October 2010 Archives

Oct

Modder's Column: Prettying Up That Status Bar On Your HTC Desire Or EVO 4G

Modder’s Column, formerly known as Modder’s Monday, is a column dedicated to rooting, hacking, and other forms of modifying Android and is written by Jaroslav Stekl, a man who spends his days coding, hacking, hiking, and of course, writing for Android Police.

A few editions back, I described several ways to customize your Android device. As you may recall, one of my main points was changing up the status bar using apps such as Date Status Bar, Memory Status, Status Toggle, and Battery Percentage. The last of those four apps in particular has one big issue: ...

Oct

Android 2.1 Now Rolling Out For Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, X10 Mini, X10 Mini Pro

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Eclair 2.1, Sony Ericsson, Xperia X10 (es209ra), Xperia X10 Mini / Mini Pro (Robyn / Mimmi)

Right on time, Sony Ericsson's begun rolling out the update to Android 2.1 Eclair (build number 2.0.A.0.504) for the Xperia X10, X10 Mini, and X10 Mini Pro. Judging by what we're seeing on Twitter and from what our tipster told us, it's only available in Scandinavia for now, so we can only hope that other regions will get to join in on the fun soon enough.

Our tipster also mentioned that Universal Androot does not work, although a bit of digging through the forums revealed that SuperOneClick does indeed root the phones, even after the update. On that note, ...

Oct

How To: Create A Customized Android Phone 7 Theme - Part 2

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Mods, News, Tips, Tutorials

Yesterday, I told you how to use pre-made icons to create a custom Android Phone 7 theme. Today, I'll walk you through how to create your own icons in Adobe Photoshop. I'm going to assume you have at least a basic understanding of Photoshop.

Estimated time required: 15 minutes for the first icon, and 2 minutes for each subsequent icon.

Difficulty: Low if you've used Photoshop before.

What You Need

Adobe Photoshop
The .PSD templates (included in the full ZIP, linked)

Getting Started

Rally The Troops

Before we begin making the icons, you'll need to make ...

Oct

The Revenge Of El Jobso - Apple Countersues Motorola

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Motorola, News

At the beginning of the month (October 6 to be exact), Motorola sued Apple for infringing 18 of its patents, including ones as diverse as antenna design and multi-design synchronization. Of course, being a company run by El Jobso himself, Apple just couldn't help it - they just had to strike back.

And strike back the fruit-themed company has, claiming Motorola's Android phones infringe on six Apple patents, including (but not limited to) the:

Droid
Droid 2
Droid X
Cliq
Cliq XT
Backflip
Devour A555
Devour i1
Charm

The patents?

7,812,828, Ellipse Fitting for Multi-Touch Surfaces
7,663,607,

...

Oct

Motorola Droid 2 Global Rumored To Be Launching In Black And White; Original Droid 2 Discontinued From Best Buy

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Comet / Ideos, Droid 2, Droid 2 Global, Huawei, Motorola, Verizon Wireless

Last Updated: November 3rd, 2010

Ever since the Motorola Droid Pro was made official, the rumor mill has been buzzing about a global version of the Droid 2, which was exactly what the Pro was originally rumored to be.

Let's start with a rather suggestive screenshot from Droid Life yesterday:

That's right - Best Buy's reportedly discontinuing the Droid 2 at the time of writing, and now it may be just a matter of time before other retail outlets follow suit.

But fear not - BGR was just told by an "anonymous source" that the Droid 2 won't be entirely dead, for the Droid ...

Oct

How To: Create A Customized Android Phone 7 Theme - Part 1

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Mods, Tips, Tutorials

Last Updated: November 7th, 2010

About a month ago, XDA-Devs member newone757 created a really great theme based on the one used in Windows Phone 7 - hence the name, Android Phone 7. He was kind enough to post the image files, a template image, and a short how-to, as well. I've taken the personalization a step further and created icons to fit my needs, and now it's your turn.

This theme was made for, and written using, a high resolution device (EVO 4G - 800x480). It hasn't been tested at lower resolutions, although it should work. For lower resolutions, you may want to consider

...

Oct

EVAC From Hexage Arrives - You Want This Game. Now [First Look]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Game Reviews, Games, News, Reviews, Videos

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

It's not every day that I shoot videos of Android games (in fact, this is my first one ever) but when I saw EVAC HD hit the Market yesterday, I felt the need to do it. It wasn't even the graphics, which, by the way, are awesome, it wasn't the gameplay, which is also good - it was the music and the sounds that captivated me. I have only one way to describe them - "magical".

If you asked me what EVAC was, I would probably say it's PacMan. On crack. Hexage took the good old game, added powerups, special ...

Oct

Archos Gen. 8 Android Tablets Soon To Get Froyo Update [Video]

Posted by Brian O'Toole in 101, 28, 32, 43, 70, ARCHOS, Devices By Manufacturer, News

While they may not quite have the buzz that Samsung's Galaxy Tab is generating, there has been still been plenty of interest in Archos's 2010 line of Android tablets - particularly among those who like to hold on to their money. Archos's pricing has traditionally been one of the hardware's most attractive points, and this year's "Generation 8" is no exception.

^{L-to-R: Archos 101, 70, 43, 32, 28 - aka Generation 8}

Now Archos is adding another feather to the Gen. 8 cap, with news that the line should be receiving an update to Android 2.2 within the next ...

Oct

QuickDesk Pro Now Available In The Market: Landscape Support Included

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Applications, Apps/Games, News

We're big fans of Faruq Rasid's QuickDesk utility around here. Well, hot off the presses we have news of a "Pro" version hitting the market. Along with drag-up-to-kill for applications running in the QuickPanel drawer, QuickDesk 0.4 Pro also brings support for landscape orientation. Rather than rearranging your portrait layout, the landscape implementation offers a whole new screen where you can fit 6 x 3 icons in the widescreen aspect.

^{I'm the only person invited to that particular party}

This is of course a great boon to owners of landscape phones such as the Droid, Epic 4G, or T-mobile G2, ...

Oct

Deal Alert: T-Mobile's Samsung Vibrant $0.01 Again On Amazon, This Time Including Upgrades For Existing Customers

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in News, Samsung, T-Mobile, Vibrant

T-Mobile's Samsung Vibrant is still a pretty hot phone, but with the release of the G2 and the upcoming myTouch 4G, Amazon decided to throw a blowout sale for only 1 penny again, just like it did back in August.

This time, however, existing customers upgrading their handsets and extending their contracts are no longer left in the dust. As always, no taxes or shipping fees are involved. But you already knew that, didn't you - it's Amazon after all.

And I still remember the time when $150 was considered a good deal...

...

Oct

Rovio Launches Pre-orders For An Angry Birds Plush Toy Collection [Bonus: Angry Birds Halloween Pics]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in News, Off-Topic

Rovio, the maker of Angry Birds, one of the most successful franchises to hit mobile gaming, is slowly starting to spread into our daily lives outside of our mobile devices. No, I'm not talking about all the Halloween awesomeness that we've been seeing today:

I am talking about the official Angry Birds plush toys that just dropped for pre-order. These furry little things are produced by Commonwealth Toys and come in 5 different versions. They cost $14.99 a pop, measure 8" in size, and will be ready to ship by December, just in time ...

Oct

id Software's Rage Mobile To Receive An Android Port: Droids VS Zombies At 60 FPS?

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Games, News

If there's one thing about Android that's really been coming along lately, it's gaming. We've already seen great games like MiniSquadron!, Angry Birds, and Reckless Racing make good impressions, and now we have another cause to celebrate. Following on from the news of an imminent Cut The Rope release for Android, we have this illuminating tweet from id Software co-founder John Carmack, confirming what has been the wish of many since way back in August:

Just in case you don't know who this John Carmack fella is, his Wikipedia entry states:

Carmack was the lead programmer of

...

Oct

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, X10 Mini, And X10 Mini Pro To Start Receiving Update To Android 2.1 In November

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Eclair 2.1, News, Xperia X10 (es209ra), Xperia X10 Mini / Mini Pro (Robyn / Mimmi)

Try to contain your excitement, here: Sony-Ericsson will begin rolling out an the update to Android 2.1 (Éclair) for the Xperia X10, X10 Mini, and X10 Mini Pro devices starting November 1. As sarcastic as we are about being updated to an already out-of-date version, it's still a huge step up from the current Android 1.6. Major features of the updates:

Xperia X10:
• HD video recording with continuous auto-focus for high quality videos
• Upgrade of the Android platform to Android 2.1
• New back up and restore application, with extended content back up
• 5 homescreens for

...

Oct

NPD: 28% Of Smartphones Sold In Q1 2010 Were Android

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, News

Finally, some empirical evidence that illustrates what we've known for some time now: Android is growing like gangbusters. In fact, 28% of smartphones sold in Q1 2010 were Android, compared to 21% for iOS. RIM still holds the top spot with 36%, but that's a drop of roughly 12% in the past year - while iOS has fallen approximately 10% itself. In the same period, Android increased over 20%.

In fact, it seems like Android grew at the expense of just about everyone else - excluding a minor 1-2% increase in "other". And as Android continues to expand across ...

Oct

Acer Liquid Metal Announced For The UK, Seems Rather Solid

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Acer, Devices By Manufacturer, Liquid Metal, News

Last Updated: November 15th, 2010

While all you Americans slept, Acer took the wraps off its latest Android handset, the Liquid Metal, over here in Europe. Sporting Acer's custom Breeze UI, the Liquid Metal runs Android 2.2 atop an 800 MHz processor. The MSM7230 CPU is a whopping 32 MHz higher than the 768 MHz of the original Liquid's QSD8250 Snapdragon, but this 800 MHz core is the same Scorpion processor that powers the rather lovely T-Mobile G2. If the G2's performance is any indication, this processor is no slouch (particularly when overclocked), so things are looking quite nice indeed for the Liquid ...