GameFly has announced they’ll be opening up their own Gamestore for Android that will hopefully compete directly with the Google Play Store, NVIDIA’s Tegra Zone and more. GameFly also wants to release their own games almost like Gameloft, and have set a large amount of funds aside to start development for mobile games. Here’s a quote from their co-founder:

“GameFly is dedicated to giving consumers the best user experience possible, and to be their single destination for console, PC and mobile gaming needs,” said Sean Spector, GameFly co-founder and SVP of Business Development and Content. “We plan to be a leading player in mobile games by launching our retail GameStore for Android and helping to fund mobile developers of all sizes to publish, promote and sell their smartphone and tablet games.”

GameFly will be offering expertly curated Android games along with top sellers, most popular, and even daily deals like many other competitors in the “app store” front. They will be releasing their own games, as well as helping the struggling developer out that needs additional funding and throwing those games exclusively into their own store. They are accepting email entries from developers right this minute at Gamedev@gamefly.com and expect their first title to launch sometime this summer. More details are available from the official GameFly press release.

[via Android Police]

According to the folks at BGR, they’ve learned this from reliable sources that has seen the app for iPad and Android first hand, and it looks very similar to recent leaks from TheDaily that Microsoft has clearly denied as being real. If sources are accurate later this year Microsoft will be launching on Windows 8, iOS, and Android all around the same time — obviously with Windows 8 first.

There is also the possibility that Microsoft Office will be coming to smartphones too. As BGR reports the launch screen said “Microsoft Office for iOS” and not just the iPad. This could be a good move for Microsoft even though they probably would rather not launch their popular programs for the competition, but you can’t ignore the millions and millions of users. Android fans, would you use Microsoft Office for mobile, or just stick to Google Docs?

eBay has made tons of tweaks and improvements to make selling and buying on Android even easier. Not only that but for those listing, and often relisting auctions that has been overhauled as well. Another important addition is the new best offer notification — something users have been asking about for quite a while. Here’s the full change log for those interested:

– Best Offers and Best Offer notifications
– Access to Wish and Custom lists in My eBay
– List, relist and revise Parts & Accessories items (US)
– List, relist and revise items in Canada, France and India
– Share items on Facebook, Twitter and SMS
– Improved Item View design
– Lots of other new features and improvements throughout the app

Now when you search an auction and are on the item page you can scroll to the bottom and hit share to bring up the usual and popular Android share options for Gmail, SMS, Email, Twitter, Facebook and whatever else is in your list. Sadly nothing about the app feels like Android. While the design and user interface is decent, nothing matching Android’s design elements — except for maybe the search bar up top but even it feels clunky.

Get the latest eBay for Android from the link below and get to selling all that stuff you’d otherwise throw away. Oh and don’t expect it to work too great with a tablet either. We are still waiting on a tablet optimized app from eBay.

[via eBay]

Handcent SMS is one of the most customizable text message apps for Android and has well over 10 million downloads to date. While their UI might not be the prettiest out of the box you can customize everything and make it exactly how you’d like it. My favorite feature is the quick reply pop-up box. Two updates this week have addressed several bugs with contact images, as well as multiple issues with Motorola phones as of late.

Today’s update further fixes any outstanding bugs with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and Handcent has also focused on Sense UI 4.0 that is running on the HTC One X and One S smartphones. Then their newest feature is custom background images on the custom message pop up box. You can now select any background you’d like, so long as it fits right.

It really is an excellent option for texts on Android if you’re not a fan of the stock app. Get it from the link below and let us know what you think.

Handcent SMS Link

Spotify recently launched their new Android 4.0 ICS beta app that makes listening to all the music your heart desires even easier, available soon while their current app is available now in the Google Play Store. Spotify has a similar pricing structure for those in Australia and have three options available. Free is computer only and includes the occasional ad or two while still delivering quality music streaming 24/7. Spotify unlimited will be $6.99 and offers unlimited, ad-free streaming to any computer or laptop, then Spotify Premium (my favorite) for $11.99 a month offers complete audio bliss. Listen to any music you want, whenever. With unlimited streaming to computers, laptops, phones, tablets, as well as multiple other devices — Premium even has a listen offline caching system.

Here’s what Spotify’s Co-founder had to say about today’s new:

“We’re unbelievably excited to be here,” says co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek. “Australians are massive music fans and we’ve created a service that we know they’ll love. Spotify offers everything you could possibly want from a music service: it’s free, it’s fast, it’s easy to share and with more than 16 million songs we have one of the biggest on-demand music libraries in the world.”

To celebrate the launch each country has their own unique playlist including Australia’s hot 100 list called the G’Day Australia Playlist and a New Zealand playlist Kia Ora. The same pricing listed above applies to New Zealand as well, only each option is $1.00 more for some reason. Head to Spotify.com to get started today, enjoy those playlists, and give the Android app a try via the Play Store link above. For more Spotify news hit the links below. Enjoy the music folks!

While Facebook’s stock is starting to dive hopefully good things will be headed their way. This weekend the founders of Karma announced the acquisition on their company blog, stating that Karma will continue as it always has and from here forward they’ll be joining the team at Facebook and will be bringing their passion to the social site.

So what does all this mean? Clearly Facebook is doing plenty with all that money they’ve recently received — Not to mention Mark secretly got married this weekend. With Instagram, Lightbox, and now Karma all joining forces at Facebook hopefully they’ll really get cracking on the Facebook for Android application. It still needs some serious help. I wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook snatches up even more companies in the coming months so stay tuned.

Essentially Roamz aggregates real-time content off the social web such as Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter and even Instagram to bring you things you’re interested in based on your location and preferences. Unlike foursquare it requires no check-in and has a bevy of preferences so you’ll see what you want, when you want.

This app will curate things to do, food to eat and more based on your social networks and contacts. Basically shows you what’s going on in town — making you a local. Roamz explains it by saying, “It’s like having your best friend in your pocket, showing you things that you are actually interested in.” Not only that but Roamz will learn as you use it, get smarter, and bring you better content in the future.

You can find things that are around you based on preferences, or set it to search by popularity and more. We’ve seen multiple social apps similar to this like Path or Cheers, but Roamz aims to beat out the rest and become more than just a niche app. Available starting today from the Google Play Store. Give it a try today and let us know what you think down in the comments.

Every screen in the app has been redesigned to make it easier to use and to be faster and more intuitive. The home screen is changed combining note creation options with buttons that take users directly to notebooks, tags, and places. Notebook lists have been improved to make it easier to browse and find what you’re looking for. The action bar on the bottom of the app screen has also been tweaked and has options specifically relating to the screen the user is viewing.

The app now supports swipe navigation with horizontal swiping allowing app navigation by moving between categories. On devices with location services enabled, Evernote will also assign a place to each note you make. Another key change is the user name of the person using the app is now the top left corner of the screen. Touching the username lets the user get their remaining monthly allowance and access to more settings. The company also promises other changes, check out the video to get a better idea of how the updated app works.

Gamestop for Android has actually been available for about two weeks but recently has been spotted now that they’re in the news for their Steam agreement and being friendly to the PC gamer again. The folks at Android Police tipped us off on the new app and it has tons of features making it worth a quick shout out.

Gamestop Mobile for Android allows users to track rewards, find stores, check local store games availability and even has an included barcode scanner for people looking to find the best deal on a game. A quick scan will show you all the content you’d ever want to know on the game, as well as local stores with it in stock. Gamestop will also allow for in-app purchases where you can buy the game right from your Android phone and pick it up in-store. Gamestop Mobile Android (the official name) is available now and seems to be compatible with every phone and tablet I’ve ever owned. Get it from the link below and let us know if it helps you find your next favorite Xbox game.

Gamestop App Link

The new free version from the company is aimed to go directly against Google Maps Navigation. The big issue for many with the free CoPilot GPS app is that it doesn’t do turn-by-turn navigation. To enable turn-by-turn navigation and other features such as live traffic updates you have to shell out money to the tune of £19.99 for a lifetime license and £9.99 for traffic updates.

The free app lets you get maps for one country in the deal. The download is 20 MB and available right now. We have to wonder when other GPS companies such as TomTom will follow suit with free navigation apps. Does anyone else think the days of paid GPS apps are coming to a close?

[via ElectricPig]

A guy going by Valcho says that he used AirDroid to extract the Flipboard.apk files so you can install Flipboard on any Android device you might have laying around capable of running it. It appears that the post is very fresh so we are not clear at all right now how well the apk works when pulled out of the Galaxy S III.

If you rush over and download the apk, be sure and let us know that installs and works correctly on your Android device. Users are already asking for the S Voice apk as well. The Flipboard app is eventually expected to come officially to devices other than the Galaxy S III, but until then this unofficial support is all we have.

[Thanks Paul!]

Using the new service, users can create an Android browser with their own personal look and feel, content links, splash screen, and homepage. The service walks users through making their own browser and allows you to choose a name for your browser and even the icon on your smartphones homepage. The homepage for the browser can be any URL the user chooses.

There are multiple themes/skins to choose from. The user can also upload their own splash screen. Once all the options are selected and uploaded, a click of the create APK button gets the browser ready for your device.

This will be the first time Flipboard has been available on Android, and Samsung tells us they have an exclusive window on the app, but other phones and devices will get the popular app soon. As for the app, it’s similar to Google Currents only with a better, smoother, more gesture featured interface. The entire magazine feel is ever so present with Flipboard, and it makes complete use of the 4.8-inch 720p HD display on the awesome new Galaxy S III. Just like the iOS version, you can login to your social networks and have links aggregated straight to the app, along with your favorite sites (Android Community and SlashGear), as well as your RSS feeds and more.

The tile interface is simple and easy to use, and once again very beautiful on this impressive AMOLED screen — and will look great on all Android phones of course. Especially those with higher resolution displays. The cover stories in the tiles shown above will be suited to your reading and site habits, making sure you’ll get all the content you love.

As usual with Android, Flipboard has an awesome widget to toss right onto the homescreen of your choice for quick, simple, and easy reading access. You can scroll through and pick you favorite story, then launch the full app just like any widget. From our limited time using the new app we’d say it is very impressive. The pages load and flip smooth and with ease, and the content is HD and looks stunning. So far Flipboard for Android is highly impressive and probably our new favorite reader, but then again the quad-core, Super AMOLED HD packing Galaxy S III might be helping its cause.

Samsung doesn’t have exact details on how long it’ll be a SGSIII exclusive, but we can expect an announcement and more details form Flipboard for Android soon — not to mention the public getting a hold of it and releasing it to the world.

Now Zipwhip isn’t a coffee company, nor do they build coffee machines. Zipwhip is actually a Seattle based technology and cloud text message company that has created this one-of-a-kind and world first text-enabled Android textpresso machine — and I freaking want one! The video explains it in all its glory.

Tell me that isn’t awesome? It even has remote arms that gets a clean cup, the burr grinder gives you fresh and tasty coffee grinds, and they even have edible ink that will write the last 3 digits of your phone number right on top of the espresso so that “one” chick doesn’t steal your fresh cup of coffee or mistake it for her own. I need this same system for my roommates.

You can get the Zipwhip cloud texting service app for Android at ZipWhip.com and they will be offering all the code for this to the open source community soon, as well as the build plans so you can build your own similar creation. If I can get this to make my coffee, turn the TV on to Sportscenter, and wash my dishes I’ll be set for life.

[via ZipWhip]

The entire virus and malware argument for Android might be a big debate, but whether you buy into it or not ESET is most likely one of the best solutions for those in need. With what they consider emerging threats to smartphones and tablets their mobile security will keep all your devices safe. The latest version of ESET Mobile Security for Android includes proactive real-time scanning technology that warns users of any suspicious activity on their device. They’ve incorporated parent control options, and the usual remote wipe in case you lose your phone and don’t want whoever finds or steals it to have access to your data.

Be protected during internet banking sessions, online shopping, connecting to those public WiFi connections in Starbucks, sending SMS messages, and even call blocking for those pesky telemarketers and more. The app has been available for some time but ESET has just updated it with the official version. Again users will get a free 30 day trial, then to continue being protected by ESET Mobile Security you can subscribe for $9.99 per year.

ESET Mobile Security Link

Some major studies have been published recently that claim Google Play earns about 1/8 of the daily revenue that the iTunes App Store generates. The money earned by some developers is very much at odds with the claim of poor monetization. For instance, Spry Fox CEO David Edery recently tweeted that one of his games, Triple Town, racked up $.67 via Google Play for every one dollar earned on the App Store.

That means the Android version of its game earns 67% of what the iPhone version earns, which is much closer than those recent studies would have us believe. Another developer has very similar reporting for Google Play. TinyCo says that it earned $.65 via Google Play for every one dollar earned on the Apple App Store. The key to earnings via Google Play appears to be carrier billing. Other developers report better conversions via Google Play than on the App Store. These reports really make you think about the validity of some studies.

[via Insidemobileapps]

The update will bring YouTube on Google TV closer to what users enjoy on the desktop. With search suggestions, Google+ integration and smooth video playback — even on that huge 55″ LED TV. All of the information can be had over at the Google TV Blog. In February Google TV got YouTube Channels and now with suggestions you’ll get the recommendations for popular channels and more search results.

Last but not least Google has added integration of their somewhat popular social network Google+. While the app is already available for Google TV now the YouTube app will have a +1 button so users can share their favorite videos to Google+ right from the couch with ease. Good stuff Google, but I’m still waiting for Project Glass myself. When can I have that?

With NFL Mobile from Verizon you’ll get minute by minute alerts of the 2012 NFL Draft. They even have status update alerts and you can set it so you get notifications each time your favorite team makes a move or decides on their pick. On top of tons of notification options they offer plenty of stats, videos, and even have a war room where you can argue your case and discuss picks and players will fellow fans.

The 2012 NFL Draft starts today, in a matter of minutes and will be going for a few days so you’ll want to stay tuned and get all your coverage from NFL Mobile. If you are a die hard fan you can even be alerted after every single draft pick in the first round, but that might kill some battery. If you want to hurry and read up on players the NFL Mobile app also has official NFL blogs inside for all the details one would ever need.

Good lucky and happy drafting.

NFL Mobile Link

The update just went live in the Google Play Store and you can get it by clicking here. The user interface has been slightly changed around and has an improved design, and the discover tab has seen some major changes. The discover tab now shows who your connections follow, updates to their lists, and which Tweets they retweet and favorite. So you’ll be able to be better connected. Another feature I’m happy to see is username auto-complete while tweeting, and spelling suggestions and related search results when you search on Twitter.

That isn’t all either. As you can see from my above screenshot Twitter has improved their push notifications by a wide margin. Now you can get instant push notifications when a tweet is RT’d, favorited and even when you get new followers. If I could just get a notification for followers and not an email that would be excellent. Last but not least they’ve added 8 new languages which are: Traditional Chinese, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Polish, Hungarian, Thai.

The update is available now and brings a whole new level of discovery, tweeting, and notifications to Twitter for Android. Hit the Twitter Blog for additional details.

The update is great and all and brought some cool new features for the heavy Facebook user. They’ve introduced a dedicated camera app shortcut so you can instantly snap a photo with your Android smartphone, then upload it directly to Facebook all in-app. The thing I don’t like is they’ve made this one more icon to add to my already 7 pages of apps on my Galaxy Nexus. I have enough Facebook, I don’t need more. What’s next? Are they going to add the same little “f” to Instagram too?

As you can see from the “what’s new” above, Facebook has increased performance and fixed a few bugs. They’ve also added shortcuts like mentioned above for the camera and messenger. At first they looked too similar to stock app icons and many users were complaining. Now they’ve updated them with the little “f” symbol to keep them apart. Users in the Play Store still seem to be complaining about having 3 new icons though. I had Facebook Messenger already installed so after this update I had 4 icons for Facebook alone, that is four too many if you ask me.

These new features are nice additions and welcomed changes, but make them widgets please, instead of crowding up my app tray with more icons. The app did see some serious performance increases and it’s been quite speedy for me, but could still use some work. Get the update right now and let us know what you think.

Facebook for Android