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If your Apple fanboy friends (surely you have at least one somewhere) like to taunt you with the old "iOS has more apps than Android" spiel, then you may not have to grudgingly agree with them for much longer. Business Insider published data this week that shows the Android Market's number of apps continuing to rapidly approach the amount of apps in Apple's marketplace. While the Market's trailing of the App Store by 100,000 applications would not, at a casual glance, appear to be encouraging, the rate of growth is clearly in Android's favor. In October that same gap was 185,000. BI actually expected Android to have caught up by now, but they still see that happening within the next few months.
After HTC's upcoming Flyer tablet was announced and previewed, many were bewildered that their debut offering in the tablet game was a 7" single-core slate that runs Gingerbread and totes a stylus. If recent leaks from retailers hold any water, then the Taiwanese manufacturer may have something else (much better?) in store. Two leaked internal document show a 10" Honeycomb tablet from HTC launching in June.
Have you been salivating over the Motorola XOOM, but holding back from taking the plunge until you have seen what Samsung, LG, and others have to offer in the 10" tab department? You can cross one of those off of the list as Samsung's upcoming slate has been thoroughly taken through the wringers in a full 11 minute video.
If you are an owner of an HTC EVO 4G, it's possible that one the contributing factors to your buying the popular smartphone may have been the HDMI output feature. After hearing that it can produce said capabilities, maybe your mind began dreaming up all kinds of situations where showing your phone's display on a TV in HD resolution could be very handy. If so, then chances are you were a little bit deflated as you saw the fine print that only Gallery and YouTube apps would work with this handy feature (is that a yawn I hear?). Today all of that has changed as FullHDMI for HTC EVO, previously in beta and requiring custom kernels, is now in the Market and can utilize most features with any kernel (cue the applause).
We learned a couple of months ago that Bluetooth had been unlocked for Nook Color on a developmental level, but not until today has it been available for users. Developers fattire and verygreen have collaborated on a CM7 SD card bootable ROM that will let you sync your Bluetooth keyboard or headset to the "eReader." As trusted dev dalingrin noted earlier in our comments, the Bluetooth functionality has also been committed to the CyanogenMod 7 nightlies and is now available.
Are you a Verizon customer who has been waiting (in vain) for the HTC Thunderbolt to arrive, and are tempted to just get an EVO? Maybe you are on AT&T and are fed up with the slow upload speeds on the Inspire and Atrix, and would rather just pick up an EVO Shift? You may be in luck, as Sprint is generously offering a $125 credit for smartphone subscribers who make the switch and port their old numbers to Sprint.
The Swype Beta for Android received an update (to version 2.29.71.20084) today and, in addition to tweaking some of the features that users found to be the most annoying, it brings support to some popular Android devices that previously had no official way of getting the popular trace keyboard.
Take it as you wish, but a flyer that (according to Droid Life) was passed out by Samsung representatives at a technology fair today clearly shows that a Wifi-only version of the original 7" Galaxy Tab is set to hit store shelves on April 4 at $399.
Those of you Android users who were hoping that you would get some Playstation love without having to buy the upcoming Xperia Play (dubbed the Playstation Phone by some) just got some good news. The Playstation Suite, Sony's framework that will integrate much of their gaming experience into Android, will be available for Tegra 2 devices later this year.
Last night we told you about the update to the Motorola XOOM that has been rolling out which gives the tablet the promised capability to use Flash. Capability is the key word there, because XOOM owners still won't be able to experience Flash on their tabs until the final piece of the puzzle (Adobe's 10.2 Flash update) arrives. We now know when that will be, as Adobe has announced via their blog that it will be released next Friday, March 18.
With all of the recent concern about malware in the Android Market, it may lead one to make the generalization that the Android OS is nothing but a big loser in the mobile security department. It looks like that may be a faulty conclusion, if the results from hacking competition Pwn2Own are any indication. In this year's contest, held at the CanSecWest Security Conference, Android and Windows Phone 7 both survived unscathed, while iOS and Blackberry fell to the hackers.
If you saw our post the other day about Samsung's teaser image for their rumored 8.9" Galaxy Tab (expected to be announced at CTIA later this month), you may have seen what appeared to be an extremely thin tablet. At a casual glance, it looks svelte enough to give the .34" thick iPad 2 a run for its money in its lack of girth. Then a diligent tipster shared his homework with us and, well, it looks like Samsung has been using some Photoshop lighting effects to create a bit of an illusion.
If you are looking to grab a Nexus S sometime soon, you might want to check out this deal from Best Buy. The retailer has just offered Google's latest flagship phone for $99.99 with a 2-year T-Mobile activation.
The future of Android gaming is looking very bright these days. Just a day after news came that portions of a $100 million Chinese fund would be devoted to helping iOS developers port their games to Android, another company, Scoreloop, has revealed its own very different approach to the same goal. Scoreloop's method is to offer an entire assistance program that holds the hands of devs every step of the way from Cupertino to Mountain View.
With no shortage of RSS reader apps in the Android Market, it's getting pretty hard for a new one to grab our attention. However, Feedly, which now has a (beta) version available in the Android Market, does manage to stand out above most of the crowd.
Say you have some extra tickets to next week's A Flock of Seagulls concert that you want to unload, but you don't particularly want to stand outside of the gate four hours early, calling out "Need tickets?". Starting today, your Android phone can save you the time and humiliation. StubHub, the world's largest ticketing marketplace, has released an app into the Android Market.
Some of us noticed today that our Android Market received an OTA update to v2.3.4 sometime last night. Before, when on the main page of the Market, the big 'Featured' section at the top would stay put. Now, we scroll down and - poof! - it vanishes (though, only on the main page and not on Apps/Games/etc pages for some reason).
In what is sure to ruffle a few feathers with Android users, a representative of a research company Wednesday sunk his teeth into Google's Android 3.0 'Honeycomb,' saying it is "by the geeks, for the geeks, and of the geeks" (we were confused, as we thought that was a compliment). The analyst left little hope for mass adoption of the new tablet-tailored version of Android.
Way to pour salt on your customers' wounds there, Verizon authorized Verizon retailer: pictures have surfaced of a new flyer arriving in customers' homes (obtained by Droid Life) that shows the HTC Thunderbolt with the words "Now Available" beneath it. No, this isn't an unexpected dream come true for Verizon customers, it seems like a flub by an authorized dealer (it's unclear to us which one) that certainly can't help calm the restless natives.