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

May

[I/O 2011] Google Brings Movies to the Android Marketplace, Rentals Start At $1.99

Posted by Matt Demers in Applications, News

Google has announced during its keynote presentation Tuesday morning that it will be bringing movie rentals to the Android Marketplace. Starting at $1.99, these titles will be featured just like apps.

The presenter also demonstrated a "pinning" function, which allows movies to be stored for offline use. This prevents you from losing access to your movie when your network is unavailable, or wish to save your data connection from a heavy workout.

Google also emphasized a "seamless" experience, going from tablet to phone and back again. as a recent Atrix owner who's looking to get some use out of his HDMI cable, Android Movies might be the kick in the right direction.

Mar

Amazon Appstore Developer Blog Is Packed With Details, From The Appstore Requirements & Layout To Tips To Help Your App Succeed - Android News, Reviews, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets, Tips, Mods, Videos, Tutorials - Android Police

Is Amazon's Android Market Set To Launch This Month?

Posted by Will Shanklin in Applications, News

That Android Market rival that Amazon.com has been preparing may be set to launch soon. If a recent tweet by advertising platform Millennial Media is correct, then it will be going live later this month.

While much is still unknown of the web retail behemoth's answer to the Android Market, their Developers' Blog did recently reveal several tidbits, including:

Your apps are linked to your Amazon account, and any apps you purchase will be pre-installed on Android devices you order from them
The style of the app listings will be consistent with Amazon.com's pages for any other product

Is there currently room for another store for Android apps?

Dec

Rooted Nook Colors Now Market-Capable, Terms And Conditions Apply

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Apps/Games, Development, News, NOOKcolor (Encore)

The rooting of Barnes & Noble's delicious IPS-wielding e-reader took place a couple of weeks ago, rendering the device more of a tablet than a single-use reading terminal in one gloriously justifying move. As with most other tablets, however, it lacked one thing: proper Google app support with access to the Android market. Of course, with the main rooting hurdle already surmounted, it was only a matter of time before these problems were dealt with, too. Some folks in the know over at NookDevs.com have put together a meticulous tutorial to turn that 7" slab into all you've ever wanted it to be.

Nov

PowerAMP Beta Now Available In The Android Market, Hefty Change Log In Tow, Including Genre Support

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Applications, Apps/Games, News

You may recall Artem's preview post last week, where he showed off the latest in slick Android music players. Well, no longer are you at the mercy of filesharing site download limits, as PowerAMP build 204 is now available in the rather more dependable Android Marketplace. Cough.

With a change log of such length that it would put a cellular network press release to shame, it's fair to say that this latest version of PowerAMP is packing a few new features. Below we've highlighted a few that may be of particular interest:

Genre support
Last.fm scrobbling via Simple Last.fm or Scrobble Droid
Album art fetcher
Pause on headset disconnect
New widgets with album art display
Hide status bar
Long hold or double press headset button to skip track
Lock screen orientation
Lockscreen widget transparency and positioning
Many, many bug fixes

Check out the full list at PowerAMP's new homepage.

Oct

PayPal Payment May Be Coming To The Android Market

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Apps/Games, News

According to news website TheStreet, Google may be finally relenting on the Google Checkout-only system currently employed in the Android Market by letting PayPal in on the action. This is a facility that users have demanded for some time, and the ubiquity and convenience of PayPal payment should be a nice incentive for people to buy apps if they have not done so before. TheStreet also speculates that this new payment option may be the final piece of the puzzle in the long-awaited Google Music project, allowing for seamless payment from your device or PC. An announcement at PayPal's October 26th conference in San Francisco is expected to unveil this new partnership.

Jul

Oh, Snap – Chinese Carriers Removing Google From The Android Equation

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in News

Ars Technica, via TechCrunch, published an article yesterday on the state of Android in China. The good news: Android is set to explode in China – just check out these facts (direct quote from TechCrunch):

- Number of Mobile Internet Users in China (start of 2010): 233 million
- Number of Mobile Internet Users in China (projected for 2014): 957 million
- Population of USA + EU (2010): roughly 800 million

The number of mobile internet users in China today is roughly 80% of the population of the US, and according to TechCrunch, Android is gaining market share fast. That sounds like good news; unfortunately, it’s not – it’s a problem, because China is removing Google from Android.

Jul

The Race To App Store Quality

Posted by Andrew Gould in Applications, Editorials

Ever since Apple released its App Store on the (then) iPhone OS 2.0, a special emphasis has been placed on the quantity of apps. As other app markets arrived, the same metric of success carried over. The platform creators used the quantity of applications as a way to convince critics that their platform was popular and thriving and that prospective buyers could take comfort in the platform they were investing money.

Fast forward to 2010. The app market model has proved crucial in this smartphone arms race and Google itself just announced 70,000 applications in the Android Market. That’s great! There’s a diversified, quality collection of Android applications ready for discovery… right?

Jul

Android Market Passes 1 Billion App Downloads, Nearing 100,000 Apps (And Picking Up Speed)

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

TechCrunch published an interesting article yesterday on AndroiLib. The most interesting fact in the article is that AndroidLib estimates that the Market has passed 1 billion app downloads (the live ticker is now at 1.061 billion, as shown in the image below). It’s pretty impressive, and it’s somewhat surprising that we haven’t heard word of this from Google (then again, they don’t usually formally announce this stuff – most of the statistics we have on Android come either from public events or analysts). Still, a milestone nonetheless.

According to AndroLibs estimates, there are nearly 95,000 apps on the market. Not only that, but the number of apps has been increasing very rapidly, and July looks to be no different: in June there were 15,288 new apps released; as of July 15, there are 10,720 – a rate that suggests over 21,000 new apps in July.