Items tagged with Google-Play
Google is going loud with new regulations to get their app store developers in line. With a possible new update to guidelines, Google emphasizes the 30% cut of purchases and leveling the playing field by making apps that skirted the rule come into compliance. According to a source familiar with the situation, Google could be moving to update app store regulations as early as next week. These updated guidelines would break the resounding silence Google had had since the Epic versus Apple spat began when Fortnite circumvented the 30% app tax on both stores. Epic Games, however, are not the only ones skirting the rule it seems. As reported by Bloomberg, “major developers including Netflix...
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Google is facing a serious issue with privacy and malicious apps on the Google Play store for Android users. The company recently kicked 85 apps that were malware-laden off the Play Store, and has now announced that the removal process for any apps that ask for SMS or Call Log permissions is beginning for developers who fail to follow specific steps. The policy change was announced last year, and Google has reportedly been reminding devs of the change. Removals for violation of the policy will begin in the next few weeks. Android users who have been using an alternative dialer or messaging app could be impacted. The reason for the policy change is that call and SMS log permissions have been abused...
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Is your smartphone secretly recording your screen activity? It turns out that conspiracy theorists may have some justification for their concern. Computer scientists from Northeastern University determined that some apps do violate a user’s privacy by quietly capturing pictures, videos, and recorded audio. According to the Northeastern University scientists, their research was the “first large-scale empirical study of media permissions and leaks from Android apps, covering 17,260 apps from Google Play, App China, Mi.com, and Anzhi.” The researchers worked with ten Android devices and an automated program to use the apps and determine whether any media files were sent to...
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Will the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL have a notched display, as is the growing trend among Android devices, or will it skip the notch and use a more traditional bezel design at the top? The answer to that question might simply be 'Yes!', though that requires further explanation. Here it is—among a series of leaks and rumors, the most recent one suggests the Pixel 3 will have a regular bezel along the top, and the Pixel 3 XL will adopt a notched design. While the notched designed is relatively new, adopting it for one model and not another isn't unprecedented. Apple did the same thing when it launched its iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X models, the latter of which popularized the notch...
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If you have never listened to an audiobook, you are missing out on one of the better types of entertainment for long trips or people who drive a lot. The biggest name in audiobooks right now is Audible and it has been for a long time. However, Google wants people to think first of Google Play when they want a new audiobook and to facilitate that Google Play Audiobooks has some new updates to help better compete. These new features are things that some might think Google should have added to its audiobooks service at launch and include things such as smart resume and bookmarks. Google Play audiobooks launched in January and allows fans to get audiobooks directly via the Google Play Books...
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Last Friday mobile gamers got a surprise when PUBG Mobile launched in Canada. At the time the game launched in The Great White North, the only way for U.S. gamers to partake in the fun was to change their region and download the game. PUBG Mobile has now officially landed in the U.S. and the game is available on both Android and iOS platforms. The game is said to be an accurate and faithful reproduction of gameplay currently available on PC and console systems, and promises high-quality graphics thanks to Unreal Engine 4 along with HD audio. Perhaps the best news about PUBG Mobile is that the game is free, whereas it costs money to play on PC or console systems. If you have never played...
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Gamers in the Great White North got a surprise this week as without warning and with no fanfare, PUBG Mobile landed on the Google Play store in the country. This launch highlights the promise that the developer made to get the game on all major platforms. The game is an officially licensed mobile version and the soft launch is viewed as an early release to allow gamers to grab the game and beat on it for stability before a presumed larger rollout. PUBG did the same thing when it launched in early access form on Steam and stayed there for a long time before hitting an official release. Canada isn’t the first country to get a PUBG Mobile game, China was the first. The launch in Canada is...
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Symantec has issued a warning that it found at least eight different apps on Google Play that were infected with a malware called Android.Sockbot. The apps all posed as add-ons for Minecraft: Pocket Edition and claimed to change the way characters look in the game with new skins. The infection from these apps was widespread with an install base between 600,000 and 2.6 million devices. The malware was mainly focused on infecting users in the U.S., but there were infections in Russia, Ukraine, Brazil, and Germany as well. Symantec says that it set up network analysis of the malware and found that it was aimed at generating illegal ad revenue. However, the apps had no functionality to display ads...
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Anyone who has driven an Android smartphone any distance whatsoever has no doubt wondered whether any of the apps they use could be serving as information conduits. The relaxed vetting process that the Google Play Store has in place ('relaxed' versus the jailer-esque process in use by those minding Apple's app store) results in their stocking all but the most obviously malicious apps, after all, so a little suspicion in the mix just makes sense. So is this neat new Find Parking app that just asked for location privileges pushing data on my movements into some database somewhere? Will personal data end up indelibly etched on a list (or two...or ten) if I use this app to buy the concert tickets...
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With a full-throated "Me too!" targeted straight at Microsoft's recently-released Outlook app, Google yesterday upgraded their Gmail email app for Android to better support non-Google email accounts, including @yahoo and @outlook. Since last year users have been able to configure their other IMAP/Pop accounts to their Gmail for Android app, however, the app's somewhat shoddy design required users to switch between accounts to read and act on the content therein. With Gmail, Android users can now easily manage all the email from all of their accounts in a unified Inbox — the new "All Inboxes" option — in which they can view and respond to all of their email messages without needing...
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It’s great that there are folks out there who look for exploits and vulnerabilities and then let companies know about them before ne’er-do-wells have a chance to perform malicious actions, but one hacker made himself something of a nuisance early this week by doing just that. According to CNN Money, Turkish hacker Ibrahim Balic was testing a vulnerability he discovered on Google’s Developer Console when he crashed Google Play. Developers were unable to post new apps and updates. The crash occurred on Sunday and extended into Monday. After Google fixed the problem, Balic tested the vulnerability again--and crashed Google Play again. He told CNN Money that he expected the exploit...
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While Microsoft considers whether or not to take its ball and go home, Google wants to play with everybody. The company’s Google Play Games is dropping some new features this week at GDC, including the expansion of multiplayer support for iOS devices. That’s right--Android and iOS gamers can challenge each other, in turn-based and real-time multiplayer games, thanks largely to the new Play Games Unity Plugin and an early Play Games C++ SDK that also supports leaderboards and achievements. Game Gifts Other features include the ability to send your pals in-game objects with “game gifts”, direct multiplayer invites, and 18 new game categories in the Google Play Store. For...
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A month ago, Pebble announced that its app store was going to be available within its iOS and Android app, and after a delay, the Android version is now available in addition to the iOS version. You can simply snag the Pebble app store app from Google Play and use it to browse for and download watchfaces and other Pebble apps. For instance, Pebble has a few new app partners in eBay, Evernote, and Time Warner Cable. The announcement about the app store availability included a note that Pebble smartwatches now get Pebble for Android 2.0, too. Pebble Evernote app Pebble is making strong progress with its product offerings. With this release, the Pebble App Store is available on the two dominant...
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Although it cuts against the app’s actual name, NVIDIA’s TegraZone is now available on all Android devices whether or not they’re running a Tegra chip. This, courtesy of TegraZone v.2.9, which is now available in the Google Play Store. With the update, users can track their game collection across any and all of their Android devices, and there’s support for Google Play Game Services as well, which includes achievements for downloading games, submitting reviews and ratings, and more. You can also personalize your TegraZone experience with Google+ login implementation. One feature sure to make a few users happy is full support for controls for the NVIDIA SHIELD and MadCatz...
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Here’s a great holiday gift idea (wait, are we already doing that?) for the Google Nexus owner in your life: A wireless charger, specifically made for Nexus tablets and smartphones. The device works with Nexus 4, Nexus 5, and Nexus 7 smartphones and tablets, and they’ll start shipping as of November 29th. The small square charger has a magnetic surface that your device snaps onto, and it obviates the need to fiddle with a charging plug. The Nexus Wireless Charger comes with a micro USB cable and costs $49.99 in the Google Play store. Alternately, if fifty bucks seems like a but much to drop on a charger, you can always roll with something a little less expensive, like a Qi wireless...
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The mobile market is growing rapidly and promises to expand globally for years to come, but when it comes to apps, that growth presents the problem of language. If there are billions of mobile customers in essentially every region in the world with a smartphone in their pockets, they’re going to want apps in their own languages. Google is tackling that problem by making its App Translation Service available to all Android developers. “To help developers reach users in other languages, we launched the App Translation Service, which allows developers to purchase professional app translations through the Google Play Developer Console,” reads a blog post penned by Google Play’s...
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GoGo, known for its in-flight Internet connectivity service, is expanding its reach from WiFi access to texts and phone calls. Users will ostensibly be able to send text messages and receive phone calls at 30,000 feet using their own smartphones and an app found in the App Store or Google Play store. On the one hand, this is huge news for flyers who want to stay in touch with friends, family, or colleagues on the ground; on the other hand, it’s easy to envision a dystopian future where economy class is a wasteland of one-sided conversations filled with detailed descriptions of medical conditions, swoony lovers who can’t bear to be apart for three hours, heated arguments, mind-numbingly...
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There’s no doubt that six-second video sharing service Vine is a hit, but like any hot new app with a simple but killer raison d’etre, a few additional features wouldn’t be unwelcome. Vine just announced two new features, actually, called “Sessions” and “Time Travel”. Sessions allows you to have up to 10 unfinished posts going at once. That means you can save one and come back to it later, which lets users capture multiple items worth sharing and bide their time before setting them loose in the wild. The Time Travel feature lets you “remove, reorganize or replace any shot” in a given post. That’s a handy way to edit your Vine videos,...
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Barnes and Noble recently indicated that it was planning to launch at least one new Nook device in time for the holidays, with more in the pipeline, and according to The Digital Reader’s sources, that time may well be in early October. The sources indicate that B&N is likely releasing both a tablet and an ereader. There’s little information beyond that at this point, unfortunately, but looking at the company’s current ereader and tablet lineup, it’s intriguing to consider what might pop up. For instance, the Nook HD and HD+ got the Google Play treatment earlier this year, which increased their value and appeal and put them on more equal footing with competition such...
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It’s not news that Android has some security problems, but here’s another one: Android wallets aren’t secure. According to Bitcoin, the issue stems from a secure random number generator in the OS itself, which is vulnerable to exploits. The generator is needed to secure the wallets, so thus, the wallets are not secure. Bitcoin notes that apps where users don’t control private keys, such as exchange frontends Coinbase or Mt Gox, aren’t affected, but many apps are. Bitcoin posted an “incomplete list” that includes Bitcoin Wallet, BitcoinSpinner, Mycelium Bitcoin Wallet, and blockchain.info. blockchain.info app The apps are being updated, so users can head...
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Apple recently hit the 50 billion app download mark with its App Store; Google just did the same. Apple did it in five years; Google did it (between the Android Market and Google Play store) in four. Further, Mashable says that Google CEO Larry Page noted that the company has paid out more money to Android app developers in the first half of 2013 than it did in all of 2012. This of course follow news that Google pulled in a cool $14 billion in Q2, not to mention the fact that 1.5 million Android devices are currently being activated every day (with 1 billion total activated Android devices within reach before the weather turns cold). Competitor Apple is of course still raking in money hand over...
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Facebook Home was--sorry, is--an intriguing idea, and it’s not surprising that around a million people downloaded the Facebook-integrated skin and app launcher. However, user ratings for Facebook Home have been less than stellar, and it wasn’t exactly a good sign that AT&T slashed the cost of the HTC First, the first smartphone to ship with Facebook home already onboard (our review here), from $100 to $0.99 after lackluster interest. All Facebook can really do at this point is try and make Facebook Home better, which is exactly what the company is doing. Facebook previously announced that it would be adding a dock and folders to the skin, as well as the ability to edit who can...
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