your unofficial guide to the google android
Posts tagged apple
Google heats up Social Networking
Jul 28th
Google Me rival for Facebook?
Droid X: Google’s Ticket to Smartphone Success
Jul 28th
| Droid X: Google’s Ticket to Smartphone Success By Don Reisinger July 27, 2010 The huge success of Motorola’s Droid X proves that Android is here to stay and that Google could potentially overtake Apple as the supreme mobile provider of smartphone software. |
how mobile applications against Apple and Google alliance
Jul 28th
Recently, committed to creating open application platform, telecommunications companies Union Wholesale Applications Community (WAC),
IPhone eliminates the Google phone smart
Jul 26th
With highlights of global phone “iPhone 4″ from the “Apple”, announced the “Google” a major global search engines as a “cull” my smart “Nexus Wen” after less than eight months after the birth, and expectations that provides phone on Google Phone Apple.
In the Declaration of the paragraphs of the Code Official Google phone, the only one in the world of smart phones, said the development team, “Nexus Wen,” The final shipment of these phones will be the end of this phone. According to the announcement, which coincided with the announcement, CEO of Apple Steve Jobs announcing a phone “iPhone 4″: “What’s that sell these devices, the phone ’s Nexus’ will not be available on Google’s site on the Internet.”
The “Google” was announced last January, by introducing the smart mobile phone that is running “Android” developed by the company itself. And a phone “Nexus One” is equipped with touch screen aperture of 9.4 cm, and was welcomed widely in the beginning, which led analysts to predict that called “mercy killing” on the phone “iPhone.”
But the reverse happened apparently as they were not followed by Google, only 135 thousand sets, compared with millions of devices from the “iPhone”, which meant that the latter profit fencing, and spent on “Nexus Wen.” The technology analyst at ABI Research, Kevin Burden, has played down reports that indicate that the “Nexus One” will strike a blow to a phone “iPhone.”
The Burden “I do not think that there is a new tool will be able to hit the ‘iPhone’, has sought each company over the past decade to bring the equipment said it will eliminate that preceded them, but that did not occur, the evidence is that the iPhone itself could not eradicate Blackberry devices “.
Android Froyo 2.2 with Flash 10.1
Jul 25th
Flash Player 10.1 is a major update, with support for new interaction models and APIs. There’s support for multi-touch, for gestures, and for accelerometers. The same features will work on mobile devices and on touch desktop and notebook devices.
Most existing Flash content just works in the Android beta, though Adobe says that it will continue to refine content with its partners. There’ll also be design guidance for developers wanting to build or update mobile versions of their Flash applications. One big change is a reduction in memory usage, in many cases up to 50% less.
Performance is much more important on mobile devices than desktop PCs, as resources are extremely limited. The Android version of the Flash Player performs well, thanks to work with Qualcomm as well as with Google. Qualcomm isn’t the only silicon vendor with Flash optimisation, as getting hardware acceleration is key to delivering an effective mobile solution. One key feature for improving performance is what Adobe is calling “smart rendering”, where content outside the viewable screen area isn’t fully rendered. There’s also support for low power states, reducing frame rates, and for sleep modes. This has also required Adobe to update its existing streaming protocols.
This results in a test H.264 video stream, playing in Flash with no hardware acceleration, running for 3 hours over 3G on a Nexus One. Playing casual games should offer 4 hours battery life.
Adobe has worked with Google to deliver additional features in Android, including support for over-the-air updates and content-triggered installation. This has meant that instead of the original expectation that Flash would run on Android 2.1 it now requires Android 2.2 (and can take advantage of a faster OS for AIR support). In a comment directed more at Apple than the keynote audience, Google’s Vic Gundotra described the partnership as “It’s great to work together to serve users, it’s much nicer than just saying no”.
This will be a public beta release, with software initially downloadable from the Android market. Adobe also separately announced that Flash Player 10.1 will be generally available in June, for Android and for desktop PCs (including a 64-bit release). While Adobe has a focus on Android at present, work is continuing on other platforms including Windows Phone 7, BlackBerry, Symbian, and WebOS.
FroYo, Android 2.2, is the next version of Android to be released. It’s a major update to the OS, and will run on many of the most recent Android devices. We’ll be looking at in more detail soon, but the features demonstrated on stage at IO make it clear that Google has set its sights firmly on Apple and the iPhone. As well as Flash and AIR support, there’s a new JVM with a JIT compiler that promises considerable speed up for existing apps and the arrival of Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine.
Developers get access to new debugging tools that deliver crash reports from devices to the Android market, where they can see a complete stack trace of any crash. The Android Market gets a considerable upgrade, with support for automatic updates. The keynote also demonstrated a future update will allow OTA delivery of applications to devices from a web version of the store. The market will also include music, and SimplifyMedia’s streaming media plugin for existing desktop media players will turn your own media libraries into streamed music sources, wherever you are. Applications will also be able to be installed to an SD card – and run from it.
Enterprise users looking for an alternative to the classic Windows Mobile platform will find Android 2.2 very attractive, with support for two Exchange Active Sync connections (as well as sync with the Google cloud services). There’s also the ability to make any Android device a mobile-to-WiFi hotspot, connecting any WiFi enabled device to the internet (including Apple’s iPad). The new Exchange capabilities include account auto-discovery and calendar sync. There’s also (finally) a set of device policy management APIs that allow developers to write applications that can control security features of the device, including remote wipe, minimum password, and lockscreen timeout.
Another option is support for a new set of backup APIs, which add data backup to application backup, allowing an application’s last data to be restored when installed on a new or a reset device. There’s also a new Cloud-to-device Messaging API, where an application server sends a message to a messaging server which sends it on to an android device. In a swipe at Apple, Google describes it as “Much more than a push notification service designed to make up for a lack of basic features like multitasking”.
Developers can download the Android 2.2 SDK and Android NDK, Revision 4 now from the Android developer site. Froyo will be made available to OEMs and the open source community in the coming weeks.
Apple’s latest ‘death grip’ video targets Motorola’s Droid X
Jul 24th
Apple has a “feature page” on its site regarding the iPhone 4’s antenna; the video was posted both there and on YouTube. Apple’s video purports to show that holding the Droid X signal bars dropping from 3 to zero.
Despite all the claims by Apple, manufacturers and others have noted that a) Apple is the only manufacturer with an external antenna system, b) other antennas are located in such a way as to make a “death grip” require contortions, and c) the “death grip” on the iPhone really requires just a finger to bridge the gap between two antennas in its external antenna system.
We were also unable to reproduce Apple’s demo using a “natural” grip on the Droid X, using two separate devices in the same location.
We expect Motorola to fire back about this. The Droid X sold out and became backordered quickly after its July 15th release, despite assurances by Verizon that they had plenty of stock.
Does Droid X suffer from antenna problems too?
Jul 24th
Interesting video posted by Apple showing Verizon’s new feature phone dropping signal when held a certain way. Thoughts here?
Does Droid X suffer from antenna problems too?
Jul 24th
Interesting video posted by Apple showing Verizon’s new feature phone dropping signal when held a certain way. Thoughts here?
Tech Tuesday Tip
Jul 20th
This is a bit self-serving. See, last month I got a Droid and I’m often looking for ways to tweak it and find apps that will allow me to use it the way I want to use it.
I know a lot of folks, including my step-daughter have iPhones, but I wanted to stick with Verizon.
So a couple of days ago, I found this from the MakeUseOf.com website:
Top 5 Sites to Help You Find Apps for Your Android Phone
by Steven Campbell on Jul. 16th, 2010
One thing that Google likes to be known for is speed. In fact, their Android phones have taken off so fast that they have yet to release a full-featured app store to the public. While their current Android Market serves its purpose, it’s hardly iTunes. The organization and efficiency with which Apple runs its app store is one of the reasons the iPhone is the most popular phone on the market year in and year out.
I don’t imagine it will take Google very long to catch up (I did say they were fast), but until then, it would be nice to have some alternatives to finding killer apps for your Android phone.
In this article, I am going to share the top websites for finding the best Android applications. These sites should hold you over until Google releases their app store to the public.
[Note]: If you aren’t impressed by any of the apps you find in the Android Market, why don’t you try writing your own? Who knows, your app could end up on these websites in the near future.
Android Market
The current Android Market is a good place to start. As you’ll see, there isn’t too much organization here, but the site does display all of the top ranked applications and games. You can click on the Top Free tab, which allows you to view all of the top free apps by their respective categories.
Clicking on an app will display screenshots of it off to the right, as well as a small description of the application and the name of its developer(s). I’d assume that this would be the location of the future Google app store, but it’s hard to assume anything like that with Google.
AndroidZoom
Android Zoom is an even better alternative to the current Android Market in my opinion. Paul covered AndroidZoom in his 6 Android Websites You Should Check Out article back in January. (Also see AndroLib)
With AndroidZoom, you can view all of the latest Android applications and sort them by the newest, most popular, and highest rated. You can also separate them by free and paid, along with selecting from the different categories on the left-hand side of the page.
Click on an app and you are taken to a screen where you can view a short description, see related apps, and download. When you click Download, you are taken to a page that gives you three options.
You can use a QR code scanner and take a picture of the image (with your phone) to download the app, follow directions to manually install from the Android Market, or receive a direct download link on your phone’s email.
Cyrket
Cyrket provides application statistics for all of the apps in the Android Market. The default sort method is alphabetical, so don’t let it scare you when you visit the page and only see Chinese symbols. You can sort the listings by most expensive, least expensive, popularity, and highest rating. You can also opt to see only the free apps.
When you click on an app, you are taken to a screen with the app’s description, screenshots, and a long thread of users’ comments that you can use to get feedback.
101 Best Android Apps
101 Best Android Apps is another great place to get information and ratings on a lot of Android applications. Apps are sorted by many different categories (e.g. Business, Education) and topics (e.g. Music, News) and you can choose to see the best rated apps by day, week, month, or all time.
The site allows you to rate apps and it provides very nice, large screenshots. If you click more info, you can view a few more screen shots, a description, and comments.
AppBrain
AppBrain has lists and lists of Android apps. You can view all the hottest apps, the latest ones, or pick your favorite categories. Reviews and download information accompany the apps and you can utilize the search feature to find what you’re looking for.
If you create an account on AppBrain (links your Google account), you can enjoy added benefits. With an account, you can easily install and manage your apps directly from the web browser, sync your apps easily with their native Android app, and share the apps installed on your phone with your friends.
What do you think of the sites listed? Did I forget any? Will you be utilizing any of these resources for your Android application needs? Leave your thoughts, ideas, and comments below!
Image Credit: lwallenstein
(By) Steven Campbell – a tech enthusiast and social media blogger. Check out his Social Branding Blog