23
Sep
android_history_thumb

[Weekend Poll] What Was Your First Version Of Android?

Posted by in Android OS, Polls

This is the latest in our Weekend Poll series. For last week's, see Will You Be Buying A New Kindle?

Earlier this week, Ron gave us an interesting look at what codenames came before Android 1.5, Cupcake (spoiler: 1.1 was "petit four," and 1.0 didn't have any codename at all). It's hard not to read the post without taking a nostalgic walk down memory lane, isn't it? I still remember heading into my local T-Mobile store to play with the G1 when it launched.

My life with Android officially started on June 4, 2010, with the launch of the HTC EVO 4G - and with Android 2.1, Éclair.

12
Jul
alextiny

Amazing Alex Is Now Available In The Play Store, Comes In Three Different Versions For Your Confus-Er, Enjoyment

Posted by in Games, News

Rovio's newest game, you know the one that has neither birds nor pigs, Amazing Alex has finally landed in the Play Store. The game, which centers around a bright youngster named Alex and his fascination with using Rube Goldberg machines to accomplish tasks. The game, much like Angry Birds Space, is available in three variants on Android: a free, ad-supported version, a $0.99 paid version, and then a $2.99 "HD" version. Also like Angry Birds Space, the value of the HD version is dubious at best.

I downloaded and tested both the paid versions on my Xoom and could discern no visible difference in the quality of the apps (the Xoom has a resolution of 1280x800).

10
Jul
dropboxlogo

Dropbox Upgrades Its Pro Plans, Doubles Storage Space For No Extra Cost, Adds 500GB Tier

Posted by in News

When Google first announced Google Drive, the company made waves, if not by being better than Dropbox, then at least by being cheaper. 100GB of storage on Google Drive was $4.99 a month to Dropbox's $19.99. Well, today Dropbox is getting closer to being competitive with Google by increasing the amount of storage for its Pro users.

From Dropbox's blog entry on the subject:

Today we’re happy to announce that our upgrades are getting a huge upgrade! Dropbox Pro now comes in flavors of 100 and 200 GB, but at the price of the original 50 and 100 GB plans.

02
Jul
dist070212

Android Platform Distribution Updated: 10.9% On Android 4.0, 22.7% Still On 2.2 And Below

Posted by in Android OS, News
Last Updated: August 1st, 2012

Depending on how fanboyish you want to be you want to look at it, things are either getting better by the day, or still dismal as can be. First, the charts:

2012-07-02_22h19_09

Obviously, the good news is that in the past month, Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0+) has moved up from 7.1% to 10.9% - and considering there are hundreds of millions of devices running Android, that seemingly meager 3.8% is actually quite a few devices.

And then there's the bad news. First, the fact that ICS is the latest (and by far the best) version of Android and yet we're happy to see it on just under 11% of devices is sad; it's even worse that it's literally 8.5 months old.

14
Jun
2012-06-14_07h19_01

Amazon Mobile For Android Updated, Brings New Sorting/Filtering Options, Revamped Navigation, Wish Lists, And More

Posted by in Applications, News

Everyone loves Amazon, and thankfully for Android owners, their app has always been pretty solid. Thanks to an update to version 1.6 that was pushed to the Play store last night, it's now even better:

What's in this version:

- Brand new ways to sort and filter your search results.
- Faster, easier navigation with a Cart shortcut and drop-down menu of the most popular pages.
- Launch barcode scanning directly from the home screen.
- Add items to any of your existing wish lists.
- Additional country support – shop Amazon across 8 countries, including Spain and Italy.
- Bug fixes and performance improvements.

26
Apr
unnamed

Twitter For Android App Updated To Version 3.2, Brings Push Notifications For RT's, Favorites, And New Followers (And More)

Posted by in Apps/Games, News

Twitter for Android has been updated to 3.2, and brings a bevy of changes, the most important being much-needed push notifications for retweets, favorites, and new followers.

Screenshot_2012-04-26-13-16-25  Screenshot_2012-04-26-13-18-45 Screenshot_2012-04-26-13-19-02

The icons at the top of the app have also been changed up, and are slightly larger (the Home icon actually looks a bit different), along with other minor UI changes. The Discover tab has been completely revamped according to the changelog, as well, which you can see below:

What's in this version:

  1. Updated design and improved relevance of Discover stories
  2. Activity in Discover tab shows who your connections follow, updates to their lists, and which Tweets they retweet and favorite
  3. Spelling suggestions and related searches in search results
  4. Username autocomplete in search
  5. New push notifications for when your Tweets have been retweeted, favorited, or when you have new followers
  6. New languages: Traditional Chinese, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Polish, Hungarian, Thai

Get it on the Play Store now.

17
Feb
droid_x_su

Droid X To Receive Update To 4.5.621.MB810 – Here's What To Expect

Posted by in Droid X (Shadow), News, Verizon Wireless

Owners of Motorola's Droid X should be expecting an OTA update "soon," which will bring the device's build up to version 4.5.621.MB810. Despite the fact that Verizon's announcement page says "Droid X2" in the title, the update will in fact bring its bevy of enhancements to the original Droid X. Among these are improvements to the OTA process itself, browser security (a la Google's 2.3.6 security patch), and various stability and bug fixes. Verizon's announcement document lists the full set of enhancements, for those interested:

image

Verizon has also provided a handy instruction sheet for updating your device, though the update is – as yet – still listed as "coming soon." The process should be familiar – just hit settings > About Phone > System Updates > Download.

12
Feb
unnamed (1)

PowerAMP Updated To 2.0.5-build-480, Bringing Multichannel FLAC, Notification Controls For Android 3.0+, ICS Fixes, And More

Posted by in Applications, News

PowerAMP, one of the most popular and versatile music player apps available for Android, got updated today to Version 2.0.5-build-480 today, bringing a handful of handy improvements to an already stellar application.

Perhaps the most notable among these are ICS-related fixes, ICS lock screen controls (which strangely don't show up on ASUS' Transformer Prime), and notification bar controls for Android 3.0+ (which don't blend well with the Prime's ICS aesthetic), providing further practical and functional integration with Android Tablets and Ice Cream Sandwich-powered devices.

Screenshot_2012-02-12-15-43-01

The update also brings support for multichannel FLAC playback, album art search based on title or filename, DSP features under the app's equalizer curve, and several other miscellaneous enhancements.

17
Jan
amazon-kindle-fire-tablet

Amazon Kindle Fire's Firmware Update (To 6.2.2) Breaks Root, Adds Full-Screen Browsing

Posted by in Android OS, Development, Kindle Fire, News
Last Updated: January 19th, 2012

In a familiar turn of events, Amazon has pushed out another root-breaking firmware update, bringing the Kindle Fire's firmware up to version 6.2.2.

Shortly after Amazon's last Kindle Fire update, our very own Justin Case made quick work of gaining root access for the Kindle Fire once again, releasing BurritoRoot, a tool that made rooting the Fire quick and (relatively) easy. Unfortunately, Amazon's latest update keeps BurritoRoot from doing its job, but it appears to bring about at least one useful change.

The only visible improvement is a full screen toggle button added to Amazon's Silk browser. Amazon's support documentation doesn't include information regarding 6.2.2 just yet, but when it does we'll be here to update with a full list of changes.

11
Dec
image

Kick-Ass! Web Android Market Now Allows App User Review Filtering By Device Model, Latest Version, And Specific Star Rating

Posted by in Development, Google, News

Looks like the new Email Developer feature that the web Android Market received on Friday was just the icing on the cake! While it was nice to finally have the ability to contact developers without having to go through the device Market, it was still a pretty minor addition. Don't fret - Google was nowhere near being done - you can now:

  • filter user reviews by device model, currently limited to All and individual devices registered to your account.
  • filter user reviews by app version, currently limited to All or Latest
  • filter user reviews by specific star rating

Here, have a look (the sample app I used was Christmas HD, if you are curious):

image image image

The beauty is - you can combine filters and, for example, narrow down to only 1-star reviews made by users of HTC EVO 3D that used the latest version of the app.

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