Hasta La Gadget!

Remember SwiftKey 3 that was first released in beta in April this year? Well, it turns out that the app is destined to dominate the app kingdom of Android. Following last week’s announcement of SwiftKey 3′s discounted price of only $1.99 from the usual $3.99 price mark, the company is announcing that its app is now the top best-selling paid app on the Google Play Store. But SwiftKey’s Chief Marketing Officer Joe Braidwood said that they are not resting on their laurels just yet. Braidwood notes that people contented of having poor keyboards on their devices is the company’s biggest challenge.

“We know very well that typing on many smartphones and tablets isn’t good enough. People tell us it sucks, but most of them don’t think to demand better,” he said. At the Google I/O keynote yesterday, Google announced that the newly introduced Android 4.1 a.k.a. Jelly Bean will have an improved stock keyboard that will reportedly predict the next word that will be typed. Braidwood, however, said that this is good news for the company, saying that Google’s commitment is parallel to SwiftKey’s vision. “Watch this space, SwiftKey is only just getting started,” Braidwood added.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: SonarFlow music discovery service coming to Spotify soon, Chrome for Android leaves beta, now available on Google Play,

While it didn’t merit a spot in either keynote, the Google TV platform is also getting an updated version of the Google Play store. Along with a new UI that looks a lot like the one on other Android devices it will have support for purchasing movies, music and TV shows as mentioned yesterday, and also subscription billing. The “Bring Your App to the Big Screen” presentation is still going on, we’ll let you know if any other new elements are revealed. There’s a new post on the Google TV blog mentioning apps like the one announced by Sirius XM, and the new hardware from partners LG, Sony and Vizio. Finally, the team is also focusing on its updated APIs for developers building not only apps for the TV (like the Google I/O app itself, which has been working smoothly this week streaming video), but also second screen applications just as we pointed out earlier. The last update and potentially most curious? Mentioned during the presentation, later this year Google TV will no longer require hardware manufacturers to provide a physical keyboard on their input device.

Google TV will get subscription billing, support for movie and TV purchases in Google Play originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google looks to be getting serious in its quest for online storage, announcing some new features at the Day 2 I/O keynote that will take on competitors like Dropbox and Evernote. One of those is in the introduction of Google Drive SDK 2.0, which will allow app developers for Android and iOS to implement Drive functionality straight into their mobile apps.

Developers will be able to implement uploads, downloads, or simple file edits within their own applications by leveraging the SDK. It mimics similar functionality that Dropbox has been offering developers for some time. On top of that, the programming interface has seen some tweaks, now coping with conversions and revisions.

Google Drive SDK 2.0 is up for download now, and some apps have already been updated to take use of the new functionality. Google says that others will be updated in due course. If you’re a developer and want the full details as well as the SDK, head on over here.

Google releases Drive SDK 2.0 is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Just as you thought that all the news about Google is enough for one day, apparently there’s still more. And this one has been in queue for months. Chrome for Android beta version first arrived in February this year. Early this month, it was updated with a tad of stability and performance tweaks.

Seemingly not enough, Google is finally announcing today that its Chrome for Android has left beta phase and is now available on Google Play for downloading. The announcement came in conjunction with the opening of the Google I/O developer conference earlier today, where we saw the Nexus tablet for the first time. Interestingly, the device will be the first to sport Chrome as its default browser, as speculated.

The full version of Chrome for Android includes important stability and performance fixes, as well as some minor UI adjustments for tablets. Unfortunately, you will have to get your Android device running Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean to enjoy the highly anticipated browser. We still have to test the full version of Chrome for Android. We’ll let you know our thoughts shortly. Meanwhile, you can get the app via Google Play.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Rovio may be seeking partnership with Angry Birds theme park in China, Google Maps for Android gets offline functionality,

If you love Android apps, then you are probably familiar with Bluestacks. Bluestacks is actually a platform that will allow users to download and play Android apps on your PC. Early this year, Bluestacks beta was released for Windows. I myself use the software application a lot, synching my smartphone every now and then via Bluestacks Cloud Connect. But it looks like the people behind the ingenious creation is bringing Bluestacks to Mac as well. The company announced today that it will be releasing a Mac version of Bluestacks in public alpha. The software is powered by BlueStacks’ patent-pending LayercakeTM technology.

The initial release features several apps from the company’s developer partners, such as HandyGames, Creative Mobile and Pulse, with the next release scheduled to expand things even more. “By bringing Android Apps to Mac we are breaking open the Apple ecosystem, which has traditionally been closed. Also, Android is struggling because of a lack of tablet applications. Developers now have an incentive to build hi­‐resolution apps to work on the resolutions like retina displays on the new Mac for example,” BlueStacks CEO Rosen Sharma said. If you love testing Android apps on your Mac, you can get the alpha version here.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: BlueStacks beta available now, BlueStacks brings Android apps to your Windows computer,