Google - 67/78 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Feb

Say Goodbye To Lite Apps - In-App Purchasing Coming To The Market 'Prior To The End Of This Quarter'

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Android OS, Google

One of my biggest gripes with the Android Market (and mobile app stores in general) is that apps often have lite versions, essentially limited editions of the full app. These lite versions make it harder to find the real app, and a seemingly easier solution would be to simply give users a free app and allow them to buy add-ons for it as they go.

Well it seems Google has finally decided to implement this in the Android SDK via "in-app purchasing." Devs can bake it into their app now thanks to an update to the SDK, though users won't be able to access it until later this quarter.

Feb

Google Body For Honeycomb Official - It's The 'Google Maps Of Human Anatomy'

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Google, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2

As part of today's Honeycomb- and "Android ecosystem"-event, Google demoed Renderscript - a new 3D graphics library in Android. And part of their demo? A new application called Google Body, aka the "Google Maps of human anatomy."

It looks like it'll be a pretty cool way to explore the human body - just like Maps, you can strip away layers (i.e. skin, bones, etc.), rotate it in 3D, and search for body parts before having them highlighted in the app. Sweet - I can already hear the sound of science teachers across the nation screaming for joy.

Feb

[Updated: It's Back] Android Market Currently Experiencing Downtime - A Sign Of Things To Come?

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Applications, Google, News

Update: And it's back, with no noticeable changes. Nonetheless, we'll be sure to let you know if and when Google announces something Market-related - stay tuned!

We don't want to jump to conclusions here, but it's February 2nd - the day of Google's Honeycomb- and "Android ecosystem"-related event, and the Market is currently experiencing downtime. It makes perfect sense given the rumors we've been hearing about an upcoming update to the Market, though it could, of course, be nothing more than scheduled maintenance. We hope we'll find out exactly what this is about later today - whatever it is, we'll keep you updated (pun intended)!

Feb

Android, iOS and BlackBerry In A Three-Way Tie In The US In Q4 2010

Posted by Abhiroop Basu in Android OS, News

According to Don Kellogg from the Nielsen Company, 31% of all mobile phone users in the U.S. own some type of a smartphone. More interestingly, it appears that the race for market share in the U.S. by the leading smartphone platforms - Android, iOS and BlackBerry - is in a dead heat.

We have already learnt from analysts at Canalys that shipments of Android-based smartphones globally commanded a 32.9% share of the market, followed by devices running Nokia's Symbian OS at 30.6%, Apple's iPhone OS at 16%, and RIM's BlackBerry OS at 14.4%. Nielsen's report today shows that RIM and Apple are still fairly popular in the US, being on equal terms with Android in terms of market share.

Jan

Google Hiring Android Developers To Create Apps In-House

Posted by Abhiroop Basu in Android OS, Apps/Games, News

Although, the Android Market has exploded recently, it is no secret that apps on the iOS platform consistently look and perform better. With revenues from mobile apps set to triple this year, Google is going on a mass hiring spree to find developers to create quality apps for the Android Market, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Google, like Apple, takes a 30% cut for every app sold in the Market. However, with paid app sales failing to live up to expectations, Google is hoping to increase its revenue stream by improving the overall quality of the apps available in the Market.

Jan

Google To Give An In-Depth Look At Honeycomb, Android Ecosystem News At Event Feb 2nd

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Development, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News

Next Wednesday, Google will be holding a press event to showcase Honeycomb and discuss Android at large. Team Android is going to give attendees an "in-depth look" at Honeycomb, news regarding the Android ecosystem, and a number of hands-on opportunities while at Google headquarters in Mountain View.

The presentation will be streamed live at www.youtube.com/android starting at 10AM next Wednesday, so everyone will get a chance to tune in for the latest and greatest in the world of Android and Honeycomb.

Considering this is being labeled a press event, it's probably just an opportunity for Google to give Honeycomb some hands-on exposure to the major media outlets and blogs alike.

Jan

Google: OTA Fix For The Nexus S Reboot Issue Coming In 1-2 Weeks

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Google, News, Nexus S (Crespo/Soju), Samsung

Nexus S owners, listen up. If you own Samsung's flagship "Google Experience" device, it's likely you've experienced a random reboot bug that we reported on over 2 weeks ago. The Google bug tracker thread for this issue has been a roller coaster of emotion - after getting filled with a large number of comments, it was declined by a Google employee, only to be reopened shortly after due to a public outcry.

As if adding fuel to the fire, the thread was closed yet again in the past hour by a different employee. His action were reverted mere minutes later, which is making me wonder whether Google engineers sometimes need to talk to each other a bit more often.

Jan

Android Team Acknowledges Honeycomb Emulator Performance Problems, Hard At Work On Fixes

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News

The Honeycomb SDK preview, allowing everyone to take a peek and play around with Honeycomb using the Android emulator, was launched yesterday, but after we got past the initial excitement, we found that the emulator itself was dog slow and pretty much unusable. In fact, it was so frustrating to use it that I wanted to punch walls and rip out my hair after 5 minutes with it. And I'm not even going to talk about orientation problems - how the Android team managed to ship the SDK with orientation broken by default (there is a fix for it in the Settings > Display) is beyond me and beyond the scope of this article.

Jan

Easter Eggs And Developer Humor In Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" APIs: Tron Bee, Rez, fyiWillBeAdvancedByHostKThx()

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News, Off-Topic

Last Updated: January 28th, 2011

The Android team sure has a sense of humor. Previously, in the Froyo SDK, besides tons of awesome code, they've also added a function called wtf() (What a Terrible Failure) and an even more hilarious isUserAMonkey() that returns true if the user interface is currently being messed with by a monkey.

Examining the Honeycomb SDK docs released earlier today, armed with a hint from Roman Nurik, I found the following gem: fyiWillBeAdvancedByHostKThx(). The docs are not online yet, but if you've downloaded the SDK, you can find this function at android-sdk/docs/reference/android/widget/

AdapterViewAnimator.html#fyiWillBeAdvancedByHostKThx(). What it does doesn't matter (it's actually a legitimate function), but its name is hilarious.

Jan

For Developers: Google Releases ADT For Eclipse v9.0.0 And SDK Tools r9, Now Offers Near-Instant AVD Restarts [Hands-On]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, Development, News, Tips & Tutorials

If you are a developer, you will want to fire up SDK Manager right now and perform an update. Besides the Honeycomb SDK preview that we'll talk about separately, Google also unleashed the next version of Android Development Tools, or simply ADT, for Eclipse as well as SDK Tools r9. I've been using ADT versions 9.0.0 preview 1, 2, and 3 for a number of weeks now, and I can tell you that 9.0.0 is a huge step up to where a serious set of development tools needs to be.

What's New?

Numerous improvements to the Visual Layout Editor, "go to declaration" hyperlink support for quicker navigation around declarations, near-instant AVD restarts (holy crap!!!