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When turntable.fm first came out on Android, we were excited. In my review, I said that it was a fantastic start, but could use a bit of polish. In no small part, because of those dang iOS-style buttons. While I still believe that iOS- buttons do not single-handedly make a lazy port, it's nice to see that the developer has taken the time to bring the UI in line with the newest guidelines. Additionally, the update says it fixes some force close problems and generally improves stability.
Hi. Welcome to the future. Mountain View, California, 2012. I'm telling you it's great here. You've got a location-aware, always-connected supercomputer in your pocket. What good is it, though, if you're only ever using it to check what's going on in Facebook land? Enter Field Trip, the latest app to be released by Google (via the obscure Niantic Labs), which offers you information about all the things around you, including trivia, facts about local monuments, restaurant reviews, and more.
If seeing a company's executive chairman performing a vaguely-sexual, somewhat-equestrian dance for a room full of South Korean employees doesn't make stock prices soar, I honestly can't fathom what would. Eric Schmidt, seen below getting his white-boy groove on Gangnam style, was in Korea to discuss Google's new product Google Pelvic Thrusts. Unbeknownst to the former-CEO, while inside Korean borders, if a person discusses any form of lower abdominal movements, the entire room is legally required to break out in the trendy song and dance.
When Matt reviewed Tiny Bang Story yesterday, he found it big on imagination, but gameplay came up short. If the $3 price tag was too large of a risk for you, though, maybe this sale will be more your size. HeroCraft has shrunk the price by two thirds, bringing it down to an outright miniscule $1. Any smaller and you'd need a magnifying glass to find it.
You seen one top-scrolling space shooter, you've seen 'em all, am I right? No, as a matter of fact, I am not. Voxel Invaders is here to prove that. Take a look at the trailer below and you see that the game starts off simple enough. Some nice, 3D-ish graphics adorn an otherwise banal battleground. Or so it seems. Until around ten seconds into the video, when the world shifts and we see things from a whole new perspective.
Sprint has some presents for you, especially if you live in the midwest. For starters, several cities are getting their shiny new LTE networks lit up today including Wichita, KS, Waukegan-Lake County, IL and more (listed below). As an added bonus, the #3 carrier also announced that the Network Vision rollout is beginning in Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles. For those who are unaware, the Network Vision plan provides for significant improvements to the existing 3G infrastructure, in addition to eventual LTE upgrades.
One of the biggest drawbacks to new versions of Android is that it can take forever for the new features to roll out to current users. For launcher-specific items, though, we can always count on developers to bring us up to speed. Nova Launcher has done just that with several Jelly Bean-esque add-ons to its ICS-compatible app, including automatic rearranging of desktop elements, and the ability to fling apps and widgets away to remove them from your homescreen.
I know, you were really hoping for that extra special upgrade that Zuckerberg has been teasing ever since he admitted that HTML5 was a mistake. This should be a nice little improvement, though. Now, no matter which app you do your Facebook messaging from, whether it's messaging in Facebook, or via Facebook Messenger (confused yet?), you'll be able to see which of your friends is online, whether they're mobile, and even pin select friends that you talk to most to the top of the list.
Not so fast there, limbless flyboy. While Rayman Jungle Run was scheduled to arrive on the Play Store today, it looks like a delay has set back those plans and now the side-scroller based on the popular Ubisoft character will be launching on Thursday, September 27th. Not a huge delay, but one that's being made to "provide the best gaming experience."
Let's face it. The patent system is a mess. Applying for a patent can be a process that takes years. Then there's the issue of prior art. Is this patent valid? Was it obvious? Should it have been granted in the first place? And that's without getting into whether or not other devices infringe. It can be a huge cluster of ugly. Enter AskPatents. This new Stack Exchange site has been set up to crowd source the finding of prior art and researching whether or not patents are valid.
No, it's not the Bard of Avon, but this smarmy rogue should still be able to keep you plenty entertained. The Bard's Tale is a Diablo-ish RPG starring Cary Elwes (best known for ruining your perception of the Dread Pirate Roberts and Mel Brooks' Robin Hood by doing this). Complete with absurd humor, catchy drinking songs, and adventure galore, this game promises to keep you engaged for up to 3.5GB worth of your time (for Tegra device owners, 1.7GB otherwise). Yes, it's friggin' huge.
While services like Spotify and Rdio may steal the spotlight most of the time, there are other streaming subscription services out there. Related: we need a better name than "streaming subscription services." Rhapsody, originally founded by Real Networks and since become an independent entity, has a pretty impressive library that users can now download for offline playback. An essential feature for a modern cloud music player. Update: To clarify, it's the ability to download songs on an individual or per-album basis that is new. Users were always able songs by adding them to a playlist first. This simply makes the process simpler.
Last year, Samsung revolutionized parodies of revolutions. Now, they've revolutionized the revolutionizing of making fun of revolutionizing revolutions. The Korean manufacturer has released the newest iteration of its "Next Big Thing" series of ads. This model has 50% more runtime than last year's model. New features include "the iPhone is for your parents," "we've had 4G for a while," and the totally not subtext-laden "my screen is bigger than your screen."
If you say nothing else about Samsung, the manufacturer is at least thorough about getting Ice Cream Sandwich out to as many devices as possible, if not punctual. Today's latest addition to the 4.0 stable is the Galaxy Exhilarate, a mid-range phone on AT&T. The update will be rolling out via Kies immediately.
Finance radio! Are you excited yet? Good. Bloomberg has released an app for the company's 24 hour network of audio shows discussing economics, business, and investment. Through Bloomberg Radio+ you can either choose to listen to whatever's on the air right now, or pull from a list of on-demand shows. You can even download the episodes for offline listening.
Twitter continues its march towards being taken seriously as a social network with today's update to its mobile app that brings some interesting new profile additions. For starters, header images. With Facebook and Google+ beginning the trend, it seems a social network can't have just a profile picture anymore. Everyone who's anyone has a profile picture, and a hero image.
It's almost become trite to hear that Google has bought another company that deals in photo editing software. Yet, here we are again. Today, Vic Gundotra announced on Google+ that Nik Software, creators of the impressive Snapseed app that we saw demoed at CES this year, will be joining the Mountain View team.
In a time long before Captain America was even a glimmer in Strategic Scientific Reserve's eye, there was another World War. Did you know that? Yep. There were a lot of airplanes in it. Sky Gamblers: Rise of Glory lets players take those planes up in the air in a flight sim/aerial combat game that actually looks rather polished. Take a look:
Part of the fun of custom ROMs is seeing how devoted developers improve upon the stock Android experience. Yesterday, we saw a fantastic example in the graphing calculator that's been released to the Play Store and will soon be integrated into CM10. Now, the team is bringing a new improvement to the stock clock app: stopwatch and timer features.
While we still wait for newer products like Play Movies or Play Books to reach a wider audience, Google's been hard at work bringing a slightly more useful product to additional countries: Google Maps with Navigation. After bringing voice navigation to India, nine more new countries are being added to the supported list for the Navigation beta. Including the following: