Apps/Games - 347/409 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Mar

Apple Sues Amazon Over Use Of 'App Store' Name

Posted by David Ruddock in Apps/Games, Development, News

Amazon's upcoming Android Market competitor, the Amazon Appstore, is in hot water for its namesake. On Monday, Apple filed a lawsuit in a California federal court claiming Amazon had infringed on its trademark of the phrase "App Store." Apple applied for a trademark to this name way back in 2008, but it wasn't approved until January of 2010. Since then, Microsoft has filed a dispute with the trademark office alleging that the grant was improper. That complaint's outcome is still pending.

In the meantime, Amazon may have a difficult time asserting that its use of "Appstore" (as opposed to "App Store") doesn't violate Apple's trademark - it's hard to deny that Apple's App Store is a well-know name in the mobile world.

Mar

First Beta Of The Split-Key SwiftKey For Tablets Keyboard Now Available To SwiftKey VIP Users, Multitouch In Tow

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

At the end of CES, right after the barrage of almost 100 Android tablet announcements, SwiftKey teased us with a new version of its popular keyboard, specifically targeting tablets. The company later officially announced the new product, complete with a Tron-like, mysteriously glowing UI. The split-key design, especially useful for larger tablets, looked like a real winner to tablet owners.

Today, the first beta of SwiftKey for Tablets v2.0.0.36 was released to VIP members in the SwiftKey forum, and, of course, I immediately took it out for a spin. The current release, which you can see below, has 2 layouts - 1 normal and 1 split-key, but compared to the version in the official announcement, has weird alignment issues and lacks any arrow keys (I checked - there was no setting to enable them, like in the newest beta for phones).

Mar

[Review] CamTranslator For Android Takes On Word Lens For iOS, Helps You Translate With Your Eyes; But Does It Actually Work?

Posted by Cameron Summerson in App Reviews, Applications, News, Reviews, Videos

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Have you ever been in a foreign country and tried to find your way around, order from a menu, or read a map in a language that you don’t understand? Language barriers can be incredibly frustrating, but we found a new app designed to go head-to-head with iOS’s Word Lens that can help you next time you’re in that kind of situation.

CamTranslator is a new app from IntSig that is designed to help break the communication barrier between languages using your phone’s camera. It includes a massive collection of over 50 languages that will translate both ways, two different modes of translation, and a few other quaint features.

Mar

Catch.com Launches Catch Pro, We Give Away Three 6-Month And Two 1-Year Subscriptions

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Applications, Contests / Giveaways, News

Last Updated: May 4th, 2011

This contest is now over. We have selected the winners - see if you are one of them towards the bottom of the page.

If you've ever used your phone for notetaking, you've no doubt heard of Catch Notes, and its impressive stats in the Market (i.e. a 4.5-star average rating and over a million downloads) are a great representation of its overall quality. It's got many unique features - organization is done with geo-tagging and Twitter-like hash tags, and the app also offers great social capabilities as well as SSL encryption. Furthermore, its fit and finish are unrivaled. Have a look:

And with the recently launched Catch Pro, the service got even better - the optional add-on brings 1GB of storage and greater attachment support (namely, compatibility with PDF, RTF, and Microsoft Office files).

Mar

No Leaks Necessary: Official Adobe Flash 10.2 Is Now In The Market

Posted by Will Shanklin in Applications, News

One of the more criticized features of the Motorola XOOM was its lack of Flash at launch. It was promised to be updated within a few weeks, and today Adobe has held true to its promise. While XOOM owners have been playing with a leaked version for a week now, the official update to bring Android's Adobe Flash Player up to 10.2 is now in the Market. The new version brings Flash support for dual-core and Honeycomb-running devices. This is the first time the Motorola XOOM can officially utilize Flash.

This does have a different version number from last week's leak (the Market update carries the number 10.2.156.12, compared to last week's 10.2.155.67) so we would definitely recommend that XOOM-owners download the official release.

Mar

Adblock Plus Adds Support For Firefox Mobile 4

Posted by Abhiroop Basu in Android OS, Applications, News

Blocking obnoxious ads while browsing the web is something that I believe should come built-in to all browsers, or at least those on mobile devices with limited bandwidth. Although the beta version of Firefox 4 for Android (aka Fennec) released some time back, it was only yesterday that Adblock Plus released a development build for its seminal ad-blocking extension for the mobile version of Firefox.

According to the Adblock Plus devs, everything seems to be working smoothly, save for the following:

do-not-track support is not working; and
the number of synchronous requests needs to be reduced (on the to-do list)

Unfortunately, the user interface of ABP on the mobile version of Firefox is quite limited as you are only able to subscribe to one filter at a time.

Mar

Rovio (Of Angry Birds Fame) Valued At Over $200 Million, Has Already Raised $42 Million In Funding

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Apps/Games, Games, News, Off-Topic

The success that the Angry Birds games have brought to Rovio is stunning, really: the company was reportedly on the verge of bankruptcy when it released the game, and today, revenue is estimated to be between $50 and 70 million annually. It's perhaps no surprise, then, that the company raised $42 million in funding earlier this month, and they enjoyed the luxury of picking and choosing their investors. They even reportedly determined the terms of investment - quite the reversal of roles.

Rovio's valuation is estimated to be over $200 million already, but the company hopes that's merely the beginning.

Mar

[Updated] Guerrilla Bob, Cross-Platform Shooter With Multiplayer Support And Stunning 3D Graphics, Now In The Android Market

Posted by Will Shanklin in Games, News

Last Updated: March 18th, 2011

It seems that the Android Market's gaming content has been improving by leaps and bounds lately, has it not? It was just a few months ago that Doodle Jump and Replica Island were some of the best our beloved OS could offer. While we still appreciate our humble beginnings, those days are long gone and mustached mercenary Guerrilla Bob is here to announce that - with his machine guns blazing.

An import from iOS, Angry Mob Games' Guerrilla Bob is a top-down action-packed shooter that pits a Rambo-like, cigar-chomping avenger (you guessed it, Guerrilla Bob) against an army of baddies ranging from terrorists to bulldozer-driving madmen.

Mar

Wank-O-Meter For Android - Yes, There Is An App For That; No, Steve Jobs Would Most Definitely Not Accept It In The App Store [WTF x100]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News, Off-Topic

This morning, I got a new app tip in my inbox with an inconspicuous subject "New android app." Not knowing what to expect, I opened it up and read the following, followed by the app's description:

Good news! We just launched a new essential android application: the Wankometer.

At this point, I stopped reading, experiencing conflicting feelings that can only be described as a mix of extreme WTFness, curiosity, and preliminary pride for the Android platform (I had a feeling that Steve Jobs would not let this app into the iOS App Store, and I was right).

I was not let down.

Mar

Call To Developers: Cloud Data Backup Capabilities Have Existed In Android Since Froyo, So Why Is No One Using Them?

Posted by Will Shanklin in Apps/Games, Development, News, Off-Topic

While we love apps like Titanium Backup that make restoring your data relatively easy when you upgrade phones, buy a tablet, or switch to a new ROM, what if they weren't even necessary? What if all of your apps' data could be stored in the cloud? This would not only make backing up and restoring easier, but it would save you a big chunk of SD card storage, right? It turns out that these capabilities have been present in the Android OS since the arrival of Froyo last year. So why aren't developers using them?

Check this out from the Android Developers' Guide:

Android's backup service allows you to copy your persistent application data to remote "cloud" storage, in order to provide a restore point for the application data and settings.