Posted: 15 Feb 2012 06:14 PM PST   Yesterday, we let you guys know that the Acer Iconia Tab A500 would officially be receiving its Android 4.0 update sometime in April. The only problem was, that word came from Acer’s New Zealand division, leaving many A500 owners in the states (and other regions) wondering if they would receive the same treatment during that time.  Well, Acer America has finally confirmed today, via their Twitter, that the Ice Cream Sandwich update will, in fact, be arriving for the Iconia A500 during that same time frame. What’s more, the A100 was also added to the announcement and should be seeing the Android 4.0 update in April as well. Unfortunately, this announcement may still be seen by some as bad news, specifically, users who were expecting something a little sooner. Thanks, Joseph! |
Posted: 15 Feb 2012 05:12 PM PST   Nvidia saw their revenue dwindle towards the end of 2011 and for this year, the company hopes to get back on its feet, thanks to their new and improved, Tegra 3 processor hitting smartphones and tablets this year. Despite high expectations, Nvidia has slightly toned down its outlook for this year bringing down their previously expected $1 billion in revenue to a more reasonable $900 million. Speaking of those Tegra 3 smartphones, during Nvidia’s earnings call today, CEO Jen Hsun Huang said the company plans to begin shipping these quad-core super phones within weeks of their big unveiling at Mobile World Congress in just a few weeks. Although he didn’t mention any phones by name, we’re expecting the LG X3, HTC One X and possible others to make their debut at this year’s MWC. Huang also mentioned that Nvidia also hopes to ship their new pure cellular chipset — codenamed Gray — this year. Gray will include both 3G and LTE capabilities into a single chipset. Nvidia was first out the gate with a dual-core processor last year, but handset OEMs (or consumers?) seemingly lost faith in the processor moving onto similar offerings from rivals Texas Instruments and Qualcomm dual-core processors. Should be exciting to see which semiconductor company will be first to try and 1-up Nvidia’s Tegra 3 this year. [Reuters | Via Electronista] |
Posted: 15 Feb 2012 03:24 PM PST   Owners of the original ASUS Transformer are still without Ice Cream Sandwich despite expected windows of January and February for its launch. It looks like you guys might have to wait even longer as ASUS Singapore has mentioned that they are now looking at a February/March window, meaning it could be here any time between now and the end of March. That still doesn’t mean much because, you know, it could always get delayed again. We’re still hopeful ASUS will be able to get this thing out before the second quarter arrives. ASUS didn’t provide any details as to why the update was being delayed. [Facebook via AndroidPolice] |
Posted: 15 Feb 2012 01:51 PM PST   Verizon and LG are teaming up to celebrate the release of Star Wares Episode 1: The Phantom Menace 3D. You can win one of five LG Spectrums, the dual-core device from LG which can also guzzle data fast with its 4G LTE radios. Simply Darth Maul yourself using the Darth Maul Me app, tweet the photo with the hashtag #DarthMaulMe to Verizon every day for the next five days and you’re entered to win a Spectrum each day. It can’t hurt to grab a free phone so have a little phone with the app by downloading it here. |
Posted: 15 Feb 2012 01:36 PM PST   Evernote has just issued an update to their application in the Android market. This update isn’t very significant but when you get the amount of bug fixes that we get here. Alongside improvements to the Explore Evernote interface and the ability auto-title notes using calendar events, we’ve got copy/paste fixes, a fix for the erroneous insufficient space warning and a lot more. A few seconds and a quick 6.9MB download later and you’ll have one of the very best clowd-enabled note-taking applications with a ton of improvements. Find it in the Android market here. |
Posted: 15 Feb 2012 12:49 PM PST   AT&T won’t sit back while their competitors bring 4G LTE to anyone and everyone they can. The company may not be making huge strides but progress is progress, and we have even more of that progress today. They have lit up Tampa, Florida and Raleigh, North Carolina with sweet, blazing fast 4G LTE. Surrounding markets will also benefit from the new rollouts, too, with coverage stretching to Durham, NC, Manatee, FL and more. Go outside and celebrate by downloading something – ANYTHING! |
Posted: 15 Feb 2012 12:40 PM PST   It wasn’t long ago that we told you guys EA would be bringing The Sims FreePlay to Android and it’s finally here, just as promised. As the name implies, the game is free to download and play. You can create up to 16 Sims, design their homes, give them pets, take care of them and more. One of my favorite pastimes on mobile? Definite win. It’s a 13MB download initially but you’ll need to set aside an additional 640MB so be sure to free up some space. [Android Market] |
Posted: 15 Feb 2012 12:30 PM PST  Reputable research firm Gartner today released figures for mobile operating system sales on a global scale in the fourth quarter of 2011. They found that Google suffered a slight decline in market share while Apple gained 8% thanks to the launch of the iPhone 4S. Even with the decline, Google still owned 50.9% of the share for that period, an increase from 30.5% in the same quarter a year ago. Symbian is quickly losing ground as Nokia has abandoned the dated operating system for Windows Phone 7. Once a worldwide powerhouse, Symbian was only accountable for 11.7% of the sales. RIM came next at 8.8% and Microsoft actually did worse than Samsung’s bada with 1.9% compared to 2.1%.  Gartner credits Samsung as being the driving force for Android’s continued dominance thanks to devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S II and all its variants. Samsung sold 92.68 million devices that quarter, accounting for around19% Apple only had 7.4% of the share on 35 million units sold. LG continues to struggle in the smartphone world as they declined to 3.6% of the share, even being beat by up-and-comer ZTE. Gartner was also nice enough to count up the yearly numbers for us in the chart at the source link. Android inches ever close to being the leader in overall smartphone market share (installed user-base instead of quarterly and yearly sales) and we’re glad to see that its momentum has sustained even up against Apple’s late surge in 2011. Read the full press release at the source link for the full slate of figures. [Gartner] |
Posted: 15 Feb 2012 11:59 AM PST  With the advent of Android 3.2 and 4.0, we’d expect tablet manufacturers to want to use them for tablets. It’s 2012 – there’s absolutely no reason to be using Gingerbread anymore. No one seems to have gotten the memo at ZTE, though, as they’re set to launch the ZTE Light Tab 2 with a single-core processor and Android 2.3.  You’d be paying 235 pounds for an outdated tablet, pretty much, and I’ve seen much better tablets available for that same price point. Sure, some people might not necessarily need Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich, nor might they need super fast processors, but I urge those people to look around and see that you can get all of that and more for the same price that ZTE is offering for this gimped experience. Sorry, ZTE, but this just won’t cut it if you’re serious about becoming a premier OEM. If, for whatever reason, you do happen to be interested in this, check for it in UK stores next month. [AndroidGuys] |
Posted: 15 Feb 2012 11:45 AM PST   The folks at Verizon are dropping the price of the DROID Bionic to $99. It is still a pretty good phone with a TI OMAP4 dual-core processor and a 4.3 inch qHD display, and Verizon and Motorola continue to support the device with software updates. Unfortunately, with this price drop comes a sacrifice – that nice 16GB microSD card that comes with the phone. Don’t fret, however, as the device still has 16GB of storage inside, though you probably won’t see every bit of space available thanks to both Android and Webtop software. With the extra money saved you can just go and buy yourself a microSD card if you need that much more space, and I’m sure some of you have cards from your old phones. Find the device here at the source link ahead if you’re interested. [Verizon via Electronista] |
Posted: 15 Feb 2012 10:57 AM PST  Who says heartless, brainless robots can’t have fun? The Bugdroid, Android’s revered mascot, was caught on slippery slopes with a pair of skis. Little did the fella know he was being recorded. I’m a bit jealous. OK, extremely jealous. [via Android Central] |
Posted: 15 Feb 2012 10:51 AM PST  If you wanted to get an early look at Android 4.0 ICe Cream Sandwich for your HTC Sensation and Sensation XE, you’re in luck. HTC is starting an official early access program that will allow a limited amount of users to check out HTC Sense 4 and Android 4 before the masses.  While these builds won’t be considered final builds until HTC finishes development and testing (they might use the early access build if they’re good enough or will use an updated build if they’ve made any changes), they should be as close to the experience as you’ll get outside of the development community. "HTC is doing something new and pretty cool in the coming days: we’ll be releasing an "early access preview" of our ICS upgrade for the Sensation and Sensation XE. This will be limited in scope (just a few hundred users and only in Europe) because we’re still scaling up back-end resources for general availability worldwide, and our hope is people will play with it and enjoy getting used to the ICS experience with Sense. We’ll be doing similar previews for other devices in the future, too."Some 200 users in Europe will be the only ones in on the fun for now, but hopefully HTC will increase the amount of users for the next early access previews they unleash. Yes, HTC will be doing this with most of their phones slated to get Android 4.0. If you needed a reminder of which devices are confirmed to be getting the update, forward your attention to this post. We hope to get more information on the first rollouts for the HTC Sensation and Sensation XE soon. [via Android Community] |
Posted: 15 Feb 2012 09:30 AM PST   Verizon has one of the more minor network upgrades we have seen recently scheduled to go live tomorrow, February 16th. The focus is on expanding coverage in current markets, but Big Red will still find time to activate one new market. The folks of Cookeville, TN will be the sole beneficiaries of new LTE coverage while even more folks in Little Rock, AR; Rapid City, SD; Clarksville, TN; and San Antonia, TX will be privy to network expansions in those areas. If VZW missed you this time, expect network rollouts to pick up some steam later in the year. VERIZON EXPANDS ITS 4G LTE NETWORK IN FOUR MARKETS AND BRINGS SERVICE TO ONE NEW MARKET ON FEB. 16 |
Posted: 15 Feb 2012 08:29 AM PST   The HTC Endeavor has gone by quite a few names since it was first rumored as the quad-core Edge. We can add one more potential name to the list. Though it was suggested that the phone would launch as the HTC Supreme, PocektNow is reporting that the device could actually see retail branding under the name HTC One X (the ‘X’ being written as a superscript to the One). A Danish URL corresponding with the name has already been registered by an HTC subcontractor. Given multiple potential markets for the new device said to feature a 4.7-inch display, Tegra 3 processor, and 8MP camera, there is a chance we could still see it hit certain carriers as the Supreme. The Ice Cream Sandwich handset is expected to be showcased at Mobile World Congress at the end of the month. [via PocketNow] |
Posted: 15 Feb 2012 07:53 AM PST   Motorola has updated their Android Software Upgrade timeline with some new information regarding Android 4.0 for several devices. Ice Cream Sandwich will begin rolling out to the the Motorola XOOM Family Edition and a selection of international handsets including the Motorola RAZR in Q2. In Q3, the Motorola Atrix 4G, Atrix 2, and Photon 4G are scheduled to see the update as well as the XOOM 2, XOOM 2 Family Edition, and both WiFi XYBOARD models. Devices confirmed for the update but without a set date include the Motorola Droid 4, Droid Bionic, Droid RAZR, Droid RAZR MAXX, and Verizon’s XYBOARD tablets. The Motorola Electrify also makes the cut. Motorola looks to have a full slate when it comes to updates, but the good news is that the majority of their high-end phones and tablets will see Ice Cream Sandwich at some point in the coming months. You can check out the full roadmap over at their site to see the exact breakdown of model, region, and expected delivery date. [via Motorola] |
Friday, February 17, 2012
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