News - 701/978 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Jun

Well, That Was Fast - HTC Is Testing A Gingerbread Build For The Desire

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Desire (Bravo/BravoC), News

A couple of weeks ago, HTC said that, after months of hard work and failed attempts from its engineers, Gingerbread would not be coming to the Desire. Naturally, this brought on an onslaught of negative feedback from Desire owners, and HTC quickly backpedaled, stating that Gingerbread would be coming to the Desire, albeit a bit stripped down. It appears that this update was easier to put together than originally thought, as the build has now reached the testing phase, according to HTC's official Facebook page.

This means the official OTA should be just around the corner, but as always, we'll keep you posted as more information arises.

Jun

[New App] UK Newspaper The Times Hits The Android Market

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

Good news for those of you in the UK (or anyone else that likes to keep up with UK news): The Times for Android has finally hit the Android Market! The app brings The Times and The Sunday Times to the palm of your hand, with "the latest stories on your screen almost as fast as they are written," according to the Market description. It also allows you to customize the layout for quick access to the news that you care about, full picture galleries, and the ability to save stories for later.

Unfortunately, it looks like this version is more of an open beta, and will only be free for a limited amount of time.

Jun

[Updated x12: 7800+ Invited, Come Get Yours!] Want A Google+ Invite? Grab Yours Here

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Google, News

Last Updated: July 14th, 2011

Ever since Google+ and a matching Android app were released yesterday, we've been salivating and trying to get through the invite-only wall as hard as we could with no avail. Today, Google brought the wall down and allowed anyone already on Plus invite their friends, which, if you ask me, is how the service should have launched in the first place.

Since you, our readers, are all our friends, we'll be giving out Google+ invites for as long as our hands can type today. Leave a comment with your name and Gmail email (no Google Apps support yet, so don't bother) clearly visible in the comment body, and we'll try to hook you up as soon as we can.

Jun

Autodesk Releases Inventor Publisher Viewer To The Android Market

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

If you're familiar with Autodesk's Inventor Publisher software, then you know what a Godsend it can be for creating and viewing rich, three-dimensional instructions. Up until now, it has been lacking on thing, though - what if you're not at at PC when you need to view said instructions? Suddenly, the benefits of Inventor Publisher were not as glorious. That has all changed now, though, as Autodesk has released an Inventor Publisher Viewer app into the Android Market.

Like its name suggests, the viewer allows you to use instructions created in Inventor Publisher on your Android phone or tablet. That's right - this app is optimized for phones and tablets alike, adding even more functionality to its already strong skillset.

Jun

Yelp App Updated To Add New Groupon Now! Style "Deals" Feature

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

Yelp received an update today, and it adds a brand-new mobile-exclusive feature called Deals, which is essentially a competitor to Groupon's Groupon Now!. The Deals button found on the updated app integrates Yelp Special Offers, Check-In Offers, and its time/location-sensitive Deals all into a single, location-based menu.

Like Groupon Now!, you can only view offers within a certain distance of your current location (which is to say, it can't be manually set). The fact that it puts together all of Yelp's discount systems into a single list is really pretty handy, but unfortunately, there's no option to filter or sort the results.

Jun

New App: Kaspersky Unveils Honeycomb-Compatible Tablet Security

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Applications, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News, Tips & Tutorials

One of the geek community's favored anti-virus solutions on Windows, Kaspersky has recently made its move to secure the world of all things Android. Next up the company's sleeve is Kaspersky Tablet Security (clever name, right?), which brings Kaspersky's virus protection to Honeycomb (3.0 and 3.1, plus non-Honeycomb 2.1+) tablets. And it also runs on your phone, which allowed me (I am tablet-less) to take these screenshots:

Basically, it's Kaspersky Mobile Security 9 spruced up for tablets, with all the theft protection, call blocking, SMS, and other phone-specific features removed. It is kind of handy to have those superfluous features axed (except theft protection?) for the purpose of navigating the menus, but it seems like this app doesn't add much functionality over its phone counterpart, aside from a streamlined (and admittedly much better) home screen.

Jun

HTC Announces The Facebook-centric Status, Coming to AT&T This Summer

Posted by Cameron Summerson in News, Status

We've known of this phone and all of its different monikers - everything from the "Facebook phone" to the ChaCha - for a while, but now it's finally official, and bearing the name Status. Honestly, I can't think of a name more appropriate for a phone that's entire existence is defined by Facebook.

From a spec standpoint, the Status is nothing to brag about:

2.6 inch 480x320 display
800MHz Qualcomm processor
512MB RAM
Full Blackberry-style keyboard
Android 2.3 with Sense

What does make this phone special, however, is its social integration and the inclusion of a Facebook button. This allows for one-touch sharing of status updates, photos, news, and currently playing track.

Jun

[Updated] Gameloft Announces Upcoming Games For The Remainder Of 2011

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Games, News

Update: It looks like there was a bit of a mix up, as these games are for feature phones, not Android. Here is Gameloft's official statement on the matter:

I can confirm there has been a confusion. The lineup we have announced yesterday is only for feature phones (java and brew).

We do not announce in advance our line up of games for Android and iOS. Usually we announce our games for iPhone and Android separately (one announcement for each game).

Sorry for the confusion.

Original Post:

In an out-of-character move, Gameloft has given us a sneak peak into the future by releasing its full catalog of games expected to hit the last half of this year.

Jun

Samsung Galaxy S II Coming To Bell, Virgin Mobile, And SaskTel In Canada, US Still Lies In Wait

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Bell, Galaxy S II, News, SaskTel, Virgin Mobile

While the US patiently waits for any of its carriers to announce the Samsung Galaxy S II, our neighbor to the north just got itself a heaping helping of awesome. Not just one or two, but three Canadian carriers - Bell, Virgin Mobile, and SaskTel - announced that they would be carrying this superphone in the coming weeks.

The only carrier to provide any worthwhile info was SaskTel, stating that the GSII will come in for $79.99 with a three-year agreement, but no official release date was pegged.

While both release date and pricing are completely lacking for Virgin and Bell, you can sign up to win one at Bell's GSII landing page.

Jun

New App: ObscuraCam Automatically Detects, Blurs Faces And Strips Metadata From Your Photos

Posted by David Ruddock in Applications, Apps/Games, News, Tips & Tutorials

OK, this is probably one of the cooler apps I've seen in a while. ObscuraCam is an open source photo anonymizer project made in concert with the folks over at Witness.org - a human rights violation watchdog. Why is a human rights organization helping you blur those photos you took that night you accidentally [insert potential human rights violation here] but still thought would be hilarious to upload to Facebook?

Well, Witness wants this app to be used by political dissidents in countries where things like facial identification and metadata scraping are major barriers to posting photos of political protests online.