23
May
hi-256-0-982dd593f7cdd0043aa6d69d4adaeea3692552e3

Android app developer Chainfire released an interesting app into the Market recently called Chainfire3D - "an intermediary OpenGL driver." Basically, this app sits between your app and the proprietary graphics driver on your device and can manipulate the commands between the two.

This enables you do some pretty rad things with your device in order to increase efficacy, battery life, performance, etc. For example, you can use Chainfire3D to enable night-mode, which basically only powers the red pixels on your device in order to save battery life (yes, it makes everything look red - see below).

ss-0-320-480-160-0-7b46e2f3b4bc3120b2ab56575cb9520dd2599a88 ss-1-320-480-160-0-c44134631c942dd44b7384480d5603faa10e0cb8 ss-2-320-480-160-0-28fb0509d774fdcb17de4c78f4c0cca18873b455

Other features of Chainfire3D includes a multitude of texture manipulations, including the ability to reduce texture sizes and quality (for faster gaming) and unroll textures, which converts non-32 bit textures into 32 bit.

20
May
tweetcombnewsr

When it comes to Honeycomb specific apps, the selection isn't huge, so when you can score some for free, that's always a good thing. Honeycomb app dev Chris Stewart decided that he was in agreeance with that idea and has relinquished the price of two of his HC apps - TweetComb and Newsr - to display that.

As its name suggests, TweetComb is a Twitter client designed specifically for Honeycomb. While it may not be as good as say, Plume, it's really hard to compete with the price (even with the free version of Plume, you have deal with ads, whereas TweetComb appears to be ad-free).

19
May
new_android_apps_thumb1_thumb_thumb3

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 is part 2 of this week's roundup and is dedicated entirely to apps. For part 1 dedicated to games and LWPs, see 26 Best New Android Games And Live Wallpapers From The Last 2 Weeks (5/5/11 – 5/18/11).

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 week's roundups? Find them here:

Featured App

Today’s roundup is sponsored by XIMAD and their game Kung Fu Tic Tac Toe.

18
May
new_android_apps_thumb1_thumb_thumb3

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.

Last week, due to Google I/O, I did not have proper time to put into making the roundup, so this week contains apps from the last 2 weeks. This is the first part of the roundup with games and live wallpapers. The second part with apps will go live later on (probably tomorrow).

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

18
May
thumb2'
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

When Amazon Cloud Player hit the scene, my exact words were "Google Music who?" and now that Google Music Beta invites are starting to rollout to the masses, I can aptly answer that question.

I've used Amazon Cloud Player as the primary music player on my Android phone since its inception at the end of March, so I've become quite familiar with how it works. The service has its pros and cons (like any service, I suppose), but overall I am a big fan. Now that I have had a day or so to play with Google Music, though, I thought it would be appropriate to put these two in the ring together to see who would rise as the victor.

17
May
Web
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Listening to tunes on your Android device is serious business - no doubt about it.

It's so serious that many of us are pretty well set in our ways for what we consider the "choice" Android music-listening application, and we aren't willing to budge on it.

PowerAMP users, for example, swear by the application's seemingly endless list of customizations and options. On the other hand, Subsonic devotees like myself are advocates of what is probably the most configurable music streaming experience in existence. But the big boys have come to play, and with Google Music Beta entering the foray, along with Amazon's still-somewhat-new Cloud Player, the war for musical dominance on Android getting louder by the minute.

11
May
image

Ahh, Google I/O, how we'll miss you for the next 365 days or so. The last 2 days have been filled with anticipation, knowledge, surprises, excitement, and fun - the perfect recipe for happy developers. As a developer myself, I've picked up heaps of new information, especially from the SDK Tools and ADT session by Tor Norbye and Xavier Ducrohet, and viewing the keynotes was simply a blast.

As you may have seen yesterday, day 1 keynote and sessions were already posted last night, and now the same fate reached the sessions and keynote from day 2. As before, you can view the whole list by visiting the YouTube page of GoogleDevelopers or simply watch the embeds on this page.

11
May
market

If you haven't been to the web version of the Android Market today, I suggest you go take a look. Google has thrown in a few new features, like trending apps and top grossing apps from the past 30 days. Not only that, but the navigation is much more intuitive, as the top paid and top free apps have been revamped, along with the addition of top games in the sidebar. The new market also includes suggestions based on what others have installed and viewed, like we first saw yesterday.

shto

Other new additions include an Editors' Choice column, which highlights some of the best apps and games in the market, with personalized recommendations coming sometime later this year.

10
May

With all the I/O updates today, something managed to fly under our radar just long enough that we only noticed it when checking out the new Music beta. Google's Android Market now suggests applications based on what other users have installed.

While not a particularly ground-breaking update, this should aid in app discovery for those of us who're always looking for new things to install. Check out the Android web Market to see the difference!

10
May
kaHrA

Conferences like Google I/O give companies a chance to update curious parties will all their major goings-on, but also allows them to flaunt their stats a little bit. Android's success is noted by just about everyone these days, and Google's decided to keep on proving it by providing its latest activation and app figures.

IMG_0007

Main statistics being discussed were:

  • Android activations swelling to over 100 million worldwide (112 countries) on 215 carriers and 36 manufacturers
  • 310 different Android devices
  • 400,000 activations per day, compared to 100,000/day in May of 2010, 200,000/day in August and 300,000/day in December.
  • 200,000 Android applications are now available in the marketplace

Pretty impressive numbers from the little OS that could.

Page 20 of 36«First...10...1819202122...30...Last»