Tag Archives | Google Android

Bizzy Wants You to Check Out Its New Feature: Check-Outs

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 8, 2011 at 12:50 am

Local-information service Bizzy debuted last August–and it’s been evolving ever since. It started out as a guide to local businesses that hoped the local businesses would get involved. When that proved tougher than expected, it shifted its strategy to providing a Web-based recommendation engine for neighborhood spots. Then it brought those recommendations to the iPhone and Android.

Now Bizzy is building on its recommendations with a new feature for its iOS and Android apps it calls check-outs–a sort of flipside of check-ins as seen in FourSquare, Facebook, and innumerable other places. You check in when you arrive at a location, so your friends know you’re there; you check out when you’re ready to go and have formed an opinion you want to share.

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Google Maps for Android Now Helps You Avoid Traffic

Posted by Ed Oswald on March 7, 2011 at 11:54 am

The navigation products available for cell phones aren’t perfect, but there are a lot of us out there that depend on their directions to get from Point A to Point B. However, up until now the app had no way of knowing whether a road was closed or a traffic jam or accident would slow your trip down–thus, knowing traffic before you left or during your trip was a necessity.

Not any more. Google on Monday rolled out functionality in its Android app which will use both current and historical traffic data to plan routes, as well as give alternates. The Maps function could do this previously, however it was only for set conditions — i.e. the shortest route in distance or to navigate around toll roads.

Accessing the new functionality is as simple as loading the app itself — no update is required. This seems to be due to the fact that the change is not on the phone itself, but rather on Google’s servers, which the app pings to return directions to you.

The functionality will be available in both the North American and European markets where Google has access to real time traffic data. No word if this will make it to the iPhone version of Google Maps, if ever.

Have an Android phone and live in a congested area? Please let us know how the new version is working for you.

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Xoom Looks Headed to Sam’s Club for $539

Posted by Ed Oswald on March 4, 2011 at 12:27 pm

If Apple has one thing over its Android competitors, it’s definitely (and surprisingly) the iPad’s low starting price. Well, leave it to a wholesaler like Sam’s Club to come to the rescue. According to some information obtained by Android blog Droid Life, the retailer appears set to start selling a Wi-Fi only model of the Motorola Xoom at a price of $539.

This would be $60 less than the target price Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha alluded to about two weeks ago–although still $40 more expensive than the cheapest iPad–and seems to confirm the company has plans to bring it to the US, which was also a question. Obviously, you have to pay for membership to Sam’s in order to buy the item — so the deal is not necessarily open to everybody.

The report doesn’t mention a release date, but does note that a Wi-Fi version is headed for the European market in April.

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It’s Time for Google to Rethink the Android Market

Posted by Ed Oswald on March 4, 2011 at 8:38 am

Does Android have a malware problem? After news earlier this week about Google removing 21 apps from the Android market earlier this week due to the discovery of a Trojan horse, it ‘s now being reported that as many as 50 or more apps in total have now gotten the axe.

While Android malware is nothing new, this apparently marks the first time that the problem has occurred on a larger scale. At least three different developers (if you want to call them that, since they were all basically malware pushers), have now used the same Trojan. There could be more.

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The Chances are 14 Percent That You're Reading This on a Portable Device

Posted by Harry McCracken on March 1, 2011 at 10:40 am

Yesterday, TechCrunch’s MG Siegler reported on the operating systems  used by visitors to that site. It currently breaks down like this:

Windows: 53.84%

Mac: 27.64%

iPhone: 6.72%

iPad: 3.47%

Linux: 3.28%

Android: 3.06%

iPod: .62%

MG also included historical data, and his main point is that if the trend continues, the majority of TechCrunch visitors will visit the site using an Apple device–Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad–within a couple of years.

As usual when I read numbers of these sorts, I rushed off and looked at equivalent stats for Technologizer. Here’s February 2011…

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The State of Android Market for Honeycomb: Sloppy

Posted by Jared Newman on February 25, 2011 at 12:59 pm

Earlier today, I put together a slideshow of 10 Android 3.0 Honeycomb apps for PC World. I don’t own a Motorola Xoom, so I used the Android Market website for research. It wasn’t easy finding apps that were designed with Google’s tablet OS in mind — there’s no dedicated section for them on the site — but I managed to eek out a list using a variety of search terms.

Then I noticed Kevin Tofel’s story for GigaOM on how the Android Market currently has 16 Honeycomb apps. He did it the easy way, by visiting the Market on a Xoom.

But here’s the problem: Kevin’s list doesn’t neatly overlap with mine. I found a few “3.0 and up” apps that don’t appear when you search directly on the tablet, such as TouchDown and Drawing Pad. I also missed a handful of apps that work fine on phones but are optimized for larger screens as well. Clearly, the system for finding tablet apps in the Android Market needs a lot of work.

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Xoom, Xoom, Xoom: A Q&A on the First Android 3.0 Honeycomb Tablet

Posted by Harry McCracken on February 23, 2011 at 6:11 pm

Motorola’s Xoom goes on sale at Verizon stores tomorrow. I wrote a formal review of it for TIME.com, but there’s a lot to say. So here’s a longer look. You don’t mind if I do it in FAQ form, do you?

I don’t want to read 2,000 words about the Xoom. Is there any way I can convince you to give me the bottom line right now?

For you, anything. Overall, I like it quite a bit–it’s the first iPad rival from a big company that deserves to be taken seriously, period. (Samsung’s Galaxy Tab has its charms, but tablets running a version of Android prior to 3.0 Honeycomb are pseudotablets as far as I’m concerned.)

But Motorola is shipping a product that’s not yet quite all it’s going to be: The 4G capability is coming along via a free upgrade, Flash is a few weeks away, and the MicroSD card slot doesn’t yet work. And I found Honeycomb a touch on the quirky, apparently buggy side. With Apple announcing the new iPad in a week and the BlackBerry PlayBook supposedly nearly here, I’d wait a bit longer before buying any tablet–unless you’re comfortable with the concept of buying what’s essentially a Xoom .9 when you really want a Xoom 1.1.

Isn’t the real question “Would you buy this instead of an iPad?”

I guess so, but given that a new iPad is coming along next week and numerous other tablets will arrive soon thereafter, it’s a question with a short shelf life. Like I say, the Xoom as it’s shipping is cool but slightly incomplete. But once it does 4G, that capability alone could sway some folks to buy it instead of an iPad–assuming that the next iPad doesn’t do 4G.

Here’s the real question, which is unanswerable at the moment: “Would you buy the iPad 2 we don’t know enough about yet or the Xoom once it’s more complete or the BlackBerry PlayBook or the HP TouchPad or some underdog tablet?” Unless I was in a tearing hurry, I’d keep my money in my pocket and wait until the market settles down at least a tad.

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Mobile Flash: Always Exciting, Always Not Quite Here Yet

Posted by Harry McCracken on February 21, 2011 at 11:36 am

Motorola’s Xoom tablet–the first one to run Google’s Android 3.0 Honeycomb–goes on sale on Thursday.  It packs more features than any other tablet from a major company to date. But for the moment, one of them apparently won’t be support for Flash. As Engadget is reporting, Verizon’s Xoom site says that the gizmo is “fully Flash-enabled,” but then it says that Flash is “expected spring 2011.”

(Why the gap between Xoom’s debut and the debut of Flash on the Xoom? I don’t know the specifics, but I assume it’s because Motorola has yet to, well, fully enable it for Flash.)

I got a hint that Flash for Honeycomb was still a work in progress back on February 2nd, when I attended Google’s Honeycomb event and saw a demo of a third-party app that requires Flash–but which was presented on a Xoom that didn’t have Flash installed, rendering the demo meaningless.

Spring 2011 starts on March 20th, so it’s possible that the wait for Flash on the Xoom will be brief. But the fact that the tablet is shipping without Flash is entirely in keeping with the history of Flash on mobile devices to date. Hardware makers keep arguing that Flash is exciting and essential–and they raise the issue of its absence on Apple devices, either explicitly or by implication.

Here, for instance, is Motorola using Flash as a selling point back at CES in January:

Adobe hasn’t been shy about promoting Flash for mobile gadgets before it was ready, either: At the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, it showed off versions of Flash Player for BlackBerry, Web OS, and Windows Mobile that aren’t still yet available on any devices. And I’m not talking about the Mobile World Congress held last week–I’m referring to the 2010 edition of the show.

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HTC Enters the Tablet Wars

Posted by Harry McCracken on February 15, 2011 at 8:20 am

HTC’s inevitable tablet looks interesting: It’s got…a stylus! That might make it a winner for those of us who like to draw on computers. I am, however, worried about the fact that it runs Android Gingerbread, not Honeycomb. Sounds like Android tablets may be just as fragmented as their smartphone brethren.

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