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It has been more than five years since we said goodbye to the Android Market and hello to Google Play. You may have long since adjusted to the change, but there's been a version of the Android Market out there all this time. Google's putting an end to that soon, though. On June 30th 2017, the Android Market client on Android 2.1 and earlier will stop working.
Pop quiz: How long does it take for a new version of Android to be widely adopted? A new version of Android comes out, AOSP updates, OEMs adapt it to a myriad of devices, and carriers test the updates. That process. How long does it take?
Beyond Ynth may not be the most catchy title in the world, but the game has already proved to be a big hit on the iOS App Store for both iPhone and iPad.
In this line of work, I get the chance to write about things that are new and exciting. Other times, however, that's just not the case. There are times when writing about certain subjects just makes me sad... and this is one of those times. Sure, it may be good news in a sense, but the fact that I am sitting here, on May 31, 2011, reporting an update to Android 2.1... well, that's just disappointing. Regardless of that, though, here are the deetz on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Android 2.1 update.
Almost 2 months ago, CNN pushed out its first news app to the Android Market, though with one quite annoying caveat - it was created specifically for Honeycomb devices, which were quite scarce to say the least (i.e. the XOOM).
Man, Alltel really seems to have a knack for releasing devices much later than competing carriers, doesn't it? First it was the HTC Hero, then it was the Motorola Milestone, and now it's the LG Axis - essentially the same phone as the LG Ally, which Verizon launched in May of 2010.
Sony Ericsson has confirmed that it will not be updating its Xperia X10 line of smartphones to Android 2.2 Froyo. So, owners of the Xperia X10, X10 Mini and X10 Mini Pro will be stuck on Android 2.1 Éclair for the foreseeable future. However, Sony Ericsson has promised to provide some minor software updates, with features such as multitouch, later this year.
As per usual, Google has updated their Android Platform Version Chart, which gives us a clear indication of how many devices are running each version of Android, based on Market usage. The results won't shock anybody, but they do say good things about the current state of fragmentation in Android. Froyo continues it dominance, taking over half of the chart, while Android 2.1 still remains strong with 35%, likely due in large part to the massive number of Galaxy S phones still running it. Our obsolete friends, Cupcake and Donut, continue to fall into obscurity, although devices running them are unlikely to be updated. Gingerbread is at a paltry .4%, thanks to the fact that the Nexus S is still the only handset running it (officially, anyway). It would be nice to see Gingerbread, as the latest Android version, rise considerably in the next two weeks, but that's unlikely - especially with Samsung still only focused on bringing Froyo to the Galaxy S line.
Nope, the Archos 70 wasn't the death of the good (or not so good) ol' Archos 7 Home Tablet, apparently. The manufacturer has just let revision 2 of the Archos 7 loose, and while it's still got a resistive touchscreen (ugh), its CPU has been upgraded to an 800 MHz Rockchip processor (the older model was powered by a 600 MHz chip), and it now comes with Android 2.1 (as opposed to Android 1.6 on the original).
When Samsung threw their big U.S. Galaxy S kick off party earlier in the summer, it was announced that each of the four major carriers would be selling their very own version of the hardware. But, in a twist of M. Night Shyamalan-ian proportions, they announced a second Galaxy S device for Verizon.
The Black Friday is long gone, but another, potentially even bigger event, called Cyber Monday, is now upon us. Cyber Monday is what happens when the Black Friday goes online, and Virgin Mobile USA does not disappoint. The carrier, which uses Sprint's network, is offering its only Android handset, the Samsung Intercept, for a whopping $75 off. The deal is valid for the duration of Cyber Monday, so hurry up if you want this 800MHz Android QWERTY slider for $175, with free shipping. The beauty of Virgin Mobile USA, of course, is its plans starting at $25 a month, with NO contract to sign.
Android 2.1 Update For T-Mobile Garminfone Available For Manual Installation; All 10 Owners Ecstatic
Granted, this particular bit of news is only valuable to the (very) small crowd of people who purchased the T-Mobile Garminfone, but it's nice to hear nonetheless. The good news: Garmin has released an update to Android 2.1 (Éclair). The bad: it's a manual update.
It's hardly the latest and greatest, but it's a hell of a lot better than what users of the AT&T Backflip were stuck on previously - that's right, a manual update to Android 2.1 Éclair for the much ballyhooed device is now up on both AT&T's and Motorola's servers.
Motorola CLIQ owners have been waiting for this day for a very-very-very long time, but, believe it or not, it's finally here. Following the leaked version from 3 weeks ago, the official Éclair for you phones (but not CLIQ XT just yet) is now available from Motorola - not as an OTA, but as a downloadable .zip.
This morning Sony Ericsson posted a teaser video on YouTube explaining to X10 users the differences they will find in the update from Android 1.6 to 2.1. As painful as it is to watch a video of someone demonstrating five homescreens, slide-to-unlock and live wallpapers like they're brand new features, the video underscores the growing expectation that an update will be released for the X10 within the next few days.
No phone manufacturer is as fast with software updates as customers would like them to be, but Motorola has been particularly bad, especially with some of their MOTOBLUR phones which are still stuck on Android 1.5. But they do seem to be taking a step forward with a new timeline that lists when each of their phones around the world will be receiving updates to a later version of Android.
Owners of Dell’s 5” tablet in the UK were lucky to get their hands on a leaked pre-release version of Android 2.1 earlier this week. The hack, however, was only compatible with the O2 version of the device in the UK, so owners of the US counterpart released only 2 days ago on AT&T have been stuck with their new giant babies wearing an ancient 1.6 Donut diaper. To make matters worse, it looks like Dell decided to skip the 2.1 update altogether and go straight for 2.2, delaying the upgrade even longer.
As part of the Android's open source Apache license, manufacturers are required to publicly release all of their own modifications and improvements made to the Android core. Today, both Samsung and Motorola decided it would be the perfect time to drop the Captivate and Droid X code to their respective open source sites.