Wifi Analyzer for Android helps you pick the best channel for your Wi-Fi network

by Erez Zukerman on December 16, 2010 at 03:30 PM

Most people rarely think about this, but your Wi-Fi hot-spot is actually broadcasting its signal on something called a channel. In North America, you can pick one of 11 channels; in most of the world you can pick one of 13.

Still, most routers and access points come with a pre-set default (that appears to be 11, at least for the routers around me). When you have several routers broadcasting on the same channel, this can lead to some interference and a performance hit. If you live somewhere fairly isolated and your Wi-Fi signal is the only one in range, you've got nothing to worry about.

On the other hand, if you're trying to survive in a dense urban jungle, surrounded by paper-thin walls and lots of Wi-Fi-using neighbors, you may gain a bit of a performance boost by switching your access point's channel to a less congested one.

Wifi Analyzer is an Android application that helps you figure out exactly what that channel is. The screenshot to the right shows how channels 9 and 10 are occupied by a couple of wireless network fighting over the same frequency, while my network (the red one) lives comfortably on channel 1.

Wifi analyzer offers several views, including a simple "channel rating" screen with no graph, if you just want to quickly figure out what's the best channel for you. A beautiful app, and free. QR code is after the jump.

Tags: 802.11, analyzer, android, networking, ssid, wi-fi, wifi, wifi analyzer, wifi channel, WifiAnalyzer, WifiChannel, wireless, wlan

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Maxthon browser for Android now available -- and it's good

by Lee Mathews on December 16, 2010 at 02:00 PM

Android users already have a number of capable mobile browsers to choose from: Dolphin HD and Mini, Opera Mobile, Firefox, Skyfire, and even the stock browser are all quite good. Now there's a new challenger: Maxthon. The Chinese makers of the popular-even-though-most-of-the-west-has-never-heard-of-it desktop browser has released a version for Android, and it's a very nice app.

Out of the box, be prepared for Maxthon's geographical lean. The default speed dial pages and start page are in Chinese, and the default search engine is set to Baidu (Google and Bing are available -- and familiar to Western users). You'll also want to jump in to the browser options and go through the default settings: Maxthon's default browser box is checked by default, and you'll likely want to untick that until you've had some time to play with it.

Maxthon packs an array of handy features, including a tabbed interface, cloud sync, orientation lock, speed dial, gesture support, and a download manager. Tapping the overlapping windows icon will display a thumbnail strip which allows you to flick through your open tabs -- just tap one to switch to it. Maxthon also detects RSS feeds, which you can add to the app's built-in reader. While the feed reader displays titles and snippets, tapping an entry will load their URL in a new browser tab (rather than displaying in the reader itself). Tapping the back button on your phone eventually causes the reader window to disappear altogether -- forcing you to tap your Maxthon icon again to re-open the browser. The reader is also pre-populated with feeds: tap and hold to display the context menu to remove them.

Apart from the back button annoyance with Maxthon's reader, I did experience some other glitches while browsing. Some elements -- like Flash embeds -- had a tendency to bleed over the browser toolbar at the bottom of the screen. Locking screen orientation to landscape sometimes caused the page to rotate 180° before actually locking. At times, scrolling could be a bit choppy. The biggest miss with Maxthon is its lack of pinch-to-zoom support. Tapping works, but it's not nearly as flexible as multitouch control.

Overall, however, Maxthon performed quite nicely on my HTC Incredible and the browser itself is very solid -- the RSS reader just isn't for me. Check out the gallery after the break for a closer look, and scan the QR Code to try Maxthon out on your Android device.

Download Maxthon for Android [APK link]

Tags: android, apps, browsers, china, maxthon, web browser, WebBrowser

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Hardware acceleration hits Fennec for Android, aka Firefox for Mobile

by Samuel Gibbs on December 16, 2010 at 10:30 AM

Fennec for Android, aka Firefox for Mobile, is coming on strong and while still very much in beta, shows enormous potential. Now hardware acceleration support has hit Fennec nightlies with OpenGL-powered compositing. While this isn't the first mention of hardware acceleration for an Android browser -- Opera has promised it sometime later -- this is the first implementation for the Mozilla browser and marks good things to come.

It's off by default, but a quick blast over to about:config will reveal layers.accelerate-all, which should be set to true to enable OpenGL acceleration. After a restart of Fennec, you can check whether you've managed to successfully enable OpenGL by going to about:support and looking for 1/1 OpenGL in the 'Graphics' section.

The latest Fennec nightly builds can be downloaded from Mozilla, but hardware acceleration isn't supported on all devices at this stage. Users have reported mixed results in the comments, so proceed with caution. Tags: Android, apps, Browsers, cellphones, Fennec, Firefox, hardware acceleration, HardwareAcceleration, Mozilla, opengl

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Kindle for Android updated with integrated store, zoom, move to SD and more

by Erez Zukerman on December 17, 2010 at 08:15 AM

Our good friends over at Engadget report that a new version of Kindle for Android is now out. Here's what's new:
The volume buttons can now be used to turn pages. This isn't touted as a major change, but it's actually very handy.There's an in-app store just like on the 'real' Kindle. It's very mobile friendly, and offers books and subscriptions for newspapers and magazines. Just what you'd expect, basically.SD card support: The app can now be moved to SD with no hackery involved.Chapter titles are now shown on the status bar. That's actually the top part of the status bar; not all books have this enabled, as the screenshot to the right of Food Rules shows, due to their small size, but further testing it with larger books such as Seth Godin's Linchpin it did work.Other updates: Social network sharing, graphics zoom, and bug fixes.All in all, a worthy update. You can find the QR after the jump.
Tags: amazon, android, apps, kindle, updates

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QuickDesk is a great quick-launch tool for Android

by Erez Zukerman on December 15, 2010 at 01:00 PM

There are quite a few homescreen app launchers for Android; the best-known ones, ADW and LauncherPro, are very powerful but tend to be a tad on the chunky side. When you're in the middle of doing something and need to quickly switch to another task, you may not always like to go via your cluttered homescreen.

Enter QuickDesk: this quick utility is basically like a single homescreen page, with widget support and all. But when you launch it, it pops up as an overlay on top of what you're doing. The screenshot to the right shows QuickDesk running on top of a browser session, for example, but you could run it from any application; all it takes is a quick double-tap of the Home button (or even a single tap, with a double-tap to launch your "regular" launcher app). Those indicators you see next to PicMe, Phone and the other apps means they're currently running in the background.

Within QuickDesk, you get single-tap access to your most frequent applications and widgets. For example, I placed the power management widget there so I can quickly switch Wi-Fi off from any app – useful when I'm out and about, in the middle of something, and suddenly realize Wi-Fi is on and sucking battery power.

QuickDesk also features an "app drawer" of sorts, showing your most recently used applications. I personally disabled that feature (that's why you don't see it in the screenshot) because I feel the implementation clashes with the homescreen design – when the app drawer is open, some of the homescreen slides "up" and out of view. Still, QuickDesk is an interesting launcher, and the free version doesn't appear crippled in any way. QR code is after the jump.

Tags: android, apps, home screen, HomeScreen, launcher, quick desk, quickdesk

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Words with Friends coming to Android, will be playable against iOS users

by Matthew Rogers on December 17, 2010 at 04:45 AM

Words with Friends has been a ridiculously popular asynchronous Scrabble-like game for iOS devices since it came out over a year ago, but word comes from the developers themselves that an Android version is on the way -- and that it's going to be compatible with the iOS version of the game.

Developers at the now Zynga-owned company recently told Android Central that they're working on a ported version, but aren't "ready to share much more beyond that." As for Android users playing against iPhoners, they went on to say that their goal "is that it will be compatible with the iOS version from day one."

Compared to the iOS App Store, the Android Market is suffering pretty badly from a lack of quality games -- even more so for games that have compatible versions on the other side of the smartphone garden wall. So a game as popular as Words with Friends getting the non-partisan treatment is a pretty big deal, even if it is just a Scrabble analogue.

Of course, you'd have to get past the fact that it's now owned by Zynga. Tags: android, apps, cellphones, gaming, google, words with friends, WordsWithFriends, zynga

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DanKam mobile app offers color correction for the colorblind on iPhone and Android

by Jay Hathaway on December 17, 2010 at 11:00 AM

Dan Kaminsky, famous for discovering a DNS bug that almost "broke the internet," has just released a side project that has nothing to do with security. It's DanKam, an augmented reality app that lets colorblind people get a color-corrected view of the world through an iPhone or Android camera. The app has only been out for a short time, but it's already getting positive feedback from colorblind users -- especially designers -- who didn't know this kind of real-time correction was possible.

The story of DanKam's development is pretty awesome, too. Kaminsky was inspired by a friend who didn't know that a green girl in the Star Trek movie was green (he thought she just had a tan!) and applied his knowledge of color systems to create a "clearer signal" that even colorblind people can see. Use cases include matching clothes, matching paint, reading system status LED correctly and more. It may not have saved the internet, but DanKam sure makes life easier for a lot of people.

You can find DanKam in the App Store for $2.99, and it should be in the Android Market soon.

Tags: android, apps, color, colorblind, colorblindness, dan kaminsky, dankam, DanKaminsky, health, ios, iphone, vision

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Google Maps 5.0 for Android introduces 3D maps and offline mode

by Jay Hathaway on December 16, 2010 at 01:30 PM

Google has just released version 5.0 of Google Maps for Android, and it might be the most significant update in the five-year history of Google's mobile maps app. For the first time the, Google Maps mobile app features 3D maps and an offline mode, making it both cooler-looking and more useful for Android users.

Maps are now dynamically drawn as vectors, instead of stitched together from static images. It's the end of watching the map load square-by-square. With the new 3D vectors, you can tilt and rotate the map in ways you couldn't before, and zoom in and out smoothly. You can also tap the compass button on the map to make the map rotate to match your perspective while keeping all the labels in place and easy to read.

Google has also solved the problem of trying to use maps when you can't get reception -- like in the subway or bus tunnel, for example -- by introducing caching. Locations you frequently view will be cached on your device so you can load them up later regardless of whether you're connected to the internet. The new dynamic 3D drawing actually makes this possible, because it requires a lot less data than the static images did. Map caching happens invisibly overnight while you're connected to Wi-Fi, so you don't even have to worry about configuring it.

As an added bonus, there's even offline rerouting. If your internet's not connected, but your GPS works, Google Maps 5.0 can actually deliver turn-by-turn directions based on your cached maps. This feature hasn't been fully rolled out yet, but Google says it should hit everyone in the next few weeks.

Google Maps 5.0 is available in the Android Market now for Android 1.6+ devices. However, the new 3D and offline features only work with Android 2.0 and above.

Tags: 3d, android, apps, caching, google, google maps, Google Maps for Mobile, GoogleMaps, GoogleMapsForMobile, maps

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Sony bringing official PlayStation app to iPhone and Android

by Jay Hathaway on December 16, 2010 at 08:00 PM

Over in Europe, PlayStation fans are getting a treat in the form of mobile apps for iPhone and Android. No, the app won't turn your phone into a PSP, but it does sync up with your PlayStation Network account, which allows you to check trophies and see which of your friends are online. It also loads up announcements about new PlayStation titles. Predictably, there's also social networking, so you can do some volunteer Facebook and Twitter advertising for games you like.

The catch: this app doesn't have a US release date yet. In fact, only the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands will get it at launch. On the plus side, the app is free, and an upcoming version will let you comment on the PlayStation blog. Tags: android, gaming, iphone, playstation, playstation network, PlaystationNetwork, sony

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Google Docs gets mobile editing support on Android 2.2 and iOS

Filed under: Office, Productivity, Google, iPhone, Mobile, Android

Google has just announced that it has started rolling out mobile editing support for Google Docs. The roll-out will take a few days and when it reaches you, you'll be able to edit documents in Google Docs by simply pointing your mobile browser to docs.google.com and clicking on Edit while viewing the document you wish to make changes to.

This feature will only be accessible for owners of devices running Android 2.2 or newer and iOS 3.0 or newer (including the iPad). The only language supported at first will be English, with more options to come in the future. A demo video of how the new feature works is waiting for you after the jump.
Google Docs gets mobile editing support on Android 2.2 and iOS originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 17 Nov 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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