Applications - 228/252 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Nov

Last Week's Best New Android Apps And Games (11/08/10 - 11/14/10)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Best Apps/Games/LWPs Of The Week, Games, News

Last Updated: April 13th, 2011

Welcome to the weekly roundup of the best new Android applications and games that went live in the Market in the previous week or so.

Please wait for this page to load in full in order to see the AppBrain widgets.

Best New Android Apps

Sheep Run Beta

RUN!RUN!RUN!
The sheep family is in danger now.
They need to run fast and use their wisdom to get across various obstacles, finally go back home.
SheepRun features challenging physics-based and puzzle gameplay. Each of the levels requires logic, skill to solve.

Sheep Run Beta

QR code for https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.casual.puzzle.sheeprun.free

Carbonite Access

This app allows Carbonite customers to access the files in their backup – anywhere, anytime.

Nov

Movie Buffs Rejoice - Netflix Might (Or Might Not) Be Coming To Your Android Device Next Year

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Applications, News

Netflix for Android has been long in the making, and... well, it still isn't quite there yet. However, according to Netflix's Greg Peters, an app is coming early in 2011 - for "select devices," that is. Apparently, holes in the Android OS similar to those that often lead to piracy can also be used to bypass the common DRM system. Therefore, Netflix may have to work with individual manufacturers to add content protection to their devices. Great - even tighter restrictions are on the way.

Source: The Netflix Blog via Android Central

Nov

Audiogalaxy Vs Subsonic - Fight! What's Your Favorite Android Music Streaming App? [Reviews, Poll]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in App Reviews, Applications, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

In our last week's poll, we asked you your thoughts on the best overall Android music player, and over 1500 of you responded, clearly putting PowerAMP ahead of the competition, followed by Winamp. PowerAMP released the full version shortly after and still occupies the #1 spot for playing local music in my book.

However, rightfully so, some of you noted that there are some players out there specializing on remote media streaming, and by that I don't mean Shoutcast streams - I mean streaming your own music collections. Google's music service may one day supposedly join the party, as we saw demoed at Google I/O earlier this year, but right now, that solution does not yet exist.

Nov

QuickOffice Spamming Your Notification Bar, Sign Of Things To Come?

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Android OS, Applications, Apps/Games, News

When you use free software, ads are usually part-and-parcel of the experience. However, typically developers are considerate enough to limit the advertising to within the app itself. Sadly, whoever programmed the popular document viewing application QuickOffice lacks such scruples and has decided to start pushing notifications to users, inviting them to upgrade to the paid version of their app. In many cases, QuickOffice is pre-installed with a phone's version of Android - even something carrier agnostic like the Nexus One - and is difficult to remove, leaving non-root users at the mercy of the app's creators.

^{Credit to TheFunkyMonk of reddit for the image}

While the notification has only appeared once on people's phones so far, and is easy to dismiss, this really seems like an over-stepping of the bounds.

Nov

Official Rhapsody App Drops On AppBrain, Sorta On The Market

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, News

Looks like the Rhapsody app has just dropped on the market, only... you can't find it by searching. However, barcode scanners work, so we're not really sure what's going on. The app itself seems to feature, well, just about what you'd expect:

*Download and offline playback of your playlists!
- Download playlists and manage your downloads through the My Playlists menu.
- New toolbar with download and other options on the playlist screen.
- Offline mode displaying unique UI and available menu items.
- Settings: Clear Pending Downloads from the My Playlists menu; Force Offline Mode or Remove All Downloads from the Settings screen.

Nov

8pen Updated To v1.1 Bringing New Features And A Free Price Tag

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Applications, Apps/Games, News

It seems that the creators of 8pen have been listening intently to user feedback on their radical new input method (see our original post for a video demonstration), because yesterday they released a rather nice update. One of the main issues of contention that Android users had with 8pen was that it was not free, and simply took too long to get used to to trial fairly within the Android Market's 24-hr refund period. It appears that 3qubits have either made enough money from 8pen already, or are planning to pursue a different revenue model, since this update removes the entry fee altogether.

Nov

The Real Reason To Use The 8pen Keyboard [Comic]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Off-Topic

Does everyone remember the new keyboard called 8pen that arrived earlier this month and took the Android community by storm, both negatively and positively? I don't think I've ever witnessed so many widely different opinions about whether a keyboard is completely useless or a work of a genius until 8pen came out. Brian, for example, loves it, and I absolutely despise it.

There is one reason to install and use this rotary keyboard, however, and it is a good one. Even better, it comes in the best kind of comics - the fffffuuuuuuuuuuuuu kind.

Full credit goes to soco_and_lime over at reddit.

Nov

Skype For Android Updated, Packing QVGA Support And Performance Enhancements

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Applications, Apps/Games, News

Today is obviously the day for popular applications to add QVGA support. As Rovio did only hours ago, Skype have added support for the increasingly-common 320x240 resolution in their application. That's good news for owners of the HTC Wildfire, Motorola Charm, Huawei IDEOS and LG Optimus T/S, who were left out in the cold until now. Skype for Android has had some nice bug fixes and improvements added, too:

Improvements:

320*240 and 240*400 screen resolutions are now supported.

Hardware back key is now supported.

Reduced power consumption in idle mode.

Signing out from Skype now exits Skype.

Improved login stability and behavior.

Nov

Full Version Of PowerAMP Music Player Now In The Android Market

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

PowerAMP is my favorite Android music player - that's no secret. In fact, according to our recent poll, it is yours too, as PowerAMP is currently leading it at 39%. Appearing seemingly out of nowhere about a month ago, this EQ-enabled program with a stunning UI managed to win the hearts of tens of thousands of people, reaching 50,000 downloads in a matter of days.

A slightly lesser known fact, however, is that the Market version is actually a time limited 15-day trial (the Trial part of the Market name kind of gives it out), but the developer, Max Petrov (or simply Max MP), assured us we'd have the full version before the trial expiration.

Nov

[Updated: Now In The Market] Opera Mobile 10.1 Beta Now Available For Android, Pinch To Zoom And YouTube Support

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Applications, Apps/Games, News

It's been but a few weeks since Opera's announcement of Opera Mobile for Android at their Up North Web conference, and now the browser is out there navigating the maze of tubes that is the Internet. While they didn't quite meet their "within the month (October)" promise, we can forgive them for wanting to polish things a little further.

However, glancing at Opera Mobile for the first time, your look might be one of the askance variety; "What's this? It looks just like Opera Mini!". While this is true, the real differentiation in the Mobile version versus the Mini version is beneath the hood.