A newly refined design highlights the company's best products

In an attempt to make some leaps forward in terms of design and user experience, Yahoo! has revamped its Android app today with a new interface and set of features. Version 1.0 of the app changes the look of things, with an endlessly scrolling set of news stories as the main page, which nicely displays the article title and a summary with an opaque background over a headline image. Those summaries condense the article's main premise into a short paragraph, which is very similar to the technology that Yahoo! acquired just recently when buying a company called "Summly". 

Other highlights of the app include a revamped search interface that includes images and video in-line, which can be found behind a nice slide-in panel on the left side of the app. Here you can also find settings for customizing your news topics and sources, as well as quick tabs to launch other popular Yahoo! apps on your device such as Mail, Finance and Messenger. The entire design is a big step forward for Yahoo!, and certainly makes a better case for staying installed on your device.

The popular web-based social version of Angry Birds is flying onto mobile

Rovio has just announced today via its official @AngryBirds Twitter account that the extremely popular "Angry Birds Friends" version of the franchise will be coming to both Android and iOS this Thursday. This falls in line nicely with some rumblings we heard in early April of the game coming to mobile, and on May 2nd it's finally happening. The "Friends" version of the game is currently a web-only Facebook title, where instead of going solo you can join up with friends (naturally) and hold tournaments to compete together.

We're a little sparse on information of pricing and how cross-platform it will be, but there's only a few days of waiting before we see it pop up in the Play Store. 

Source: Rovio (Twitter)

Updates, patches, and bug fixes are included in version VS910ZVB

Many of Verizon's recent OTA updates have included the removal of pre-installed applications, commonly referred to as 'bloatware.' The LG Revolution's latest update (SW Version VS910ZVB) includes one of the longest lists of apps being removed from a Verizon Android device:

• Mobile IM
• Rockband
• Bitbop
• Verizon Apps
• Blockbuster
• Rhapsody
• VCAST Music
• Verizon Video

A few Android security patches are included in the update as well, which is always good see -- especially since it is very possible that the Revolution will not get a newer version of Android from Verizon. The VZW Family locator app has been updated and now has working GPS, and Google Maps Services has been updated as well. A bug involving large file sizes on the network also gets a fix.

As always, help a fellow Revolution owner out by posting in the comments when you start seeing this update going live.

Source: Verizon

Available for devices on Ice Cream Sandwich and up, with Gingerbread support in the works

There is no shortage of podcast applications in the Play Store, and everyone seems to have a favorite. Features and UI are usually the deciding factors for users when choosing an app to listen to their favorite podcasts. Player FM's initial release (version 1.0.0) includes an attractive UI and some of the same features that any good podcast app should have: feed subscriptions with show notes and stats, automatic syncing and downloads, and an offline player. What this new app really brings to the table is the way it presents new content to podcast listeners.

Instead of users hunting for new podcasts to listen to, Player FM offers an aggregated group of shows that can be chosen by topic. For example, if the topic 'Android' is chosen, a user can play a list of shows from different feeds that all relate to our favorite mobile OS. If a new favorite show is found while playing that topic, it can be subscribed and listened to in its entirety. Users should keep in mind that this is a first release, so some caveats do apply. Details can be found after the break.

New album art options and additional languages also make it into the latest update

Poweramp is seeing some pretty significant changes in the widget department for version 2.0.9-b528. Homescreen widgets are now fully customizable: the background, text, icons, and buttons can now be completely configured to the user's liking. For anyone that doesn't want to spend the time tweaking every aspect of a widget, up to 15 premade styles are also available to choose from. Existing widgets don't have to be trashed in favor of a fresh one when something needs to be tweaked; tapping the top right of a widget reopens the configuration screen. Phones can now resize widgets that are 4x4 and 2x2, while tablets running Android 3.1+ can change the size of any widget.

Album art gets a 24-bit RGB option, which means higher color resolution (but uses twice the memory). For older Androids, a Notification Album Art option was also added. A new Disable Route Output Button setting and support for Arabic and Vietnamese round out this update.

Follow the Play Store link up top to view and download the latest version of Poweramp Music Player.

Android version is more fluid, and is still the best Google Now experience

There's a little excitement this morning in the iOS camp as the Google Search app has been updated, brining Google Now cards to the fray. You get the same information you get on Android, with the same card design -- but  it's a vastly different experience. 

On Android, you simply open Google Now, and everything's there. Sports scores. Weather. Directions. Birthdays. Whatever. It takes a couple more steps on iOS. They're well-animated steps, but it takes the "Wow!" factor out of the entire operation. You're going to get the information instead of it being right there, almost before you knew you needed it.

So, yeah. Google Now's now on iOS. But it's defnitely still better on Android.

• From iMore.com: Google Search gets Google now!

Source: Google

Your weekly look at the apps we're using from day to day

You probably know it by this point, but every week we take just a little time for each of the Android Central writers to show off one of the apps they've been using on their own device in the previous week. They may not be the most popular or well-known, but they work for us, and we think that merits letting the readers know about them as well.

Another great random assortment of apps awaits you after the break, so stick around and see how we did with our picks this week.

It's vague at best, but by way of their Twitter account an Android version is mentioned

Mailbox is a relatively new, but still pretty impressive iOS Email client -- for the full rundown be sure to check out iMore. Currently limited to Gmail accounts, Mailbox opened up to massive queues of people waiting to get in. It wants to help you get on top of your mail and stay on top by prioritizing what matters right now. So, why are we interested? 

Besides being a first rate application regardless of platform, the developers have publicly hinted at an Android version being on their roadmap. It's pretty vague, but when questioned on Twitter they did indeed confirm that "other platforms are coming down the road - including Android."

We're definitely wanting to hold them to that. Gmail on Android is a pretty decent experience, but we're never going to snub the prospect of getting in on one of the hottest new apps. 

via Techcrunch

We're not just in New York City working on the (more or less) super secret #tm13 -- we're also still hard at work at the all-new Android Central application.

We're edging closer to a public beta. But before we put this guy out in the wild, I want to hear what you folks want to see in it. We like to think we've thought of everything that we want to have in a v1 release, but it's still possible we've missed something completely obvious.

So what are you looking for in the all-new Android Central application? Let us know in the comments. And I'll maybe even drop a few hints of what's ready to go, what's in the works and what's a great idea for a future feature.