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Mar

PSA: AT&T And T-Mobile HSPA+ Are Not Compatible, Your Current 4G HSPA+ Phone Will Not Be Covered By Both

Posted by David Ruddock in AT&T, Editorials, T-Mobile, Tips & Tutorials

Wondering if you should be considering that T-Mobile 4G phone purchase now that the merger plan has come to light? Read on.

With the news of the AT&T / T-Mobile merger spreading like wildfire, there have been rumblings about the network compatibility implications of the deal. More accurately, how the merger will affect consumers' use of 4G handsets on their respective carriers.

Make no mistake - it has been confirmed that AT&T will slowly disassemble T-Mobile's 4G HSPA+ network over time, converting those HSPA+ bands (the "AWS" spectrum) into LTE frequencies. Consumers without at least a Wikipedia-level of 4G knowledge will likely ask why this is necessary if both carriers already use HSPA+ "4G."

They may know that it's generally not possible to use a T-Mobile phone to get 3G while on AT&T, and vice versa.

Mar

Launcher Wall For Android Review: A Poor Man’s Windows Phone 7

Posted by Cameron Summerson in App Reviews, Applications, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Are you one of the many that likes the look of Windows Phone 7, but doesn’t want to give up your existing launcher in lieu of a WP7 lookalike? If so, we have an app for you. It’s called Launcher Wall and feels similar to Windows Phone 7, without duplicating the interface.

Launcher Wall is an interactive live wallpaper comprised of customizable, animated tile-style icons with an animated background. It is pretty straightforward; each tile corresponds to a user defined app in which you can change the size, placement, angle, size, transparency, and animation. At the time of writing this, there is no way to change the tile image or disable all animations, so expect to see some movement even if the animation is turned all the way down.

Mar

Update: Sprint Announces No Mail-In Rebates Through April 16th

Posted by David Ruddock in Carriers, News, Sprint, Tips & Tutorials

Update: An anonymous Sprint tipster has told us this deal will only last through April 16th - Sprint is probably trying to clear out its current stock of EVOs and soon-to-be-discontinued devices.

If you were pondering buying a Sprint Android phone this weekend, it may be wise to hold off for a couple more days - Sprint has announced to Phonescoop that devices currently offering mail-in rebates will switch to an "instant savings" model starting Sunday. That means no forms to fill out, and no rebate checks to wait for. Verizon recently canned its mail-in rebate offers in favor of the same system, so it seems logical that the US's other major CDMA carrier is following suit.

Mar

Amazon Appstore's Free Premium App Of The Day: Shazam Encore (Normally $5)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Deals, News

To those who can access it (read: U.S. users), the Amazon Appstore may seem like one of the best things since sliced bread - it trumps Google's own web-based Android Market in almost every way. One of such differentiating features is the Goldbox-like Free Premium App of the Day concept that, like Groupon and its competitors, was introduced to provide great deals to consumers and giant spikes in traffic to app developers.

Of course, it was no surprise that the first such premium app given away was Angry Birds: Rio (though, it remains free to this day and was clearly more of a marketing ploy), but the next few apps were not really that exciting.

Mar

Gameloft Turns To Amazon To Distribute Games On Android

Posted by Brad Ganley in Games, News

In a recent interview with Reuters, Gameloft stated that they will be focusing their attention on the Amazon App Store to distribute their games on the Android platform. The company's games are already insanely popular on Android (and iOS, for that matter), despite being actively opposed to Google's Android Market. Their Android offerings have thus far only been available on their website, so their move to a Market isn't so surprising.

Their reasoning for choosing the Amazon App Store? Consumers are already comfortable making payments through Amazon, and it provides a better ecosystem for game distribution. More importantly, though is that Gameloft sees Google's DRM to be wildly inadequate.

Mar

Watch Samsung's Galaxy Tab 8.9 And 10.1 CTIA Event Now On YouTube

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Tab 8.9, News, Samsung, Videos

One of the most exciting announcements of this week was, without a doubt, the unveiling of the 2 new super-slim Galaxy Tabs, the 8.9 and the 10.1, at the CTIA Wireless conference in Orlando.

If you followed our live blog from the event, you may have already seen the new Tabs in their on state (none of the new Tabs could be turned on at the event), but still images can only tell half of the story.

The other half can now be seen in the full video of the event that Samsung posted on YouTube, complete with some pretty awful sound.

Mar

Sony Ericsson To Update Xperia X10 To Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) - But Not For Everybody

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Gingerbread 2.3, News, Sony Ericsson, Xperia X10 (es209ra)

They may have publicly stated that the Xperia X10 wouldn't be receiving further Android updates just a few months ago, but it looks like Sony Ericsson has had a change of heart: they now say the phone will receive an update to Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) sometime in late Q2 or early Q3. You can apparently thank the Xperia PLAY, arc, and neo, as the company says similarities in development of these devices has made it easier to bring the update to the X10.

Unfortunately, there's a catch - the update will only be available for "generic trade kits." In other words:

Today, Xperia^TMX10 is available in the market both in generic trade version and in versions customized for operators.

Mar

Google Delays Public Release Of Honeycomb Source, But Don't Panic - There Is A Good Reason, And Tablet Manufacturers Can Cut In Line

Posted by Zak Stinson in Android OS, Editorials, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News

There has been quite an uproar as of late over Google's handling of the source code for Honeycomb, their most recent version of Android. The company announced this week that it would be delaying the release of the Honeycomb source in order to iron out some issues, specifically ones involving running it on small-screen devices (i.e. phones). Andy Rubin gave an explanation as to why these issues exist:

Android 3.0, Honeycomb, was designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes and improves on Android favorites such as widgets, multi-tasking, browsing, notifications and customization...We didn't want to think about what it would take for the same software to run on phones.

Mar

Hide Your Squares, Hide Your Rhombi: PewPew 2 Hits The Android Market

Posted by Zak Stinson in Games, News

PewPew, a beautiful retro style shooter (think Geometry Wars), was released for Android early February of this year and has found a rather receptive market. With its chaotic gameplay, attractive visuals, great frame rate and $0 price tag, it managed to bag a well deserved 1 million+ downloads in less than two months.

Yesterday, Jean-François Geyelin released PewPew 2, a follow-up to the popular game, onto the Android Market. While it is a little pricier at $2.81, it looks to be definitely worth it. This upgrade to the polygon-slaying good time of the original comes with many enhancements, including an increase in the number of game modes from 4 to 7, 5 unlockable ships, and multiple difficulty levels.

Mar

It's Official: RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet Will (Sort Of) Support Android Apps

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Android OS, Apps/Games, News

Some combinations are as natural as peanut butter and jelly - Avatar & 3D, Apple & dictatorship, and Conan O'Brien & late-night comedy, to name a few. But are Android apps and the BlackBerry PlayBook also such a sweet match? If you ask RIM, the answer is a firm, definitive "yes."

The BlackBerry maker just confirmed the age-old rumors - it's announced that the upcoming QNX-based PlayBook tablet will support Android apps. There are, however, certain limitations - while the process doesn't sound overly complicated, developers of existing Android apps will need to put some work in to porting their software over, namely "repackaging, code signing, and submitting" it to the BlackBerry App World.