09
Feb
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Android 2.3.3 Update To Gingerbread Brings New NFC Capabilities (Including Writing/Transmitting) And Other Enhancements

Posted by in Android OS, Gingerbread 2.3, News

When Gingerbread was launched back in December of last year, we learned that one of its main selling points was Near Field Communication (NFC) support, which allowed for NFC-enabled devices to communicate when placed near each other.

Using your Android phone as a credit card or sharing information by bringing 2 devices close to each other seemed like a dream come true until we found that NFC support in Gingerbread was actually quite limited - writing/transmitting was not possible and only a limited subset of reading APIs was available.

Today, Google announced a new Gingerbread update bearing version number 2.3.3. The update is concentrated mostly around NFC, introducing writing/transmitting APIs and support for a wider range of NFC standards.

27
Jan
honeycomb logo

Hands-On Preview Of Android 3.0 'Honeycomb': The Android Tablet Era Begins Now

Posted by in Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News, Other Reviews, Reviews
Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Honeycomb is one of the biggest updates in Android history, so naturally, I jumped at the chance to try it out via the newly released Android 3.0 "preview SDK." What I found certainly wasn't disappointing - though it's important to remember that this is just a preview, meaning that not everything is in working order (for example, the emulator is so slow it made me want to tear my hair out at times, not to mention the frequent force close messages). Join us below for our first impressions of the new UI elements and other features found in Android 3.0 "Honeycomb."

The emulator's bootscreen is the same as it was for Android 1.6, 2.1, 2.2, etc.

27
Jan
Screen shot 2011-01-27 at 9.14.53 AM_wm

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

Posted by 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.

26
Jan
Honeycomb logo

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

Posted by 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.

26
Jan
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Android 3.0 Honeycomb Gets Huge Feature Breakdown, Preview SDK Released

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

The Android Developers Blog just announced the availability of a "preview" of the upcoming Android 3.0 SDK. Developers can start getting their Honeycomb on immediately, as the preview is available via the Android SDK and AVD manager as part of the Android SDK.

But even more exciting is the fact that the Android Developers page has been updated with a plethora of information regarding Honeycomb and its features. Where to begin?

What You Can See

The brief breakdown of Honeycomb's new elements according to Google:

  • New "holographic" UI
  • Bottom "system bar" for global status and notifications
  • Action bar for in-application controls
  • Redesigned home screen customization
  • Revamped "recent apps" menu
  • New keyboard
  • Improved text selection/copy/paste (multiselect, clipboard, and drag-and-drop)
  • Streamlined USB file transferring
  • Completely updated set of standard apps, including: Gmail, Calendar, Browser, Gallery,  and Contacts

Under The Hood

Developers have reason to be hugely excited about Honeycomb, as it's bringing some major (awesome) changes to the Android OS.

11
Jan
Screen shot 2011-01-10 at 8.37.05 PM

Editorial: Five Things Android Tablets Will Need In Order To Succeed

Posted by in Editorials, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, Tablets

Introduction

If there's one thing CES told us about the upcoming twelve months in technology, it's that 2011 will be the year of Android tablets. And with noteworthy entries such as the Motorola XOOM, ASUS' lineup, and the T-Mobile G-Slate, it looks like the tablets' quality might be just as high as their quantity - at least hardware-wise.

But what about the software? After all, isn't a device's OS what makes or breaks it? And even if the tablets are good, will consumers care? Let's take a look at the top five areas Android tablets will need to succeed in.

10
Jan
firefox_logo_thumb

Interview with Firefox For Android's Matt Brubeck

Posted by in Applications, Interviews, News
Last Updated: April 14th, 2011

Introduction

As a fan of Ubuntu, I really love using Mozilla Firefox. In my opinion, it is the best desktop browser out there (sorry, Chrome). It was because of my love for Firefox that I became elated when I first heard that Mozilla would be developing a browser for the Android platform.

Having followed the development of Firefox for Android from an alpha and now to a beta, I jumped at the chance to interview software engineer Matt Brubeck, one of the lead developers of Firefox for Android. In our time together, I got a chance to ask him about Mozilla's plans for Android, why Firefox for Android seems so slow, and much, much more.

20
Dec
dev page

Some Details Of Notion Ink's Proprietary "Genesis" Market Found In Developer T&Cs

Posted by in Adam, Development, News, Notion Ink

Earlier today, we received a tip regarding Notion Ink's yet-to-be-released developer program for its "Genesis" app platform. Indeed, while the developer homepage remains relatively useless, the leaked developer program registration page the tipster sent us does appear to be legitimate and even comes complete with terms and conditions.

Update: As some of you so eloquently pointed out, the developer program was indeed active at one point, and the registration has now been closed (at least partially, apparently). Nevertheless, we believe some details weeded out of the terms and conditions and displayed below are relatively unknown and quite valuable.

register

After registering and clicking the confirmation link in the email from Notion Ink, I found myself at the end of the road, as the actual pages for developers could not be found.

17
Dec
RohanShravan

[Exclusive] Wet Ink: Our Interview With Notion Ink’s Rohan Shravan

Posted by in Adam, Exclusives, Interviews, News, Notion Ink
Last Updated: June 5th, 2012

As promised earlier this week, Notion Ink CEO Rohan Shravan took time out of his schedule to answer a number of questions from Android Police. What did we ask the creator of the Android world's most anticipated tablet device? A lot of the questions you, our readers, wanted answers to - as well as a few of our own. The interview, in its entirety, below.

Questions From Our Readers

AP: Many have speculated about Notion Ink's production capacity - can you tell us how many Pixel Qi units were sold on pre-order? How many do you expect to be able to produce per month?

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