Features - 22/32 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Oct

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[Getting To Know Android 4.0, Part 3] YouTube Grows Up

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Features, Getting To Know Android, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News

Last Updated: August 10th, 2012

YouTube is the ugly duckling of the Gapps family. That's right, I said it.

The 100% black design and horrible gradients make it look like a 13 year old boy's geocities page. It certainly doesn't look like it's from a professional company. It's only saving grace it that, since it's a video app, you aren't subjected to the UI that often when you are using at it. Thankfully, with the arrival of Ice Cream Sandwich, amateur hour is over.

You should know the drill by now. We're picking apart Ice Cream Sandwich and comparing it to the previous phone version of Android, Gingerbread.

Oct

[Getting To Know Android 4.0, Part 2] Google Talk Gets A Facelift

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Features, Getting To Know Android, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News

Last Updated: August 10th, 2012

Google Talk is one of my favorite parts about Android. If you have other Googly friends, between Android, Gmail, and G+, they are almost always available. In Android 2.3.4, Google Talk got a big upgrade in the form of voice and video chat.

There will be many similarities to the to the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Gmail, which was the subject of Part 1 of this series. So go read about it or risk falling behind the rest of the class. Just like that article, Gingerbread is on the left, Ice Cream Sandwich is on the right. The ICS pictures are all from the emulator, which has the occasional rendering issue, so don't judge too harshly.

Oct

[Hunt For The Best Dialer, Part 7] Contapps Contacts & Dialer Is An Undoubtedly Impressive, Beautiful Dialer Replacement

Posted by Liam Spradlin in App Reviews, Applications, Hunt For The Best Dialer

Continuing on the quest for the perfect dialer to replace Android's stock phone application, I've come across Contapps Contacts & Dialer, an app I had never heard of until I began scouring the market. For a free dialer app, it has a lot to offer, and I'm surprised that it isn't more popular.

At A Glance

Contapps is a dialer replacement that is simple, practical, and well-designed, with enough extra features to make it feel new. While it may have a couple of redundancies or inconsistencies, it's definitely a great dialer, and definitely has a shot at being my everyday dialer solution (at least until I get my hands on Ice Cream Sandwich).

Oct

56 (And 4 WTF) Best New Android Apps And Live Wallpapers From The Last 3 Weeks (9/27/11 - 10/21/11) - PART 2

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

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

This is PART 2 of the app roundup. You can find PART 1 here. The game roundup from this week can be found here and the tablet app roundup 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.

Apps - PART 2

Anti

Android Police coverage: Zimperium Finally Releases 'Anti' For Android, Allows You To Use Penetration Testing Tools On The Go

** Root Required **

The days where penetration testers carry around laptops with them to test the security of networks seem to be numbered, with Zimperium's 'Anti' bringing a lot of those tools over from the PC to Android smartphones.

Oct

[Getting To Know Android 4.0, Part 1] Gmail: Android's Most Important App

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Applications, Features, Getting To Know Android, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0

Last Updated: August 10th, 2012

For many people, Gmail is Android's killer app. It's the best email app on any platform, and one of the biggest draws to Android. So anytime there is a change, it's pretty big news. With Ice Cream Sandwich, Gmail got a huge revamp. Every inch of the app has changed. Today we're going to find out just what is so different.

I'm sure you've read other articles on the new ICS apps, but those are just rehashing what was shown in the Hong Kong demo. With the recent system apps dump and some SDK shenanigans, we can sit down with a real, working version of Gmail 4.0 and uncover its secrets.

Oct

56 (And 4 WTF) Best New Android Apps And Live Wallpapers From The Last 3 Weeks (9/27/11 - 10/21/11) - PART 1

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

Last Updated: November 4th, 2011

Welcome to the weekly roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Market or were spotted by us in the previous 3 weeks or so.

This is PART 1 of the app roundup. You can find PART 2 here. The game roundup from this week can be found here and the tablet app roundup 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

Today's roundup is sponsored by HeroCraft's latest game - Musaic Box.

Oct

Interview With Android UX Lead Matias Duarte: "Google Is Taking Design A Lot More Seriously"

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Google, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, Interviews

Let's get the preliminary question off the plate first: who is Matias Duarte? Well for one thing, he oversaw the designing of a few small projects such as webOS, Sidekick OS, and Helio (the little carrier that could... be bought out). And, oh yeah, he also played a large part in Honeycomb's development.

Yesterday he sat down with Joshua Topolsky of This is my Next (soon to be The Verge) to discuss the "philosophy" of Android and, more specifically, Ice Cream Sandwich. It certainly provides some interesting insight into the man behind ICS' fancy new UI, and while we highly recommend you read the full interview, we'll be providing a few highlights below so as to save you some time (the unabridged version is quite lengthy).

Oct

38 Best New Android Games From The Last 3 Weeks (9/23/11 - 10/18/11)

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

Welcome to the weekly roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Market or were spotted by us in the previous 3 weeks or so.

This edition focuses only on new games. The app roundup is coming up soon, and you can find the tablet app roundup 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

Today's roundup is sponsored by HeroCraft's latest game - Musaic Box.

Oct

[Hunt For The Best Dialer, Part 6] Angel Dialer Offers An Alternative To The Stock Dialer For Those Who Like Simplistic, Pre-Defined Interfaces

Posted by Liam Spradlin in App Reviews, Applications, Hunt For The Best Dialer

Joining the vast crowd of dialer replacements in the Android Market, our hunt has brought us to Angel Dialer, an uncomplicated app that effectively replaces the stock Android dialer, but which may have compromised necessary functionality for a no-frills implementation.

At A Glance

While Angel Dialer takes a concerted stance against superfluous features, its simplicity is not always a plus. While its features work, and it provides the same basic functionality we've seen before, it is lacking a few things that would take it up a level, and make it a decent dialer replacement. As it stands, I wouldn't say it's in the running for my day-to-day dialer app, but it does have some positive points.

Oct

20 Best Android 3.0+ Apps For Honeycomb Tablets From The Last 3 Weeks (9/22/11 - 10/13/11)

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

Welcome to the weekly roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Market or were spotted by us in the previous 3 weeks or so.

This edition focuses only on new tablet apps or ones that added Honeycomb support. Regular apps and games are coming 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.