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Jul

HTC Aria Now Able To Side Load Apps Thanks To Sync Update

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Applications, Aria (Liberty), AT&T, HTC, News

Nobody was happy to learn that the HTC Aria would be locked down in the same way as its predecessor, the Backflip, and be unable to install non-Market apps. Fortunately, HTC has given Aria owners a sort of “fix” through an update in their desktop client.

The newest version of HTC Sync for Aria (which you can download for Windows here) gives users the ability to load an APK onto their phone, which means they now have access to a host of new apps that are not available on the Market. However, HTC did previously stress that the update would not include this feature, so you may want to update in case this feature is removed in the near future.

May

Official Amazon Kindle Application Coming "Soon" To Android, Has Us Excited

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

May 18th is starting with some great news for book lovers. Amazon has just announced that it would be releasing the official Kindle application for Android, available "soon".

The Kindle app is already available on the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, PC, Mac, and BlackBerry, so Android is quite late to the party. Better late than never though - there is no WinMo app anywhere in sight.

Main Features

The Android application is, surprisingly, not going to be shy on features. In fact, some of them will one-up its counterparts on other platforms:

access all of your Kindle books without your Kindle
buy books right from within the Kindle app from a special Android optimized store and get them auto-delivered wirelessly - a feature that is not available on all devices
synchronize last page read and annotations between all devices using Amazon's "Whispersync" technology
preview books by reading their beginnings for free before buying

In order to use the app, you will need to use Android 1.6+ and have an SD card (Droid Incredible users, take note - your phone doesn't come with an SD card by default).

Apr

Detailed Mega Review Of Android 2.1 On Our HTC Hero - Discover All The New Features (With Lots Of Screenshots)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Development, Hero, Hero (Sprint, HeroC), HTC, Sprint

Last Updated: April 21st, 2010

Introduction

Us, Hero owners, have been waiting for an OS upgrade for a loooooong time, since the phone got released last October with Android 1.5.

At first, we were hoping for 1.6, then 2.0, and finally 2.1 was promised ("Totally for real this time, yo" - said Sprint and HTC but we saw nothing).

Other phones kept getting 2.1 upgrades but our favorite Hero saw only promises after promises with release dates pushed further and further back.

Android 2.1 On HTC Hero

Therefore, when a Hero Android 2.1 build got [inadvertently - oh, the drama with these leaks!] leaked online, and an Android ROM hacker by the name of damageless (hi damageless!) incorporated the code from the leak into his ROM, called DamageControl, we knew the finish line was near.

Apr

Apple Announces Multitasking For iPhone OS 4, Stabs Android Directly In The Heart

Posted by John Thompson in News

Apple has just announced that iPhone OS 4 will support multitasking, allowing users to dive in and out of apps and keep some parts of an app running in the background while doing other things.

This is all done through a pop-up dock like interface that can be accessed by double pressing the home button. This will bring up all the apps that are currently running in the background.

Steve Jobs said they’ve figured out how to implement multitasking without it being detrimental to battery life or the performance of the phone. The latest SDK allows developers to access a number of services supporting features such as background audio and social networking integration.