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Sep

T-Mobile G2 Pre-Orders Starting Tomorrow For Existing Customers?

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in G2 (Vision), HTC, News, T-Mobile

We already knew it was coming soon thanks to T-Mobile's own online store, but only know has TmoNews discovered that "soon" could mean as early as tomorrow.

That's right, if this internal screenshot proves to be anything more than an image crudely put together in Photoshop, existing T-Mobile customers will be able to pre-order the device starting September 24 and ending October 4. The offer will, apparently, be available at "select" T-Mobile retail stores, through "Care upgrades," and, of course, online at the T-Mobile's dedicated G2 website.

While there is no mention of pricing (although there does appear to be a "Pricing" link in the screenshot), let's not forget the fact that Best Buy will be selling the device for $199 upfront on a new two-year contract, and Radio Shack will be shaving $50 off of that.

Sep

Verizon’s Motorola Droid X Froyo Update Causing Issues?

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Droid X (Shadow), Froyo 2.2, News, Verizon Wireless

After we posted that Verizon had begun their rollout of the Froyo update for the Droid X yesterday, a number of people told us they were having issues with music and ringtones on their devices. As this seems to be more than an isolated incident, we pinged Verizon to check if they were aware of the issue or had anything in the works. Unfortunately, all we received back was a curt "We're looking into it."

It doesn't seem to be affecting more than a minor percentage of users, so it's likely most people updated without a hiccup. Still, this is the only time we've had multiple users complain of the same bug on an update (at least, in recent memory).

Sep

Want Sense On Your Non-HTC Device? Download The Sense Theme For ADWLauncher

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Development, Devices By Manufacturer, News

XDA-Devs forum member JAguirre1231 has put together a theme for ADWLauncher that makes it look pretty similar to the Sense UI launcher found on HTC devices. Unfortunately, at this point only MDPI devices are supported (for those who don't know, MDPI is for lower-resolution phones, while HDPI is for phones such as the EVO, Epic, and Droid series). However, JAguirre says in the thread that he's planning on making an HDPI version as well.

Installation is more complex than ADW themes found in the Market, but still isn't too rough:

Download the .zip (provided at source link), then unzip
Install Sense.apk on your phone
Install ADWLauncher.apk
Place the remaining two files (adw_settings.xml and adb_backup.db) in the root of your SD Card
Import the .xml and .db files by using Restore in ADW

Is it perfect?

Sep

SwiftKey Keyboard, One Of Android's Best Keyboards, Sheds Beta Status, Goes Premium; On Sale For $0.99 Until September 30th, $3.99 After

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

SwiftKey Keyboard has been in beta ever since its introduction to the Android Market a few months ago. Having tried Swype, I also jumped on SwiftKey to give it a fair shot and ended up sticking with it. Yes, it was that good.

SwiftKey is different from other keyboards because it uses predictive recognition based on both tons of statistical information and your own typing habits. In fact, you can make whole sentences without typing a single key and just picking default suggestions.

Every company needs to make money at some point, and so today, having shed the beta status, SwiftKey is turning into a paid app.

Sep

New EVO 4G Radio v2.15.00.09.01 and PRI v1.77_003 From The 3.29.651.5 OTA Now Available - Download And Flash Away

Posted by Brad Ganley in Development, EVO 4G (Supersonic), News

flipz, the chef behind Fresh ROM (one of the first and still best ROMs for HTC Hero and EVO 4G) has wasted no time picking apart and giving us pieces of the new over-the-air update for the EVO. In his latest blog post, flipz gives us the new PRI v1.77_003 and the new radio v2.15.00.09.01.

If you're not too keen on what a PRI or radio are exactly, don't be ashamed. Here are the basics:

PRI: Flipz himself said it best in this quote: “… a connection between your phone and the radio… responsible for carrying both voice and data.” Essentially, updating your PRI increases the efficiency of how your handset and its radio unit talk to each other.

Sep

10" Samsung Galaxy Tab Coming In First Half Of 2011

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Galaxy Tab, News, Samsung

SiliconRepublic ran a piece explaining which carriers in Ireland will be selling the Galaxy Tab. At the bottom of the article (the very last sentence), they nonchalantly mention that Samsung country manager Gary Twohig says they'll be releasing a 10" Tablet sometime in the first half of 2011. The only other details included in the article: it will run Android, and rock the V8 JavaScript engine.

Engadget speculates that Samsung may be waiting for Gingerbread or Honeycomb, which certainly sounds like a fair assessment to me. After all, Google recently said that Android 2.x isn't designed with tablets in mind, but Android 3.x would be.

Sep

Android Explodes On American Corporate Scene, Gaining Market Share Fast

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in News

Yesterday, Macworld ran an article on Android's popularity among US businesses. In a survey of over 1,600 corporations, Android's growth is more than 20 times higher than that of the iPhone. In fact, 16% of respondents said their firms are already using Android devices, up from 10% just three months earlier. By contrast, iPhone use increased to 31%, up from 30% - growing, but not nearly as fast as Android.

Still, despite the fact that Android has experienced significantly more growth in the past few months, keep in mind that the iPhone already has nearly twice the market share of Android.

Sep

Samsung Intercept Coming To Virgin Mobile USA

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Intercept, News, Virgin Mobile

Virgin Mobile announced via an image upload on their Facebook page that they're landing the Samsung Intercept as their first Android phone. No word yet on pricing or release date, but we can't imagine it would be too terribly much (should be in the range of their LG Rumor Touch).

What we do know are the specs of the Intercept:

3.2” 240 x 400 px LCD display
4 row slide-out QWERTY keypad
Android 2.1
Samsung S3C6410 ARM 11 CPU @ 800 MHz
512 MB ROM, 256 MB RAM
3.2 MP Camera (with video)
802.11g, Bluetooth (2.1), headphone jack
2 GB microSD card in the box, support for up to 32 GB
EV-DO rev.

Sep

The New HTC EVO 4G 3.29.561.5 Update Already Rooted

Posted by Brad Ganley in Development, EVO 4G (Supersonic), HTC, News

Earlier, HTC and Sprint announced that they would be rolling out an update for the EVO 4G to fix some issues. Very shortly after the announcement (not the update itself, which literally went live 30 minutes ago, but the announcement of it, mind you), a rooted version of said update was released by the insane, caffeine fueled developers at XDA. Normally, after an update such as this you would have to wait for some kind dev to root the update or take advantage of Unrevoked Forever. Apparently, though, the Android community was ahead of HTC themselves in releasing the OTA update.

Sep

T-Mobile Teases Online Pre-Orders For G2 : Coming Soon

Posted by Brian O'Toole in G2 (Vision), News, T-Mobile

While there have been several third party retailers already grabbing headlines with pre-orders of the T-Mobile G2, T-Mo themselves have been keeping mum about when the phone will go up for sale. Well, several T-Mobile customers have been reporting today that the G2 has appeared in their online store with an enticing label: “Pre-ordering starts soon!”

While this is no concrete date, it’s still enough to set vanilla Froyo fanboys’ hearts aflutter, despite the continued lack of an official release date for the G2 (don’t give up hope, guys).

Lest we forget in all the excitement: RadioShack are already advertising the G2 for $50 off the expected contract price, and Best Buy is offering it for $200 on contract.