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Dec

Boom, Baby! Over 700,000 Android Devices Being Activated Every Day

Posted by Abhiroop Basu in Android OS, News

Intrepid Google+ user and Android head Andy Rubin mentioned yesterday that there are now over 700,000 Android devices being activated every day.

Wow.

Although it is clearly an astounding number of daily activations, the increase appears to be quite steady. In August it was reported that over 550,000 Android devices were being activated daily, with a total of 150 million devices activated worldwide. In June the number of daily activations was 500,000, while in May it was only 400,000. At this rate of growth, Android is likely to hit 1 million activations per day quite soon.

With such rapid increases in activations, it is no surprise that Android now holds over 50% of the global smartphone market share.

Apr

Take Me Back, Baby: 3 Reasons I'm Staying With Android And Coming Back To Android Police

Posted by Chris Dehghanpoor in Android OS, Editorials, Off-Topic

If you’ve been an Android Police fan for a while, you may recognize my name from some of my past posts. Beyond that, I was mostly active behind the scenes until I dropped this little bomb when I departed earlier this year.

The reaction to that article was pretty much what I expected - it was divisive and the conversation surrounding it was often heated. Ultimately, though, my goal was accomplished: people were talking about the problems surrounding Android and software updates.

You may be wondering, “If that was your departure letter, why the hell am I reading this? Go away iFanboy”.

Apr

Larry Page Shifts Google Executives, Bumps Andy Rubin Up To SVP In The Process

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Android OS, News

It didn't take long for Google CEO Larry Page to start making drastic changes to the way the company does business once he got in the saddle earlier this week. As of today, he reportedly promoted seven of the top executives in the company, including Android's own Andy Rubin. It has been suggested that Page is making these changes in order to streamline the company's decision making process, something that he feels has slowed dramatically over the years.

In an effort to return the company to a startup mindset, Rubin, along with the other six newly promoted execs, will now report directly to Page.

Apr

One Size Does Not Fit All: Andy Rubin Responds To Recent Cases Of Misinformation And FUD In The Press

Posted by Abhiroop Basu in Android OS, News

Android In Recent News

Fragmentation has been one of the biggest criticisms of the Android platform. Essentially, Google allows anybody to take the Android code and tweak it suit their own needs. This is how manufacturers like Motorola, HTC, and Samsung are able to create custom layers (MotoBlur, Sense UI, and TouchWiz, respectively) over the vanilla Android interface and how some carriers load up new phones with crapware. Although this is a price to pay for openness and customizability, a recent study indicates that 86% of developers are unhappy with the state of Android fragmentation (24% of them describing it as a "huge problem").

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.

Jan

Motorola XOOM To Launch On February 17th, Confirmed By Internal Best Buy Document

Posted by Abhiroop Basu in Motorola, News, XOOM

An eager reader forwarded an internal Best Buy memo to Engadget which indicates, in no uncertain terms, that the Motorola XOOM tablet is set to launch at Best Buy on February 17th.

A leak from Verizon has confirmed that the unsubsidized price of the XOOM will be $799. However, Best Buy may be retailing the device for an altogether different price.

The XOOM is an important device for both Motorola and Google because it will be the first tablet to run Android 3.0 Honeycomb, an iteration of the Android OS that supports the tablet form factor. Google rubber-stamped their approval over this product when Andy Rubin demoed Honeycomb on the XOOM at AllThingsD's D:Dive Into Mobile.

Jan

Andy Rubin: Next Version Of Android To Be Called "Ice Cream Sandwich"

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News

As you probably know by now, versions of the Android OS tend to be alphabetically named and include some sort of reference to a dessert. Therefore, it was only reasonable to assume that the version of Android following Honeycomb would be called "Ice Cream."

However, according to Andy Rubin, that is not the case - instead, the name will be "Ice Cream Sandwich."

We still don't know Ice Cream Sandwich's version number, the features it will introduce, or anything else about it, but for those of you interested in the reason behind the name, TechCrunch has a pretty good theory: Google's statue for Android 2.2 includes frozen yogurt, which would be pretty hard to distinguish from ice cream.

Dec

More Pictures Of Motorola's Honeycomb Tablet Surface, Confirm Verizon Compatibility

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless

Motorola's Honeycomb tablet has certainly been receiving a lot of attention as of late - more attention, perhaps, than has ever been paid to a device whose name has yet to be publicized. Nonetheless, the pieces of the puzzle are finally coming together - Engadget has scored seven pictures of the 10-inch slate:

Unfortunately, some of the shots appear to have been taken by Mr. Blurrycam himself - in fact, the graininess is so bad in some images that it's nearly impossible to discern what is being conveyed. Still, regardless of what the ports shown in the last image are for (HDMI, microUSB, and headphone jack ports are probably in there somewhere), there's one thing that has been ascertained by this leak: the tablet is destined for Big Red's network, as proven by the Verizon logo seen in the first three images.

Dec

New Picture, Specs Leak Out Of Motorola's Honeycomb-Running Tablet

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, Motorola

You could say December 7th ended with a bang - after a day crammed full of Gingerbread goodness, Andy Rubin came on stage at D: Dive Into Mobile to tease a next-gen Honeycomb tablet. Unfortunately, Google's VP of Engineering didn't give us a very in-depth look, so most of us were left hungry for more.

And more we have - in addition to the picture you're seeing above, Taiwanese forum member goldenstone provided us with the following specs:

1280x800 display
32 GB EMMC storage as well as a microSD card slot
NVIDIA Tegra 2 T20 dual-core CPU with 3D performance re-optimization
Gyroscope
5 MP rear camera
2 MP front-facing cam

Oh, and Motorola's got something hidden up its sleeve for those of you still bickering over which size is best - there will be both seven and ten-inch editions of the device.

Dec

Android Passes 300,000 Activations Per Day, According To Android Chief Andy Rubin

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, News

Andy Rubin is a man of few words, at least on Twitter. Followed by 15,000, he only ever tweeted once before today, defending Android's openness. His second tweet - an update on the daily rate of Android activations, which was 100,000 per day in May during Google I/O, 160,000 in June, 200,000 in August, and now topped 300,000.

300,000 Android phones a day! That's 2.1 million phones per week, about 9 million phones per month, or 108 million phones per year. That's a whole lot of phones.