All About Android 50

All About Android Episode 50

Guest

• Mark Burstiner
• getftw.com

News

• BREAKING NEWS: Android Market enables direct app downloads of up to 4GB

First announced at last year's Google I/O, Google has enabled the direct app downloads upwards of 4GB (2 files at 2GB each), an increase from the previous 50MB limitation. This is big news for games! In case you're wondering, the 15 minute refund window won't begin until the file finishes downloading completely.

• ASUS claims it may be among first to get Android 5.0, confirms Jelly Bean moniker
• VP Benson Lin, who said "Asus is very close to Google, so once they have Android 5.0 I think there will be a high possibility that we will be the first wave to offer the Jelly Bean update." They are rumored to be working with google on the next Nexus tablet.

RELATED: Asus denies claims of buggy Transformer ICS update

ASUS rep in UK: "We're not aware that there are any inherent issues with the firmware updates we are rolling out, in fact the opposite," the spokesman said. "The customers who do have issues are the ones who reach out loudest — we're not ignoring them."

• Android 'Key Lime Pie' comes after Jelly Bean
• Android Apps Can Also Secretly Copy Photos
• Android allows apps to see your photos, like every computer does
• Senator Schumer asks FTC to probe Apple, Android

iOS recently came under fire when it was discovered that a loophole allows apps without permissions to access photos stored on a user's device. Then, soon after, New York Times reported that Android (gasp!) allows the same thing! Only the big difference is that iOS is designed to keep apps away from these things. Android's file system was designed, as Google puts it, ""similar to those of other computing platforms like Windows or Mac OS"" meaning the contents stored on a removable drive (ie SD card) is simply data stored to a drive, not particular types of data that need to be cleared anytime an app wants to access it.

Over the weekend, US senator Charles Schumer called for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate, saying that "smartphone makers should be required to put in place safety measures to ensure third party applications are not able to violate a user's personal privacy by stealing photographs or data that the user did not consciously decide to make public".

Now, it seems Google might be reevaluating the permissions for such a thing which would certainly make things like sharing photos a little more difficult. But it begs the question: Necessary?

• WSJ: Target, Walmart, other retailers teaming up to take on Google Wallet

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Target and Walmart, along with a number of unnamed fast food, big box and drug store retailers, are developing their own mobile payment system to compete with the likes of Google Wallet, Isis and, any others that are certain to pop up. Their eagerness stems from their desire to build brand loyalty as well as avoid the security and privacy risks that they see in competing services. A Google Representative welcomed the competition touting consumer choice in the payments space as a good thing for everyone involved.

Email

I've had a lot of problems, as I gather many people have from looking at a couple of forums. Many apps (even updated google apps) close regularly, and navigating from one screen to another using the apps list can take up to 20 seconds. The browser is slow, etc. Perhaps you folks could look into what experience people are having and comment or even make some suggestions if you find that it is a common experience. Thanks, and BTW I love the arena! How else are we going to consider 400k apps? Cheers,

Bob

Interview: Mark Burstiner

FTW: Your universal gaming identity

Hardware

• Eileen's Review of the Lenovo A1 Ideapad Tablet

Pros: price $199; HD space, 16GB, expandable to 32 with MicroSD card

Cons: LED display, touch sensivitity

• Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 hitting Verizon on March 1st for $500 on contract
• Toshiba Excite 10 LE coming March 6, starting at $529 http://www.androidcentral.com/toshiba-excite-10-le-coming-march-6-starting-529

Billed as the world's thinnest and lightest 10-inch tablet (7.7mm and 535g respectively), the Excite 10 LE will cost $529 for the 16GB version, and $599 for the 32GB version.

Apps

• Google Assistant listens and responds to voice like Siri, to be company's main focus of 2012?

2012 could be the year of "Google Assistant". We already have pretty decent voice commands on Android, but this would be a direct competitor to Apple's Siri, where we would be able to speak to get answers, search results, and more. The information would obviously come from google's search engine and personalized results from Google+. This is apparently the new focus for Google, led by the Android team - much like Google+ was for 2011. Unnamed sources say that this new assistant should be revealed by Q4 of this year.

• MIT App Inventor service now open to all Android developers in public beta

If you have a Google Account, you can now take part in MIT's public beta of App Inventor, the tool that MIT adopted from Google and saved from disappearing completely. If the beta goes well, it should become a full MIT service soon and they've pledged resources to help developers in training to get their apps out the door.

• Ron's Google TV Roundup

Able Remote for Google TV

Able Remote

Social GTV

Android Arena!

• Last Week's Poll
• This week's face-off: Fan Developer Apps!
• Eileen - Data Detective (submitted by Janne Oksanen)
• Ron - Kid Play (submitted by David Parry)
• Mark - Trivalist (submitted by Chris Stewart)
• Jason - Droid of the Day (submitted by Mike Wolfson)
• This Week's Poll

Sponsors

• Ting.com
• Ad Time: 30:44

• Audible.com
• Ad Time: 58:08

Production Information

• Edited by: Jason
• Notes:

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