upload - 2/2 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

May

[I/O 2011] Android Market To Support And Host Apps Up To 4GB In Size; 15-Min Return Policy Tweaked

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Apps/Games, Development, News

One problem that Android app developers (specifically game developers) have had to face is the size limit for apps in the Android Market, because up until now it's been a measly 50MB. For most apps that is more than enough, but for others - like graphically intense games, for example - it's not even close, so developers had to jump through hoops and implement downloading of additional resources manually. Remember Spectral Souls with its 1GB of data?

Good news, though - today at I/O, Google announced that as of June 2011, the Market will support apps of up to 4GB (well, 4GB + 50MB) in size, which should be large enough to house just about any game we could possibly want on our devices.

Apr

T-Mobile Bringing 4G HSPA+ To 10 New Cities, 42Mbps To Vegas, Orlando, and New York

Posted by David Ruddock in 4G, Carriers, News, T-Mobile

Merger be damned, T-Mobile is continuing the expansion of its (potentially short-lived) 4G HSPA+ network, having added ten new cities, along with promising to double download speed caps in some major markets. The cities that have recently had T-Mobile 4G coverage activated include:

Ames, Iowa
Anderson, Indiana
Battle Creek/Benton Harbor/Jackson, Michigan
Fort Collins-Loveland, Colorado
Lawrence/Manhattan, Kansas
Springfield, Illinois
Wichita Falls, Texas

The major markets receiving the upgrade to theoretical 42Mbps HSPA+ (note: there are no 42Mbps HSPA+ phones out there) will first be Las Vegas, Orlando, and New York, with Chicago, Long Island, and Northern New Jersey following shortly after.

Apr

Verizon's 4G LTE Up To 10 Times Faster Than Sprint's WiMAX 4G, Says Independent Testing

Posted by David Ruddock in Carriers, Editorials, News, Sprint, Tips & Tutorials, Verizon Wireless

An independent test conducted by a research firm in New York City comparing the speeds of Verizon's and Sprint's respective 4G networks has made at least one thing clear: Big Red owns the Big Apple. After conducting over 1000 individual network speed tests in various locations throughout the city, BTIG Research tallied up the averages, and it's not a pretty picture for Sprint:

The connections were tethered through an HTC Thunderbolt and an HTC EVO 4G, respectively

You're seeing that right - Verizon's 4G LTE is averaging a whopping 10.3Mbps (down) when on a laptop tethered to an HTC Thunderbolt, while the EVO 4G barely eeks out 1.6.

Mar

AT&T Confirms That The Atrix And The Inspire Will Receive HSUPA-Enabling Updates In April

Posted by Nate Kimmey in AT&T, Atrix 4G (Olympus), News

Motorola Atrix and HTC Inspire owners have had good reason to be upset with AT&T's "4G" network - due to the fact that HSUPA wasn't enabled on either of the two devices, users have been plagued with unbearably low upload speeds, and the announcement of an upcoming Atrix update that ignores the problem didn't seem like a good sign. Fortunately, AT&T has used its Facebook page to confirm that software updates enabling normal upload speeds are in the works and are expected to roll out some time in April.

AT&T also dropped some good news regarding the Samsung Infuse: the handset will launch with HSUPA already enabled, so nobody will have to wait for an update from Samsung there.

Feb

CNN Releases Android App Made Specifically For Honeycomb Tablets

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

If you remember, during Google's Honeycomb showcase in the beginning of the month, one of the tablet-optimized apps demoed was made by CNN. Considering CNN is one of the Honeycomb/XOOM launch partners, the new app showed up in the Market like clockwork for an easily digestible price of free. For those who need a refresher, here's the video from the presentation again:

The CNN app features a swipable navigation bar on the left-hand side and a grid story layout on the right side. For video junkies, live video broadcasts as well as pre-recorded video segments are provided. Vocal activists among you will find the ability to leave comments satisfying.

Oct

Modder's Column: Prettying Up That Status Bar On Your HTC Desire Or EVO 4G

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Development

Modder’s Column, formerly known as Modder’s Monday, is a column dedicated to rooting, hacking, and other forms of modifying Android and is written by Jaroslav Stekl, a man who spends his days coding, hacking, hiking, and of course, writing for Android Police.

A few editions back, I described several ways to customize your Android device. As you may recall, one of my main points was changing up the status bar using apps such as Date Status Bar, Memory Status, Status Toggle, and Battery Percentage. The last of those four apps in particular has one big issue: it places another icon in your status bar.

Oct

New Dropbox Beta v1.0.0.7 Arrives, No Longer Constantly Runs As Service, Uploads Files In The Background, Adds Apps2SD, Fixes Bugs

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

Dropbox users, listen up. Today, the company released an off-Market beta version of the Android app that finally fixes a runaway always-on background service, adds Apps2SD support, and fixes a bunch of other bugs. As far as I can tell, the background service was introduced to allow uploading of files even if the app is closed, except a buggy implementation never shut the service down. In the new release, files are properly uploaded in the background, after which the service correctly shuts down.

If you haven't checked out the Dropbox Android app before, see our reviews here and here.

In an off chance that you've never tried Dropbox at all, then know this: it is the single most useful application I have personally adopted this year.

Sep

Imgur App For Android With Account Support Now Available For Download

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

Imgur.com is one of the best, if not the best, sites to upload that image you're about to share with a gazillion people. The site is very simple and robust, yet incredibly functional, and, most importantly, allows all uploaded images to be embedded on other sites without complaining about hotlinking. It is the service used almost exclusively for sharing pictures on reddit.com (hi all redditors!). Imgur started as an anonymous one-time upload service but later introduced account support, which was probably the most frequently requested feature.

Today marks the arrival of an Imgur Android client with account support baked. I'd like to point out that there are actually 2 other imgur apps on the Market already, but neither of them offers the ability to log in.