06
Feb
2013-02-06_13h08_23

Google Adds 38 Run And Lift Maps From Major Ski Resorts To Google Maps, But Please Don't Use Them On the Mountain

Posted by in Google, News

A non-zero number of Android Police team members enjoy skiiing. Who wouldn't, right? Well, people who get lost for starters. Mountains can be mazes! However, Google did what Google does best and made some sense of the madness. Now you can find guides for 38 different resorts all on your mobile phone.

Lake Louise AB Canada Ski Screen Shot 2013-02-04 at 3.06.27 PM 

The runs are color coded by difficulty, as they normally are on the mountain. You can view them with GPS on your mobile phone, or even check them out on the desktop before you hit the snow. A few slopes even have a Street View preview (though they're not quite as thorough as regular Street View).

12
Aug
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Mapsaurus Takes App Discovery To A New Level With An Interactive Map Of The Play Store

Posted by in Applications, News

Mapsaurus, released today by a developer team of the same name, is perhaps the new app to end all new apps. By pairing an interactive map of Google's Play Store with an intuitive UX, Mapsaurus takes app discovery to a new level – not just of ease, but also of convenience.

The app, which promises to help users "discover apps you never would have known to search for," can branch out an interactive web of apps and games based on apps you already have installed, curated subcategories, or general categories and function sets.

What's great about Mapsaurus is that it not only helps you find new apps and games, but that the selections it displays are curated to ensure that no "mediocre" or sub-par entries are suggested.

18
Jul
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Motorola Xoom, ASUS Transformer, Transformer Prime Get CyanogenMod 10 Test/Preview Builds

Posted by in Android OS, Eee Pad Transformer Prime

With the level of anticipation surrounding Jelly Bean and CyanogenMod 10, pretty much any news of a working build is good news. Today, test/preview builds of CM10 have surfaced for Motorola's Xoom as well as the ASUS Transformer and Transformer Prime (tf101 and 201).

Of course, since these are preview builds, they aren't perfectly stable. It's also worth noting that unofficial builds carry no guarantee of support or update.

That being said, the Transformer builds are surprisingly functional with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, sound, camera, video acceleration, some dock functionality, and most sensors functional. GPS and light sensor functionality isn't quite there yet, but most of the device's critical functionality is present.

27
Jun
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Initial Hands-On With The Google Nexus 7: The Bar Has Been Set For Cheap Tablets

Posted by in Android OS, Jelly Bean 4.1, Nexus 7, Videos

Today at Google I/O, I got some hands-on time with the brand-spanking-new Nexus 7 tablet.  We've been pretty sure it's coming for a while now. Now that it's been officially unveiled, along with the newest version of Android, everybody and their gadget-loving grandma is chomping at the bit to see if the hype has been worthwhile.

In a word, yes, it has. Mostly. While my time with the Nexus 7 was limited, Android tablets are a sort of beast that are rather easy to evaluate quickly, mostly because they're all pretty similar. Now, the Nexus 7 is by no means a normal Android tablet, it's much better than that.

20
Apr
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Your Eyes Aren't Lying - We Moved Our Comments To Disqus. Here's Why (Bonus: Preview Of Next Generation Disqus 2012)

Posted by in Off-Topic

If you haven't noticed yet, AP comments are now powered by Disqus. It took a really long time to squash all integration bugs and accept some downsides of moving to a non-native comment system, but when two complicated systems and over a hundred thousand comments are involved, migration gets a little tricky (to say the least).

After studying the code of the Disqus plugin to the point that I am now familiar with it more intimately than I ever cared to be, over 200 emails with the Disqus team, reporting multiple bugs and submitting code patches, many sleepless nights, ripped our hairs, and cursing, I was finally satisfied enough to pull the trigger last Saturday night.

18
Apr
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[For Developers] ADT 20/SDK Tools r20 Previews Are Here - Brand New Property Editor(!), NDK Support, Performance Improvements, Bug Fixes Galore

Posted by in Development, News

As an Android developer, I like to keep tabs on the tools I use every day, especially ones as important as ADT for Eclipse and SDK Tools. As was the case several times before, the Android team in charge of both of them posted previews of upcoming releases of ADT 20 and SDK Tools r20, available for manual download ahead of the final releases.

Yup, you heard me correctly - 20, not 18 or 19. Even though the previous major release was 17, 18 followed up shortly after with some minor changes, and 19, even more minor, wasn't even posted to the downloads page (see here for the reason).

26
Mar
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Carbon Twitter Client For Android (Of WebOS Fame) Gets Previewed On Video, Alpha Coming Soon

Posted by in Android OS, Applications, News, Videos

In the increasingly crowded market for Twitter clients on Android, another big player is about to jump into the fray - Carbon. You may know Carbon from its days on WebOS, but now that HP's mobile operating system is little more than an open source zombie, Carbon's developers are looking for a new (and more profitable) home.

While the app is already available on Windows Phone 7, that version is styled quite differently from the upcoming Android version, shown in the video below.

As you can see, Carbon is an app with a rich (and unique) user interface, with lots of animated flourishes on top of some recognizable Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich design elements.

23
Feb
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For Developers: ADT 17 And SDK Tools r17 Previews Available For Download, Now With Network Usage, Fixed Proguard, Enhanced Lint, And More

Posted by in Development, News

In preparation for the upcoming final releases, the Android team today released ADT 17-preview (Android Developer Tools plugin for Eclipse) and SDK Tools r17-preview with the following improvements that eager developers can try out without waiting any longer.

What's New

Out of all the additions and changes, I'm mostly excited about the new network usage tool, the fix for the dreaded "Conversion to Dalvik format failed with error 1" error when trying to use Proguard (oh, how many hours I wasted on this one), and the end to default ids for various layout elements. Sweet deal.

Here's the full changelog:

New Features

  • DDMS can now show the live detailed network usage of an app (More Info)
  • ProGuard
    • Bundled ProGuard updated to version 4.7.

22
Dec
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[Update: Now Available In The Market] NVIDIA Posts Gameplay Video For Tegra 3 Edition Of Shadowgun, We Gape In Admiration

Posted by in Games, News, Videos
Last Updated: January 29th, 2012

Update: The Tegra-3 optimized version just landed in the Android Market. If you're one of the lucky ones who has a Transformer Prime (or has one on the way), then get ready for some amazing graphics.

Shadowgun THD

Download Shadowgun THD from Google Play
QR code for https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.madfingergames.shadowgun_thd

The very first quad-core Tegra 3 tablet will be launching soon, and with it comes the promise of a whole new class of Android games. We've already previewed a few such masterpieces; now, with the release of MADFINGER GAMES' Shadowgun, we can add another to the roster.

And what a stunning addition it is! As you can see, its graphics are nothing short of stunning, and the frame rate appears to be smooth as can be.

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