apps

Feb

32 Best (And 2 WTF) New Android Apps And Games From Last Week (2/9/11 - 2/15/11)

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: 26 Best (And 7 WTF) New Android Apps, Games, And Live Wallpapers From Last Week (2/1/11 – 2/8/11)

Androidify

Android Police coverage: Google’s Newest Android App, Androidify, Lets You Create Your Own Android Avatar [Hands-On]

The picture on the left is what I quickly threw together for Android Police.

Feb

Android Movie Studio For Honeycomb Unveiled At MWC By Eric Schmidt, Looks Awesome

Posted by David Ruddock in Applications, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News

Right now at MWC, Eric Schmidt is showing off a brand-new, Google-developed Android app: Movie Studio. The app, as the name may suggest, is a video editor. It's designed specifically for Honeycomb tablets, and as a video editor, that sort of makes sense. It's pretty rough trying to edit video on a smaller screen, though not impossible (which is to say, I imagine an XDA port for phones will happen as soon as an APK gets leaked).

Movie Studio will contain most of the features you'd expect in a competitive (*cough* iMovie *cough*) video editing app: transitions, audio import, splicing, A/V timeline, and multi-format export and sharing options.

Feb

Engadget Reviews The Motorola Atrix 4G, Finds A Great Phone, Highly Overpriced Gimmicky Docks, Awful Data Speeds, Bootloader Lock, And Lots Of Crapware

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Atrix 4G (Olympus), Motorola, News, Phone Reviews, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

One of the few tech blogs who managed to get their hands on Motorola's upcoming AT&T flagship - the Atrix 4G - is, of course, Engadget. The reviewer, unsurprisingly, is the infamous cool geek and editor-in-chief Joshua Topolsky, who, from my experience reading Engadget's reviews, does a good overall job but fails to go into those details that matter to most Android users. The Atrix 4G review is exactly what I had expected, and I'm going to summarize it and save you 20 minutes reading it.

The Good

The phone is blazing fast, which is unsurprising, considering its 2 cores and 1GB of RAM.

Feb

Android Intervention, Part 4 of 4: The Android Market - A Work In Progress?

Posted by David Ruddock in Editorials

Uhoh, he's at it again. No, I'm not going to make this a rant that is hugely controversial or upsetting. Seemingly contrary to what I write sometimes, I love Android. And anyone who loves Android can agree: the Android Market kinda-sorta sucks sometimes.

Whoa there, let me qualify that - some aspects of the Market are less than fantastic, and I think every Android user has come to realize this. In fact, I doubt it's a stretch to say that the Market's shortcomings are the single biggest reason Android hasn't eaten the iPhone for breakfast in terms of critical acclaim.

Feb

Revision3 Quietly Drops 6 New Apps In The Android Market: Hak5, Dan 3.0, GeekBeat.TV, Young Turks, Totally Rad Show, And Scientific Tuesdays

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

Revision3, a popular Internet-based TV network started in part by Kevin Rose, just quietly released not 1, not 2, but 6 apps for 6 of their popular shows.

The apps allow you to stream episodes in standard or hi-def, view comments, and view individual show segments - the Segments tab acts a video table of contents of sorts - a subtle feature, but it really makes all the difference.

There aren't many features besides the ones I've listed, but what the apps do do (ha), they do very well. Sometimes simple is good, and in the case of video streaming apps like these, the statement holds true.

Feb

RIM's Upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet Rumored To Support Android Apps, Again

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, News

About 2 weeks ago, BGR broke the rumor of RIM's upcoming tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook, possibly being capable of running Android apps sometime after launch, which the latest rumors put at the end of March/beginning of April with a price sticker of $499.99. The company was seriously looking into this possibility and was trying to decide whether using the Dalvik virtual machine (the same one Android uses to run its apps) was a viable way to move forward. BGR is usually very credible, so the rumor definitely had legs.

Today, 2 weeks later, Bloomberg revealed that their own sources - in fact, 3 of them - have confirmed that RIM is indeed moving in the direction BGR predicted.

Feb

Yelp Update Brings OpenTable Integration - Make Reservations Straight From The App

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Applications, News

Score another win for Yelp in its battle against Google Maps: in the most recent update, Yelp's Android app gained the ability to make restaurant reservations thanks to integration with OpenTable.

For those already familiar with the reservation-making app, you'll notice that it's pretty much the same experience - the "Find a Table" screens on both are virtually identical, both of them allowing you to choose the date, time, and party size for your reservation. If you're already a Yelp user, there's really no reason to use the actual OpenTable app anymore.

I have to commend Yelp on so seamlessly integrating this new feature into its app, and doing so through a partnership with the already-popular OpenTable.

Feb

Urbanspoon For Android Gets Yelped Out: UI Update, Nearby Restaurant Search, And Dinner Reservations

Posted by Stephen Tenerowicz in Android OS, Applications, Apps/Games, News

Urbanspoon, the popular restaurant review website, has had its Android app treated to a huge update today. The app - which helps the user find nearby local restaurants using filters such as cost, distance and type of food - can now do much, much more.

The update features a new home screen, and also shows photos and reviews of individual restaurants. In addition to letting users sign up for an Urbanspoon account and write their own reviews, you can now also book reservations (although I could not do this in the area where I live), and connect with Facebook friends.

Feb

26 Best (And 7 WTF) New Android Apps, Games, And Live Wallpapers From Last Week (2/1/11 - 2/8/11)

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

Last Updated: September 1st, 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.

After reading your comments from last week, I've raised the standards for apps that make it into the list and split them into 3 sections: Apps, Games, and Live Wallpapers. Remember, I don't make the apps, so if you don't like any of them, don't shoot the messenger (although feel free to leave a comment and tell us how you feel about that).

I've also modified the template to include both AppBrain and official web Market links.

Feb

The Race Is On Again - Fast Web Installer Returns To AppBrain

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Apps/Games, News

As the results of our Friday poll show, quite a few of you aren't convinced by Google's official Android Market Web Store; it looks like a lot of people are sticking with good old AppBrain. Well you AppBrain fans will be happy to hear that one of the site's best features - Fast Web Installer - has finally returned after being disabled back in November of 2010.

To utilize it, you'll need to download the latest versions of the AppBrain app and Fast Web Installer to your phone. Next, enable Fast Web Installer in the AppBrain app's preferences before signing into appbrain.com on your computer.