Brian O'Toole - 10/18 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Brian O'Toole

Having learnt his writing techniques reading e-Books of Sherlock Holmes, Brian now spends his time /kicking, lurking, SSHing and encoding.

Oct

HTC Desire HD Stricken With Proximity Sensor Issues?

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Desire HD (Ace), HTC, News

You may envy those who have their hands on a Desire HD already, but early-adoption is rose-like with its obligatory thorns attached. Many owners on XDA-Developers are reporting issues with their phone's screen when making and receiving calls. Outbound calls appear to deactivate the screen permanently and render the phone entirely unresponsive, save for a battery-pull and fresh boot. Receipt of calls conversely keeps the screen on and active, even when pressed against your ear.

The issue seems to be tied to the light-sensor , with some users noticing their device not experiencing the aforementioned problems in brightly-lit conditions. It seems like a buggy software implementation which should be quite easily fixed with an OTA, but it is unfortunate to see the device shipping with this misbehaviour included.

Oct

HTC's Rumoured Tablet Now Coming In Q2 2011 With Gingerbread On-Board?

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Devices By Manufacturer, HTC, News

Samsung may have its Android tablet out and about in Europe, but it looks like the other large Android manufacturers - Motorola and HTC - are just getting themselves into gear. Last month, DigiTimes reported some dubious rumours that Pegatron (a division of ASUS) had won the contract to manufacture HTC's tablet device with the following description:

HTC reportedly will launch a tablet PC using Nvidia's Tegra 2 platform and Google's Android operating system. The device will feature a multi-touch panel with a resolution of 1280×720, a 32GB solid state drive (SSD), 2GB of memory and several functions such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.

Oct

Andy Rubin, Father Of Android, Joins Twitter To Let Us Know The Meaning Of "Open"

Posted by Brian O'Toole in News

You may have read or heard some of the choice words directed by Steve Jobs towards Android yesterday, in Apple's Q3 Earnings call. Today, in a completely unrelated development, Mr. Andrew Rubin joined Twitter and made it quite clear what he thought of the matter. Clear, that is, if you understand bash:

With this Andy has shown one of Android's true strengths: just about anyone get get hold of it and tinker with it as they please. It is because of this that we see so many great customizations, improvements and entire ROMS from the Android community.

Let's just hope Andy sticks around on Twitter in case "Vegeman" says anything else foolish.

Oct

Samsung Galaxy Tab Announced In Germany For €730 Off Contract, €300 + €35 On A Monthly Contract

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Devices By Manufacturer, Galaxy Tab, News, Samsung, Tablets, Vodafone

While Samsung's much anticipated 7-incher is still yet to arrive on a carrier in the USA, availability is spreading throughout Europe. Today, Vodafone Germany posted its prices for the Galaxy Tab, and they're looking pretty steep. For the proposed €729.90 ($1015), you could get not one but two nicely-specced dualcore netbooks (from Samsung!), which makes me question whether this is simply Samsung exploiting a naïve and nascent market; a price bubble which is set to burst shortly.

The on-contract price of €299.90 is also difficult to justify. The €35 "Notebook" tariff does not appear to include any voice minutes, despite the European Galaxy Tab's phone capabilities.

Oct

Sprint And Clearwire Teaming Up To Provide WiMax In NYC Starting Nov. 1st, LA From Dec. 1st And SF By Year's End.

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Epic 4G, EVO 4G (Supersonic), News, Sprint

This news has been some time coming, but it finally looks like the time is nigh: Sprint WiMax will soon be available in three of America's hottest of hot-spots. While Sprint has had 4G-capable devices out for several months now, the country's two main technology centres have been starved of WiMax coverage. Sprint may fear the same backlash AT&T received when their network got hammered by the iPhone, so they must be hoping for a more positive reception.

The coverage itself will be provided in conjunction with Clearwire, who have been busy setting up their networks in preparation for these final deadlines.

Oct

HTC Announce Gratia For Europe, Looks Oddly Familiar

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Devices By Manufacturer, HTC, News

On the one hand, we have the Desire HD. People may call it the EVO 4G for Europe, but it really isn't. Here we have the newly unveiled HTC Gratia. People are calling it the HTC Aria for Europe, and that's exactly what it is. The hardware appears to be identical save for some new colours, which, considering people seem quite fond of the Aria in the USA, is probably a good thing.

Another point of interest is that the Gratia will be released this November with Froyo. That's surely a sticking point right now with Aria owners, and it remains to be seen how well Android 2.2 will run on a 600 MHz processor, but it seems a win nonetheless.

Oct

HTC Glacier ROM Leaked - Is This The New myTouch? [UPDATED]

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Devices By Manufacturer, HTC, News, T-Mobile

Somewhere behind the Great Firewall of China, a group of devout HTC hackers are working hard at doing what they do best. Over at the now-famous 911sniper blog, another ROM belonging to an as of yet unannounced HTC device has just been posted ahead of time.

Sadly, the filehost they chose appears to be running their server through a 56k modem, so not much can be said right now as to the ROM's contents. However, you can be sure that once the file gets downloaded and torn apart, there will be plenty of goodies contained within, hopefully including confirmation of that rumored dual-core processor.

Oct

ADW Launcher Updated To 1.20, ADW Notifier Companion Released

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Applications, News

One of the most popular alternate launchers, ADW Launcher, perhaps known best for being bundled with CyanogenMod, has just received a welcome update. Version 1.20 now grants you the ability to fluidly resize your widgets, much like the launcher provided by MOTOBLUR. This allows you to treat your desktop much more like a customizable canvas than a rigid set of squares.

Along with this update, developer Ander Webbs also released an auxiliary service called ADW Notifier. Put simply, ADW Notifier puts a counter tag on application icons showing how many notifications it currently has. The tag works equally well on the desktop or in your dock.

Oct

HTC Desire HD Photographed In Fabulous Detail, First Impressions Posted

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Desire HD (Ace), Devices By Manufacturer, HTC, News

One lucky Dutch guy (xda member Clock1932) has swept aside any considerations of failed Google "Type Approval" testing and has gotten his paws on what many are calling "the EVO for Europe." Not so fast: while it may lack a kickstand, a 4G radio, and a front facing camera, its new Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8255 CPU appears to be quite a step up when it comes to benchmarks. Preliminary tests show a result of about 1900, compared to about 1200 on an EVO 4G running Froyo.

Speaking of snappiness, HTCSense.com is reportedly working nicely, with the "Call My Device" feature making the phone ring almost immediately.

Oct

MoDaCo's Paul O'Brien Releases VISIONary - One-Click Soft Root For The T-Mobile G2 With Autorun-On-Boot

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Applications, Development, G2 (Vision), HTC, News

With the G2 already getting a non-persistent "soft-root" solution, it was only a matter of time before someone combined it into a nice, user-friendly package. Stepping up to the plate (or rather, the crease) is Paul O'Brien, the founder of UK smartphone website MoDaCo, well known for a myriad of clever hacks.

^{Superusers, you can haz them}

Deriving its name from the HTC Vision device codename, VISIONary is a simple one-click temporary root app for the T-Mobile G2. The application installs itself to /data/app, and a version that will run automatically on boot is also available. VISIONary can also be set to run a visionary.sh script immediately after rooting, allowing you to automate any root commands you might usually do by inserting them into the .sh file.