Latest Articles
I was about to go to sleep, but, of course, when I heard of a possible G2 OTA report, and one that brings such important new features as WiFi calling, otherwise known as UMA, and native tethering, I had to stay up just a bit longer.
Welcome to the weekly roundup of the best new Android applications and games that went live in the Market in the previous week or so. Compared to last week's roundup, this one is huuuuge and is a real testament to how seriously developers are starting to treat Android.
With the release of Adobe Air on Android last week, many users were left wondering how exactly they could use the new 15+ MB clunker. A day after the release, however, the Market was booming with Air apps, ranging from the most basic demos to video calling to gems like this one.
Excellent news for Verizon customers wondering just when exactly the largest carrier in the US is going to start gunning after Sprint 4G and other competition. In a press release published a few minutes ago from the CTIA conference, Verizon detailed plans for 4G LTE expansion that we can expect by the end of the year.
If there is one game on Android that keeps me coming back to it, even after I already beat all the levels, it's Angry Birds. The beta version, limited to 15 levels, was released about a month ago and proved to be a completely undeniable success, reaching 250k downloads in only 4 days. The game is so addicting that beating your own high scores can become a full time job to some. My wife, who never-ever played games before, mobile or any others, is now so hooked on Angry Birds that she steals my phone the minute I get home.
Wirefly, notorious for launching the best mobile deals on the web, did not disappoint us today, which, if you remember, is the official T-Mobile G2 launch date.
The number 1 Android app for rooted phones out there is undoubtedly Android WiFi Tether, which is a free alternative to all those carrier-bundled WiFi hotspot apps. In fact, it is the primary reason I root every Android phone I own - 2 hours of commute on the train suddenly become extremely productive because of always-on laptop connectivity. I've excitedly written about the app before, especially after it added support for Infrastructure mode and WPA2 on the EVO 4G.
Take a look at what I found in the Android Market this morning when I was doing a casual sift through the swamp of garbage that the Market is today. It's the official Yahoo Finance app - an app that trails behind Google's own super popular Finance app by over a year. Of course, the more the merrier, and Yahoo is a huge player in the finance world with its Yahoo Finance site, so I downloaded it to take a look.
[Updated] Google Starting To Flip The Switch On Purchasing Paid Android Market Apps In New Countries
Last week, Google announced that over the next 2 weeks, support for purchasing paid apps was coming to 18 more countries: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, and Taiwan.
Today, Google flipped the switch on paid app purchases in more countries, such as India, Sweden, and Denmark, just as promised, and with that came another subtle, yet important, change. Instead of showing prices in developers' native currencies, all application prices are now converted on the fly into your own currency.
After months and months of waiting for a voice-enabled Skype to be out on Android and giving Verizon users an evil eye for that exclusive deal Skype signed with the largest US carrier, I am here to tell you that less than 2 hours ago, Skype officially hit the Market. This time, the long-awaited app is no longer restricted to Verizon, so download away (Android 2.1+ required)!
CLIQ XT owners may experience slight excitement reading this, but only slight - the OTA update version 1.32.20 rolling out now to CLIQ XTs around the country does not contain Android 2.1 - it's merely an incremental update over its existing ancient OS (what is it, 1.5 nowadays?). This update showed up a couple of days ago as a limited beta test, and, thankfully, it didn't take Motorola long to open the flood gates to all CLIQ XT owners.
Do you guys remember Napster, the music sharing service that started it all, made huge headlines, was sued into oblivion, went legit as a radio with a monthly subscription fee, and later got picked up by Best Buy? Of course you do, and I'm willing to bet most of you downloaded at least one song using Napster back in the day.
GrubHub, an online food delivery and ordering company, just dropped an Android application into the Market. The app lets you find out which restaurants in your area deliver and place an order online or over the phone. Here are the areas with current GrubHub coverage:
Welcome to the weekly roundup of the best new Android applications and games that went live in the Market in the previous week or so.
Have you ever wanted to make custom ringtones, alarms, or notification sounds in Android but had no clue how to do it, even if you already put a media file onto your device? I can't blame you - Android is absolutely terrible about letting you do anything but pick one of the existing system sounds and offers no way of adding your own.
Sprint continued its 4G announcement marathon this morning with the official launch of WiMax service in Minneapolis-St.Paul, MN, also known as Twin Cities, and Pittsburgh, PA. Welcome to the fast lane!
Imgur.com is one of the best, if not the best, sites to upload that image you're about to share with a gazillion people. The site is very simple and robust, yet incredibly functional, and, most importantly, allows all uploaded images to be embedded on other sites without complaining about hotlinking. It is the service used almost exclusively for sharing pictures on reddit.com (hi all redditors!). Imgur started as an anonymous one-time upload service but later introduced account support, which was probably the most frequently requested feature.
Ever wanted to know what exactly it takes to roll out a whole new cellular network? Sprint, being one of the first companies in the US to do it (well, Clearwire is doing all the leg work), today launched a new video series which will explore just what exactly it takes to provide a large metropolitan area with 4G coverage.