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Ok, guys. Start your engines - here's the download and instructions you need to get the leaked Gmail 4.2 up and running on your device. Keep in mind that this is an unreleased version so some things may be buggy or broken, though I haven't run into any problems.
If you haven't heard, we've got an unreleased copy of Gmail 4.2. Yesterday we showed you the major new features: pinch zoom and swipe to archive/delete, and today we've made a few more discoveries we thought you'd like to know about.
Today, we are thrilled to share some exciting news about the next version of Gmail for Android. We may or may not be in possession of an unreleased version of Gmail, which may or may not have come from an LG Nexus system dump. One thing I am sure of is we definitely have video of it, which is just one short paragraph away.
A new app update means a new APK Teardown here at AP. Today's victim is the Google Play Store, which was just freshly updated to 3.9.16. We've got all sorts of stuff to talk about.
Hello and Welcome! Android 4.1.2 hit yesterday, and, in record time, we are pumping out a new version of everyone's favorite series. If you want to know about everything new in 4.1.2, you've come to the right place. To be perfectly honest, there isn't much to cover. 4.1.2 is just as minor as its 0.0.1 version bump would suggest. I've gone over all 164 system APKs (old and new) with a fine tooth comb, and this is all I could come up with.
It's time to go APK spelunking again. Today's target is Google Wallet!
Hello and welcome to a new feature! I'm going to start calling this "What's Really New," the series where we do more than just post a change log with the canned screenshots when something important gets updated. We're going in-depth (as usual). We'll be ripping apart APKs, doing full side-by-side comparisons, and, hopefully, letting you know about all the cool new stuff before it comes out.
Greetings from New York! LG showed off the Optimus G today, their new monster of a phone. If you haven’t heard, it’s the first phone with a 1.5Ghz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor. Qualcomm's dual-core chips can hold their own against the quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3, so this should be one of the fastest phones available. It’s also one of the first phones to have a next-gen Adreno 320 GPU, which, again, means it should be really fast.
In my reviews, I frequently abuse and pick apart TouchWiz, Sense, and MotoBlur. I point out flaws, say "that's stupid," and wonder what the heck was going on when someone approved whatever half-baked change they've come up with. A lot of the UIs shipping on phones today are bad.
You know the Android codenames, right? Starting with Android 1.5, they're alphabetical snacks - Cupcake, Donut, Éclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich, and Jelly Bean. But what about before 1.5? What were those called? And why did they start with C? We've got real answers from real Googlers.
"The new Motorola starts today." That was new CEO Dennis Woodside's proclamation during the unveiling of the new RAZRs, and I think that statement gives away a little more than intended. Smartphone development takes the good part of a year, so they're implicitly admitting that these phones were made by someone else. That "someone else" being the old Motorola.
So, the other day, in New York, Samsung gathered up a bunch of bloggers and showed us the international Galaxy Note 2. They wouldn't tell us anything about their North American plans, only that the international version would be pretty close to the NA version, and that they'd be sending out NA review units soon. So, while we're waiting for the real one to get here, we thought it'd be fun to take a quick look at the international version.
I just got back from New York, the city of absolutely no internet, and now I can finally tell you about my experiences with the new RAZRs - the DROID RAZR HD 4G LTE, DROID RAZR HD MAXX 4G LTE, and DROID RAZR M 4G LTE. (My shift key is going to get a workout today!)
Ok... Hot report out of Bloomberg, just now, that Motorola will be releasing a phone with no bezel. None. I'm having just as hard of a time believing this as you are.
We're back! If you are somehow just joining us, where have you been? This is Getting To Know Android, the series where we milk every little detail out of the latest version of Android and put other change logs to shame.
"Unique" is the name of the game with the Archos 101 XS. Just about every design decision goes against the status quo. Most tablets are made out of aluminum or plastic, but Archos went with stainless steel and a plastic rim. It's a tablet-laptop hybrid, but there's no hinge, everything is held together with a kickstand and some magnets. The included keyboard dock also doubles as a magnetic cover. At a time when some Android OEMs are accused found guilty of doing little more than firing up a photocopier, some out-of-the-box thinking is very much appreciated.
A little over a year ago, before I was hired at AP, I wrote about the things I wanted my new Honeycomb tablet to be able to do in the next version of Android. Multitasking on tablets was (and still is) non-existent, and I wanted my tablet to be less of a big phone, and more of a small computer. I wanted split screen, and floating apps, and really, I wanted to just make use of this nice, big screen I had. One task at a time isn't good enough. The big difference between a tablet and a phone should be the ability to multitask.
Getting To Know Android 4.1, Part 4: Miscellaneous Stuff, The New Default App Picker, And Insight From A Googler!
GTKA is back! For those that don't know, this is the series where we compare the new version of Android to the previous one, in excruciating detail. I'm
GTKA is back! For those that don't know, this is the series where we compare the new version of Android to the previous one, in excruciating detail. I'm going to dub this the "Miscellaneous edition," because there is a bunch of new things I want to talk about, but they don't really fit into a nice, organized category. (This doesn't mean I'm running out of things to talk about, not by a long shot.) The usual GTKA style applies, Ice Cream Sandwich is on the left, Jelly Bean is on the right. Let's get to it:
Multiple User Accounts Are Coming To Android: Miles Of Code Is Already In AOSP, And Some Of It Is Quietly Working On Devices Right Now
Multi-user support is one of the few remaining things a desktop OS can do that Android can't. The "coffee table tablet" use case would greatly benefit
Multi-user support is one of the few remaining things a desktop OS can do that Android can't. The "coffee table tablet" use case would greatly benefit from a multi-user setup, as would an enterprise user who wants to keep work and home separate. It's been a top 20 item on the Android bug tracker since the debut of Honeycomb, so there is certainly demand for it.
The Nexus 7's Software Buttons: Designed For Gaming
"The playground is open." That's the declaration attached to every piece of Nexus 7 advertising on the internet. The point Google's trying to get across
"The playground is open."