Editorials - 19/20 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Nov

3 Years Ago, The World Saw Android For The First Time, And This Is What It Looked Like. Happy 3rd Birthday, Andy!

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, Editorials, News

Exactly 3 years ago, on November 5th, 2007, Google, along with its partners, publicly announced 2 very important things: the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) and Android. Up until that pivotal moment, the media speculated on the existence of a mysterious gPhone and not many were prepared for something that turned out to be much-much bigger.

Brief Android History

I know that there is some confusion around Android related dates, so let me explain, in my favorite bullet point style:

In July of 2005, Google acquired Android, which was a very small mobile oriented startup.
In the 2 year period following the acquisition, rumors regarding Google's possible entrance into the mobile phone market were aplenty, but the confirmation didn't arrive until November 5th, 2007.

Nov

What Is The Best Android Music Player? [Poll]

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

Last Updated: December 13th, 2010

As the Android platform celebrated its 2nd birthday last month, I thought now would be a good time to take a step back and look at all the music players available on the Market right now. Only a year ago, there were just a couple of worthy contenders, but now we have a choice of more than a dozen very good and popular apps and a few hundred not so popular ones. It's easy to get lost, isn't it?

What I'm looking for is not just a vote for the best app but also your reasoning for why it deserves to be #1.

Oct

Android Gets Flashed Over A Million Times, But Can Adobe Keep Us Excited?

Posted by David Ruddock in Editorials, News

Adobe's Flash Player for Android has topped a million downloads on the Market. Someone break out the special occasion custom label champagne. I really don't mean to be crass about Flash - but I can't help it.

Flash is the single most overhyped piece of software available for Android today, there's little in the way of getting around that statement. What has led me to such a conclusion? If the website of a restaurant I'm looking at on Yelp (an awesome piece of Android software) runs on a Flash interface, I just close the window. I have a Nexus One, it has Flash, and it runs CyanogenMod 6.

Oct

The Direction Android Smartphones Are Headed, Why It Might Be Bad, And How Google Can Stop It

Posted by David Ruddock in Editorials

We constantly hear about how smartphones are the evolutionary next-step in personal computing. Laptops sat atop this pedestal in the late 1990's, and tablets may soon come to share this title with their smartphone cousins.

But there's a glaring issue with smartphones: the players in the smartphone industry are to smartphones what Taco Bell is to choice of meat in your burrito. There's not a whole lot of wiggle room, and it's an increasingly take it or leave it sort of affair. HTC's new boot restore on the G2 and Desire Z, Motorola's eFuse bootloader protection, and Apple's extensive efforts to thwart jailbreaking on every iPhone software update are all evidence a trend that is decidedly against the spirit of personal computing.

Oct

Android At War: Google Mounts A Defense Against Oracle, But Can They Win? An Analysis

Posted by David Ruddock in Editorials, News

As we previously reported, Oracle America has filed suit against Google for (primarily) patent infringement. If you're not familiar with the case, I'll quickly summarize.

Oracle claims Google is in violation of seven U.S. patents previously filed by Sun Microsystems as part of the Java platform. Oracle now owns Sun. The alleged infringer, more specifically, is Android. If you want a more detailed explanation, read the next paragraph. If not, look at the pretty picture and continue.

The patents generally relate to the Java virtual machine (JVM). Apps on your Android phone run through the Dalvik VM (DVM), a Google / Open Handset Alliance developed alternative to JVM that utilizes portions of an open source Java implementation known as Apache Harmony.

Sep

Modder's Column: The Hunt For The Best HTC EVO 4G ROM

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Development, Editorials, Other Reviews, Reviews, Tips & Tutorials

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Modder's Column, formerly known as Modder’s Monday, is a column dedicated to rooting, hacking, and other forms of modifying Android and is written by Jaroslav Stekl, a man who spends his days coding, hacking, hiking, and of course, writing for Android Police.

As I mentioned in the last edition of Modder's Column, one of my favorite things about Android is how customizable it can be, even for novice users who would rather not spend all day hacking their phone.

Unfortunately, one thing Android does not allow you to do right out of the box is install custom ROMs, which allow you to further customize your device by adding features, removing useless apps, and possibly even speeding it up or improving battery life.

Sep

Editorial: Let Android Be Android

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Android OS, Editorials

Last Updated: January 17th, 2011

Introduction

I've had this article in mind for quite some time now, but haven't mustered up the courage to do it in fear of upsetting fanboys. But when the Fascinate shipped with Bing rather than Google as the default search engine, I could hold off no longer. For a Google Android phone to ship with a search engine other than Google, the search engine I know, love, and use on a daily basis (and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone here) is unthinkable; not offering a way to change it is even more of an outrage. Of course, Verizon isn't the only one committing this crime; AT&T did essentially the same thing with the Motorola Backflip, T-Mobile bastardized Sense on the MyTouch 3G Slide, and Sprint's had its share of Android-related evilness too (Sprint NASCAR?

Sep

Lego Just Became Cool Again - This 15" Android Logo Replica Is Ready To Take On Darth Vader Himself

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Android OS, Editorials, News

To be honest, I had completely forgotten what legos were (probably just a symptom of old age), but those little toy bricks aren't going away anytime soon, especially if structures like the one our tipster just shared with us keep on coming.

Yessir, what we're looking at here is a 15x12-inch replica of the Android logo made entirely out of legos. What's more, the robot was planned entirely through a custom C program. Sound cool? Grayson Wendell, our tipster, the builder of the replica, and the writer of the custom C program, also added in an Android-powered iPhone, just for kicks.

Sep

Samsung Galaxy Tab Hands-On Preview Roundup; Consensus: It's The First Serious Android Tablet

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Editorials, Froyo 2.2, Galaxy Tab, News, Reviews, Tablet Reviews

Last Updated: August 1st, 2012

Ever since the first rumors about an Apple tablet started circulating around the blogosphere, we Android enthusiasts have been dying to see an Android tablet of equivalent caliber, and it seems like Samsung's new Galaxy Tab might just be the one.

Unfortunately, Android Police did not have a chance to visit, simply because no member of the team lives close enough to Germany to drive there in a reasonable amount of time, and not one of our readers offered to pay for the plane tickets (how disappointing!).

However, several other tech blogs were there, and for now, we'll have to settle for their humble opinions, at least until we get our paws on a review unit, which shouldn't be too long (besides, it's not unlikely that we'll get some hands-on time with the Tab at Samsung's New York City press event next week).

Aug

Response To A Response: More On Google's Android Licensing Service

Posted by Justin Case in Development, Editorials

Today I awoke to see a response from Tim Bray on the Android Developer's Blog regarding my previous article on circumventing the Android License Verification Library, and I almost completely agree with him. The License Verification Library is a very good start - above and beyond what, if anything, Google owes developers. Copy protection is and should be the responsibility of the developer. Google has given us a great tool, provided thorough documentation, and even open sourced the project.

However, what I don't agree with in Mr. Bray's post was his calling my article a "how-to-pirate piece," as this was not my intent at all.