An idea was thrown out the the world on Google+ (Koushik Dutta) for a root only android app store. A place for apps related to rooting your phone, or other mods, along with all the stuff that Google and Amazon have banned from their app stores.
I think it is a great idea. I would love to see this happen and would love to contribute however I can. Check out the post (at the below links) and give your own feedback.
Sources AndroidAndMe.com, Google+
An overnight update has added the Music category to Android market for some users. The version number still remains the same at 3.3.11, though the new option is there.
To use the music feature you also have to download the new Google Music app from Android Market. This should give Android devices a little bit of an edge over the iPhone with all it’s new features that iTunes lack.
Stay tuned for a more in depth look.
Before I get started with my little rant I wanted to say that I am not bashing Android in any way, just a little frustrated with a little aspect of it, and am seeking a solution. I give a huge amount of credit to the developers! But, if anyone has any suggestions for me, please feel free to comment or send me an email at oldandroidsite@gmail.com (or via twitter: @oldandroidsite).
If you are an email “power user” like I am you probably have a bunch of email addresses on your Android phone. One problem that I have seen on my Android device is that the Market app gets confused about which account to attach your apps to when you download them. For example I have my main email address that I use for everything and then an email address that I use for my website plus and email for my Android apps. I also even have a SPAM email address that I use for signing up for stuff that I don’t want to get email from.
The problem lies when I check that email than go into market to download an app. It seems to attach the download to that email address instead of my primary email account. So what I decided to do to combat this is to reload my secondary emails and see what happens. To do this I went into the Settings – Accounts & Sync menu and selected one of my secondary emails. Then just press “Remove Account” twice (once on the initial screen, than again on the popup) and the account is gone. For this experiment I made a quick list of the apps that were attached to this secondary account, just incase they all went away, but fortunately they are all still there.The next step of the experiment was to verify if the apps were still attached to me in Market. Apparently they aren’t. They are still installed, but kind of in the dark when it comes to the Market app. If I am to do a search for an app that I know needed an update, once I find it does still show that the update is needed, but only then does it attach to the primary email account. This seems like a lot of effort just to fix an annoyance with the phone. The hardest part of the whole process is that I now have around 50 apps on my phone that aren’t going to update because they aren’t attached to the Market.
Another solution that I see is that the (Root Only) app Titanium Backup has an option that will “Attach Market” if you long press on an app if gives that option. The downside to this is that the feature is only available through the donation version of the app, which I highly recommend, but can totally understand that not everyone is willing to part with the handful of dollars for an app like that, especially if it is just because of this annoyance.
The last attempt that I am trying is the download an app called Zemna Applist Backup which is an application that takes all of your apps and creates a document with all of the Android market links. This seems to work, but you still have to know which ones aren’t already associated with your primary account. PLUS, once you click on the “orphaned” apps they just show up as installed and the only way to reassign them is to uninstall and reinstall them, which could take hours with 50+ apps.Anyone out there have any suggestions?
Google is at it again adding a few nice features to the Market App. My favorite is the option to change the default setting for auto updates so that all your apps will auto update, plus the ability to only autoupdate on Wifi.
Via: Android Police
This is news for all the people out there that either have a Blackberry and love it, or are stuck with a Blackberry for work email. It looks like RIM has decided to include a “app player” in it’s upcoming versions of their Blackberry OS.
This is great news considering more and more developers are jumping to Android making the Market have hundreds of thousands of apps available, as opposed to the minimal number Blackberry has.
If you have a Blackberry Playbook there is a leaked version of the “App Player” of it floating around that you can load onto your current Playbook. Our friends at n4bb.com have more information on the leak.
From their site:
Wow, here is a serious surprise for PlayBook owners. Apparently, this was easily found through a changelog in a Desktop Manager update. We’ve been sent a beta build of the Android App Player for the PlayBook. It is a huge file, lags a bit, has no visible back button (you have to swipe left on the bottom bezel), but we’re told nonetheless it works. The app itself is controlled through a series of swipe gestures. This beta version is fairly old, so don’t hold it against them. You of course have to side-load the .bar file to install. Google search for DDPB installer to side-load easily.
Download PlayBook Android App Player from:Mirror download links:
Alright folks. It appears that Google has been at it again and released another update for Android Market.
A few features that are noteworthy are that you can use Googles new + feature to rate apps and games, and it now has the capability to set a pin number to be able to purchase an app (anyone with kids with appreciate this!)
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It appears as though the world has started to shake all around us. First there was a 5.3 magnitude in Colorado, then today the east coast got a shake up with a 5.9 with the epicenter in Virginia. Where I am is sort of in between the 2, and I didn’t feel a thing here… (It may help that as a robot I can hover over the ground, though…)
So in honor of these natural disasters I present you with a cool earthquake app (and a few bonuses below).
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Name:Earthquakes in USA Description: Visualize the location and magnitude of earthquakes happening across the USA, Canada, and Mexico with this informative geology app. Define points of interest and watch readings and data flow onto your phone as quakes happen nearby. Sort quakes by magnitude and date to access quick statistics about seismic activity in North America. Share your findings with others by either copying quake data to the clipboard and pasting it somewhere, or using integrated social networks like Facebook and Google Buzz.
-Visualize the location and magnitude of earthquakes happening across the USA, Canada, and Mexico with this informative geology app
-Define points of interest and watch readings and data flow onto your phone as quakes happen nearby
-Share your findings with others via social networking (Facebook, Google Buzz, and others)
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Bonus Apps:
| Name:End of TIme? Description: On Dec. 21, 2012, Maya’s “Long Count” calendar marks the end of a 5,126-year era. Some people think this marks the end of time. The Bible says, in so many words, that nobody knows when the end will come. Is this the last day? Get this app and keep track of the Days, Hours, Minutes and Seconds that are left. |
| Name:Bible from YouVersion.com Description: #1 Android Bible app. The Bible from YouVersion.com – 100% FREE. Get the #1 rated and ranked Bible App for FREE. We want to make it easy for you to read and share God’s Word. 50+ free translations and dozens of reading plans to help you read the Bible and track your progress. |
So you have an Android phone that you want to be able to make your own, or you may feel a little restricted by Google’s Android Market. What other options are out there? I do a lot of talking and linking to things in Android Market, but I also talk and link a lot about the Amazon Appstore. The Amazon Appstore (among others – see below) is an alternate place to download apps for Android and along with the below list gives you the freedom to get your apps from anywhere.
I will cover a handful of app stores below. Feel free to check them out and comment about your experiences.
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For the final (for now) portion of the “Why Root” series I will discuss some other apps that are only available on a device that is rooted. Well they may be listed on here as “only available”, keep in mind that they may be install-able on a non-rooted phone but they probably won’t work, or do anything at all.
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| Name: SwiftKey X |
| Description: SwiftKey X is a next-generation AI keyboard, now with unrivaled prediction and personalization. SwiftKey X for smartphones builds on TouchType’s SwiftKey keyboard to offer cloud personalization, a new prediction engine, and a host of new UI improvements. Using artificial intelligence breakthroughs, the SwiftKey X keyboard accurately predicts your most likely next word based on what you’ve already written. It can also scan your sent messages, and learn as you use it to make predictions even more accurately over time. The more you get to know your SwiftKey keyboard, the more it will get to know you. | |
| Download Link: http://goo.gl/VwvNj (Amazon) |
| Name: Keyboard from Android 2.3 |
| Description: If your phone isn’t updated to gingerbread yet you can get the keyboard from 2.3 and load it right on your phone. Features: 1. Multitouch keyboard 2. User dictionary, built-in dictionary 3. Auto correction 4. Redesigned and optimized keyboard layout and style 5. Speech to text 6. Split main keyboard app and dictionaries. | |
| Download Link: http://goo.gl/ms99g |
| Name: Better keyboard 8 |
| Description: Better keyboard is the best and the most popular keyboard on the android market Supports many languages: Arabic, Czech, Danish, Deutsch, English, Espanol, Finnish, French, Hungarian, Hebrew, Italiano, Korean, Netherlands, Norwegian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian, Swedish | |
| Download Link: http://goo.gl/gbEBT |
| Name: Perfect keyboard |
| Description: Take command of your Android device’s touchpad keypad with a Perfect and smart Keyboard for android. You can customize the look of the keyboard with eight different themes and add additional functionality to your device. Perfect Keyboard lets you use custom dictionaries, control background and text colors, and adjust the keyboard’s vibration density. In short, Perfect Keyboard allows you to setup your Android phone or tablet’s touchpad keyboard so that it works best for you. Note: Perfect Keyboard works only on Android 2.2 and up | |
| Download Link: http://goo.gl/W9BSX |
| Name: Swype Beta |
| Description: -Swype v3 introduces two major new features: Tap Correction and Horizontal Word Choice List -Our Tap Correction engine utilizes many of the concepts that make swyping so accurate. Seamlessly go from typing to swyping and back without missing a beat! -The Horizontal Word Choice List replaces our popup word choice window, giving users an experience more in-line with evolving Android standards. It also makes dictionary control and word selection faster and easier. -Swype v3 is available for devices with HVGA, WVGA, FWVGA, QVGA, WQVGA, WSVGA, qHD screen sizes -Introducing a special Honeycomb-only WXGA version for Android tablets, with features like “moveable keyboard” that you won’t find anywhere else! -To see which languages are supported on your device, check the language and resolution table -Improved licensing: Swype will no longer be disabled after a reboot on some devices; added support for devices that don’t have a cellular radio (wifi-only tablets); no more license failures for CDMA devices in airplane mode. -Simplified registration by allowing users to authenticate their email address directly through the installer -Too many other improvements to list! Download Swype v3 NOW to explore everything the next generation of Swype has to offer! -Limited End User Support – mostly via our forum -If your phone came pre-installed with Swype -DO NOT download this beta (it won’t work) | |
| Download Link: http://goo.gl/1yfdg |
