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After the dismissal of two of its cases against Motorola - one in Wisconsin, one in Illinois - Apple hasn't exactly been on a roll when it comes to Google's newly-purchased hardware arm. Motorola, too, hasn't done very well, with its own counterclaims in the same Illinois case also being dismissed, and by making an unexplained last-minute withdrawal of a major ITC case it was filing against Cupertino.
Since its announcement, many internet comments (and tech bloggers, frankly) have lambasted the 2020mAh battery inside the DROID DNA as obviously being too small. A 5", 1080p display, quad-core processor, and LTE - with a 2020mAh battery? HTC must be nuts. Well, it turns out, they actually aren't nuts and actually do know how to make a phone that doesn't die after half a day off the charging cable teat. Surprising, I know. And despite what you may be hearing elsewhere (I won't name names), my experience with the DNA's longevity has been quite positive. I got a lot of requests for an in-depth look at battery life on the DNA when I posted my initial impressions, so here's what I came up with.
Do you love the sea of reflective dots that adorn the back of the Nexus 4? And do you, having had your pre-order delayed up to three weeks, absolutely crave that shiny goodness in your life right now? There's a live wallpaper for that: the Nexus 4 Dot live wallpaper, to be precise.
If you head on over to Verizon's support page, you can find a changelog for a decidedly minor update to the Samsung Galaxy Stellar (version VRALH2). The update improves backlight brightness coming out of sleep mode, boosts voice quality, and fixes some bugs that may have led to "rare occurrences" of device resets.
November 16th is a big day over at AT&T, with three major device releases going live today (announced earlier this week). The HTC One X+, One VX, and the Samsung Galaxy Camera are all available now, so let's break it down.
I've been using Pandora for a while now. I honestly don't remember when I started - maybe around early 2008. The web client has been a standby for me, even as the ads have grown more frequent, intrusive, and lengthy. I don't really mind. But since picking up my first Android phone, a Nexus One, back in 2010, I've never been too fond of the official app.
Anonymous leaker of all things phone, evleaks, took the lid off a press render of an upcoming HTC device, which evleaks calls the Deluxe (this is likely just the codename, not the official release branding). Deluxe is a word we've heard before, if it sounds familiar: Verizon's DROID DNA was widely reported as being named the "DROID DLX" before the DNA name started popping up, so that gives Deluxe yet more credence, minus the silly Verizon spelling (yuck).
The DROID DNA is, without a doubt, the most exciting HTC phone to come to Verizon since the original Incredible. And I can already tell you that it doesn't disappoint - this is a serious effort from HTC, whose US handset sales have dropped sharply in the last year. It could be the phone that catapults them back into relevance.
If you're into indie games, chances are you've heard of Waking Mars by now. If you haven't - check it out, this is one seriously awesome puzzle / platformer mashup with an epic story and amazing soundtrack. It actually just hit the Play Store, too, after being available on Android exclusively through the Humble Bundle that went live last week (still up now).
The HTC One X+ is a lot like the original One X - if you stuck the One X in an awesome-machine and painted it murdered-out black, that is. And AT&T and Android Police are giving one away. You do want a One X that got stuck in an awesome-machine, don't you?
The Google Voice app received an update this morning, one that comes much to the relief of Android 4.2 users, who have been enduring crashes that have essentially made the app unusable since the OTA landed on Nexus devices. As far as I can tell, everything's back to normal in this update, as I successfully sent a text from my Nexus 7 running 4.2 just a moment ago. Head over to the Play Store to grab the update now.
Samsung Mobile Chief's Refusal To Negotiate With Apple Is Posturing, And It's Probably Not Even True
I can't say I'm the biggest student of Gandhi, but that whole "an eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind" bit sure came to mind this morning when I read that Samsung's head of mobile, Shin Jong-kyun, said the company "[does not] intend to (negotiate) at all" with Apple. This came on news of HTC's settlement with Apple on Saturday, which I contend is objectively good for the industry and consumers, no matter how you spin it.
Are you a T-Mobile customer absolutely fed up with the carrier's admittedly absurd on-contract pricing for phones? I probably would be, too, if I was on T-Mobile. Fortunately, if you're a savvy consumer, a few times a year T-Mo offers some legitimately good deals on its best phones for around 48 hours, and on November 16th, one of those sales is going to happen. And no, the Galaxy Note II isn't a part of it, sadly.
While Android 4.2 is now making its way into AOSP (Android Open Source Project), support for one device in that code is not, and won't be for some time: the Nexus 4. Android maintainer JBQ (an awesome guy we quote a lot on days like this) has confirmed that the "Nexus 4 is not supported in AOSP at the moment: no source files, no binaries."
With all the excitement of Nexus availability and the Android 4.2 source code being pushed into AOSP this morning, one little statement by Android developer JBQ regarding 4.2 device support in the AOSP announcement was easy to overlook.
Hot on the heels of the official retail availability (and now non-availability) of the Nexus 4, Nexus 10, and Nexus 7 3G, Google has updated the Android Developers Nexus images page with brand-new builds based on Android 4.2. The images, for now, are limited to the Nexus 10, Nexus 4, Nexus 7 (Wi-Fi and 3G), and Galaxy Nexus (Takju) Play Store variants.