store - 8/9 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Jan

Sony PlayStation Suite And PlayStation Store Official, Bring PSOne Games To Android Devices

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Games, News, Sony, Sony Ericsson

Sony's new PlayStation Suite isn't the PlayStation Phone (or the Xperia Play) we were expecting, but it's arguably something even better for those of us who love gaming but hate the idea of giving up our current Android device(s).

Sony claims that PlayStation Suite will offer "legendary original PlayStation content" and says it will be a "cross platform, cross device" PSOne emulator. In reality, it's limited to Android 2.3 and beyond - a version of Android only one currently available handset runs (and it's not Sony's own Xperia X10). Still, PS Suite does look intriguing, especially when you consider Sony's "PlayStation Certified" program for hardware manufacturers, which will, supposedly, ensure a high-quality gaming experience.

Jan

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

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl 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.

Jan

Distimo Pegs Android Market At 130,000 Apps - A (Nearly) Six-Fold Increase Year-Over-Year

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Apps/Games, Games, News

App store analytics company Distimo has released a report reviewing the changes in the Apple, Android, Blackberry, and Nokia app stores in 2010, and the results are impressive for all four. To highlight a few points from the 28 page report:

The Apple App Store is still by far the largest, with roughly 300,000 apps. The Android Market is second at 130,000, the Nokia Ovi Store checks in at 25,000, and the BlackBerry App World manages a respectable 18,000.
In all 4 stores, free app growth outpaced that of paid apps. The App Store doubled in size, while the Market experienced nearly six-fold growth.

Dec

Next Version Of HTC Sense UI To Feature Online Media Store, "Natural Interaction"

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in HTC, News

I'm no huge fan of UI overlays, but even I have to admit that HTC's Sense is getting better and better. With features like HTCSense.com and even an e-books store, there's no arguing that it's become more than just an Android skin - in Europe, at least.

It looks like the US is finally on the agenda for the new Sense. According to Drew Bamford, HTC's head of User Experience, the company will be rolling out a new version of the UI next year, which, among other things, will bring us Americans the features Desire HD and Desire Z owners have been enjoying for a while now.

Nov

And The Winner Of The T-Shirt Design Contest Is… This Guy.

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Off-Topic

Last Updated: May 4th, 2011

About a month and a half ago, we announced our biggest contest yet - your creativity expressed as an official Android Police t-shirt design in exchange for an Android phone, courtesy of Samsung.

The contest went on for about 3 weeks and the results exceeded my wildest expectations. Countless submissions later, many sleepless nights of doing final edits, emailing back and forth with the authors, and organizing the apparel store, I had narrowed down the submissions to... are you ready for this? 29 final designs - designs that I would be proud to wear every day, showing my Android pride.

I must apologize again for taking this long - we hit a few snags, and learning from this experience, next time, I will make sure to come up with an even more detailed set of rules.

Nov

Amazon Wireless Finally Starts Selling Sprint Phones

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Devices By Manufacturer, Epic 4G, EVO 4G (Supersonic), Hero (Sprint, HeroC), HTC, Intercept, Moment, News, Samsung, Sanyo, Sprint, Transform, Zio

Last Updated: February 4th, 2012

One of the best places to buy your next Android smartphone is, undoubtedly, Amazon.com, due to its excellent customer service, aggressive pricing, abundance of conveniently placed user reviews, lack of tax, and free shipping. Even better, a few months ago, Amazon opened up a dedicated Amazon Wireless store to concentrate on competitively selling cell phones and service, including support for existing customer upgrades, family plans, and much more competitive deals.

One obvious omission in the Amazon Wireless store has been a complete lack of Sprint devices and plans. Sprint support was said to be coming for months, and while Sprint phones were available on Amazon.com itself, AmazonWireless.com remained Sprint-free, which means no aggressive pricing, support for existing line upgrades, or family plans.

Nov

Verizon’s V CAST App Store Ripped Out Of The Latest Droid Incredible Update, Now Available For Download

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Apps/Games, News, Verizon Wireless

Verizon's announcement of a separate Big Red branded Android Market, called the V Cast App Store, sent shockwaves through the Androidosphere a month ago, with the general consensus being: "we don't want it." Of course, none of us could actually prevent Verizon from fragmenting our Market situation further (they've already done their part with the MOTOBLUR to help fragment the Android OS itself), so all we have to do is go with the flow and see what exactly Verizon's cooked up.

Rather than wait for the official release, the folks over at TalkAndroid have got their hands on the installable APK ripped out of the latest Droid Incredible OTA a few days ago.

Oct

App Developer Posts His Experiences And Thoughts On Android Market And Apple App Store: Android Market Is Alright, But...

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Apps/Games, Development, News

Benoit Essiambre, the developer behind iOS and Android apps Speed Bones, Speed Muscles, and Speed Anatomy, recently compared his experience with the Android Market to that of the Apple App Store. Particularly, he discussed ease-of-use, support, and perhaps most importantly, profitability. His thoughts as a developer: the Android Market has a perk or two, but overall it still falls short of the Apple App Store.

His first point: Canada only received paid market support just a few weeks ago. In fact, he created Speed Bones nearly two years ago, before realizing that the Market didn't yet support paid Canadian apps.

Sep

Amazon's Android App Store Legal Docs Leak, Reinforce Rumors

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Apps/Games, News

That new Android app store that Amazon is rumored to be working on? Yeah, SlashGear just landed a copy of the Terms & Conditions for it, and it confirms just about everything we'd heard earlier:

Okay, some details:

For each sale of an App, we will pay you a royalty equal to the greater of 70% of the purchase price or 20% of the List Price as of the purchase date (70/30 is standard, this 20/80 split is somewhat odd and confusing)

The List Price is apparently in place so that you can’t sell your app cheaper on other “similar services” — meaning other app stores, presumably

The “similar services” should also include the forthcoming Chrome Web Store, if I’m reading this correctly

There is a $99 fee to be a developer in this program (the same as Apple’s iOS developer program)

It seems like if your app is available on other platforms, you have to make sure to update it at the same time on Amazon’s store that you do in any other store (this will piss off a lot of developers)

Apps will have to be laced with Amazon DRM — meaning they will only work on devices they approve (obviously)

Amazon has the right to pull any app for any reason (obviously)

Apps can also be shown on amazon.com (this is up to Amazon)

You can offer free apps

The app store is U.S.-only (at least for now)

This part is interesting too: “We have sole discretion to determine all features and operations of this program and to set the retail price and other terms on which we sell Apps.”

Some pretty lame requirements there, no?

Sep

Verizon Decides To Make More Bad Decisions - VCAST App Market Is The Latest

Posted by Brad Ganley in News, Verizon Wireless

Well, Verizon is up to their old tricks again. Last time they did something worthy of a head-scratch was just a short time ago, when they forced Bing onto the Fascinate and abandoned the built-in Google bits and pieces for search.

Now they've decided that, in addition to Google Maps, Google Search, and Google Voice Search not being necessary, the Android MARKET is insufficient. Introducing the Vcast App Store!

Verizon seems to think that they are somehow more likely to persuade users to buy apps. While there may be some advantages (carrier billing being the only one i can think of), it is really starting to look like Verizon hates Google.