ios - 7/12 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Jun

Crackle Drops Subscription Fees, Launches Brand New Free TV/Movie-Streaming Android App

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Applications, News

The multimedia situation on Android has been rapidly improving over the last few months, with the introductions of Netflix's official application and Google's own Movie service. Today, it is set to get better still: Crackle, a movie- and TV-watching service launched v2.0 of its Android app with access to a large selection of free movies and TV shows. The service, previously available at $5/month, is now free and supported by ads.

You'll need an Android 2.2+ device with Flash installed (though neither the XOOM nor the Tab 10.1 seem to be supported at this point, so looks like it's phones only for now), but if your handset meets the requirements, you'll be able to stream as many feature-length films and TV shows as you like, provided, of course, that they're in Crackle's catalog.

Jun

Nielsen: Android Users Are Data Whores, Need More Gee-Bees

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, News

Nielson's latest statistics show little change over last month's, with Android, iOS, and BlackBerry holding first, second, and third place, respectively. Admittedly, the numbers for Android and iOS dropped a percent each to 36% and 26% while BlackBerry moved up a percent to 23%, but still - relatively unchanged.

However, this month's report included an interesting look at data usage. Perhaps due to the much larger community of power users, Android owners suck down 582 MB of data per month, 90 MB (18%) more than iOS (492 MB). This comes despite the fact that less users on a whole seem to actively engage in heavy data-consumption activities:

74 percent of Android smartphone owners and 79 percent of iPhone owners report having downloaded apps in the past 30 days

43 percent of Android owners and 46 percent of iPhone owners say they streamed online music or mobile radio in the past 30 days

35 percent of Android smartphone consumers and 37 percent of iPhone owners report having watched video or mobile TV in the past 30 days

[Source: Nielsen]

May

Lodsys Patent Trolling Starting To Target Android App Devs - OK, Now It's Personal

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Apps/Games, Editorials, News

You've all probably heard bits and pieces of news about a company called Lodsys in the last couple of weeks, (they've been "patent trolling" iOS app developers) even if you don't really keep up on all things fruit-related. If you're not familiar with the story, let me give you a quick rundown.

Lodsys is what we affectionately refer to as a "patent troll" - a company that buys up promising and often vague or [overly] broad patents in a hope of using them to threaten to sue the pants off people that they know might be infringing on them. Let me say that again - they find a patent, find out how many people might be infringing it, and then decide to buy it.

May

[New App] Omaha Steak Time For Android: Tender, Juicy, And Delicious (It Really is Awesome)

Posted by David Ruddock in App Reviews, Applications, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Do you like steak? No? Then get out of this post right now - because it's Steak Time.

Omaha Steaks has had their popular app "Steak Time" on iOS for a while now, and it was only a matter of time before an Android version emerged. That day has come, and now Android users can grill with the best of 'em.

I know what you're thinking, "this is probably some gimmicky app that just wants me to buy overpriced Omaha Steaks." But you're wrong - it's so much more. First and foremost, Steak Time does what its name implies: it times steaks.

May

Mobile Research Firm Predicts Android Market Will Surpass Apple App Store In Number Of Apps In August 2011

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Apps/Games, News

Analyst Egle Mikalajunaite of research2guidance has modeled the growth of the Android Market and Apple App Store, and based on his predictions, the former will overtake the latter in August of this year. While we're generally pretty weary of these sort of predictions, the short-term nature certainly makes this much more plausible.

The graph largely speaks for itself, but there's a bit more to be said in terms of specific numbers. First, according to their numbers, the Market has been adding more apps per month since October of 2010. Second, it's since continued to pick up the pace (notice that you can see it ramp up quite dramatically beginning in August of 2010).

May

RIM To Bring Blackberry Enterprise Solution To Android And iOS

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Android OS, News

It's no secret that RIM (Research In Motion) has been dipping their figurative toes in the Android water lately, and it looks like running Android apps on the Blackberry Playbook was just the beginning. RIM plans to bring Blackberry Enterprise Solution to both Android and iOS, further helping businesses manage their wireless infrastructure and security.

Once it's released, network administrators will be able to handle a lot of the mobile grind remotely - everything from activation and software updates, to resetting passwords and wiping devices - all over the air. This will be a big win across the board in corporate environments, as we all know that Blackberry is renowned for its tight security.

Apr

PSA: Take It Easy, AT&T Isn't Targeting Unauthorized Android Tethering (And May Never)

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, AT&T, Editorials, News, Tips & Tutorials

There's been a lot of talk about AT&T's crusade against rogue tethering lately, and it all comes back to this AT&T text message sent to some poor iPhone customer(s):

AT&T Free Msg: We’ve noticed you’re continuing to enjoy the tethering feature with your smartphone service. Remember, you need a tethering plan ($45/mo, incl. 4GB) to use this feature, so we’re planning to update your line with the required plan soon.

Yes, the carrier everyone loves to hate is cracking down on unauthorized tethering - and they are automatically switching violators onto AT&T's 4GB data plan with tethering access, at a steep $45 a month.

Apr

Nielsen: Android Runs On 37% Of All US Smartphones And 50% Of All New Smartphones Sold

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, News

NielsenWire has released yet another one of their bar and pie chart-filled smartphone surveys for the US this morning, and it's just more good news for Android. Here's a quick breakdown of some of the key stats Nielsen compiled:

Android now represents 37% of all US smartphones
50% of smartphones sold in the month of March were Android phones
31% of consumers said their next purchase will be an Android phone, compared to 26% one year ago. Android now leads iOS here as well (iOS accounts for 30%, down from 33%)
20% of consumers don't know which OS their next smartphone will run

Another interesting tidbit the survey revealed is that Blackberry has finally dropped to third place in all three of the comparisons Nielsen publishes (future purchases, March purchases, total market share).

Apr

Business Insider Publishes Results Of Smartphone Survey: Android Dominates, And Lots Of People Hate Apple

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, News

If you're a frequent reader, you may remember hearing about the Business Insider Smartphone Survey, which we called out for its biased title and questions. As promised, they have posted the results, and much as we expected, Android absolutely dominated.

51.4% of respondents use an Android device (versus 33% for iPhone).
54.4% said their next smartphone purchase would be an Android device, compared to a (still impressive) 33.6% for the iPhone.
55.7% of Android owners "hate Apple" (heh). 31.2% of Android owners would consider an iPhone if it played better with non-Apple devices.
Platform was the most important feature when choosing a smartphone with 38.2%, while features came in second at 33.1%.

Apr

Rovio: Angry Birds Will Get Cross-Platform Syncing Before Summer

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Apps/Games, Games, News

You know what I hate? Having to start over from the beginning of Angry Birds every time I flash a new ROM. I won't have to deal with that for much longer, though - according to the official Twitter page of Rovio Mobile, they're working on the greatest thing to happen to Angry Birds since the slingshot. Yes, I'm talking about syncing.

Once it's finished and unleashed to the world, each time you flash a new ROM, get a new device, or even switch platforms altogether (I'm looking at you iOS crossovers), you will be able to take all of your current bird tossing accomplishments with you.