Samsung launches two Galaxy Tab S versions with same innards

Samsung launches two Galaxy Tab S versions with same innards

Wednesday, July 2, 2014 / No Comments

The 8.4-inch version has been priced Rs 37,800 while the 10.5-inch one will cost Rs 44,800.

Samsung on Tuesday launched two versions of its new Galaxy Tab S tablets in India. The super thin tablets feature Super Amoled displays and are primarily aimed for those who use their tablets to consume a lot of video. The 8.4-inch version has been priced Rs 37,800 while the 10.5-inch one will cost Rs 44,800.

“We noticed that most tabets users, especially in India,  use their devices primarily for consuming video. This tablet will cater primarily for those users… the Samsung Galaxy Tab S offers the most immersive visual experience possible on a tablet,” said Asim Warsi, VP, Mobile & IT at Samsung India.

The tablets have a WQXGA (2560x1600p) display, which will be the biggest selling point of these tablets. They will both be powered by Exynos 5 Octa processor running a 1.9 GHz QuadCore and 1.3 GHz QuadCore running simultaneously. Running Android 4.4 KitKat, they will both have 8 MP rear cameras. The tablets come with voice calling and are LTE (FDD) compatible. There is internal storage of 16GB which can be raised to 128GB with an external card.

The big difference between the two devices is the battery which is 7,900 mAh for the larger screen and 4,900 mAh for the smaller one.

Samsung is pushing the Tab S as a range different from the Note tablets and aimed primarily at those who want to use the device for consuming content. So the tablets will comes with access to 100 free HD movies on MyPlex, 3-month free subscription of 21 Indian magazines and a free e-book every month from Kindle.

MapmyIndia launches NaviMaps, A Navigation App With In-House Addresses

MapmyIndia launches NaviMaps, A Navigation App With In-House Addresses

Tuesday, July 1, 2014 / No Comments

GPS navigation and location app for consumers and enterprise MapmyIndia has launched a ‘glocal’ navigation app on Android. The app follows freemium model — while maps and directions are free for life, voice guidance in several regional languages will require some bucks.

Users will also be pleased by automatic traffic based re-routing, and real time journey updates on Facebook. In our brief testing, we didn’t find the app lagging, which is quite nice.

Features

The app features several more exciting features, as mentioned below.

• NaviMaps offers maps for Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.
• While commuting you will be pleased by the real time turn-by-turn voice guidance, NaviMaps offers Furthermore, the guidance is available in 10 regional languages.
• The app features auto re-routing which will help you find the best route to your destination.
• Social Navigation with Real-time journey progress updates on Facebook.
• Realistic 3D landmarks and house number search on maps.
• Superfast navigation with single line predictive destination search.
• Instantly check for traffic delays along your regular routes before you start out.

The app touts that it will work even when the network is poor. Android users can download it from here. Windows Phone and iOS users can expect the app soon.

Pipes Is A Clever App That Lets You Track Any Topic You Care About

Pipes Is A Clever App That Lets You Track Any Topic You Care About

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Prepare to further isolate yourself in a world containing only the news and information you care about. A new mobile application called Pipes has just launched a simple tool to help you find and follow any topic, from Apple or Google to the FIFA World Cup, or whatever else you want.
The app is similar in some ways to short-form news reading apps like Circa or Yahoo’s News Digest, or alerting tools like recent TechCrunch Disrupt participant Notivo, as it’s also designed to offer mobile-friendly access to news and information. But in Pipes’ case, the app isn’t about offering you bite-sized summaries, but instead provides feeds of popular articles on the subject matter at hand, as well as tweets, and even the item’s Wikipedia page, for reference.
According to co-founder Vinay Anand, who built Pipes along with Siddarth Goliya and a small team of mainly 20-year-old engineers, Pipes’ backend today crawls data from over 10,000 sources every hour, allowing you to track just about anything.
“The two of us really felt the need to personalize news,” explains Anand. “We really feel that people have specific things they want to track and want to be alerted on it and that’s exactly what Pipes allows you to do,” he says.

How It Works

Pipes is well-designed and straightforward to set up and use. From the main screen, you just click a plus (“+”) button to add a new pipe (aka, topic). You then enter your search term or keyword, and tap to add it to your homepage. You can also shake your phone for a suggestion of trending pipes to add, which is fun, if a bit less practical.
After adding your topics, each appears in its own section on the main page, waiting to be explored. You tap into these for lists of links to news articles, which pull in the full article’s text in most cases via RSS feeds. From here, you can also bookmark items as well as share them via text, WhatsApp, Email, Google+, Twitter and Facebook.

You can also customize push notifications for your pipes, while controlling their frequency.
Separate sections point you to the topic’s Wikipedia page and related tweets. I don’t care for the decision to only pull in hashtagged tweets here, however, as I find there’s a lot more content discussed on Twitter than the tweets from those devoted to hashtagging everything they say. Plus, Pipes’ selection of tweets feels curated and stale, as it didn’t update with a pull-to-refresh gesture during testing. The tweets aren’t time-stamped either, so their only purpose now it seems is to give you a sense of the conversation, or to point you to other articles that may have been missed in the “News” section.
Meanwhile, a “Top Stories” section on the Pipes main screen lets you break out of your own little world a bit to see other popular news items.

 

The overall look-and-feel of Pipes and the functionality it provides is compelling. However, ultimately the app will have to face down other more popular competitors like Flipboard or Bloglovin for casual news readers, or RSS feed-reading utilities like Feedly or Reeder for hard-core news consumers.
The co-founders have worked on several business ventures together in the past, including two that failed, one that Anand describes as a “moderate success” and now Pipes, their fourth venture. This time around, they’re funding development through money from Doodle Creatives, their Mumbai-based design and development shop, but have not taken in outside funding.
Pipes is a free download on both iOS and Android.

Google bans Facebook and other self updating Android apps

Google bans Facebook and other self updating Android apps

Sunday, June 29, 2014 / No Comments

Google just released a new Play Store version 4.0.27 that, contains only very minor tweaks and Google has changed the rules of its Google Play Store to put an end to the practice of developers updating their apps through their own means rather than the official Google Play channel.

Shortly before the Facebook Home launch, some users noticed a new version of Facebook was available on their device, but it wasn't through the Play Store. Instead, the update came directly through the app, bypassing the Store altogether.

Under the "Dangerous Products" section of the Google Play developer policies, Google now states that "an app downloaded from Google Play may not modify, replace or update its own APK binary code using any method other than Google Play's update mechanism."

Essentially this means that once an app is downloaded by an Android user it cannot contact home base and auto-update its own operating code. Instead, it has to use the official Google approved channel.

Google says that its Play store is “trusted source for Android application downloads” and that it is “committed to providing a secure and consistent experience.” Allowing apps to update themselves could possibly lead to some less-than-secure scenarios as the initial download from Google Play would be safe while the in-app updater installs malware.

Google and Apple app Store removing all Games with "Flappy" word in Title

Google and Apple app Store removing all Games with "Flappy" word in Title

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After the developer of Flappy Bird pulled the gaming app from both the Apple and Google app stores, it led to the creation of dozens and dozens of Flappy Bird clones that are trying to cash in on the popularity of the original title.

Also Security researchers from multiple anti-malware firms have recently identified a number of malicious versions of Flappy Bird apps.

In Order to protect Smartphone users from installing malicious applications that pretend to be the one associated with the previous Flappy Bird app, Google and Apple have finally decided to reject all games and application that contain ‘Flappy’ in the title on app Stores.

Ken Carpenter, another app developer with Mind Juice Media, posted on his Twitter account that his newly developed app, which he named Flappy Dragon, got rejected from Apple's app Store because the name "attempts to leverage a popular app"

According to Ken, 'Flappy' in app title are being rejected by Apple under a violation of the app review guidelines, states that "apps that contain false, fraudulent or misleading representations will be rejected."

Whereas, Google Play pulled down Flappy Dragon with a reason - "do not use irrelevant, misleading, or excessive keywords in app descriptions, titles, or metadata."

But the clone apps that were already approved by Apple before adding this restriction, are still in the App Store. Unfortunately, Ken forced to rename his app and resubmitted it to iTunes with a new title "Derpy Dragon."

Google Gives Refund to Thousands of Buyers Who Bought Bogus Android AntiVirus App

Google Gives Refund to Thousands of Buyers Who Bought Bogus Android AntiVirus App

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About a week back we reported about a popular paid Antivirus application on the Google Play Store which was actually a scam, dubbed as ‘Virus Shield’.

This First paid fake app managed to become one of the most popular anti-virus app in less than a week, and apparently more than 10,000 Smartphones users purchased it in $3.99 from Google Play Store and hence scammed more than $40,000.

The Virus Shield Android App claimed to protect users’ personal information from harmful viruses, malware and spyware, but in actual app doesn't scan anything and was removed from the store once the fraud had been uncovered.

If you were one that had downloaded the Virus Shield Antivirus app, then don't worry, just check your email inbox, because Google cares about you and reaching out all those affected android users who purchased the app, in order to refund their money in full.

 REFUND WITH $5 BONUS CREDIT
According to Android Police, Google has decided to refund $3.99 back to users and apart from the full refund, to maintain its reputation among users, Google offering an extra $5 Google Play Store credit to each, which can be used to purchase digital content on Google Play store such as apps, games, books, music and movies.

“Google Play’s policies strictly prohibit false claims like these, and in light of this, we’re refunding you for your “Virus Shield” purchase. You should see funds returned to your account within the next 14 days. Additionally, we'd like to offer you $5 promotional credit1, which can be used to purchase digital content on Google Play such as apps, games, books, music and movies.” Google Play Support said.

The developer of Virus Shield app approached The Guardian newspaper to claims that the app without the virus protection was uploaded to the Play Store by mistake and he removed the app from the Play Store himself before his developer account was suspended.

"One of our developers simply made a foolish mistake. The app version that was decompiled by AndroidPolice was not intended to be released. It was an early placeholder that our ui designer created. There was a mix-up between the version that contained the antivirus code for our app." app developer Jesse Carter of Deviant Solutions said.

GOOGLE APOLOGY LETTER

Hello,

We're reaching out to you because you recently purchased the “Virus Shield” app on Google Play. This app made the false claim that it provided one-click virus protection; in reality, it did not.

Google Play’s policies strictly prohibit false claims like these, and in light of this, we’re refunding you for your “Virus Shield” purchase. You should see funds returned to your account within the next 14 days.

Additionally we'd like to offer you $5 promotional credit1, which can be used to purchase digital content on Google Play such as apps, games, books, music and movies.

Your credit redemption code is XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. Click or tap here to redeem. For help redeeming, please visit our Help Center.

We're sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused; rest assured that we're always working to make Google Play better for our users.

Thank you,

Google Play Support

Google learned from their mistake and promised that such apps will never get top position, even if allowed to be listed in the Play Store.

If you ever suspect any malicious or Fake application at Google Play Store, then scroll down to bottom of the page, and then flag an app as inappropriate.

First Paid Fake Android Antivirus App Downloaded 10,000 times from Google Play Store

First Paid Fake Android Antivirus App Downloaded 10,000 times from Google Play Store

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Well, we all are very conscious, when it comes to the security of our personal information, security of our financial data and security of everything related to us. In the world of Smart devices where our Smartphones knows more than we know ourselves.

To keep our device protected from harmful viruses, malware or spyware, we totally depend on various security products such as antivirus, firewall and privacy guard apps, that we typically install from some trusted sources, Google Play Store. Most Antivirus apps are available to download for free, but some of them are paid with extra premium features like advance firewall protection, anti theft, App Locker or Cloud Backup etc.

But do you believe that just because you're downloading an application from an official app store and also if its a premium paid version, you're safe from malicious software? Think twice.

PAID, BUT FAKE ANTIVIRUS APP

In Past, Mobile Security Researchers had spotted numerous fake mobile antivirus scanners that were available for free download at Google's Play marketplace, but its the first time when a cyber criminals are offering a fake, but paid Antivirus Solution called ‘Virus Shield’ for your Android device at Google’s play store.

Virus Shield masquerade itself as an antivirus that claims to "protect you and your personal information from harmful viruses, malware, and spyware" and also "Improve the speed of your phone," which it does with just a click. 

Moreover, it claims to have least effect on battery, run in the background, and in addition it also acts as adblock software that will stop those "pesky advertisements," which we deal every day.

MORE THAN $40,000 FRAUD AT GOOGLE PLAY STORE

Virus Shield antivirus app costs $3.99, and has been on the Google Play Store for just over a week and has already been successfully downloaded more than 10,000 times by Smartphones users with a 4.7 star review from 1,700 people, that means total amount received by developer is more than $40,000.

Even 2,607 users had hit the Google "recommend" button, which means that the antivirus app must be doing great to users who look for trusted and efficient antivirus app to secure their devices.

WHAT A SCANNER - VIRUS SHIELD 

Surely it doesn't scan or detect anything. Android Police has discovered that the app only changes a red "X" graphic to a red "check" graphic, that’s it, nothing less or more. 

The virus shield antivirus app is a total scam and it doesn't scan or secure your device, which means thousands of users have been scammed out of their money.

When the creator (email : Jesse_Carter@live.com) tracked down by the investigators, it revealed that the creator was a well known scammer who was also accused and banned from forums for trying to scam people out of various low-valued online game items. 

You can check out the code for yourself from here, as the android police have decompiled the app and mirrored the java code on GitHub.

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF

There is no such way to protect you from these kinds of fraudsters. All you can do is report the Virus Shield via the Play Store app by listing the app’s "flag as inappropriate," then tap "other objection" and write about the app’s fraud to users. Alternatively, you can report it on the web. Users are advised to only download applications from known and trusted publishers.

Google Play Store Update Allows Apps to Silently Gain Control of Your Device

Google Play Store Update Allows Apps to Silently Gain Control of Your Device

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Google just made a huge change to the way application permissions work on Android devices which has left a potential door open to malicious app developers and hackers.

Google narrows down Android's 145 permissions into 13 broad categories and groups app permissions into 'groups of related permissions', likely for Android users to have an easier time dealing with app permissions.

Unfortunately, the new update has introduced a few potential security and privacy issues, as listed below:

• hiding permissions behind the group names
• auto-updating app with no warning for new permissions

According to new update, once a user approves an app’s permissions, he actually approves the whole respective permission groups. For example, if an app want to read your incoming SMS messages, then it requires the “Read SMS messages” permission. But now installing an app, you are actually giving it access to all SMS-related permissions.

 

The app developer can then include additional permissions from ‘SMS-related permissions Group’, in a future update, which will not trigger any warning before installation.

Google explains, “If you have automatic updates enabled, you won't need to review or accept these permissions as long as they are included in a permissions group you already accepted for that app.”

If your Android apps update automatically, then malicious developers can gain access to new dangerous permissions without your knowledge by abusing this mechanism, though a smart user could manually view all permissions in a dropdown before installation, but one out of thousands does that.

For example, as you can see in the above screenshots - I am installing FIFA's android app from Google Play Store and before installation the app is asking for group permissions in left image and actual group permissions are expanded in the right-side image.

Similarly, if you install any app with group permissions to read contacts, later that app can secretly gain permission to add or even change calendar entries too.

Below I have listed some most abused Android app permissions that cyber criminals are exploiting for their personal gain:

• GPS Location and Network-based Location
• Read Phone State and Identity
• Automatically Start at Boot
• Modify/Delete SD Card Contents
• Read/Send SMS Messages
• Read/Modify Contacts

I strongly recommend users to disable automatic updates and verify app permissions manually every time an app wants to update.

 

Google’s Hidden Message to Android App Publishers? Stay Within The Walled Garden

Google’s Hidden Message to Android App Publishers? Stay Within The Walled Garden

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Android App developers must have noticed a little note by Google on top of their developer console indicating some changes in install metrics. Google has not shared much details on the actual changes and “Learn more” leads to a very small description talking about corrections on counting factory resets for pre-installed apps and apps that are used by multiple users on the same device.

Notification For Android App Publishers
First lets figure out what Google means here:

1. Factory Reset for Pre-installed Apps: Some Apps are embedded into the phone along with the OS and they are categorized under preinstalled Apps. What Google possibly means here is, that they might be either calculating a factory reset as potential uninstall first and then reinstall as a new install affecting overall numbers. Or they were not counting them as part of installs altogether. Either ways, they seem to have fixed this issue probably.
2. Apps used by Multiple users on the same device: If you have 2 devices but use common Google ID then Play Store would take that into account as you can see from the drop down in Play Store’s developer’s console. However they may not be calculating more than one active user from a same device. It is possible that a tablet/phone is shared by 2 family members and they have their own Google IDs associated with it. So technically these are 2 active users for your App but Google might still be counting one active user earlier which seems to have been fixed now.

While this is a detailed explanation of what Google is trying to explain, I have my own theory to this which is based on careful analysis of few Apps’ analytics I have access to. I studied the following in last 8 days:

• Daily App Installs & Uninstalls on Google Play
• Daily App Installs & Uninstalls outside Google Play (Opera App Store, UC Web Store, Amazon, OEM embeds et al).

Findings reveal something interesting and many inferences can be drawn from it. While my inference here may be completely wrong since it is based on just couple of Apps, but its not illogical either.

Apps installed outside Play Store are not being counted as Installs in Play Store but uninstalling the same app is resulting in an increase in uninstalls.

How I concluded this? If Play Store had 100 installs/30 uninstall and Amazon store had 100 installs/35 uninstall then Google’s developer console is now showing (post algorithm change) 100 installs/65 uninstalls. This drastically increased the uninstall rate to 65% for that particular App from originally 30%
Since Play Store takes uninstall rate in to account in deciding the App Ranks, imagine the loss Apps would suffer if they rely heavily on non-Play store installs.
I spoke to few big app owners and only the ones actively getting downloads outside Play Store have felt the impact.

My Inference from this: Google is penalizing app developers for any installs done outside its ecosystem. They want to discourage app developers to submit their apps to any other App store. Google will never openly admit this but by making the algorithm change recently they are indirectly sending signals to all the big app developers by showing increase in their uninstall rates.

How to circumvent this

If you have pre-embed deal with OEMs or you work with lot of Android App stores then you can do the following to escape the above impact:

- Push an App update. If you push an App update then Play Store will sync the Install numbers and it would bring back the uninstall rate to its original base. Even if you don’t have any meaningful updates to make, you still need to keep pushing a new version at regular intervals to bring all the installs under Play Store dashboard.

- Use a different package name and sign APK with a different signature: Another way to completely stay clear from this is to create a separate version of your App with a new package name. This way Google will not be able to link it with the Play store version and your stats wont get affected. Only issue with this solution is that you will have to maintain different versions. And pushing updates to pre-installed App or other App Store apps would not be straightforward.
Since Google has not shared any details on this topic, idea of this blog is to reach out to more Android App developers and hear their thoughts on this.

[About the author:[About the Author: Deepak Abbot is AVP at Paytm. He has worked in companies like Reliance Entertainment- Digital, Zapak & Satyam computers handling product, marketing & analytics. E-mail: dabbot@gmail.com]

Of Yo, Unbundling And Simplicity : Welcome To the New App World.

Of Yo, Unbundling And Simplicity : Welcome To the New App World.

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Over the past week or so, an app called Yo has been making the news because given its “stupidity”, it has managed to raise $1.2m. All it does is allow you to send a “Yo” to a friend. Its like Facebook Poke, but even dumber.
The app has no icon and only one screen. It was created as a side project by a few folks working on an existing app start up. Noted tech analyst Robert Scoble has described Yo as ”the stupidest, most addictive app I’ve ever seen in my life”. The makers claim the engagement metrics on it are unlike anything they’ve seen before, and they could have raised even more money than what was offered to them. Still sound stupid?

Without going into whether Yo actually offers a legitimate value proposition, it represents a growing trend seen in the past 12 months: a mobile app is meant to do only one thing. Facebook started the process of “unbundling”, splitting up functions of the service into different apps with Messenger and Paper, and then of course they also own WhatsApp and Instagram. Foursquare followed soon launching Swarm to enable discovery, and last week Path split its messenger service into Path Talk. And then just yesterday Marc Andreessen went on one of his Twitter rants talking about the history of unbundling.

Anyway, whichever way you look at it, the way mobile apps are being used has changed, or rather, matured to suit the form factor. Back in 2010, the idea was to put as much functionality in one app with the assumption that the inertia to download multiple apps was too high. It was the desktop web approach.
While the general problem of getting people to download apps has only gotten harder (app discovery challenges and all that), the 4” screen means you can only have limited functionality on it without compromising user experience. Over time, users have gotten used to going back to an app to complete the one key essential task that it merits. Apps are now being used more as “applets”, especially how they are interfacing with the rest of the ecosystem:

With the OS: The iOS 8 notification center and extensions will enable you to complete tasks without even going inside an app. This, of course, already exists on Android, and I’m sure the L release will take it to the next level.

With Other Apps: App to app linking is gradually becoming common practice, especially among services that are unbundled. A classic example is the Facebook app, and how clicking on the messenger icon now takes you to the Messenger app instead of opening the message inbox right there.

With the Web: Google App Indexing is the first step in getting the web and app world to talk to each other. You search for something, and along with web link results, you get shown app link results. Clicking on one of those takes you inside that app to the particular content you were looking for.

What does all this mean for app developers? I think Benedict Evans articulates it well in this post a couple of months back: In mobile, everything is still wide open. There are still so many mobile first problems to solve, more so in emerging markets like India. Idea should be to keep it simple, integrate it deep within the existing ecosystem, and solve one core problem that makes users come back again and again.
[About the author : The article is written by Aakrit Vaish, founder of Haptik app. Reproduced from author's blog.]