Android Community |
- LG Optimus 3D Shown with CyanogenMod 7 Looking Good [Video]
- Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 It’s Time to Tab Video Competition Winner Announced [Video]
- Do You Live in a Green State?
- Samsung TouchWiz UX Review [Galaxy Tab 10.1]
- Google+ App Inverted, Socialize with a Black Color Theme
- Motorola Xoom 3G Finally Getting 3.2 OTA
| LG Optimus 3D Shown with CyanogenMod 7 Looking Good [Video] Posted: 05 Aug 2011 03:33 PM PDT Today we have a video teasing some beautiful CyanogenMod 7 running on the LG Optimus 3D (aka LG Thrill 4G). It might not be available for the AT&T version right away but most likely both will have CM7 builds very shortly. We knew CM7 was coming to the 3D powered phone but now we have a video showing its speed.
Thanks to Ricardo Cerqueira over on Google+ we can tease you all with the video below. He also has been posting screenshots all week so feel free to follow him on Google+ for more details. The video shows a plenty stable build with wifi, video, and everything working pretty fast and smooth. Not to mention NenaMark scored plenty high in the video too.
If you have been debating whether or not to get the Optimus 3D this video of CM7 may help you decide, and here is our review. This same device is also the LG Thrill 4G launching on AT&T eventually. It was supposed to be any day now but latest reports suggest the end of the month. Device Info
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 [via Google+] )
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| Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 It’s Time to Tab Video Competition Winner Announced [Video] Posted: 05 Aug 2011 03:27 PM PDT What you’re about to see is the final winner in a video creation competition hosted by Samsung in which creative people were asked to create an ad spot for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. In return they’d receive fabulous prizes, and so they shall. This first place winner shows a video in which the Galaxy Tab 10.1 floats around the screen and a narrator (likely the creator himself) speaks several words in an epic manner: My World … Sharper, Lighter, Faster, and all in one place! Samsung Galaxy Tab… it’s everything!
Below you’ll see several other entries into this big fat giveaway, a few which you might like better, most which you’ll likely flip out over, and one big collection which you’ll certainly wish you’d created should you want the Galaxy Tab 10.1 as the winners are likely tapping away now as we speak. This big event has been running since early May, an early entrant prize given away to the best video submitted before May 20th. Then there’s the big list of prizes for everybody else: First for Samsung’s prizes there were winners anywhere from $500 for the 5th place winner to $7000 for the 1st place winner (which you see above). There was a voter’s choice award set starting at $100 going up to $500, and the early entrant prize was $2,000. That’s a lot of Tabs! All of these winners are very likely going out to purchase the tablet for themselves today if they haven’t already, upgrading to TouchWiz UX as they do so! For a full review of Samsung’s new TouchWiz UX, head down to our full review! Then check out the rest of the winning entries for this event below! Device Info
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| Posted: 05 Aug 2011 01:42 PM PDT Forget red and blue states. Mobile advertising firm Jumptap has a lovely infographic that shows us the majority we really care about here, most dominant smartphone OS of course. The chart highlights each state showing whether Android, iOS, or Blackberry is the most dominant (or if there’s a tie).
The image above was created to aid companies looking to target their advertisements to a specific OS depending on region, but we will use it for a more important purpose. For instance I’m extremely disappointed with my beloved, and so often down to earth Mid-West, who clearly isn’t so great at choosing smartphones. Jumptap points out that the south and the west coast favor Android. Is it ironic that this includes the Apple mothership in California and seat of Microsoft’s power in Seattle? Either way I’m laughing. Those silly east coasters and the mid-west seem to have poorer judgement voting against freedom, flash, and expandable memory! For the record, a quick check thanks to Wikipedia and a calculator shows the people have spoken, loudly. According to the electoral colleges of the United States of America, Android is the best OS by a landslide of 245 electoral votes to iOS’s 134 and BlackBerry’s 83. Note these numbers may not be exact, but as an engineering student, I’ve been told I’m decent at math. What do you think of the map? Is your state the color you expected? And remember even if it wasn’t, your vote (with your wallet) counted! Hail to the chief! [via Jumptap] )
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| Samsung TouchWiz UX Review [Galaxy Tab 10.1] Posted: 05 Aug 2011 12:59 PM PDT Today we’ve got our Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Wi-Fi version hooked up with the newest version of what Samsung has dubbed TouchWiz UX. This is Samsung’s custom user interface and the first “official” user interface made on top of Google’s Android Honeycomb (version 3.1 right here right now.) This user interface reflects what the Samsung Galaxy S II is using with TouchWiz 4.0 with several enhancements that are unique to tablets. The big question on a lot of people’s minds today (if they own a Galaxy Tab 10.1 that is,) is “should I upgrade?” Let’s see if we can’t answer that question in a healthy deep dive review.
At the start here is a hands-on video with the interface on our Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Wi-Fi version. This video also works as a review in and of itself, so if you’d like to just skip the rest of the post, you sure as heck can do so. On the other hand there are a few items in the text below that are not covered in intense detail in the video, so take your chances! Live PanelsThe first and most noticeable change in this version of TouchWiz is that Samsung has bumped up Honeycomb’s widget game. Here instead of widgets being all by their lonesome sitting in panels of despair, they’re encouraged to play along with each other using the invisible grid on each home screen to place each of them in a magazine-style setting. Should you have the widgets to make it happen, you could take up your entire home screen with squares of information. Or if you’d like to turn your whole home screen into a photo album, you could do this with your stock Gallery widget, resizable to whatever height and width you like.
There are several new and/or retooled widgets included in this update, those being that gallery widget I just mentioned, weather, and social panels. While other reviewers may call these “cartoony” and tell you to toss them in the garbage immediately, you know good and well your humble narrator is going to have you take a bit more time to see what they’re good for. Each of these new widgets works surprisingly well considering Samsung’s widgets in the past have been relatively lackluster, the gallery widget, again, being amongst my favorites to utilize. On the other hand no one has HTC’s weather widget beat, but we’ll have to wait for that to come to Honeycomb for now.
While this system may seem immense, it’s not that much of a change over the old system. In fact, if you only use widgets that are not compatible with Samsung’s way of doing things here, there’s no real big visible change at all. In other words – no reason not to upgrade. On the other hand we have noticed a bit of lag between screens when several gigantic widgets are open at once, but this same thing happens when you’ve got a screenful of widgets anyway. Quick PanelThe single panel that pops up when you tap the lower right-hand corner of your display still pops up as per usual, but you’ll notice it has a bit of a makeover. You’ve now got the ability to adjust GPS, Wi-Fi, Notifications, Airplane Mode and more with a simple swipe and a tap. Screen brightness is front and center as well, as is a shortcut to your settings page as well as notifications and alerts (which you can clear out as well.) Time, date, batter life, and Wi-Fi signal can also be seen from here. All of this is certainly an improvement over the stock Honeycomb layout.
Mini Apps TrayThis is a persistent tray of apps that have been selected and customized by Samsung to work over the top of the rest of your apps. As you’ll see in the demo video below, this feature looks great on paper but is quite laggy. It’s one step closer to being truly able to multi-task, whatever that really means these days, but until the lag is done away with, (be it by processor power or by the tinkering with of the functionality, we’re guessing the latter,) it’s too slow to get an A rating – instead I give it about a B!
The apps in this tray get another hands-on view from us right here because, guess what? They pop up on TOP of your other apps if you wish. This is a brand new sort of situation in Android and certainly one that’s welcome – now again we’ve gotta make it a bit more optimized. Media HubSamsung here presents a lovely new interface for checking out new movies and television shows, each of them available for full-screen preview as well as renting or owning. The sliding back and forth of the movies looks cool, the interface with which you purchase or rent videos is slick, and the selection of special lists constructed by Samsung is well made. Would I purchase or rent videos from here? Sure I would, definitely, but only if the prices were at a lower point. I’m still of the notion that if I’m going to buy a movie, I’d like to have a disk. I’m an avid purchaser of apps on the other hand, so maybe the revolution starts with Samsung?    Pen MemoPen Memo is an extremely simplified version of everyone’s favorite note-taking app, Evernote. It’s not made by the same people and certainly isn’t meant to appear to be made by the same group, but it does many of the same things. Here you’re able to write with your finger, paint, type, and in general make things easy on your day to day forgetfulness. Furthermore this app has a mini version you’ll see pop up in your Mini Apps Tray.
Photo EditorWhat we’ve got here is what amounts to Samsung’s take on, yep, you guessed it, photo editing. You’re able to change basically any quality the photo has, chop, hack, flip, and resize them to your heart’s desire. This is the type of app that gets lifted and ported to other Androids via hackers because it works so simply and so well. Give it a few iterations and it’ll be beating Photoshop out for the mobile market – maybe.     Fun fact: the people in the photos above are myself and the guy who installed our cable internet – he wanted to see the photo quality of the front-facing camera of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and I said sure! Panning and TiltingThis set of features you may remember from back at CTIA when we got an early glimpse at both of them already working one the Samsung Galaxy S II. They both still exist on the Galaxy S II, and are still seeming more like bonus features to me than selling points.
Samsung DiveSamsung has created a system that you may have heard about called Samsung Dive. This system allows you to track and control your devices from your web browser, this coming in most useful when your device is lost or stolen of course, but certainly a feature you COULD use should you want to track… oh… I don’t know… your kid’s devices? Your ability to use this Dive functionality is activated in your Settings under Location and security and called “Remote controls.” Tap it ON then head over to SamsungDive.com and get to tracking!
Should I Update to TouchWiz UX?Yes you certainly should. For more than one reason: first, it’s a new look at Honeycomb. The only drawback being the slowness of the Mini Apps Tray – but if you’re not just a big stickler on how apps pop up, you’ll never know the difference. A rather important point to make here if you’re an avid user of such home screen replacement apps as ADW Launcher EX is that yes, indeed, you can use said replacement apps, but the new TouchWiz toolbar will remain. It’s not giving up THAT easily.
Once you’ve got the update, you’ll not be sad that you did. It’s what the manufacturer, Samsung, intends for you to get for the device they’ve made, and most of it can be done away with if you’re not feeling it. Grab it now! Found in Settings under About tablet and Software update. Should take you less than 30 minutes for the whole situation to complete itself, and make sure you’ve got your tablet plugged in during the process! Also note that you can check out a full review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Wi-Fi edition tablet you see in this post right here on Android Community: [Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Wi-Fi Review] Device Info
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| Google+ App Inverted, Socialize with a Black Color Theme Posted: 05 Aug 2011 11:44 AM PDT So far I’m loving Google+ as I’m sure many others are, but I’d prefer the Android app to be in black to go along with the rest of Android. Lucky for you guys those amazing developers over at XDA have themed Google+ and the entire application is now black instead of bright white. Every time G+ gets an update they are quick to theme the new version and post it up so I figured I’d share the newest one with everyone.
There is no need to be rooted or anything of that nature, just make sure installing apps from unknown sources is checked in the application settings tab, Unzip the download and install like any other APK. I’m sure most users know but can’t hurt to explain a little bit right? Basically the themer is calling this Inverted Google+, or G+ Black and I love the look.
For more pictures and to get all the latest updates as I’m sure Google will be updating often make sure to follow along in the XDA thread. They also offer the same inverted theme for Google Voice in the same thread if that interests any of you readers. As always make sure to uninstall the original Google+ application before installing the new themed version in case it causes any issues. Inverted Google+ Black Download [via XDA] )
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| Motorola Xoom 3G Finally Getting 3.2 OTA Posted: 05 Aug 2011 11:25 AM PDT The Motorola Xoom 3G may not be getting the 4G upgrade until September, but at least the Android 3.2 Honeycomb update is hitting devices. Earlier in the week we mentioned it may be starting initial soak tests to make sure everything went smooth and it appears users are now starting to get the update via OTA notification.
Verizon stated the update was officially coming soon on the 2nd with updates to the support page shown in the link so things are finally official. Users should be able to check for updates right on the device from the settings>about tablet>check for updates tab and the update will start. It’s better late than never right? If you don’t know what to expect with the 3.2 update check out our Android 3.2 Guide real quick. With official 7″ device support, zoom-able applications and full SD support things are looking good. Now all these Xoom owners need to finally be upgraded to the 4G LTE that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 LTE is enjoying. Xoom owners start hitting that update button as it should be appearing any time now. Device Info
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[via Facebook] )
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