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August 8, 2012

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

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?…

July 26, 2012

Enabling HierarchyViewer on Rooted Android Devices

By mspotten | 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…

July 25, 2012

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

By mspotten | 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!!!!…

July 21, 2012

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

By mspotten | 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…

July 19, 2012

Think You Know Android? Name That Device!

By mspotten | 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…

July 9, 2012

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

By mspotten | 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…