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Looks like Qualcomm, the company responsible for the cherished Snapdragon and not-so-cherished MSM7200, is having a bit of a press event today. While the prospect of 1.5 GHz dual-core processors in our smartphones remains a tantalizing one, the news that we’ll have to wait for what looks like it could be another 12 months is enough to dampen our spirits. Still, we should be seeing the 1.2 GHz dual-core MSM8X60 some time in early 2011, even though that itself is still quite a wait.
For one of the first phones out with a Snapdragon, this sure has been some time coming. Over at the MoDaCo Android forum, poster LIQUID_USER managed to obtain what he has described as a “very early build” for Acer’s 3.5”, Éclair-running slate. Despite this somewhat unofficial status, the build Acer_LiquidF_0.007.00_EMEA-GEN1_05.01.01) is said to be quite stable, with most device functions working as normal, including wireless tethering and Adobe Flash.
I’m not exactly sure how this strange pairing was birthed, probably somewhere in a boardroom of extremely bored HP executives… but it looks like HP’s Tablet plus Printer combo is drawing closer to readiness for release. I thought one of the driving tenets of the tablet revolution was to obsolete printers, but obviously HP disagrees – hey, they’re the experts. The Zeen, as it’s appellated, is a 7-inch capacitive tablet which will be bundled in a $400 package with the C510 PhotoSmart eStation. While thankfully printing does not appear to be the Zeen’s sole raison d’être, it is certainly one of the devices included features, with a Printer and Coupon app appearing in the app drawer. Can’t wait to see that in action.
One of the more popular tip-tap software keyboards got a nice little upgrade today. SwiftKey, an aftermarket keyboard that uses intelligent statistical methods as well as scanning of your SMS inbox to predict the most likely next word, now has support for multitouch typing. As seen previously on the Droid X’s keyboard, this greatly enhances possible typing speeds… unless you have one of HTC’s infamously erroneous older touchscreen panels, that is.
Leave it to Motorola to come up with a bizarrely compelling new device that they can slip MotoBlur onto.
It seems to be the trend nowadays that you know everything about a device before it even gets properly announced, and while it makes for plenty of blog-fodder, it sort of spoils the fun of waiting for new things to come out.
With the possible exception of Archos, there are no big names in the Android tablet field right now. If you have a tablet running a Google-flavoured OS, chances are it’s from Shenzen, has a resistive touchscreen, and will have been superseded by a newer model by the end of this paragraph. Enter ViewSonic. They’re a display company with some fairly well-regarded LCD monitors, which should bode well for the display of their newly announced, previously-rumored tablet. Except for one thing : ViewSonic aren’t making it. The ViewPad 7 is simply a rebadge of the OlivePad, a 7”, WVGA, 3G tablet which apparently also works as a phone. It’s a strange notion, but both OlivePad and Viewsonic seem keen to impress upon potential customers that this device can actually make calls.
The popular, open-source media player firmware Rockbox has recently been made available for Android. Rather than run as an operating system, Rockbox operates as a standalone application that you can install as usual with an APK. Development is still on-going, but Rockbox dev kugel has a few pre-compiled APKs hosted for you to try out if you’re interested.
Good news for the 12 people who have managed to get a Motorola Charm - Universal Androot works perfectly well. For the uninitiated, Universal Androot is exactly what it sounds like: an app that can root a whole slew of Android devices (disclaimer: it doesn't unlock /system on all of them, though). Instructions are pretty simple:
One of the most vaunted features of webOS was its decidedly pretty multitasking interface. Users could invoke an overlay of thumbnail “cards” of their running applications and switch to or close them.
Quoth The Counting Crows – “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone?”
You bought an Android phone because you’re into cool functionality, right? Don’t attempt to deny it, something that creates a database of your books, CDs, DVDs and video games is exactly the kind of thing you like.
Remember that pesky rumor sparked up by Mashable a while back, claiming that the Incredible would be receiving the Froyo OTA update right about now? Well, if you are still clutching your phone and frantically checking for system updates as the day 08/18 draws to a close … you can take a rain check on that system update. Tweeted out earlier by the Verizon Wireless support account @VZWsupport, there is no confirmed date for the Froyo release and it will not be happening today. Sorry guys.
One of the most popular games for the iOS platform has just been released for Android, following a rapid porting process by Galcon developed Phil Hassey. On his blog he speaks of his desire to support even low-level Android devices, going as far as to purchase a G1 to use as a development test-bed. The porting process took a little over a week of code translation from the iPhone’s Objective-C to the Android NDK’s C++ and Java. The C/C++ base of Android and iPhone native applications are common so the main challenge was getting the Java interface to “talk to” the C++ code base.
It’s been a while coming, but Adobe’s Flash Player 10.1 has now ditched its Beta status. Released today to coincide with the ongoing Adobe conference in San Francisco, Flash Player 10.1.92.8 is available in the market for compatible devices, namely Nexus Ones running Froyo. As with all Market releases, there are some quirks with the releases availability, so don’t be surprised if it’s not appearing for you even though it should be. Hopefully the other Froyo-running devices out there will be seeing Adobe Flash Player pop up in the market over the next few days and weeks, and all you risk-takers out there with CyanogenMod 6 ROMs and ARM v7 processors should be seeing it available for download too.
Owners of Dell’s 5” tablet in the UK were lucky to get their hands on a leaked pre-release version of Android 2.1 earlier this week. The hack, however, was only compatible with the O2 version of the device in the UK, so owners of the US counterpart released only 2 days ago on AT&T have been stuck with their new giant babies wearing an ancient 1.6 Donut diaper. To make matters worse, it looks like Dell decided to skip the 2.1 update altogether and go straight for 2.2, delaying the upgrade even longer.
Firefox For Mobile Gaining Greater Stability And New Features As Fennec Edges Towards Version 2 And Alpha Status
We look at the recent improvements to Firefox as Fennec moves towards version 2.
It would be nice to say that Fennec has really been coming along of late. But honestly, from an end-user’s point of view, that’s not really the case; it’s still a massive memory hog, crashes seemingly at random, and takes up an inordinate amount of your phone’s internal storage. However, it is definitely growing gradually more usable, and beneath the rather sluggish front-end, some serious changes are taking place.
Want a live wallpaper that will make your friends’ heads explode? XDA-developers member chopsui is the man you are looking for. Check out the video he posted on YouTube in July to get an idea of just what you’re in for.
After several rapidly-iterated versions, storm99999’s Calibration Settings hack is branching out from the Nexus One. Now at version 4.1, the hack has morphed into a standalone application with a GUI allowing you to set individual levels for each of the Red, Blue and Green subpixel channels.