Have you noticed that a lot of Android applications include prompts for you to purchase other apps? It’s quite annoying, especially when you’re in the middle of a rather productive moment. Most of these in-app purchase advertisements appear in free (or cheap) apps and run the gamut of categories — from games to communication to productivity.

Although it’s generally very easy to dismiss these in-app purchase prompts, it’s also just as easy to accidentally click to open the purchase link. Studies have shown that a huge amount of money is spent on in-app purchases (71% of Apple’s App Store purchases come from in-app purchases, and in the United Kingdom, Android in-app purchases have generated over 30 million pounds). Fortunately, with the help of the Google Play Store, you can block these types of purchases.

The process I outline below doesn’t completely disable in-app purchases, but it makes them require a password. This will prevent you from accidentally buying an app, and it keeps other people who use your tablet from making those purchases (even if they want the app that’s offered). While this isn’t a perfect solution, it does work.

Set up password requirements for in-app purchases

1. Open the Google Play Store on your tablet
2. Tap on the menu button and select Settings from the options
3. Under User Controls, tap Use password to restrict purchases (Figure A) to enable it (if this option is disabled, tap Set or change Pin to establish an initial password)

Figure A

Google Play Store settings on the Verizon-branded Samsung Galaxy Tab.

At this point, every time you try to purchase an app (free apps do not apply), you’ll be required to enter the password that you’ve set (Figure B).

Figure B

Type your password correctly or the purchase will not go through.

Make sure to never click Never Ask Me Again, because that will completely defeat the purpose of setting this password. If you’re the only person using this device, and you feel confident that you’ll never accidentally make an in-app purchase, you can turn this feature off by disabling the Password feature (in Settings, tap the Password entry until it is deselected).

Google Play Store tips

While we’re speaking of Android app installs, did you know that you can also install applications from your desktop web browser? You must be logged into the Google Play Store with the same account that’s associated with your device. Once you’ve done that, follow these steps:

1. Search for the app you want to install (from the desktop browser)
2. Select the app to be installed
3. Click the Install button
4. From the popup window, select the device to receive the install from the drop-down menu (Figure C)
5. Click Install
6. Click OK

Figure C

If you have multiple devices associated with the account, all supported devices will be listed for the app.

The app will automatically be sent to the device. If the device doesn’t currently have a connection, the installation will occur as soon as the device is connected.

You can also add items to your Play Store wish list (to save them for later purchase/install). When you view an app, if you see the Bookmark icon (Figure D), you can tap that icon to add the app to your wish list.

Figure D

Tapping the center icon will add the app to your wish list.

To view your wishlist, simply open the Google Play Store, tap the menu button (top right corner), and select My Wishlist. From there, you can select an app and install it. Once installed, the app will remain in the wishlist, but a checkmark will indicate that installed status.

Since you don’t want to wind up with numerous in-app purchases, especially if you have a number of tablet users who might have trouble monitoring their usage, make sure you block those unwanted purchases with the help of the Google Play Store. What other tips do you have for managing the Google Play Store? Share your experience in the discussion thread below.

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Things may be falling apart for HTC. The company is losing key employees in the wake of production issues with the HTC One and the flop of its Facebook Home phone, the HTC First.

HTC’s flagship Android phone, the HTC One, has received rave reviews and even beat the Samsung Galaxy S4 in our own face-off, but that hasn’t stopped a wave of executives from exiting. According to The Verge, the company’s chief product officer, Kouji Kodera, left the company last week, joining the VP of global communications, the global retail marketing manager, director of digital marketing and HTC Asia CEO.

Eric Lin, who was HTC’s product strategy manager, tweeted the following: To all my friends still at @HTC – just quit. leave now. it’s tough to do, but you’ll be so much happier.”

To all my friends still at @htc – just quit. leave now. it’s tough to do, but you’ll be so much happier, I swear.

— eric L (@ericlin) May 20, 2013

HTC attempted to capture a niche market with the HTC First, a phone that runs Facebook’s heavily modified Android skin. But the phone has not been well received, prompting a price drop from $99 to 99 cents in less than a month. Additionally, Facebook Home is available for free in the Google Play store, allowing users to try the experience without committing to an entirely new phone.

Peter Chou, CEO of HTC, reportedly told senior executives that he would step down as chief executive if the HTC One is not a success. But despite strong reviews from critics, the HTC One’s manufacturing snafus and accompanying release delays coincided with Samsung’s wide release of the Galaxy S4, allowing the already dominant Android phone maker to seize an even stronger hold on the market.

It remains to be seen whether HTC will be able to stand its ground. But with numerous employees fleeing the company, a change at the top could be next.

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By Sascha Segan

The Samsung Galaxy S 4smartphone on the market today, and Sprint’s model brings that excellence to the “unlimited everything” carrier. Whether you’re looking for a super-fast Android phone or just a terrific voice phone, the Galaxy S 4 is a top choice, and our Editors’ Choice.

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We reviewed the Galaxy S 4 extensively on T-Mobile, so I’m going to stick to the differences in the Sprint model here. All the Galaxy S 4 units are physically identical except for the carrier logo on the back, and the Sprint unit doesn’t even have that. The only sign you’re using Sprint here is the carrier’s name on the lock screen.

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To recap: The Galaxy S 4 looks like a refined Galaxy S III 

at 5.4 by 2.75 by .31 inches (HWD) and 4.6 ounces. It’s still plastic, in white or black, with chrome trim, and a subtly patterned, smooth back. It’s almost exactly the same size as the S3, with the new phone’s larger 5-inch screen made possible by a smaller bezel.

The phone is practically bubbling over with new features, half of which you’ll probably never use and a handful of which will become critical to your life. Some examples: a built-in pedometer and diet tracker, a camera mode which erases photobombers, and the ability to run two apps in different windows on the screen.

Sprint’s Galaxy S 4 has the same 1.9Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor as T-Mobile’s, but I found that this unit benchmarked slightly faster, possibly because it’s running fewer background services like T-Mobile’s Wi-Fi calling system. In any case, it’s the fastest Android phone I’ve seen yet.

Sprint strikes a brave pose with its bloatware: much of it is uninstallable. Just pop down to the Application Manager and you can delete some of the preloaded apps, like Sprint Music Plus and Sprint TV and Movies. Unfortunately, some bloatware, including the Lumen Toolbar, Sprint Worldwide (a useless stub with instructions on how to use your phone abroad), and Sprint Zone (which is just a vehicle for various promotions), isn’t as easily removed. This is especially important on the storage-poor 16GB Galaxy S 4, which only has 9.2GB free to start with (although you can expand the storage with a microSD card up to a 64GB).

Voice Calling and Network
The Galaxy S 4 is the best voice phone you can buy on Sprint. The call screen has options to toggle noise cancellation and extra volume, and like on the Galaxy S III, you can personalize the call sound profile to your own sense of hearing. I was startled by how sharp, clear, and loud my calls were; noise cancellation was also excellent. This quality is only improved by Sprint’s HD Voice system. It only works when you’re making calls between two Sprint phones, but it’s working on a steadily larger number of phones, including the iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S III, HTC One, LG Optimus G, and this device. It even works with a few Boost phones.

The main down side is Sprint’s network, but that applies to all Sprint phones. With no LTE near our offices in New York City, I was stuck in a painfully congested Internet slow lane, choking off the capabilities of this monster device. I couldn’t even complete my speed tests. Unlimited data doesn’t mean anything if you can’t get online. Sprint needs to ramp up its LTE rollout pronto. 

Perhaps because of that limited LTE coverage, Sprint’s Galaxy S 4 lets you turn off LTE to save battery. Network settings include LTE/CDMA, CDMA only, and GSM/UMTS world mode. The phone is unfortunately SIM locked; you need to be a Sprint customer for 90 days to get the SIM card slot unlocked for international travel.

Pricing and Conclusions
Sprint sells the Galaxy S 4 for $249.99 with a two-year contract, which is $50 more than both the HTC One and the Apple iPhone 5, and $100 more than the LG Optimus G. Since you’ll be paying at least $2,400 in service fees over two years, that $50 isn’t much of a real difference.

Just like on T-Mobile, the decision between the Galaxy S 4 and the HTC One comes down to focus versus excess. Here at PCMag, we like a little excess, so we lean towards the Galaxy S 4, but the HTC One has a more beautiful body design and a closer focus on key features that HTC thinks you’ll love, like the Blinkfeed Flipboard clone and the Zoe photo/video mode.

We tagged the HTC One as the “first truly compelling smartphone of 2013″ when we reviewed it on Sprint a month ago. The Samsung Galaxy S 4 is, of course, the second, and it takes the Editors’ Choice crown from the One by a nose. If you’re looking to make the most of your Sprint unlimited data, grab a Samsung Galaxy S 4—and hope that Sprint is laying down some LTE near you soon.

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Appy Pie Inc.

Appy Pie is a no cost mobile app builder software that allows a person/individual to create a highly customized smartphone app with no experience necessary and no coding knowledge.

New Jersey (PRWEB) May 22, 2013

Appy Pie Inc., a well-known online application developer for various mobile operating systems, has awarded ‘KEGS CONNECTION.EDU‘ with Android and iPhone apps as app of the day. The Android version of KEGS CONNECTION.EDU is already available for download at Google Play, but the iPhone version is under review and is expected to be released and available for download on the iTunes Store by next week.

Appy Pie is a no cost mobile app builder software that allows a person/individual to create a highly customized smartphone app with no experience necessary and no coding knowledge. The only requirement for creating an app is to sign up for free and input their information.

Appy Pie Offers the Following Mobile App Builders:

1. Create Android App

2. Create iPhone App

3. Create Blackberry App

4. App Maker

The following are the reasons why Appy Pie is the fastest growing Apps Builder service provider in the world:

1. Apps can be built for free

2. Create an App in minutes

3. No coding skills required

4. Apps get published shared

About Mobile Application Development Company, Appy Pie:

Appy Pie is trademark of Appy Pie Inc. Appy Pie is the world’s #1 cloud based Mobile App maker Software that allows everyone to create free mobile apps. Appy Pie is Custom Mobile Application Development software that allows anyone with no technical knowledge to create advanced applications for mobiles and smartphones. Nothing to download or install, no programming required, just drag drop. Appy Pie was born in New York in 2011 at this point more than 5000 apps are produced each month using the Service.

To make an app, visit http://www.appypie.com/

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Last week’s Google I/O conference inspired me to dust off my Android phone and I’ve been using it a little more than normal lately. I’ve been testing Google Play Music All Access to see how it compares with Spotify (and with Apple’s rumored iRadio) but I’ve also got my eye on the unlocked Galaxy S4 that Google starts selling on June 26. 

Anticipating a new Android phone in my future, I’ve been doing some house cleaning and deleting a bunch of Android apps that I rarely use. When my Droid ran out of power, I was re-acquainted with an extremely useful Android feature not available on iOS: web-based administration. 

With Android devices you can easily add/update and delete apps on your devices(s) by the using the web-based Google Play tool. It’s a simple and convenient feature that Apple doesn’t offer. 

The only way to administer an iPhone or iPad is on the device itself or via the atrocious bloatware known as iTunes. While editing apps on the iPhone is novel for a while, it’s extremely time consuming, especially if you need to drag apps across multiple pages. Editing apps in iTunes is slightly better, but not by much. iTunes is slow and clunky and has trouble getting out of its own way sometimes. iTunes is further limited by being tied to a single computer, iTunes Match notwithstanding.  

A web-based interface is a faster and easier way to edit apps, music and media. Using the Google Play web interface, I was able to add, update and delete dozens of Android apps in minutes and my changes were synchronized with my Droid as soon as it came back online. In addition to apps, the Google Play Store also allows me to organize (and play!) my music and movies and read my books and magazines in a web browser, features noticeably absent from Apple. 

The closest thing to web integration that Apple offers is a hokey “App page” that forces you to “View in iTunes” to download the app. Apple needs to give users options other than iTunes when it comes to managing their app and media purchases if it’s going to be competitive with Android.

Apple would tell you that using iTunes is “a feature, not a bug.” Apple engineers have told me that it prefers that all iTunes account administration is done via iTunes to add security to your account, presumably to prevent hackers from brute-forcing a web interface with a script. But that defense doesn’t hold water any more, especially now that two-step verification is available for Apple IDs. And if the web is such a security hole, hole is Google doing it?

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Mr. Papadopoulos is the founder of a company called BugSense, and one of the countless developers who make a living by building software for Google’s Android operating system. The BugSense service is basically a monitor for other app developers – it sends them messages every time their apps crash on a customer’s phone. Because Google allows anyone to customize the Android software, and because there are so many versions of Android out in the wild, the odds of an app crashing on an Android phone somewhere are fairly high. For smartphone users, this is not a good thing; for BugSense, it’s a business opportunity.

“We develop for other operating systems,” Mr. Papadopoulos says. “But we love Android a little bit more.”

Against all odds, Android has become perhaps Google’s most important product, even though the company makes very little money off the software itself. In fact, since it launched Android in 2008, Google has given it away for free – anyone can use or alter it as they please. Companies such as Samsung have piggybacked on the software to avoid the cost of building their own mobile operating systems, and have generated billions in profit as a result.

But Android’s importance to Google is two-fold. First, it allowed a company that developed its search services for the desktop age to gain a foothold in the mobile world. Second, it allows Google to put the products where it does make money – primarily, its search engine – front and centre on all Android-based devices. Indeed, whatever revenue-generating software comes up in the future has a natural home on the hundreds of millions of Android devices already on the market.

At first glance, Google’s Android strategy mirrors that of countless failed startups – give the product away for free and worry about making money later. But it differs in one key respect: Google is giving away a platform, not a product. The company that dominated the Internet search market by acting as an advertising middleman in billions of user queries is taking the same approach to the mobile world. Rather than looking to profit off the sale of its software, Google is aiming for a critical mass, and attempting to put Android everywhere.

“Increasingly, people are using many many different types of computing devices,” said Sundar Pichai, Google’s senior vice-president in charge of Android, the Chrome browser and Google Apps, on the same day Google announced that Android has now been activated on 900 million devices, making it the most popular mobile operating system in the world.

“It’s not just desktops, phones and laptops any more – it’s watches with displays, thermostats with displays, maybe a car console as a display and maybe something like Google Glass. The amount of computing power in these screens is incredible.”

Android is now one part of a much wider strategy at Google, whereby the company builds platforms and technologies on which all kinds of other services can run, and then gives them away for free. The other well-known example of this strategy is Chrome, the browser-based operating system. On the surface, Chrome is simply a Web browser, no different than Firefox or Internet Explorer. But Google has developed the software as a full-blown operating system in large part because the company believes that the days of local hard drives are coming to an end. Instead, Google believes almost all computers will use the cloud to download software and save data. If that vision becomes a reality, Google’s Chrome could become the Microsoft Windows of Internet-only computers.

Google’s free strategy is not without myriad immediate and long-term risks. Since launching the operating system in 2008, Google has updated Android multiple times. But since many of the upgraded releases are not compatible with older versions, customers worried about the risks of spending hundreds of dollars on a new Android phone, only to discover a few months later that a newer, better flavour of Android had hit the market. The fragmentation issues also gave app developers headaches, as they tried to build software that would work on the many versions of Android still running. Developers had an easier time creating apps for companies such as Apple who kept tight control of their own operating systems, not allowing other companies to add any customization, and upgrading the software only at regular intervals.

Over the past two years, Google has focused on trying to slow down the Android upgrade cycle, such that new versions of the software aren’t constantly rendering older ones obsolete. But increasingly, such upgrades are no longer entirely within Google’s control. Because anyone can customize Android any way they please, some of Google’s corporate competitors (and some of its allies) have started building their own versions of the operating system. Earlier this year, Samsung unveiled a new Galaxy Smartphone with a custom app store, partially bypassing Google’s own software marketplace. More significantly, Google’s biggest competitor in the social networking arena, Facebook, teamed up with a number of device-makers to build phones that run on a Facebook-focused version of Android.

Still, if it is ultimately able to replicate the role it built as a middleman for search queries in the mobile industry and pull in advertising revenue, Google may well be able to live with losing some control of the software it happily gives away for free.

“For Google, overall loyalty still accrues significantly even as device makers layer more customization on top of Android because most Android users are still using Android services, even if they’re less visible,” said Forrester analyst Charles Golvin.

“In an ideal world, every one of those Android devices would be full-on Google … but even when that’s not the case, there’s still a great deal of benefit to Google.”

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30 minutes ago

Anti-virus firm Bitdefender Tuesday launched Clueful, a free Android app that tells you how much other Android apps invade your privacy.

“Your smartphone is probably the most personal device you own, containing private messages, sensitive banking information, personal photos and other data that can leave you vulnerable if handled carelessly,” Bitdefender Chief Security Strategist Catalin Cosoi said in a statement.

“Meanwhile, the world of apps is still like the Wild West — poorly regulated, chaotic and open to exploitation by unsavory characters,” Cosoi said. “Clueful offers you a solid defense in an often dangerous milieu.”

Cosoi may be exaggerating a bit, but it’s true that Android apps are much less tightly monitored than those for Apple’s iOS App Store. (A Bitdefender spokeswoman told us that an iOS version of Clueless was pulled from the App Store last summer for “reasons unexplained.”)

Clueful quickly scans your phone to see which apps are installed, and then gives you an overall privacy score ranging from a low of 1 to a high of 100. I tried it on my own Android phone and got a score of 48 — only “fair.”

[How to Set Your Smartphone's Social Privacy Settings]

The app doesn’t actually go into the source code of each of the other apps installed on your phone. Instead, it dials up to Bitdefender’s cloud service, which contains information about the permissions requested by most apps in Google’s official Play Store, as well as details about many of each app’s individual builds.

Clueful categorizes individual apps into high- moderate- and low-risk categories, with high scorers being those apps that “are viruses,” “send your identity to strangers” and “use very intrusive ads.”

I didn’t have any of those on my phone, but nearly half my installed apps were classified as “moderate risk.”

Four were placed in that category because they “send your private data to strangers,” Clueful told me: the popular games “Angry Birds,” “Angry Birds Space” and “Bad Piggies” and the network-tester Speed Test. The first three leaked my device ID; all four sent my location over the Internet.

I learned that 11 apps have the ability to read or intercept SMS messages, including Amazon, USA Today and IMDb; the same number might read my contacts, although most had a reason to do so.

Meanwhile, a whopping 42 apps had the ability to track my location, including the games “Fruit Ninja” and “Annoying Orange.”

I was thankful most games installed on my phone fell into the “Low Risk” classification, into which Clueful places itself.

Clueful also screens apps being installed onto an Android device. For example, it told me that the Dropbox app wasn’t a privacy threat, but that Google+ was a “moderate privacy risk.”

There are some apps that fall outside Clueful’s reach. It didn’t have any info on nine of my installed apps.

Clueful is available for installation from the Google Play app store.

Follow Paul Wagenseil @snd_wagenseil. Follow us @TechNewsDaily, Facebook or Google+.

• 7 Tips to Keep Your Data Safe on the Road
• How Little Bits of Data Threaten Your Identity
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Copyright 2013 TechNewsDaily, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Flash-sale e-retailer Gilt Groupe is rolling out version 3.0 of its Android mobile commerce app and touting the arrival with sales exclusive to Android app users, hoping to lure more Android owners to download and shop the app. The exclusive sales will run May 28 through June 1. Further, Gilt is offering free shipping on all orders placed through the Android app during the same period.

Half of all daily visits to Gilt Groupe stem from a mobile device and 30% of total sales are mobile, the merchant reports. It declines to break out Android traffic, but says that, like most retailers, users of Apple Inc. iOS mobile devices purchase more than consumers using Android devices.

The focus of the redesign is on imagery, making the Android app’s use of pictures consistent with the way the e-retailer handles images in its iPhone and iPad apps, its m-commerce site, and its desktop site. Most of the work involved increasing the size of images. In the case of images used to promote sales, for example, Gilt made pictures five times larger than they were before.

“We learned from our other platforms that our members are really inspired by beautiful imagery, so when it came to redesigning our Android app, we made the screens more image-focused with larger sale and product photos,” says Yonatan Feldman, vice president of mobile. “We really wanted our aesthetic to be consistent across our various platforms, so you’ll see that the new Android app echoes the same look and feel as our web site, our other apps, and the mobile web, with a more open design that’s full of beautiful imagery to engage and inspire our members.”

Gilt Groupe also redesigned the app’s checkout process with an eye on speeding things up.

“We’ve restyled the checkout function so that it’s more user-friendly—the forms for entering your billing and shipping information are easier to complete, and fewer taps are required to complete your order,” Feldman says. “So the whole process from start to finish is even faster than before.”

Gilt Groupe is No. 13 in the Internet Retailer Mobile 400.

400


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