Saturday, 25 June 2011

Android Community

Android Community

Android Community Weekly : June 25, 2011

Posted: 25 Jun 2011 07:11 AM PDT

As we near the end of June, many tech stories have surfaced on Android Community! Pictures of T-Mobile's myTouch 4G Slide with a full physical QWERTY keyboard were leaked; it looks to be running the latest and greatest version of Sense featured on the HTC Sensation and EVO 3D. Passing through the FCC this week is the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 [3G] for the AT&T network.


Two smartphones this week will be seeing updates to Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) very soon; the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 update should arrive in August whereas the Motorola Atrix update has come unofficially in an earlier leaked build. Interestingly enough, this version of Gingerbread on the Atrix supports the command "fastboot oem unlock" to unlock your bootloader as well. Yet another phone unlocked this week was the Droid Incredible 2/S; users should be glad to know that developers have achieved a permenant root with S-Off. MIUI, one of the most popular ROM's to unofficially run on your device, is now available for the Galaxy S II. This is an early alpha release, but considering the developer manpower behind the GS2 over at XDA, it shouldn't take long at all for an official release.

Information concerning the Droid3 and Motorola XOOM LTE was announced on the Verizon Wireless InfoCenter website convicing us all that these two devices are very close to launch. Don't plan on an unlimited data plan being available for these two, as Verizon tiered data plans will take into effect July 7th. Verizon has already directed employees on how to handle the end of their customers unlimited data plans.

Those interested in either the HTC EVO 4G or Motorola Atrix can practically pick one up free (with a two year plan agreement of course). The Atrix is available at Amazon for $0.01 and the EVO 4G free at any Sprint store. Fortunately, an update that rolled out this past Monday supposedly corrected many of the bugs found after users updated their EVO 4G's from Froyo to Gingerbread. Another inexpensive phone that's been relatively under the radar is the Huawei Glory. PCMag had a very nice hands-on with the device and from the looks of it – they were very pleased.

Tony Hawk Pro Skater is finally available for your XPERIA Play! Chris Burns conducted a great hands-on/review of this amazing game; who would have thought we'd ever be playing this iconic game on our cellphones? The Android Community App of the Week is SteamBirds by Spry Fox LLC; this game takes aerial combat to a new level. The T-Mobile Samsung Exhibit 4G and HTC EVO View were also unboxed this week by Chris Burns. Another great powerhouse put to the test was the HTC EVO 3D; we've taken loads of pics and videos to prove how amazingly great this device turned out. After all the press the HTC EVO 3D has been getting, the HTC EVO 4G+ seems to have slipped under the radar. It is still unknown if this phone will ever reach North America.

Also, Motorola XOOM owners don't forget to register your tablet before June 26th (thats tomorrow!!) With this promotion, you could grab accessories for your device for half off their original price.

)


Amazon and Target Sales: Infuse, Revolution, Atrix, Vortex, Fascinate

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 03:58 PM PDT

SO you’re in the market for a device, yes? How about ANY of the following? They’re all on sale and they’re all under $100, several of them free – all of them on contract. What you’ve got on one hand is a couple of devices at Target. First there’s the Verizon LG Vortex – a mid-tier that’s $399.99 off-contract with a 3.2-inch screen, Android 2.2, and a 600 MHz processor – it’s FREE on a two year contract. Next there’s the Verizon Samsung Fascinate, costing $699.99 unactivated, having a 4-inch Super AMOLED display, Android 2.1, and a Cortex A8 1GHz Hummingbird processor – it’s also FREE with a two-year contract.

Then we get in to the Amazon deals. First there’s a deal that we listed yesterday, but heck, why not list it again: the normally $699.99 off-contract ATRIX which has a 4-inch screen and an NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual core processor at 1GHz is now ONE CENT on a two-year contract. This is a device that we tend to talk about quite a bit – have a look at our big [ATRIX portal] for all the information you could ever need about this fabulous device.

ATRIX 4G at Amazon here.

Next is the LG Revolution 4G – this is one of the first three devices in the world capable of running on Verizon’s 4G LTE network and the first LG device to do so. This device is usually $699.99 off-contract, has a 4.3-inch display with a single-core Snapdragon MSM8655 1GHz processor. The Revolution is $99.99 on a two-year contract and you can get a full review of this device courtesy of Android Community.

LG Revolution 4G at Amazon here.

Finally there’s the Samsung Infuse 4G on the AT&T network. This device has a gigantic 4.5-inch Super AMOLED Plus display. This is the biggest Super AMOLED Plus display – also the brightest display in the world, in the handset game today. It’s also got the distinction of being the second-thinnest Samsung device, the thinnest being the Samsung Galaxy S II which is the thinnest smartphone in the world. The Infuse 4G has a single core 1.2GHz Hummingbird processor and, while it costs $599.99 off-contract, you can get it on Amazon today for $89.99 on a two-year contract. We’ve got a review of the Infuse 4G right over here.

Infuse 4G at Amazon here.

So what have we learned? We’ve learned that if you want a phone off-contract, you’re going to pay one gigantic amount of money. We’ve also learned that if you’re willing to tie yourself to a carrier for two years of your life, you can get even the most excellent devices for free.

Go get em. — Thanks Doug!

)


Telenav v6.2 Available for T-Mobile Devices Vibrant, Optimus T, Defy, Cliq CT, and Comet

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 03:39 PM PDT

Our good pals at TeleNav GPS mapping systems have informed us that there’s a new update in town, this one navigating you to better functionality in several bits of the app, this update out now for a handful of T-Mobile devices. The devices that will be affected are the Samsung Vibrant, LG Optimus T, Motorola Defy, Motorola Cliq XT, and T-Mobile Comet. To get the update, whose details are listed below in short, you’ll just have to go to the Android Market and download it – go download it now!

This update will improve your Waypoint app in the following ways: multi-routs will be added, speech recognition will be improved, and Quick Search will be available to you. The screenshots you see above are all from this update. You’ll notice some big beautiful buttons, easy to read routes, weather updates, and the microphone which shall from this point out be listening to you all the better.

To grab this update, you’ll have to head out to Telenav section of the Android Market and update your app. It’s that simple. Telenav has several applications in the market that you might want to take a look at, including the one you’ll want to update. Last time we spoke about this version of Telenav, by the way, was back this January. Should be out to everyone by now, correct? Hopefully to everyone soon.

)


New Motorola Phone Pictured?

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 02:40 PM PDT

This could be a bit premature, as this photo is very rough and we don’t have any info on it. The picture here is supposedly a new Motorola phone. The lack of markings on the phone as well as the less than perfect quality of the photo makes me skeptical, but that doesn’t mean we can’t dream.

The phone seems to be lacking physical buttons, but if you look closely there appears to be a fairly thick strip of darker black at the bottom of the phone that seems the perfect home for some un-illuminated capacitive buttons. Given the disappointment we all experienced over the fake Nexus s leak not too long ago, it makes it that much harder to give an picture like this a fair chance. If the phone is real it seems to have an interesting design.

There doesn’t appear to be a Motorola logo on it, but the design seems to have some very Moto aspects to it. The straight edges invoke the original droid in some respects. There is a seam along the bottom of the phone, which could indicate a slide out keyboard, but the area of the seam looks to small for that to be the case.

The last, and perhaps most glaring thing to note here is the orange ribbon out the side. The phone in this image is clearly still in development (given the lack of branding) and this is likely just an extension of an input port to allow for easier engineering work. This does bring up the fact that there is no input on the bottom of the phone, suggesting that ports may be located on the side. This gives the picture some credence, given Motorola’s announced plans to continue to support their webtop platform, but only time will tell if this one’s real.

[via pocketnow]

)


T-Mobile Samsung Gravity Smart Hands-On and Unboxing

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 02:16 PM PDT

Gravity in the house! We’ve got our hands on Samsung’s newest midrange effort in the Gravity Smart, a device sent out to T-Mobile to replace the Sidekick – no that wouldn’t make sense. But it is a push-out keyboard having message machine, of that you can be sure. It’s got rounded corners on all sides, the Samsung lip at the bottom, silky smooth plastic Sapphire plastic on the back, and a ton of apps that, if it weren’t this particular set of apps, would be sending you strait to the root factory.

Instead what you’re going to find is a selection of applications that you’ll not only want to use, you WILL be using, including AIM (if anyone still uses that,) Swype for your keyboard, Tetris for your block dropping, UNO, Glypse so everyone knows where you are, DriveSmart, Cloud Texting, Group Texting, Photobucket, and the usual selection of Google classics. Fourty-six apps in all, and only a tiny handful we’d uninstall if we could.

That said, the build quality on this device seems to be super-high, though the back cover of the device’s silky smoothness may lead some to believe that they are, in fact, holding a mid-range device, instead of being fooled into believing that the rest of the device is pointing directly upward. This device has a small screen at 3.2-inches, has a cool Android 2.2 Froyo under the hood, and is running a single core 600 MHz processor.

While we don’t expect to be playing any Gameloft games any time soon here, we are excited to see how well messaging plays out, and everyone knows that Bejeweled is the most popular game of all time for a reason, right? Stick with us here on Android Community for a full review SOON!

androidcommunity_P1130526 androidcommunity_P1130520 androidcommunity_P1130521 androidcommunity_P1130522 androidcommunity_P1130523 androidcommunity_P1130524 )


First Overclock Kernel in the Works for Galaxy Tab 10.1

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 01:18 PM PDT

If you hadn’t noticed, most of the hardware in Honeycomb tablets looks a little similar. Since they’re all running on NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 chipset, and we’ve already seen the Transformer and Xoom overclocked. We knew it was only a matter of time, and now XDA member, pershoot, has a preview of a kernel which allows overclocking of the Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1

The kernel isn’t necessarily ready for general consumption, but reports in the forum sound like the kernel is running stably for many of the users on the forum. The kernel is capable of being overclocked to 1.4 GHz, not quite as high as the Xoom or Transformer, but we might see stable kernels at higher speeds grow off of this initial attempt.

At 1.4 GHz the Tab 10.1 is able to run some of the heavier tasks, like games, HD videos and Flash more smoothly. The Tab is no slouch, with its dual-core Tegra 2 helping it fly most of the time. There are times occasionally though where lag does rear its ugly head (like the keyboard for instance). If you’re never satisfied and willing to take some risks with your ClockWorkMod Recovery flashed Tab 10.1, backup and follow pershoot’s instruction to pump some extra speed out of that Tegra 2.

[via XDA]

)


T-Mobile Samsung Gravity Smart PACKED with Goodies

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 01:14 PM PDT

Now you won’t hear me saying this very often, rarely if ever in fact, but this device from Samsung and T-Mobile has a LOT of great apps packed in it out of the box. The Gravity Smart is a brand new mid-range Android device made by Samsung for carrying on T-Mobile, this one colored with a lovely Sapphire blue. It’s obviously made to be a messaging machine with its unique rounded push-out keyboard with rounded keys and a rounded heart – and the bloatware inside isn’t bloatware, I swear! It’s sweet stuff, man!

What we’re seeing inside this device is no less than 46 applications, right around the amount you’d normally find on a phone such as this, but an above-average amount of apps that are unique to this device. Amongst the apps that are not ALWAYS on other devices but can be found having a big messaging party up in here are:
Swype,
Tetris,
UNO,
Group Texting,
Photobucket,
AIM (AOL Instant Messanger),
Glympse,
Cloud Texting,
and DriveSmart.

Great stuff! While there’s not really a reason to use all of these apps, especially since several of them will basically indirectly overlap one another, it’s interesting to see a device with so much emphasis on 3rd party apps for both messaging and just having fun gaming. It’s almost as if T-Mobile saw a good thing and wanted to make a less expensive version. How about that? We’ll be reviewing this device soon!

)


Motorola Triumph $299 at Best Buy for Pre-Order

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 12:44 PM PDT

Everyone’s favorite no-contract device is coming on quick, and its price has been revealed today by Best Buy, everyone’s favorite retailer! It’s been guessed previously that this device would be sub-$300 and it looks like that guess was right – though BARELY. Best Buy will have this device on the 19th of July (that’s their estimated shipping date), this lining up perfectly with the previous “leak” of information that pointed toward the same date without a source for purchase.

We can pretty safely assume that this means the device will also be available at Radio Shack and Target as well on that date, though we’ve not seen listings at either place as of yet. This device, if you do not know, is already gaining some popularity due to the fact that it’s basically running a vanilla version of Android 2.2 Froyo, more than likely upgradable to Android 2.3 Gingerbread sooner than later down the road.

This device also features HDMI out, a 5-megapixel camera on the back and VGA on the front, (or the other way around, if you’re to believe the mistake listed on Best Buy,) and it’s carried by Virgin Mobile. It’s got some Virgin Mobile software on it as well, but all of it is a lovely pink so if you DO choose to use it or not use it, your eyes will love you for it.

This is one device you’re going to want to keep your eyes on. Not necessarily to buy it, if you’re stuck to any number of 2-year contracts around the earth, but because it’s paving the way to a more free sort of world where contracts are gone, gone, and gone. Wouldn’t you agree?

[via PhoneArena]

)


Motorola Droid 3 Release Date July 14th at Best Buy

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 12:26 PM PDT

That is, if a photo of a screen as posted by DroidAttic is to be believed. No less reputable than any other in-store photo of a display, I suppose, yes? The site this information comes from is a rather simple Android blog that appears to get a lot of leaks in – just yesterday they apparently also got news from an inside source that said the DROID Bionic would be released in July. That lines up with our “find” of the Motorola tweet that said we’d be getting the Bionic “on time” and a suggested HTC event that’s aimed at late June – but that’s in England.

In related news, we’ve got a feeling that the device we’re going to see will look closer to an upgraded PHOTON than a really fabulous looking version of a DROID as we’re used to. Then again, back at the beginning of June we saw another photo of the “Bionic” that looked like a DROID as we know it, that one looking pretty nice. What do you hope for in a form factor for this long-awaited dual-core LTE device?

Then what do you think about the wait we’ve had to live through, this terrifying wait since CES to see the device that’d bust out with the fastest speeds and the most dual of cores? You should know that NVIDIA says it’s got nothing to do with compatibility, so I think they’re just taking my advice to take their time with the exterior of the device to make it look really, really nice.

SO what we’ve got to look forward to here for the Droid 3 is a July 14th showing and announcement and a 15th release date. Exciting? Super exciting!

[via DroidAttic]

)


HTC Desire with no Sense Coming from Telstra in August

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 11:57 AM PDT

It appears very much that the folks at Telstra will be pushing HTC down a flight of stairs with its release of Gingerbread for the HTC Desire. If you remember back a few days ago, there appears to be mistaken information regarding HTC’s news bomb that noted the Desire would never be getting Android 2.3 Gingerbread – they later recanted and said they WOULD be doing the update, but Telstra appears to not want to deal with the whole situation at all, saying on their smartphone Software Updates page that they’d be releasing a version of Gingerbread for the Desire in August that does not include Sense UI.

This is wacky, and totally unheard of. How could Telstra possibly do such a thing, won’t HTC go crazy with regret and loathing for an unfair and under fair world? I suppose we can’t be sure now, can we. The release from Telstra reads thusly:

Due to the increased memory requirements of the 'Gingerbread' update, new software that does not include HTC's Sense UI is being prepared.

Them’s fighting words methinks. This update is said to be coming in August, and there’s some… doubt, being cast by onlookers. It doesn’t exactly seem possible, since it is indeed a unique situation, that a manufacturer like HTC would work with a carrier to release an update to their hardware’s software without their custom user interface, especially when they’ve already confirmed that they’ll be putting out the Android update with the interface intact.

HTC’s latest word said that they’d “cut select apps” in order to resolve the memory issue Telstra speaks of above. The following was written by HTC:

"To resolve Desire's memory issue and enable the upgrade to Gingerbread, we will cut select apps from the release. … Look for status updates starting next week … we apologize for any confusion."

That was on the 16th of June, and we still aren’t really clear on what that statement means. You can also check back with the original release of the destructive “no update” comment for more information, but you’ll find nothing, nothing Lebowski, nothing!

[via Engadget]

)


Motorola Bravo Gets App Sideloading via Enabler App

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 11:44 AM PDT

For those of you who love to take some apps from all over the place – aka the Amazon App Store, Getjar, and of course our good pal Gameloft, and are running a Motorola Bravo – weird! – you’re in luck. Today Motorola has released an app by the name of “Sideload Enabler for BRAVO” to the Android Market. Officially this isn’t the first time Motorola has enabled a feature by offering an app in the Android Market instead of sending it off over the air, and it sure won’t be the last, by the looks of it.

All you’ve got to do is head over to the Android Market and grab that download. Inside you’ll find the ability to take your previously disallowed device to download 3rd party apps, a situation that was up until the Infuse 4G not allowed by the carrier. AT&T of course changed their minds with that Samsung release and every device since then (aka the ), has had the freedom to sideload apps.

The best part about this app you’ll be downloading is the fact that you’ll be able to uninstall it after you’ve unlocked your ability to sideload apps. Once the app has been loaded and you’ve allowed your device to sideload, you’ve just to uninstall that app and you’re done! Then it’s time to download the Amazon Appstore and get to grabbing some free apps of the day so you can be radical with games like Peggle. Winning!

)


Google Sites Moves to Auto Mobile Rendering, World Realizes Google Sites Exists

Posted: 24 Jun 2011 11:31 AM PDT

So, world of bloggers, do you know about Google Sites? Chances are you MIGHT know about it, but for those of you that don’t: Google Sites is a place like the Geocities and Angelfire sites of old, WordPress.com, Tumblr and etc of new – aka its a site where you can make a site. You have the ability to create a website that’s static, make it work as a blog, or even allows you to make a Wiki. What Google has announced today is that these sites have options where you’re able to automatically adjust your cool created site for mobile. Now your Android will see what you WANT it to see on your Pet Shop blog.

What this hopefully means to the bulk of us mobile users is that Google’s starting a big wave of conversions in-site that’ll make the internet a whole lot nicer to look at from our devices. At the moment, as you may well know, the difference between mobile viewing and desktop viewing is still pretty drastic, but with Google on the case, we’re sure heading down a road toward solutions we’ve never dreamed of.

Mobile versions of site list, sites search, and browse sites have been added as well for you Google Sites users, so head on over there for some sweet webpage creation action. For everyone else, we suggest you use apps such as News360 for Honeycomb tablets as well as Feedly RSS Reader for Honeycomb for all your in-app reading of these internets.

)


Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)