Twitter rolled out sweeping updates to all of its mobile properties this week, mostly to support the new Twitter Cards, but unfortunately, those who are using the service on Android aren’t so happy. The app has always been a bit buggy on the Android platform, but the issues that are being reported are more than just a little problematic. Users have experienced not being able to open the… → Read More
Google’s statement on Facebook’s introduction of “Home” was short and sweet, but very telling, so let’s dissect it a little bit. As we noted earlier, Facebook went with Android first because of its flexibility. Basically it’s easy to customize. Other platforms, not so much. Zuckerberg even mentioned that Windows Phone might be a bit easier to work with, calling… → Read More
Shortly after Facebook’s Home announcement, I got to chat with Tom Allison, Facebook’s Android Engineering Manager. We discussed his favorite parts of Home, how much they changed the underlying OS, and the biggest challenges they faced during Home’s development.
Plus: A bonus look at Home running on a Samsung Galaxy Note 2, and a peek at how Home can happily co-exist with your old homescreen. → Read More
Facebook’s event today was all about a new “Home on Android,” and that’s exactly what Facebook Home delivers. The Android launcher integrates Facebook features into most aspects of the Android smartphone experience, eliminating the need to jump into a dedicated Facebook app in most situations. Here’s a breakdown of what Facebook Home is all about. → Read More
As predicted, Facebook announced a way to turn your Android phone into one focused on people and not apps, as we’ve grown accustomed to on computers and mobile devices. “We don’t want to build a phone or operating system that only some people could use,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, adding that he wants to do more than build something for 1-2 percent of the smartphone… → Read More
Good morning, Internet! We’re live from Facebook Headquarters in Menlo Park, where the company is expected to finally detail the bordering-on-mythical Facebook Phone. Will it be just one phone? Will it be software to turn many Android phones into the Facebook Phone? We’re here to find out! → Read More
Instagram has been around for what feels like forever, but it seems like just yesterday that the app migrated over to Android after being a long-time iOS exclusive. Today marks one year of Instagram’s presence on Android, and to celebrate the company shared on its blog that in just that short time around half of its users come from Android.
Last we heard, Instagram had over 100 million active… → Read More
When Samsung revealed its new Galaxy S4 flagship smartphone, it literally did a lot of song and dance about its own unique software features, with nary a peep on the built-in Google Android improvements and features brought by the use Jelly Bean 4.2 on board. I argued that it could be a signal that Samsung is looking to move towards an Amazon-style approach to building its own version of Android… → Read More
Let’s say we build a phone, theoretically. We’re not! But if we did, we could get maybe 10 million people to use it. 20 million. That doesn’t move the needle for us.
With today’s leaks, it’s looking like Zuck was being almost completely honest.
They aren’t building a Facebook Phone. They’re letting HTC do it for them.
But that’s probably not the end goal, here. → Read More
Facebook’s new “Home” on Android will debut on a mediocre HTC handset codenamed “Myst” but will be available on standard Android phones, according to an autopsy of a leaked developer build of the Facebook “phone” software scored by Android Police. This aligns with our scoop and predictions from last week about what Facebook will launch at its big press event on Thursday. → Read More
The big winners in the three-month period ending in February in terms of smartphone share globally and in the U.S. were Android and Windows Phone, according to Kantar Worldpanel, with BlackBerry experiencing significant declines in consumer interest and iOS remaining fairly level in most markets. The bad news for BlackBerry is that it saw its smartphone OS share decline even in the U.K., where it… → Read More
The mainstream has had little reason to care that Android gives developers much more customization freedom than iOS. But if Facebook’s fabled Android homescreen is a hit, the stubbornness of Apple’s closed mobile platform could be framed as a drawback after years of its cohesive design and ease being seen as assets. → Read More
Editor’s note: Sacha Labourey is CEO and Steven G. Harris is senior vice president of products for CloudBees.
APIs exist for a reason: They act as the communication channel, the lingua franca, the boundary, between the provider of the implementation and users of that implementation — developers. Will our economy thrive and be more competitive because companies can easily switch from one… → Read More
Didn’t get a chance to back the ambitious OUYA Android game console to lock in your pre-order? Considering how much press the thing has gotten, you don’t have much excuse for missing that particular window, but never fear — OUYA intends to sell the $99 pint-sized gaming gadget through retail partners like Amazon, Gamestop, and Best Buy starting on June 4. → Read More
We’ve all been there: you’ll be watching a movie when someone familiar enters the frame, and you just can’t place a name to the face. Well, if you’re watching said movie on an Android tablet, those days may soon be over. Google has just pushed out an update to its Play Movies & TV app lets users tap into the search giant’s Knowledge Graph as soon as they pause a flick. → Read More
Google Translate is a very useful tool for when you are travelling internationally but sadly, that’s also the time when you are least likely to have an always-on connection to the Internet. Obviously, there are a number of offline translation apps available, but if you are partial to Google Translate and you use an Android phone, you’ll be happy to hear that the latest version of the… → Read More
BlackBerry’s App World now touts 100,000 BB10 applications. An impressive number for a platform just months old. But out of those 100,000 applications, roughly 20% are Android apps, simply ported over rather than being coded specifically for BlackBerry 10.
This is a win for BlackBerry. It’s a big win. Android or native, it shows that BlackBerry is successfully pulling developers into its fold. → Read More
Zillow today launched the latest version of its Rentals mobile app for Android. The app includes a number of new features, such as integrated 3D maps from Google, but it also marks the company’s first foray into offering foreign language support. The Zillow Rentals app now features Spanish-language support in an effort to “better serve the rapidly growing Spanish-speaking community in… → Read More
Today, Google has announced a mobile refresh for Google+ for Android and iOS that includes some of the functionality that has come out for the desktop over the past few months. Both versions will be available later in the day. Some of the changes are things that we’ve expected, thanks to acquisitions like Nik Software and features like Communities that were introduced on the desktop last… → Read More
Evernote has just updated its Android app to version 5.0, the same update that recently hit both iOS and Mac OS X. The update brings with it an updated UI, as well as a number of new features such as a Shortcuts page which pops up when you swipe left, and an updated camera.
Page Camera mode, in particular, should be a blessing to those of us who use Evernote to capture pictures of notes more… → Read More
Two years ago, Google’s Vic Gundotra keynoted the company’s 2011 I/O developer conference, and one of the big surprises of the day was the launch of Android@Home, Google’s attempt to corner the home-automation market. At the keynote, Google also showed the first prototype of what would later become the Nexus Q “social streaming media player” that it gave to every I/O… → Read More
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Danny Sullivan, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — convened with Gillmor in Boston and the Gang in California. We took another cut at the Google Reader damage, with @dannysullivan hating on notifications and @scobleizer hating on Android’s notifications. Did I say I told him so? Yes I did.
But the mere fact we spent so much time on the stream’s destruction of… → Read More
Amidst Apple iWatch rumors and Google Glass sightings, it would appear that Google is actually working on its own smartwatch to be paired alongside connected Android devices. According to the Financial Times, Google’s Android arm will be the team working on the device, as opposed to the X Lab division, which handled Google Glass development. The wearable computer market is heating up quite… → Read More
TechCrunch was lucky enough to interview several of the Game of Thrones cast members before the San Francisco screening of its Season 3 Premiere. Since we work for a tech blog, we weren’t that interested in learning what they were most excited about when talking about the new season. Instead, we wanted to find out what each cast member’s smartphone of choice is. → Read More
Leaf, the Cambridge, Mass.-based company that offers a point-of-sale solution based on its own Android tablet for small- to medium-sized businesses, announced that it will soon launch an app store for its service. The company, as its CEO Aron Schwartzkopf told me earlier this week, aims to build an ecosystem for offline merchants that allows them to connect to their consumers at the point of… → Read More
Google’s Eric Schmidt has said Mountain View will keep its two OSes, Android and Chrome, separate after all, according to a Reuters report. Schmidt, who is in India attending an IT event called Big Tent Activate Summit, said the two operating systems will remain separate products but apparently also said there could be more “commonality” between them. → Read More
Google’s been awfully busy these past few weeks, but it seems that between sunsetting Reader (and pissing off most of the internet in the process) and rolling out new services like Google Keep, the company has been working on a redesigned version of the Google Play Store for Android. That’s what the folks at Droid-Life claim, anyway — they appear to have obtained and installed the unreleased 4.0… → Read More
Remember that nasty little iOS 6 lockscreen bug that let hackers access apps on any iPhone with a few smooth moves? Well, fresh on the heels of yesterday’s iOS update that squashed the problem, another security researcher has found a similar issue on Samsung’s Android smartphones.
Terence Eden claims to have found a flaw that lets hackers access a phone’s apps, dialer and widgets even if it’s… → Read More
Facebook, in its quest to dominate mobile, has just released an incremental update to its Android app through the Google Play Store. The update lets users change their profile pictures direct from the app (which is something iOS has been able to do for quite some time). Also within the update, Facebookers on Android can more easily manage spam and unwanted stories in their News Feed, and enjoy… → Read More
The team at SnipSnap has been quietly plugging away on an Android version of its popular mobile coupon app for what seems like ages now, but the wait for all you cost-conscious Android devotees is over. After some seven months in development, the Philly-based startup has finally pushed its eponymous app into the Google Play Store. → Read More
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