Android Bloke

Facebook goes to the next level

Android Bloke — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 10:37:41 +0000

Facebook, the most addictive( sorry I mean engaging) app on Android has unveiled the next stage of its mobile strategy and is releasing a new launcher app that will effectively turn your Android phone into a Facebook phone.

Over in the USA this week, Mark Zuckerberg, (Facebook’s head honcho) announce Facebook Home, the new replacement Android launcher that they are launching on April 12.

People Centric User Experience

It seems that the clever bods on the facebook team, have taken the opportunity to rethink exactly what a mobile experience should be like and their answer (unsurprisingly) is: People!

Facebook are going to be launching the app with the following key features:

Cover feed
From the moment you wake up your phone you become immersed in cover feed. Cover feed replaces the lock screen and home screen. It’s a window into what’s happening with your friends – friends finishing a bike race, your family sharing a meal or an article about your favorite sports team. These are the beautiful, immersive experiences that you get through Home.

Chat heads
With chat heads you can keep chatting with friends even when you’re using other apps. When friends send you messages, a chat head appears with your friend’s face, so you see exactly who you’re chatting with. Messages reach you no matter what you’re doing – whether you’re checking email, browsing the web, or listening to music.

Notifications
Cover feed is great for seeing everything going on in the world. But when something happens that’s more important and directed at you, like a friend posting on your timeline, you’ll receive notifications with their profile pictures.

Apps
It’s as easy to get to your apps in Home as it is on any other phone. Swipe up to see your favourite apps in the launcher. There’s also a screen containing all of your apps, and you can drag your favourite apps to the launcher.

O2 revolutionises tariff thinking with Refresh

Android Bloke — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 10:36:25 +0000

O2 pulled out the stops for the event, holding it at one of London’s coolest venues, Circus, and pulling in the likes some amazingly talented acrobats and the supremely gifted magician Oliver B.

Oliver B wowed the crowds by doing several amazing jaw dropping tricks including mind reading. I was lucky enough to be called up on the stage too, and Oliver B managed to predict what colour clothes I was drawing on a piece of paper behind his back. He then blew my mind and the crowds by showing the crowd that he was actually wearing the same coloured clothes when he removed his jacket. Amazing to see such new fresh talent.

( If you don’t believe me- then there is a video coming soon!)

New awesome phones come out every year!

( anyway –back to phones!) O2 have picked up on what a lot of people are saying about mobile tariffs (and one of my own personal gripes):

If you want to buy a phone, you are lumbered with a 24 month contract, which you are locked into. That means for a whole 2 years you have sit and drool over what you friends and family have whilst you count down the months until your upgrade. Mobile moves on a LOT in a year.

With O2 refresh, O2 they seem to have thrown this model thankfully out of the window.

How it works

In the words of O2 as they say it quite succinctly:

When a customer signs up to O2 Refresh, they choose a Phone Plan and an Airtime Plan. By signing up to and paying separately for their phone and airtime, customers are given complete transparency, while paying the same overall as they would on a standard 24 month Pay Monthly tariff.

For those customers who want a new handset before the end of their contract term, O2 Refresh enables them to pay off the remainder of their Phone Plan and end their Airtime Plan with no termination fee. To make it even more affordable to get the latest smartphone, customers can trade in their old mobile for cash using O2 Recycle, getting up to £260 to put towards their new phone

Developer: Building and Optimizing for NDK based Games on Intel Architecture

Android Bloke — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 10:33:07 +0000

As part of our series of posts helping developers to produce even more epic apps we now move onto a more in-depth article in how to make the best of the multitude of NDK tools that Intel have produced to help build better apps.

Summary:

Typically game engines are the core of all game development. When they execute well on IA platforms, then the games will run well too. We took the popular game engine, cocos2dx, as an example, to demonstrate how to develop on the IA platform using some of the Intel tools available to developers for the Android platform and showed significant performance improvements.

Learn NDK Android in person: Intel Codefest hits London on Thursday

Android Bloke — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 10:32:11 +0000

Our buddies over at BeMyApp, have kindly shared some information about a couple of the events they are running. They are now running a monthly codefest where guru developers will show off various aspects of developing for Android.

For those of you interested in building NDK Apps- the first codefest will be happening this Thursday in London. The NDK is used by a lot of games and hardcore apps to help take their move the performance to the next level. If you would like a taster of the event, you can have a look at our recent post covering Intel and the Android NDK.

Here is an extract of what they plan on covering:

CODEFEST is an evening workshop, with technical experts from Intel showing how to create an NDK app.

To ensure your app has the widest possible audience, and delivers the best performance, it’s important to test it and optimise it for Android devices that use Intel® processors.

Use the Android NDK to generate binary libraries for devices that use Intel processors, from C/C++ source code on your development platform
Use the Android NDK to package the native binary files into apk files for installation on Intel AtomTM processor-based devices
Test your application’s compatibility with devices that use the Intel Atom processor

Developer: Masterclass Video by LukeW: the guru of responsive web

Android Bloke — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 10:29:57 +0000

As part of our series of posts on learning to make apps we now move onto the really important subject of working out how to make your apps and web

Content work beautifully on the multitude of screen sizes. LukeW is a bit of a legend when it comes to producing responsive web solutions ie making content adapt to various screen sizes.

This video on adapting content to fit screens is one of a series of 8 videos which is designed to show you direct from the master how to build content that adapts to the user. To view the other videos just click on the “LukeW” video at the bottom of the video.

London’s first all Digital art Gallery using Sony Tablet Z

Android Bloke — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 10:28:40 +0000

Sony has partnered with Tyler Shields, the USA superstar photographer, to bring his art exhibition to London’s first all-digital art gallery powered by their Android Tablets.

Androidbloke is all about living the digital lifestyle using Android so when we were invited by the bods at Sony to hang out with the cool kids at their pop up art gallery in trendy London’s Brick lane area, we were over there pretty sharpish after work.

Sony are really great at always trying to seek our new ways to bring their technology to new audiences, and today was no exception. Sony had outfitted the gallery with 50 of its latest Sony Tablet Z devices which were each displaying a selection of Tyler’s amazing photographs.

Tyler Shields

Tyler’s exhibition dubbed ” The Science of Colour” had him throwing paint and color over good looking people in stark landscapes like desert dunes. The result is amazing and something is really innovative and unique. I have put in some of the images into the post so you can see the effect.

All-Digital Art Gallery with Sony Tablet Z

I for one was quite skeptical about how good the exhibition would be as what could be different from viewing it just on a computer?? I was wrong.. Big time.

The Sony tablets with their high resolution screens(224ppi 1920×200 if you must know) and amazing color contrast turned what was beautiful pictures into even more detailed spectacular views. The detail of each of the photos had to be experienced first hand and made you see so many more nuances. Also the fact that they were set against black reflective background, it made it stand out even more ( but was a nightmare to photograph)

Digital Art is one that you can touch and explore

The most interesting observation was that because it was a tablet, I noticed something amazing: People were reaching out and touching the artworks- they were pinching and zooming and exploring the images in more depth than if they were just fleetingly looked at on a webpage. But maybe that is what digital art is really about.

Zombies Roll into Town on Sphero

Android Bloke — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 10:27:01 +0000

I spent the weekend relaxing at home and killing Zombies on my living room floor. Not its nothing to do with my PS3 but the new Sphero game, “Rolling Dead”

Yep Zombies, you can’t get away from them at the moment. With movies like World War Z out, zombies seem to be flavour of the month. Little did I realise that I was going to be having my own Zombie adventure right in my living room ( and scaring the cat in the process.) Sorry Mr Tiggles!

My day started like most any, barring a small wooden chest arriving at my door. Opening it up hesitantly I was greeted by a disembodied finger and a blood soaked “Sphero” ball. For those of you who don’t know, Sphero is a robotic remote controlled ball that you can control using an app on your phone. Its pretty amazing and a lot of fun to use.

Credit to the guys at Sphero for coming up with the coolest ever limited edition press packaging for Rolling Dead – complete with a severed Zombie finger and blood stained Sphero ball. I had a frightened chill down my spine before I even started playing.

Augmented Reality Zombie smasher

The game is strangely magic as you are presented with a view of your living room (or office) through the camera of your phone, when suddenly you see Zombies start crawling all around it. Its up to you to use your super powered Sphero to roll around the living room and kill the zombies for good. The game has all the arcade favourites like getting more ammo and occasionally you can earn enough powerups to turn your Sphero into a flaming power ball.

This game is loads of fun to play and really addictive and no matter where you are, its really funny to be playing in my home or office and protecting it from zombies.

Sphero goes Olympic with Sphero v2

Android Bloke — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 10:25:51 +0000

Robots seem to be in the news this week, with Sphero launching it’s latest incarnation which to uses the Olympic motto, “Faster, Higher Stronger ” as the key improvements.

For the past few weeks, Sphero have let visitors to their website know something was coming by replacing their website with just a single teaser video. Finally we have found out why they were so excited…… Sphero v2 is going to be hitting shelves at the end of the month.

The 2nd generation incarnation of the robotic ball that you can control via a phone app has been announced and promises to exceed the earlier version in every possible way.

Faster

The new Sphero has been engineered for speed with new faster hardware dubbed “AI Superdrive” and some really revolutionary tweaks

Higherlike a lower centre of gravity. The new ball boasts a speed of up to a whopping 7 feet per second. To put it in perspective that is enough to outpace you or I. ( especially I)

Ramps! The new packaging comes equipped with a new set of Sphero ramps which let you create obstacle courses and pull off neat tricks like ramping the super speed sphere over and across long gaps.( Long jump anyone??) The internal LEDs have also been tweaked so that the colors that the Sphero can turn now are even brighter!

Stronger

Even though the Spheros are made from polycarbonite, which means that they are so strong you could stand on them- Sphero have released a new accessory called a “Nubby” cover which will cushion the ball and give it extra traction whilst you are using it outside in the garden or on that hard concrete pavement.

Overall it looks like an amazing improvement over the previous version and is ready to take the market by storm. I look forward to my own mini-olympics when we get one into review so look for our hands on review in the next week.

Hotels.com Top Travel Apps: Hotels.com

Android Bloke — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 10:24:24 +0000

We all know that we can just about buy anything using our mobiles. groceries, pizza even furniture, but what about a holiday?

Here at androidbloke we are fanatical about doing just about everything using our humble android telephones and tablets. When the wife suggested booking a quiet getaway for the family, I thought it would be a great chance to see what apps were out there when it comes to arranging our mini weekend away.

Finding a good holiday place

Finding a place to go was pretty easy thanks to the trusty Google maps app. We settled on the lovely town of Salisbury thanks to streetView and recommendation from a good friend. But where to stay?

Finding a home base

When it comes to picking a place to park up for the night, we checked out the hotels.com and wow – were we impressed at how good it is. For many people, I hear them say why not just use the website? The hotels.com app answers this question with being fast, being really simple and having really great images included in it to really show off where you can stay.

Not only is it quick to find a hotel that you like, you can also pay for it directly in-app and even check how many nights you have to stay before you earn a free night stay.

If you want a great demo of how quick it is to book check out the frankly hilarious “intro video” that Hotels.com use for their app. Could a crazy japanese group manage to book a hotel while whitewater rafting down a mountain?? Watch below to find out!

Smartsheet Launches Project Management App on Android

Android Bloke — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 10:22:46 +0000

Smartsheet recently expanded its mobile portfolio with a new Android app for its popular spreadsheet-inspired project management tool for enterprise. They also significantly enhanced their already existing iPhone and iPad app.

As more and more people are buying Android devices, they are increasingly being brought into the workplace. Consequently, a growing number of software as a service (SaaS) providers, such as Smartsheet, are developing apps for the Android platform. While iOS offerings still dominate the app market, the recent shift to mobile devices forces companies to expand their mobile offerings to as many operating systems as possible.

Smartsheet is used in more than 150 countries by a broad range of companies to organise, plan and execute daily operational activities. The project management tool can be used for diverse types of work, such as marketing campaigns, product launches, business operations, events, strategic planning and HR initiatives.

The new Android app allows users to access and update project details and collaborate with teams from their mobile devices. It is designed more as a tool for doing work, rather than just for read-only purposes. It has a spreadsheet look and feel with collaborative web functionality and project management features like Gantt charts and calendars. The new Android app is available to download for free in the Google Play Store, the Amazon Appstore and the Kindle Fire Appstore.

In addition to the launch of the new Android version, Smartsheet also added new practical features to its existing iOS offering. The service now supports interactive Gantt charts for viewing and modifying project schedules and the ability to create and modify new sheets directly within the device. The enhanced app for iPhone and iPad is still available for free in the Apple App Store.

“Our customers increasingly want access to Smartsheet from their mobile devices, as witnessed from the rapid adoption of our earlier versions,” said Mark Mader, President and CEO of Smartsheet.

“Mobile productivity is fundamental to workplace productivity and we’re excited to extend our native mobile offerings and give users the anytime access they expect from the apps they value most.”

Ever since its launch, Smartsheet has been an incredibly popular tool as it is solving a real business need. On the web, it is already used by more than two million people worldwide.