Android - 150/167 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Sep

SwiftKey Keyboard, One Of Android's Best Keyboards, Sheds Beta Status, Goes Premium; On Sale For $0.99 Until September 30th, $3.99 After

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

SwiftKey Keyboard has been in beta ever since its introduction to the Android Market a few months ago. Having tried Swype, I also jumped on SwiftKey to give it a fair shot and ended up sticking with it. Yes, it was that good.

SwiftKey is different from other keyboards because it uses predictive recognition based on both tons of statistical information and your own typing habits. In fact, you can make whole sentences without typing a single key and just picking default suggestions.

Every company needs to make money at some point, and so today, having shed the beta status, SwiftKey is turning into a paid app.

Sep

10" Samsung Galaxy Tab Coming In First Half Of 2011

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Galaxy Tab, News, Samsung

SiliconRepublic ran a piece explaining which carriers in Ireland will be selling the Galaxy Tab. At the bottom of the article (the very last sentence), they nonchalantly mention that Samsung country manager Gary Twohig says they'll be releasing a 10" Tablet sometime in the first half of 2011. The only other details included in the article: it will run Android, and rock the V8 JavaScript engine.

Engadget speculates that Samsung may be waiting for Gingerbread or Honeycomb, which certainly sounds like a fair assessment to me. After all, Google recently said that Android 2.x isn't designed with tablets in mind, but Android 3.x would be.

Sep

Android Explodes On American Corporate Scene, Gaining Market Share Fast

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in News

Yesterday, Macworld ran an article on Android's popularity among US businesses. In a survey of over 1,600 corporations, Android's growth is more than 20 times higher than that of the iPhone. In fact, 16% of respondents said their firms are already using Android devices, up from 10% just three months earlier. By contrast, iPhone use increased to 31%, up from 30% - growing, but not nearly as fast as Android.

Still, despite the fact that Android has experienced significantly more growth in the past few months, keep in mind that the iPhone already has nearly twice the market share of Android.

Sep

Samsung Intercept Coming To Virgin Mobile USA

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Intercept, News, Virgin Mobile

Virgin Mobile announced via an image upload on their Facebook page that they're landing the Samsung Intercept as their first Android phone. No word yet on pricing or release date, but we can't imagine it would be too terribly much (should be in the range of their LG Rumor Touch).

What we do know are the specs of the Intercept:

3.2” 240 x 400 px LCD display
4 row slide-out QWERTY keypad
Android 2.1
Samsung S3C6410 ARM 11 CPU @ 800 MHz
512 MB ROM, 256 MB RAM
3.2 MP Camera (with video)
802.11g, Bluetooth (2.1), headphone jack
2 GB microSD card in the box, support for up to 32 GB
EV-DO rev.

Sep

New Survey Says Consumers Want Tablets, Android Has High Brand Loyalty But Low Brand Recognition, And Bigger Is Better

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Devices By Manufacturer, News

Sybase (owned by SAP) commissioned a survey on tablets, and the results are rather surprising. Before I dig in, however, I feel it's only fair to point out what I perceive as a flaw in the survey: they provide minimal information on the survey questions and how it was conducted. As a result, it's hard to tell whether the survey was free of bias; based on how the results are presented with bias, I'm guessing not.

That said, Sybase made a spokesperson available to talk about the results, and I'm sure they could clarify things (or pull the wool over my eyes - I'm a sucker for slick talk).

Sep

Froyo Update Officially Rolling Out For Motorola Droid X

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Droid X (Shadow), Froyo 2.2, News, Verizon Wireless

We had a pretty good idea it was coming, and now it's here: Verizon has started rollout of the Android 2.2 update for the Droid X. As usual, some users are already receiving notification that an update is available, but if you don't want to wait, you can always check for the update manually.

Obviously, the most major change comes from updating Android itself. However, it looks like Verizon has also made a few other tweaks while it was at it. Full slide (same one from yesterday):

And that's about all there is to it. Go forth, download, and enjoy.

Sep

Nexus One Has Better HTML5 Performance Than iPhone 4, But Flash Is Still King

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Apps/Games, Froyo 2.2, News, Nexus One (Passion)

While trying to figure out the best way to develop a cross-platform game, developer Christopher Black created a simple HTML5 benchmark, which he then ran on a Nexus One (N1), iPod Touch 4G, and iPhone 4. For some further variety, he also tested Flash 10.1 on the N1. The test itself was simply a black ball bouncing, and the results were incredibly surprising: the Nexus One ran the animation 67% faster than the iPod Touch, and 81% faster than the iPhone 4.

Even better, the N1 managed to keep rendering the ball (albeit slowly) during zooming - not so for the iOS devices.

Sep

Google Finally Separates The Gmail App From The OS, Releases New, Speedier Version 2.3

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, Froyo 2.2, News

With the release of Froyo, Google promised to start decoupling applications bundled with the Android at the core - we've already seen it done to Maps, Navigation, Street View, and other programs. Today Gmail joins the party with the rollout of a new version 2.3 that can now be installed from the Market.

What does it mean? Well, previously, the Gmail app was only updated when you upgrade the whole operating system. Now that the app is downloadable from the Market directly, any updates will be available immediately.

Unfortunately, only users of Froyo and above are able to install the standalone version - everyone else is out of luck.

Sep

Love Yourself Some Plants Vs Zombies On Your Android Device? Leave Devil Alone Is A Very Decent Clone That Just Hit The Market

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Games, News, Videos

Plants Vs Zombies

I loved Plants Vs Zombies on my PC. LOVED it. I don't get excited by games much anymore but Plants Vs Zombies by PopCap captured my full attention for weeks when it just came out a couple of years back. A version for the iPhone came out later and enjoyed similar success to the original game. PopCap's Android page, however, has been quite empty. Literally:

Will PopCap ever release an Android variant? It's possible, but in the meantime, we have to quench our PvZ thirst by finding existing alternatives in the Market.

Leave Devil Alone

A few days ago, a new game called Leave Devil Alone by a relatively unknown publisher GZORZ showed up in the new releases section of the Android Market.

Sep

DROID X 2.2 Update Coming Tomorrow? Seems Like It

Posted by David Ruddock in Droid X (Shadow), Froyo 2.2, News

It seems the DROID X's overdue update may be coming a day sooner than previously thought.

Wait, didn’t we just say yesterday that it would be coming on Wednesday? Yes, yes we did. I’d say right now that 9/22 looks pretty likely at this point.

Kellex on Droid-Life

Droid-Life has pointed eager X users to Verizon's support page for the device, which has been updated with a PDF espousing the delights of Android 2.2, along with various DROID X-specific changes. There's also a PDF with instructions on how to get the update- but we've yet to see any confirmation that anyone has actually gotten it.