08
Mar
Google IO

Google Wants You To Earn That Free I/O Ticket; Announces 10 Day Developer Challenge

Posted by in Android OS, Contests / Giveaways, Development, News, Tips & Tutorials

When Google opened registration for I/O, demand from the public made the Tickle-Me-Elmo rush look like a small group of seniors enjoying a day at the mall. After the servers were slammed for a total of 59 minutes, every last ticket had been sold, at least according to Google. At the end of February, tickets for the event (and the supposed hardware goodies that come with attending) were being hocked on eBay for $2000. Given those two facts, I'm guessing you didn't manage to get your golden ticket.

Well, if you are a talented developer, there is still one last ray of hope.

22
Feb
image

The Peak Of Desperation - Google I/O 2011 Tickets Going For As High As $2000 On eBay

Posted by in Google, News

Google's upcoming I/O conference generated quite a bit of commotion earlier this month when all of the tickets offered to the public sold out within 59 minutes in a messy mash-F5-to-get-through-the-crashing-servers rampage. In fact, it got so ridiculous that at first Android Police ended up with no tickets of our own either (don't worry though, I will still be there to provide coverage).

Considering most of the public attention at the conference will be concentrated around Android, it is pretty incredible just how popular it became since last year, when tickets were available for 50 days after going on sale. Whether this year's attendees are after an inevitable prize that historically comes with each ticket (a free phone 2 years ago and 2 free phones a year ago) or are really interested in Google's technologies is unclear, but what is clear is the desperation around making it to the event.

07
Feb
image

[Updated: Sold Out] Google I/O Public Registration Now Open

Posted by in Development, Google, News

The tickets for Google's upcoming developer conference called I/O are now for sale to the public. They will go fast, so you may want to grab that credit card and start mashing away at the keyboard pronto. Public registration comes after a week of early registration, which was capped at 1500 tickets and ran out very fast. A total of about 5,500 tickets are said to be available, all expected to melt away very fast. So, what are you waiting for? Cough up the $450 and go, go, go!

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Update: Google's servers are currently crumbling under massive demand:

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Update #2: Google is aware.

31
Jan
image

Google Opens Up Early I/O Registration

Posted by in Android OS, News

Google I/O, a conference dedicated entirely to Google technologies and hosted in San Francisco's Moscone Center, is fast approaching, and Google today opened up early registration to key developer partners and 2010 I/O attendees. Early reg, available to the first 1500 people who complete it, costs $450 ($100 more than last year). Don't worry though - when it goes public next week, the price is going to stay the same until April 17th, at which point it will go up another $100 to $550 (thanks for the correction, Philip!). Unfortunately, unless you've received a personal invitation, you will not be able to proceed with the early signup and will have to wait until February 7th.

28
May
image

Amazon Kindle App For Android Demoed, Integrated Store Rumors Debunked [Post Google I/O Coverage]

Posted by in Applications, News

A few weeks ago we reported that the official Amazon Kindle app would be coming to Android, most likely this summer, with direct access to all your Kindle books and buying books from within the app using a special Android optimized store with wireless auto-delivery, which would set the app apart from its equivalents on some other devices.

App Demo At Google I/O

At Google I/O, I got to demo the app that Amazon was showing off, and managed to snap a few photos describing pretty much all of its functionality. Unfortunately, Amazon's rep was quite adamant about keeping the release date private, even when I offered them the EVO 4G I got in return (yeah, right!), and only quoted the already known "this summer".

28
May
Get Ready For An Even More Social Android - Facebook SDK Has Gone Live

Get Ready For An Even More Social Android - Facebook SDK Has Gone Live

Posted by in Apps/Games, News

Facebook, which demoed a new Android SDK at Google I/O last week, has put up the library online for all developers to see and use [github link].

Created by Steven Soneff, an engineering intern, the library enables support for

  • Strong authentication using OAuth 2.0
  • Making requests to the new Graph API
  • Publishing stories back to Facebook via Feed forms

This means that any Android developer will now be able to easily incorporate Facebook interaction into their own application, so get ready for a boom of Facebook connected apps.

As an example, hypothetically speaking, if we had an Android Police app, we would now be able to use this API to get upvote functionality for a post in a matter of a few function calls and then share it to a list of selected friends.

25
May
tweetdeck1

Tweetdeck For Android, Privately Demoed At Google I/O, Is Coming "In The Next Few Weeks" - Will It Be The Best Twitter/Social App For Android? [Post Google I/O Coverage]

Posted by in Applications, News

Across from the Plaxo booth at Google I/O, where I was spending most of my time demoing our Gmail<->Plaxo contact sync, stood the Tweetdeck booth.

I absolutely love, love, love Tweetdeck, especially after the 0.34 update (which was announced during the I/O), so I took advantage of the opportunity to chat with the CEO and one of the engineers about Tweetdeck, some bugs I've run into, and future plans.

tweetdeck2 

It turned out that the next project in the pipeline, kept under wraps for now, was Tweetdeck for Android. And the CEO was happy to demo it for me, albeit not on camera.

21
May
HTC EVO 4G First Impressions And A Mini Hands-On Review

HTC EVO 4G First Impressions And A Mini Hands-On Review. Post Your Questions You Want Answered [Post Google I/O Coverage]

Posted by in EVO 4G (Supersonic), HTC, Phone Reviews, Reviews, Sprint, Videos
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

After I've finished unboxing the HTC EVO 4G that Google gave out at the Google I/O conference, I started playing with the phone and noting down things that are different from other phones, things that are interesting, and things that bug me.

Note that this is not meant to be a full review - the bullet points are just my first impressions after 2 hours of use. Think of this post as a mini hands-on review:

The Screen

  • The first thing you notice is the screen THE SCREEN. It is HUGE.
  • The screen is quite glossy, I think quite a bit glossier than my Hero's but that could be because it's so much bigger.

21
May
HTC EVO 4G Unboxing And First Impressions

HTC EVO 4G Unboxing [Post Google I/O Coverage]

Posted by in EVO 4G (Supersonic), HTC, Sprint, Videos

Wow, Google, I still can't believe after giving out a Droid, you surprised us, Google I/O attendees, with an EVO 4G as well, 2 weeks before it is released to the public.

I unboxed mine this morning and started playing with it right away. Enjoy these unboxing photos (as much as you can enjoy someone else uboxing something you want) as well as a video of EVO 4G playing a Youtube video of a Starcraft 2 match.

First impressions to follow are now live.

IMG_5684 IMG_5689

IMG_5690 IMG_5691

IMG_5692 IMG_5693

IMG_5694 IMG_5696

IMG_5697 IMG_5698

IMG_5699 IMG_5700

IMG_5701 IMG_5702

IMG_5703 IMG_5725 

IMG_5704 IMG_5705

IMG_5706 IMG_5707

IMG_5709 IMG_5710

IMG_5711 IMG_5713

IMG_5714 IMG_5716

IMG_5718 IMG_5730

IMG_5722 IMG_5723

And here is a short video. Apologies for the quality of my non-HD Canon SD-450 but it would have been kind of hard to use EVO's HD recording on itself.

21
May
The Best Of Google I/O Shwag

The Best Of Google I/O Shwag

Posted by in News

Now that Google I/O is over, I finally have time to catch my breath, sleep, and then post all the updates I was able to scoop, as well as answers to some of the questions you guys have been asking.

Before that, though, I wanted to show you the best of the shwag that I got at the conference. Here it is, with the awesome AndroidPolice.com shirt in the background:

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