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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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Aug

Dell Streak Torn Apart By iFixit - Reveals It Has Chips, Circuits

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in News, Streak

iFixit is at it again - this time, they’ve torn down a Dell Streak. As usual, they’ve provided a ton of pictures and a step-by-step to go with it. Just a quick rehash of the specs:

5” 800x480 display
5 MP camera around back, VGA camera on front
Android 1.6 (Donut)
1 GHz Snapdragon CPU
Gorilla Glass-protected screen

The 15-step teardown (complete with pictures for every step) reveals a whole slew of additional details, and could prove very useful if you ever need to repair the device yourself. iFixit gives the Streak an 8 out of 10 for repairability, citing the following reasons:

Good: Replacing the battery is super easy and takes less than one minute.

Aug

Verizon Bringing Video-On-Demand To Smartphones, Adding Some Cloud Storage

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Droid 2, Droid X (Shadow), News, Verizon Wireless

Verizon announced that they’d be releasing an app for a variety of devices that adds functionality for FiOS customers. For example, iPad users can watch TV on the device as long as they’re at home. More relevantly to our purposes, though: they’ll be releasing an app to allow some smartphone users to stream video-on-demand.

There is a catch-22 though: the app only supports select smartphones - namely, those sold by Verizon. While this isn’t stated explicitly (that I can see), the list of supported devices makes it pretty obvious: Droid X, Droid 2, WinMo 6.5, and the BlackBerry Storm. Even better, it seems that any movies purchased or rented can then be viewed on any available device - no limitations to just one device.

Aug

New Root Method For MyTouch Slide With Latest OTA Support Surfaces

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Development, myTouch Slide (Espresso), News

Android user nbetcher, with the help of ChiefzReloaded, has come up with a new method to achieve root for the T-Mobile MyTouch Slide. The process was just finalized and is still rather technical, but Chiefz says an APK is coming soon, with a one-click sure to follow.

Technically, this method grants a specific program root, rather than the whole phone - thus, a full-phone root must follow. Again, these instructions are certainly on the technical side - if you’re not comfortable doing this, an APK and one-click will follow.

Extract the zip

Make sure your phone is in USB debugging mode AND you are in "Charge Only" mode.

Aug

Adobe Android Summit 2010: "One Web. Any Device."

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Development, Google TV, News, Off-Topic

Yesterday, we spent the day at Adobe HQ for their Adobe for Android Summit. We heard from Anup Murarka of the Mobile and Devices team, Paul Betlem for Flash, Aaron Filner for AIR, and N.J. on Flash platform tools.

Anub started off with some numbers:

85 of Alexa Top 100 sites use Flash
70% of web games use Flash
70% of all video on the web is Flash
98% of internet connected PCs have Flash player worldwide
95% of internet connected PCs worldwide have installed Flash Player 10
90% of top 20 OEMs committed to delivering Flash

Thanks to its wide distribution and variety of usability - whether for an app, a game, a movie, or something else - Flash is just about everywhere.

Aug

Samsung Epic 4G Review Roundup: Keeps The 4G Fire Burning

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Epic 4G, News, Phone Reviews, Reviews, Sprint

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

After months of leaks, announcements, and the releases of its sister phones, the Epic 4G is here... sort of. While the device won't go on for sale for another two weeks, the big players in tech have managed to snag some early review units. We've filtered through the roundups and come up with the four that we deemed most worthy. Let's take a look:

Engadget

Chris Ziegler (who seems to get all the flagship phones) spent some time with the Epic 4G and came away extremely impressed, despite a having a few minor niggles:

So is it the right phone for the job?

Aug

Slow Data On Your HTC EVO 4G? Update Your PRI

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Development, EVO 4G (Supersonic), News

Flipz (of Fresh ROMs) has come through again, this time with a solution to slow data speeds. It seems the problem lies with PRI - as Flipz puts it, “... a connection between your phone and the radio... responsible for carrying both voice and data.” The EVO shipped with PRI version 1.40, but rooting the phone downgrades to 1.34 - which is evidently less efficient.

The fix isn’t exactly easy, but it’s nothing too tricky, either. Users who have experience in the depths of their phone (read: recovery, logistics, etc.) should be just fine, as should less-experienced users who follow the directions closely.

Aug

Android Focused Adobe Summit This Monday, August 16 - AndroidPolice Will Be There. Submit Your Questions And We'll Get Them Answered

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Development, News

We’re making the trek out to San Francisco to attend Adobe’s Android Summit on Monday, August 16, 2010. The schedule looks to be chock full of events with a total of 8 presentations on topics such as:

Adobe AIR for Android
Flash for Android
Gaming on Android
Google TV

They’ve also allotted nearly 3 hours of time for Q&A and discussion, so if you want your questions answered by Adobe folks directly in charge of driving the products, drop us a line and let us know what you want to hear about. Feel free to either post your question in the comments below or email me directly at aaron@androidpolice.com.

Aug

Samsung Epic 4G Pre-Order Begins - Here Are Your Options

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Epic 4G, News, Sprint

Looks like the floodgates have opened and pre-orders have started for the Epic 4G. All the usual suspects are offering the device, and all in their own way. As with the EVO 4G, Sprint will be requiring the Premium Data (or 4G) surcharge of $10/month. As always, to get the lowest price, you need to sign a 2-year agreement.

Sprint is selling the device for $350 with a $100 mail-in-rebate (MIR). Currently, if you pre-order online, you pick it up in-store on the August 31 and pay for it then. Looks like full retail on the phone is $500.
Best Buy is pricing the device at $250 with no MIR, as usual.

Aug

Chitika Mobile War Reveals Lots Of Goodies: Android Device Market Cap, iOS Fragmentation, And More

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in EVO 4G (Supersonic), News

Last Updated: August 1st, 2012

Our friend Daniel Ruby, analyst for ad firm Chitika, has released a new tool for tracking Mobile usage stats. The page is chock-full of goodies (at least, for those of us nerdy enough to dig stats). The most interesting highlights:

The original Motorola Droid still commands nearly 30% of the Android market (29.9%)
The HTC EVO 4G has taken second place at ~8% (7.96)
The iPhone accounts for 57% of iOS usage; the iPod accounts for 22% and the iPad clocks in at 21%
For all the fuss over Android fragmentation, iOS fragmentation is worse. More details on the chart below.

Aug

Vodafone Rolling Out Vanilla (!) Froyo To HTC Desire In Next 7-10 Days

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

After Vodafone deployed an HTC Desire update last week that was full of crapware, customers responded with understandable anger. After initially standing firm on the crapware (“Vodafone 360”), Vodafone has now backed off and will remove it with the next update. The next update? Vanilla Froyo - and it’s coming in 7-10 days.

The surprising thing here is that the update will apparently be an unmolested version of Android 2.2 - something they elected not to do with their Nexus One update. The only customizations Vodafone will be making to the Froyo Desire update are to the network settings, in order to “optimise them for [their] network.” This is obviously good news for Desire owners, as it means they’ll receive the update sooner, and without any extra Vodafone “goodies.”