Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re an avid Twitter user and an avid Android smartphone user, you’ve been waiting for this day. The day where those developers at Twitter’s headquarters man up and release a Twitter app that can seriously compete with the likes of TweetDeck, Twidroid, and HootSuite. Well, fellow tweeters, it appears that time has come — the official Twitter Android 2.0 app just hit the Market and it includes a pretty drastic UI overhaul, some bug fixes, and a few more key features.

Naturally, we hit the update button as soon as it popped up on our Droid 2 Global, and we have to say the first thing we noticed was the speed increase — our feed loaded quickly and jumping over to the different columns was snappy. Speaking of those columns, Twitter wiped the previous, overly-cutesy main homepage for four tabs that run along the top of the screen — there’s your regular feed, mentions, direct messages, and lists. It feels more like the iOS app, which definitely isn’t a bad thing. You can still pull-to-refresh and swipe left or right over a particular tweet to respond, retweet, or favorite it. So, what’s the best improvement? Besides the tidied up interface, we have to say it’s the auto-complete for usernames — punch in the @ symbol and start typing a name and you’ll get a list of suggested names. Twitter’s also improved the search functionality, but we’d suggest checking that out yourself. It won’t cost you a penny, we just hope you’re running Android 2.1 or higher. Nope, not even Twitter is safe from the evils of fragmentation.

Twitter updates Android app, we go hands-on in more than 140 characters originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Development frameworks don’t make for exciting gadget news, but HP’s Enyo is kind of a big deal. It’s the little dealie that allows new webOS apps to stretch between vastly disparate screen resolutions — say, tablet and phone — and still work just fine, and since it’s based completely on web technologies, they can also run in a PC browser with no formal emulator or OS install required. While dev team lead Matthew McNulty pitched the browser functionality as a debugging boon, we’re starting to wonder if that’s how HP could bring webOS to PCs to start — rather than a dual-boot or a UI layer, it could simply make your favorite apps available in a web store. Sound like fun? HP says you can download the basic package right now for free if you’re a member of the webOS developer early access program, and start cracking on some apps of your very own. We’ll have video of an Enyo-powered app on PC in just a tad, so keep your eyes glued to this post.

Update: Video after the break!

Continue reading webOS Enyo framework free to developers today, brings pixel density agnostic apps to phones, tablets and PC (video)

webOS Enyo framework free to developers today, brings pixel density agnostic apps to phones, tablets and PC (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Feb 2011 23:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Great news, channel surfers — Samsung’s Smart Touch Android remote application is now finally available in the Android Marketplace as a free download nearly nine months after originally launching on iOS. If you dropped a hefty quantity of cheddar on a new model C Samsung Internet TV in 2010 (those with older models are out of luck) and can’t wait for your Android handset to assimilate yet another life-task, today could be momentous. We say ‘could’ simply because our CES hands-on with the software wasn’t exactly swell — but then again, a massive trade show floor isn’t exactly the best WiFi testing environment. Currently, the application has an average of four stars from 25 people, but it’s not completely free from a smattering of crash and error reports. Feel free to give it a whirl if you’ve got the necessary gear, and if that match made in couch-potato heaven feeling doesn’t come… well, don’t give up hope, because that dual-sided QWERTY remote could save the day soon.

Continue reading Samsung Smart Touch Android remote app is now available for download

Samsung Smart Touch Android remote app is now available for download originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Feb 2011 16:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gadget Lab’s favorite note-taking app, Simplenote, has just seen a major new update. But don’t worry. If you love Simplenote because it is so, well, simple, then you can keep on using it as if nothing had changed.

Here’s a list of what’s new:

Passcode lock
Better tags
People tags
Group tags
Lists
Dropbox integration

Let’s start with the last item first. Premium users (the app is free, but you can pay a yearly subscription to go pro) can now sync their notes with Dropbox. Once done (at the Simplenote website, not in the app), your notes are mirrored as plain text files in the Dropbox directory of your choice. The default name is Simplenote, but you can change it to whatever you like.

This means that you can sync Simplenote with any other Dropbox-friendly app. For instance, you can make quick notes about your novel in Simplenote and then refine and extend them in a purpose-built text-editor like Plain Text or Writings. It also means you can sync with any app on a desktop machine which can read plain text files.

Next up is lists, also a premium feature. You can turn a note into a list by tapping the “i” button in a note on your iOS device and flipping the “View As List” switch. Items now get lines between them, as well as the familiar three-line iOS grab-handle for re-ordering list items. Swiping across an item marks it done, striking it through and graying it out.

Lists are still stored as plain text, and the syntax of these plain text versions is very similar to that used by the TaskPaper to-do app (pro tip for TaskPaper users: the @done tag isn’t supported).

The next big fix-up is tags. These now auto-complete as you type. You can also tag notes with a person’s email address and it will be shared with them, automatically. If they have a Simplenote account, the note will show up in their Simplenote. If not, they get a link to the note on the web. Any changes they make, from either of these places, are reflected in your note immediately.

Further, you can make “group tags”. These are just like groups in your mail client. In the tagging section of the note, hit the blue plus-sign and then hit the other plus-sign at the bottom of the resulting window. Give your group a title and pick the people you want to put in it. All email addresses are auto-completed from your contacts.

Now, when you tag a note with this group name, it is shared with everyone in that group. I can see this being very useful for the Gadget Lab team at next year’s CES, to keep track of which bars we will be meeting in.

And that’s about it. You can now password-protect your notes. A little polish has been added to the web-app, and premium subscriptions have gone up to $2 per month, or $20 per year. That’s up from a dollar a month and $12 per year, which will doubtless cause many cheapskates to screech into their watery, 50-cent cup of coffee.

If you don’t already have Simplenote, then shame on you. Its free. Go get it now.

New premium features: Dropbox syncing and list [Simplenote blog]

iOS update: sharing, passcode lock, fixes and more [Simplenote blog]

Easy note sharing using tags [Simplenote blog]

Simplenote download [iTunes]

See Also:

• Hands-On: Simplenote 3 Stays Simple, Gets Powerful
• Simplenote and Notational Velocity Bring Document Syncing to iPad …
• Simplenote Update Finally Syncs iPhone Notes With Mac
• PlainText: iPad Text-Editor from the Makers of WriteRoom
• Writer for iPad Aims For Focus, Beauty, Simplicity

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California — Google is tired of Apple luring all the mobile developers away.

To fight back, the company is trying to make it easier for customers to purchase and install Android apps.

At company headquarters here this morning, Google unveiled its Android Market web store, a web portal that lets users browse and purchase apps from the Android Market without requiring a smartphone.

Google announced the new web site in an on-campus event showcasing the new Android version 3.0, aka Honeycomb, which is yet to be released.

Previously only accessible by using an Android smartphone, you can now access the Android Market site through a web browser on other devices, such as desktop computers, laptops, netbooks or — as we saw today on the Honeycomb-fueled Motorola Xoom — tablet. After accessing the site and signing in to your Google account, you can search the 200,000-plus apps featured on the official Android Market, and make app purchases on your browser.

After purchasing, apps will install directly to the specified smartphone device of your choosing via Wi-Fi or 3G connectivity.

In other words, you still need an Android device to run the apps, but you can “push” them to your device, using a browser.

Google also announced improved payment options as a supplement to the web-store launch. Credit card numbers and other personal payment information is stored in your individual Google account. After choosing an app, you can make a payment using a one-click purchase system.

Google is also giving developers more control on the backend. In the developer console, Android app developers will now be able to set the price of an app in different currencies specifically supported by the Android Market. So what may cost an American user $5, a developer can also specify the cost of the app to a European user paying with the euro.

Finally, in-app payments will soon be coming to the Android Market, letting users purchase things like virtual currency, additional levels or in-game consumables without leaving the app environment. The developer documentation for in-app payments is being released today. Google expects in-app payments to be available to Android users before the end of spring.

It’s a long overdue move by Google, as Apple has had app-store-directory access available to customers by browser since 2007. And Android Market users have complained about payment systems.

Apple’s app store contains 400,000-plus applications, over twice that of Android’s.

“I think Android has a history of performing well despite having a late start,” user interface director Matias Duarte told Wired.com in an interview. “We’re pretty excited about it.”

Although Google showed all the new Android Market developments on its new new Honeycomb Android update, the company gave no details as to when the update will be launched.

Photo: Andy Rubin, Google VP of Engineering (Mike Isaac/Wired.com)

See Also:

• What We Know About Honeycomb, the Android for Tablets
• Google Unveils Graphics, Other Enhancements to Honeycomb
• Upcoming Asus Tablets Will Run Android Honeycomb
• Video: Android 'Honeycomb' Tablet OS Revealed
• App Sales Sluggish, Despite Android's Popularity
• Malware Sneaks Into Android Market
• Independent App Stores Take On Google's Android Market
• Android OS Now World's Leading Smartphone Platform
• Google Removes Flash App From Android Market