Android Phone Fans |
- Samsung Flying High With Record $5.9 Billion Profit – Expects Even Bigger Q2 With Galaxy S3 Sales
- ACLU’s “Police Tape” App for Android Lets You Discreetly Record and Backup Police Interactions
- “Find and Call” app may have been texting your friends spam
- CyanogenMod 10 will probably come to all CyanogenMod 9 devices
- South Korea getting souped up Galaxy S3 July 9th
- Galaxy Nexus to go back on sale next week, says Google
- Archos 97 tablet runs Ice Cream Sandwich for $250
- Verizon Samsung Galaxy S3 pre-orders arriving today
- Nexus Q made in America, but parts sourced from elsewhere
- New report puts updated Kindle Fire launch in August
- HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE now available from Verizon for $149
- UK judge rules Apple’s slide-to-unlock patent not valid in HTC case
- Motorola Atrix HD sign-up page appears, LTE handset headed to AT&T
- Samsung announces Galaxy Chat messaging phone for release this month
| Samsung Flying High With Record $5.9 Billion Profit – Expects Even Bigger Q2 With Galaxy S3 Sales Posted: 05 Jul 2012 06:55 PM PDT
Wouldn’t say this news really surprised anyone, but it looks like Samsung Electronics is reporting a record breaking quarterly earnings profit of $5.9 billion. This all despite a parts shortage that kept the South Korean company from keeping up with the insane demand for the Samsung Galaxy S3. Needless to say, it’s Samsung’s smartphone arm (and dare I say, Android) that has more than doubled the company’s profit growth, selling 380 smartphones every minute, accounting for 70% of their overall business. It’s Samsung’s chips and consumer electronics businesses that are suffering from weak demand, dropping the company’s shares 15% in the past 2 months. This quarter will be even bigger for Samsung once the newly launched Galaxy S3 gains some more traction here in the states. Samsung predicts to ship somewhere around 19 million units this quarter and plans to give their full Q2 results towards the end of the month. Samsung is sliding in right before the launch of the next iPhone that will no doubt put a dent in Galaxy sales despite being the same old tech Android users have been enjoying for over a year now (zing!). Just don’t forget who got you here, Samsung. You can continue to show your thanks by providing the Galaxy S3 with a speedy update to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. You’re welcome. [Reuters]
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| ACLU’s “Police Tape” App for Android Lets You Discreetly Record and Backup Police Interactions Posted: 05 Jul 2012 05:30 PM PDT
I don’t know about you, but whenever I get pulled over by the 5-0, the first thing I do is reach for my cell phone, and open up my voice recording app. That, or I have my passenger record everything on video using their cellphone. Call me paranoid, or just plain overly cautious — I like to keep my bases covered should I end up on the hood of a cop car with a tazer up my you-know-what. Imagine my surprise when I discovered a brand new app by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey called “Police Tape” that was just uploaded to the Play Store. Using the app, an Android user can easily — and most importantly, discreetly — record police interactions using either video or audio recording. Once an option has been selected, the app will seemingly close, but actually remain open in the background, recording the entire, hopefully, peaceful interaction. Should things head south and you find your phone confiscated by the police, you wont have to worry about a crooked cop deleting the evidence. The app can back up the video, uploading it to the ACLU’s servers where it can be further analyzed for civil liberty violations at the user’s discretion. What’s more is the app provides all kinds of useful legal information on your citizen’s rights when interacting with the police. I can’t tell you how many episodes of Cops I’ve seen where someone voluntarily agreed to a search of their car — without probable cause — only to then end up in the slammer. Now, I have much respect for our men in blue. Really, it’s a tough job, no denying that. But to say there aren’t a few overzealous cops with chips on their shoulders would be naive. Now you can protect yourself — with the power of Android.
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| “Find and Call” app may have been texting your friends spam Posted: 05 Jul 2012 03:15 PM PDT Another big case of malware has struck the Google Play Store. An app called Find and Call was found to have malicious code by virus protection firm Kaspersky Labs. According to them, the app would take your address book and send it to a server. From there, the server would spam those in your address book with ads via text messages.
You can see just how terrible something like this is. Thankfully there doesn’t seem to be a large amount of people affected by this, and Google has taken usual steps to make sure that no one can be affected from here on out. We’d love to believe this malware problem doesn’t exist, but we can’t. The only thing we can do is scrutinize our downloads more carefully. Read comments, search the developer on Google, do whatever you need to do to make sure the app you’re downloading is trusted by the community. Even some apps that may seem trustworthy can have dormant malicious code (intentional or otherwise), but since we lowly non-developer folk can’t easily read that code we have to trust our instincts. Be safe, folks! Head to the source link for a more technical breakdown of what’s going on. [Kaspersky via The Verge]
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| CyanogenMod 10 will probably come to all CyanogenMod 9 devices Posted: 05 Jul 2012 02:52 PM PDT With all of the talk of Jelly Bean coming out of Google I/O, many people are still wondering one thing: “what’s up with CM9?” That would be a very good question considering we don’t even have a stable build of the Android 4.0-based ROM yet and we look to be on the verge of a Jelly Bean 4.1 code dump. Fear not, says the blue-shaded team: pretty much any device that is receiving CM9 will be in line for CM10. The team is still working to bring CM9 out first, though. Once they have stable builds across the board they’ll be switching focuses to CM10. The jump from CM9 to CM10 might not be a lengthy one, either.
The reason CM9 took so long to be released is because the ROM had to be reworked from the ground up due to the huge change going from Gingerbread to Ice Cream Sandwich. Going from Ice Cream Sandwich to Jelly Bean should be a bit less tricky so it’s natural to expect a shorter time of completion. To recap, the Jelly Bean version of CyanogenMod will be modeled CM10, it shouldn’t take the team long to go from CyanogenMod 9 to CyanogenMod 10, but they won’t be doing that until CyanogenMod 9 is complete (which is quite close as we’re on release candidates these days). If you want more information on CyanogenMod going forward be sure to check out the team’s Google+ post at the source link ahead. [Google+]
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| South Korea getting souped up Galaxy S3 July 9th Posted: 05 Jul 2012 01:11 PM PDT
We’d known that Samsung would treat their home turf with a nice device for quite some time, and now it’s been confirmed: South Korea will be getting a very powerful version of the Samsung Galaxy S3. Come July 9th, those of you in that part of the world will be able to get a quad-core enabled smartphone that has 2GB of RAM. It also has 4G. All the models worldwide are comparable otherwise, but South Korea is the only market that will receive the best of the best across the boards. Be sure to stop into one of South Korea’s major carriers if this applies to you. [via Samsung Tomorrow. thanks Jack!]
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| Galaxy Nexus to go back on sale next week, says Google Posted: 05 Jul 2012 11:57 AM PDT If you’ve been under a rock or constantly intoxicated from 4th of July activities over the past week or so, you may have heard that Apple was awarded a ban on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus in the United States. The ban was due to infringement on Apple’s patent covering the ability to perform unified searches (meaning a one-stop search box to search both the web and apps on your phone). Google’s already working up a fix, it seems, as they have confirmed to ABC that the Galaxy Nexus will go back on sale next week.
Google will, in fact, be modifying Android 4.1 Jelly Bean to steer clear of infringing on Apple’s patents.This may mean that the traditional device search method will no longer be implemented, though Google may be working on a workaround rather than completely stripping the functionality out of the OS. We shouldn’t be alarmed if Google’s going with the former course of action as they may be doing it to gain time and implement a new way to do unified searches. Whatever the case may be, the Galaxy Nexus will go back on sale next week and we just hope Apple doesn’t have any more tricks up their sleeves from here on it.
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| Archos 97 tablet runs Ice Cream Sandwich for $250 Posted: 05 Jul 2012 11:18 AM PDT Archos has unveiled the first option in their new line of ELEMENT tablets. It’s an Archos 97, and as the name suggests it sports a 9.7 inch display. That’s not even the most interesting thing, though: you can get yourself a legit 10 inch Ice Cream Sandwich tablet for just $250.
Don’t get too happy just yet, however, as Archos tends to cut corners when it comes to their Android products. Their press release only mentions the device has a 1GHz processor. We’re not even sure if the processor is dual-core, and it would be a shame if it weren’t. 1GB of RAM is a little bit comforting, but it still doesn’t mean much if the processor is crap. Other goods are a front and back camera (no mention of their quality so we’ll assume it isn’t great), and 16GB of storage with expansion options. We’ll need to await more details to figure out what exactly we’re getting here, but there it is. Read on for full press details.
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| Verizon Samsung Galaxy S3 pre-orders arriving today Posted: 05 Jul 2012 08:34 AM PDT
Before the 4th of July holiday came word that Verizon subscribers awaiting their Samsung Galaxy S3 pre-order would receive shipment of the device as early as today, and sure enough reports are rolling in from our very own Android Forums of just that. Several users were greeted with a Galaxy S3 handset this morning, with both the Pebble Blue and Marble White color variants accounted for. Verizon officially announced that the device would be available for all starting July 10th, but those with pre-order will want to check their tracking info now to see when to expect a visit from the delivery man. [via AndroidForums]
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| Nexus Q made in America, but parts sourced from elsewhere Posted: 05 Jul 2012 07:32 AM PDT
A big part of the Nexus Q’s $299 price tag can be attributed to a few words stamped on the bottom of the minimalist media orb: “Designed and Manufactured in the USA.” But even though the assembly process takes place on US soil, just how much of the Q really originates from within our 50 states? iFixIt paid special attention to this question while tearing down Google’s latest gadget, and the answer makes the Nexus Q seem a little less American than is claimed. It would be more than a little unrealistic to expect Google to source all of their silicon and hardware from within the US, and doing so would likely add to the already premium price of the Nexus Q. As it stands, components come from all over Asia and Europe with some indeed originating in the USA. Still, iFixIt was impressed with the device’s assembly and engineering. Google managed to pack a lot of electronics into an oddball shape, and so in a way that retains a high degree of repairability. For added fun, the disassembled parts were arranged into their own Google doodle, which may just be the coolest thing about this latest teardown. [via iFixIt]
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| New report puts updated Kindle Fire launch in August Posted: 05 Jul 2012 06:45 AM PDT
With Google’s Nexus 7 already on sale and slated to start shipping later this month, the low-cost 7-inch tablet market just got a bit more competitive. Google’s tablet was designed in part as a response to Amazon’s Kindle Fire, and it has long been assumed we would see an updated version of the online retailer’s slate sometime this year. Initial rumors put its launch towards the end of this month, but a new report from China Times says we can now expect an updated Kindle Fire in early August. The report comes by way of component suppliers and manufacturers responsible for assembling the new device, and says Amazon has placed an order for 2 million units. Little is known about how Amazon plans to upgrade the Kindle Fire, but if the tablet is to remain competitive with Google’s new offering we can expect a higher resolution display and beefed up internal hardware, which could include a faster processor. It looks unlikely that Amazon will unveil 8.9-inch or 10-inch Kindle Fire devices at the same time, but at least one of the two larger sizes is expect to arrive at a future date. [via UnwiredView]
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| HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE now available from Verizon for $149 Posted: 05 Jul 2012 05:45 AM PDT
It came a bit later than expected, but today is the day for future owners of the HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE. The latest addition to the Incredible family is now available online and in stores from Verizon for $149.99 on a new, two-year contract (a $50 discount or rebate applies). As its name states clearly, this is the first Droid Incredible to sport LTE connectivity, and it also carries the speedy dual-core Snapdragon S4 chipset. The Droid Incredible 4G LTE gets all the trappings of an Android 4.0/HTC Sense 4 device, including Beats Audio and ImageSense. We’ll have a full review headed your way shortly. [via Verizon]
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| UK judge rules Apple’s slide-to-unlock patent not valid in HTC case Posted: 05 Jul 2012 05:35 AM PDT
One of the patents that forced a ban of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus in the United States has been deemed invalid in a UK courtroom, but don’t expect the overseas decision to make any difference when it comes to lifting said ban. In a separate legal tiff between Apple and HTC, Judge Christopher Floyd ruled that three of the four patents the Taiwanese manufacturer is accused of infringing upon are not even legally valid. In the case of the fourth, valid patent, it was found that HTC was not guilty of committing any intellectual property crimes. Among the three invalid patents was the infamous claim to the slide-to-unlock feature found on most Android smartphones, one of the US patents that Apple leveraged against Samsung in recent proceedings concerning the Galaxy Nexus. The decisions of the UK courtroom will have no bearing on the current state of affairs in the US, but may offer a bit of ammunition on the Google side of things for manufacturers faced with defending slide-to-unlock functionality in the future. [via Bloomberg]
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| Motorola Atrix HD sign-up page appears, LTE handset headed to AT&T Posted: 05 Jul 2012 05:15 AM PDT
AT&T hasn’t made any official statement on the matter, but Motorola has let the cat out of the bag on the next member of the carrier’s Atrix series of phones. A sign-up page has gone live on Moto’s site for the Atrix HD, a phone we have known up to this point by its codename, Dinara. The page gives us all the info we need on the device, detailing its 1.5GHz dual-core CPU, 4.5-inch 720p display, and 8MP camera. LTE support is confirmed and furthermore we learn that the phone will carry 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. As mentioned before, we haven’t heard anything from AT&T on the matter, but chances are we could be getting an official announcement soon. Motorola has yet to pull the Atrix HD from their site, which suggests posting its information was no accident at all.
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| Samsung announces Galaxy Chat messaging phone for release this month Posted: 05 Jul 2012 05:06 AM PDT
Remember the Samsung GT-B5330 that popped up earlier this week? Samsung has made the device official with the announcement of the Galaxy Chat. The Galaxy Chat, as you might expect for a phone focused on messaging, is on the lower tier of Android 4.0 devices and features a 3.0-inch QVGA display, 4GB of internal storage (plus microSD expandability), and a 2MP camera. On the plus side, the phone does feature many of the user interface improvements found in the recently released Galaxy S3. As the name implies, Samsung is pushing their ChatON service with the Galaxy Chat, and the phone comes preloaded with the messaging software. The Samsung Galaxy Chat will be available in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia later this month. Pricing was not announced but it is said to be “competitive.” Based on the specs, we don’t expect interested parties will have to throw down beaucoup bucks.
[via Samsung]
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