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Aaron Gingrich

Aaron is a geek who has always had a passion for technology. When not working or writing, he can be found spending time with his family, playing a game, or watching a movie.

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Feb

SetCPU Developer Overclocks Motorola XOOM To 1.2GHz, Hits 40 MFLOPS In Linpack

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Development, News, XOOM

It's amazing how quickly the developer community gets to work after a new flagship device is released, and the XOOM is clearly no exception. First, ClockworkMod developer Koush managed to get CWM up and running on the tablet 2 hours after he picked it up, and shortly after, he released root instructions.

Now, SetCPU developer Michael Huang has pushed the Tegra 2 CPU in the XOOM up 20% to 1.2GHz. At that speed, it manages a score of 40.716 MFLOPS while still working perfectly. The caveat? Linpack is a single-core benchmark, meaning that one of the Tegra 2's cores goes unused.

Feb

WidgetLocker Updated To v2.0, Adds Support For Themes

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Development, News

The long planned, much anticipated update to WidgetLocker that adds themes has been released, and it's every bit as awesome as we expected. Perhaps the best part about it is that there's already a broad selection of themes available in the XDA thread, and it's likely that number will increase substantially as time goes on thanks to the groundwork laid by previous WL mods.

Once you find a theme you like, installation is very, very easy:

1) When clicking on a link in the form of http://…foo.wltheme.zip, chose WidgetLocker to open the link rather then your browser.

Feb

Samsung Galaxy S II i9100 Pre-Orders Are Live, Shipping In March?

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Galaxy S II, News

Could the ship date for Samsung's Galaxy S II i9100 be moved up to March? So says UK eTailer Clove, who has apparently had pre-orders open for some time now, with prices at £510 and £590 for the 16GB and 32GB versions. Surprisingly, it turns out they're not the only one with open doors - Mobile City Online is taking pre-orders for the i1900 as well, charging $700 with free shipping, with a ship date of Q1 2011 (which would be by the end of March). While Mobile City doesn't say whether that's the 16GB or 32GB version, Clove's prices would suggest that it's likely the 16GB.

Feb

Google Releases Android 2.3.3 Update .ZIPs For Nexus One And Nexus S

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Gingerbread 2.3, News, Nexus One (Passion), Nexus S (Crespo/Soju)

Google may have jumped the gun on announcing that the Android 2.3.3 update for the Nexus One was available - although they did say that it could be a few weeks until the update deployed OTA, it wasn't available for download and install, either. Or, rather, it wasn't until now: the update .ZIPs have been posted and can be downloaded directly from Google.

Nexus S:

Nexus One:

2.2.2 FRG83G -> 2.3.3 GRI40 update

Obviously, Gingerbread brings a ton of new features, and 2.3.3 builds upon them even further. Install instructions are the same as previous updates:

I grabbed these instructions from Android Central, so be sure to show them some love:

Download the update from here.

Feb

Hello, Literature: Books Page Goes Live On Android Web Market

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Apps/Games, News

You read that right: the Market now includes a totally awesome Books site. To be honest though, none of us is really sure what all has changed, since none of us really used it before - but it doesn't seem like a lot, other than a flipped switch. Let's start with what it looks like:

Notably, there's now a dropdown to sort by genre (to the left of the search box, above). When you select a book (protip: Sherlock Holmes is free... or if you're like Artem: Walden is free.), you're presented with the option to read it on the web or, assuming you already have Google Books set up and synced, on your Android device.

Feb

It's Official: Samsung Captivate Froyo Update Now Available Through Kies Mini

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in AT&T, Captivate, Froyo 2.2, News

It looks like the Captivate is the next domino to fall, much as expected: AT&T just confirmed via twitter that the Froyo update is now available for Captivate owners through Kies Mini. Similarly, that support page we stumbled upon last week before being pulled has gone back up, and it looks just like it did then.

Obviously as the update is done through Kies Mini, you'll need that to start. Once you've got Kies all ready to go, you need to do a minor amount of jiggering to get the update installed. Not quite as easy as most OTAs, but nothing too strenuous either.

Feb

[Hands-On] WiMAX Hits CyanogenMod 7 Nightlies - One Moar G, Way Moar Speed

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Development, News

Last Updated: August 1st, 2012

Last night, Cyanogen revealed on Twitter that WiMAX had officially landed in CM7, via the latest nightly. No small feat, given that the team had to write their own code entirely from scratch. And while CM-based builds with WiMAX have been floating around for a few weeks now, this is the first official release - effectively addressing the last major qualm many EVO owners had with CM.

I have to say, WiMAX in CM7 certainly doesn't fail to impress: I managed to hit 6.5 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload. In 3 tests, I averaged 5470 Kbps download and 1041 Kbps upload - handily beating the roughly 4.5-5 Mbps download I hit on stock-based ROMs.

Feb

Motorola XOOM Review Roundup: An Android Tablet, Done (Mostly) Right

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless, XOOM

It's launch day for the XOOM, and already the major news outlets have had a chance to spend a few days with the much anticipated device. Not only does the XOOM bring a new standard in high-end to the masses (a la Tegra 2), but it's also the first device to ship with Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) on board. It's also really the second major Android tablet to launch (the Galaxy Tab being the first), and the first to match the 10" form factor of the iPad. But how does it fare? Let's take a look at what our reviewers thought.

Feb

[Weekend Poll] Can The Amazon Appstore Succeed Against The Android Market?

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Apps/Games, News, Polls

Last Updated: September 3rd, 2011

This is the newest in our Weekend Poll series. For last week's, see Is The Nokia/Microsoft Alliance A Threat To Android?

A few days ago, we posted a rundown of the details found on the Amazon Appstore Developer Blog, and noted that the store will be very controlled compared to the nearly anarchistic Android Market:

On a subjective note, after reading through the details, I can’t help but wonder if Amazon is just going about it better than Google. I largely agree with David’s issues with the Market: it’s spammy, there’s no solid system for exploring new apps, and going further, there are tons of issues with fragmentation and poor quality.

Feb

Motorola Atrix 4G Hitting RadioShack On Feb. 22 For $150, Dock For $330, On Contract

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in AT&T, Atrix 4G (Olympus), News

The Shack has officially announced the Atrix launch details via their Facebook page. The skinny: it lands in the store on February 22 for $150 with a new qualified 2-year plan. If you buy the dock at the same time, you can get it for $330, at a total cost of $480 - or $20 less than you'll pay at AT&T. I'm not looking to beat a dead horse on whether or not that price is too much, so I'm going to skip straight to the deetz:

The device is equipped with features that will blow you away:

MOTOBLUR with Android 2.2 Operating System

Adobe Flash 10

5.0 Megapixel camera with 720p video capture

4”"qHD Display with Touchscreen

1GHz dual core processor that outputs 2x 1GHz of processing speed and 1GB of RAM

4G capable speeds

The ATRIX blurs the line between smartphone and computer with the MOTOROLA LAPDOCK, available in select stores for $479.99*

The MOTOROLA LAPDOCK gives you a full Firefox browser and access to web apps just like on a PC.