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Google says Fragmentation? We’ll take care of it

By Cory Gunther
on 4 Mar, 2011

Android and its fragmentation has long been the discussion of many of its competitors as well as our own users. As much as we'd all like to agree, or disagree, there is some fragmentation that we all can at least agree on. With so many types, models, screen sizes, and CPU speeds being some large ones. Personally this has never been a large issue for me as most games and apps have always worked just about perfect. You can read about Angry Birds creators Rovio on Fragmentation. On Thursday Google came out with some information that will soon change all of that. The Fragments API.

Android 3.0 Honeycomb SDK finalized

By Chris Davies
on 23 Feb, 2011

Google has released the final Android 3.0 Honeycomb SDK, complete with finalized APIs, on the eve of the first Honeycomb-based tablet being released. Developers now have the final set of tools to code for the Motorola XOOM and subsequent Android 3.0 slates, and the new API level is 11. The Android 3.0 Honeycomb platform highlights are here, and there's a breakdown of differences between APIs here. There's also an update to SDK Tools (r10) and ADT Plugin for Eclipse (10.0.0), including such niceties as improved rendering of what the final on-screen app will look like. Instructions for downloading the Android 3.0 SDK are here.

NOOKcolor Root for DIY in-Auto Awesomeness [Video]

By Chris Burns
on 22 Feb, 2011

Oh you didn't know that NOOKcolor had been rooted and taken far beyond its innocent book-reading beginnings? Oh it's been brought far, far beyond. In a video posted by juicedigital, a rooted version of the Barnes & Noble Android tablet is shown to not only be rocking pretty hard playing music, surfing the internet, and downloading apps from the Android Marketplace, it's essentially nearly got GPS map functionality and is changing the in-car life of this intrepid hacker / modder.

Behold, the Google Pod [Video Tour]

By Chris Burns
on 17 Feb, 2011

We're here still at Mobile World Congress 2011 in Barcelona and we've filmed for all you non-travelers a short walkthrough of Google's magnificent presence in Building 8 of the convention. This "booth" is either the largest or one of the largest exhibits in the entire convention, and certainly many people's favorite. I'll get into a bit more about Google's tactics for going viral in the convention via creative advertising, but here we'll just take a walk through the big fat Google playground.

Honeycomb Renderscript Detailed [The Balls]

By Chris Burns
on 9 Feb, 2011

The following is a nutshelled rundown of what Renderscript is, and what it does. Renderscript is a brand new feature that was introduced, but not fully explained during the official Android 3.0 Honeycomb event. What Renderscript is involved in is graphics. Renderscript is a new API that'll deal with high-performance 3D rendering as well as compute operations. What Renderscript aims to do is to bring a higher performance, lower level API to developers who, in a blaze of glory, want to max out the performance of their applications. These developers must be comfortable working "close to the metal" if they're going to use this new API, but in doing so, they'll receive three tools: a developer friendly compute API similar to CUDA, a simple API for rendering 3D on top of hardware acceleration, and a familiar language for use in C99.

ROM Manager (ClockworkMod) Recovery Host Down, Back Up, In Need of Assistance

By Chris Burns
on 5 Feb, 2011

If you're the kind of person who likes to break your Android device down to build it back up in your own image, you know about ClockworkMod and ROM Manager. The fellows involved in this project have done massive workings on the insides of all manner of Android devices and they'll be recorded in the history books of programming as some of the essential unofficial teammates of Google's Android mobile OS. That said, as they are working for the greater good of all developers and hackers of mobile OS, we aught to offer them our help when something blows up in their face. Something has.

Execute Android Brick

By Chris Burns
on 4 Feb, 2011

There is a permission inside the Android OS that, when called upon, can brick a phone. Should you fear this permission? No. It is essentially completely disabled in modern versions of Android, and even when it was able to take effect, only system apps were able to use it. Since it did at one time exist, let's talk about it for a moment. One of the uses suggested by a reader of the new Reddit thread on this subject is that the permission might come in handy for users to be able to remotely brick their device should they ever lose it or have it stolen. Another idea is that hardware manufacturers might have control over what happens to the system installed in their devices, any attempts at hacking setting off this permission, bricking the device before the user has even gotten the chance to accidentally brick it his or herself!

Google pushing internal app development in play for mobile software market

By Chris Davies
on 31 Jan, 2011

In a move that could seriously impact third-party developers, Google is reportedly making significant investment into in-house app designers for mobile software. According to the WSJ's sources, Google is hiring software engineers, product managers, user-interface experts and others with Android app concepts, as well as re-purposing existing staff, to significantly broaden the number and quality of mobile apps they offer. The new strategy is apparently intended to further take on Apple, which has a strong reputation for solid in-house apps. Some of the new Google titles would be Android-specific, the sources claim, but not all, and Google will bankroll small teams with product-manager Benjamin Ling supposedly taking responsibility for overall management of the project.

Why Has Honeycomb Disappeared?

By Chris Burns
on 29 Jan, 2011

Folks across the web who didn't act fast enough to download the preview package for Android 3.0 Honeycomb a few days ago are apt to find a surprise when they attempt to do so today - it's gone! Where did it go? Speculation is still out to the dogs as Google's send out no response!

Google “not happy” with Android Market paid-app performance

By Chris Davies
on 26 Jan, 2011

Google is "not happy" with the number of paid app purchases from the Android Market, with Android platform manager Eric Chu telling developers that the company had several strategies for driving app buyers in 2011. Speaking at the Inside Social Apps conference in San Francisco this week, Forbes reports, Chu confirmed that carrier billing would be extended beyond just AT&T, so as to remove the payment obstacle for more users, while in-app payments would also come sometime this quarter. Actual discovery of apps is also being streamlined, with Chu saying that Google is tweaking the Android Market search algorithm as well as investing in more people to weed through any titles that violate the ToS. There'll also be a new push for HTML5 apps, and better social integration with the Android address book which Chu described as "the best social graph."