All posts by mspotten

Name That Device! And The Week 2 Winner Is….

By | Contest, Name That Device | No Comments

I’d like to thank everyone who participated in our second “Name That Device!” contest. However, there can only be one winner. Keep reading our awesome blog, you might win something fantastic (like a t-shirt)! Oh yeah – and to make things easier there’s even a Follow widget and a signup bar to the right. So easy! Last week’s hint was: The edge of a knife, the tip of a sword In the US this brand is often ignored  Both TV and phone share the same name You’ll need more than the model to win at this game Composed of mixed origin, like…

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The Rise of the New App Economy

By | Infographic | No Comments

For the past three years VisionMobile has surveyed developers around the world to gain insight into why they make the choices they do. The result has been a series of Developer Economics Reports. The third report in the series, Developer Economics 2012: The New Mobile App Economy, focuses on five main areas: The redefinition of mobile ecosystems, developer segmentation, revenues vs. costs in the mobile economy, app marketing and distribution, and regional supply vs. demand of apps. It’s an excellent read for anyone interested in development trends and the mobile app economy. Plus, it’s free and who doesn’t like that? You can download it here. Don’t have…

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Think You Know Android? Name That Device pt. II!

By | Contest, Name That Device, Uncategorized | No Comments

It has been two weeks; I am here to issue you with another challenge. It’s not as physically taxing as the Ironman Triathlon, and not as delicious as the Cinnamon Challenge. No, this is much, much worse. Are you ready for a mind-melting, brainteaser that will leave you puzzled for the next 5 days? You’re about to be stumped by the multitudes of Android Devices available to consumers all over the world. We’ve got every Android Device in the App Analytics Lab. Can you identify them all? Here’s a reminder of how to play: Take a look at the hint…

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Run Google Play on an emulator and pretend to be any device

By | Hacking | No Comments

Since the beginning of time man has sought to virtualize the human experience. We go to sleep and have life-like experiences in our dreams, we connect to internet sites like Chatroulette to virtually meet strangers (and inadvertently catch a glimpse of some old man balls from time to time), 1995 brought us the classic Denzel Washington/Russell Crowe sci-fi action thriller Virtuosity, and nerds gather in herds online to play StarCraft (myself included) and become virtual intergalactic heroes. The journey to virtualize reality has been a long time coming. The next logical step… to run Google Play on a virtual mobile device?…

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Enabling HierarchyViewer on Rooted Android Devices

By | Uncategorized | No Comments

The HierarchyViewer is an Android SDK tool that gives developers the ability to introspect on all aspects of an application’s layout at runtime. The tool can be extremely useful for developers when debugging the view state of an application across a realm of devices. Unfortunately, the Android SDK has limited this tool to “devices running a developer version of the Android system”. I personally had no idea what Android meant by this statement, so we spent some time investigating the implementation of the ViewServer in Android OS and fortunately found that the HierarchyViewer can be enabled with any Android device as…

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Name That Device! And The Week 1 Winner Is….

By | Contest, Name That Device | No Comments

Thanks to everyone who participated in our first ever “Name That Device!” contest! We’ll hold these contests every other week – so keep checking back and you could win a free Apkudo t-shirt or some other fabulous prize. Last week’s hint was: For the fashion conscious person prone An elegant concept, story, and phone Lined with chrome around its edge Luxury and beauty its name doth pledge Boasting style and a unique design That’s the hint that ends this rhyme   So what was that phone? Drum roll please….. The LG Prada 3.0! And our contest winner is…..Sune Sonne Andersen!!!!…

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Cheap tablet, meet Apkudo. Apkudo, meet cheap tablet!

By | Device Analytics | No Comments

There’s no doubt that Amazon’s Kindle Fire has been a runaway success since it launched Q4 ‘11. Part of the success is due to its affordable price of $199, enabling it to appeal to a wider audience – something many other Android tablets in the past have struggled to achieve. However, the caveat of the affordable tablet not being Google certified predominantly means it doesn’t have access to Google’s content services, instead, relying on Amazon’s own offerings. Although Amazon’s application store is nothing to sneeze at, its 31,000 apps (March 2012) is a small handful compared to Android’s share of…

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Think You Know Android? Name That Device!

By | Contest, Name That Device | No Comments

The beauty of the Android operating system is that it’s open and free. This means consumers aren’t all stuck with the same boring, cookie-cutter devices. We get variety! And who doesn’t like variety? At Apkudo we’ve got every Android device in the App Analytics Lab. I’m talking seriously unique, obscure, and rare devices. One of the funnest things about working with all of these phones and tablets is playing a little game we like to call, “Name That Device!” It’s so much fun that we want you to play, too! About once a week I’ll be posting a puzzle, recording…

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Meet “The Deej,” Apkudo’s Newest Engineer!

By | Apkudo Buzz | No Comments

One of the greatest things about working for a start-up is watching the company grow. Over the last year I’ve been a witness to the addition of every new employee on our staff. Each one of them brings something special to the mix and work hasn’t ever felt like ‘work.’ Our newest addition to the Apkudo team is Daniel “The Deej” Joyce, Engineer Extraordinaire. We wanted to get to know Deej on a deep, spiritual level so we asked him 10 Questions (it was actually 11, but he refused to answer “Who Farted?!”). Here we go! 1) What made you…

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AnDevCon III – Another One for the Books

By | Uncategorized | No Comments

This time last week we were drinking lots of water and taking aspirin, handing out t-shirts on the show floor, talking to developers about Apkudo App Analytics and Apkudo Device Analytics, and debating how awesome the Apkudo cookies were (survey says: very awesome, as seen here). We’d just pulled ourselves from bed after a wonderful party at Knuckle’s Bar the night before replete with drinks, food, and a lot of laughs. We met some really excellent people and reconnected with plenty of others. While it’s true that conferences can take a lot out of you (energy and electrolytes, mostly), they…

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