Transdroid offered both a free and a paid version of the app, and judging from the 400,000 downloads people seemed to appreciate it. However, as of this week, Google decided that Transdroid is no longer eligible to be placed in the Android Market.

“I have just received an e-mail from Google that Transdroid, both the free and donate version, have been pulled form the Android Market. This is due to apparent violations in the content policies of publishing in the Android Market,” Transdroid’s developer announced.

Google’s notification wasn’t very clear on what the violations were, but considering the nature of the app it wouldn’t come as a surprise if they relate to copyright infringement.

According to the developer content policy apps should not be infringing copyrights in any way.

“Don’t infringe on the intellectual property rights of others, including patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, and other proprietary rights. We will respond to clear notices of alleged copyright infringement,” the policy reads.

Although Transdroid itself isn’t infringing any copyrights, the screenshots on the app’s website do feature some copyrighted downloads which Google may see as a violation of the Android developer policy. As we highlighted previously, this is not a particularly wise thing to do.

Unlike Apple, Google is not banning everything BitTorrent related, but if developers showcase infringing uses they may see no other option that to take the app down. Even Cydia, the alternative market place for iPhone apps, is taking a harsh line on file-sharing software that ‘promote’ infringing uses.

For Transdroid, however, things aren’t completely over yet. The developer has asked Google to explain what he should change so the site can be added to the Android Market again. In the meantime the app and the source code are available as a direct download through the Transdroid website.

“Thanks to all Transdroid users for their support and enthusiasm. Let me be clear that I am happy to build a version for the Android Market that does satisfy their policies and can still help thousands of happy BitTorrent users around the world,” Transdroid’s developer says.

Source: Google Boots Transdroid Torrent Manager From Android Market

This week a new application surfaced in the Android Market which aims to make it easier for users to add TV-torrents to their BitTorrent client on the fly.

The free app, named EZTV Droid, displays a list of the latest TV-torrents on EZTV and allows users to add the torrents to uTorrent straight from their Android device.

In addition users can use the app to search for older torrents listed on EZTV. They can also use the app as a remote interface for uTorrent and start, stop, pause or check the status of their current downloads without being near their computer. This only works for users who have the uTorrent WebUI enabled of course.

TorrentFreak got in touch with EZTV Droid’s developer Roy Besiera, who told us that this was his first effort at coding for the Android platform.

“I decided to code the app because I am a huge fan of EZTV. I am actually a web programmer but recently I was able to get a hold of an Android device so I decided to make an app. Actually, EZTV Droid is my first app,” he said.

The current version of EZTV Droid is limited but very effective. In the coming weeks Roy hopes to add several new features, such as the ability to add ‘favorite’ shows and get notifications on new releases based on user preferences. Support for other torrent clients than uTorrent is also high on his list.

“I am planning to add support for other torrent clients as well, first Transmission and the rest,” Roy told TorrentFreak.

The EZTV team is equally excited about the Android app, and encourages developers to come up with more solutions to integrate their site into mobile devices.

“EZTV Droid is a great application showing the versatility of the internet and gadgets available to people in today’s day and age,” EZTV’s NovaKing told us. “With the increase of smart phones and people not being able to watch their shows while they are out they are now able to remotely go in and get the shows they miss.”

“We like apps like this so much that we are starting work on a new API which will allow 3rd party developers to access our data much more easily,” NovaKing added.

The API, which will be released in the near future, will open up a lot of possibilities for developers. It will undoubtedly result in many more dedicated apps and services for the popular TV-torrent site.

Meanwhile, version 1 of EZTV Droid can be downloaded from the Android Market for free. The latest stable version of uTorrent (with the WebUI enabled) is recommended as it’s currently not working correcly on all the latest Beta releases.

Source: EZTV App Arrives on Android, TV Torrents Go Mobile

BarTor uses the web interface of the BitTorrent client running on your computer, and it even supports multiple clients for people who have more than one BitTorrent client they need to send torrents to.

The torrents start downloading right away and when you arrive at home, the music, movie or software will be done downloading and ready to use. It can’t get much easier. BarTor’s functionality is very similar to the Torrent Droid app we reported on before, but BarTor is the first to become available to the public.

The only downside is that the app is not available for free. It’s currently being sold in the Android Market for $2.99. Just like with most iPhone apps, however, it probably wont take long before it appears on BitTorrent sites itself.

Justin, the developer of the application told TorrentFreak that he is well aware of this threat to his business model and understands that his target audience is likely to pirate the application itself.

“I am sure it will happen and although i’d like it not to, there isn’t a whole lot I can do about it. I feel that there are a lot of people out there who will be willing to pay the nominal fee for this app,” he told us.

For people who prefer to buy the product instead, BarTor also works with Google Base’s product search. For every search it will return a list of retailers that sell the product, including the location and the price. Not free, but you might still save a few bucks.

Source: BarTor Enters BitTorrent Barcode Scanning Market

“Android Bounty is a new kind of developers challenge we started for creating applications on Google Android,” he told TorrentFreak. “Users submit ideas which can be voted up by others who pledge money to the bounty. The first developer who delivers a working application is rewarded with the bounty.” Taylor explained the idea is similar to how users promote stories on Digg, except people vote with cash.

To start things rolling, a few days later Androidandme set a challenge to its readers – create an Android-compatible BitTorrent application to scan UPC barcodes and find related torrents on the larger BitTorrent search engines. Users would be able to find and start torrents remotely, and the music album or movie would be fully downloaded by the time they got home.

There were some terms and conditions to the challenge. The software would use the G1 cellphone’s inbuilt camera to scan a retail DVD UPC barcode, and use the capture to identify the official details of the product from a database.

Once the product is positively identified, the software should be able to send the results directly to a BitTorrent search engine, such as The Pirate Bay or Mininova. After the search results appear, the user could then choose which torrent to start.

Once selected, the .torrent file would be downloaded and sent to the webUI of uTorrent and the download would begin, hopefully ready for when the user reaches his or her home machine. No typing input would be required for the above.

Just a few weeks later, Alec Holmes of Zerofate had stepped up to the challenge, created the app and collected the modest bounty of $90.00.

“This version of Torrent Droid is a work in progress but the video shows the core features work,” said Alec.

The full version of Torrent Droid will be released within a month but in the meantime, here is a video of it in action.

Source: Torrent Droid: Scan Barcodes, Get Torrents