Posted: 22 Mar 2012 03:36 PM PDT  Last week we shared that Amazon was celebrating the one-year anniversary of their Amazon Appstore for Android with their Birthday Savings Week  , that included their most popular apps and games. Today is the last day of the promotion, so take advantage of these great deals while you still can.The complete list of apps on sale includes:
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Posted: 22 Mar 2012 03:06 PM PDT  AT&T is the least popular wireless carrier in the US among Android fans, so it was a little bit of a surprise to see them issue an upgrade to Android 4.0 for the HTC Vivid earlier today. AT&T took the opportunity to too their own horn by saying, “HTC Vivid will be the first U.S. smartphone to receive Ice Cream Sandwich as an update and the first to be issued by a wireless carrier.” Some of you might point out that the Samsung Nexus S on T-Mobile started to receive Android 4.0 last year, but that update came from Google and it was halted after some issues were discovered. Still, it’s pretty ironic that the AT&T HTC Vivid with Sense UI is being upgraded to Android 4.0 before the vast majority of Nexus S devices. Who saw that coming? Android 4.0 will also be coming to 10 other devices in the coming months. The list includes:
If you are on AT&T, did your Android device make the cut? |
Posted: 22 Mar 2012 02:36 PM PDT  We all expected the Samsung Galaxy Note to receive Android 4.0 in Q1, but unfortunately the software upgrade has been pushed back to sometime in Q2. Thankfully this major upgraded dubbed “Premium Suite” will include a lot more than just Ice Cream Sandwich. Today Samsung shared a video that detailed all the new things coming to the Galaxy Note. The Premium Suite upgrade offers exclusive S Pen applications, enhanced multimedia features, and an Android 4.0 upgrade as expected. It will also unlock 30 Danger Zone levels in the new Angry Birds Space game. “With the Premium Suite upgrade, we wanted to add features that enrich users’ Note experience even more, including the great advantages of Android 4.0 and innovative applications for S Pen,” said JK Shin, President of Samsung Mobile. “We are committed to providing extraordinary experiences for consumers, and we will continue to provide new features and upgrades to enrich our offering.” As most of these things go, the exact availability and scheduling of the Premium Suite upgrade will vary by country and wireless carrier. Check out the preview video below for an idea of what to expect when it finally arrives. |
Posted: 22 Mar 2012 02:13 PM PDT  Visual voicemail is one of the top reasons I use Google Voice on my Android phone. Today Google announced that this cool feature has now been integrated directly into the call log of the native dialer. It’s nothing too groundbreaking, but it will save Google Voice users from having to jump back and forth between the call log and Google Voice app. Unfortunately, the new integrated visual voicemail is only supported on Android 4.0+, which means only about 2% of current devices can access it. New developer APIs available in Android 4.0 allow third-party applications to integrate with the Phone app to add their own voice messages, transcriptions, and more to the visual voicemail inbox. Carriers have begun to update more devices to Android 4.0 every week, so you could see it soon. I’ve been using it to manage my voicemail for a couple years, but there is an odd bug on the Verizon Galaxy Nexus that keeps sending my voicemails to the carrier inbox when I ignore a call. Hopefully this recent update addresses that issue. Just out of curiosity, how many of you use Google Voice on a regular basis? |
Posted: 22 Mar 2012 01:07 PM PDT  Android 4.0 for the HTC Vivid is finally here. We’ve already seen what the Android 4.0 update for the phone looks like with last week’s dialer trick, but now AT&T has announced that Vivid uses can officially download the Android 4.0 update with HTC Sense 3.6. To initiate the download, press Menu > Settings > AT&T Software Updates > Check for updates and follow the instructions to download and install the new build. For now, the HTC Vivid’s Android 4.0 can only be donwloaded over Wi-Fi. As with the other Android 4.0 updates that HTC has been rolling out, users should expect quite a few new features in Ice Cream Sandwich with improvements to to multi-tasking, face unlock, new browser capabilities, and access to Google’s Chrome browser. Below are some of the other new features or improvement which AT&T and HTC have included in the update.
If you had to rate HTC with a score between 1 and 10, how would you rate their Android 4.0 update track record so far? |
Posted: 22 Mar 2012 01:04 PM PDT  It’s not everyday you get awesome press emails detailing apps like Kick Kony’s Ass, there must be something special in the air this afternoon. Advertised as, “an attempt to provide some relief for those distraught and frustrated from seeing and hearing about the crimes against humanity as shown in the KONY 2012 video,” Kick Kony’s Ass is exactly what one might think. The app provides you with a virtual Kony of your own, created purely for your beating pleasure. Hyper-realistic sound effects and an immersive African inspired soundtrack will whisk you away from your boring life, and suit you up as the sole defender of all that is good in the world. Knock off Kony’s hat, break out his teeth, blast him ’till his eyes are swollen shut (“essentially giving him a taste of his own medicine”), and you make the front page of the New York Times with the headline, “KONY CAPTURED.” Sounds pretty sweet, right? Trust me, playing it is even better than it sounds. Despite what the press release for Kick Kony’s Ass says, I can’t find the app in any reputable app stores. It’s supposed to be in the App Hysteria store, GetJar, Handango and the Google Play Store, but I could only get the app by installing a mystery .apk file found in the YouTube description of a demo video for the app. Until it actually shows up somewhere safe, install at your own risk. If you don’t feel like installing Kick Kony’s Ass, hopefully the video below will sate your bloodlust. Have a fantastically terrible Android CrApp you’d like to see covered? Let us know in the comments below. |
Posted: 22 Mar 2012 12:42 PM PDT  Sony hired Wes Anderson, director of the Fantasic Mr. Fox, to direct their TV spots for the new Xperia lineup. Steve Walker, the CMO for Sony Mobile, says this video is the first “episode” of a new campaign that includes a big spend across digital and traditional media platforms. We really like the 12 MP Exmor-R camera and Reality HD display on the new Sony Xperia S, but it still ships with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and uses the older Snapdragon S3 processor. Quite simply, we think there are several better options already available and many more to come. This new TV spot is pretty creative, but does it really make you want to go out and buy a Sony smartphone? |
Posted: 22 Mar 2012 12:10 PM PDT  To say over the past few weeks that Angie and I have been playing a lot of Draw Something would be an understatement. We’ve played damn near every other letter tile game so the addition of drawing, especially reanimated drawing, has more than captured our fancy. We play it when we’re laying in bed. We play it when we’re waiting in line. I can’t speak of the lady of the house, but I even play it in the bathroom. All this drawing of things naturally led us down the path of trying to figure out the best input method for our new obsession. We started playing, like most of you, with our trusty fingers. But the artist inside, specifically the anal retentive perfectionist part, quickly demanded a more precise instrument for crafting these magical doodles. So we got our hands on an Adonit Jot Pro Stylus, available on Amazon for about $30  . To really ramp things up, we also tracked down a Samsung Galaxy Note, which of course features the ever-curious S Pen. We’ll talk a bit more about each instrument in just a bit, for now, let’s get to the video!The ShootoutTo test all three inputs, we first had Angie play for a couple days alternating between each. When she was confident she had a feel for them, we shot identical video of her drawing a pirate three times, again, once with each input. Here are the findings:Our overall winner was the S Pen, as it felt most accurate in hand and seemed to produce the most crisp and detailed drawings. We aren’t totally surprised by this fact, as the Galaxy Note is specifically designed to take advantage of such a fancy input. Draw Something, on the other hand, does not specifically support the S Pen, resulting in an extremely-minor-yet totally-annoying shift from the tip of the S Pen to the actual drawing point. Even with this little shift, the S Pen still felt the most accurate and easy to use. Hopefully OMGPOP Zynga will cook up a fix sometime in the near future.  The Adonit Jot Pro. , which performed surprisingly well, not just on the Note but on all the other devices we tested it on (like the Galaxy Nexus and the Transformer Prime).The Jot Pro features a rather pointy metal tip, which is awesome, but it comes cradled in a weird, little, hangy plastic sheath. The plastic disc is clear, so at least you can see through it for accuracy, but sometimes it feels like it gets in the way of a clean tap. Numerous times while playing Draw Something, especially between rounds or when picking colors, taps would fail to register. Bringing up the rear of the pack was the ol’ not-so-trusty finger, producing the sloppiest (but sometimes most awesome) drawings. If I had to guess, I’d imagine that 99.5% of you are playing with just your finger, so it can’t really be that bad. We’re just picky artist-types who prefer accuracy when we can get it, and we found it in both styli tested. Side by side by side comparisonIn addition to the above video and notes, we wanted to provide a simple point of comparison, so we had Angie attempt to draw the same pirate three times. All three inputs took close to the same amount of time to use, with the S Pen actually taking the longest (probably simply because it lends itself to more detailed work). While the outcome was close, the three drawing show some pretty clear differences, which you can see below:We think the S Pen provided the best finished drawing, producing the sharpest detail and smoothest strokes. The Adonit Pro performed admirably, only losing a bit of stability, while the finger was a clear last. All three drawings look totally fine and would easily be guessable as a pirate, but it feels like the S Pen drawing is the most high-res. How do you draw?We know there’s a huge chance we’re overthinking this, but we wanted to hear what you guys think. Is anyone out there playing with a stylus or pen input? If you are still using your finger, would you like to try it? Answer the poll below then sound off in the comments.Take Our Poll PS: Would you guys be interested playing against Android and Me on Draw Something? We’ve been toying with the idea of making a staff account and collectively battling you guys. |
Posted: 22 Mar 2012 11:04 AM PDT  We post several hundred Android related stories every month, but the reality is that only a few of them generate the majority of the buzz. It is easy to pick out the trends each week to see what things people are searching for and which stories are getting the most engagement, so I figured we would start recapping the hottest topics every Thursday. This week we focus on the three most popular upcoming phones. Motorola Droid Fighter This week the Droid Fighter saw a jump in search traffic when the first image of the device leaked out. We already knew it was coming to Verizon around April 12, but now we can confirm it will be made by Motorola. Rumored specs of the device include a 4.6 inch HD display and a 3300 mAh battery. Some found it odd that Verizon would release another Motorola Droid phone so soon after the Droid RAZR MAXX, but we don’t know when it will actually show up in stores. The April date could be some internal testing or training, and we might not see it until May. Hopefully Motorola will take the opportunity to use the new dual-core 1.8 GHz OMAP4470 that features the faster PowerVR SGX544 GPU. NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 are getting all the hype recently, but this latest OMAP chip should be competitive across the board and could have the fastest graphics performance. Motorola and Intel also announced a multi-year, multi-device partnership, so there’s a long shot that the Droid Fighter could feature an Intel Atom processor. We already saw a leak of a concept device, but no further details have been provided since. HTC One X release dates This week we learned that Sprint and HTC are holding a special press event in NYC on April 4th. They didn’t say which device they would announce, but everyone thinks it will be their version of the One X, codenamde HTC Jet. Sprint’s rumored target launch date is still June. AT&T already confirmed they would carry the HTC One X, but they have released no information on pricing or release date. We might have to wait until CTIA in May for more information. T-Mobile is also still rumored to get the HTC One X as the T-Mobile G4X, but we don’t know when they will announce it. The last we heard, the device was 75% done with internal testing. Looking overseas, it appears the HTC One X is scheduled to launch in early April in several countries. Our friend Todd Haselton of TechnoBuffalo posted a leaked document which shows O2 will launch the device on April 5th. HTC France is also hosting a party on April 5th, so we should learn more specifics about the launch in the coming weeks. Check out our tag HTC One X for all other coverage. Samsung Galaxy S III Another day. Another leak. This time Daniel P. of PhoneArena posted a leaked picture of the Samsung GT-I9300. Rumors have suggested that the GT-I9300 might become the Galaxy S III, but we don’t know for sure. We have also seen the model numbers GT-I9500 and GT-I9800 appear online, which could end up as the Galaxy S III. The latest leak this week once again suggested that Samsung could announce the successor to the Galaxy S II sometime in April. This information comes from a Samsung executive in China, and we know how these details always get lost in translation. We still think that late Q2, like June, is a more likely timetable for the official availability. See our Samsung Galaxy S III tag for the latest stories on this device. |
Posted: 22 Mar 2012 08:29 AM PDT  Through a filing with the California Federal Court, Apple claims that Samsung is knowingly infringing on Apple’s patents since they met with Samsung back in 2010 to discuss the matter. The documents show that Apple met with Samsung on four separate occasions and was shown a presentation named “Samsung’s Use of Apple Patents in Smartphones” which detailed Samsung’s infringements of patents ’002 and ’381 along with several others. On or about August 4, 2010, Apple representatives met with Samsung in Korea and showed a presentation titled 'Samsung's Use of Apple Patents in Smartphones.' This presentation emphasized Samsung's copying of the iPhone and identified two of the patents-in-suit (the '002 and '381 patents), giving Samsung actual notice of at least these patents, and many more.Apple is hoping that this new information will persuade the courts to rule in Apple’s favor in their attacks against Samsung, but we have a feeling that it won’t be that simple. Since Samsung didn’t negotiate a deal with Apple and produced new phones based on the same technology, we assume Samsung was not convinced that their devices actually infringed on Apple’s patents. The good news is that back in 2010 Apple was willing to negotiate with Samsung about possible patent infringements. This suggests that there is still hope that some of the patent battles between Apple and other Android OEMs may be settled out of court without the need for the courts to issue import bans on the devices we love. Does this new information change your opinion about Apple and its approach to protecting its intellectual property? |
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Update - 277
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