07
May
viber

VoIP App 'Viber' Gets A Major Holo-clad Makeover, Releases Desktop Application

Posted by in Applications, News

It's a pretty big day for Viber, the popular VoIP application that brings "free messages and calls" to your mobile. Seems that the guys behind the app (appropriately named Viber Media) have been hard at work preparing not only major updates to the Android and iOS applications, but also on an all-new desktop client for Windows and Mac.

1 2 3

The update to the Android version of the app brings many new features, including a new Holo'd-out look. Aside from that, you can now send video messages, a new voice engine improves the audio quality, there's an online status indicator, and you can transfer active calls seamlessly between the mobile app and the just-released desktop client.

17
Apr
wordpress

WordPress App Updated With Holo UI, A Few New Features

Posted by in Applications, News

WordPress is a clutch tool for most bloggers, as its easy-to-use, versatile interface provides essentially everything one needs to get content on the internet. For the longest time, however, the associated app hasn't been the greatest thing to use (read: it kinda sucked); today, however, it has been updated to v2.3 which brings a new Holo UI, along with a few new features.

1 2 3

What's in this version:

It's the big UI update!
* Action Bar added for easy access to common actions.
* Use the Menu Drawer to quickly navigate to other areas of the app. Just tap the arrow in the Action Bar or swipe to reveal the menu.

22
Mar
bbctiny

BBC News App Updated To Work On 1080p Devices, Adds Widgets And A Bit More Holo

Posted by in Applications, News

The BBC News reader on Android got an update today that should please the pixel poppers among the audience. The app has been optimized to take advantage of Super Mega Ultra dense displays like on the Xperia Z and Droid DNA (to say nothing of the upcoming HTC One and Galaxy S 4). A pile of bugs have been squashed in the new update as well.

Here's the full change log:

What's in this version:

This is a major update of our app, with improved performance and image quality.
The app is now optimised across different screen sizes and we've also fixed a number of bugs.

03
Mar
thumb

gReader Gets A Makeover In The Latest Beta, Brings Holo To Your RSS Feed

Posted by in Applications, News
Last Updated: March 4th, 2013

It's no secret that we're big fans of gReader here at AP, and the latest beta makes us love it even more, as it brings a complete UI overhaul to the application. The dev has redesigned the app to follow the Android Design Guidelines, so it's all Holo-ed out. And it looks fantastic.

1[5] 2 3 1

As you can see, the new interface ditches the dark-ish theme to go with Holo light, which looks great and feels faster and more fluid. The overall layout of the app hasn't changed that much, with most buttons remaining in the same place as they were before.

27
Feb
accuweathertiny

AccuWeather Gets Holo-ified, Automatically Looks Beautiful Because Holo

Posted by in Applications, News

AccuWeather is one of the leading apps for getting more information than you could ever possibly need about the position of the sun, clouds, and the statistical likelihood that precipitation will fall from the sky. It has not, however, been the leader in Holo interfaces among weather apps (the Weather Channel beat it to the punch last week). Today, it catches up, though, with a brand spanking new UI.

accuweather1 accuweather2 accuweather3

It's not just menu bars and Roboto that are being added for this interface overhaul. The company has also improved the widgets, allowing them to be resizable. Which, you know, all widgets should be.

20
Feb
hcbeta

Newly Redesigned HipChat Beta For Android Hits The Play Store, And It's Already So Much Better Than The 'Stable' Version

Posted by in Applications, News

Here at AP, we rely on HipChat for our internal chatroom(s). Given that, this news is probably more exciting for us than anyone else, but we're sharing it anyway. The HipChat team just released a new beta version of its app to the Play Store, and to put it simply, it's amazing. Compared to the current "stable" build, which ironically isn't very stable at all, the new beta has already proven itself to be the superior choice. So, really, the beta is more stable than the stable build which is more like a beta. How's that for confusing?

1 2 3

The real deal here is the interface: the app now uses Google's design guidelines, so it's Holo-ed out to the max.

12
Feb
2013-02-12_12h12_06

Plex Media Center Gets Completely Rewritten From The Ground Up And It's Gorgeous

Posted by in Apps/Games, News

Can we be honest with ourselves? Plex kinda sucks. Hard to blame it, most third-party media centers on Android do at the moment. As a lengthy blog post by the developer points out, part of that has been due to Android's inflexibility and lack of a coherent UI in its history. That's changed over the last couple years and now Plex has been rebuilt from the ground up to be a lot more beautiful and a lot more functional.

The new version has followed the Android Design Guidelines very closely and it shows. While most of us here at Android Police are of the opinion that Holo alone does not make a good UI, the addition is most welcome, given the way the old version looks.