update - 18/129 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Jan

T-Mobile Sending A Small OTA Update To Its Variant Of The Galaxy S II, Mostly Packs Security Fixes

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Galaxy S II, News, T-Mobile

A small, 11MB over-the-air update is on its way to T-Mobile's variant of the Galaxy S II this morning, which brings a few minor enhancements to the year-old device. Among those, you'll find a "Qualcomm fix," along with Vlingo S Voice improvements, and some general security enhancements.

As usual with Samsung devices, there are a couple of different ways you can apply the update to your device. First – and probably the easiest – is to just pull it via OTA; you can either wait until the automatic notification shows up letting you know that an update is available, or head into Settings > About Phone > System Updates to manually check.

Jan

Verizon Pushing A Small Security Patch To The Galaxy Note II, Likely Fixes The 'Exynos Bug'

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Galaxy Note II, News, Verizon Wireless

Note II owners on Big Red, an OTA update is coming your way. Don't get too excited, though – it's just a small security patch that fixes the dreaded Exynos bug. Thus, if it's anything like the Exynos patch for the Galaxy S III, you can also expect a new bootloader. That usually means bad news for the root community (especially when it's a Verizon phone we're talking about), and it's likely no different in this case.

However, it's probably safe to say that the Exynos vulnerability is far more troubling to many users than losing root access, so you may want to go ahead and pull this one as soon as it's available.

Jan

Facebook App Updated To v.2.1, Brings Voice Messaging, Better Sharing, And Faster Photos

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

It's nice to finally have Facebook pay at least a little attention to its mobile apps for a change. Today, the social networking giant is rolling out an incremental update that brings a couple of new features. Of course, there's the big one: remember that new voice messaging thing that Messenger got? Now the regular app has it, too.

Here's the full changelog:

What's in this version:

• Open and view photos faster
• Share your friends' stories to timelines, pages and groups
• Send voice messages when you have more to say

The bulk of the new changes will likely be of little consequence, but if you've ever been mildly frustrated by your inability to share a friend's posts to different pages or groups, your life will get just a smidge easier.

Jan

ASUS Updates The Transformer Pad TF700T To 10.4.4.25: Full Changelog And Downloads

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in ASUS, News, Transformer Pad Infinity

It's that time again, Transformer Pad Infinity owners! The latest incremental update to Android 4.1 is out and ready to flash for US, Japan, China, and Taiwan models, and the international version to boot. You can check your Settings menu for the over-the-air download, or head over to the ASUS download page if you're not seeing it immediately.

So what's new? A few bugs for the camera, Mio map, and movie studio app are fixed, and compatibility with newer MicroSD cards is enhanced. Some incidences of music playback lag have been adjusted, and the Polaris Office suite has been updated for more accurate Turkish display.

Jan

Dolphin Browser Updated, Now Offers One-Tap Sharing, Cross-Device Sync, And Evernote/Box Support

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

If there's one thing to say about the team behind Dolphin browser, it's that they can't be discouraged. Despite the availability of Chrome and Chrome Beta for Android, Dolphin is still going strong – and things like today's update are likely the reason.

The update, which bumps Dolphin up to 9.2.0, brings three fairly major features: one-tap sharing, cross-devices sync (called Dolphin Connect), and built-in Evernote support. But what does that actually mean? Here's a quick breakdown of each:

One-tap Sharing: instantly share web pages to Facebook, Twitter, email, or to another device on the same Wi-Fi network with – you guessed it – one tap.

Jan

T-Mobile's Galaxy Note II Getting A Bug-Fix OTA, Patches The 'Exynos Exploit'

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Galaxy Note II, News, T-Mobile

If you have a stock Note II on T-Mobile, it's time to hit the "check updates" button, because a fix for that nasty Exynos bug is on its way. If you're not familiar with said bug, it basically allowed any app to root and gain full access to any Exynos 4-powered system. And that's a bad thing.

Fortunately, Samsung recognized the issue and started working on a patch almost immediately. It has already rolled out to the Galaxy S III in the UK, and now it's coming to the Note II on T-Mo. Hopefully other carriers will follow suit shortly.

Jan

Sprint-Galaxy-S-III-Google-Wallet-Preloaded-2GB-RAM-Dual-Core-S4-Preorders-Up-June-5-Release-On-June-21-A

Sprint Pushing Small OTA Updates To The Flash And Epic 4G Touch

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Epic 4G Touch, Flash, News, Sprint

A couple of small OTA updates - both of which are primarily bug-fixers - are making their way to the Flash and Epic 4G Touch on Sprint this morning.

Flash owners, you can expect LED blink timing improvements, camera enhancements, better text input with Swype, and a tweak to the information provided in Settings > Applications > Running applications.

The list is actually shorter for the Epic 4G Touch, with only two things in the OTA: it adds Sprint's Connection Optimizer, and brings some security updates. Exciting, I know.

You can see if the update is available on either device by heading into Settings > About phone > System Updates > Update firmware.

Jan

Samsung's Galaxy Rugby Pro On AT&T Getting The Bump To Android 4.1

Posted by Cameron Summerson in AT&T, Galaxy Rugby Pro, News

Back in September, Samsung announced a new ruggedized mid-ranger for AT&T: the Galaxy Rugby Pro. Now, that phone you probably don't remember is getting Jelly Bean. It's pretty weird.

The update, which bumps this rough-and-tumble handset up to Android 4.1, brings many good things for the device, like Google Now and Project Butter, but it also includes some other enhancements and fixes:

Camera enhancements: New live camera and camcorder filters offer a range of camera effects, pause and resume while recording a video

Pop Up Play update: Easily resize or pause the Pop Up Play picture-in-picture video window.

Jan

Chrome Beta For Android Receives Its First Update, Brings Several Bug Fixes

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

Well, that was fast – the beta channel of Chrome for Android just became a thing four days ago, and the browser has already received its first update. Granted, it's just a bunch of bug fixes, but it's still something.

This bumps the browser up to v25.0.1364.33 and fixes the following issues:

164632 - Edit Bookmark is broken

167351 - Youtube video controls are lost after returning from fullscreen

167016 - Some Samsung Galaxy S2 freezes

168062 - Double tapping on non-zoomable sites scrolls the page to the top briefly before returning to original position

167379 - Sometimes tabswitcher is frozen

166998 - Tab content stretched out while returning to it through side swipe gesture

168632 - Crash - Stack Signature: TabAndroidImpl::FromWebContents

168388 - Sync signed in info text's font size is too small

168430 - Bookmark star icon doesn't turn grey/white immediately after bookmarking URL /deleting URL from bookmarks

Of course, it's still beta, and that can only mean one thing: there area still plenty more bugs to squash.

Jan

Flipboard Updated With Daydream Support For Android 4.2

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Applications, News

Flipboard's release last summer was hotly anticipated to say the least. A recent update to utilize the screen real estate of Android tablets bumped the app up another notch, and today's update (to version 1.9.18) puts the icing on the cake. As of today, Flipboard has Daydream functionality for Android 4.2.

Daydream, when it was first introduced, seemed kind of boring (okay, you can look at a lovely animated gradient while charging). The feature was, to put it mildly, more fluff than substance. That said, as a Flipboard user, my opinion of the feature has suddenly shifted. Playing with multicolored jelly beans (while delightful) can now be replaced with actual information.