Android Phone Fans |
- New Twitter App On The Block: Slices from the developers of TweetCaster
- Chameleon Launcher Beta Now Available In The Play Store For Pre-Orders
- American Express Wants You To Know They Aren’t Formally Endorsing Google Wallet
- AT&T HTC One X OTA now headed out to users, brings new option for old menu button
- CyanogenMod formally confirms ceased support for Snapdragon S1 devices past Gingerbread
- IDC: Samsung, Amazon struggle to gain ground in tablet space as Apple continues domination
- Gameloft to reveal impressive Unreal Engine game, wants you to decide which clues to unlock
- Over 54,000 years’ worth of time spent playing Temple Run with over 100 million downloads [INFOGRAPHIC]
- Dark Legends update adds two-handed flame blade, new vanities
- Motorola DROID RAZR HD pics leaked
- Making custom bling for your phone is easier than you think [VIDEO]
- Apple thinks court should rule in its favor as punishment for Samsung’s leaked evidence
- IFA Samsung Unpacked invitation hints at possible Galaxy Note 2 unveiling
- Huawei Ascend Q now available from Cricket, priced contract-free at $120
- AT&T acquires NextWave Wireless for $25 million, will use WCS spectrum to grow LTE network
| New Twitter App On The Block: Slices from the developers of TweetCaster Posted: 02 Aug 2012 06:41 PM PDT
Your Twitter life is about to get a makeover: introducing Slices from the developers of TweetCaster.
Without Twitter, I’d be aimlessly floating around the world wide web, scoffing at Facebook friends, and keeping up date with current events via BuzzFeed. So, to say I take Twitter seriously — would be an understatement. I love Twitter. I love my friends on Twitter. I currently follow around 600 of the baddest mofo’s the net has to offer and maybe that has been my greatest downfall. Sometimes, it’s tough to keep up with both my friends, gaming sites, Android peeps with all their tweets getting combined in one, big jumbled mess. Don’t even get me started on the girls I follow clogging up my stream with random quotes and subtweets.
Thankfully, OneLouder is here to make Twitter more accessible for newbies, while providing more advanced functions for powerusers. That’s the point of Slices, their all new Twitter app that helps users explore their Twitter universe, finding new people to follow, staying up to date with your favorite users by bookmarking them, and following live events. I’m a sucker for a good UI and OneLouder hit it out of the ballpark with Slices. They managed to follow Google’s Holo design philosophy while still adding their own flare. Gorgeous doesn’t even begin to describe it. Soon, OneLouder will have available their own Slices site (Slices.me) that will sync the tweets you’ve read and allow you to access your slices online. If you want to give Slices a-go, it’s currently free to download from the Google Play Store. Let me know what you think.
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| Chameleon Launcher Beta Now Available In The Play Store For Pre-Orders Posted: 02 Aug 2012 05:42 PM PDT
Was excited to see the Chameleon launcher make an appearance in the Google Play Store today. While the launcher is still in beta and only available for Kickstarter pledges (that’s where the launcher got its start), it’s already looking pretty nice. I know, “Do we really need another launcher replacement?” the answer to that is a resounding YES.
Android is about options, folks. Don’t forget that there’s already a handful of launchers currently available in the Play Store and competition breeds innovation (don’t tell Apple that). While I’m not so certain Chameleon launcher is the right homescreen replacement for me, it does handle some things very well. For instance, setting up homescreens that are tailored to you location. When at home, a specific homescreen can launch showing big, bright, resizable widgets from all your social networks. At the office? Widgets for stocks, emails and businessy stuff can be automagically displayed. A novel idea, indeed — but we’ll have to see how useful it really is after playing around with it for a few weeks. For the Kickstarter backers that have received their email from Chameleon (they’re rolling out slowly), jump into the Play Store and get to downloading. Make sure to let us know what you think. Take heed before setting Chameleon as your default launcher. If you haven’t received the email — or even if you have — if for some reason the launcher crashes on your tablet, depending on your device, you’ll need to jump into your Settings > Apps > Chameleon > Clear Defaults. The more you know… [Thanks, Eric]
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| American Express Wants You To Know They Aren’t Formally Endorsing Google Wallet Posted: 02 Aug 2012 04:56 PM PDT
Google is coming under some fire today, after the company went ahead with a huge (and necessary) update to their Google Wallet service. Yesterday, Google Wallet was updated with the ability for users to add any credit card of their choosing to the digital wallet service and that didn’t sit too well with American Express. According to AmEx, they had been in talks with Google about a partnership, but never formally agreed to anything. That prompted American Expresses social media VP Bradley Minor to release this statement to TechCrunch:
The reason for this being when an American Express customer uses Google Wallet to pay for a purchase instead of their card, detailed information about the transaction isn’t given to merchants. Instead, a “virtual Mastercard card number” will be issued in its place. On the user’s credit card statement, the transaction apparently wont show the specific merchant the purchase was made at, and that’s what’s keeping AmEx from going all-in with Google Wallet. Well, that and the fact that they’ve already teamed up for rival mobile payment service ISIS. It’s these reasons AmEx could pull the plug on Google Wallet altogether, removing themselves from the service entirely.
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| AT&T HTC One X OTA now headed out to users, brings new option for old menu button Posted: 02 Aug 2012 03:21 PM PDT
It appears an upgrade is headed out to AT&T’s version of the HTC One X. The update no doubt includes the usual bug fixes, security updates, and general enhancements, but one change many of you will like is a new option for accessing the legacy menu button for apps which do not yet implement the action bar’s menu button. The option would allow users to long-press the multi-tasking button to access those legacy menus instead of having a grotesque black bar taking up prime real estate. Check under your settings menu for the upgrade. Some aren’t seeing it just yet but we’ve seen enough reports to suggest this thing is real. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
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| CyanogenMod formally confirms ceased support for Snapdragon S1 devices past Gingerbread Posted: 02 Aug 2012 02:35 PM PDT All good things must come to an end, right? As the years move on we have to come to terms with the fact that older Android devices just aren’t a priority for developers anymore. The most illustrious team of developers, the CyanogenMod team, as unfortunately put the nail in the coffin for a certain group of devices. Phones with Qualcomm’s S1 (full list of phones and SoCs are below) processor will no longer receive support past Gingerbread, or CyanogenMod 7.2. While many developers have shown that Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean can run, and run smoothly, on these older devices, the CyanogenMod team says it’s more than performance.
These modern versions of Android introduced framework changes that aren’t completely compatible with the hardware these devices have, and while they say it’s possible to hack and slash their way onto the devices it probably isn’t worth the trouble. Not only do these methods require a lot of time and effort, it could also be detrimental to compatibility issues with apps in the Google Play Store. Long story short, the team wants to deliver the most stable and reliable experience possible, and to do that with these devices would be nearly impossible. After all, they do have the biggest device list of any team of developers in the after-market Android space. So farewell to devices like the Nexus One, the EVO 4G, the HTC Hero, and more. Well, not really: chances are unofficial ports and builds of CM10 will make their way to these devices, but don’t expect any official support from the CyanogenMod team. As for the list of devices and SoCs that are being dropped, be sure to look below. [via Google+]
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| IDC: Samsung, Amazon struggle to gain ground in tablet space as Apple continues domination Posted: 02 Aug 2012 01:37 PM PDT No one said this tablet war would be easy. The International Data Corporation released its numbers on tablet market share for the second quarter of 2012. Apple has maintained their lead after shipping 17 million iPad tablets in this quarter. Meanwhile, Samsung takes a modest jump from 7.3% to 9.6% with 2.4 million tablets. Amazon, the newest player to the game, shipped 1.25 million Kindle Fire units to get 5% of the share.
Their tablet has been the best selling item on Amazon since its launch, but as these numbers show that doesn’t amount to much in the overall scope of the ecosystem. From there, ASUS shipped 855K for 3.4%, Acer shipped 385K for 1.5%, and the rest of the vendors all combined to ship just over 3 million shares for 12.3%. It’s great to see competition enjoy growth from the same quarter a year ago, but when you look at Apple’s dominance continuing to strengthen you can’t help but wonder whether or not any of these vendors have what it takes to take Apple down a peg or two. Take a look at the full numbers in the chart above. [IDC]
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| Gameloft to reveal impressive Unreal Engine game, wants you to decide which clues to unlock Posted: 02 Aug 2012 01:25 PM PDT Gameloft is teasing a new game of theirs headed to Android and they’ve left it up to you to figure out what, exactly, it’ll be. The game uses Unreal Engine, the same powerful and flexible engine used to drive several console ad handheld games. According to what we’ve seen so far, vague screenshots which show a figure holding a bloody blade over an armored skeletal figure, this’ll be quite the doozie to take in.
But Gameloft won’t be deciding what bits of media and information to release just yet: they want you to vote for it on Facebook. You can either unlock artwork or a teaser trailer, and the needle unsurprisingly favors the latter. We’d love to see whatever they’re planning to bring out in motion so we went ahead and voted for the trailer, as well. Oh yea, and don’t forget to take a nice, long look at the image above — there’s a hint embedded somewhere there, as well. Any ideas as to what we might be in store for? [Facebook]
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| Posted: 02 Aug 2012 12:31 PM PDT Temple Run was an instant hit when it launched on iOS, and it spent a long period of exclusivity there before being brought over to greener pastures. Imangi, the developer, has created an infographic to celebrate just how far the game has come. The most telling stat is that the game has been downloaded over 100 million times. That’s a lot of downloads to accrue over the course of just a year (it originally launched August 4th, 2011). Of the 100 million downloads, 68 million were credited to iOS, while Android accounted for 32 million downloads (the Google Play Store and the Amazon Appstore had 30 million and 2 million, respectively).
To put things into perspective, 13% of the United States population has downloaded the app (that’s not taking into account the possibility of multiple downloads, of course). More interesting facts were revealed from the infographic, as well. The most interesting is that the amount of time that has been spent playing this game would add up to be over 54,000 years of non-stop playing. That’s due to 10 billion different sessions being played since its launch. Temple Run has been a huge hit and we look forward to more spin-offs and sequels as time moves on. If you want to see what all the fuss is about be sure to head to the Google Play Store and find out — the game is free, after all.
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| Dark Legends update adds two-handed flame blade, new vanities Posted: 02 Aug 2012 11:29 AM PDT Dark Legends will soon get an update that will add some nice new content. For starters, a new two-handed flame blade has been added to the feature item pack.
The powerful blade will inflict damage on your opponents with a chance of dealing more critical, fiery blows. They’ve also added three new vanities: the Green Bike, the Sea Captain’s Colonial, and the Orange Desire. All three were dropped into the world so you’ll have to do some exploring to find them all. Another vanity, the Blue Sea Colonial, has been added to Nightly Rewards. Finally, they’ve fixed a bug that caused the drain skull background to break when you die while the drain is active. These should be available as a hot patch right now so go get playing and see if you can find everything they’ve added! [via Spacetime]
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| Motorola DROID RAZR HD pics leaked Posted: 02 Aug 2012 11:03 AM PDT
Yesterday, we got some of our first looks at the Motorola RAZR HD. There wasn’t much to be seen except a nice looking display and a back plate reminiscent to an ugly Christmas sweater. We expected Verizon’s version, which should come to market as the Motorola DROID RAZR HD, to look nearly identical, and thanks to a new leak we can now confirm that. The only difference we can see is the absence of a couple of unsightly holes on the international version (and since that is just a test unit we imagine those won’t appear at retail). Verizon’s version is clearly donned with the 4G LTE logo Verizon tends to use on its smartphones. We’re still waiting on concrete details regarding the device’s specs but at least it looks presentable aesthetically. [DroidForums, thanks Scott!]
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| Making custom bling for your phone is easier than you think [VIDEO] Posted: 02 Aug 2012 09:16 AM PDT Manufacturers have done a pretty good job of providing customers plenty of options when it comes to the stylings of their phone. A few years back you might find the best phone of the day available in a single drab color scheme, but in more recent times we have been greeted with at least a white and black/grey option as well as more exotic retailer exclusive colors. Still, the desire to customize your phone to fit your personality runs deep in Android, all the way to the launcher and ROM you choose to install. Our friends over at WinSource are giving us one more option when it comes to blinging out your handset: custom decals. Check out the video above for the full tutorial.
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| Apple thinks court should rule in its favor as punishment for Samsung’s leaked evidence Posted: 02 Aug 2012 08:19 AM PDT
In some other universe Samsung and Apple are getting along just fine, but in this universe the proceedings in a California courtroom are getting nastier and nastier by the minute. Judge Lucy Koh wasn’t too pleased after Samsung leaked a selection of evidence banned from a trial examining whether or not the Korean mobile maker has infringed upon several Apple design and software patents. Now Apple wants the court to immediately rule in its favor as a means of reprimanding Samsung for repeated “litigation misconduct.” Apple’s counsel sees the leak as only the latest mishandling of evidence by Samsung, and one taken as a “calculated risk” as part of an attempt to sway jurors in their favor. Apple points out that “Samsung already has been sanctioned four times in this case for discovery abuses. Most recently, Samsung was sanctioned for destroying evidence,” concluding that “misconduct is apparently a part of Samsung’s litigation strategy.” It is Apple’s belief that past sanctions weren’t strong enough to deter Samsung from future misconduct, and a more swift and exact punishment in the form of a guilty ruling on all counts of alleged patent infringement might help to get the point across. [via AllThingsD]
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| IFA Samsung Unpacked invitation hints at possible Galaxy Note 2 unveiling Posted: 02 Aug 2012 07:48 AM PDT
Samsung has two events schedule for August, and rumors surrounding both claim they will be Note-worthy. See what I did there? With the Samsung Galaxy S3 in the rearview mirror, Samsung is shifting its focus to the successor to last year’s Galaxy Note. An invitation being sent around for the manufacturer’s IFA Unpacked event in Berlin seems to suggest it could be the subject of the day’s proceedings. Note the hardly subtle presence of a stylus. Rumor has it the Note 2 will feature a larger display than its predeccesor and a thinner form factor. The development calls into question rumors that the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 might make an appearance at an August 15th press event. That event might still host something Note related, however. It wouldn’t be too farfetched for Samsung to use the occasion to relaunch the Galaxy Note 10.1, a tablet first unveiled at Mobile World Congress in February but since updated with a quad-core processor and redesigned aesthetics. Our money is on Samsung saving the slightly bigger announcement of the Note 2 for the world stage in Berlin. [via SamMobile]
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| Huawei Ascend Q now available from Cricket, priced contract-free at $120 Posted: 02 Aug 2012 07:24 AM PDT
If contract-free is what you seek, Cricket has a new phone for you to consider. The Huawei Ascend Q is now available from the prepaid provider for the price of $119.99. As the pricing suggests, the phone ranks as an entry-level Android device laden with a 3.2-inch display, 800MHz processor, and 3.2MP camera. The Ascend Q does feature a QWERTY keyboard below its touchscreen panel, making it a great option for the messaging addicts out there. If that sounds like the sort of thing you could jive with, head over to Cricket’s site for more details. [Cricket]
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| AT&T acquires NextWave Wireless for $25 million, will use WCS spectrum to grow LTE network Posted: 02 Aug 2012 07:00 AM PDT
AT&T is looking to boost their range of 4G LTE coverage with the announcement that the carrier has acquired NextWave Wireless for $25 million. NextWave holds licenses for both the AWS spectrum typically associated with LTE coverage as well as the untapped WCS spectrum, giving AT&T access to greater network capacity. Before the carrier can deploy the new bands, the FCC will have to sign off on a joint proposal between AT&T and Sirius XM that would protect adjacent spectrum typically reserved for satellite radio while freeing up WCS for mobile data transmission. The deal is still pending regulatory approval, but if it goes through it should help to address some of the same network issues AT&T hoped to overcome through the failed merger with T-Mobile.
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