Google Maps for Android recently hit version 4.4, and the update brought a lot of great new features with it. Google Maps now makes it easier than ever to find new places around you with a new, dedicated Places application. If you already got the update to 4.4, you should now have a new Places icon in your application menu. Places is a powerful new tool that will let you find whatever sort of establishment you are looking for quickly and easily.

When you open up Places, you will be able to choose a type of place from a preset list that includes things like restaurants, coffee shops, and petrol stations. You can also look for any other type of place you might be interested in by doing a custom search. These are not ‘brand new’ features. Applications like Yelp, and Where have been providing similar functionality for a while now. Places really stands out because of the additional information it can give you.  If you are walking into a restaurant for the first time, just open Places, and you will find photos, reviews, parking information, prices, and a link to the restaurant’s menu when available. Places will also show you business hours right in the search results so you won’t ruin a first date by going to a closed restaurant ever again!

All of these great new features join the existing top notch navigation features you know and love from previous versions of Google Maps. Now you can pick a restaurant, get directions, and find out where to park all from your Android phone. Also, there won’t be any surprises when you see the prices on the menu.

Google Maps 4.4 is available now on the Android Application Market, and it will be available soon for Blackberry users. If you are running Android 1.6 or later, you could not ask for a better application to help you find new places near you. Not only will it tell you what’s nearby, it’ll also tell you how to get there, and what to expect once you are there. What more could you ask for? With all of these great features, Places and Google Maps 4.4 are both welcome additions to the Google application suite. Check it out the next time you are looking for a new place nearby.

]]> http://www.droid.net.au/2010/08/google-places-for-android/feed/ 0 http://www.droid.net.au/2010/07/google-app-inventor/ http://www.droid.net.au/2010/07/google-app-inventor/#comments Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:15:31 +0000 Droid http://www.droid.net.au/?p=893

Google seems to be very keen to make Android the most popular mobile operating system. Few days ago the company announced new revolutionary service, which allows all users to easily create applications for their phones. Basically users will not require any programming skills or knowledge to create an application, and anybody will be able to do it.  This service is called Google App Inventor and is available for users to register their interest. The official website says that users will be given access to the service in the coming weeks. Users will be able to create and download applications to their phones, but not to other Android users at this stage.

In the application’s main window you see building blocks, which are used to create applications. You will get access to various settings, access to all phone functions, such as SMS messaging, Twitter, motion sensor, etc. Basically we are getting a powerful tool to freely express our individuality. After playing with the App Inventor for a whole evening, I can say that this application can and will change our perception about writing applications as a whole. Google is giving  a very powerful tool to non-programmers, and I am sure that many of them will use it to show off their creative potential.

No other company on the market offers such a tool to its users and they are not even close to be able to offer such functionality. I strongly recommend you to try this application – it is a revolution, which should not be underestimated. Latest figures show that Android Market has around 70 000 applications, and that the next milestone barrier of 100 000 applications will be reached in the near future. I will not even try  to guess the number of applications that will flood the market, when the App Inventor goes out of the beta stage. It will be stunning. For the first time the company turned not to the developers, but to all users, and provided a tool for creating programs for their phones. This is a truly amasing offering. Below is a video, which explains the process of creating a simple ‘meow-meow’ application. Personally, I am delighted of the number of opportunities that App Inventor opens for Android.

Distimo is a company that specializes on mobile application market analysis for different platforms. They have recently released interesting statistics on the proportion of free vs. paid applications for the Android Market, AppStore, OVI Store and others. They have also listed top 10 most popular free and paid applications for Android. The results are quite interesting, and in the case of our beloved “Market” entertaining.

First let’s look at the free vs. paid application comparison chart.

It is easy to notice in the above chart that the percentage of free programs on the Android Market is higher than on any other mobile platform – 57%. By the way, not so long ago this value was closer to 50%, so it slightly increased over time. This statistics has its positive and negative aspects. The good news is that free software for Android is thriving. Bad news – the quality of most programs is far from being “good”, many applications just copy each other.

Two interesting tables below are showing us the most popular programs for Android. As you can see, Google Maps and Pandora Radio are the most popular free apps, while Beautiful Widgets is the top paid application.

[via Distimo]

[Android Market image via resnickscity.wordpress.com]

First information about the new, probably the third version of the Android operating system started circulating the web last week. It is believed that the developers are likely to stick with the existing naming convention, and the new version will be called Android Gingerbread.

All that is known at the moment are the rough hardware requirements to run the new version of Android. Take a deep breath … here they are:
• CPU – at least 1 GHz
• RAM – at least 512 MB
• Display – with a diagonal of 3.5 “and above

In addition, there is information that the system will support screen resolutions of 1280 × 760 pixels for displays with a diagonal of 4″ and more. I assume that there will be an Android expansion to the booming pad market, or, alternatively, Google encourages devices like Motorola Droid X.

Another interesting news is that the new version will have a redesigned interface. There are fears that Google could limit or even restrict changes to the graphical user interface for phone manufacturers. Simply ban use of things like HTC Sense, Motorola Motoblur, Samsung TouchWiz, etc. In my opinion if this happens, we will see the first epic fail from Google since the beginning of Android development.

There will be more information coming in the near future, and I will keep you updated with all news. The “cookie” looks interesting, but at the same time has a strange taste … is it ginger?

HTC Hero owners can start celebrating… The moment so many people were waiting for has finally arrived. Official upgrade to Android 2.1 has been released yesterday. The question you are probably asking now is – ‘So, how do I upgrade?’

All you need to do is change the date on your device to August, or another time later this year. For example change it to August 29, and then reboot the phone. After the reboot, the phone will download and install two packages – updated FOTA-client, and then Android 2.1 itself (it is about 80 MB big, so make sure you’ve got enough free space available). Feel free to write a few comments about your experience in the comments.

There is nothing more frustrating than being lost and not knowing how you got there. What if you are not looking for a specific building or house, not searching for the shortest route, you just want to return to the starting point in an unfamiliar area. There is an excellent program that will help you do just that – My Tracks.

There are plenty of situations where this program can be useful – bush walks, to be able to walk around the city and return to the hotel, to track the distance you’ve covered on foot, etc. For these purposes you don’t usually need maps of countries and cities.

The program is very simple and easy to use. All you need to do is click “Record track” button and go for a walk. That’s it. Just don’t forget to enable GPS.

To make the program experience better, you should download Google Maps, so your track will be displayed on the map of the area. You don’t have to do it, so if you are in the area with no mobile coverage, or you do not have any data included in your plan, the program will still record your track, but it will be on a white background. In addition you can add notes to the track you are recording.

Thanks to multitasking and unlike the iPhone, My Tracks works at the background and records your movements throughout the trip. I was surprised to find that I walked 22 kilometers in 3 days. Tracks and statistics can be viewed on a computer at home, because My Tracks is perfectly integrated with Google Maps. In addition, the data can be also upload to Google Docs, as well as saved on the memory card of your smartphone, so you can show it to friends and family at a later stage.

You can easy save the route in your maps and make it available to everyone right from your phone. For example, my trip can be viewed here.

Integration with other applications and systems is one of the most important features of mobile applications. It is unfortunate that only a few developers understand this. My Tracks is one of the applications that demonstrate how it should be done

I haven’t really touched on the settings and options available, but you should be able to check it all yourself.

I highly recommend this application to everyone, especially if you are traveling or walking a lot.

A new multimedia player for the Android platform was officially announced last week. The player is called DoubleTwist. And this event could go unnoticed, because there plenty of music players available on the Market, and the release of another one is not such a big news… The fact is that compared to some other players, DoubleTwist looks very cool and attractive due to some features and nice design.

The first point of difference is the design. There are not that many players for Android with nice and neat user interface. This software definitely stands from the masses.

Secondly, in addition to playing music, DoubleTwist supports video playback and is able to play podcasts.

Thirdly, there is a desktop client for the player (runs on both PCs and Macs), with which you can listen to the music, subscribe to podcasts and sync all this stuff with your phone. In addition, the desktop client has a tab with the Android Market, where applications are shown with screenshots, descriptions and QR-codes for quick search. Finally, the desktop client has a built-in music store, which could be useful for some users.

I might post a detailed review of DoubleTwist in the near future, however if you cannot wait to try this software, look for it on the Market.

As is the case with Twitter clients, there are plenty of file managers available on the Android Market. However, not every application is worth installing on your phone, and frankly speaking most of them are rubbish. So, to save your time and nerves, I want to recommend a great application that should be installed on almost every Android device – ES File Explorer.

ES File Explorer’s user interface is very ordinary for a program of this type – there are various buttons and menus at the top of the screen, and the remaining space is used by the file system. Folders and files can be viewed as a list, detailed list (when additional data is displayed) or as a matrix of icons – most PC and Mac users should be very familiar with this selection of view options.

Two icon sizes (normal and small) are available for all three options. The interface is customisable and very easy to change, so you can, for example, enable or disable tabs. With tabs enabled, you can quickly switch between local files (your device’s system files and memory card), network files and FTP. You will need to setup a server for network and FTP connections, but once it is done, files can quite easily be stored and accessed remotely (you will need appropriate access rights).

You can change the appearance of the file manager. Having said that, I found the alternative themes quite boring, so I use the default one, with black background.

The application offers much more than the standard file browsing functionality. To start with, ES File Explorer has its own clipboard, which stretches from the bottom of the screen. Files stored in the clipboard can be copied in the currently open folder with just one click. In general, this function is very useful, as you can easily see what files are stored in the clipboard, add new ones, or remove old.

There is a special image viewing utility. In addition to that, images can be shown as thumbnail-previews, which is very convenient.

The program has an in-built search function, which can search for different types of files. There is a button, which allows you to select multiple files. There is an application manager, which shows all applications installed on your phone. Any program in the list can be easily removed from your system or backed up. In this case backup files (.apk) will be saved in a user specified folder.

So if you want to make backup copies of all installed applications on your smartphone, simply open ES File Explorer, select Program Manager, then select all applications and back them up. Very handy feature.

The program has a simple text editor, tools for viewing photos and videos, various simple and advanced settings. In short, ES File Explorer offers a good set of core functionality, and a lot of useful features in addition to this. In my view this is one of best file managers for Android and I highly recommend it.

Note: If you want to try this application, you should search for EStrongs File Explorer on the Market

Below is a quick video on how to share files over LAN using ES File Explorer:

Few hours ago Google officially announced Android 2.2 codenamed Froyo at Google I/O conference. The new version offers a lot of improvements – speed, full Flash support, more enterprise features, new SDK, Cloud to Device Messaging, backup and other minor improvements!

To begin, I would like to point out that Android operating system is getting momentum – the Market has more than 50,000 applications and more than 100,000 new Android based devices get activated every day.

Thus, the main features of Android 2.2 Froyo are:

• Speed - The new operating system will make any Android application and any Android phone preform 2-5 times faster with no change the application itself or phone software or hardware.
• Flash - Froyo will offer full native support for Flash 10.1.
• Enterprise Features - The system now offers more features for enterprise customers.  It supports more than 20 Microsoft Exchange rules like minimum password, remote wipe, lockscreen timeout, etc.
• New SDK - New APIs for data backup and Cloud to Device Messaging capabilities.
• Cloud to Device Messaging - Android 2.2 will allow you to download applications from the new Android Market on the web to various devices (e.g. phones, tablets, TVs, etc.)
• Tethering and Portable Hotspot - Android 2.2 devices will have native (and hopefully user-friendly) support.
• Install Applications to SD Card – The system now allows for applications to be installed to SD card. So users will be able to install up to 32GB of applications…
• Backup - Froyo offers native data backup capabilities.
• Browser – The developers have made some changes to the browser and achieved significant speed improvements. Google states that it is now two or even three times faster than the previous version, thanks to the V8 javascript.
• Automatic Application Updates – Android 2.2 will offer automatic application update capability.

P.S. According to the Google I/O Twitter page Froyo is coming to Nexus One in the next few weeks. Can’t wait!!!

Please check the official Froyo video below for the demonstration of the new features:

If you look closely, you will see that the home screen has changed. Search widget now comes with a choice of different search engines. So, it is probably fair to assume that this video is a debut of Android 2.2.

Like it or not, but we will learn more about the operating system in about a week. And if the rumors prove to be true then in addition of some graphical changes users will also get the following new features: Flash support, automatic application updating and an option to install applications to a memory card.