Posted: 08 Feb 2012 10:57 PM PST Gangsters are popular fodder in pop culture. The romanticized life of hoodlums are pretty much stock and trade for Hollywood. So it’s no surprise that we see a glut of games that are supposed to simulate the gangster culture. They can range from the sublime Grand Theft Auto series to the rather simple trading game Drug Wars. With Android fast becoming a popular platform for portable gaming, it is no surprise that we see games of this type start appearing. The major problem for any fan of the genre is to separate the wheat from the chaff. Here’s three games that managed to catch my eye and should please the aficionado.  Mob Wars is the great-grand daddy of them all. Starting on popular social networking site Facebook, it has managed to catch the imagination of millions. Now, it’s managed to shed its Facebook roots and started to branch out as a full-fledged app. Anyone who has played a time-based Facebook game should be familiar with how the game plays: use energy to do missions which earn you experience, use the experience to level up, and wait for more energy to come in. It’s a formula that’s hard to beat and the original delivers, along with pitch-perfect graphics and art direction to deliver what Facebook addict wants.  iMobsters uses the same formula as Mob Wars – something that’s hard to avoid. What makes this game different? The graphics are top-notch, the community is sizzling, and there are a wealth of options available. Mob Wars may have started the genre but it’s iMobsters and its ilk that will perfect it.  Now for something a bit different. Mafia Farm is a hilarious mash-up of Farmville-esque planting and Mob Wars missions. It sounds ridiculous – and it is! That’s where the fun is. The cartoonish art direction also helps a lot in setting the tone of this game. Definitely something to brighten things up after all the seriousness of the first two. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, Best Gangster Games On Android , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 08 Feb 2012 10:00 PM PST  So you remember on Tuesday when we did the unboxing of the Andru – Android USB Charger accessory? Well now is the time to enter so you can win your own Andru. So let’s jump into the mini-review of this cool, adorable (as the ladies would say) charger for your Android device.How well does it work?I’ve only used it about 2 times to charge my Droid Bionic, but it seems like it charges it bit faster then the Motorola charger. It was able to charge my Bionic from 0% all the way to 100% in just over an hour (about an hour and 15 minutes), which on the Motorola charger that came with it, takes almost 2 hours to go the full round. So what other functionality could it have? I mean it’s just a charger that looks the Android guy we have seen over the past few years. But if you have any questions feel free to leave them below in the comments and I will try my best to get back to you.Andru’s eyes light up when he is plugged in. They are supposed to be white when it’s idle and blue when it’s actually charging. But it looks like a light blue to me the entire time. So I don’t know if it’s just the lighting in my house or what. His arms do around so you can kinda play with him if you wanted. If you’d like to purchase one, it’s $25 at powerbygen.com. Unboxinghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC4yvTt0KlkPhoto Gallery (Giveaway is below)    The GiveawayYeah we know you’d love to get one of these, and here’s your chance. Unfortunately we only have one to giveaway. This is only open to US residents as Gen currently only manufacturers a US version of Andru, so we apologize in advance to our international friends.To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post by 12:01am Monday morning and you will be entered to win. We are using Rafflecopter for this one, this way it’s fair to everyone, and a winner will be chosen at random. In the widget below you can see how much time is left and how many entries have been collected as well as who has entered. a Rafflecopter giveaway YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, Review & Giveaway of Andru: Android Themed USB Charger , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 08 Feb 2012 08:50 PM PST  That carriers love Android is not really a surprise. Go to any carrier, anywhere in the world, and you’ll notice that most of their smartphones are now based on Android. They even have their best promotions and marketing campaigns around Android smartphones. Android phones are a great way for carriers to also hook customers that have never used a smartphone before and never needed data, on their data plans, and get them to sign more expensive contracts. The conclusion: carriers make more money with Android. But is the same true about the iPhone? Do carriers love the iPhone, too, and are they making money from it? Apparently not, and this is why it’s a nightmare for them. The iPhone can bring them some extra customers, but at what costs? Some carriers are even forced to subsidize the most of iPhone’s price, as we’ve seen with the Sprint deal, where they’re paying $650 to Apple for every iPhone. That would be $450 subsidized by the carrier. Considering other manufacturers charge the carriers from $400 to $500 for their high-end phones, that means the carriers are giving Apple an extra $150-$250 for every single phone. That also means that for every 1 million extra customers, it costs them an extra $200 million. That’s a lot of money, and it really puts a dent in the carrier’s profitability. This also explains why Apple is able to make so much profit compared to everyone else in the industry. Apple can make several times the profit on their phones compared to other manufacturers because the carriers are still willing to pay Apple a lot of money. If only they would realize that Apple is at a point where losing a big carrier would not be acceptable to them anymore, which means the carriers could have the power to bring Apple down a notch in their negotiations. I don’t think anyone should watch out for the “poor” carriers. They can take care of themselves. But these negotiations that are heavily favoring Apple are also hurting all the other manufacturers. If the other manufacturers would be able to charge the carriers more because Apple is doing it, then it would be fine, but I think the opposite is happening. The carriers are giving in to Apple, and then try to recover their losses by squeezing all the profit from all the other manufacturers, which is bad for all of us, because our favorite manufacturers get less money to work with for future devices. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, The Carriers Hate the iPhone (And Love Android) , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 08 Feb 2012 08:49 PM PST  I don’t remember exactly when I first thought of this idea (your phone being the only computer you need), but I know it was many years ago, probably before Android was on the market. Imagine using your phone/mobile computer everywhere, because it’s always with you, and coming home, putting it on the desk, and boom – it connects to your desk’s monitor, and then you start using it as a PC. This future seems increasingly more likely thanks to Android. I knew this is getting closer to reality when dual core ARM processors started appearing and when Motorola launched their laptop dock thing, where you can put your phone inside and the “laptop” (well more like a shell in Motorola’s case) would run on the phone’s hardware. It was the start of something interesting, but far from an ideal implementation. One of the wrong things with it, is that it ran two operating systems in the same time, and a dual core Cortex A9 at 1 Ghz is barely enough to run a full OS at reasonable performance, let alone two. It would’ve made a lot more sense to continue to run the OS on the laptop display. Honeycomb was out around the same time, and Motorola was the first to use it. So I wondered why couldn’t they just use Honeycomb for the laptop, not as a separate OS, but just as the UI for the laptop? Perhaps Motorola preferred to just sell another device instead of making the phone work with everything, or perhaps Google wasn’t ready for that kind of movement, but I do believe Google made Honeycomb (and now ICS) the way it is because they envisioned some kind of future of hybrid devices, where Android might even end up on laptops or similar devices. My ideal vision of the future is to have Android use 3 different UI add-ons, so when you have it on your phone it automatically uses the phone UI, but when you connect it to a PC monitor or such, you should be able to select the tablet UI for it, and when you connect it to the TV, you should be able to pick the Google TV UI for it. The codebase is the same, just the UI needs to change, depending on the form factor of the device. Ideally, you’d have one UI for everything, and while I’m sure Google will continue to try and make them as similar possible, I don’t think that’s ultimately possible. You can’t have the exact same UI for everything, because each form factor’s UI can be optimized to work much better for that specific form factor, so instead of having a mediocre UI for everything, you’re better off having the best possible UI for each scenario. Perhaps just as important as having these UI’s is being able to do all this wirelessly. Needing separate cables, sometimes different cables for every device, is just way too cumbersome for something like this to become mainstream. It needs a wireless technology can can seamlessly connect all these devices on the spot. Bluetooth can’t be it, because it’s way too slow. Wi-Fi is also a bit cumbersome to use like this, but something like Wi-Fi Direct/Wi-Fi Display should be the future, and I think very soon we’ll start having access to that kind of technology. So the only other part of this is for Google to enable Android to change UI’s based on what’s connected to. The sooner they forget the idea that ChromeOS is their *only* OS for laptop/PC monitors, the better. ChromeOS might still thrive in parallel with Android for some very niche markets, but I wouldn’t want them to slow down Android’s potential because of it. Android has a unique opportunity here that neither Microsoft nor Apple have. Microsoft can’t use WP7 in the same way, because they have a totally different OS that they are pushing for PC’s, and they have a different OS for Xbox. So they can’t make everything work through WP7. Apple is closer in a way to Android, but they have such strange display ratios that might make the transitions look awkward - 3:2 for phones, 4:3 for tablets, and soon probably 16:9 for TV’s, while pretty much all of Android’s resolutions are somewhere between 16:9 and 16:10. It might be a lost opportunity for Google to not do this as soon as possible. A video on using Galaxy Nexus as your PC through MHL (where obviously the tablet UI would make much more sense): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_–zcmqIyRI YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, Using an Android Smartphone as Your PC , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 08 Feb 2012 07:52 PM PST  All I gotta say is damn Motorola has been busy lately. In the past 4 weeks (maybe less) we have seen soak tests for the Motorola Atrix 4G, Motorola Photon 4G, Motorola Droid Razr/Maxx, and the Droid Bionic, now it looks like a soak test for the Motorola Xoom is coming or it might have already started since Verizon has posted the Software Update PDF on their support site already.We are a little dissappointed that it is not Android 4.0, especially since the Wi-Fi Xoom already has Ice Cream Sandwich (I bet Verizon is holding that one up). According to the PDF it doesn’t look like there is to much to this update as far as changes go. Your tablet will now support dual International Mobile Subscriber Identities (IMSI), as well as a bugfix for restoring data connectivity after exiting Airplane Mode. I’m not a Xoom owner, but I think these changes could of waited for ICS, don’t you think?  So all you Verizon Xoom owners will have to wait a bit longer to get a taste of Ice Cream Sandwich, I know it’s been long enough but as soon as we hear anything about the ICS update we let you know, as we always do. Anybody excited about this update? Hit up the comments and let us know. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, Verizon LTE Xoom Getting An Update (HLK75H), But It’s Not Ice Cream Sandwich , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 08 Feb 2012 04:51 PM PST  Chrome Beta Most people I know use Dolphin for its’ speed and ability to turn off flash when it’s not needed, because we know flash can slow down your device as well as eat up some precious battery. I actually still use the stock browser on my Droid Bionic, there isn’t a whole lot of stuff I use the browser for since every site I go to has an app now. Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, Android Authority Asks: What is your Favorite Android Browser? , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 08 Feb 2012 03:14 PM PST  It seems like all the developers of the major social apps decided to update their app around the same time. Yesterday Seesmic got it’s first update in a very long time. Foursquare just got updated not to long ago, and now here is Google+ with a cool new update. The two biggest parts of this update are the additions of the What’s Hot list and the ability to see who+1′ed your post. We’ve got the full changelog below for you to check out.Full Changelog:
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKENo related posts.This article, Google+ gets Updated with What’s Hot, Who +1′ed, and Other Performance Tweaks , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 08 Feb 2012 02:53 PM PST  We have seen quite a bit of updated and new apps in the last 24 or so hours, including Chrome Beta and Microsoft’s OneNote launching in the Android Market, and Seesmic, Google+ and Foursquare getting updated. But most importantly Foursquare added NFC Beam support in it’s latest update. This goes without saying but I am going to say it anyways, you need a NFC chip and Android 4.0 for Android Beam to work. So basically right now the only device that Android Beam will work on is the Galaxy Nexus. Foursquare also improved scrolling speed throughout the app in this update.So now when you and your buddies are out at the strip club and one of your friends check’s in before you, all you need to do is to touch your Galaxy Nexii (or Nexus’) together and you can checked in too. No need to put your drink down to checkin, just bump the Nexus, tap to beam the venue and check-in. Pretty simple right?  Personally I really can’t wait to see what else other app developers can do with Android Beam, it’s a really cool feature in Ice Cream Sandwich, and I hope all the future devices come with NFC. You can download the app at the source link below. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
This article, Foursquare Updated to Include NFC Beam and A Few Other Cool Features , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 08 Feb 2012 12:23 PM PST  Earlier today, Toshiba made some announcements on the availability and price of the Toshiba AT200 10-inch tablet. According to the company, the tablet will be available for both online purchases and in stores on February 15. As for the price of the tablet, it is said that prices will start at £399. FeaturesApart from having a 10.1-inch screen, the Toshiba AT200 also banks on its thinness (only 7.7mm). The tablet is powered by a Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 1.2GHz processor. It will have 1GB RAM, 5MP rear camera, 2MP front-facing camera, micro USB port, micro HDMI, micro SD connection, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connectivity. Tablets will be available in either 16GB or 32GB internal storage.As for its software, the tablet will be shipped with Adobe Flash 10.3 and Android Honeycomb 3.2. But on the information that the tablet will be upgradable to ICS, Toshiba still has to confirm it. The Toshiba AT200 10-inch tablet is available at £399 for 16GB model and £449 for 32GB. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKENo related posts.This article, Toshiba AT200 10-Inch Tablet Gets Release Date and Price , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source. |
Posted: 08 Feb 2012 11:14 AM PST  If you're an app developer looking to win a new BlackBerry PlayBook, you're in luck! Before Valentine's Day, you should submit an Android app to RIM's App World so you can be a part of the contest—so that's 5 days away! According to Canadian gadget maker, Research in Motion (RIM), each Android developer who ports an app for their PlayBook will be rewarded with the free 16GB tablet. As a developer, all you need to do is to port your own app to the tablet's OS. The announcement was made through Twitter by RIM's VP of developer relations, Alec Saunders, saying: However, the app needs to adhere to the Vendor guidelines upheld by the App World. As such, RIM has created Terms & Conditions which "are principally designed to prevent abuse of the promotion." As soon as developers are done with the Android app, RIM has provided a set of tools which can convert the original app to be compatible with the OS of the BlackBerry. One of these tools includes a web-based tool which verifies, repackages, and signs each app. Before RIM launched the PlayBook, they also ran a similar promotion more than a year ago. The previous promotion was for anyone who downloaded the software development kit (SDK) that they created and use it for building applications. The prize was also a free PlayBook. RIM plans to release the PlayBook OS 2.0 this month. At the previous CES held in January, the new OS was already detailed to viewers. Along with the promotion, RIM has plans of offering a Runtime feature which will support Android apps. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE |
Friday, February 10, 2012
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