Android Atlas

Google releases standalone YouTube app for Froyo

For the second time in as many months, Google has split one of its applications off from the Android platform. Following last September's updated Gmail client, Google has released YouTube as a standalone application.

Available for Android 2.2 handsets and above, the app adds new features such as in-page playback, which allows users to read comments while watching videos. Other options include rotate to full screen, personalized home screen, and shooting videos and uploading them directly from the application rather than opening a separate camera client.

As with pulling Maps and Gmail out of Android and releasing them … Read more

A misguided rebuttal to Steve Jobs' Android attack

Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs had fighting words for Google Android on Monday, and Andy Rubin, the leader of Google's mobile operating system, apparently took to Twitter to counter the challenge.

Too bad the response mostly missed its target.

On a conference call for a strong quarter during which Apple sold 14.1 million iPhones, Jobs criticized both Android and Google's more-open-than-thou sales pitch:

"We think the 'open' versus 'closed' argument is a smokescreen for what's really best for the customers," Jobs said. "We think Android is very, very fragmented and becomes more so every day. We think this is a huge strength of our approach when compared to Google's. We think integrated will trump fragmented every time."

After which Twitter user ARubin, who appears to be the genuine article, had this response in his inaugural tweet:

the definition of open: "mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make"

Rubin didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. But if you're not up on your command-line interfaces, the tweet translates to making a directory, pulling in the Android source code, and building the operating system from scratch. In other words, exercising the full potential of open-source software, a pretty empowering idea for developers. … Read more

CoPilot Live USA finds its way onto Android phones

ALK Technologies, provider of the CoPilot line of navigation software, has just announced a new low-cost version of its CoPilot 8 software for Android phones, dubbed CoPilot Live USA. It costs just under $5.

Navigation software has typically been a hard sell for Android phones, since Google started offering its Google Maps Navigation app for Android 1.6 and higher, but CoPilot Live USA has one feature that makes it worth a second look: local map data. By storing its maps locally, users are still able to plan routes when their data connection goes dark, which is a godsend for … Read more

Angry Birds tops 2 million Android downloads

Angry Birds has hit 2 million downloads on Android-based devices in just two days of availability, the game's developer announced on its Twitter account today.

On Friday, Rovio released Angry Birds for Android users on cross-platform app store, GetJar. The game is also available in the Android Market. Pent-up demand for the title, which has consistently been at or near the top of Apple App Store charts in several countries around the world, caused GetJar's site to crash on Friday. The site eventually recovered, and is currently up and running for those want to download the game to … Read more

Android phones get heart-healthy

Are you in possession of both a heart and an Android phone? Prove it with a system that lets you view your electrocardiogram on your Android device and then share it with a medical professional--or anyone else who might doubt you have a pulse.

European researchers are working on a low-power prototype interface that transmits wireless electrocardiogram, or EKG, sensor signals from a wearable "body area network" called the "Human ++ BAN" to an app compatible with Android devices. The system is the work of Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC), a nanoelectronics research firm based in the Netherlands; … Read more

Opera aims for Android, hardware acceleration

OSLO, Norway--Opera Software announced significant new steps for its browsers today, including the release soon of Opera Mobile for Android phones and extensions technology in the upcoming Opera 11 for computers.

In both those cases--and also in the Opera Mini browser for less capable phones--the browsers will come with a major new feature: hardware acceleration to speed the display of pages and operations such as scrolling and panning. That change is essential to keep Opera relevant in a highly competitive industry.

Android is aligned well with Opera's business strategy. First, Google's mobile operating system, unlike Apple's iOS, … Read more

Google Goggles vs. itself on iPhone, Android

As a longtime user of both the iPhone and Android, I was pleased to see Google's Goggles service make its way to iOS devices this past week. Even though it's missing a feature or two compared to its Android sibling, both versions are able to figure out what you've just taken a picture of, and give it back to you as a Google search.

It's one of those simple applications that I keep coming back to, mainly for its speed and accuracy, which can be scarily good. Though, when Google released it on the iPhone, it … Read more

Sprint ID for Android smartphones (review)

We admit that we were skeptical when Sprint's CEO Dan Hesse launched Sprint ID at the fall CTIA show earlier this week. The service essentially gives Android users an opportunity to swap among five different thematic profiles. It sounds useful at first description, but we quickly wondered if the ID Packs--which contain the wallpaper, widgets, home screen shortcut buttons, and apps--are just another way to spam people with brand advertising. So we took our review units back to the office and out on the streets to get to know Sprint ID.

As we mentioned, Sprint ID is a collection of profiles … Read more

As promised, Adobe's AIR hits Android

Adobe Systems has finally brought its AIR platform to smartphones, with an application for Android phone users that hit the Android Market last night.

The AIR platform, which began on the desktop, stands for Adobe Integrated Runtime. It's a platform for users to run rich Internet applications locally, much like a typical software application. In that same vein, AIR apps can take advantage of the hardware they're running on in ways that Web apps in the browser sometimes can't.

Back in February, while at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, Adobe said it would be bringing … Read more