl, who came up with most of the rest
Artem Russakovskii, who made sure everything went and looked perfect

Amazon's been making waves in the Android blogosphere recently with such new products as the Appstore and the Cloud Player, but it looks like they're not done yet; in fact, they're only just starting. According to the same source who tipped us about the Appstore a few months back, the company will be launching the Blaze, which looks to be a smartphone of pretty high caliber, come August - and in a sentence, there's a lot to look forward to.

Mar

mSpot Reacts To Amazon Cloud Player, Ups Free Storage Capacity To 5GB

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

As a direct result of Amazon releasing its (awesome) Cloud Player, music streaming service mSpot has upped its free storage to 5GB. mSpot works almost exactly like Amazon Cloud Player – upload your music, download the app, and stream to your heart's content. Unlike Amazon, however, the most storage that you can get from mSpot is 40GB ($3.99/month) with no plans in between the basic (5GB) and premium (40GB). On the upside, you don't have to shell out the annual fee right away - paying $4/month rather than prepaying for a year could attract some consumers to the service.

mSpot works on Windows and Mac, with apps available for iOS and Android.

Mar

[Review] Amazon Cloud Player For Android - Google Music Who?

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News, Tips & Tutorials

It’s not much of a secret that Amazon is quickly becoming one of my favorite companies. The way they have embraced Android is wonderful, creating diversity where there used to be none. I recently ran down some of the pros and cons of the Amazon Appstore for Android, which is starting to become my go-to marketplace for new apps. Now they have released a new music streaming service, Cloud Player, which brings some of the functionality that was originally a hope of Google Music to my Droid.

Cloud Drive and the Web App

The Cloud Player is basically a frontend to all of the music that is stored in the Cloud Drive (which can be used to store any file type).

Mar

Tip: Get 20GB Of Amazon Cloud Drive Storage For Only $0.69

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in News, Tips & Tutorials

If you read today's Amazon Cloud Storage announcement carefully, you may have noticed that Amazon threw in a special offer allowing a free 1-year upgrade for your Cloud account from 5GB to 20GB with the purchase of any MP3 album. Why pay $20 a year when you can buy an album cheaper and achieve the same thing without spending the extra money (otherwise known as taking advantage of a loophole)?

Ready for it? Head over to the MP3 Albums $0.01 - $1 area and pick an album for as low as $0.69. Buy it and add it to your Amazon Cloud Drive.

Mar

Amazon Launches Cloud Player Music Streaming Service For Android

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, Apps/Games, News

While some companies are content to just talk, talk, talk about what they are doing, Amazon seems to be quietly hard at work. Last week they gave us the Amazon Appstore for Android and last night they dropped another bomb – the Amazon Cloud Player.

If Grooveshark and Dropbox had a baby, it would be Amazon Cloud Player. It consists of Cloud Drive - 5GB of free cloud storage on Amazon’s servers (upgradable to 20GB with the purchase of one album or for $20/year; $1 per gigabyte after that) - and the Cloud Player, which can be accessed from the web or from an Android device.

Mar

Amazon Appstore Doubles Down: Farm Frenzy And Newsweek Mobile Both Free Today

Posted by David Ruddock in Applications, Deals, Games, News, Tips & Tutorials

That's right, Amazon's offering not one, but two free apps on the Amazon Appstore this morning! You can pick up the popular HeroCraft title Farm Frenzy along with the official Newsweek Mobile app from Amazon free of charge.

I don't know about you - but I can't tell which is which.

Newsweek Mobile offers Amazon's "Test Drive" in-browser emulation, so you can try it from your browser before making the 15 second commitment to put it on your phone. Anyways, load up the Amazon Appstore (if you can) and grab these freebies while the getting is good.

Update: We've gotten in touch with Herocraft, the developer of Farm Frenzy, about extra permissions that their game uses (such as access to contacts).

Mar

The Pros And Cons Of The Amazon App Store: A Promising Market Replacement?

Posted by Cameron Summerson in App Reviews, Applications, Editorials, News, Other Reviews, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

On March 22nd, the long awaited Amazon Appstore was released, bringing a whole new way to find, install, and share apps on Android. After its initial debut, we decided that this new Appstore was the real deal. In this post, we'll break down what Amazon's done right, and what it still needs to improve on.

Pros

1. Better descriptions and more in-depth comments

Most users will tell you that finding good Android apps is not an easy task. If you're browsing the Android Market looking for something specific, then the only bit of information that you have to work with is what the developer wants to say (which usually isn’t much) and one-line-comments from other users.

Mar

[Weekend Poll] Now That The Amazon App Store Is Here, What Are Your Thoughts?

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

Last Updated: September 3rd, 2011

This is the newest in our Weekend Poll series. For last week's, see AT&T Is Buying T-Mobile USA; As The Dust Settles, What Are Your Thoughts?

We saw it coming from a mile away (and knew all the details), and now it's finally happened: the Amazon Appstore officially launched on Tuesday, March 22. So far, with the exception of a minor hiccup, it looks like the launch has been fairly smooth. Now that you've had a few days to test the waters, we'd like to know what your thoughts are on the Appstore.

As always, you can vote in the poll below, and we encourage you to drop us a line in the comments to voice your opinion.

Mar

Amazon Is On A Roll: Today's Free Premium Android Appstore App - SwiftKey Keyboard

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Deals, News

Without taking a break from yesterday's free Shazam Encore deal, Amazon is continuing its daily giveaway of awesome premium Android apps with another one of our favorites - SwiftKey Keyboard.

SwiftKey normally costs $1.99 in the Android Market ($1.79 in the Amazon Appstore), but for the next 24 hours, U.S. residents will be able to download it to their Digital Lockers for free, thereby claiming it forever. Even if you are not a fan of SwiftKey just yet, there is no reason to pass on this deal if you can get it - just do it now, then think and decide later.

Mar

Amazon Appstore's Free Premium App Of The Day: Shazam Encore (Normally $5)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Deals, News

To those who can access it (read: U.S. users), the Amazon Appstore may seem like one of the best things since sliced bread - it trumps Google's own web-based Android Market in almost every way. One of such differentiating features is the Goldbox-like Free Premium App of the Day concept that, like Groupon and its competitors, was introduced to provide great deals to consumers and giant spikes in traffic to app developers.

Of course, it was no surprise that the first such premium app given away was Angry Birds: Rio (though, it remains free to this day and was clearly more of a marketing ploy), but the next few apps were not really that exciting.