Archive for: beta
Web browsing on Android’s stock browser has been pretty decent so far. Next to Safari for iOS, it’s the next best (native) browser. But it could certainly be better.
Today, it gets better. Google has officially unveiled Chrome for Android, a more portable version of its desktop counterpart but with some interesting and useful finger friendly features tossed in.
After the break you’ll see a quick video showing off Chrome for Android’s new user interface as well as unique tab management and navigation. Nifty navigation/tab features aside, the underlying guts of Chrome for Android is better than the old stock browser, too. For starters, now that Chrome for Android is built off of the same open source Chromium project, updates should be (in theory) faster and easier for Google to push out as it allows the entire mobile-desktop browser landscape follow a much closer path.
Also, while Google has focused more on UI presentation and “natural” feeling throughout, the browser itself is a wee bit faster than the outgoing version. Finally, we’re stoked to see the ability to sign into Chrome for Android and have it automatically open up the tabs you’ve left open on your desktop version of Chrome, perfect for continuing your web browsing on the go.
Hop past the break for a quick video, screenshots and the download link (Android 4.0 required)!
- November 16, 2011 6:24 pm
Well, it is official with the Google press event wrapping up we know Google Music is official. With the online search giant dropping the beta tag and expanding its tendrils into the music industry by netting deals with major labels like EMI and Sony, it is shaping up to into quite the iTunes competitor.
Google Music will allow users to upload up to 20,000 songs and stream them in 320 Kbps quality from pretty much any device that has a web browser. Best of all, all of this new found Google Music action will remain free!
In addition to music labels being added to Google Music, some integration with Google+ was announced as well. Google+ users can share songs and entire albums with other Goolge+ users whom in turn are given one full free play.
Not to veer too far from the topic — Google+ is shaping up to be a very robust social medium. We like what we have seen so far and are looking forward to the months ahead to see what additions Google+ and Google Music will receive.
The new service is officially live at music.google.com as is the official Google Music Android app.
Well be giving Google Music a thorough testing over the weekend. Look for our Google Music “review” early next week.
In the meantime…Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
Registered Apple developers, pay attention! Apple has officially released iOS 5 Beta 2, just weeks after initially releasing the first iOS 5 Beta.
The new version features wireless sync, among other new features. As expected, numerous bugs have also been fixed — bringing about an all-around better experience for developers.
More details coming soon.
- November 2, 2010 10:47 am
Normally we don’t write about incremental or .x.x.xxx BlackBerry OS updates. But this one is a bit more important. BlackBerry 9700 owners have been promised since the revealing of OS 6 that their beloved device would bridge the gap between old and new. And thus far, not much has been said by either RIM or the carriers providing the 9700 as to when said update would be available.
Thanks to the ever persistent internet community (and a few loose lips/fingers), BlackBerry 9700 owners can finally get in on the OS 6 action — albeit in a pre-release, non-supported form. For those of you keeping track, the official numbering for this version of OS 6 is 6.0.0.344. Get your links inside…
So you use Google Chrome. Awesome for you, you high tech hipster you. But if you really wanted to be cool, you’d be using the beta (or even more extreme) dev builds of Chrome. The rough, early builds are publicly available and easy to find. While you will experience some issues here and there regarding performance and stability, the payoff is generally fixes for older bugs, speed, and everyone’s favorite — new features.
So how about taking a beta of dev channel release for a spin? The current dev build of Chrome has just hit 8.0.552.0. Yeah, it’ll still be a bit before we see a “stable” release of Chrome 8 seeing as how we’re only at 6 currently. But Google did commit to a very brisk 6-week update schedule.
As hinted above, the differences with ver. 8 are improved hardware acceleration, bug fixes, and the ever increasing speed the Chrome devs manage to squeeze out of their love child. So if you’re feelin’ adventerous, point your browser to the Chrome dev channel and get crackin’.
- September 7, 2010 2:52 pm
If there’s one thing about Android’s awesome Gmail app that could be improved, it’s the UI — and on a lesser note, speed. The former is getting a nice little facelift via a new floating reply/reply all/forward bar that is many times better than the old buttons being located at the very bottom of an email. In regards to speed, it’s supposedly many times improved.
The best part is that rooted and non-rooted users alike can get in on this Gmail beta action by following this link right here. Or, if you’re to lazy for such things, the direct download can be found here.
If doubt and fear are in the back of your head, relax. If you decide that you need to uninstall the update for whatever reason, simply navigate to the Gmail app within the applications pane in the settings menu and click “uninstall updates”. You’ll be good as…old.
Try it out and let us know what you think.
Update
For what it’s worth, I’m running Cyanogenmod 6.0 stable release and the features I pointed out above are already present. Any other custom ROM users want to weigh in?
Well well well. That gloriously tasty looking TweetDeck Android app we talked about yesterday has found one of its early builds leaked (Download here). Based off of an early pre-review by Android Central, they note the app’s nicely styled UI, but knock it for it’s “waterfall approach” to grouping multiple account updates in one column. (Mind you, @username updates and DM’s are separate. Multiple accounts’ status updates such as Twitter, Facebook, Buzz, etc. are grouped together…to clear up any confusion.)
However, I have been begging for a social app like TweetDeck to support a host of social networking accounts *and* put them all in one view. With a total of 5 accounts that need to be simultaneously logged on, I don’t want to have to jump between account views. Thankfully TweetDeck looks to please.
But there’s even better news. Fresh off news that an early build of TweetDeck has been leaked, TweetDeck’s official Twitter account pushed out the update you see above — TweetDeck beta is coming to Android tomorrow! I’m stoked. Who’s going to be refreshing their Android Market app throughout the day…?
Are you going to jump on it early or wait for the real deal?
Mobile gamers and Apple fans hoping to hold on just a little longer with their older hardware have a new decision to make — Old hardware or Game Center. The latest iOS 4.1 beta 3 has removed the highly publicized mobile gaming feature from iPhone 3G and iPod 2G devices. Given the fairly vocal outpouring of consumer complaints citing poor iOS4 performance on said hardware, it isn’t too hard to understand why the decision was made to ax it completely. Even then, it’s still a blow to plenty of Apple owners who were looking to get another years use out of their older hardware. Especially considering that Game Center has the chance to be huge. Now users will have to pay up or shut up.
It may not be the end of the world however. I’m sure that in due time, the Dev-Team and similar hacking teams will find a way to re-enable Game Center support, thereby giving legacy users that encore performance they’ve been looking for. But the best outcome would be Apple finding a way to make Game Center run more smoothly on the older hardware and re-enabling the feature in future updates.
Any iPhone 3G/iPod 2G owners bummed by the removal of Game Center for your devices?
Fans of Android no doubt have discovered the joys a 3rd party launcher can provide. While Android’s stock launcher isn’t bad, there are certainly better options out there. As of late, ADW and LauncherPro beta have been the top dogs as far as options and performance goes. Not to mention, both give users options to have that Froyo look that so many people apparently are seeking. But tonight, LaunchPro developer Federico launched a new LauncherPro Plus. What exactly does the “Plus” tag gain us? Widgets! Initially, there’s only a single “People” widget available. But over the next few weeks, the exclusive LauncherPro Plus widgets will increase in number…
- People: Contacts on the homescreen. Plenty of options to configure.
- Bookmarks Widget: Browser bookmarks
- Friends Widget: Twitter and Facebook status updates as well as ability to update your own accounts
- Calendar/Agenda Widget: Calendar and day planner widget that gives you at-a-glance month overview all the way down to a single day’s events.
- Messaging: This one is one of my more favorite — drill through SMS in bulk or one by one, combined with the ability to respond, delete, or ignore.
Overall, it easily catapults LauncherPro one step ahead of ADW. **Sidenote: I personally have been more of a LauncherPro fan than ADW as I find the latter slower and overall less refined. This is but one more reassurance I picked the right home replacement app. Though if there’s one thing I could add, it would be a weather widget. No, not a copy of HTC’s weather widget. To be fair, HTC’s flipclock weather widget is stylish and clean. But it’s old and frankly, long in the tooth. Beautiful Widgets, even with it’s huge list of custom skins, isn’t really that stylish. Most of the skins are just so-so. But if Federico can come up with his own weather widget, it would be another tool in the belt.
One thing that will immediately catch some off guard is the lack of any LauncherPro Plus in the Android Market. Unfortunately, Federico doesn’t live in a country that currently supports paid Google/Android apps. So purchasing LauncherPro Plus will have to be done old school — via PayPal. **Make sure you use Skyfire as the stock Android browser does some funky things with .apk’s downloaded OTA. After that, install it and you’re good to go. Hopefully Google will add support for paid apps in Federico’s country soon. Regardless, it’s a minor inconvenience.
If you’re looking for a home screen replacement app, don’t even bother looking elsewhere. LauncherPro Plus is where it’s at!
LauncherPro
