Jere has his first paid app in the market, Google ruins Guru’s hard work, and Josh Pollard has something to say.
Show Notes
- News
- Google introduces a phone gallery of phones that offer the full Google experience at google.com/phone. The Fascinate with Bing is thus not listed.
- New countries for paid apps – Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, and Taiwan.
- Android Platform Versions
- ChangeWave Consumer Smartphone Survey – 4000 respondents, completed 9/23. Among those planning to buy a smartphone in the next 90 days, 37% say they prefer to have the Android OS on their new phone, up from 6% this time last year. In consumer satisfaction, 74% of iPhone users said they were very satisfied, compared to 65% of Android users.
- Google acquires Blindtype – Allows for sloppy typing with better accuracy
- Gingerbread: the confirmed, the unconfirmed, and the desired – WebM support, Improved Copy-Paste is confirmed
- Streetview has been expanded to mobile on on all seven continents.
- Google once again ruins all of Guru’s Hard Work…Car Dock is now a market app, and supports customization. You can rearrange icons, personalized wallpapers, activate dock mode when bluetooth is paired. (Install via AppBrain) – Available for the Nexus One and Motorola Droid.
- Battle of the Android Browsers – PC World compared Skyfire, Dolphin HD, Opera, and Fennec. While Skyfire was the fastest, it also crashed during testing. Fennec is still in alpha and thus rather bloated. All are potentially good alternatives to the stock browser, but it does depend on what you want.
- LauncherPro to be rewritten from scratch. The popular launcher was originally based on the stock 2.0 launcher, and thus some of things the developer has done with it are not as good as they could be. He plans to start from scratch, and rebuild in all of Launcherpro’s existing functionality and more, hoping for improved speed, lower memory consumption, increased flexibility, cleaner code. In the meantime, he will continue bug fixes for the existing code, and version 0.8.0.0 was released.
- Correction in regards to Swiftkey – Does now support simultaneous bilingual prediction, voice to text in six language. It is now at $3.99 in the market.
- Update for Foursquare App (Install via AppBrain)
- Useful for smartphone users – Deposit checks via mobile pictures to Paypal. Currently going to iPhone, but can’t imagine it won’t get to the Android Paypal app soon
- StartTalking – new voice program that unlike existing ones, stays resident and listens for a keyword…default is operator. It will read incoming texts to you. Unlike many apps, goal is to be completely hands and eyes free instead of just mostly. The developers claim battery impact is minimal. (Install via AppBrain).
- Timeriffic (Install via AppBrain) – Simple timer based program to control mute, vibrate, brightness, wifi, and such. Controls based on day and time. There are alternatives, but this is simple and free.
- Bloomberg releases Android app (Install via AppBrain)
- ShareKeyboard (Install via AppBrain) – Allows you to share your desktop keyboard with your phone through a web browser. Possible Uses?
- Time to Get into Better Shape
- My Tracks (Install via AppBrain) – Google supplied app that records GPS tracks and shows live stats. Can be used for hiking, cycling, running, etc. Data can be exported as a map, spreadsheet, etc.
- Calorie Counter – MyFitnessPal (Install via AppBrain) –
- Calorie Counter by FatSecret (Install via AppBrain) –
- mySoundBoard($3.99, Install via AppBrain)
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:29:56 — 45.0MB)