Hi friends, I am an indie developer working alone on Android apps. I wanted a Reddit app that puts the full preview of photos in the main timeline itself so that I don't have to open each picture and then come back to the main screen. Since most Reddit apps I tried followed the "inbox style" list model, I set out to create that app on my own. I wanted the app to be based on the latest version of Android design guidelines, with cards UI, navigation drawer and all. And 4 weeks later here I am with Reddit Illustrated.

Google Play Store link

The app puts the big colorful images right in the middle of your timeline and you can keep on scrolling without reaching the end. It works best on photo-centric subreddits like pics, funny, wallpaper etc (screenshot) but even on subredits like worldnews or Android where the posts are more likely to be stories from sites like cnn.com or androidpolice.com, the app attempts to extract the most relevant image from the page and displays it (screenshot). There is also an internal web browser based on Readability (which you can turn off) that displays links in a mobile formatted UI.

You can use the app without a reddit.com account but if you login, you can vote, comment and access your personalised front page and subscribed subreddits as well. You can also add subreddits locally into the Favorites section if you just need it in your phone/tablet alone instead of subscribing.

• Clean user interface based on the cards UI of Google Plus app
• Scales beautifully on phones as well as 7" tablets like Nexus 7
• Vote or comment on stories as well as individual comments
• Access to your personalised front page and subscribed subreddits
• Sorting option for stories and comments
• Threaded comments with color coding to indicate their hierarchy
• Maintain a list of your favorite subreddits
• Simply long press on any image to download
• Set the downloaded image as wallpaper from notification bar (screenshot)
• Share your favorite stories to Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and more
• Downloads thumbnails (instead of full size images) for preview from imgur.com, flickr.com, minus.com and wikimedia.org
• Generates thumbnails for Youtube videos and quickmeme.com links
• Hide NSFW photos completely or turn off their previews alone
• Integrated internal web browser that displays links in a mobile-friendly format
• Automatic image cache deletion in every 2 days (can be changed in settings)

The app is free and will work on all devices with Android 2.2 and above (although on an Android 4.0+ device it will feel much better due to hardware acceleration and large memory heap available). A $1.99 in-app purchase will remove the ads and your support will help me continue the development.

I tested the app on my Galaxy Note and a friend's S2 and it worked great. I hope it works well on your devices as well. Please give it a try and do let me know your thoughts. Thank you.

Google Play Store link

If you click the detail view of a Reader feed, it will show you the current number of subscribers. You can also see subscriber counts in the Recommended list, or on a feed search.

The number of subscribers is staggering even for sites I'd never heard of, larger than some countries:

Engadget: 6,604,967

CNET News: 1,663,104

The Big Picture: 761,743

Ars Technica: 28,350

The Onion: 499,915

Order of the Stick: 34,497

TheKitchn.com: 686,512

xkcd: 324,329

Cyanide & Happiness: 108,458

Lifehacker: 55,627

Cool Tools: 201,264

Penny Arcade: 183,586

I thought maybe it was a legacy thing, like these sites racked up tens or hundreds of thousands of subscribers years ago when Reader was popular but the service now has far fewer active users. And yet:

The Verge (launched November 2011): 102,756

xkcd's What If? (launched July 2012): 71,811

Also, Buzzfeed recently published statistics showing that Google Reader delivers orders of magnitude more traffic than Google Plus -- between 10 and 25 million hits per month. That's a significant fraction of Facebook's total traffic the same time period (10-35%).

Judging from these stats, Google Reader is not stagnant or neglected. Reader has millions of active users. And Google is fucking all of them over, hard.

EDIT: According to blog Google Operating System:

• most popular feed (CNN) has more than 24 million subscribers

• Google's official feed has more than tripled its subscription base since 2007

• 87% of GOS readers come from Google Reader

• According to Google Trends, search interest in Google Reader climbed steadily throughout 2008, 2009, 2010 and plateaued in 2011, seeing only a slight decline (plateauing at 2009 levels) only after they fucked up its social sharing systems.

Hello Reddit!

My name is Chris Hadfield. I am an astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency who has been living aboard the International Space Station since December, orbiting the Earth 16 times per day.

You can view a pre-flight AMA I did here. If I don't get to your question now, please check to make sure it wasn't answered there already.

The purpose of all of this is to connect with you and allow you to experience a bit more directly what life is like living aboard an orbiting research vessel.

You can continue to support manned space exploration by following daily updates on Twitter, Facebook or Google+. It is your support that makes it possible to further our understanding of the universe, one small step at a time.

To provide proof of where I am, here's a picture of the first confirmed alien sighting in space.

Ask away!

Thanks everyone for the great questions! I have to be up at 06:00 tomorrow, with a heavy week of space science planned, so past time to drift off to sleep. Goodnight, Reddit!

I am posting the thread to google plus here because its from a public community and publicly available. Its the same as posting a thread to a reddit conversation.

If a mod want me to erase it I will do it inmediately.

This google plus thread is about this article from TVRopes

Hello, reddit!

We are the Google Site Reliability (SRE) team. We’re responsible for the 24x7 operation of Google.com, as well as the technical infrastructure behind many other Google products such as GMail, Maps, G+ and other stuff you know and love. We’ve been traditionally invisible and behind-the-scenes but we thought we’d drop on here and answer any questions about what we do, what stuff we come up against, and what it’s like to be an SRE.

Other interesting things to give you an idea of what we do:

Blog post about the Leap Second written by Chris Pascoe from SRE give an ides of the kind of hairy problems we come up against.

Steven Levy wrote a Wired Article about inside our datacenters, and managed to make us sound like some sort of amazing justice team.

Kripa (who’s one of our participants today!) also writes about DiRT for ACM Queue.

We’ll be here from 12pm to 2pm PST to answer your questions, when we'll have info on our participants.

Proof (official Google accounts) :

https://plus.google.com/+GoogleDevelopers/posts/AjoRBrKYvsR https://twitter.com/googledevs/status/294234581303967745

EDIT 11:50PST: We're just getting set up here to answer your questions. We are:

Kripa Krishnan (/u/kripakrishnan), SRE Technical Program Manager and DiRT mastermind from our Mountain View HQ. Kripa works on infrastructure efforts in Google Apps.

Cody Smith (/u/clusteroops), long-time senior SRE from Mountain View. Cody works on Search and Infrastructure.

Dave O’Connor (/u/sre_pointyhair), Site Reliability Manager from our Dublin, Ireland office. Dave manages the Storage SRE team in Dublin that runs Bigtable, Colossus, Spanner, and other storage tech our products are built on.

John Collins (/u/jrc-sre), SRE Ombudsman, advocate and general force for good, from Mountain View.

EDIT 13:56PST: OK folks, we're all done. Thanks for the questions, hope our answers were satisfactory. May the queries flow and the pagers be silent.

*EDIT Jan 30: Corrected the spelling of @stevenlevy's name. Whoops-a-daisy. *

Hi everyone. Another user and I have started a project called Switch to Plus in which we are advocating switching to Google Plus from other social network sites (mainly Facebook) that lack Google Plus' great features. We are not affiliated with Google, but we are very interested in seeing more of our friends on the less-cluttered Google Plus. While Google Plus is very nice, we realize that no one wants to move to it if your friends are not there either. For this reason, we’re organizing a day in which everyone can switch together, so that no one will be alone on the new social network.

We've started work on a site and on images for the campaign. Also, we have created a subreddit and a Google Plus Community. We would love to have you on both. Right now we're mainly looking for people that can help collaborate with the movement. We're looking for a web designer, someone who may be able to create a viral video, and anyone else that is able to help. Even if you can’t help in these ways, simply sharing the event with your friends or keeping in touch will go a long way in helping us succeed.

Before deciding whether or not to help out, please keep in mind that this is an open project. We're not placing any ads on the site, nor do we work for Google. The sole purpose is to advocate a switch of social networks. Furthermore, we would like to add that if you do contribute significantly, we will add you on the website in the credits section once it has been completed. If this interests you, please be sure to subscribe to our subreddit or the community page for updates like when the day will be, when the site is finished, etc.

Thanks for reading.

According to The Verge, Google has a pipeline of cards ("possibly hundreds") planned for Google Now.

I made 10 mockups of cards I wouldn't mind using.

View on imgur: http://imgur.com/a/Ye1fk#0

Any ideas of cards you would especially like to see in the future?

• Edit: added contacts nearby, movie ticket and data usage card.

• Edit(2): added transit ticket and TV show card.

• Edit(3): Added fuel alerts and Google Play notification cards. Love your suggestions; keep them coming!

I will post proof on my facebook https://www.facebook.com/RonGaran Twitter: https://twitter.com/Astro_Ron and G+ https://plus.google.com/+RonGaran pages. I want to discuss with you where the next destination for human space exploration should be

Spotted this bit of news from a user who attended a breakfast event at Google Nederland with Bradley Horowitz, VP of Social Products.

"Currently there are two versions of Google Talk (outside and inside Google+), there is Gmail, Google Voice, Google+ Hangouts and Messenger. This does not make it easy for the user to share something with someone else. Although Horowitz again not much was said, would be the one and the other in the coming months are going to change." (sorry for the bad translation from Dutch)

Google+ post: https://plus.google.com/112433233162542061134/posts/PYaoYUjo4iB

Article (Dutch): http://www.dutchcowboys.nl/googleplus/26428

Also interesting: only 20% of the planned features for Google+ have rolled out so far. Bradley says "2013 will be the year of Google+".

I'm Jamie, host of Mythbusters- the guy in the beret. I've not done AMA before, am looking forward to some thoughtful questions. I'm on the northern California coast, in a comfortable chair and looking out to sea. We are on a couple of week break from shooting, and so I'm relaxed and in a good mood.

Website: http://www.tested.com

Tour Website: http://www.mythbusterstour.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JamieandAdam

Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/116985435294376669702

Thanks for all the discussion- wish I had time to answer everything. Signing off now. -Jamie

Recently Google Play has hit 25 Billion downloads and to celebrate, apps, movies, magazines and books will be on sale for 25 cents for the next 5 days!

Official Press Release:

Whether you’re looking for directions, checking email or sharing a picture with friends, apps are now an indispensable part of life. And if you’re using Android, it all starts with Google Play, home to 675,000 apps and games. That’s a lot of choice. We’ve now crossed 25 billion downloads from Google Play, and to celebrate we’re offering some great discounts for the next five days.

Every day you’ll be able to choose from a collection of apps from some of the world’s top developers including Gameloft, Electronic Arts, Rovio, runtastic, Full Fat and more. And all for just 25 cents. We’ll also be offering some special collections like 25 movies you must own, 25 banned books, 25 albums that changed the world and our 25 top selling magazines, all at special prices.

Twenty-five billion is more than twice the distance, in miles, that the Voyager 1 spacecraft has travelled since its launch 35 years ago. It’s the amount of time, in minutes, that have passed since some of our earliest ancestors began to set foot in Europe. And now, thanks to all of you, it’s a Google Play milestone. We look forward to the next 25 billion.

Posted by Jamie Rosenberg, Director, Digital Content

Their blog (source)

Check out the App Installs Infographic!

If you find an app that's on sale for 25 cents, post them in the comments and I will put them all together in the OP.

Note: Chances are, these prices will only last for the day just like the previous 10 cent sale less than a year ago, so buy them now!

DAY 1

• Angry Birds Space Premium Original Price: $0.99

• Asphalt 7: Heat Original Price: $0.99

• Clouds & Sheep Premium Original Price: $?

• Draw Something Original Price: $2.99

• Granny Smith Original Price: $0.99

• Let's Create! Pottery Original Price: $4.99

• London Bus Checker Original Price: ~$2.50

• NFL Kicker 13 Original Price: $0.99

• Ocean HD Original Price: $1.99

• OfficeSuite Pro 6+ Original Price: $14.99

• runtastic PRO Original price: $4.99

• Sudoku Original price: $0.99

• Symphony of Eternity Original Price: $2.99

• Tasks Original Price: $0.99

• The Cat in the Hat - Dr. Seuss Original price: $3.99

• $0.99 Books on Google Play

• Sales on Music on Google Play

• Top 25 Magazines on Google Play

• Movies are on sale too!

DAY 2

Full List of Day 2 Apps Sales

• Color & Draw for Kids HD Original price: $1.99

• Color & Draw for Kids (Phone Edition) Original price: $1.99

• Cut the Rope: Experiments Original price: $0.99

• doubleTwist Alarm Clock Original price: $1.99

• Dungeon Village Original price: $4.99

• FIFA 12 by EA SPORTS Original price: $4.99

• Flick Nations Rugby Original price: $0.99

• Mini Motor Racing Original price: $1.99

• Paper Camera Original price: $1.99

• Shark Dash Original price: $0.99

• SketchBook Mobile Original price: $1.99

• The Going to Bed Book-Boynton Original price: ~$4.99

• World of Goo Original price: $4.99

Day 3

• HD Widgets Original Price: $1.99

• Temple Run: Brave Original Price: $0.99

• ezPDF Reader PDF Annotate Form Original Price: $?

• Dragon, Fly! Full Original Price: $?

• Amazing Alex Original Price: $0.99

• PicSay Pro - Photo Editor Original Price: $?

• Kids ABC Letters Original Price: $3.99

• ZombieSmash Original Price: $0.99

• Rebuild Original Price: $?

• TuneIn Radio Pro Original Price: $0.99

• mSecure - Password Manager Original Price: $9.99

• Monsters Ate my Condo Original Price: $?

• Mass Effect Infiltrator Original Price: $6.99

Original Prices coming soon...

Day 4

• Broken Sword : Director's Cut Original Price: $

• Pool Break Pro Original Price: $2.99

• Order & Chaos Online Original Price: $6.99

• Cogs Original Price: $2.99

• Camera ZOOM FX Original Price: $2.99

• Ski Safari Original Price: $0.99

• Cut the Rope Original Price: $0.99

• Cut the Rope HD (for tablets) Original Price: $1.99

• Where's My Perry? Original Price: $0.99

• Endomondo Sports Tracker PRO Original Price: $4.99

• RealCalc Plus Original Price: ~$3.50

• Madden NFL '12 Original Price: $4.99

• UK Bus Checker Original Price: $

• Farm Invasion USA - Premium Original Price: $?

DAY 5

• Air Control (Originally $2.99)

• Air Control HD (Originally $1.49)

• The Dark Knight Rises (Originally $6.99)

• Gravity Guy (Originally $1.53)

• Great Big War Game (Originally $2.99)

• Guns'n'Glory WW2 Premium (Originally $5.04)

• Haunted House HD (Originally $1.99)

• Horn (Originally $6.99)

• Kids Numbers and Math (Originally $2.99)

• Nova Launcher Prime (Originally $4.00)

• Scramble With Friends (Originally $0.99)

• SketchBook Pro (Originally $4.99)

• Smart Tools (Originally $2.50)

• Spy Mouse (Originally $0.99)

Day 2 Sales List

Day 1 Sales List

Potential Apps on Sale These are sourced from the promo image found here.

Where's my Perry [CONFIRMED]

Paper Camera [CONFIRMED]

Flick Golf Rugby [CONFIRMED]

Sources consulted

Android Central's Open Post - Used to verify apps on sale.

AppSales App - Used to verify apps on sale.

Official Google Play Promo Page

And all of you awesome scavenger hunters!

Hi everyone, thought I'd give a little progress update since my last post.

Google Play support got in touch and explained that the reason the app was pulled was for using reddit in the title and looking official. They then asked for written permission from reddit and requested that if I added "unofficial" to the app description.

I forwarded back permission directly from reddit, agreed to add unofficial to the description and then heard nothing…

So this is where it stands and I have no idea how to proceed from here. Part of me wonders if this is the usual length of time these things take or if the app has just been buried.

Thanks for all the help and support,

Laurence

Edit: On /r/redditsync you can grab the free apk

Edit 2: Link to a Google+ page, this seems to be the best way to get in touch with the folk over at Google

WHO AM I?

I am Gov. Gary Johnnson, the Libertarian candidate for President of the United States, and the two-term Governor of New Mexico from 1994 - 2003.

Here is proof that this is me: https://twitter.com/GovGaryJohnson/status/245597958253445120

I've been referred to as the 'most fiscally conservative Governor' in the country, and vetoed so many bills that I earned the nickname "Governor Veto." I bring a distinctly business-like mentality to governing, and believe that decisions should be made based on cost-benefit analysis rather than strict ideology.

I'm also an avid skier, adventurer, and bicyclist. I have currently reached four of the highest peaks on all seven continents, including Mt. Everest.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

To learn more about me, please visit my website: www.GaryJohnson2012.com. You can also follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Tumblr.

EDIT: Unfortunately, that's all the time I have today. I'll try to answer more questions later if I find some time. Thank you all for your great questions; I tried to answer more than 10 (unlike another Presidential candidate). Don't forget to vote in November - our liberty depends on it!

Just woke up to an email from Google Play informing me that the free version of Reddit Sync has been banned without warning for the following reasons:

REASON FOR REMOVAL: Violation of the intellectual property and impersonation or deceptive behavior provisions of the Content Policy.

I've checked the content policy and am at a complete loss as to why it has been pulled. If it's just for having the word Reddit in the title I'd be surprised. All images and assets in the app follow their respective licenses so I doubt it's that either.

The app was even previously reviewed by some guys at Google who didn't seem to think it was deceptive...

I have no idea what to do, I have been working on this app for just under a year and it has been a complete labour of love. Would appreciate any suggestions, thanks.

Laurence

EDIT: I've cross posted this to Google Plus, hopefully this should gain a little awareness: https://plus.google.com/106154618737936766302/posts/7nttQsUUwuY

EDIT 2: I've also emailed Reddit directly however no DMCA notice was included in Googles email

EDIT 3: Reto Meier has got in touch through Google Plus and is looking into it

EDIT 4: Ionatana Davis from Google has also got in touch via Google Plus and is looking into it

EDIT 5: The guys from Google seem to have backed off, now waiting for the appeal team to get in touch. 26 hours and counting...

Wow. I wasn't expecting this. I got 2 emails from the Google Play Store telling me my apps, reddit is fun lite and pro, have been banned for sexually explicit material.

I'm not sure how to go about appealing this. After all it's true that reddit content includes NSFW content. Not sure exactly why my app was singled out and the other reddit apps weren't, though.

Any thoughts? Should I even bother appealing? As always I appreciate your input, /r/android. Thanks.

EDIT: I posted on Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/108576990588738594191/posts/8LfJmKX48R2 maybe it would help to gain awareness through that avenue? Thanks for all your support, guys.

EDIT2: Dave Nicponski, a Google employee, commented on that Google Plus thread, saying the right people at Google are going to contact me about what actually triggered the issue:

+Andrew Shu So i've spoken with the appropriate people here @ google. There seems to be some (very large) confusion about what actually happened. Expect to hear back shortly.

To the masses decrying "censorship! Oh noes!" That's not what happened here at all. Hopefully Andrew will be able to confirm this shortly. It really is a very tiny thing that seems to have caused this. Just be patient.

Still awaiting their response...

EDIT3: I thought it was funny that the situation is somehow getting coverage in China: http://it.sohu.com/20120320/n338298872.shtml

EDIT4: The Google Play appeals team have responded to my appeal. They asked me for more clarification on a few points all surrounding the inclusion of NSFW reddits in the default list. So that, as many of you already guessed, is what concerns them about the app. I replied already and will update when I hear back a second time.

EDIT5: Thank you everyone for your support! Google is giving me a chance to reinstate the app, provided I fix the Content Policy issues. The primary issue is the linking to sexually explicit reddits and potentially other policy-violating reddits like any condoning hate speech, gratuitous violence, etc.

Can anyone give me some pros/cons to using Google Plus for business use?

Some obvious ones I can find:

Pros: Hangouts for co-workers, let them screen share, etc.

Cons: Company data can easily slip into non-employees hands. If a silly user makes a status, or a circle to edit a document, and accidently invites say a customer or vendor, then this could cause problems.

I'm very new to how google plus works.. Please let me know if I am wrong, or if google plus for business might be a bad idea.

thanks,

Edit: btw this sub reddit looks sick, nice work!

So I recently joined google plus. And I noticed that there are not very many Newfoundlanders on there. So if you want an invite. Just post and ask I guess!

If they give one free domain name per person, this would bring a lot of people over. Imagine telling someone to add you on your own website, www.johnsmith.plus. Sure it wouldn't be a "real" website (the hosting would still be provided by Google), but to your average Internet user, it would be. This would be attractive to so many people that I'm sure many would switch over.

A redditor shared a link (not an invite as those are closed) and using that link to http://plus.google.com I refreshed every 5 seconds for 20 hours. To make that easy, I used a handy Chrome Extension to stay up all night and do all the refreshing for me. Download Extension - Went to bed & woke up w/ access to Google Plus. EDIT: I was logged in to my gmail account at the time. EDIT 2: Wow, front page! Glad to have been helpful. Thanks folks!

UPDATE (1:17pm): This IAMA has officially ended, so you'll notice our responses start to trickle off. Please visit our forum to continue this discussion!

Hello redditors,

We're really pumped to be here to talk to you all about Google Images. As you may know, we've recently announced some pretty cool features to Google Images like Search By Image, Sort by subject, Images with Instant, and we’re working on a new interface optimized for tablets like the Xoom and iPad. Got questions or suggestions about these things and more? Great! Ask us anything.

Joining you live from the Googleplex in Mountain View are...

Nathan Beach (highcadence), Product Manager

Peter Linsley (BeardP), Product Manager

Myron Flickner, Product Manager

Chuck Rosenberg (pillansii), Software Engineer

Andrew Munn (import_this), Associate Product Manager

Ken Dauber (lazystroll), Software Engineer

Jeff Laflam (imagesguy), Consumer Experience Specialist

Check out our picture!

We’ll be here until 1:15PM PST to answer your questions.

Please join our Community Manager Kelly Fee (kellyfee) in our forum to talk to other Google Images users!

Figured I'd start this one up again since I got my invite through this thread a week ago (and wasn't able to activate it until an hour ago).

Post your email, get an invite, remove your email from the post (so other know not to invite you) and invite others. Repeat.

Faster we invite people, better shot it has of competing with Facebook.

EDIT: Seems like they closed out the invites again. I had the same thing when I got invited last week and had to check back every so often and wait for them to open up. Once they do open up, all you gotta do is go to plus.google.com and it should allow you to sign in. Nothing more I can do from this point on. If you got an invite, try to invite more people when it does open up. If you're still waiting, keep checking back. I'll try to open another thread like this when I notice that it's open again.

EDIT 2: Seems it might be back up now?!?! Either way, if you ever get an invite but get stopped for a "keep me posted" button, simply keep checking back later, it might take a week or more though (mine took a week).

EDIT 3: I'm off to bed for tonight. Seems there are a few people that are inviting others, consistently faster than I do it too. If they miss you by any chance, message me and I'll mass invite people tomorrow when I get a chance.

EDIT 4: Back from work. Invited everyone who didn't have an invite since I went to sleep yesterday. I'm done for now guys, my fingers hurt from inviting right now. Might be back at this a bit tonight again.

Pm me your email address.

EDIT: Apparently it can take upto 3 hours for you to get the invite. I didn't get mine in my inbox but after I was invited, I just went to plus.google.com and got to login with my gmail account. You can try that. If you get the we're temporarily at our limit message, you can try refreshing the page until it works. I'm adding you all to a circle (and its the only way I know) so if you know a more efficient method of inviting people, please let me know!

EDIT2: It might be easier if you logged into your gmail (for those of you who sent me your gmail addresses) and then went to plus.google.com.

EDIT3: Its 5.25PM CST and I sent out ~60 invites. Let me know if you don't get them. I'm going out now ...I'll get back to these again later tonight:)

EDIT4: I'm so sorry for the lack of updates. So I sent out a bunch but I'm not sure if they're going through - a bunch of people messaged me saying they didn't get it..but I saw a bunch who got on. I'm not doing any more invites but thanks so much to the redditor(s?) who sent me reddit gold - it was so ridiculously sweet and thank you soo much..you really didn't have to! i got my invite from a redditor so just wanted to give some back to my favorite subreddit! <3