Android Central |
- Wind Mobile Nexus S getting its ICS update OTA
- Android Central weekly photo contest: Vices
- From the mail bag: Did HTC just out an edge-to-edge device?
- Naked Trailers offers thousands of movie trailers all in one app
- Leaving Instagram? Here's how to do it and save all your pictures
- Android emulator jump-started with GPU support
- Canabalt HD [Android Game Review]
- Facebook buys Instagram (insert groan here)
- HTC EVO 4G LTE Forum: The must-read threads
- ShopAndroid Daily Giveaway #46: Mobi Skin Case for Vibrant, Incipio Feather Case for Galaxy Note & more!
- HTC Watch movie rental prices slashed for Easter
- Nonexistent LG phone to compete against nonexistent Samsung phone
- 'Berry pink' Galaxy Note launches in Korea
- Start your week with the Greatest Android Podcast in the World!
- Monday Brief: Lumia 900 Launch, iMore App, HTC EVO 4G LTE Hands-On, and more!
- HTC not bundling Beats heaphones anymore
| Wind Mobile Nexus S getting its ICS update OTA Posted: 09 Apr 2012 04:40 PM PDT
Wind customers with a Samsung Nexus S should get ready for the big OTA to Ice Cream Sandwich, as it appears to be rolling out now. AC reader Vic Singh tweeted in to let us know that his Nexus S was updating, and we knew that you guys would want to know. You'll need to be stock, with the stock recovery to accept the update (unlocked boot loaders are OK), and make sure your battery is charged up -- it takes a lot of the precious juice. We still aren't seeing OTA updates en masse for the AT&T or Sprint versions, but they are in the wild, so keep a look out. When you get it, be sure to holler out so we can pass the good news along! Source: @vicjsingh 
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| Android Central weekly photo contest: Vices Posted: 09 Apr 2012 03:48 PM PDT
We all have bad habits. I drink entirely too much coffee, and every time I try to cut back (because I know how bad it is for me), I end up back at it again within a week. It's one of my personal vices, and I hate it. But it's also delicious and I love it. As my wife, and my doctor, say -- I'll quit one way or the other. Enough about my bad habits, this week we want to see yours. No need to be shy, let's see a visual representation of the things you do, that you wish you didn't. It's a great way to have fun, and there's a cool prize in it for a lucky winner -- a Motorola P970 portable charger. It's perfect for those phones with non-removable batteries, and so easy you may just end up using it instead of swapping batteries around. The rules have changed a little bit, so pay attention to this part.
Protip: The Android Central forums app is a super-easy way to upload pictures right from your device. Grab it and see for yourself. Good luck, and get to snapping! Enter the weekly photo contest
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| From the mail bag: Did HTC just out an edge-to-edge device? Posted: 09 Apr 2012 03:15 PM PDT
Thunder350 writes,
Boy, oh boy, that picture there on HTC's website is gorgeous. It's reminiscent of the old Windows Mobile HD2 (which as you should know was also hacked to run Android pretty well), or maybe even that way early Google phone concept. But, alas, it's not real. HTC (probably chuckling, we imagine), tells us:
Not yet it's not, anyway. :p 
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| Naked Trailers offers thousands of movie trailers all in one app Posted: 09 Apr 2012 03:10 PM PDT
Have you ever sat down and put on an older movie and wondered what the trailer for that movie looked like back in the day? I've done that quite often though, I typically never follow up on the question by looking it up as it means interrupting my movie watching. Naked Trailers has just been updated in the Google Play Store and it offers a collection of thousands of trailers to view. You get all the latest in theater, coming soon and on DVD options but more importantly it also includes trailers for movies which are currently playing on TV through the Reelz Channel If you're a movie buff looking for quick access to a broad collection of movie trailers, give it a look, it has movie trailers going back as far as the 1940's and the more popular titles have additional content added such as short clips from the cast, producers and more. It's available for free, download link is past the break. 
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| Leaving Instagram? Here's how to do it and save all your pictures Posted: 09 Apr 2012 02:01 PM PDT
Apparently, Instagram finally making its way to Android was a good business move. At least Facebook thinks so, and they bought out the photo-sharing company for a cool billion dollars. Congrats to all the folks working at Instagram, and I hope you enjoy your stocks and Zuckerbucks! But anytime big changes come along, some of us aren't going to be OK with them. Now that Instagram is soon to be under Facebook's control, many are expecting privacy woes and leaving the service for greener pastures. I'm not here to judge -- each of us should do what we feel is right -- I'm only here to help. If you're going to leave Instagram, might as well do it right, and take all your stuff with you. This is easy. Fire up your computer, and head to Instaport. It's a website whose sole purpose is to suck your pictures out of Instagram, and drop them into another account or save them to your computer hard drive. Follow the instructions, and you'll end up with all your Instagram pics bundled neatly wherever you want to keep them. Fair warning -- they are under some "heavy traffic" right now, so you may have to wait a bit. I got it to work on the third try, but your mileage may vary.
See you guys on Lightbox! 
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| Android emulator jump-started with GPU support Posted: 09 Apr 2012 12:52 PM PDT
Firing up the Android emulator historically has been a lot like going to the DMV, or maybe the pediatrician's office. You can do it, and you'll have something to show for it at the end of the day, but you'd better take the day off work. Point is, that sucker was slow. Notice we're writing in the past tense here, though. Google's just unwrapped an update to the emulator that does a couple things. First and foremost is that GPU support has been added, which gives a much better experience as far as graphic and rendering are concerned. It's night and day. Second is that there's better hardware emulation, and you can now use a tethered device to provide input. Very cool. And finally there's better CPU performance, and operations are performed twice as fast. What's that mean to most of us? Not a whole hell of a lot. But it will mean happier developers. And that's certainly good for everyone. Source: Android Developers Blog 
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| Canabalt HD [Android Game Review] Posted: 09 Apr 2012 11:39 AM PDT There's just something about those simple, one-touch games that I find utterly addictive. Maybe it's the no-nonsense gameplay. Maybe it's the quick pace. Maybe it's the single objective you've got to focus your mind on, like a high intensity laser, but games like this just draw me in. Canabalt HD is no exception, and for good reason. With a kickin' soundtrack, easy-to-learn (but hard to master) gameplay, and visual effects that are simple yet endearing, this game is the whole package. The premise is pretty plain: the city is in ruins, everything is falling down, bombs are periodically raining from the sky, and you've got to high tail it out of there as quickly as you can if you want to survive. What's stopping you? Ill-timed jumps (to break through windows) and boxes that are haphazardly strewn about. (Seriously, who left all these boxes here?) So you tap the screen to jump, and that's about it. Unlike other games of this sort, running into something (like those darn boxes) doesn't automatically mean game over. It does mean you're slowed down a bit, and in a situation where every second counts, you'll want to avoid those boxes just like you would in any other game. The folks who brought this iOS hit over to Android (Kittehface Software), added some neat visual tweaks, like being able to change the background from the original 2D to their updated 3D, and while that doesn't really make or break the gameplay experience, it's still cool to have the option. If you find yourself becoming a Canabalt HD master, there's also online leaderboards that track who has run the farthest in a single session, so there's totally the chance to gain notoriety and fame by becoming the best Canabalt HD player in the world. (No, really.) Overall, Canabalt HD is awesome. It gets the adrenaline pumping, the finger twitching, and burns all sorts of free time (and probably time you're supposed to spend on other stuff), so check it out. Canabalt HD is $2.99 in the Google Play Store. We've got download links after the break. 
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| Facebook buys Instagram (insert groan here) Posted: 09 Apr 2012 10:22 AM PDT
There goes the neighborhood. Only a week after finally arriving on Android, Instagram has sold out -- to Facebook. The price, according to a press release: $1 billion in cash and Facebook stock. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, on his time line, says that it's more than just absorbing Instagram into the Collective. "We believe these are different experiences that complement each other," he wrote. "But in order to do this well, we need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram's strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook. "That's why we're committed to building and growing Instagram independently. Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people." For its part, Instagram says it's business as usual. "It’s important to be clear that Instagram is not going away," CEO Kevin Systrom said. "We’ll be working with Facebook to evolve Instagram and build the network. We’ll continue to add new features to the product and find new ways to create a better mobile photos experience." So we'll have to see exactly what happens. As far as Android's concerned, it's more about the service than the app. The app itself isn't all that great. The filters have been around in other apps for some time. (On the other hand, Facebook's Android app is notoriously bad, too.) And until Instagram gets its act together and works on more Android smartphones, it's going to remain a non-starter for many. 
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| HTC EVO 4G LTE Forum: The must-read threads Posted: 09 Apr 2012 10:03 AM PDT
The excitement continues to build over the HTC EVO 4G LTE. That's the good news. The bad news is we don't really know when Sprint's going to release. We've got at least a month or so to go -- pre-orders start on May 7 -- but the conversation's definitely heating up. And since we've actually gotten to fondle the E4GLTE, we're in there answering just as many questions as we possibly can. Here are but a few threads you've got to check out:
And that's just scratching the surface. 
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| Posted: 09 Apr 2012 09:24 AM PDT Welcome back for another week of giveaway's from ShopAndroid.com! Today we'll be featuring the Mobi Skin Case for Samsung Vibrant, Incipio Feather Ultralight Case for Galaxy Note, Seidio ACTIVE Case for Samsung Epic 4G, and the Seidio SURFACE Holster for HTC Vivid. To get your chance to win one of our featured accessories, just leave a comment below stating which item you'd like to have for your Android. We'll select one lucky winner by random and announce them next Monday. Mobi Products Skin Case for Samsung VibrantMade of highly durable material that feels great in your hand, the Mobi Skin Case features anti-slip properties that give your Samsung Vibrant more grip on all types of surfaces. There are cutouts for all the Vibrant's features and the screen is left completely accessible. The Mobi Skin Case helps absorb the shock from any accidental drops and is easy to install and remove. 
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| HTC Watch movie rental prices slashed for Easter Posted: 09 Apr 2012 08:50 AM PDT
If you picked up a shiny new HTC One X or One S this Easter weekend -- or you already own an earlier Sense device -- then you'll find a special offer waiting for you in the HTC Watch app. Until the end of Easter Monday, the rental price of many movies in HTC Watch has been cut down to almost nothing -- in the UK, the cost is just £0.05. The HTC Watch catalog has been growing slowly but steadily since the service launched on the Sensation last spring, and it's bundle on Sense 3.0+ smartphones, as well as tablets like the Flyer and Jetstream. A few highlights in this weekend's Easter Special offer include --
To view the full list, fire up HTC Watch and select the "Easter Weekend Special" option from the main menu. 
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| Nonexistent LG phone to compete against nonexistent Samsung phone Posted: 09 Apr 2012 07:48 AM PDT
Although Samsung hasn't yet announced a Galaxy S III, and we still have no reliable information on what the device will be like, it seems LG may already be preparing a direct competitor. Korean news site DDaily has the first reports on a device dubbed the "LG D1L", which is described as a "Galaxy S3 killer." Citing anonymous sources within LG, the site reports that the "D1L" will include a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 chip, a 4.7-inch 720p display and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. None of that's particularly surprising, but the fact that LG has an unannounced high-end handset is a little odd. As far as we know, the manufacturer's new flagship device is the Optimus 4X HD, a quad-core phone which we saw at MWC in February. In any case, it shouldn't surprise anyone to see that LG, Samsung's main Korean competitor, is preparing a rival handset. For what it's worth, the D1L is rumored to launch in May, around the same time as the rest of LG's 2012 line-up. Source: DDaily (Korean); via: The Verge 
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| 'Berry pink' Galaxy Note launches in Korea Posted: 09 Apr 2012 07:04 AM PDT
If the one thing standing in the way of your buying a Galaxy Note was the lack of a garish pink shell, then you'll be pleased to see that Samsung has addressed your concerns with today's launch of the Note in "berry pink" in South Korea. It's unclear whether Samsung plans to plans to bring this model to international markets, but for now it says it's targeting "the female consumer and the younger generation" with the new pink Note. Naturally, it includes a equally pink "S Pen" stylus and optional pink protective cover. The pink version will join the white and "carbon blue" versions which have been available since late October 2011. Perhaps a little more interesting to smartphone nerds outside of Korea is the appearance of ICS-based software in today's promotional images for the pink Note -- that's unmistakably the ICS, not Gingerbread search widget in the image above. Then again, we've known for some time that the Note is due an update to Android 4.0, so it's not too surprising to see the updated software shown off in a promotional shot. The "berry pink" Samsung Galaxy Note launches today in stores across South Korea. Source: Samsung Tomorrow (Korean) 
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| Start your week with the Greatest Android Podcast in the World! Posted: 09 Apr 2012 06:26 AM PDT
The Android Central Podcast is your weekly peek into the world of Android, where we break down the news that really matters, and explain what's just a bunch of hype. Plus, we answer your e-mails and voicemails. You don't want to miss it. Check out the Android Central Podcast. 
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| Monday Brief: Lumia 900 Launch, iMore App, HTC EVO 4G LTE Hands-On, and more! Posted: 09 Apr 2012 05:38 AM PDT | ||
| HTC not bundling Beats heaphones anymore Posted: 09 Apr 2012 05:21 AM PDT
In a move that shouldn't surprise anyone, HTC won't be bundling Beats headphones with it's devices anymore. Ever since HTC announced their partnership with Beats they've been talking up the benefits, namely better sound quality from your handset. Regardless of whether or not you agree that the sound quality was actually better, the fact that you got some pretty decent earbuds with your phone was a major plus. Everything you needed to have great sound was included in the box. Apparently HTC realized that people don't buy phones based on what buds are included in the box. Now that won't be the case, and it probably has more to do with Beats than with HTC. It may or may not be common knowledge, but Monster was the manufacturer of Beats headphones. We say was because the partnership has ended, which leaves Beats without a manufacturer. So even if HTC wants to continue to include the buds, they can't, because Beats can't supply them anymore. Source: CNET 
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