Google's stock Calender hits Play Store as stand-alone official release

Except which day of the month it is, because it's forever the 31st.

The Google Calender app from stock Jelly Bean, which will be familiar to anyone who owns a recent Nexus device or has ever tried Cyanogenmod 10, has today been released as a stand-alone application on the Play Store for Android devices running 4.0.3 and up. That in and of itself is not particularly noteworthy, as the Jelly Bean calendar has been on the Play Store for a while - what sets today's release apart is it being an official Google app, with all the support and updates that entails. A curious move, and one we certainly hope continues with other vanilla Android apps, as many won't have tried them. We're sure plenty of users will appreciate an alternative to, say, Samsung's S Planner.

Unfortunately for this editor, at least, Google's shiny new calendar commits the cardinal sin of having a static date (The 31st) perpetually on the icon, a puzzling choice considering the version included on devices to date has shied away from that particular piece of tacky design. Did this one slip past Matias Duarte?

Regardless, if you're keen for more megabytes of Google-endorsed goodness (And have a device with the requisite Android version), hit up the Play Store now.

[At Your Own Risk] Rooting the ASUS Transformer on stock ICS

Over the weekend my ASUS Eee Pad Transformer received an update to the much anticipated Ice Cream Sandwich. In order to upgrade I needed to remove CWM. The OTA updates are only successful if you’ve got stock recovery. I had added CWM so that I could apply root. Now I had to do without CWM, and with it root.

You can use Voodoo OTA RootKeeper to temporarily remove root, and then after the upgrade you can restore root. This worked for me as I went from Honeycomb 3.0 to 3.1, but not when going to ICS. Though many others it worked even on ICS. I’ve decided the problem is gender related.

So here I am with my nice sparkly ICS running perfectly on the pad but I’m sulking because I can’t get root. And without root I can’t use Titanium Backup, Root Explorer and AdFree. All are staple apps for me.

Join me over the break to see how to to fix this.

[App Review] Trade Me for Android

It's finally here, for better or worse.

After a lengthy period as an iOS exclusive, New Zealand’s popular auction site has finally seen fit to push a dedicated application to the Android Market. In a sense, this marks the coming of age of Android as a viable second platform in this country – Trade Me is the second most visited page in NZ, only losing top spot to Google itself. Yet it has only now released its own app for Froyo and above, despite the Android platform meriting a dedicated application quite some time ago (I would argue around the end of 2010, when local carriers finally began making an advertising push for Android devices). Many major NZ services such as banks have offered Android support for months if not over a year, notably including the news site Stuff.co.nz, which is owned by Fairfax media who also own Trade Me .

What’s to blame, here? Fragmentation? Real usage stats by useragent showing a lack of Android uptake? Lack of development support, or revenue for the project? Or was the mobile version of Trade Me’s website simply deemed ‘good enough’? While I don’t have the answers to the above, there is one pertinent question I intend to explore: Having waited so long, is the app worthwhile?

Download the app here, and read on for the full review.

Google Search update brings new UI, prematurely-posted features from last year

It's new! It's from Google!

Google Search is an integral part of Android smartphones. Indeed, it's Google's core product. For many devices, it's only a single dedicated button-press away. So it's a little odd that we've not seen a substantial update to so core an application for quite some time - until today, that is.

Our favourite search company have released a new version of its core app to market for Froyo (2.2.x) and above - Read their official report here, and download the app from the market here. Click on past the break for our report, and an interesting link back to August of last year..

Unannounced promo - top titles for 10c on the Market! Looks like the Android Market has crossed 10 billion downloads!

I woke up this morning this morning to see an intriguing news piece spilling on what looked initially like a glitch in the Android Market - certain top apps were suddenly available to purchase for 10c in whatever your local currency is. Naturally I jumped straight in and by the time I looked I was greeted with the screen you see on your right.

Hitting up the link to the premium apps link takes you to a page titled the 10 Billion Promo, which presumably means the Market has recently crossed a momentous threshold for app downloads and Google wants to celebrate.

Currently the following titles can be had for just 10c:

• Great Little War Game
• Asphalt 6
• Sketchbook Mobile
• Minecraft
• Soundhound
• Endomondo Pro
• Swiftkey X
• Paper Camera
• Fieldrunners HD
• Colour and Draw for Kids

I already owned half of these excellent titles, and just now purchased the other half for the paltry sum of $0.50NZD.

If you look at some of the icons in the promo banner you can see many apps like Read it Later and Fruut Ninja that don't appear in the current selection of apps, so it looks like there is more to come!

What are waiting for? Jump in and grab some of the Market's best titles at prices that feel like theft!

Via Droidgamers

[Download] Sony Ericsson TrackID now available for all Android devices...in Sweden

Thanks, Sweden!

Sony Ericsson's music identification and sharing application, TrackID, is one of the more widely appreciated features of the Xperia line, and it's just been made available to all and sundry on the Android Market - providing you're running Froyo or above. Also providing you live in Sweden. Hmm.

Well, the global village has struck again, and thanks to user lastword112 over at XDA, the app is now available to download and sideload. Naturally, we've provided a mirror below. Click through to get your download on.

[UPDATED GUIDE] New Superuser version breaks Chainfire 3D - guide updated to show you how to fix it!

Trust me, you want this on your Android handset

So a few of you may have noticed a certain "Tegra-only" game release on the Market in the last few days - the utterly epic Shadowgun. If you're like me your first thought would have been "I wonder if I can play that on my non-Tegra device with Chainfire 3D?" If you tried to get it you may have run into a problem Chainfire 3D appears to have completely stopped working. Motivated by the need to get it working again, so I could enjoy me some Shadowgun on my Galaxy S II, I spent some time troubleshooting the problem today. I can happily report that I seem to have cracked the problem, and another editor has verified my fix works (he is currently missing, presumed fragging mutants in Shadowgun on his SGSII).

If Chainfire 3D is no longer working, or possibly never worked for you, read on to find the solution!

[Hint: head to the bottom of the guide if you only need the Superuser fix]