apps

Mar

40 Best (And 1 WTF) New Android Apps, Games, And Live Wallpapers From Last Week (3/2/11 - 3/8/11)

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

Last Updated: April 13th, 2011

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.

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 roundup? Find it here: 45 Best (And 2 WTF) New Android Apps, Games, And Live Wallpapers From Last Week (2/22/11 – 3/1/11)

Featured

This app roundup is sponsored by XIMAD, an Android publisher with over 60 games and apps in the Android Market.

Mar

Opera Gets Into The Android Web Apps Game With Opera Mobile Store

Posted by Will Shanklin in Applications, News

Opera Software, makers of the popular browsers for desktops and mobile devices, today unveiled a mobile storefront for web apps called the Opera Mobile Store. The store, which racked up 15 million users during its February beta release, is available now on Android (as well as several other mobile operating systems).

Applications will be purchased, installed, and run via Opera's mobile browsers (Opera Mini or Opera Mobile). Opera's store is powered by web app company Appia, whose storefront commerce system will be used for payments. An Opera Publisher Portal, a platform for developers to create and dispense their apps, was released simultaneously.

Mar

You Voted, We Tallied: Your Top 10 Favorite Android Apps

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

In last weekend's (non-)poll, I asked for your three favorite Android apps. You did your part, and nearly 100 people took the opportunity to vote. Now it's my turn, so I've compiled the results and I'll list them below along with details and a brief description of each app.

The Results

1. Launcher Pro (+ Plus) - 20 Votes

Given just how not-so-attractive Android 2.2 and below is, it's not really surprising that a launcher should take the top spot. What is a bit more surprising - at least to me - is that it really dominated ADW (which came in second, below) with more than twice as many votes.

Mar

The War Against Infringement On The Android Market Is Heating Up: Fruit Ninja Clones And More

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Apps/Games, Development, Editorials, News

The Android market is filled with apps of questionable legality. But oftentimes, overpriced, branded theme and clock apps like those you'll find here are considered relatively harmless - who's stupid enough to buy them, anyway? Still, apps in this category are in clear violation of registered trademarks - and that doesn't sit well with their holders.

Google even has a page for developers and copyright holders to submit DMCA takedown requests for apps on the Market. Google's form guides you through what information is needed, and how to identify the apps in question - really, it makes the whole process quite simple.

Mar

Looks Like Google Is Starting To Listen - Hundreds Of Pirated Books/Apps Deleted From Android Market Minutes After Report

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

Up until some recent events, it was quite hard to get through to Google regarding anything going on in the Android Market, be it stolen apps, copyrighted material, or getting any feedback regarding why your own app was removed. Sure, they still listened to DMCA requests and malware reports, but it seems that complaints by mostly large copyright owners saw any action, while reports by small-time developers getting ignored were getting abundant around the web.

The Android Market really doesn't need more bad publicity at this point, and Google knows that. Whether they will be beefing up their service personnel to handle complaints in an appropriate manner or not remains to be seen, but they are already quite a bit more sensitive to Market complaints, at least thrown by us into the atmosphere on Twitter.

Mar

Android Will Likely Be Getting A Blackberry Messenger App

Posted by Will Shanklin in Applications, News, Rumors

Last Updated: August 20th, 2012

While most Android users don't likely spend a lot of time thinking about what's going on in RIM's land of Blackberry, it has been revealed that one of the popular smartphones' mainstay features, Blackberry Messenger, will be coming to Android and iOS. The popular chat service known for its speed, conversation threads, and easy PIN contact transfer will most likely arrive later this year.

Up to this point, Blackberry Messenger has been a closed service, only available on Blackberry phones. Some found opening it up to other platforms to be a confusing business decision by RIM, as BBM has been one of the perks that has kept many of their customers from migrating to a rival OS like Android, but RIM will apparently hold back some key features like picture and video transfer only for customers on their phones.

Mar

45 Best (And 2 WTF) New Android Apps, Games, And Live Wallpapers From Last Week (2/22/11 - 3/1/11)

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

Last Updated: June 28th, 2011

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.

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 roundup? Find it here: 30 Best (And 2 WTF) New Android Apps, Games, And Live Wallpapers From Last Week (2/16/11 – 2/21/11)

Notifo

The first app today is not really an app - it's an app and a service, called Notifo.

Mar

Unity Android Platform To Let Developers Convert iOS Apps To Android - With One Click

Posted by Will Shanklin in Apps/Games, Development, News

In a very interesting piece of news today, a new platform has emerged for developers that may let Android get a lot more iPhone apps very quickly. Unity Android aims to make porting an iOS app to Android as easy as clicking a button.

Games will need to be developed under the Unity Engine from the start to enable the simplest conversion, but others have cited the ease with which their previous iOS apps were ported:

"We're amazed of how easy and fast it was to port our latest iOS game Stupid Zombies to Android. It took us less than two days to fully port the game and do some fine tuning."

- Marc Andreoli, Partner at GameResort LLC

"We were very impressed with how simple it was to port our iPhone game Drift Mania Championship to Android.

Feb

[Weekend (Non-)Poll] What Are Your Three Favorite Apps?

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Apps/Games, Polls

Last Updated: September 3rd, 2011

This is the newest in our Weekend Poll series. For last week's, see Can The Amazon Appstore Succeed Against The Android Market?

I'm taking a deceptive turn with this weekend's poll, and... well, not polling. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. Rather than have the usual pick-an-option-and-hit-vote poll, I'm doing a vocal poll via the comments.

Here's the deal: We'd like to know what your three favorite non-Google apps are. If it's relevant, be sure to include details (as needed) such as your device, whether you're rooted, or why the app is your favorite. What you don't need to do is include market links, QR codes, and the like.

Feb

MenuPages Enters The Android Food App Foray

Posted by David Ruddock in Applications, News

Ever heard of MenuPages? I hadn't until today, but I guess I live in a cardboard box. The popular website now offers an Android app for your convenience - but what's MenuPage's big feature when competing against the likes of UrbanSpoon and Yelp? You may have guessed it has something to do with menus.

MenuPages indexes the (wait for it, it's mind-blowing) menu contents of any restaurant their service lists, meaning you can search by the exact food you want, as opposed to browsing through broad genres of cuisine. Pretty nifty for foodies like myself, and I can say right now that this app has made a home on my phone for the foreseeable future.