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The Facebook application for Android received a nice little update today, making the earlier 1.6 update feel a bit more complete. In addition to streamlining the new, prettier newsfeed UI (screenshot #1), v1.6.1 brings these to the table:
If you think the $450 Staples sale on the Wi-Fi version of the 32GB Motorola XOOM Honeycomb tablet that we covered earlier this month was a good deal, prepare for even better news. Woot.com, a popular deals site that puts one product up for sale per day, is selling none other than the 32GB version of the XOOM today for only $399.99 + $5 shipping.
T-Mobile's faux 4G network, also known as 3G HSPA+, is receiving a major update today in 56 more markets, which should double the maximum theoretical data throughput from 21MBps to 42MBps for compatible HSPA+ devices.
If you've been following Android Police, you've probably seen the Android programming book giveaway series that we're doing together with O'Reilly Media and now informIT (#1, #2, #3, #4). It's time to announce the winners of the 4th giveaway, selected by the joint AP/informIT panel, who will receive a brand new copy of Android Wireless Application Development (2nd Edition).
Coupled with the Market update that was announced and subsequently leaked earlier today, Google released a new version of the Videos app, previously available only on certain tablets. Because the new Android Market adds support for movies, among other things, the much needed update to Videos opens up access to devices running Android 2.2 (Froyo) and 2.3 (Gingerbread).
The new Android Market, announced mere hours ago, has started rolling out to a small set of users who, of course, immediately shared it with the rest of the world for everyone to enjoy (or hate, depending on your reaction to the design).
The geniuses behind the AlphaRevX unlocker, which a few weeks ago made rooting, recovery, and custom ROMs possible on the Droid Incredible S, Desire (CDMA and GSM), Wildfire, and Aria just released an updated beta v2, with support for Droid Incredible 2 (aka vivow, the Verizon CDMA version) and Desire S (aka saga).
While we're on the subject of why Sprint is the carrier to go with nowadays ($50 contract extension credit "just because," unlimited data without expensive and complicated tiers **cough Verizon cough**, great customer service, etc.), I wanted to throw yet another reason for existing Sprint customers to stick around.
Would you look at that - only hours after we leaked the long overdue update that, most importantly, fixes reboot issues, Verizon opened the flood gates and is now pushing the 74MB download over-the-air to HTC Thunderbolts all over the country.
If you've been following Android Police, you've probably seen the Android programming book giveaway series that we're doing together with O'Reilly Media (#1, #2, #3). It's time to announce the winners of the 3rd giveaway, selected by the joint AP/O'Reilly panel, who will receive a brand new copy of Developing Android Applications with Flex 4.5.
Our first 2 giant tablet giveaways seemed to strike a chord with you guys, and after transforming two Android phone fans into two happy Android tablet fans over the past few months (congratulations again, Keith and Chris), we are not going to stop and continue giving away awesome prizes to you, our loyal readers.As you may have already figured out from the title, our 3rd giant giveaway, sponsored by NVIDIA, is going to involve a Galaxy Tab 10.1, the slimmest 10" Honeycomb Android tablet on the planet and my personal favorite. In particular, we're giving away a 16GB Wi-Fi version that retails at $499.99.We've got so much stuff to give away that instead of the usual 2 weeks, we'll shorten the period to 1 week.The Tab 10.1 features:
Yodlee (Wikipedia), the pioneer of personal financial management software - the one that used to power Mint.com and still powers hundreds of large banking sites - released a long-awaited Android app for its own MoneyCenter service today. I've been a Yodlee user for many years, and when I saw it released to the Market a few hours ago, I didn't hesitate a moment and immediately bought it.
The title pretty much says it all, but I'll explain this quick tip in a bit more detail. All too often I want to jump into the Market on my phone and search for an app I already have in mind. However, before the search box even appears, I am forced to wait for the featured app screen to finish loading, which on slow connections can take ages.
Gameloft's newest gaming title, BackStab HD, is available to users of high-end Android phones, the company announced minutes ago. Thankfully, the new title, which is a bloody (oh yes it is, just watch the video below), sword-bashing 3D game that reminds us of Assassin's Creed, is available in the Android Market for $6.99, honoring Gameloft's promise to deliver more games via our preferred channel as opposed to their own off-Market web store.
The team behind the most popular custom Android ROM on the planet, CyanogenMod, is not planning to take a break even for the national holiday (happy Independence Day, everyone!), giving us a number of new reasons to praise their product over and over again.
DataViz, the maker of DocumentsToGo, is celebrating Independence Day by offering a 53% discount on the full version of its flagship application, which is a collection of Office replacement applications that gives you Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, and Google Docs support all in one package.
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 week or so.
CoPilot, a popular navigation and mapping company, released Live USA Standard and Premium v9 offline navigation apps to the Android Market on Monday, June 27th. While most people immediately think and resort to using Google Maps, CoPilot apps could come in quite handy for those without data plans (such as phones disconnected from service or Wi-Fi only) or in areas of poor data reception (I felt the need for something like this just this past weekend on a trip to a remote lake).
To help aspiring Android developers get off the ground and develop our next dream app, and after having massive success with our O'Reilly partnership, Android Police has partnered with informIT to give away a multitude of Android books to our readers. Each week or so, we're going to be giving away a different informIT Android book, asking for nothing but a minute of your time in return.
Skype, one of the most popular audio/video calling applications on the desktop and now property of Microsoft, has been long criticized for lacking any video support on Android and being generally unstable and prone to crashing. In an effort to rectify the situation and raise that 3.6-star Market average, the company released a major version update minutes ago from 1.0.0.983 to 2.0.0.45.