Thursday, May 3, 2012

Google Android News Android Forums

Google Android News Android Forums

Google Play Store Now Offers Carrier Billing For Books, Music, Movies and Apps

Posted: 02 May 2012 03:31 PM PDT

For those of you who enjoyed carrier billing when it came to apps on the Android Market, guess what?  Google is now offering direct carrier billing on the Play Store for everything else as well.  Now, you can consolidate your music, books, movies and apps onto one bill if your carrier is on the list above (sorry Verizon users).  We’re pretty thankful that Google is offering this as for some, it’s extremely convenient.  So, from here on out, when you purchase something, your device will now prompt you as to what method of payment you prefer.  If you’re not into consolidating and the whole convenience thing, just opt out.  What’s your preference?  Feel free to drop a comment or two below.

source: Google+

 

Samsung Reminds Us We’re Only One Day Away from the Next Galaxy

Posted: 02 May 2012 01:15 PM PDT

The end is nigh my friends. The Samsung Galaxy S III will finally be unveiled tomorrow during Samsung’s Mobile Unpacked Event in London and for those of you who want to see the unveiling for yourself, Samsung will be airing the event for your viewing pleasure. Not only are we going to see the highly anticipated GSIII (or the Next Galaxy phone, we still don’t know the official name), rumor has it Samsung could also be announcing a new Galaxy Tab and may even unleash their new cloud storage solution called S-cloud.

To see the event on your mobile device you are going to want to visit the ‘The Next Galaxy’ website, and from a desktop you can either go there or the Samsung Mobile Facebook page. If you are unable to watch as it happens live, have no fear because our own Chris Stewart will be there to relay all the gritty details. We will even have a hands on demo shortly after the event wraps up! So even if you do watch the video you will want to be sure to tune in shortly after the event to see this bad boy in action. We are so close now.

The show will begin at 7PM sharp UK time (2PM EST) at either of the source links below.

TheNextGalaxy.com

Samsung Mobile Facebook

AT&T HTC One X review: The best Android phone hands down

Posted: 02 May 2012 12:26 PM PDT

HTC admittedly had a tough 2011 so they promised that 2012 would be better with fewer models and more focus. In late February they unveiled the One series, which consisted of the One X, One S, and One V. If HTC had it their way, that would be it, but unfortunately it’s impossible to make one device compatible with all carriers, and I’m not just talking about the radio. They had to offer a One X XL to satisfy other markets with a different processor.

While many people overseas have been enjoying the One series for a little over a month, these models finally made there way to the U.S. T-Mobile just launched the One S and AT&T will launch the One X (really the XL) in a few days. To further complicate things, the EVO 4G LTE, another One X variant will land on Sprint in the coming weeks.

This review is on the AT&T One X, which will be released on May 6 for a very competitive price of $199 with no rebates. When you consider the One S is on T-Mobile for the same price after a $50 mail-in-rebate, this is an amazing price. This is my full review, but you can also check out my quick hands on as well.

Design

I’m not sure I can come up with anything negative about the design. Let me start off by saying I’ve never been much of an HTC fan. For hardware, I’ve always preferred Motorola. At this moment in time, the HTC One X is the best phone in terms of design. The polycarbonate body just looks and feels awesome in the hand. I’m also not a fan of white phones, but the One X in white is pure sexiness. Everybody who touches it says something like, “Wow, this is an amazing phone.” HTC paid attention to every detail. Even the way the camera lens fits into place is absolutely perfect. I dare anyone to pick this phone up and not be impressed.

I guess if you had to find a negative, it would have to be that it’s a unibody, so no removable battery or even a micro SD slot for that matter. The only entry point is at the top for the SIM card, and with that, you need the included pin tool to open it. HTC knows that the majority of consumers never change their batteries or ever require additional storage so this would only be a negative for a handful of people. Plus this design keeps it thin and light. At 9.14mm thick, it’s inline with other LTE devices and thinner than the Galaxy Nexus.

As far as buttons and controls, you will find the power button at the top right with the volume rocker on the top right side. Also at the top you will find the headphone jack to the left as well as the slot for the SIM card. The micro USB port is on the left side. On the back right side you will find connectors for conductive charging accessories. Unfortunately I didn’t have an opportunity to try any of them, but this will be a nice feature.

Hardware

HTC didn’t want to limit the One X when it came to hardware so they made sure to put the best of the best in it. The only differences between the AT&T version and the global version is the processor and storage. The processor of choice internationally is the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core chip. Unfortunately the Tegra 3 doesn’t play nicely with LTE so we get a dual-core 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S4. Some may see this as a downgrade, but really the only thing you will be missing is the handful of Tegra 3 optimized games. The difference is negligible to the average consumer. As for storage, the AT&T version gets 16GB as opposed to 32GB for the global version. In talking with AT&T reps, they feel the majority of people don’t require more than 16GB, plus I really think they wanted to price this as competitive as they could. Dropping it to 16GB helped them achieve that goal, and I agree that 16GB is more than enough for the average person.

The rest of the specs include a 4.7-inch (1280 x 720) Super LCD 2 display, 1GB of RAM, 8MP rear camera with f/2.2 28mm lens and 1080p video recording, 1.3MP front facing camera, 1800 mAh battery, micro USB (MHL out), Beats Audio, Bluetooth 2.1, DLNA, GPS, WiFi, HSPA+, and LTE.

Performance

A lot of people are probably feeling a little slighted with the dual-core Snapdragon S4 as opposed to the NVIDIA Tegra 3, but I see no reason to. Although I didn’t have the chance to use the global version, I can safely say this phone flies. Might the global One X be a little faster? I’m sure it is, but seriously folks, in everyday situations I highly doubt anyone would notice the difference, which is milliseconds. I did the obligatory AnTuTu benchmark, which came in at 6772. That’s higher than the Samsung Galaxy Note, Galaxy Nexus, and the Galaxy S II.

The Super LCD 2 display is stunning. The viewing angles are incredible and the clarity is spot on. The colors aren’t as deep as the Super AMOLED 720p display from Samsung, but this is by far the best display on the market because PenTile is nowhere to be found.

As far as sound goes, many feel the Beats Audio integration is a gimmick. I tend to agree. All it does is boost the treble and the bass, but wouldn’t you rather have it than not? It’s not like this phone is overpriced. It’s a freebie and I will take it. The sound quality is noticeably better than most smartphones, but again it’s not like they make it out to be. It’s just better, not incredibly better. The plus is that the Beats integration now works with all music or media apps, not just the stock music player.

Battery

Unfortunately I don’t live in an AT&T LTE area so I couldn’t test the battery under those circumstances. I will say that the 1800 mAh size does concern me, but then again the Snapdragon S4 is supposed to help. How much is the question. I would like to have seen a bigger battery like the EVO 4G LTE or better yet, the DROID RAZR MAXX.. Since LTE isn’t in a lot of areas, it won’t be an issue for most, but if you live in a bigger city, it’s something that could be an issue. I’ve been dealing with horrendous battery life on my Verizon Galaxy Nexus, so it doesn’t bother me so much. I would rather have an incredible phone with poor battery life then an average phone with great battery life. Again, I’m not saying that battery life will be bad with LTE connectivity, but it certainly won’t be as good when only connected to 4G HSPA+.

With that said, I did my usual continuous video rundown test. This is where I play continuous video with the display brightness turned up to 2/3′s (no auto dimming). Since I couldn’t connect to LTE for this test, we will have to settle for 4G HSPA+.  I was able to get a little over 7 hours, which isn’t bad, but unfortunately all phones continue to play catch up with the DROID RAZR MAXX.

Software

The One series gets Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich along with Sense 4, which is the latest and greatest. I’ve been hearing about how Sense 4 is a major improvement and not so much in your face. I will say it’s improved, but it still can be annoying at times. Thankfully, most of the enhancements are nice. Simple things like leaving in the ability to add widgets by long pressing on one of your homescreens is welcoming. The “read” option in the browser is a nice touch where you can read a story without all the ads and graphics (similar to an RSS feed). Speaking of the browser, it’s very fast. The camera software is top notch with all the additions they’ve throw in. Sense fans will be happy to know they’ve left in the “personalize” settings menu, which allows you to set different Scenes, Skins, lock screen styles and options.

On the negative side, the keyboard continues to be the worst of all the manufacturer skins and there are other little quirks like when clicking on a Play Store link from Gmail, it doesn’t give you the option to open it in the Play Store, it just opens in the browser. Also when adding contacts in the phone, the default isn’t Gmail, but instead a “phone” contact, which is very bad in my opinion. Many beginners think their newer contacts are part of Gmail and backed up, but they aren’t. This is irresponsible in my opinion, but if you’re aware of it, it isn’t so bad. Speaking of contacts, they don’t look nearly as good as stock Ice Cream Sandwich.

For me, if this phone was completely stock with the camera application I would be happy. Sense 4 is improved, but it’s still hard to tell your using Ice Cream Sandwich in my opinion. I do feel that the interface will satisfy most people as they just don’t get caught up in stock experiences, so I will consider myself in the minority.

As with all newer HTC phones, Dropbox is included and you will get a total of 25GB of storage for 2 years. This is a great deal and more than enough for most people. The ability to auto upload your photos is nice (can be done with Picasa as well), but there should be a delay because many times you take photos and then delete them shortly after. Unfortunately those photos get uploaded as well, so you have to delete them twice.

Camera

With cameras getting better and better it’s getting to the point where you can finally leave your point and shoot at home. I’ve been reluctant to do so because nothing has impressed me enough until now. This camera is incredible. It’s not even just the pictures, its the software and the whole interface. Our own Joe Sirianni did a video showing the many features from the One S. This is the identical camera so check out the video below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The biggest highlight is the burst mode which lets you take 99 shots per minute. I have a 3-year old so I don’t have to tell you how awesome this is, but there are its drawbacks. It can be a pain going through a bunch of photos trying to find the right ones and if you’re set for auto uploading to Google+ and/or Dropbox you will have tons of photos to remove. The other big issue is you need the proper lighting as the flash only hits the first shot. A final issue is the way HTC did the file indexing. If you connect your phone to your desktop and do things the manual way, you have two choices under the DCIM folder, 100BURST and 100MEDIA. 100MEDIA has all your basic photos, but 100BURST has all your burst shots. The problem with 100BURST is that you will find different folders for each set of bursts. Even if you “picked” the best photo already, you still have to go in and find the folder where your photo resides. In HTC’s defense, they would rather you never connect your phone to your computer with services like Dropbox, so it’s possible you would never see those folders. I agree as I took a ton of pictures at a birthday party, and with the Dropbox integration, I never connected the One X to my desktop. It wasn’t an issue, but there are still plenty of people who aren’t using services such as these. All in all, I would rather have the burst mode with these limitations than not having it at all.

As for other settings, HTC threw in everything from HDR and panorama to effects like distortion, vignette, depth of field, dots, mono, country, vintage, vintage warm, vintage cold, grayscale, sepia, negative, solarize, posterize, and aqua. Also, within these effects, you can still alter how much or how little they effect the picture. Below are some photos taken, some with no effects and others with.

HTC_One_X_Picture_Example_01 HTC_One_X_Picture_Example_02_HDR HTC_One_X_Picture_Example_03 HTC_One_X_Picture_Example_04_HDR HTC_One_X_Picture_Example_05 HTC_One_X_Picture_Example_06_Low_Light HTC_One_X_Picture_Example_07 HTC_One_X_Picture_Example_08 HTC_One_X_Picture_Example_09_Vignette HTC_One_X_Picture_Example_10_Mono HTC_One_X_Picture_Example_11_Vintage HTC_One_X_Picture_Example_12_Grayscale HTC_One_X_Picture_Example_13_Sepia HTC_One_X_Picture_Example_14_Negative HTC_One_X_Picture_Example_15_Solarize

 

Closing

There really isn’t much more to say other than this is presently the best phone on the market, and the price makes it even that more appetizing. It’s possible that Samsung will show something better tomorrow in London, but I’m a little concerned that they won’t be able to match the build quality that HTC has done here. No matter what, you can’t buy the One X on AT&T before tomorrow’s Galaxy S III announcement, so you still have time to make up your mind. Either way, I don’t expect to see the Galaxy S III stateside anytime soon.

Apple Loses Another Patent Infringement Claim, This Time Surrendering Victory To Motorola

Posted: 02 May 2012 12:22 PM PDT

 

Apple has taken yet another major blow in its neverending war against competitionAndroid, this time seeing Motorola see sweet victory. Apparently federal judge Richard A. Posner has ruled that  Apple's "finger-swipe" patent infringement claim against MOTO was not the same as tapping an item on screen. His decision addresses Apple's claim that six applications available on Motorola Mobility-made devices, including those used for browsing photographs, musical album covers and YouTube Inc. videos, infringe its touch-screen finger-tap functionality patent. Apparently, Posner didn’t want to hear any of it and shared the following:

 "Apple contends that the finger swipe is equivalent to a finger tap because the two gestures are interchangeable. If consumers distinguish between the two, they are not interchangeable".

Another day, another frivolous claim tossed out the door. Here’s hoping this is another step towards seeing the end of ridiculous lawsuits from Apple.

source: Bloomberg

Motorola releases updates for the MOTOACTV

Posted: 02 May 2012 11:50 AM PDT

Motorola just released a couple of updates for the MOTOACTV. I mention two updates because update 6.12 will be for those that have the golf features. These should include all the 16GB versions and some of the 8GB versions. 6.13 will cover the few 8GB versions that do not have the golf features. Full changelog after the break:

List of bug fixes and enhancements

  • Improved calorie burn algorithm during cycling workout with heart rate monitor
  • Added Primary Activity selection during setup so your MOTOACTV is tailored to your primary sport
  • Improved watch performance after display wake up
  • Enhanced the way Album Lists are displayed
  • Improved connectivity with Wahoo BLE heart rate monitor

Golf-compatible MOTOACTV watches will also get:

  • Improved Golf club recommendation by widening the distance range
  • Improved calculation for total score after a golf round.

Don’t worry about getting the wrong update for your watch. Once you plug your MOTOACTV in your PC or Mac, the device will check for and download the appropriate update through MOTOCAST. You can also go to Device/Check for Device Upgrade in the MOTOCAST software.

source: motorola 6.12 and 6.13

Buy a Kia K9 and get a special edition Galaxy Tab 10.1

Posted: 02 May 2012 11:31 AM PDT

I’m not sure this is enough of an incentive to buy the Kia K9, but Samsung just entered into an agreement with Kia Motors in which they will equip the soon to be released vehicle with a special edition of the Galaxy Tab 10.1.  This doesn’t appear to be an ongoing offer as it looks like only those that pre-register for the K9 will get their hands on it. The K9 is supposed to be be available in June.

What’s so special about this Galaxy Tab? Not sure exactly, but what we do know isn’t going to wow you. Apparently it will help you learn about your new vehicle with a quick guide of its features. Other than that nothing else was mentioned.

“This is a case where one could see synergy between an electronics device, Galaxy Tab, and a vehicle,” said Kwon Song, vice president of business-to-business sales unit at Samsung Electronics. “We further plan to offer more variety by converging with different sectors such as education, medical and mobile office.”

“The Galaxy Tab has been supplied to upgrade the premium value of K9 that is the outcome of high technology,” said a Kia executive. “We expect that the level of convenience for K9 owners will rise with the joint launch.”

source: asiaone

 

Samsung Galaxy S III to be dressed in both white and blue

Posted: 02 May 2012 11:06 AM PDT

In today’s not so major news, it looks like the Samsung Galaxy S III will be available in both blue and white. This is far from shocking, but news is news. GSM Arena got a tip that the Carphone Warehouse inventory system has it listed in both of these colors. This of course confirms what we reported a couple of weeks ago. There was no listing for a black version, which is quite interesting. Will anyone miss black?

source: gsmarena

 

 

Featured Play Store Newbie: Color Splash FX [Photography]

Posted: 02 May 2012 10:46 AM PDT

Color Splash FX landed in the Google Play Store about a week ago. It’s made by Androidslide, makers of the very popular Camera ZOOM FX and Photo FX Live Wallpaper apps.

Color Splash FX turns your color photos to black and white by “painting” with you finger. You can also bring back the color with the same “painting” motion.

Features:

  • Paint in color or gray
  • Zoom in and out or scroll with two-finger pinching gestures
  • Pixel perfect brush adjustment: size, edge, opacity
  • Brush size adjusts to size of your finger!
  • Unlimited undo for accidental touch
  • Show brush tip
  • Magnify area under finger
  • Highlight colored regions with a red tint
  • Save sessions and continue where you left off
  • Import photos from your photo album or camera
  • Works in portrait / landscape modes
  • Share your masterpieces to Facebook, Twitter & Flickr
  • Support for all phones and tablets
  • Set as wallpaper / contact
  • Full help and instructions

Color Splash FX is free, but they do offer an in app purchase that will remove ads and add the ability to Zoom 20x, highlight colored regions, show brush tip, magnify area under finger, and much more. It normally costs $1.99, but it’s on sale now for .99 cents. They also plan on adding in a bunch of new features in the coming weeks so definitely check it out.

Click here to view the embedded video.

 

qrcode

Play Store Download Link

Google Patent Reveals Android Beam Meant To Do More?

Posted: 02 May 2012 07:30 AM PDT

 

Google and Oracle are still going at it pretty strong and even though Page, Schmidt, Ruben and Google in general have been handing Oracle’s rear to them on a platter, quite a number of tidbits have been revealed over the course of the trail.  All sorts of factoids have been coming out about the Android OS, which I’m sure Google isn’t ultimately pleased about. However, from a tech journalist’s perspective, it’s flat out juicy news.  The latest to be revealed from the trial is a Google patent revealing NFC functionality between Android handsets.  The only question here is, could this be referring to Android Beam or something else?

Android has had Beam since at least October of 2011 which isn’t new news, however, the patent revealed other aspects of the technology dubbed “sharing application states”, to work with apps and functions like messaging, phone call status and playback positions for video and audio.  So, now that we’ve seen how Android Beam has come into play, could there be something else up Google’s sleeve with the function?  We sure hope so.  Stay tuned as we dig a little deeper to find out exactly how Google intends to use Beam in any other way other than just transferring items between devices.

source: USPTO 

 

 

Motorola Highlights Success As A Company, But Claims China Is Still Investigating Acquisition By Google

Posted: 02 May 2012 07:21 AM PDT

Motorola has had quite the successful year. Head honcho Sanjay Jha highlights:

 “The introduction of RAZR™ MAXX marked another successful addition to the Motorola product family and contributed to our growth in smartphones. Our Home business delivered another solid quarter highlighted by improvement in year-over-year profitability”.

While MOTO has done well, everyone has had their eyes on the acquisition by Google, so it was assumed all is well with the deal and there was no news or any issues. After all, you know what they say: no news is good news, right? Well MOTO has given us some insights and an update on the progress of the acquisition. In its just-released first-quarter earnings statement, MOTO highlights there’s only one more obstacle for the completion of the acquisition— and it’s a big one. Apparently China isn’t quite sold on the idea of a mega-merger just yet and wants further investigation:

 “Motorola Mobility and Google continue to work closely with the authorities in China for approval on the acquisition. The transaction has been investigated and cleared without conditions in all other jurisdictions with pre-closing clearance requirements. We continue to expect the transaction to close during the first half of 2012″.

 Well we’re in May already, so let’s hope MOTO seals the deal already.

source: Motorola Mobility
Posted by at 5:49 AM

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