09
Dec
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Gmail App Gets Big Update: Quick Folder Switching, Priority Inbox, And A Lot More

Posted by in Applications, News

Update: This Gmail client update is only for devices with Android 2.2 or higher.

Gmail for Android received a substantial update from Google this afternoon - and the AndroidPolice team has agreed: some of the improvements are long overdue, while some of them are just plain cool.

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The change blurb that you'll find on the Market page lists some of the biggies, but a major one (for us, at least) has been excluded: quick folder switching. In the top left corner of whichever folder you were in, there was a simple label indicating the name of the folder. This is now a button, similar to the account button at the top right.

25
Nov
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Rovio Confirms Angry Birds Christmas Edition, Episode 5, New Birds, All Coming Soon

Posted by in Apps/Games, Games, News

It may only be Thanksgiving, which consequently means that December 25 (Christmas) is still a month away, but it looks like Rovio Mobile, the company behind the insanely popular Angry Birds, is already stocking up on Christmas gifts. Yes, a Christmas edition of Angry Birds no longer exists exclusively in your dreams - @RovioMobile, the company's Twitter account, recently replied to this tweet from @SkeenaNC:

2010-11-25 17h58_46

with this message:

2010-11-25 18h00_58

What "new things," you ask? Finnish website mtv3.fi yesterday acquired the following screenshot from what is presumably the Christmas version of Angry Birds:

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That screenie does look a little squished, which could cause suspicion, but the company's Twitter account once again gave it all away:

2010-11-25 18h07_15

The fact that the first annual Angry Birds fan meetup is going down on December 11th has caused some to mark that as the date for the game's release, but according to mtv3.fi, it will be here before November is out.

03
Nov
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Facebook's Updated Android App v1.4 Live In The Market Now - Brings Groups, Places, Improved Notifications, Fixes

Posted by in Applications, News

Today at the Facebook Mobile event, Mark Zuckerberg announced the newest version of the Facebook Android app with support for Places and Groups. We didn't have to wait long, as the update hit the Market mere minutes after the announcement (don't you just love how instantly apps go live in the Android Market, as opposed to some other markets we won't be naming here?).

Here is the changelog:

  • Groups: share posts with small groups of friends
  • Places: share where you are with friends, see where friends are, discover places nearby
  • Improved Notifications - view comments and updates within the app
  • Various bug fixes

Download

QR code for https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.katana

Appbrain link

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02
Nov
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36% Of Android Devices Now Running Froyo - Donut And Cupcake Continue Steady Decline Into Dessert History

Posted by in Android OS, News

Google, as it does every month, has released updated Android platform version distribution charts today. What's changed? From last month, not a whole lot. Froyo expanded a solid 3%, from a little over 33% of the Android-verse at the beginning of October to over 36% as of yesterday, with Donut and Cupcake both losing more ground.

chart (1)

Pac-Man hungers for donuts and cupcakes

Éclair actually gained a few tenths of a percent, most likely due to continued sales of Samsung's Galaxy S phones, which are all shipping with Android 2.1 installed. Much of this will probably change come January, however, as Samsung has stated they hope to get all Galaxy S devices running 2.2 before the end of the year.

15
Oct
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[Updated: Now In The Android Market] It's Live! Download The Full Version Of Angry Birds Right Now [v1.3.5 + Mirrors]

Posted by in Games, News

The moment we've all been waiting for is finally here. A few hours ago, the full version of the most anticipated Android game ever, Angry Birds, has hit the Android Mar... errrr... GetJar Market, exclusively. Instead of uploading to the official Market first, Rovio decided to go for an alternative market called GetJar, probably in a deal to promote it. The Market version is promised "soon," which would be good right about now, as GetJar apparently wasn't prepared for the influx of visitors and promptly crashed for a couple of hours. It seems to be back up now, but who knows what is going to happen to it when the West Coast wakes up.

14
Oct
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Full Version Of Angry Birds Coming Friday – Here Is What To Expect [Hands-On]

Posted by in Games, News

Last week, I had to deliver disappointing news about the full version of Angry Birds, the most addicting game on Android, getting delayed till this week, mostly due to proper multi-tasking support. Today, I'm glad to report that not only did Rovio commit to a Friday (tomorrow) release, as evident from the screenshot below, but also sent us a full version to play with.

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Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to shoot a video review, but I did, however, collect some interesting screenshots together with all the info you need to know, presented in my most favorite bullet point style:

  • the version that was sent to us contains ads (see screenshot #7 below) which shows up from time to time, I'd say about once per level
  • in our email exchange, the company also hinted at an interesting distribution model, which they didn't disclose.

04
Oct
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Motorola CLIQ XT OTA v1.32.20 Rolling Out Now - No, It's Not The 2.1 You've Been Waiting For

Posted by in CLIQ XT (Zeppelin), Motorola, News

CLIQ XT owners may experience slight excitement reading this, but only slight - the OTA update version 1.32.20 rolling out now to CLIQ XTs around the country does not contain Android 2.1 - it's merely an incremental update over its existing ancient OS (what is it, 1.5 nowadays?). This update showed up a couple of days ago as a limited beta test, and, thankfully, it didn't take Motorola long to open the flood gates to all CLIQ XT owners.

If you remember, Motorola has been promising 2.1 for a while but recently updated the projections to late Q3 (fail)/early Q4 (Q4 started 4 days ago).

19
Sep
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CyanogenMod 6.0.0 Final/Stable For HTC Hero CDMA Released

Posted by in Development, Froyo 2.2, Hero (Sprint, HeroC), HTC, News
Last Updated: August 1st, 2012

CyanogenMod 6 is one of the most popular Android custom ROMs, and for a good reason - besides supporting a myriad of devices, it is built from AOSP (Android Open Source Project), which means no extra garbage that normally comes installed by carriers and customizations/improvements for the people, by the people (the CM contributor community is huge).

Sprint has abandoned our beloved HTC Hero (it was my first Android device a bit under a year ago now and holds a special place in my heart) but the Android community hasn't. The Hero lives on - in fact it has been enjoying Android 2.2 Froyo for a while now in alpha/beta/RC form, not thanks to Sprint yet again.

19
May
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Confirmed: Official Sprint HTC Hero Android 2.1 Update Is Exactly The Same As The Leaked One From May 14th

Posted by in Hero (Sprint, HeroC), HTC, News, Sprint

Since a lot of you have been wondering, I wanted to post a brief confirmation that the official version of the HTC Hero 2.1 update Sprint released today is exactly the same as the one we covered on May 14th, 5 days ago.

Both files share the following characteristics:

  • 124139523 bytes (118M)
  • Version 2.27.651.5

HTC's servers are so slammed right now that I am getting about 3KB/s downloading - you might as well download the leaked file instead - they're exactly the same.

Happy updating, guys!

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