16
Jan
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It has been a few months since we last took a look in the Android Market for a new set of must-have root apps, and a lot of worthy entries have since entered the arena.

They battled it out in fight to the death, and the eight victors now stand before you, offering their unparalleled services at your disposal.

Okay, so maybe it didn't play out quite so dramatically, but the point remains the same: we have eight new apps that every rooted user should know about. Let's get to it, shall we?

This article deals with a couple of advanced topics.

03
Jan
2012
Last Updated: January 5th, 2012

Happy New Year! A new year means it's time for the annual Android prediction post. First off though, a trip down memory lane with a look at Aaron's post from last year.

A Look Back To 2011

Way back in January 2011, we were all gobsmacked at the recent announcement of 300,000 Android activations per day. That looks cute now, doesn't it? A year later and it's more than doubled, now we're up to 700,000 per day. That's just incredible. Android could hit a million activations per day by the end of the year.

Last Year's Predictions

Tablets: The New Netbook - Netbooks definitely died.

23
Nov
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A few weeks ago, we launched what ended up being my favorite creative Android Police contest to date - the wallpaper design contest. With over 250 submissions, it took me a little while to sort through everything and pick out the two winners, the top 25 runners-up, and even one hilarious entry that we absolutely had to include.

As promised, the first place entry will receive a 16GB Sony Tablet S, and the second one will get the Philips Fidelio AS851 that we reviewed earlier.

For a history of creative contests, see these posts:

Note to runners-up: Because we had so many excellent submissions but only two prizes, we decided that all runners-up should receive at least something for their efforts.

19
Oct
10-18-2011 7-26-11 PM

Update: This post has been updated with links to a deeper look at each feature. Enjoy!

Holy crap. The Samsung/Google event ended just a little while ago, and I have to say, I'm pretty overwhelmed by the amount of awesome that I just experienced. The Galaxy Nexus is official, as is its counterpart OS: Ice Cream Sandwich. There is no doubt that ICS is the most polished version of Android to date. It's elegant, clean, and just downright gorgeous. Let's take a look at all the new features together, shall we?

Roboto

One thing that Google is definitely proud of in ICS is the new typeface, known as Roboto.

03
Oct
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Last Updated: November 23rd, 2011

As you guys should already know, from time to time we mix things up a bit and run creative giveaways that give the most talented of our readers a real chance to win something big. Remember the 404 page design (also see this), which happens to be my favorite contest so far?

The banner design contest was created to run in a similar vein, and now that we've finally had enough time to sort through all the submission (there were over 150 links to look through), we decided to award the prize, a brand new Lenovo IdeaPad K1 Tegra 2 tablet, generously provided by NVIDIA, to...

09
Aug
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Last Updated: January 16th, 2012

So, you've rooted, checked out every single app from our first three root-only-roundups (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), and are looking for something new and exciting?

Never fear, because we're back with eight more of the best root apps to hit the Market in the last few months.

Are you ready? Lets get started.

Update: Part 5 just went live.

23
Jul
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Last Updated: November 4th, 2011

When we found Medieval Software's new app called Dual File Manager XT yesterday, we jumped on it right away due to its 2-pane support. Ever since the '90s, 2-pane "orthodox" file managers like the Midnight, Norton, Volkov, and most recently Total Commander have been an absolute necessity on any computer I use.

In fact, once I install a Windows OS nowadays, Total Commander is the first program that follows. Those who try 2-pane file managers can't (or rather shouldn't want to) go back to the conventional Explorer-style layouts - the level of productivity they bring is unparalleled.

Total Commander for Android

But let's come back to Android - after we posted the Dual File Manager XT, 2 people (Wr3ck and Martin) brought to my attention the fact that Christian Ghisler, the developer behind my favorite Total Commander, has been actually working on an Android port for quite a while now.

28
May
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Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

After spending almost a year with my EVO 4G in what was essentially rooted stock condition (Fresh ROM, based on stock Sense, minus bloatware), I finally got frustrated to the point that I was ready to make the jump to CyanogenMod and see just how much better the fully unlocked stock Android experience with CM improvements is.

The Sense ROM offered by Fresh, even in its supposedly optimized form, was starting to get quite slow and would sometimes start choking for no reasons whatsoever. Whenever I was installing apps, I could forget about getting any useful response out of the phone - I had to wait till it was done in order to avoid frustration.

27
May
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If you were ever wondering what bootloader encryption, signing, and locking actually meant, this post is for you.

My name is Ivo, and recently I posted this write-up on Reddit (check out the Android subreddit while you’re there!). The post gained quite a bit of traction, and to spread the word further, I'm now posting it here at Android Police. I hope it helps out those of you who are confused.

It’s necessary, if you want to talk about these issues, to get some cryptic terms out of the way, so we actually know what we’re talking about! If you want to find out more about these topics, just click on through to their respective Wikipedia articles.

21
May
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If you liked my speedy QR code tips before, you're going to love the tip I have for you today. Ever since the Android web Market was launched, I found myself loading the homepage just to make a search approximately 17 million times a day, give or take a few. As you know, the web Market homepage is quite heavy, so loading it just to make a search, especially while tethering on a slow connection, was starting to get kind of annoying.

In an effort to save both time and clicks (hello, Carpal Tunnel), I've created a much handier way of firing up a search with only a few strokes and without the need for any tools outside of Firefox or Chrome.

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