editorial - 2/6 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Feb

Now That The President Has To Respond To The Phone Unlock Petition, Let's Talk About What He (And You) Can Actually Do

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Editorials, Features, News

In October of 2012, the Library of Congress elected not to renew DMCA exemptions that explicitly allow end users to unlock their cell phones at will, thus ending a six year tradition. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. The quest to do something about it began almost immediately. And by "almost immediately" I mean "nearly three months later and at almost the very last minute."

Still, regardless of when the outrage gained steam, the fact is it did. Quite a bit of steam, in fact. Despite the White House raising the bar for online petitions to 100,000 signatures (after the previous bar of 25,000 resulted in an entertaining, if frivolous response about why the President won't build a Death Star), you did it!

Feb

[Editorial] Gamevil's Cartoon Wars: Blade Shows Other Developers How Not To Make A Fremium Game

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Editorials, Games

Look, Gamevil, we need to talk. You folks have been doing some fine work in the mobile gaming world, you really have. Zenonia, Baseball Superstars, Colosseum, well-made titles all. And I'm sure plenty of cash-strapped gamers appreciate that the vast majority of your games can be played for free. But in the last few months, you've become the poster child of everything that's wrong with mobile gaming.

Case in point: your brand new entry in the much-loved Cartoon Wars series. Cartoon Wars: Blade takes a more old-school approach to the action genre, with simple Battletoads-style 2D fighting. There's a pretty interesting inventory and weapon system, too, with two active melee weapons and a ranged weapon functioning as a special attack.

Feb

[Editorial] We Do Not Need 'Amazon Coins' (Or Any Virtual Currency)

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Editorials, News

The scene: a board room. Ominous and shrouded in mystery, all that can be seen is a long, black glass desk and on either side, twelve featureless chairs. In each sits a grumpy old person. The rest of the chamber is a dark, empty void. Out of the abyss a lone man appears, approaching the head of the table. He's adorned in blue jeans, a white dress shirt and a dark blazer. The brightest light in the room is the reflection on his head.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he says. "As you are no doubt aware, our earnings for last quarter were less than optimal.

Feb

[Open Letter] Please Help Yourself To Helping Yourself - Why Google Needs To Rethink The Concept Of Developer Support

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Editorials, Google

Last Updated: March 29th, 2013

The following is a guest post and an open letter to Google from Simply Applied, the makers of apps Sign and CritiCall. It was written by Chris H and Peter V, the developers on the Simply Applied team.

To put it plainly, Google’s Developer Support is awful. It’s entirely faceless, avoiding human contact like a recluse living under Uluru in the Australian Outback – its almost enough to long for the days of, “Press 1 for Billing” phone menus. “Developer Support” relies almost entirely on you helping yourself and if something goes wrong in the process you’re forced into a near insanity-inducing endless cycle of self-help.

Jan

Because No Games Are Better Than Crappy Games: Zeboyd Calls It Quits On Android

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Editorials, Games, News

Though you may not have heard of them, Zeboyd Games is something of a darling in the world of indie gaming. After scoring hits with the quirky neo-retro RPGs Cthulhu Saves The World and Breath Of Death VII, the two-man studio made it big by landing a contract with webcomic giant Penny Arcade. The third game in the series, On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness III, abandoned the 3D style of the previous entries for a sprite-based, pixelated throwback to 16-bit gaming goodness. Zeboyd's entries in the PC and downloadable market have garnered near-universal applause.

When the games started racking up sales on Steam and XBLA, demand for Android and iOS versions skyrocketed.

Jan

An Experiment: My Life With A Nexus 7 As My Phone

Posted by Michael Liu in Editorials, Nexus 7

Background

Like most in the Android world, I've been steadily increasing my comfort zone on how big a screen I want. Back in the day, I was obsessed with getting my phone as small as possible, like Zoolander. Then I got my first smartphone in the Windows Mobile 6 days, and ever since then every device I get has a bigger screen than the last, and I end up being happy about it.

There are a couple of sizes that are natural points for a mobile device's size. The two big ones that jump to mind are:

The biggest size that you can easily reach the whole screen with one hand, and
The biggest size that you can comfortably fit in your pocket.

Nov

[Editorial] Yes, Google Done Goofed, But This Botched Nexus 4 Launch Is A Fantastic Sign (Or: Please Be Patient)

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Editorials, Google

In case you haven't heard (and how could you not?), Google has sold out of pretty much every new Nexus they've launched. If you head to the Play Store as of this writing, you cannot buy a Nexus 4 or Nexus 10. Even the 3G-connected Nexus 7 was unavailable for a while. As if that wasn't enough, customers started receiving emails saying their shiny new Nexus 4s were going to be delayed as much as three weeks.

So, what do we do now? Call up customer service and yell and complain? Vent on the internet and talk about how much Google screwed up this launch?

Aug

[Editorial] Hey Google, What Ever Happened To Movie Studio? (Or: It's Time To Start Caring About Content Creation Again)

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Editorials, News

Back in February of 2011, Eric Schmidt took the stage at MWC to announce Google's latest tablet-oriented app: Movie Studio. It was a rather exciting new addition to Google's first foray into the tablet world. This made it possible for tablet users to not just view content, but to create it as well. This was a big deal. At the time, Apple already had a year-long head start on tablets. Not only would Android need a lot of third-party app support, but first-party apps would be essential to the platform's success.

You may recall the Xoom didn't sell too well.

Part of the problem is that Movie Studio sucked.

Aug

[Editorial] The Ten Commandments Of Naming Phones And Tablets - Thou Shalt Not Epic 4G Touch

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Editorials

Manufacturers, you're awful at naming things. Sorry. It's true. In many cases, you've either muddied the brand of your flagship devices, or made it incredibly difficult for customers to know what they should be asking for when they walk into a store. This is probably not a good thing since you want customers to buy your stuff. More than that, though, you want them to love your stuff, so they'll buy more of it. Making it easier to say the name of the product will go a long way towards that goal.

Today, I'm going to help you with this problem.

Jun

[Editorial] Google TV Is Bad, And Google Should Feel Bad

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Editorials, Google TV

Last Updated: July 2nd, 2012

Last night, I finally sold my Logitech Revue.

Why? Google's absolute silence on Google TV (GTV) during I/O keynotes represented, as I saw it, the last straw for the platform (at least in its current state). Of course, Google TV hasn't really seen much action since last fall, but after former Google CEO Eric Schmidt promised big, magical things for this summer, it seemed Mountain View might still have some GTV tricks up its sleeves. As it turns out, those sleeves were empty, and the company now seems to view its attempt to save us from cable boxes as a dead horse.