Editorials - 14/20 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

May

[Updated Again] N64oid, Snesoid And Other Emulators Pulled From The Market, Developer Suspended, Are Emulators Soon To Be Banned Content?

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Apps/Games, Editorials, News

Update 3: ZodTTD, developer of several well-known emulators, recently met a similar fate as yongzh - both his Market account and his apps were removed. Today, he decided to clarify a few things in a blog post, noting that the removal of the apps was not due to an open source violation but rather came as a result of a trademark infringement letter from Sony to Google concerning PSX4Droid's icon. While yongzh did not publish any Sony emulators himself, it does seem that the big guys are taking an active interest in the emulator situation on the Market.

Update 2: Google has issued a generic response to our inquiry asking what led to the takedown:

Thanks for checking in.

May

Lodsys Patent Trolling Starting To Target Android App Devs - OK, Now It's Personal

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Apps/Games, Editorials, News

You've all probably heard bits and pieces of news about a company called Lodsys in the last couple of weeks, (they've been "patent trolling" iOS app developers) even if you don't really keep up on all things fruit-related. If you're not familiar with the story, let me give you a quick rundown.

Lodsys is what we affectionately refer to as a "patent troll" - a company that buys up promising and often vague or [overly] broad patents in a hope of using them to threaten to sue the pants off people that they know might be infringing on them. Let me say that again - they find a patent, find out how many people might be infringing it, and then decide to buy it.

May

Google Responds To PayPal Trade Secret Lawsuit - What Does It All Really Mean? An Explanation

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Editorials, News

Disclaimer: I'm not an attorney. This is not legal advice.

The PayPal and Google lawsuit is just another one of Google's seemingly endless big-name legal tangles over the last couple of years. Why is Google litigation such a frequent topic?

At least in part, it's because Google has one of the most aggressive stances towards litigation of any member of the tech industry. Google's reputation for taking its battles to court has become almost notorious (well, except for the "Buzz" incident) - regardless of cost or, sometimes, likelihood of victory. Google's approach is one of the modern corporation - during the 1990's and 80's, when civil litigation was actually more prevalent, in-house counsels for major corporations often preferred to settle potentially high-dollar suits rather than risk wasting piles of cash on defending them, only to lose in the end.

May

[Updated Again With Swype's Statement] Swype: Permission Spoofing Would Mean The End Of Swype Beta On Android

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Apps/Games, Development, Editorials, News

Update 3: Swype has contacted us to clarify the following:

Swype does not, and will not ever make money off of the data it collects from you. They do not sell ads. They do not sell information. The comment made on the CM review forum was a generalization about the larger Android app developer community, and in no way was intended to imply that Swype uses your data for ad revenue.

Update 2: Here's what Swype Community Representative Brian Resnik has to say about all this:

Swype Community Rep here (the guy who made the comments on Google Code).

Honestly, piracy is not our concern.

Apr

[WTF] Barnes & Noble Responds To Microsoft's Android Lawsuit, Reminds Us Why MS Is The Devil

Posted by Brad Ganley in Android OS, Editorials, News, NOOKcolor (Encore)

Last month, Microsoft took bookseller Barnes & Noble, the company responsible for the Nook and Nook Color, to court over some patents infringed because B&N used the Android operating system in the Nook and Nook Color. This is definitely nothing new in the world of mobile devices. It happens all the time, especially with companies like Apple and Microsoft trying to take complete dominance of every arena they enter. That's not the big story here. The big story is the extremely, and I mean EXTREMELY douche-tastic way Microsoft is trying to attack Android with these patents.

One of Android's biggest advantages (besides being vastly superior, of course) is that it costs exactly nothing.

Apr

[In Response To Your Concerns] Google Voice + Sprint Integration Questions and Answers

Posted by Brad Ganley in Applications, Editorials, Sprint, Tips & Tutorials

Last Updated: May 13th, 2011

A few days ago I posted about my experience with the Google Voice integration with Sprint and outlined exactly how I did it. In the comments section, you guys responded with a lot of good thoughts and, in some cases, some serious bugs and questions. I have done a little bit of research, some testing, and some drinking (just kidding. Kind of), and I have some answers and responses for you upstanding, early-adopting citizens.

The Questions

1.How will this affect my MMS?

This was actually the main reason I chose to integrate my Sprint and Google Voice accounts. The short answer is this: If you want to use your Google Voice number in place of your Sprint number, you'll have to have people send MMS messages to your Sprint number.

Apr

Compared: HTC Droid Incredible 2 vs The Original Droid Incredible [Specs]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Editorials, HTC, Incredible, Incredible 2 (Vivow)

It's April 28th, the official release date for the 2nd generation Droid Incredible from HTC, and if you haven't studied this phone in detail yet, you're probably wondering just what exactly has changed since the original "Dinc" entered the market last April. Let's have a look, shall we?

Key Differences

Network

First and foremost, just like the Droid 2 Global Edition, the new Incredible 2 is a world phone with both CDMA and GSM frequencies. Verizon Wireless provides the following interesting numbers:

voice service in over 220 countries
data in over 200 countries
3G speeds in more than 125

Quite a step-up from the original already, isn't it?

Apr

PSA: Take It Easy, AT&T Isn't Targeting Unauthorized Android Tethering (And May Never)

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, AT&T, Editorials, News, Tips & Tutorials

There's been a lot of talk about AT&T's crusade against rogue tethering lately, and it all comes back to this AT&T text message sent to some poor iPhone customer(s):

AT&T Free Msg: We’ve noticed you’re continuing to enjoy the tethering feature with your smartphone service. Remember, you need a tethering plan ($45/mo, incl. 4GB) to use this feature, so we’re planning to update your line with the required plan soon.

Yes, the carrier everyone loves to hate is cracking down on unauthorized tethering - and they are automatically switching violators onto AT&T's 4GB data plan with tethering access, at a steep $45 a month.

Apr

[Story Time] Sprint + Google Voice Integration: I Did It, And Here's How It Went

Posted by Brad Ganley in Carriers, Editorials, News, Sprint, Tips & Tutorials

Back in March, when we first heard about Sprint getting the Nexus S, we also heard about their fancy new Google Voice integration plan. The idea was simple: Let Sprint users do one of two things:

Use their current Sprint phone number as a Google Voice number, enabling all of Voice's awesome features to be utilized without having to create a group on Facebook to give out your new number.
Allow current Google Voice users to use their Voice number for their Sprint line without having to port the number to Sprint, because, a while ago, they went through the trouble of creating a Facebook group and gave everyone they know their Google Voice number so now nobody has their Sprint number.

Apr

Verizon Has 565,000 4G LTE Subscribers, Will Speeds Start Suffering Soon?

Posted by David Ruddock in 4G, Carriers, Editorials, News, Verizon Wireless

Verizon released the first subscriber figures for its rapidly expanding 4G network today - presumably to highlight strong sales of the carrier's first 4G handset, the HTC Thunderbolt.

Of the 565,000 (500,000 is the number Verizon added to its subscriber base in Q1) 4G users, about 260,000 are utilizing Verizon's LTE service via an HTC Thunderbolt. This means that since the launch of the Thunderbolt on March 17, Verizon has been gaining over 100,000 new LTE subscribers a week. And with 4G devices like the Samsung DROID Charge and the Motorola DROID BIONIC on the way, it seems Big Red's 4G campaign is just getting started.