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Dec

T-Mobile UK's Samsung Galaxy S Now Receiving Froyo Update Over The Air, T-Mobile US Still Sleeping At The Wheel

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Froyo 2.2, Galaxy S, News, Samsung, T-Mobile

While Galaxy S owners here in the States are still (im)patiently awaiting the update to Android 2.2, it looks like users on T-Mobile UK's network are already enjoying the wonders of Froyo. Yes, the update that was initially scheduled for September is only now rolling out.

Luckily, T-Mobile's European brother has (slightly) sweetened the deal with a nice twist - although the update was originally supposed to be made available exclusively through Samsung's Kies software for Windows-based PCs, the carrier has seen fit to add an OTA version into the mix. That doesn't mean Kies has been completely left out of the fun, though - if "reasons out of our [T-Mobile's] control" interfere with the OTA update, users can still hook their phones up to their (Windows-based) computers, start up Kies, and download the update in the same manner most other European carriers are having users do.

Nov

Rockmelt On Your Phone? Skyfire 3.0 Brings Facebook Integration And More Social Features

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Applications, News

Alternative browser Skyfire made waves with a previous update that allowed it to play Flash videos on any device, and the latest update to version 3 has even more features that most other browsers are lacking - built-in Facebook integration, notably similar to recently released PC/Mac browser RockMelt.

In addition to aforementioned ability to play Flash videos, Skyfire now includes the following social features:

Popular Content
instantly see what content on the site is most popular with your friends and the Facebook community

Fireplace Feed Reader
nothing but the links from your Facebook feed. Simple and addictive

Facebook Portal Integration
one-touch access to your Facebook feed, profile, places and status updates

Skyfire Search
simple way to search across Facebook, Google, VideoSurf, Twitter and more

As Adobe's official Flash player comes to more devices, Skyfire really does need a new hook, but I'm not sure Facebook integration is going to be it.

Nov

AppBrain App Receives Major Update To v5

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Applications, Apps/Games, Games, News

If you use AppBrain for all of your Android app downloads, then you'll want to update the app as soon as possible: the latest update to version five includes all of the following awesome new features:

Details page for every app
Related apps tab
Ability to share through any sharing app on your phone
Fast Web Installer now integrated
Fast Sync Widget

Unfortunately, the integration of the Fast Web Installer probably won't help thanks to the new Market update breaking it, but with plenty of other new features this update is still pretty substantial.

Source: AppBrain

Nov

Google's Latest Market Updates Nerf AppBrain’s Fast Web Installer

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Applications, Games, News

The recent update to the Android Market had plenty of people excited about new features to be available in Gingerbread, but it seems like the update may have had some unpleasant side effects. The Appbrain Fast Web Installer feature, which allowed users to push application downloads to their phones straight from Appbrain.com, is now broken due to new security measures. Some naysayers may think that Google is going directly after Appbrain, but in reality, the reasons are much less nefarious. A security flaw that allowed one app to secretly install others was recently exposed by a security company, and the side effect of fixing it broke the Fast Web Installer.

Nov

Remember The Milk Updated To v1.4, Adds Push Syncing Support

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News

Remember The Milk is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful task management solutions on the market, and its Android app is pure awesomeness. It is extremely polished, and I rely on it reminding me about my tasks, including various Android Police business, every day.

One feature that the RTM app has been lacking is push syncing support, instead making us select a potentially battery-killing polling interval (mine was set to every hour). As I've found out from my own observations, frequent sync is really devastating to the battery life, and should be avoided as much as possible. To address that, today that the company released an update version 1.4 of the Android client, codenamed "Rachael," which introduced what they've described as the "magical push syncing awesomeness," among other things.

Nov

Samsung Canada Announces Galaxy S Froyo Upgrade Timelines

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Bell, Captivate, Fascinate, Galaxy S, News, Rogers, Samsung, TELUS, Vibrant

Samsung, which has been under fire from consumers for repeatedly delaying Android 2.2. updates on their Galaxy S line of phones, recently posted an announcement for its Canadian customers on Bell, TELUS, and Rogers. In the announcement, Samsung apologized for delaying the long-awaited update and cited rigorous testing as the current stage of the rollout process.

Now, keeping in mind that these are just estimates, have a look at the upgrade timelines for your Canadian Galaxy S device:

Vibrant from Bell and Captivate from Rogers will be up first in the middle of December
Fascinate from TELUS will not get upgraded until all the way to the beginning of 2011

It's quite sad that Gingerbread, the Android version following Froyo, will be released long before Froyo itself makes it to the biggest flagship device series Samsung offers and long after their European and Korean counterparts.

Nov

[Updated] New Options In The Android Market App Publishing Interface: Promo Videos, High Res App Icon, Feature Graphics

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, Apps/Games, Development, News

Whoa! Only a few hours after sending out a notification about a big Market maintenance, Google sneakily updated the Market publishing interface with a variety of new options, pointing to nothing less than an updated Market likely to launch very soon, probably together with Gingerbread. The presence of higher resolution graphics underscores Google's newly embraced support for tablets and TVs, and possibly suggests that Market web interface we've been waiting for since Google I/O is finally around the corner.

Here are all the new options available to developers publishing their apps, in addition to the 2 screenshots and the promotional graphic+text (I can't think of a place where the latter is used):

High Resolution Application Icon - 512w x 512h, 24 bit PNG or JPEG (no alpha).

Nov

Froyo Flood Begins: UK Vodaphone HTC Legend And Galaxy S Along With Korean Galaxy A And S Now Receiving Froyo Updates

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Froyo 2.2, Galaxy S, HTC, Legend, News, Samsung, Vodafone

What a day for Froyo! First, we had the Dell Streak, which has been long overdue for some frozen yogurt, and now not 1 but 4 more phones are receiving their Froyo updates. They are:

Vodaphone HTC Legend in the UK
Vodaphone Galaxy S in the UK
Galaxy A and Galaxy S in Korea

Interestingly enough, it's the carrier specific version of HTC Legend that is receiving Froyo, even before its carrier agnostic, unlocked brothers. The situation is usually the other way around because releasing through a carrier involves additional testing steps that normally slow things down. We'll take it though!

Nov

CyanogenMod 6.1 RC1 Now Available For T-Mobile G2/HTC Desire Z

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Desire Z (Vision), Development, G2 (Vision), HTC, News, T-Mobile

Exactly a week after getting rooted and only a few days after getting its very first CyanogenMod nightly release, HTC Desire Z and T-Mobile G2 owners can now upgrade to RC1 (release candidate 1), bringing it up to speed with the rest of the devices supported by the CM team. Apparently, these guys move at light speed.

G2/Desire Z owners should consider themselves lucky, as Cyanogen himself owns a G2 and maintains this CM branch - that's when you know you are in good hands.

Not much has changed in terms of installation instructions, so I'll jump right into it:

This version is a release candidate, but you will find it stable for everyday use.

Nov

Dell Streak Android 2.2 Froyo Update For Unlocked Devices Rolling Out Now, Carrier Specific In December

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Dell, News, Streak

As we mentioned over the weekend, the UK Dell Streaks were on the verge of finally getting that sweet, delicious Froyo upgrade, and now we are able to provide the rollout schedule in more detail.

Starting November 15th, which is pretty much now, carrier unlocked devices will start to receive OTA (over-the-air) notifications allowing the Froyo update to be downloaded and applied. Carrier locked Streak OTAs will follow later on in December due to having to jump through extra hoops, i.e. the carriers, before any updates can be allowed to trickle in. Your Streak will check for a firmware update upon boot but you can force the check manually by going to Settings > About > System Updates.