release - 26/28 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Aug

Dell Streak (Officially) Available August 13th – $299 With 2-Year Contract on AT&T, $549 Without

Posted by David Ruddock in News, Streak

After having faked us out a couple weeks back, it seems Dell is finally ready to let its Streak tablet-phone-whatever loose stateside. You can get it $299 with a new or upgraded 2-year service agreement on AT&T, or shell out $549 to avoid the contractual shackle. Here’s a quick reminder of the specs the Streak is packing:

5” TFT LCD with resolution of 480x800 pixels
3.5mm headphone jack
HSDPA 7.2 radio (Class 12) with GPS
WiFi 802.11 b/g radio
Bluetooth v2.0
5MP camera with dual-LED flash
Front-facing camera
Snapdragon 1GHz processor
Android 1.6
2GB Internal Storage
1530mAh battery

You’ll notice I’ve taken the liberty to highlight a few of the Streak’s unique points, good and bad.

Aug

Official Motorola Droid Android 2.2 Froyo Update (Still FRG01B) Now Being Pushed Out OTA

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Droid (Sholes), Froyo 2.2, Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless

It's been 8 days since the original Android 2.2 Froyo update for the 1st Motorola Droid leaked out online, and Verizon has been taking its sweet time to make it available to the masses, leaving us guessing whether FRG01B was indeed the final version of this Éclair->Froyo update and whether serious stop-ship bugs were discovered.

Turns out, nothing has changed - FRG01B is exactly the version that Verizon started pushing out to the Droids a few hours ago. So if you haven't flashed the update a little over a week ago, you just missed out on 8 sweet days with the frozen deliciousness.

Aug

[Updated: The R2-D2 Droid 2 Site Is Live] Motorola Droid 2 Goes Official - Pre-Sale August 11th, Out August 12th

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Droid 2, Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless

It doesn't come as a huge surprise that the rumors regarding Moto's 2nd generation of the most popular Android phone ever were indeed right on the money. VZW announced this morning that Droid 2 will be going to its stores on August 12th, with a pre-sale starting a day earlier at www.verizonwireless.com.

Specs

The phone will ship with Android 2.2, supporting Flash 10.1, and these specs:

3.7" screen
5 MP Camera
3G Mobile Hotspot
1 GHz CPU
8 GB onboard memory
8 GB microSD card installed, support for up to 16 GB
DLNA

Bill Ogle, chief marketing officer of Moto Mobile, has this to say about the new Droid incarnation:

With the new DROID 2, we’ve taken a big leap forward from the original DROID.

Aug

TweetDeck Beta For Android Out Later This Week!

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

If you've been anxiously waiting for TweetDeck for Android, like we all here at AP, you can start jumping up and down right about now, because the company blog just announced that a public beta will be rolling out this week.

Ever since I had the pleasure of seeing a private demo of the app given to me by TweetDeck's CEO Iain Dodsworth at Google I/O, I've been anxious to get my grabby hands on a copy. Expected back in April to be "a few weeks," the app's release timeline apparently got stretched to a few months, in the best traditions of Blizzard and 3D Realms.

Aug

BlindType Keyboard To Come To Android - Type Anywhere On Your Phone's Screen, Even With No Keyboard Present

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Applications, News

In a market that is rapidly becoming saturated, we have yet another entry. BlindType is a replacement software keyboard, but it’s one with a little twist. As the name might suggest, BlindType seeks to remove the visual aspect of typing on your smartphone’s software keyboard. Know the QWERTY layout by heart? This keyboard is for you.

Irrespective of where you tap on the screen, BlindType can figure out where on the keyboard you meant to hit by comparing the positions of your previous keypresses. Even if you shift your typing up an entire row of keys, BlindType will (probably) adapt and adjust to accommodate you.

Aug

Another One Bites The Dust: Original Motorola DROID Officially “Out Of Stock” On Verizon Website

Posted by David Ruddock in Droid (Sholes), Droid 2, Motorola, News

With the release of the DROID 2 fast approaching, the death of Motorola’s first Android phone was an unavoidable casualty in the name of progress. While the DROID platform lives on in the Milestone and Milestone XT, a certain piece of Android philosophy has died today with the DROID. Verizon’s website shows the DROID is no longer available:

The DROID 2 will undoubtedly ship with yet another iteration of Motorola’s now-infamous encrypted bootloader, and without the flaws that made the rooting of the DROID X possible. While the likelihood of new and exciting exploits allowing root access on the device emerging is high, Motorola has clearly taken a hard-line stance against the Android development and hacking communities.

Aug

Motorola Droid Android 2.2 Froyo OTA Is Now Live! Download Yours Now (FRG01B)

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Droid (Sholes), Froyo 2.2, Motorola, News

Last Updated: August 20th, 2010

What a great day for Motorola Droid owners - your Froyo update that you've been patiently waiting for is finally here. You can upgrade your ESE81 (that's your old Éclair) to what is now called FRG01B (this is your Froyo) using the link below.

It is unclear yet whether the upgrade is showing up when you ask the phone to update in Settings > About > System updates but we have preliminary reports that it is not. However, you can upgrade manually using the procedure below.

This post will be updated throughout the day.

Warning #1: Applying this update will unroot you if you are currently rooted, pending further notice.

Jul

[Updated, New Instructions, Mirror] BREAKING: HTC Releases Android 2.2 FroYo OTA For EVO4G [Download]

Posted by David Ruddock in Development, EVO 4G (Supersonic), News

We’ve just received word that the EVO4G OTA to FroYo (internally known at HTC as update 3.26) is now available for download directly from HTC’s website. Link below.

Update #1: we just received another word from HTC that this is NOT the final update. The final is going to go out next week.

Update #2: all your settings should be preserved with this OTA. No data loss should occur.

You will lose root if you install this update. If you are running a custom ROM, please wait for your ROM developer to release the next version.

Download:

~~EVO 4G 2.2 OTA Update~~ <-- HTC deleted the update from their servers.

Jul

Motorola Droid X And Samsung Captivate Open Source Code Released

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Captivate, Droid X (Shadow), Eclair 2.1, Motorola, News, Samsung

Last Updated: November 23rd, 2011

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.

This will allow ROM developers to figure out all those little quirks specific to the hardware and incorporate them into their releases.

Note, however, that the Android license doesn't cover proprietary extensions, such as custom vendor applications and widgets, and therefore does not require manufacturers to open source them:

Licensing

With the exception of brief update periods, Android has been available as open source since 21 October 2008.

Jul

UPDATE: Dell Streak Orders Not Being Taken Today, Or In July At All For That Matter

Posted by David Ruddock in Development, News, Streak

UPDATE 3: We’ve been informed that in an interview earlier today, spokesman Matt Parretta claimed that the capture from the Dell website below was a mistake. Parretta also says he knew nothing about the page’s statement that the phone would be available in late July, saying “I’ve never said that.” (I guess I’ll take him at his word).

Shame on Dell for putting us through all this!

UPDATE 2: It seems those who made it on the Dell Streak pre-order list can expect an e-mail some time today with a link to purchase their new phone. Pricing comes in at $299 for new or extended 2-year AT&T contracts, and a whopping $549 for those looking to purchase it unsubsidized.