Categories
android

Remove Ads From Android Notification Bar With AirPush Detector

If you have been using an Android phone, it is quite likely that you have been seeing ads on your notification bar. The ads are basically one liners that are marked with an icon that looks like a white star with a red dot in the middle. They are quite annoying especially because the notification bar is where you see all the important updates from your apps and is the last place one would want to see and click on an ad.

So, how do you remove them? Firstly, you need to know that it is not Android that shows the ads there in the first place. Instead, these ads are shown by some of the third party apps that you have installed in your phone. To do a quick check on what app is showing this annoying ad on the notification bar, simply tap on the ad and check out the name of the app that is displayed on the upper left side corner. This is the application that is showing these ads on your screen.

In most cases, this alone should be sufficient. But if you have multiple apps that is causing the problem, what you can do is install this free app from the Android market called the ‘AirPush Detector’. AirPush is basically the technology framework that enables the display of these intrusive apps. The AirPush Detector is an app developed by Dan Bjorge that lets you know all the apps on your phone that have this technology enabled (and so are causing this ad push).

Although the app is named ‘AirPush Detector’, the underlying application also helps detect other frameworks like LeadBolt, IAC  and Appenda and is so pretty comprehensive in its coverage. Download the AirPush Detector app on your Android phone by clicking here.

Categories
android How To

Low Battery On Android Phone? Tips To Increase Android Battery Life

People who have an Android phone and are suffering from some serious battery issues, here are some simple manual as well as automatic tweaks that will help you keep your phone charged for a longer time and make the best possible use of your battery life.

There are end number of things that eat up your battery power and most of the times they are things that most mobile users are not aware of at all. This article contains all the possible solutions to safeguard your battery life, so i highly recommend that you go through each of these features, settings and customizations that are mentioned ahead in this article.

List of battery power consuming features :

Your phone contains end number of features and settings that consume your battery power without you even realizing it or you were maybe aware of certain features but didn’t realize they used battery power to a great extent.

To get an idea about this navigate to Settings > About > Phone > Battery >Battery Use, which will tell you the entire story.

Settings that are most likely draining your battery power :

The Screen :

Your screen consumes the most battery life especially if its the new Super Amoled or Super LCD display. To minimise the screens battery usage, turn down the brightness. Although your phone is on “Auto” brightness mode which works in most cases, but still might be using more battery than you expect.

You can go to Settings > Display > Brightness, uncheck the “Automatic Brightness” option and manually enter approximately 10%. It may become a little harder for you to see under direct sunlight, but this wont be the case elsewhere.

Another option is to put the power control widget on your home screen which will help you toggling between low and high brightness modes in a much convenient manner. To do so, press and hold an empty section on the screen, select Widgets and select the Power Control option.

Alternatively, you could also lower down the screen timeout from 1 minute to around 15  – 30 seconds by going to Settings > Display. This will aid you in saving battery life as well.

Cellular and Data Connection :

It doesnt matter whether your using a high end 4G phone or a regular 3G device, your cellular and battery connections will eat up your battery big time even if your phone is in a dormant state.

Your data connection can be turned on and off by making use of APNDroid 2.0 or by making use of these Quick Settings. If you just intend to talk, text and send mails then EDGE or 1x is more than required. Data can be turned back on when you are browsing and require extra speed.

Wi-Fi :

When there are Wi-Fi networks in your surroundings, use them. It will automatically turn off your data connection and use Wi-Fi instead which will be a battery life saviour.

However, when you don’t have any Wi-Fi networks in your area, your battery will be drained by constantly making search for available networks to connect to, so its better to turn Wi-Fi off from your Power Control widget when your not in such locations.

Bluetooth :

Keeping bluetooth on when not required again consumes a lot of battery like Wi-Fi does, so just turn off bluetooth entirely when your not using any bluetooth headset or transferring any files to and fro from your computer. You can do this from the Power Control widget.

GPS :

GPS again drains a lot of battery when your using it for Google maps or turn-by-turn navigation and if you make use of location services provided by Twitter, Facebook or other social applications then GPS will be used on a more regular basis. GPS controls can also be toggled through the Power Control widget.

Automation of these Settings :

All the above mentioned settings can be toggled through the Power Control widget as per the requirements but that would be too irritating and difficult at times.

Fortunately, all these settings can be automated through an application called the Tasker. With this application you can automate pretty much everything that you desire like GPS, Bluetooth and Data settings.

Use of Juice Defender to scale back data usage :

Juice Defender again automates all the work for you, although you can change some of its settings if you wish to do so. It manages your data connection in a very smart way by turning it off and reconnecting it after every 15 – 30 minutes to check if there are any new mails, Twitter notifications and other alerts to download.

Other Alternatives :

Tweak and Uninstall Data intensive applications :

If you have any applications that you are not making use of, then please uninstall them as there are many applications that try to connect to the internet without even you realizing it and so its best to remove them completely. Also get rid of widgets that grab data constantly like the Facebook widgets or the weather widgets to name a few or change their settings so that they update their data every half an hour or on an hourly basis.

Turn Off the Eye Candy :

Eye candy features like screen animations and live wallpapers can be pretty CPU intensive. If you look forward to save your battery then turning them off is a wise choice although you may loose the flashy and animated look but this solution is ideal if nothing works for you even after performing other tweaks.

Save the phone from getting heated up :

Extreme heat will always kill your battery so don’t leave it in a hot place, get it out of your pocket whenever you can and keep it as cool as possible during the summer.

Stop using a Task Killer :

Task killers are more harmful then helpful and affect you battery to a great extent. You don’t need task killers if you have uninstalled your applications correctly or are not using them when not required. So my advise will be not to use a task killer as its not required at all.

Underclock / Undervolt your device :

You don’t really need all the CPU power always, you can reduce the clock speed or even create custom profiles using the SetCPU application that will turn it away when your phone is sleeping. You can create profiles that underclock your phone as and when the battery keeps going down.

You can also make use of the Kernel Manager application that will help in reducing the voltage thus giving you a better battery life.

Getting a Secondary Battery :

The last option is to get another battery for your phone. Most high end phones now a days have a pretty much useless battery life so you can just get yourself a second battery and keep it safe in any place till your current battery gets exhausted.

Having an extended battery is another option which is heavier then the standard battery but will guarantee you a better battery life. Lastly, make sure that you are buying original OEM battery as the cheap ones will cause a lot of problems, so make sure that you buy a high quality battery for your phone.

Categories
android How To Motorola

Motorola XOOM Unlock Instructions To Flash Custom ROM

The Motorola XOOM which has already started shipping to all its customers who had pre-ordered is now open to the public market from Verizon with a 2 year contract for $599.99 as well as an LTE version for $799.99. This stunning tablet powered by the Android OS may prove to be a threat for the Apple iPad. Motorola is very strict when it comes to unlocking a bootloader, but that’s not the case this time.

All those proud owners of the XOOM tablet who wish to modify it now can happily do so by following this quick guide. Please make a note that by doing this can get your warranty voided.

Step 1 : Download the Motorola USB drivers and the Android SDK first.

  • Download the USB drivers from here. (you will have to register on the website or else you can google it and find it for yourself as well.)
  • Download the Android SDK from here.

Step 2 :

  • Switch off your XOOM tablet.

Step 3 :

  • Press and hold the volume down button while simultaneously pressing the power button.
  • Keep it pressed down even when your XOOM turn on as this will display some starting fastboot protocol text on the top left section of the screen.

Step 4 :

  • Now open a command window in your sdk\tools folder, not the platform tools. You may need to copy some DLL files, that depends on when you get the SDK.

Step 5 :

  • Now type this : fastboot oem unlock

Step 6 :

  • Please read the warning message on your screen, use volume up if you wish to do so.

That’s it, you now have a fully unlocked XOOM and can add in all sorts of applications now.

Categories
android Google Mobile

Google Coming Out With Hardware For Ice Cream

Google’s executive in charge of Android Andy Rubin has confirmed that Android 2.4 or Ice cream will be accompanied by a smartphone. He has also confirmed that from now on every new Android version will be accompanied by hardware, meaning a new device. Both Andy Ruben and Eric Shmidt, the chief executive have confirmed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that Ice Cream will be a combination of the tablet features of Honeycomb and the smartphone features of Gingerbread.

Google had already released the Google Nexus S last December alongside Android 2.3 or Gingerbread and according to Google, the sales have been extraordinary. Following pursuit, both Motorola and Samsung came out with their respective tablets based on Android 2.3. No other hardware specs nor make of the next smartphone were revealed at the keynote, though.

Categories
android Blackberry Gadgets Mobile Mobile Internet Motorola RIM Samsung

Adobe Flash Player 10.2 For Android 3.0

Android’s growing popularity is making everyone design products for the OS now. Adobe is planning to do a mobile compatible flash player for Android 3.0 based tablets. Flash Player 10.2 – the mobile version of the flash will be integrated into the hardware allowing it to decode the video which would save the battery power by a fair margin when compared to the software doing the decoding.

Also, Blackberry devices are also expected to get the Flash Player 10.2. At the moment, the version is being tested intensively on the Motorola Xoom, various other netbooks and the Blackberry PlayBook. As of now, this version of the flash is going to be released for the above mentioned devices, while the other devices have some compatibility issues which will be dealt with accordingly.

Adobe has already mentioned that Android users across the world have downloaded the flash version for their devices 20 million times in the six months after the launch.

Categories
android Twitter

Twitter 2.0 App For Android Phones

The Twitter app 2.0 for android based phones has been released. The new Twitter app 2.0 just comes in the wake of time as all the Android users up to now have been using third party applications that gave them options like Twidroid and Tweetdeck for staying updated. But, these third party applications were no good and twitter has realised the importance of having their own App and have released the new app 2.0.

This new app loads faster, is bug free, possesses a new user interface (UI) and also allows a smooth scroll allowing users to browse through various columns within the app. The swipe left and right options are present for both retweeting and replying to a tweet. Along with these cool updates, Twitter has also included autofill which would deal away with the various typing difficulties.

But, this app is only for Android 2.1 and higher users.

Categories
android Gadgets Product Issues

Honeycomb Is Just Around the Corner, Hang On

Anyone looking to buy an Android tablet, better hang on. Android 2.3 or as codenamed Honeycomb is just around the corner and there is no point in investing in Android tablets just yet. Right now, there are five tablets in the market that run on the Android OS. But, as a matter of fact, none of these tablets guarantee the same rich experience that an iPad can.

The five Android tablets now available in the market are-

  • Cherrypal Cherrypad
  • Coby Krios MID7015 Internet Touchscreen Tablet
  • Dell Streak 7
  • Samsung Galaxy Tab
  • Viewsonic Viewpad 7

Apparently all the above mentioned tablets possess both hardware and software issues like low resolution, improper touchscreen sensitivity, limited apps et. Not that, these tablets are entirely US, but they are no match iPad.

So, anyone looking to buy Android tablets better wait for the Honeycomb versions to come out. The first one in this breed would be the Motorola Xoom which will be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress this month.

Categories
android Google security

Android 2.3 Gingerbread Update Vulnerable to Identity Theft?

The most anticipated update, Google’s Android Gingerbread 2.3 which is currently available only for the Nexus S users may not be that hail and hearty after all. According to a warning posted by a researcher from the North Carolina University, this update is vulnerable and can lead to identity thefts. The researcher warns that the security vulnerability of this update can easily allow hackers to access photos, voicemail, videos, bank details and even the contents on an inserted memory card. Not only can they access, but they can also upload this data on to their servers.

Millions of Nexus S and Nexus One users across the world are still plagued with the Android SMS bug even though a fix to this bug was made available. Google has started working on a fix, but in the meanwhile, users are sure to have some security problems with this unavoidable bug.

Categories
android Consumer Electronics HTC Motorola Verizon

AT&T Android Phones List To Be Doubled in 2011?

According to an internal document from this year’s International CES (Consumers Electronic Show), AT&T will be launching 12 more Androids along with 20 new 4G devices. If the details of this internal document prove to be right, the first quarter of 2011 is going to witness the launch of 2 new 4G smart phones, which by the end of the year will be pushed to 20. As far as the Android phones are concerned, in 2011, AT&T is looking forward to add 12 more of these to the already existing list of 7.

Also, rumored are the availability of Motorola Atrix 4G and the HTC Inspire 4G in the markets from February 14, for which purpose, the employee training is to begin from February 2. The internal documents also indicate that Verizon is also fully prepared to offer simultaneous voice and data, but it has to be seen, to what extent will they be successful.

AT&T customers are sure in for an Android treat this year.

Categories
android Mobile

CyanogenMod For Nexus S Released In Alpha Version

Gingerbread users – that’s predominantly Google Nexus S owners as of now – who want to get hold of a more resourceful firmware can now start testing the new CyanogenMod 7 firmware. For the uninitiated, CyanogenMod is a custom firmware that is built over the Android platform that could bring features hitherto not available on the native platform to these smartphones.

The CyanogenMod team had initially reported issues with the camcorder and Wi-Fi that was however later rectified. Koush, one of the lead developers from CyanogenMod has now released an alpha version of the firmware that can now be downloaded from here.

Do note that this is an alpha version that is bound to come with a lot of bugs. That means, unless you are absolutely sure of what you are doing, you are advised to hold off from installing these updates. There is no word on when a public release is due. Nevertheless, keep looking here, we might update you on the same when that happens.