remote - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Apr

Xbox SmartGlass App Updated With Support For Tablets Larger Than 7", Always-On State

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

A few months ago, Microsoft announced the SmartGlass app for Xbox, a companion application that allows you to navigate and control your console from your phone or, up until recently, 7" tablets. Now, version 1.5 has rolled out that adds support for larger slates. Including 10" devices like the Nexus 10, which is kind of great.

On a larger tablet, the UI actually doesn't look much different from the interface on the TV itself, so it's extremely intuitive. Also, this update brings an always-on state, so your device won't shut off while you're using the companion app. SmartGlass is free on the Play Store and the update is available immediately.

Mar

JayBird BlueBuds X Deep Dive Review: Ultraportable Perfection Comes At A Price

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Accessories, Other Reviews, Reviews

I have a confession to make: I'm obsessed with wireless portable audio gear. Bluetooth earbuds, headphones, and portable speakers excite me more than they probably should. And I'm OK with that. My wife, however, gives me "the look" every time a new gadget arrives, rolling her eyes so far up her skull she could have easily become a soap opera star or an extra on The Walking Dead. She doesn't get it - she's not a geek who loves to get to the bottom of every feature, spot every miniscule detail, and figure out if we have something special on our hands.

Mar

[New App Hands-On] RemotePlay Is A Fantastic Idea For Cross-Device Media Streaming, But Right Now It's Basically Unusable

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in App Reviews, Applications, News

A few days ago, a pair of apps called RemotePlay and RemotePlayM by new Android developer Piddas21, a subsidiary of Taiwanese Quanta Computer, hit the Play Store ahead of SXSW. The idea is great - media and document sharing in real-time, across multiple platforms, such as Android, iOS, and Windows 8. Want to easily stream a video from your Nexus 4 to your iPad? No problem - it should be as simple as dragging it to a bucket with your iPad's name on it, and voila - you're watching a video on the big screen.

Note: At the time of this writing, both the iOS and Windows 8 versions were still in development, though they should be coming soon.

Jan

[Deal Alert] J&R Offering Sphero Ball For $99.99 (That's $30 Off)

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Deals

If you've got a hundred dollars to burn and love awesome technological toys, J&R has a deal for you. The self-described "gadget wonderland" is offering the Sphero ball for $99.99, a $30 drop from its normal price of $129.99.

For those unaware, the Sphero is a robotic sphere than can be controlled from your smartphone or tablet. The concept sounds simplistic, but all it takes is a bit of imagination to make Sphero an awesome gadget. Readers may remember Sphero's holiday display in New York last year:

What's more, Sphero has an open API, allowing developers to make their own Sphero apps.

Jan

HTC Is Bundling A Tiny Phone With Its Giant Phones (In China) Because That Will Make Things Easier

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in HTC, News

Innovation is great. You know what it does? It solves problems. Not problems like 'What is beauty?' because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. Innovation solves practical problems. For instance, "How am I going to stop this big mean 5" 1080p display from tearing my battery and hand a structurally superfluous new behind?" The answer, according to HTC? Use a mini phone.

Let's give HTC at least one paragraph of fairness: the secondary mini-phone doesn't sound like the worst idea once you hear what it can do. It can take Bluetooth calls, pair via NFC, display notifications, act as a remote when your phone is plugged into your TV, and even help find your phone if, for some reason, you lose the big one but still have the little one in your pocket.

Jan

ARCHOS Announces TV Connect: An Android-Powered Device That Turns Your TV Into A Giant Tablet

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in ARCHOS, News

You're crazy for this one, ARCHOS! Today, the company most known for releasing the best cheap Android tablets before the Nexus 7 swooped in and drove a wedge between the concepts of "cheap" and "inexpensive" announced the TV Connect. This thing is designed to plug into your set and essentially turn it into a giant Android tablet. With a remote control. No, it's not Google TV. What.

The TV Connect will come with a 1.5GHz "Multi Core" processor of indeterminate origin, 1GB RAM, 8GB of storage, and Android 4.1. It also comes with a built-in HD camera for video chat purposes (think Logitech/Skype's living room solutions).

Dec

CM Team Member Releases aeGis Open Source Security App - Remotely Lock, Wipe, Locate Or Alarm Your Phone With A Text

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

While there is no shortage of security apps on the Play Store, aeGis one stands out a bit for a few reasons. For starters, it's dead simple to use. Set up a specific trigger phrase and you can text your phone to lock the display, remotely wipe, find the address of, or sound an alarm from your phone. There's no web interface, unfortunately, but this app trades the elaborate suite of services of something like Avast for simplicity.

What's even cooler is this app is entirely open source. Built by a member of the CyanogenMod team as a side project, the entire codebase is available on Github here.

Nov

Google Rolling Out YouTube Update That Lets You Use Your Phone As A Remote Control For GoogleTV

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

As our lives fill up with screens, it becomes all the more important for them to work together. Today's YouTube update brings that dream a little closer to reality. Now, if you own a Google TV set top box and an Android device, you can use the latter to play, pause, or add videos to a playlist on the former. This is already possible for PS3 owners, so the expanded capability is a welcome addition.

The functionality works by automatically pairing your phone and set top box as long as they're connected to the same WiFi network. After that, simply tap the TV-shaped icon on any video and it will start playing on your big screen, with remote control options appearing on your handset.

Sep

[New App] TriggerTrap Offers Android Users Remote DSLR Controls For Nearly 300 Camera Models

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Applications, News

TriggerTrap, a remote DSLR trigger app that's already made a name for itself among iOS users, hit the Play Store today (with an Amazon App Store launch coming soon), bringing some impressive remote controls to DSLR-toting Android users.

The app, which costs $4.99, offers a surprisingly long list of fully customizable trigger modes from time lapse to distance lap (your camera will take a photo every 30m), long-exposure HDR, star trail mode, bulb ramping timelapse, and a cable release mode that supports exposures up to a full 24 hours.

This isn't the first remote trigger app we've seen for Android – Chainfire introduced DSLR Controller Beta just over a year ago, and Helicon Remote offered similar functionality back in February.

Aug

Script Kitty Automates Execution Of Scripts On Remote Servers Through SSH, Belongs In Every Admin's Toolbox [Hands-On]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

Script Kitty has actually been around for a while, but after receiving its 2.0 update last week, it's now a serious contender for one of those must-have apps (at least for anyone with an ssh-enabled server). I downloaded and set it up in a matter of a few minutes (including generating an RSA key for key-based auth and adding said key to a few Linux servers), and now have a stupid easy way of doing certain things very quickly without having to even resort to ConnectBot.

What is Script Kitty?

Here's the gist: if you have repetitive tasks, such as checking available disk space or quickly restarting apache on all your servers, Script Kitty is the app for the job.