TiVo Android App Released in the UK

Thanks to an ad run in CE Pro, we knew TiVo had Android and iPhone software in the pipeline. And a variant of their Android apphas now been released… in the UK. Unlike TiVo’s rich and powerful iPad app, the Android experience being made available to Virgin Media TiVo subscribers is significantly pared down – merely featuring a guide, with the ability to record individual episodes or schedule a Season Pass. The app, available via the Android Market, also features Virgin’s red theme and minimal TiVo branding. So it’s safe to assume this won’t be exactly what makes its way to TiVo Premiere customers here in the US. However, beyond cosmetic changes, I’d hope for somewhat more robust functionality – including the ability to manage recordings and a virtual remote. But, perhaps that’ll have to wait until v1.5.

Fieldrunners HD hits Android

After something of an uphill battle, Fieldrunners HD, the hugely popular Tower Defense game for iPhone, has finally made its way onto the Android platform. Originally tabbed for release last week, Fieldrunners ran into a few speed bumps with the Android Market. But fortunately all is well now, and for the first 24 hours (the clock is already ticking), Fieldrunners will be available in the Amazon Appstore for free or in the Android Market for a buck.

With high-def graphics, more than 400 levels, and four battle fields, this multiple award-winner is certainly worth checking out.

Scrabble Is Finally Coming to Android

We can all agree that Scrabble is the greatest mobile game in the history of mobile gaming, right? It makes a good board game, too, ironically enough.

But Scrabble's been missing from Android phones for so long that I was beginning to wonder if EA and Android had some weird Scrabble-related falling out. Maybe Android invited EA over for some casual burger grilling one summer night a few years ago, and EA was like, "Aw, perfect, I'll bring beer!"

And the next thing you know, Android drank 10 beers—not light ones, like we're talking double IPAs—and made a pass at EA's girlfriend, Scrabble. And Scrabble was like, "The iPhone never does that! The iPhone is a gentleman," and EA was like, "Okay, we'll only go to iPhone's house from now on."

That's how it all played out in my head, at least.

(LIST: 50 Best iPhone Apps 2011)

Turns out, EA may have just been preparing Scrabble to be its first ever free Android game AND make it so you can play against people on iPhones, iPads, and Facebook. I know, right?!

EA says the following:

"As you know, SCRABBLE was the first of our mobile games to introduce Origin mobile and one of our launch products when the Apple App Store went live in July 2008. With the launch of SCRABBLE Android, it will be the first franchise for EA that can be played across iOS, Facebook and Android. This is big news since few multiplayer games in the industry can make that claim. It will also be EA's first free game on Android so we're one step closer to our goal of delivering the best in free and freemium content. I encourage all of you to try SCRABBLE for yourself – on any of these platforms -- and to invite friends to play."

This is, of course, a direct shot at Zynga's Words With Friends, which is similar to Scrabble and can already by played across platforms. Every time I complain about Scrabble not being available on Android, people try to tell me Words With Friends is better than Scrabble. But it just doesn't do it for me. It's like I'm expecting banana bread but I bite into pumpkin bread: It's good, but in a different way. And it's made from pumpkins.

Scrabble will be available for Android sometime next week.

NASA's App for Android

it’s official now. Android users with a keen interest in the world of astronomical science and activities of NASA can now find them right on their smartphones. After the immense popularity of the NASA app on the iPad and the iPhone, and scores of requests from Android users later, an app for Android was decided on. A screenshot of the app.. The NASA App is currently available for free on the Android market. The NASA App for Android includes content from NASA’s collection like – images from NASA IOTD, APOD and NASAImages.org, videos-on demand, and access to streaming video from NASA’s very own, NASA TV, details of their several missions, launch information and their countdown clocks, ISS and Earth Orbiting Satellite tracker, feature stories and breaking news, among others.  The app can be downloaded here.

Android 3.2 for the Motorola Xoom in a few days

Said comment was made in the discussion thread for one Android issue at Google’s official bug tracker. The Googler’s comment in its entirety was:

“There should be a 3.2 update coming within days, and that should help those of you with the Xoom.”

So there you have it. Huawei may have been right after all about the imminent release of Android 3.2 that its upcoming MediaPad tablet will supposedly run.

Android 3.2 won’t bring any major new user-facing features, at least not that we know of right now. It will, however, apparently be the first Honeycomb version to fully support 7-inch tablets (or, better said, tablets with screen resolutions lower than 1280×800). It will also be the first Honeycomb build to support Qualcomm processors. Up until now Android Honeycomb tablets have all had 1280×800 screen resolution and used Nvidia’s Tegra 2 processors. So the new version will make room for some differentiation on the part of tablet manufacturers, and that can only be a good thing. Who knows, we may even see the HTC Flyer get updated to Honeycomb 3.2, since it has a Qualcomm processor and 1024×600 resolution. After all, HTC has promised an update to Honeycomb back when it launched the Flyer, but the reason why that hasn’t happened yet may just have become obvious.

While we can’t know for sure what will happen, let’s just wait a few days and see. Maybe Android 3.2 is closer than we ever thought.

Opera Mobile 11.1 for Android updated with bug-fixes for certain phones

According to Opera, a few Android users were experiencing problems with the latest update of the Opera Mobile browser on Android, with certain phones experiencing force close errors and others suffering random lock-ups when launching the app.

Well. They’ve now been fixed. A new version is up on the Android Market. Here’s Opera’s explanation of the problem and some of the phones effected by it:

Shortly after the launch of Opera Mobile 11.1 for Android we started receiving reports Opera was freezing at startup. We traced the startup freeze to devices with non-standards fonts. Most effected devices were the HTC HD2, and LG P990 Optimus 2x. The developers also identified and fixed another freeze on start-up bug that was effecting devices with Hardware keyboards such as the Motorola Milestone, and the HTC Desire Z.

Opera is calling this a “silent update” which, we think, means it doesn’t get a new build number. It’s like they want all knowledge of this error ERASED from history. Fair enough.

Android App Video Review: Wizard Rush

Wizard Rush is a new running game by Mouse Games. The main mechanic of the game is gravity manipulation, inverting it at will. The game has some nice aesthetics and fun game play, but overall it feels a bit lazy, as if there is a lot missing.

Apparently, this game is about wizards, but that’s preposterous, as I have not seen a single wizard yet in the entire game. Lots of Halloween witches though! Anyway, you are a student at Hogwards (with a D) School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and you’re running from some evil witch because… just because. I only figured this out from the market place description, there is no story in the actual game. I mean, I’m not expecting Dragon Age here, but at least give us a little bit of context for our actions.

Each level has you running to the right. The only thing you can do is tap the screen to flip gravity for yourself. You follow the trail of stars through to the end of the level, avoiding both enemies and falling out of said level. You can also kill enemies if you invert gravity so that it’s like you’re jumping on top of them. Each level has three special collectible stars that require you to go off the star path to collect, and many of them are pretty difficult to attain. You can always replay a level and get them later, though the game doesn’t create even a tiny bit of incentive to collect them, so you probably won’t bother. There are three worlds with four levels each, followed by a fifth boss battle against the evil witch, for a grand total of 15 levels (with a promise of more on the way).

The art and colors can be pleasing in some levels, but straight up strange or ugly looking in others. It doesn’t help that the first two worlds are very Halloween themed, while the third world suddenly takes place during the daytime in what appears to be a futuristic Paris. Like I said, there is no explanation. The running/gravity inverting mechanics can be fun at times, but they’ve been done much better in other games. The one just feels incomplete. There are barely any sound effects and the same music track loops for the entire duration of the game. The only incentive to play is a simple leader board. I hope they add more to the game in future updates, but right now it feels unfinished. Once again though, I can’t really complain, as the game is totally free, so check this one out if it seems like your kind of thing.

Extend the battery life of your Android smartphone with these super-charged tips and tricks.

Android smartphones may be the power user’s answer to the iPhone, but long battery life isn’t an advantage that many of them can claim. This is hardly surprising given the amount of activity that can be happening on an Android smartphone at any given point. Between apps running rampant in the background, live widgets and wallpapers clamouring for attention on the homescreen, plus multiple email and social networking accounts synchronising at will, it’s surprising these smartphones actually last as long as they do. 

The usual power-saving tips apply to making your smartphone battery go the extra mile. Wi-Fi and GPS are both big drains on the battery, so make sure to turn these features off when you’re not using them. If your smartphone doesn’t have icons in the notification window for turning Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS on and off (this differs between phones), add the Power Control widget to your homescreen for easy access to them by pressing ‘Menu > Add > Widgets > Power Control’. 

Check which settings and apps are draining your smartphone's battery.

Screen brightness is another thing to watch for; obviously, the higher the brightness levels are, the more it will drain the battery. The ‘Automatic brightness’ setting (found in ‘Settings > Display > Brightness’) is the best configuration, as this will dynamically adjust the screen depending on ambient lighting conditions. Alternatively, set it as low as you can while still being able to see the screen clearly – you’d be surprised at how bright it still is at the lowest setting. While you’re in Display Settings, you could also adjust the Screen timeout setting to a shorter time.

One of our favourite things about Android is that notifications for new events happen in real-time, whether it’s a new email, Twitter mention, or Facebook message. If you’re happy to forgo this convenience for the sake of better battery life, however, go to ‘Settings > Accounts & Sync’ and uncheck the ‘Background data’ and ‘Auto-sync’. You’ll still get all of your messages, but only when the relevant program is active. 

Android has a handy feature built-in to the operating system that shows you the main culprits of battery usage on your phone. Go to ‘Settings > About phone > Battery Use’, and you’ll see the top five culprits organised by percentage. This screen also tells you how long your phone has been running since you last took it off charge, which can be a handy metric if you’re trying to figure out how long your phone typically lasts on a charge.

If you’re still not happy with your phone’s battery life, short of buying a spare battery, you may need to resort to a third party app to manage your battery for you. The free Juice Defender app is an excellent power management app that lets you customise everything from the minimum and maximum CPU speed (provided your phone is rooted) and set schedules for turning data connectivity on and off (switching data off at night can make a big difference if you never turn your phone off), to creating ‘triggers’ that disable particular settings and programs when your battery goes below a particular threshold. Once the app has been running for a while, it will even tell you how much it has increased your battery life by. 

Juice Defender lets you set up schedules and triggers to maximise battery life.

There are a couple of add-ons you can get to extend Juice Defender’s functionality too, such as JuicePlotter (free) which uses graphics and estimates, and Ultimate Juice ($4.80) for more fine-grained control, plus the option to factor in GPS locations.

Google Nexus One Gets Android Update

Vodafone have now released an Android update for the Google Nexus One. 

The new update (2.3.4) brings the Gingerbread operating system up to the latest edition and includes a number of improvements. 

The user-interface has been made both faster and simpler with the 2.3.4 update, while the keyboard has been improved with the addition of a copy/paste feature. Furthermore, the power management of the smartphone has been improved. Internet calling is now available thanks to the update and the Nexus One now supports multiple camera management.

The Google Nexus One was one of the first mobiles to launch running on Gingerbread and it's good to see its still being supported.

You can pickup the Nexus One on Vodafone free on a £26 a month deal which gets you 600 minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of data. However, it is worth noting that the smartphone has been succeeded by the Google Nexus S.

Google Maps for Android now includes transit navigation for 400+ cities

Google continues to plug in public transportation information with a new update for its Maps for Android app that includes stop-by-stop transit navigation.

Although it’s still in beta mode, Google Maps for Android already has over 12 billion miles of GPS-guided driving and walking directions on board. Now, with Google Maps 5.7, Android smartphone owners will also be able to access public transit directions in more than 400 cities worldwide. (See the full list here.)

Essentially, the app utilizes the smartphone’s GPS function to determine the user’s current location along a particular route. Once the user inputs the destination, then the app will publish alerts about possible transfers and when to disembark.

Obviously, one of the drawbacks could be reception interference. To be able to fully take advantage of this new feature, users will likely have to be above ground.

Nevertheless, this function could prove invaluable to travelers when visiting cities with different languages and alphabets on signs that the user might not understand. (Of course, they just can’t forget about that international data plan first…)

Google Maps for Android as well as mobile and desktop browsers was recently updated in June with live public transit information about real-time and scheduled departure times, route maps and service alerts.

Some of the other enhancements in this version of Google Maps include an updated directions interface, improved search suggestions (with Google Places integrated), and a photo viewer for Place pages.

Available for downloading now, Google Maps 5.7 requires Android 2.1 and higher. For a closer look at the new features, check out the promo video below: