Android - 50/167 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Jan

Blackberry's Playbook OS 2.0 Will Support Android Apps After February 6th, RIM Provides Helpful Tips On Assuring Acceptance To App World

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Applications, Development, News, RIM

RIM, in the official BlackBerry developer's blog, announced today that Blackberry Playbook's OS update to version 2.0 will bring compatibility with Android applications. RIM's post has several helpful tips for developers looking to bring their creations to the Playbook, offering some recommendations for ensuring your approval into BlackBerry App World:

Before submitting your Android application to BlackBerry App World, please make sure to remove all mention of the word “Android” from your application. Both in the application description and the application itself.

Please remove all links to Android Market from within your application.

When submitting your Android application to BlackBerry App World, please make sure to select a minimum BlackBerry PlayBook OS of 2.0.

Jan

24 Best New Android Games From Last Week (1/23/12 - 1/31/12)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Best Apps/Games/LWPs Of The Week, Games, News

Welcome to the weekly roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Market or were spotted by us in the previous week or so.

This edition focuses only on new games. The app roundup is coming up soon, and you can find the tablet app roundup here.

Please wait for this page to load in full in order to see the AppBrain widgets, which include ratings and pricing info.

Looking for the previous roundup editions? Find them here.

Featured App

Majesty: Northern Expansion by HeroCraft

Today's roundup is sponsored by Majesty: Northern Expansion, a sequel to the very popular and beloved Majesty: Fantasy Kingdom Sim.

Jan

Samsung's Big Super Bowl Product Reveal Is A 90-Second Commercial For The Galaxy Note

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Galaxy Note (GT-N7000), News, Samsung

Yesterday afternoon, @SamsungMobileUS revealed that the company would be launching a "device so revolutionary only an ad in America's biggest game [the Super Bowl] can do it justice." Many on Twitter and across the web assumed it would be the Galaxy S III or a new tablet; while it was doubtful in light of recent rumors that it would be the SGSIII, the new tablet idea was at least feasible.

As it turns out, Samsung is "revealing" the U.S. Galaxy Note - so to the technophiles, there's nothing new to see here, really. In hindsight, it's a bit of a no-brainer: yesterday, Samsung officially announced that the Note would go on sale on February 19, and preorders would begin...

Jan

Google Launches Official G+ Page For Android Developers

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Android OS, Google, News

Google's not one to shy away from engaging its developers. Between the Android developers blog, Google Groups, and a myriad of other contact methods, Google is pretty open about talking with developers. If you're looking to get a bit more social, you can now add the official Android developers page to your circles Google+.

If there's one thing we love, it's an open community of developers working together. Google has been pushing harder to try and steer its developers in the direction it wants. The style guide is a pretty big step. This should be just as welcome. No word yet, though, on whether our favorite loveable Android mascot will be appearing in a Hangout.

Jan

15 Best Android 3.0+ Apps For Tablets From The Last 2 Months (12/7/11 - 1/29/12)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Best Apps/Games/LWPs Of The Week, Games, News, Tablets

Last Updated: January 31st, 2012

Welcome to the weekly roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Market or were spotted by us in the previous 2 months or so.

This edition focuses only on new tablet apps or ones that added Honeycomb support. Regular apps and games are coming soon.

The amount of tablet-centric apps in the last few weeks has been abysmal, so I decided to skip the tablet roundup a few times.

Please wait for this page to load in full in order to see the AppBrain widgets, which include ratings and pricing info.

Looking for the previous roundup editions?

Jan

[Weekend Poll] Do You Use Live Wallpapers?

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Polls

This is the latest in our Weekend Poll series. For last week's, see Do You Use An Antivirus App On Your Android Device?

That Android supports live wallpapers (LWPs) is a cool feature, no doubt about it. But to many people, it's no more than an impractical novelty - something that looks cool but kills performance and battery life. Still, they remain popular on the Market, presumably among more casual owners who don't notice (or care) about the performance hit, or just don't know better... or perhaps even hardcore users don't mind the trade-off.

So, which camp do you fall in?

Jan

[Updated: Here Are The Winners!] Book Giveaway #13: Kick Your Developing Game Up A Notch: We're Giving Away 5 Copies Of "Application Security For The Android Platform"

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Contests / Giveaways, Development

Last Updated: February 5th, 2012

Thanks to our two-dozen (or so) previous book giveaways, you probably now know how to develop for Android. If so, it's probably time to kick your game up to the next level by mastering application security. Luckily for you, O'Reilly Media recently published a new book on the topic, titled "Application Security for the Android Platform: Processes, Permissions, and Other Safeguards." Written by Jeff Six, the book is a concise (112 page) treatise on the subject.

This contest is now over. Here are our winners, selected at random:

hectormoi
Gracjan
James Ebby
rolltidedad
Antonio Chillaron Barahona

Congratulations, guys - all of you will be contacted for your information in the near future!

Jan

Google Announces The Death Of The Menu Button, Long Live The Action Bar

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Android OS, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News

We can't say we didn't see this coming. Google just announced on the Android Developer blog that the Menu button is well and truly dead, in case you hadn't gotten the memo. The post has relevant information on how to update your apps to accommodate the new changes without breaking support for devices running software older than Honeycomb (which are the overwhelming majority at the moment).

^{Left: Glorious new Action Bar. Right: Shameful old Menu.}

It's not a surprise, but it's certainly another nail in the Menu button's coffin. Google's pushing hard to give the stock software a distinct, beautiful experience.

Jan

'Evi' Hopes To Be A Viable Android Alternative To iOS' Siri, But Server Failures Have Gotten It Off To A Rocky Start

Posted by Abhiroop Basu in Android OS, Applications, News

Siri competitors for Android are a dime a dozen, but the latest alternative Evi may have the winning combination of a voice recognition engine that actually understands what you say and what (we hope) appears to be a natural language processor that can figure out what you want.

Unlike a standard search engine which performs keyword searches, Evi aims to answer your query with a specific response. So, for example, if want to know what the capital of France is, you would ask Evi "what is the capital of France?" and Evi would respond "Paris". Evi is also good with contextual questions, so if your next question is "is it dark there now?", Evi would understand that you want to know whether it is past sunset in Paris.

Jan

Developers May Favour Android Over iOS in 2012

Posted by Abhiroop Basu in Android OS, News

Although iOS appears to currently be the platform of choice for developers, research firm Ovum suggests that Android is set to surpass it "in terms of importance to developers within the next 12 months".

Traditionally, the Apple App Store has generated higher revenues than the Android Market as users are more likely to download paid apps, thus luring developers. However the Android platform has been incredibly successful in the past few months and the number of app downloads have been significant, so it comes as no surprise that developers are bullish on Android's prospects in 2012.

Additionally, according to its latest "Developer Insights" survey, Ovum has found that almost all developers support both Android and iOS and interest in development for the BlackBerry and Windows Phone OS is growing.