webos - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Mar

Carbon Twitter Client For Android (Of WebOS Fame) Gets Previewed On Video, Alpha Coming Soon

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Applications, News, Videos

In the increasingly crowded market for Twitter clients on Android, another big player is about to jump into the fray - Carbon. You may know Carbon from its days on WebOS, but now that HP's mobile operating system is little more than an open source zombie, Carbon's developers are looking for a new (and more profitable) home.

While the app is already available on Windows Phone 7, that version is styled quite differently from the upcoming Android version, shown in the video below.

As you can see, Carbon is an app with a rich (and unique) user interface, with lots of animated flourishes on top of some recognizable Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich design elements.

Feb

HP Finally Gives Up Touchpad's Android Kernel Source (From Touchpads Caught Running Android In The Wild)

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Development, HP, News, TouchPad

Remember back when an HP Touchpad was spotted running Android out of the box? Well, it would appear that after some cajoling, the CM team (in association with an attorney) have convinced HP to release the Touchpad's Android kernel source, along with a couple of other GPL components specifically modified for Android-powered Touchpads accidentally released to the wild. In addition to the kernel, HP released code to androidvncserver and i2c-tools. The only thing missing, according to Green (part of the CM team), is the Wi-Fi driver. Green explains this in an announcement on the RootzWiki forums:

I did some digging around and it appears that the wifi driver shipped with both webOS and with the Android are GPL, there are multiple evidences of that including the driver licensing string.

Aug

HP TouchPad 32GB Said To Be Running Android 2.2 Out Of The Box Now On eBay For Almost $700

Posted by John Thompson in Froyo 2.2, News

With its $99 fire sale price, the TouchPad finally hit the sweet spot. Units have been selling like crazy over the past week, but it seems as though one new owner got a little more than he bargained for. No, unfortunately HP didn't accidentally send him 100 units for the price of one, but he did allegedly receive a unit running Android 2.2, rather than webOS.

Making its way onto eBay, the TouchPad has already racked up 8 bids and is sitting at $685 with over 2 days still remaining on the auction, so people are obviously interested in the device.

Mar

[Review] Wave Launcher Is Like Having WebOS On A Phone That You Actually Want

Posted by Brad Ganley in App Reviews, Applications, Apps/Games, News, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

WebOS may catch a lot of flack because it never really took off but it does, in fact, have some really awesome features. One feature was the card view multitasking, which has already found its way onto Android. Another cool thing it did was that wacky swipe-up-from-the-bottom launcher gesture. Well, folks, guess what there's an app for now. It's called Wave Launcher - and it's great.

Wave Launcher's beauty is in its simplicity, just like its WebOS predecessor. You simply touch the bottom edge of your screen and swipe up. As you swipe up, so does a bar of five or more applications for you to select.

Oct

[Updated] Itching Thumb: An Amazing, Free Task Switcher - You Want This. Now.

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

Update: Thanks to commenter Xcom923 (below), I rebooted my phone and have it working! It's freakin' awesome!

Meet Itching Thumb, an absolutely amazing task switcher that's very similar to the one found on WebOS. There's not much I can say that rivals what's shown in the video:

For those who are unable to watch the video or who are unfamiliar with WebOS, it's basically a "card" system - similar to CoverFlow (but with a customizable style). These screencaps illustrate what I'm talking about fairly well:

_{Left: the cards are flat as you scroll; you can drag an app to the top of the screen to close it (shown).}

Sep

HP Zeen Android Tablet Spotted In The Wild, Printer Inexplicably Paired With It

Posted by Brian O'Toole in HP, News

I’m not exactly sure how this strange pairing was birthed, probably somewhere in a boardroom of extremely bored HP executives… but it looks like HP’s Tablet plus Printer combo is drawing closer to readiness for release. I thought one of the driving tenets of the tablet revolution was to obsolete printers, but obviously HP disagrees – hey, they’re the experts. The Zeen, as it’s appellated, is a 7-inch capacitive tablet which will be bundled in a $400 package with the C510 PhotoSmart eStation. While thankfully printing does not appear to be the Zeen’s sole raison d’être, it is certainly one of the devices included features, with a Printer and Coupon app appearing in the app drawer.

Aug

Android Gets App-Switching Eye Candy: Visual Task Switcher Now Available On The Market

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Applications, News

One of the most vaunted features of webOS was its decidedly pretty multitasking interface. Users could invoke an overlay of thumbnail “cards” of their running applications and switch to or close them.

Fresh onto the Android Marketplace is Visual Task Switcher. Continuing on from some progress made earlier this year (although probably not using the same method), this application grants you thumbnail application switching. While not as polished as Palm’s version, this is an encouraging step towards that alluring goal.

Users can switch to a running application by tapping the thumbnail, or kill it by long-pressing.

Visual Task Switcher allows multiple pages of grid thumbnails which can be scrolled through by swiping.

Jul

Android On The Move: Google Now Controls 13% Of The Smartphone Operating System Market

Posted by David Ruddock in News

Today, comScore released its mobile phone market share figures today for May 2010 (the figures take a while to compile), and the results bode very well for Google. Among smartphone operating systems, Google’s Android now holds a 13% share. While this may not sound huge, keep in mind that only 3 months prior in February Android controlled only 9% of the market. The figures and changes, below:

Mobile OS	Feb. 2010	May 2010	Change
RIM	42.1%	41.7%	-0.4
Apple	25.4%	24.4%	-1.0
Microsoft	15.1%	13.2%	-1.9
Google	9.0%	13.0%	+4.0
Palm	5.4%	4.8%	-0.6

Meanwhile, every other smart phone operating system has lost ground.

May

Matias Duarte Leaves Palm To Join The Android Development Team

Posted by John Thompson in News

It has been reported that Matias Duarte, the man responsible for the look and feel of Palm’s webOS, has left Palm to join Google as User Experience Director for Android.

Duarte was the Senior Director of Human Interface and User Experience at Palm, and introduced the design of webOS at the company’s keynote in January 2009. Before leading the webOS design team, he was Vice President of Experience Design at Helio.

What does this mean for Android? webOS is well known for its seamless multitasking capabilities and card-style interface, which looks great. It would definitely be a great addition to Android, as it offers a closer look at the apps that are currently running, as opposed to a collection of icons.