31
Mar
CyanogenMOD-Logo

The CyanogenMod team has certainly been busy this week; a few days ago we saw the first CyanogenMod 9 nightly builds appear for the AT&T Galaxy S II and HP Touchpad, and now the original Samsung Galaxy S can join in the party, too.

Definition: A "nightly" is a bleeding edge release that is built on a daily basis, usually at night after a full day's worth of new code has been committed.

It could oftentimes be unstable and not properly tested, lacking any changelogs, but eventually evolving into alphas, betas, release candidates, and finally stable releases.

Nightlies are available for both the i9000 and the i9000B, which is the Brazilian variant of the device, from the CyanogenMod downloads site.

07
Jan
face unlock

It's been a rather wild ride for Samsung Galaxy S users regarding a possible update to Android 4.0. First, Samsung, issued a statement saying that they could not update their former flagship phone. After a community outcry, however, they responded with a different possibility - a "Value Pack" update, one that would include some key features from Ice Cream Sandwich (such as Face Unlock) but which would still be based on Gingerbread. Samsung later decided to not go through with the Value Pack update.

The plot has thickened once again, however: a version of the update has been leaked, and while it may not be as good as Ice Cream Sandwich itself, it does bring a host of improvements:

  • Face Unlock
  • Updated Camera
  • Photo Editor from Galaxy SII
  • Unlock screen from Galaxy Note
  • General improved performance

face unlock Value Pack sc20120106201427

The firmware, which is based on Android 2.3.6, is available for download from the links below, but it at this time it's unclear if or when Samsung will officially release the final version of the update to the general public.

27
Dec
dead-horse11

After initially deciding it wouldn't update Galaxy S phones to Ice Cream Sandwich last week, Samsung has now (supposedly) given some semi-official lip-service to vocal Galaxy S and OG-Tab owners who have been clamoring for an official update to Ice Cream Sandwich. The English-speaking side of Samsung's media arm hasn't commented on the alleged statement as of yet.

According to a translation of the Korean source articles, Samsung has officially committed to "reviewing" the "possibility" of an Ice Cream Sandwich update for its Galaxy S phones, as well as the original Galaxy Tab. If that's not a concrete statement almost completely assuring that Samsung will, at some point, say something about this topic again, I don't know what is.

11
Oct
apple-iphone-4-91
Last Updated: August 20th, 2012

The folks over at the always impartial, numerically obsessed hardware review and benchmarking site Anandtech have gotten their hands on some results comparing the iPhone 4S to a slew of Android devices in browser and GPU performance. The results are, well, interesting. Take a look at these graphics comparing browser JavaScript performance:

41618

41619

The closest competitor to Apple's iPhone 4S? The testers decided to make the Galaxy Tab 8.9 the Android Honeycomb representative, and even with its aging Tegra 2 chipset the Tab pretty much matched Apple's iPhone 4S inch for inch. But we think we have an explanation for the Tab 8.9's extreme browser performance figures: Honeycomb.

24
Sep
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Yesterday, we started receiving reports that the official Gingerbread update (reportedly version 2.3.3) for the Samsung Galaxy S Captivate on Rogers is finally here.

The update isn't showing up on Rogers' own website yet (under the Support tab), but if you go through Samsung's Kies upgrade software (go here, click Support, then Download), you should find it sitting in plain view, itching to jump over to your device.

Galaxy S users, if you've upgraded, let us know how it went and if you experienced any issues.

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Thanks, Antonio and others

03
Jun
Samsung-Exhibit-4G_1

The crew over at Wirefly recently got their hands on the Samsung Exhibit 4G, one of T-Mobile's upcoming budget phones, and, in typical Wirefly fashion, gave it a brief review along with a couple of benchmarks. Bob Kovacs seems to really like the phone, stating that it "has all the power of the Galaxy S line, but in a smaller, more affordable package," which makes this sound like a solid offering, especially when you consider the T-Mo price of $79.99 with a two-year agreement. At this point, Wirefly hasn't announced what its price will be for this device, but we're pretty certain it's going to be more affordable than what Magenta is offering.

02
Jun
powerskin logo
Last Updated: June 15th, 2011

Horrific battery life on Android phones is nothing new, and neither is the mind-blowing shattering frailty of said handsets. We've seen - and reviewed - solutions to both of these issues, but for those who want a convenient, all-in-one product, nothing beats XPAL's "PowerSkins."

Available for a variety of devices, PowerSkins are, in a sentence, silicone cases with built-in batteries from which your phone can sip juice once its internal supply has run dry. With the help of the kind folks on XPAL's PR team, I hooked my EVO 4G up with one and am now ready to report on the aftermath.

18
May
image

Galaxy S owners, you may have a reason for some early celebration. CyanogenMod 7 for the GS variants, which has been around in relatively unsupported early alpha stages for the last couple of months, has just gone quite a bit more formal with the introduction of the new "captivatemtd" device branch.

What does it mean? Captivate is the first device of the Galaxy S bunch to move to the official CM download area in the form of nightlies. Once the nightlies, which, as the word implies are rebuilt nightly, are stable enough to warrant a daily driver, you can expect to see a number of RCs (release candidates), culminating in a stable release.

12
May
image

A new update for Adobe Flash is now available in the Android Marketplace, bringing the version up to 10.3.

The update brings a number of features and fixes to Flash on Android, including fixing some issues with the Samsung Galaxy S, where certain video resolutions wouldn't show up. It also fixes crashing issues with the HTC EVO, along with optimization for OMAP 4 Cortex-A9 processors. The rest of the fixes can be found in the official changelog quoted below.

Source: Adobe

Flash Player 10.3

Download Flash Player 10.3 from Google Play
QR code for https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.adobe.flashplayer

Features and Enhancements

Flash Player 10.3 is the newest runtime release of the Open Screen Project that enables uncompromised Web browsing of expressive applications, content and video across devices.

18
Apr
Galaxy-S_GT-I9000_5-540x408

I'm not sure what has gotten into the folks at Samsung as of late, but they seem to be on top of their game. They dropped the source code for the DROID Charge and Fascinate last week, the Gingerbread update for the Galaxy S started rolling out for European users this weekend, and this morning, the source code for the aforementioned 2.3 update hit the Open Source Developers Center. Ergo, we can almost certainly expect to see some custom Gingerbread ROMs for the Galaxy S in the coming weeks.

To download the source, head over to the Open Source Developers Center, search for "GT-I9000_OpenSource_GB.zip," download, and enjoy.

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