Android 2.2 comes with a wealth of upgrades over 2.1, including OS-wide speed increases, a more polished user-interface, a faster web browser, support for Adobe Flash 10.1, built-in tethering capabilities, and improved camera options. Google has been saying for some time that Android 2.2 will be available by the end of the summer, so other Android phone owners can expect the update some time in August as well.

Sprint will begin sending out update notifications to Evo 4G users on August 3 — at which point users only need to choose to download, and then install, the update. Since it will take the carrier until the middle of August to bring the update to all Evo 4G owners, it’s allowing more impatient Evo fans to grab the update manually. The simply need to head to their Evo’s “System Settings” menu, select “System Updates” and then “HTC Software Update”.

Evo owners have waited since the device’s June 4 launch to receive the update, and they will likely find much to love about Android 2.2. I used an Evo 4G for several weeks, and while it was certainly a well-built phone with a gorgeous screen, the device’s software issues — including instances of slowdown, and general instability — made it more of a pain to use than my older iPhone 3G S. The Froyo update should resolve much of those issues, and it will bring a level of polish to the Evo and other Android devices that will make them closer to the iPhone’s more mature user experience.

Tags: Android, Evo 4G, Froyo, iPhone

Companies: Google, HTC, sprint

We Rule, the free social networking game, held me -- and therefore Fidgit -- in its thrall for at least a week. Not that there was anything special about it beyond it being a) really charming, b) really convenient since it's for the iPhone, and c) just clever enough with its social networking nonsense to get me to press into service several friends. Now that the same developers have created the more pastoral and less authoritarian We Farm, I can't promise that I won't do it again.

From the press release:

We Farm gives players the tools to make the barnyard of their dreams. Players can outfit their farms with tractors, hay balers and sprayers, set up produce stands, and dot the countryside with multi-hued outhouses. They'll also be able to raise horses, pigs, sheep, cows, ducks and even ostriches.

Hankerin' for a little competition? Try to win a Blue Ribbon at the county fair with your menagerie. Blue Ribbon animals attract new visitors and friends to the farm and help grow the business.

Get We Farm here.

We Rule, the free social networking game, held me -- and therefore Fidgit -- in its thrall for at least a week. Not that there was anything special about it beyond it being a) really charming, b) really convenient since it's for the iPhone, and c) just clever enough with its social networking nonsense to get me to press into service several friends. Now that the same developers have created the more pastoral and less authoritarian We Farm, I can't promise that I won't do it again.

From the press release:

We Farm gives players the tools to make the barnyard of their dreams. Players can outfit their farms with tractors, hay balers and sprayers, set up produce stands, and dot the countryside with multi-hued outhouses. They'll also be able to raise horses, pigs, sheep, cows, ducks and even ostriches.

Hankerin' for a little competition? Try to win a Blue Ribbon at the county fair with your menagerie. Blue Ribbon animals attract new visitors and friends to the farm and help grow the business.

Get We Farm here.

From the latest patch notes for Highborn, a fantasy strategy game for the iPhone that required connecting with someone on Facebook to play a multiplayer game:

Removed Facebook-based multiplayer (NOTE: all existing Facebook multiplayer games will be deleted in this update)

What's more, it's free for today only. If you miss that, it'll be 99 cents through the first week of August.

From the latest patch notes for Highborn, a fantasy strategy game for the iPhone that required connecting with someone on Facebook to play a multiplayer game:

Removed Facebook-based multiplayer (NOTE: all existing Facebook multiplayer games will be deleted in this update)

What's more, it's free for today only. If you miss that, it'll be 99 cents through the first week of August.

Ron Gilbert digs iPhone, hopes DeathSpank inspires other devs originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Gallery: Sim City Deluxe (iPhone)

SimCity torn down, available now as SimCity Deluxe on iPhone originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Most touchscreen smartphones today can usually be broken down into $150-$190 worth of components, so the teardown number isn’t a huge surprise. The Droid Incredible retails for $199 with a two-year contract on Verizon.

The phone shares many components with Google’s Nexus One (also built by HTC), so it’s no surprise that it’s similar to the Nexus One’s $174.15 material cost. Both phones share the same Samsung 3.7-inch AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Display) screen, 1 gigahertz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, and 512MB of RAM.

All three of those components also ended up being among the most expensive in the Incredible: The processor cost $31.40, the display $31.20, and the RAM (together with the phone’s 8GB of flash storage) cost $29.80.

The biggest difference between the two phones is the Incredible’s support for the CDMA cellular standard. The Nexus One was originally released for T-Mobile’s GSM network, while the Incredible runs on Verizon’s CDMA network.

Compared to the iPhone 4, which contains around $188 worth of parts according to iSuppli, HTC ended up spending far more on the Incredible’s processor. The iPhone 4’s A4 chip — which was designed by Apple engineers and produced by Samsung — only cost the company around $10.75. Of course, that doesn’t take into account the extensive research and development costs to design the chip — which is also used in Apple’s iPad.

Check out iSuppli’s full Droid Incredible component breakdown below:

Tags: Android, Droid Incredible, iPhone

Companies: HTC, Isuppli

A questionable Android mobile wallpaper app that collects your personal data and sends it to a mysterious site in China, has been downloaded millions of times, according to data unearthed by mobile security firm Lookout.

That means that apps that seem good but are really stealing your personal information are a big risk at a time when mobile apps are exploding on smartphones, said John Hering, chief executive, and Kevin MaHaffey, chief technology officer at Lookout, in their talk at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas today.

“Even good apps can be modified to turn bad after a lot of people download it,” MaHaffey said. “Users absolutely have to pay attention to what they download. And developers have to be responsible about the data that they collect and how they use it.”

The app in question came from Jackeey Wallpaper, and it was uploaded to the Android Market, where users can download it and use it to decorate their phones that run the Google Android operating system. It includes branded wallpapers from My Little Pony and Star Wars, to name just a couple.

It collects your browsing history, text messages, your phone’s SIM card number, subscriber identification, and even your voicemail password. It sends the data to a web site, www.imnet.us. That site is evidently owned by someone in Shenzhen, China. The app has been downloaded anywhere from 1.1 million to 4.6 million times. The exact number isn’t known because the Android Market doesn’t offer precise data. The search through the data showed that Jackeey Wallpaper and another developer known as iceskysl@1sters! (which could possibly be the same developer, as they use similar code) were collecting personal data. The wallpaper app asks for “phone info,” but that isn’t necessarily a clear warning.

The Lookout executives found the questionable app as part of their App Genome Project. Lookout is a mobile security firm, and it logged data from more than 100,000 free Android and iPhone apps as part of the project to analyze how apps behave. It found that the apps access your personal data quite often. On Android, each user is asked if they give their permission to access an app, but on the iPhone, where Apple approves apps, no permission is needed.

Roughly 47 percent of Android apps access some kind of third-party code, while 23 percent of iPhone apps do. The executives also found that many apps use third-party software programs to do things such as feed ads into an app. Often, developers unquestioningly use the software development kits of those third parties in their apps, even if they don’t know what they do. In many cases, there is a good reason for the use of personal information. Ads, for instance, can be better targeted if the app knows a user’s location.

Hering said in a press conference afterward that he believes both Google and Apple are on top of policing their app stores, particularly when there are known malware problems with apps. But it’s unclear what happens when apps behave as the wallpaper apps do, where it’s not clear why they are doing what they are doing.

Tags: Android, iPhone

Companies: Apple, Google, Lookout

People: John Hering, Kevin MaHaffey

If you'd asked me what my excitement level was for this app back when it was announced, I don't think it would've registered above "meh." But Encore of the Night has really turned out to be a lesson in not dismissing a title simply because it's from a beloved franchise and has seemingly been adapted to a totally inappropriate genre.

Gallery: Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night

Continue reading Review: Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night

Review: Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 23 Jul 2010 18:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.