Android Community |
- ASUS Transformer Prime in-stock at Office Depot
- CyanogenMod nightlies now on select XPERIA devices
- Android Community App of the Week: Android Pro Widgets
- ASUS Transformer Prime GPS issues still evident after update
- Lenovo, ZTE and other Chinese OEMs band together to fight Android patent trolls
- Transformer Prime GPS issues arise, activate WiFi to fix
- Motorola DROID 4 spotted in the wild, dummy unit looks pretty
- Archos 80 G9 tablet now available with 250 GB storage — only $369
- Siri for Android hits the market, jokes on Apple
- Verizon Wireless axes $2 convenience fee — that was fast
- LG pairs with Intel, set to debut Android devices at CES 2012
| ASUS Transformer Prime in-stock at Office Depot Posted: 30 Dec 2011 08:53 PM PST The ASUS Transformer Prime has been scarce across the Internet – unless of course your willing to pay outrageous prices due to supply and demand. Office Depot currently has some in stock online, and your ordering window may not be closing depending on their current stock. It is only available in the 32GB model, so those of you leaning towards the 64GB will have to wait.
If you decide to jump on this, don’t forget to enter the coupon code: 856155942 at checkout – it will land you a free digital camera. Despite the recent GPS issues that arose over at XDA Developers, this tablet is certainly a great buy. It may not have the latest version of Android but will definitely be one of the first to see it during the new year. So $499.00 will land you an ASUS Transformer Prime, digital camera, and free shipping. Don’t plan on traveling to your local Office Depot in the morning, because it is currently only available for delivery. But, as soon as it shows up in-store, we’ll be the first to let you know. [via Phandroid] )
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| CyanogenMod nightlies now on select XPERIA devices Posted: 30 Dec 2011 07:48 PM PST In a perfect world, all Android OS devices would ship with a clean, official version of CyanogenMod free of bloatware. But the world isn’t perfect, so night after night we hope one day – CyanogenMod will start supporting our device. Fortuantly, many Sony Ericsson XPERIA owners can stop searching, because CyanogenMod nighties have started up for a number of their devices.
Included will be the XPERIA Live, Pro, and Active; to access the files directly visit the CyanogenMod mirror network here, and navigate to your device. Do note, that you must have root access and CWM recovery installed to make use of the files – but those of you following this far into the post probably already knew that. These new CM builds will most likely be very unstable, as this will be their first nightly. But over time, it will undoubtedly become just as polished as other officially supported devices. This is not CM9 running off of an Android 4.0 base, but rather CM7 running off of Gingerbread. So those of you hoping to see ICS may just have to wait it out a good bit longer. [via Android Police] )
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| Android Community App of the Week: Android Pro Widgets Posted: 30 Dec 2011 07:43 PM PST Every week we like to slow things down a little to highlight an app that’s proven itself to be useful, fun, or just plain cool. There’s plenty of new stuff coming out that’ll rock your socks, like the sweet 3D New Year Live Wallpaper, but the App of the Week is our way to show off some of the lesser-known apps that deserve your attention. This week, it’s social and PIM widget collection extraordinaire, Android Pro Widgets.
Android Pro Widgets is exactly what it sounds like: a large collection of widgets for your homescreen. APW caught my eye specifically for its Twitter widget – it’s surprisingly hard to find a robust, scrolling Twitter feed widget for Android. APW filled that need for me nicely once I left the sadly stagnant LauncherPro (which hasn’t seen an update in over six months – what gives, Mr. Carnales?) with the added benefit of a combined Twitter/Facebook widget named “Timeline”. It’s the best option for social updates on your home screen that I’ve tried, and trust me, I’ve tried a lot. But that’s hardly all you get with Android Pro Widgets. Calendar, contacts, bookmarks, SMS, individual Facebook and Twitter widgets, and a Google Reader notifier are all included, plus a quick Calendar event add function. It’s a marvelous variety of useful heads-up information that should suit almost everyone’s needs. It’s equally at home on Gingerbread, Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich, scrolling through lists of information (often tricky on widgets) is smooth and simple, and it plays nice with every launcher I’ve tried it with. Add to that a full theme engine with plenty of free options on the Android Market, and APW is one of the most comprehensive and complete widget suites available.
There are a couple of downsides. The app uses an annoying timed demo, and you have to keep the separate unlock key app installed on your phone to use it past the expiration date. Also (and this is admittedly nit-picking a bit) the app icon is just plain ugly. What is that? A badly-drawn smiley face? An inexplicably green cartoon nose? In any case, the $2.49 entry fee is a small price to pay for an incredible amount of functionality. Try out the free preview app, then purchase the key to keep it – you won’t be disappointed.       )
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| ASUS Transformer Prime GPS issues still evident after update Posted: 30 Dec 2011 07:12 PM PST The ASUS Transformer Prime has just started arriving at the doorsteps of those lucky enough to pre-order before Christmas, but already has an evident issue with its GPS capabilities. A thread over at XDA-Developers claims that not only does the GPS have a hard time locking onto satellite signals, but some claim it doesn’t work at all. And as a precaution before you try this on your own Transformer Prime – set your device to ‘Airplane Mode’ (or simply disengage from data) to ensure the GPS can lock your position without the help of WiFi.
Just earlier, we noted that a workaround is to engage your WiFi and hope for a quicker lock, but were also hoping the update would solve things. The ASUS Transformer Prime is no doubt the best tablet on the market, but GPS issues may be a serious deal-breaker for some of the treasure hunters out there. ASUS subtly showed the public they were aware of an issue when removing “GPS” as a core feature from its specifications page. Yet, in the notes of the recently pushed 8.8.3.29 update – they insist that it will improve the stability. The followers of the earlier mentioned XDA thread now state that even after the update many are seeing the same issues as before. Hopefully, ASUS can pull together a fix for this amazing device. It would be a shame to own the best tablet on the market, but at the same time have such an important feature consistently malfunctioning. [via The Verge] )
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| Lenovo, ZTE and other Chinese OEMs band together to fight Android patent trolls Posted: 30 Dec 2011 07:05 PM PST If you’re tired of seeing all the patent lawsuit stories that pop up on Android Community, imagine how tired we are of writing them. We’re not alone, and a group of Chinese manufacturers is reportedly joining forces to fight off the legal bulldogs from Apple, Microsoft, Oracle and the like. DigiTimes reports that Lenovo, ZTE and smaller manufacturers TCL, Coolpad and Konka have formed an alliance to jointly defend against corporate patent trolls in the huge and growing Chinese smartphone market. Thus far none of the above have been seriously affected by patent litigation, since Apple and Microsoft are more interested in shutting down the bigger players (or at least making them pay). HTC, Samsung and Motorola have all been hit, with varying degrees of damage, and even smaller players like Asus, Acer and Barnes & Noble have been scorched in the Android patent wars. It appears that as the Chinese manufacturers turn their sights towards the global market, they’re ready and willing to put up a fight to the American giants who wish to profit from Android without contributing. An interesting omission in the report is Huawei, a Chinese OEM that’s been betting big on Android and winning, for the most part. Devices like the Glory/Honor, Ascend and the MediaPad are getting good reviews and solid sales in markets around the world, making Huawei one to watch. Perhaps the company thinks it can stand on its own IP, as it recently secured several key cellular patents. There’s always the possibility that more OEMs (possibly even the smaller companies from Taiwan, South Korea and Japan) could join the coalition in the future. The litigation train doesn’t seem to be slowing down as we enter 2012, and in the case of Lenovo and ZTE, they’ve resolved not to be caught at the crossing. [via Phandroid] )
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| Transformer Prime GPS issues arise, activate WiFi to fix Posted: 30 Dec 2011 06:46 PM PST The Asus Eee Pad Transformer prime is currently king of the hill as far as Android tablets go, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. As we’ve seen with other high-profile devices, a single critical failure can sound a sour note for an otherwise great piece of tech. For the Transformer Prime, that sour note appears to be the GPS radio, according to a growing thread over at XDA Developers. Users are reporting extremely poor GPS performance when not connected to wireless networks.
Android uses cellular and WiFi networks as a backup method for determining a device’s location, and in the case of the Transformer Prime (which has no cellular connection at this point) WiFi is the best option for getting around this problem. Of course, that’s small comfort to users who want to make their tablets into navigation systems, or just play with Google Maps outside of a WiFi area. At this point, there doesn’t seem to be any other way around the issue. Many commenters suspect that the all-aluminum construction of the Transformer Prime is to blame. There’s something to be said for that – when smartphones use metal as a primary means of construction, they always leave a plastic portion of the case for the cellular signals to pass through. It could be that during the engineering phase, Asus just didn’t consider other wireless communications essential, or didn’t sufficiently test them. It could also be a software bug, not entirely unlikely in a product so new. We’ll be keeping a lookout for a more permanent solution, should one arise. Device Info
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 [via Android Police] )
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| Motorola DROID 4 spotted in the wild, dummy unit looks pretty Posted: 30 Dec 2011 03:57 PM PST We don’t really know when the Motorola DROID 4 will hit the market for Verizon customers but original leaks suggested a mid December launch that was pushed back at the last minute. Nothing was confirmed so we can’t say for sure. Either way we are still waiting and would love to get our hands on one. In the meantime it appears our friends from TechnoBuffalo were able to do just that — but with a dummy unit that will probably be on store shelves soon.
There really isn’t anything we don’t know about this device except for the release date. We’ve seen plenty of leaks and pictures and even a leak of the full specification sheet so nothing should come as a surprise. This RAZR with a keyboard looks good every time we see it although I have no use for that hardware keyboard personally.
Obviously with a built-in QWERTY hardware keyboard it wont be as thin as many others including its RAZR brother but I was hoping for something a little thinner. You can clearly see the micro-USB and hdmi ports on the image above that will make this play nicely with the recently released Motorola Lapdocks that are available. Since this hasn’t launched yet we have a feeling we’ll be seeing it a few times at CES and expect it to launch late January or early February. Do you still want a hardware keyboard on your smartphone, and will you be getting the DROID 4?    [via TechnoBuffalo] )
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| Archos 80 G9 tablet now available with 250 GB storage — only $369 Posted: 30 Dec 2011 02:48 PM PST If you have a need for copious amounts of storage on a mobile device the new Archos 80 G9 series Honeycomb tablet would probably be a great choice. They have just released the 250 GB version of this 8″ slate and amazingly it’s still priced much lower than competing 8-10″ Honeycomb tablets with only 16GB of internal storage.
What makes this even better is while paying a bit more for the extra storage you’ll also get the 80 G9 “Turbo” which is their faster 1.2 GHz dual-core version of their latest line of tablets. Basically we get an 8″ 1024 x 768 display rocking Android 3.2 Honeycomb tablet with a dual-core 1.2 GHz TI OMAP processor, 1GB of RAM, and 250 gigabytes of storage all for only $369. While most tablets have 16 or 32GB of flash storage this will have the huge hard drive. If you are concerned about speed and read times Archos claims to have a highly intelligent caching system to keep things quick, smooth, and stable — but didn’t comment on weight. Archos might not have the best build quality when it comes to Android tablets or the thinnest, but they update often and when necessary and have a pretty solid following based on their low price budget-minded lineup of tablets. With a promise to bring Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to Archos tablets soon, and already showing it off on video running great this could actually be one awesome all around device. Having HDMI-out, 250 GB of storage, a kickstand, and soon to be Android 4.0 ICS all for only $369 this could potentially be an awesome deal — especially for multimedia lovers. The newer 250 GB model is available now from Archos.com and you can find plenty of details and the link below. Device Info
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Dimension & Weight
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[via Archos] )
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| Siri for Android hits the market, jokes on Apple Posted: 30 Dec 2011 01:18 PM PST When this dropped into our inbox I was instantly excited to share it and couldn’t help it but laugh a little. This is the “official” Siri App for Android — sort of. For those that somehow don’t know, Android actually has an awesome set of features called Google Voice Actions. You can see all the details on those right here. Things as simple as, “Set Alarm — 8:30 AM” and it will automatically set your alarm. All you need to do is press that search magnify glass or hit the widget on the homescreen.
This has actually been a part of Android long long before Siri was even unveiled and I’ve been using it with Android 2.2 and 2.3 devices for as long as I can remember. The application that is available now in the Android Market called Siri for Android probably wont be there long and I’m sure Apple wont be happy about it either.
This application is a Siri icon that opens “Google’s Voice Actions” app. Let me repeat that — This application is only a Siri icon that opens the default “Google’s Voice Actions” app. It is actually nothing at all, it doesn’t have Siri powers and it wont make your phone better. Why? Because it doesn’t need to. I probably wont be installing this application on my phone because I already know of and use the Google Voice Actions daily. It is pretty funny reading the reviews in the market loving the app, not knowing they’ve had it all along. Maybe Google needs to make Google Voice Actions more noticeable. Personally the demo that pops up on first use was enough for me and I’d like to think the same for others. Update: While Google hasn’t pulled the app from the market it now says incompatible with all your devices when I try to install. A few minutes ago it was compatible with the more than 20 in my list. That was fast!    [via Android Market] )
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| Verizon Wireless axes $2 convenience fee — that was fast Posted: 30 Dec 2011 12:45 PM PST I’ve tried not to use this word too many times but for this one we can say #winning. This is a score for all of us — the good guys. After Verizon announced they’d start charging a ridiculous $2.00 fee as a “convenience fee” for customers paying their bill online and a few various other methods there was a huge backlash and plenty of bad PR that surrounded it. It appears that Verizon has listened because today they’ve already axed that plan.
Verizon announced this new and super lame fee earlier this week and even this morning we reported the FCC was taking a look at said fee’s. Between the backlash from customers and blogs, to the FCC comments its safe to say they got a little scared because today have released this statement:
While I’ve seen countless tweets and G+ comments of users saying they’ll leave Verizon over the fee — I felt that was a bit extreme. Now we don’t need to worry about it because just a few short days after the idea it is now officially dead in the water. As of now we’ll all be $2 dollars richer for all of 2012 — spend it wisely guys. [via Verizon] )
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| LG pairs with Intel, set to debut Android devices at CES 2012 Posted: 30 Dec 2011 12:22 PM PST I wouldn’t really call 2011 a good year for LG although they have released a few awesome Android devices like the Nitro HD. Hearing leaks about upcoming devices is nothing new especially with CES getting closer and closer. We’ve heard a few reports that Samsung will be pairing with Intel’s new Android-aimed Medfield mobile processor but now it appears that the other Korean manufacturer LG is too — or maybe it was them all along.
If you remember Intel and LG announced a device at this years CES that never went past the show room floor. They called it a lack of “Marketability”. Now that Intel has made some huge strides with their mobile processor, and shown off a few details not to mention benchmark leaks its safe to say I’m starting to get a little excited — and so has LG. Apparently "high ranking executives" from both LG and Intel are saying that LG will produce the first market-ready Intel powered smartphone with Android for a March release. Most likely this device will be launched with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich but that is anyone’s guess really. Benchmarks of the new Intel Medfield mobile processor have recently leaked showing some pretty stellar performance, although battery and power consumption was still a small concern. Hopefully Intel will be able to make a highly efficient chip in time for an LG release. These comments from “high ranking execs” could be rumors or just outright false but either way we’ll be live at CES 2012 in just a few short days and will learn the true details right from whatever Intel has on the show room floor. We’ll be sure to snap plenty of photos that is for sure so stay tuned. [via SlashGear] )
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