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Jan

Android Team Acknowledges Honeycomb Emulator Performance Problems, Hard At Work On Fixes

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News

The Honeycomb SDK preview, allowing everyone to take a peek and play around with Honeycomb using the Android emulator, was launched yesterday, but after we got past the initial excitement, we found that the emulator itself was dog slow and pretty much unusable. In fact, it was so frustrating to use it that I wanted to punch walls and rip out my hair after 5 minutes with it. And I'm not even going to talk about orientation problems - how the Android team managed to ship the SDK with orientation broken by default (there is a fix for it in the Settings > Display) is beyond me and beyond the scope of this article.

Jan

Xperia Play Prototype Previewed, So Far Only Plays PSX Games

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Games, News, Xperia Play (Zeus, PlayStation Phone)

Engadget was lucky enough to get its hands on a prototype of Sony's much-anticipated PlayStation Phone (believed to launch as the Xperia Play), and while not everything on the unit they got was finalized (Wi-Fi was completely broken), it does give us a pretty good idea of what to expect when the phone officially launches.

First, we have some of the most important specs:

4.0" 854 x 480 LCD display
Single-core 1 GHz processor (believed to be Qualcomm) with Adreno 205 GPU
512 MB RAM
Android 2.3 with Timescape UI
5 megapixel camera

That single-core processor might seem disappointing with all the excitement surrounding Tegra 2 phones, but the Xperia Play still manages to get high marks in a number of benchmark tests (including a Quadrant score of 1,689).

Jan

Updated: SwiftKey Releases New Beta With Skins, New Prediction Engine, Bug Fixes, And Other Improvements [Hands-On]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

After weeks of frantic coding, SwiftKey, my favorite smart aftermarket Android keyboard, just released a private beta to all registered VIP forum members. While the beta itself (v1.98.1.172) is private and we can't provide you with a download link, what we can do is list all of the improvements and tease you with some screenshots.

Update: While we can't promise anything, our friendly contact at SwiftKey who I just spoke to indicated that technically if you did apply for the VIP program (i.e. their forum membership) right now, there is a chance you could get approved. Just remember who hooked you up when your fingers are in heaven.

Jan

The Coolest Android Gadget At CES 2011: Recon's Android-Powered, GPS-Enabled, Camera-Streaming Snow Goggles [Video]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Devices By Manufacturer, Froyo 2.2, News, Videos

I've been roaming the booths of CES for 3 days now, and I think I've seen almost everything even remotely related to Android that was worth seeing. One company, Recon Instruments, has been on my mind since the beginning, however, and I'm really glad I finally made it to their booth today.

Their current product, called Transcend, is a full snow goggles solution incorporating a little color LCD screen in the bottom right corner. This screen is small but it gets magnified optically to show a whole array of information, such as your current speed, temperature, altitude, time, vertical odometer, and the trail map overlaid on top of Google Maps (among other things).

Jan

CES 2011: Hands-On With Sharp's Galapagos 003SH Glasses-Free 3D Android Phone. Surprisingly, It Works! [Video]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Galapagos 003SH, News, Sharp, Videos

It's officially the 3rd day of CES, and I finally made it over to the giant Sharp ~~booth~~ pavilion, where I was able to get a hands-on demo of the first and only 3D Android handset, which is currently only sold in Japan. Don't worry though - it's coming to the U.S. and possibly other locations this year. Perhaps you've heard of it - meet Sharp Galapagos 003SH, which is capable of not only showing 3D menus, pictures, and videos, but allows you to snap some as well. In addition, it supports 3D-enabled games, one of which I was able to demo.

Jan

CES 2011: Opera For Tablets Demo [Video]

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Applications, News, Videos

Opera Software's Jeremy Forrester spent some time showing off Opera's latest browser, which was designed specifically for tablets. The browser was shown running on Samsung's Galaxy Tab.

The browser is not completely finished, but you can get a good idea of how it performs in the video above. It works nicely with Adobe Flash and should provide a familiar experience to those who are have used Opera's previous mobile browsers. More info will be made available by Opera come MWC in February.

Jan

Sony PlayStation Phone Given An In-Depth Review, Now All But Official

Posted by Josh Cooter in Gingerbread 2.3, News, Sony Ericsson, Xperia Play (Zeus, PlayStation Phone)

Last Updated: January 11th, 2011

Just days after Kaz Hirai teased the world with talk of Sony's future in smartphones, tablets, and the PlayStation brand (all without confirming or denying the existence of a PlayStation phone), Chinese site IT168 has posted an in-depth review of the engineering version that they managed to get ahold of. Not only is the PSP Phone very real; from the looks of it, the device is almost ready for prime time.

Before delving into the details, here are the specifications and features that we are working with:

Qualcomm Adreno 205
1GHz Snapdragon Processor
1,500 mAh battery
4" LCD display with 854 x 480 resolution
5MP autofocus camera with LED flash (720p video recording unconfirmed)
512 MB RAM
512 MB ROM
Micro SD slot
SIM Slot
Micro USB
Rear Mic for noise cancellation
Android 2.3

Hardware

The design of the PlayStation Phone is comparable to the form factor of the PSP go, so avid mobile gamers can rest assured that the hardware controls will blow traditional touch screen controls out of the water in terms of precision.

Jan

Honeycomb Confirmed To Be Android 3.0, Demoed In Official Google Video

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

Last Updated: November 2nd, 2011

We've seen quite a few tablets running Honeycomb as of late (and I'm sure there are still a lot more to come - after all, CES is only just beginning), but up until now, we haven't had a chance to get a good look at the OS itself. The wait is now over, however - a teaser video for the OS was recently uploaded to YouTube via androiddevelopers, Google's official Android developer account. Google has since made the video private (thus not allowing the general public to view it), but luckily, we managed to grab a backup of it before they did so:

As you can see, Google has completely rethought the Android interface in an effort to make it more tablet-friendly - clearly, Google didn't purchase BumpTop for nothing.

Jan

Opera For Tablets Previewed, Looks As Slick As Ever

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Applications, News

Opera already has one of the most popular alternate browsers for Android phones, and now it seems they're moving into the tablet territory with Opera for Tablets, a new version of their browser with a revamped UI that takes advantage of tablets' larger screen size. You won't find much information besides that in the video below, but CES is just days away, so you can look forward to seeing the app in action then.

Source: YouTube via Phandroid

Dec

For Developers: Live On The Edge - Upgrade To The Latest Eclipse ADT (Currently v9.0.0) Before It Is Released [How-To]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, Development, Gingerbread 2.3, News, Tips & Tutorials

We, Android developers, spend our days staring at a computer screen, most likely at one of Eclipse's windows. Eclipse is an amazing IDE in theory, but it never quite feels complete and polished, mostly due to the fact that it's powered by open source enthusiasts and is based almost entirely on plugins (if you want to get it to do anything useful, that is).

Being Android developers, the plugin we are using every day is ADT - Android Development Tools, written by Google engineers, mostly @tornorbye and @droidxav who I've been conversing over twitter lately and annoying with filing numerous ADT bugs (hi, if you're reading!).