Android Community |
- Android Community Weekly : June 18, 2011
- T-Mobile to Offer Samsung Galaxy S 4G Free on June 22nd
- Certain Galaxy Tab 10.1 might be getting sold with Unlocked Bootloader?
- SwiftKey X Beta Update Rolling Out to Beta Testers
- Verizon first pulls video, Now saying its the Xoom 4G
- Nielson U.S. Smartphone Poll shows Android users still consume the most data
- SlashGear Gives You a Look at Official Galaxy S II Accessories
| Android Community Weekly : June 18, 2011 Posted: 18 Jun 2011 09:33 AM PDT It's been another great week for tech news, and we'll fill you in on what you may have missed in this issue of Android Community Weekly! This past Sunday, Chris Burns reviewed the Pantech Crossover – the first Android device by Pantech to hit the United States. T-Mobile's HTC Flyer tablet hit the FCC early in the week as well; unfortunately, there is still no information regarding any type of 4G capability.
For those of you who frequently fly first-class, you may look forward to the new agreement between Samsung and American Airlines providing passengers with a Galaxy Tab 10.1 for in-flight entertainment. Chris Burns performed an extensive review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1; though the same hardware was included as in the Google I/O edition, there were minor software tweaks embedded in this final polished version. Another device reviewed this week was the HTC ChaCha by Chris Davies; just like the HTC Salsa, this little device has a dedicated Facebook button. Monday, Verizon gave the official word that Gingerbread would be rolling out for the Droid 2 Global. Surprisingly, not a single Droid 2 Global is known to have the update yet. The Samsung D600 seems to have resurfaced as the Conquer 4G, and is confirmed to be a mid-range phone (as previously speculated). The Droid 3 had a thorough hands-on according to a leak over at XDA.cn. Not only that, the same person seems to have even benchmarked the device for us. Swype 3.0 Beta with Honeycomb support was released this week, and Chris Burns got his hands on copy to present us a nice review. This version has been slightly buggy, but as soon as the glitches are ironed out, it should be a great alternate to the stock keyboard. The Samsung Infuse 4G open-source code has been released! It looks like we may see some great developmental action on this power-packed device very soon. Some serious problems have risen after last weeks HTC EVO 4G update to 2.3 Gingerbread. From consistent force closes to applications becoming unresponsive – it was clear that the update had some serious glitches. Later on in the week, we were informed that another OTA Update will be coming June 20th to fix the bugs from the update. The EVO Shift 4G has been confirmed to also acquire Gingerbread on the same day, hopefully with fewer headaches. It was not long ago that the Motorola Droid X was fortunate enough to be updated to Gingerbread. But nowadays, what could be even better? You guessed it- CyanogenMod 7 is now officially in beta for the Droid X. With so many phones receiving updates to Android 2.3 Gingerbread, one would have thought it would hit the HTC Desire. Even after announcing it's release, it seems that the project will never see the light of day. Those who can't live without Gingerbread on their Desire can always root their device and acquire it unofficially from XDA Developers. As you may have seen, our own Vincent Nguyen seemed to have cracked the screen on his Galaxy S II earlier this month. If you don't have insurance for your phone then this could be a serious problem. Fortunately, the guys over at DirectFix have a great tutorial for replacing the screen on an HTC ThunderBolt. Tuesday, we stumbled upon an interesting bit of information regarding the fairly new Amazon App Store; it seems that any application installed directly from the store requires the Amazon App Store installed on your phone to run! Breaking news hit this week with details concerning the next Google Nexus device – the Nexus 4G. Information of what hardware may be included has surfaced. Also, don't forget to tell us what YOU would like to see in the next "Nexus 4G" device. Wednesday, Verizon let subscribers know that the use of their 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot will be extended as a free service until July 6th. Facebook chat integration was implemented into the Pinger Textfree 1.2 application; this app previously boasted free unlimited texts and pics through their service. The HTC EVO 3D was unboxed by Chris Burns Thursday, and expect a thorough review very soon. Later on, the winner for our "Unboxing War" between Vincent Nguyen and Ben Bajarin was finally selected – congratulations Jorge Conty on a brand new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Wi-Fi! Finally, don't forget to check out the Android Community App of the Week: News360 for Tablets!.
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| T-Mobile to Offer Samsung Galaxy S 4G Free on June 22nd Posted: 17 Jun 2011 03:25 PM PDT T-Mobile lately has been running all sorts of deals and web only specials and it looks like we just got a tip regarding the next special after Father’s Day. According to a tweet from the official T-Mobile twitter page they will be running a “web only” special where you can get a Samsung Galaxy S 4G FREE with a new 2-year contract.
If you have been following @TMobile on Twitter you’d know that this weekend they are giving away 10 HTC Sensation 4G phones for free for Father’s Day, and before that they were doing Insomniac sales at night. So what does this mean — you should probably follow @Tmobile on Twitter. So if you have been waiting for another good deal to appear or maybe you really want to wait and get dad the Galaxy S 4G it looks like Wednesday the 22nd would be a great day to do this, sign a new 2-year agreement and the phone will be free. Can’t beat that! [via TmoNews]
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| Certain Galaxy Tab 10.1 might be getting sold with Unlocked Bootloader? Posted: 17 Jun 2011 03:11 PM PDT If you haven’t rushed to the nearest Best Buy or Fry’s Electronics to get yourself a shiny new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 we might have some news that will make you want one. Just like we told you yesterday the Tab is officially for sale starting today. Now some reports are streaming in that some lucky users that went home and turned their Tab on were greeted with a familiar splash screen we have seen before. It shows as being “unlocked”
Many devices on boot don’t show anything down at the bottom, I know when I rooted my Nexus One after unlocking it I got the same symbol on my splash screen. We are seeing reports of both 32GB and 16GB models being unlocked and most of them bought at Best Buy but I doubt it is that specific. This news is just coming in and you can read all about it over in the XDA forums. A popular guy by the name of Pershoot has jumped into the thread to see if he can be of any help, he is widely known in the android world for his amazing dev support and kernels. If you have just brought home your Galaxy Tab 10.1 and you have the same screen feel free to tell us below in the comments. As more news unfolds regarding this we will be sure to bring it to you as soon as possible. [via XDA Forums]
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| SwiftKey X Beta Update Rolling Out to Beta Testers Posted: 17 Jun 2011 03:00 PM PDT TouchType LTD’s replacement keyboard, SwiftKey, has been a fairly big hit. Swiftkey offers, what many consider, improved prediction and accuracy when typing with its virtual keyboard. TouchType has been working on a new version, SwiftKey X. The beta version for phones is available for free in the Android Market, but for those in TouchType’s beta program, a shiny new version for phones and tablets has been released. With the update comes your standard batch of “improvements,” as well as a few new features.
The first of the new features is an improved install UI, as seen in the pic above. It walks the user through setting up their new SwiftKey keyboard, and making it as the default text input method. This new installation process is fairly straight forward and helps avoid the hassles of digging through your settings after installation. The Honeycomb version of Swiftkey brings its famed accuracy and predictions to a split keyboard style, similar to the Thumb Keyboard. As many users of Thumb Keyboard will tell you, it makes typing while holding the keyboard in a horizontal orientation much easier. Unfortunately the tablet version is not available on the market yet, but when it does be sure to check it out.
   
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| Verizon first pulls video, Now saying its the Xoom 4G Posted: 17 Jun 2011 02:52 PM PDT Yesterday out of the blue we saw what appeared to be a leaked or released a bit too early promo video for Verizon Wireless that included an unannounced Android 3.1 Honeycomb tablet in the clip. It was quickly picked up by multiple sites and blogs and just as quickly as we all saw it Verizon pulled the clip from YouTube. Once on the net it never is really gone and many people got a few screenshots of this device.
It looks like now that we got a taste of what might be coming, and all started speculating on weather it was HTC or a new Motorola Xoom, that Verizon couldn’t ignore the crowds and they have now back-peddled a bit and have not only re-allowed the video up for public viewing, but from what our friends at AndroidCentral are saying Verizon actually told them outright that it indeed is the Motorola Xoom. Only it is a new design that has yet to get the green light and is still in testing and design, it will be called the Motorola Xoom 4G. So there you have it, no more wondering or guessing like we did yesterday, Verizon came out and shut the buzz down with the official word. The Motorola Xoom 4G is either in the works or it is coming soon and they just didn’t want to fully detail that yet. Now my first concern is where is my 4G LTE upgrade for my original Xoom? I want it now, but apparently the time has yet to come. The recent Xoom upgrade emails were a mistake.
Either way it is exciting to see what might be coming soon, but I still would like to get my 4G LTE upgrade sometime soon and preferably much sooner than the Xoom 4G gets released as that would just not be right. What do you guys think? [via AndroidCentral]
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| Nielson U.S. Smartphone Poll shows Android users still consume the most data Posted: 17 Jun 2011 02:32 PM PDT We have seen a few reports like this before basically saying that Android and its users are hungry for data and just so happen to use the most. This specific report mentions U.S. smartphone data usage based on Operating System and in this case Android is the clear leader as usual. Not only has mobile data jumped around 89% over the past year but Android and iOS continues to climb and climb.
There could be a few possibly answers here, not only is Android selling over 300,000 smartphones a day but they have larger screens than most the competition, mainly the iPhone and some are now reaching 4.5″ in size. We all love our NFL Mobile on Verizon or our Netflix and those could all be a few explanations. Recently Nielsen said in a data usage report that on average Android users used 582MB per month in Q1 2011 opposed to 492MB per month by iPhone users. Windows Phone 7 for its short time on the market looks to be using a fair amount as well. When it comes down to it we all love our phones, they are capable of sooo many different things we might as well use them to their full potential right — I mean isn’t that why we pay for unlimited data? I know some of this might be thanks to the Android rooting and tethering community but that is only a small percentage. I know I am way over that 500MB a month mark personally, but that is just me and I don’t tether, I blame Twitter. While I’m on the twitter topic feel free to follow us at @androids for all the latest news. [via VentureBeat]
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| SlashGear Gives You a Look at Official Galaxy S II Accessories Posted: 17 Jun 2011 01:23 PM PDT While we still wait impatiently for the Galaxy S II here in America, several other countries have been enjoying it for a few months now. One such country is the United Kingdom, where our buddy Chris Davies, from SlashGear, got a hold of several of Samsung’s official accessories for the GSII. He’s given us a good look at some of the more interesting ones, including a familiar dock.
The list of accessories includes a car dock, MHL to HDMI adapter, a desktop dock, an external battery charger, and the Case Mate “Barely There” case. They look to be pretty nice as far as docks and the like go, and the MHL is the only way to play HDMI out. For a full review, make sure to head over to SlashGear and give it a read, but we’ll go over some of the highlights here. The car dock lets you mount your Galaxy S II, should you be the lucky owner of one, on your dashboard, leaving audio and charging ports open to connect to your car. It isn’t super special, but it its good to see that all of the useful ports are accessible. The desktop dock, which appears to be the same featured in the image that revealed an AT&T version of the Galaxy S II, offers charging and audio out. The big one is the MHL adapter. The SGSII is one of several phones coming out now that feature MHL supported micro USB ports. These phones are capable of putting HDMI out through their USB ports, but clearly they need an adapter. If you are looking to pimp out your Galaxy S II, read over Chris’s full review to see which ones you think are worth it.       [via SlashGear]
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