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

May

Simple And GoBank: A Closer Look At The Future Of Banking In The Cloud

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, Features

Throughout the course of time, the US banking system has gone largely unchanged. There have been a variety of micro-evolutions – from cash to check, check to debit, and the like – but the way we interact with banks has remained much the same. Many people take comfort in the fact that they can walk into a local branch and speak with someone should a problem arise, but therein also lies the problem with banking as we know it: physical branches. I'm not saying that brick-and-mortar banks are a necessarily a bad thing in themselves, but being tethered to a physical location can be exceedingly annoying.

May

34 Best (And 1 WTF) New Android Games From The Last 2 Weeks (5/2/13 - 5/14/13)

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Best Apps/Games/LWPs Of The Week, Games, News, Roundups

Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.

This edition focuses only on new games. The app roundup is coming up soon.

Please wait for this page to load in full in order to see the AppBrain widgets, which include ratings and pricing info.

Looking for the previous roundup editions? Find them here.

Featured App

Strategy & Tactics: WW II

Today's roundup is presented by Strategy & Tactics: WW II from HeroCraft. You could be forgiven for thinking that this turn-based strategy game looks a lot like Risk, but instead of Napoleonic struggles, the digital adaptation takes the battlefield to WWII-era Europe.

May

[APK Teardown] Google Play Services 3.1, Part 2 - All Your App Data In The Cloud, A New Cloud-Based Location Service, And More

Posted by Ron Amadeo in APK Teardown, News

Welcome back! Google Play Services 3.1 is such a ridiculously huge update; I had to stretch it out over two articles - that's a first for APK Teardown. If you somehow missed the Google Play Games extravaganza, part one is right here.

Part two is all about the non-games discoveries, which there are a lot of. Before we get into that though, there is one detail I left out of the games article that I really should mention:

The Play Games Codename

Google always comes up with the coolest code names for projects, and the Play Services games client is no exception.

May

"Google Play Games" Leaks Out In All Its Glory Ahead Of Google I/O - Hello, Cloud Game Saves [APK Teardown]

Posted by Ron Amadeo in APK Teardown, News

Remember how we told you Google Games was coming, and how it's going to pack multiplayer functionality, leaderboards, achievements, and stuff like that? That's happening. There are going to be cloud game saves too.

Fresh out of Google HQ, we've managed to score a copy of the new Google Play Services v3.1.36, which is very slowly rolling out to devices right now. For comparison, the current Play Services that most people have is v3.0.27. 3.1 is a massive update - the strings file, for instance, has more than doubled from 300 to 700 entries. This is how Google is pushing out all the shared files for Google Play Games.

May

[APK Teardown] Google Glass XE5 - A "Take A Note" And Menu Voice Commands, More Wink Work, And Localization Progress

Posted by Ron Amadeo in APK Teardown, Glass, Google, News

Man, Google Glass moves at the speed of light. This is crazy.

The big XE5 update just hit the interwebs, so that means it's time for a teardown! XE5 is still Android 4.0.4 based, but now we're up to build 4.0.4-665738; the old version was 4.0.4-625737.

The Glass Team is still extraordinarily messy; any new file usually has copies in a million different locations. Basically, everything ships in every APK. Maybe the Glass Team is using extremely bad organization as a form of Teardown obfuscation. (It's not working.)

Take A Note

It looks like note taking is coming to Google Glass!

May

27 Best (And 2 WTF) New Android Apps And Live Wallpapers From The Last 2 Weeks (4/25/13 - 5/6/13)

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Applications, Best Apps/Games/LWPs Of The Week, News, Roundups

Last Updated: May 13th, 2013

Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.

This is the app roundup. The game roundup from this week can be found here.

Please wait for this page to load in full in order to see the AppBrain widgets, which include ratings and pricing info.

Looking for the previous roundup editions? Find them here.

Featured App

3CX Mobile Device Manager

Today's roundup is brought to you by 3CX Mobile Device Manager. The app is designed as an employee, device, and inventory tracking service, allowing employers to take a fast and accurate look at where all their mobile devices are at any given time.

May

[APK Teardown] Google Glass "XE4" System Dump - Are You A Typophile?

Posted by Ron Amadeo in APK Teardown, Glass

Despite not (yet) having Google Glass, I've managed to get a hold of a system dump, so it's time to have some fun for the day and see if Glass has any (more) hidden goodies for us. It'll also be fun to see just what makes Glass tick, and how the OS is laid out.

APK Teardown is usually at its best when I have a previous version to diff against and, you know, when I've actually used or at least seen the software in question. I don't have any of those benefits for this teardown, so things could get interesting.

May

23 Best (And 3 WTF) New Android Games From The Last 2 Weeks (4/19/13 - 5/1/13)

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Best Apps/Games/LWPs Of The Week, Games, News, Roundups

Last Updated: May 13th, 2013

Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.

This edition focuses only on new games. The app roundup is coming up soon.

Please wait for this page to load in full in order to see the AppBrain widgets, which include ratings and pricing info.

Looking for the previous roundup editions? Find them here.

Featured App

Boulder Dash®-XL™

Today's roundup is brought to you by Boulder Dash XL from Herocraft. Boulder Dash wasn't considered the greatest game of the bygone 8-bit era, but it had its share of fans thanks to interesting "Dig-Dug meets Tetris" gameplay.

May

Top Android Apps Every Rooted User Should Know About, Part 8: Apps 58-65

Posted by Ryan Whitwam in Applications, Best Apps For Rooted Users Series, Roundups

Last Updated: May 13th, 2013

There are plenty of apps in Google Play these days, but a relatively small proportion are designed to unlock the power of a rooted device. Since it can be easy for these powerful apps to get obscured by the crush of retro, free-to-play, side-scrolling platformer games, we like to aggregate the best root-only apps on occasion. Whether you want to free up some screen real estate, change icons around, or manage your backups, the apps you need are right here.

This article deals with a couple of advanced topics. If you’re unfamiliar with some of the terms, hit up our primers here:

Apr

50 Best (And 2 WTF) New Android Apps And Live Wallpapers From The Last 2 Weeks (4/9/13 - 4/24/13)

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Applications, Best Apps/Games/LWPs Of The Week, News, Roundups

Last Updated: May 13th, 2013

Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.

This is the app roundup. The game roundup from last week can be found here.

Please wait for this page to load in full in order to see the AppBrain widgets, which include ratings and pricing info.

Looking for the previous roundup editions? Find them here.

Featured App

PassWallet - Password Manager

Today's roundup is brought to you by PassWallet (formerly Password Wallet) by HandyApps. Passwords are hard, thanks to the thousands of logins required for modern digital living.