Aaron Gingrich - 61/72 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

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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Aug

[Updated With Teaser Site] Samsung Releases Official Galaxy Tab Video On YouTube

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Galaxy Tab, News

Samsung just uploaded an official promo video for the Samsung Galaxy Tab, and it's pretty slick - it's very similar in nature to the Droid commercials, but less sci-fi. It doesn't release any new details, but it does confirm a few minor ones. For example, it will be shipping with Android 2.2 (Froyo) on board and it's set to be revealed at the IFA on September 2. Rather interestingly, it will support video chat - so presumably there is indeed a front-facing camera on board.

The video shows a slew of quick screenshots of the device in action (again, much like the Droid commercials), and also gives a pretty solid 360° view.

Aug

Samsung Galaxy Tab Prototype Spotted Again, With Some Hands-On Details

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Galaxy Tab, News

A prototype of Samsung's Galaxy tablet (creatively named the "Galaxy Tab") has been spotted again, this time in the hands of a Chinese citizen. Unfortunately, Google Translate is pretty awful on this one:

Broke the identity of a mystery, e-mail name is (づ¯ 3 ¯)づ, good sense ... pregnant, and he also presents us with a gift: The Galaxy Tab landing our home, so ifanr a Samsung flat in the first Chinese Web site, thanks his readers!

Those pregnant men, they always seem to land all the good gadgets. Our mystery leaker confirms some previously-rumored specs while sprinkling in some commentary.

Aug

Android On HTC HD2? That’s So Last Month - Try CyanogenMod 6 On HD2

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Development, HD2, News

Ok, so this is technically “so last month” too - it’s from July 30, and we just happened to miss it the first time around. Luckily for us, good ole’ ChiefzReloaded tweeted (or retweeted?) some pictures of CM6 running on the HD2. After doing a little poking around, I found that there’s a pretty solid build out there - it’s even CM6 RC1. As a result, nearly everything works on the device: GPS, camera (with flash), torch (for the camera LED), Adobe Flash, and so on. Nice.

At 15 steps, installation is far from simple - but it’s pretty comparable to manual rooting/ROMing on Android.

Aug

Engadget Scores Blurrycam Shots Of T-Mobile G2

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in G2 (Vision), News, T-Mobile

Just like the title says: some real, live shots of the T-Mobile G2 out in the real world have landed in Engadget’s lap. Based on the photos, it looks like the earlier leaked renders were pretty accurate, albeit the colors were off. It’s not a bad looking piece of kit, though it is does look a bit utilitarian. In fact, it looks like what I’d imagine the Nexus Two to look like.

It’ll be sporting a 3.7” screen and a full four-row slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Unlike the G1, the entire body of the G2 slides up rather than just the screen portion - an improvement, in my opinion.

Aug

[Updated With Mirror] Motorola Droid X Update Leaked - Requires Root & Stock Recovery

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Development, Droid X (Shadow), Froyo 2.2, News, Verizon Wireless

MyDroidWorld has scored a big one today: they’ve hosted the Droid X Froyo ROM, thanks to the hard work of P3Droid, Birdman, and rootzwiki. Installation seems relatively simple, and boy is it a popular download: their server was bombarded with 15,000 download requests shortly after posting it.

Installation seems rather simple, assuming you're rooted and are running stock recovery:

They’ve hosted the file with MediaFire since it seems to have crashed their servers.

Unfortunately, we don’t really have any details at this point since this just happened, but we’ll update as needed. If anyone takes the jump, be sure to let us know how it goes!

Aug

Vodafone Officially Rolling Out Froyo To HTC Desire On Monday, August 23

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Desire (Bravo/BravoC), Development, Froyo 2.2, Vodafone

This morning on Vodafone’s forums, a VF employee announced that the Froyo update for the HTC Desire would be rolling out on Monday. We knew it was coming soon - on August 12, we relayed that they expected it to roll out in 7-10 days - sans crapware. The update is rolling out a bit later than expected (August 23 would be 11 days) because they wanted to make sure they’d worked out all the kinks. Vodafone is hoping to roll out the update to all customers within a two-week timeframe.

In what seems to be an attempt to appease customers who are still pissed off over the Vodafone 360 crapware debacle, they’ve even provided instructions for how to remove it:

Instructions for users who downloaded and now want to remove the Vodafone 360 update (1.24.161.3)

If you have downloaded the Vodafone 360 update and want to remove it from your device, you will need to follow one of these two approaches, depending on whether or not you have accessed and updated the “360 Updates” or “Shop” apps pre-installed in the 1.24.161.3 update.

Aug

Awesome App For Rooted Users: adbWireless

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Development, News

If you’re a rooted user, you’re probably familiar with the ADB command, and that it requires you to connect your phone to your PC with a cable. Enter adbWireles, which allows you to - wait for it - use ADB over WiFi.

The specifics of how it works are pretty technical, but here’s the laymans version provided by the dev (and translated from Spanish by the Goog):

adbWireless is a simple application to enable the wireless interface debug Android. After enabling the connection works as if we had the phone connected via USB. If you do not know which is the ADB (Android Debug Bridge) this program probably is not for you

Anyway, here is information on what it does and how it works.

Aug

PhysX Live Wallpaper - One Of The Sexiest Live Wallpapers We’ve Seen

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, News

A new live wallpaper (LWP) app has been released on the Market. LWPs may be a dime a dozen, but this one is definitely worth a look:

From what I can tell, there is no actual relation to NVIDIA/Ageia's PhysX engine, other than a focus on physics (who would’ve guessed?). The effect is quite cool though - the particles move based on how you’re holding the phone, and can be set to act in various manners. Very nifty.

There are a variety of color combinations available (“Deep Blue” is below), and you can opt to change how the particles act.

Aug

Cerulean Studios Releases Trillian For Android Beta

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, News

Cerulean Studios, maker of the popular chat client Trillian, has released the first public beta build of Trillian for Android. For the uninitiated: Trillian lets you connect to multiple IM and social networks at the same time, allowing you to manage contacts and real-time status feeds efficiently. And when we say “multiple,” we mean pretty much all of them:

Windows Live
Yahoo
Facebook Chat
AIM
GTalk
ICQ
MySpace IM
Jabber
Astra Account

Trillian already has mobile clients for Blackberry and the iPhone, and finally Android is joining the fray. The program/app is free (although there’s a paid “Pro” version available for the PC, and they'll likely charge for the mobile app when the beta is up).

Aug

EVO Owners Benchmark 10 Custom ROMs, 1 Stock ROM

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Development, EVO 4G (Supersonic), Sprint, Tips & Tutorials

This has got to be one of the most useful things I’ve seen in my tenure here, although I may be biased because I own an EVO. XDA forum member nief1313 is in the (very slow) process of compiling the results of testing and benchmarking a ton of EVO ROMs. When I say a ton, I mean 11: