24
Oct
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The pace at which Samsung is pushing out Galaxy S III Jelly Bean updates is picking up steam in Europe with the much anticipated arrival of Android 4.1.1 for unbranded UK handsets. The Brits aren't the only ones getting it today - in fact, the list is quite sizeable. Here, check it out:

  • UK unbranded
  • Switzerland unbranded
  • Luxemburg unbranded (update: supposedly, Belgian S IIIs use the same version too)
  • Denmark (Three)
  • Bulgaria (Mobiltel)
  • Romania (Cosmote)
  • Ireland (Meteor, Vodafone)
  • Czech Republic (O2)
  • Sweden (Tre)
  • Croatia (Vipnet)

Not bad at all - looks like the next platform distribution update won't be as depressing.

24
Oct
tectile

I love NFC. In fact, I use it every single day and can't imagine going back to life without it. Since I'm running CyanogenMod 10 on both my tablet and phone, I take full advantage of the profiles feature, which allows custom settings for various situations like work, home, night, and more, each of which can be activated (and de-activated) via NFC.

Beginning now, Samsung owners with NFC-capable phones can utilize a very similar feature with the newly updated TecTile app. For those who may not know, TecTile is a Samsung proprietary application that lets users write and re-write activities to NFC tags.

22
Oct
wm_screen

Samsung continued the European rollout of Android 4.1.1 to Galaxy S IIIs today with updates going live for carrier unbranded handsets in France and Germany. Jelly Bean is also hitting SGS III devices on France's third largest mobile operator called Bouygues.

sgs3ger

Image via androidromupdate

To recap, here is how the JB update got pushed out all over Europe in recent weeks:

  • October 22: O2 in UK and Ireland; Vodafone in UK, Italy, Czech Republic, and Germany.
  • October 18: Hutchison Whampoa companies (Three, 3, H3G) in Italy, UK, Ireland, and Austria; Swisscom in Switzerland.
  • October 17: SFR in France; Vodafone in Spain and Romania; A1 in Austria; unbranded in Spain
  • October 15: Sweden (unbranded or Telenor, it's not clear - the CSC for the release is VDS)
  • September 24: unbranded in Poland

As always, check your update notifications, pull via Kies, or download from unofficial ROM sites SamMobile or Samsung-Updates.

22
Oct
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European O2 and Vodafone Galaxy S III owners, it's finally your turn to check out Jelly Bean first hand. Following last week's updates on Hutchison Whampoa networks (Three/3/H3G), now O2 and Vodafone joined the party and started pushing out Android 4.1.1 to Galaxy S IIIs in at least the following locations:

  • O2: United Kingdom, Ireland
  • Vodafone: United Kingdom, Italy, Czech Republic, Germany

The Vodafone launch started today right on schedule, as per this post from a few days ago.

The O2 rollout was scheduled to begin on the 19th of October, but was delayed until today, the 22nd, as confirmed by several updates to this blog post on O2's forums:

image sgs3

Watch out for the update notification in the next few days or load up Kies for instant gratification.

21
Oct
2012-10-21_15h49_30

After seeing a deluge of rumors, leaks, and hoax after hoax this season, it looks like we're finally starting to wind down. With Google's Android event a mere 8 days away, it's time to clear away the muck and take a look at what we expect to make an appearance just a couple days before Halloween. Let's start with the stuff we're most confident in and work our way down, shall we?

Android 4.2 Jelly Bean

We were already fairly confident that the next version of Android would not be 5.0. While Google is inconsistent with its naming and number scheme, The company does tend to at least save full number releases for big changes (2.0 brought a huge face lift, Navigation and the Droid, 3.0 introduced tablets, 4.0 brought tablets and phones together under the biggest UI change yet).

21
Oct
solidexplorer

Among people who love file managers, there's no doubt that Solid Explorer is a favorite. It's full-featured, intuitive, and powerful. Adding to its already-impressive feature set, it was just updated to version 1.3.8 in the Play Store, bringing along a slew of enhancements that are sure to please the Solid fans among us:

-status bar
-special bit flags for file permissions(root only)
-fixed freezes when transferring over ftp
-fixed a bug causing the files to be deleted instead of moved
-quick config popup under jump action
-ability to stream media from Dropbox, Box, Google Drive and ZIP files
-fixed some issues related to media streaming
-manual toggle for system remount (root only)
-stability improvements
-minor bug fixes

1 2 3

The update is live in the Store now - if you already have Solid installed, you can go ahead and pull it down.

19
Oct
2012-10-19_11h43_25

Straight from the horse's mouth is always the best way to hear about updates, even if it's less-than-stellar news. Today, Sony confirmed its schedule for Jelly Bean updates on its line of phones. For starters, the recently-launched Xperia T and Xperia TX will be upgraded "from mid-Q1 2013." This will put the latest and greatest from Sony a solid six months behind Android 4.1's initial launch and, if our guess is correct, at least a few months behind the possible release of Android 4.2.

After that, the rest of Sony's 2012 lineup, including the Xperia S, Xperia acro S, Xperia ion, Xperia P, Xperia go and Xperia J will all be upgraded to Jelly Bean sometime next year.

18
Oct
unnamed

Many of you probably already know how I feel about CyanogenMod – I swear by it, especially on my EVO LTE. Nothing beats it in terms of bringing a (mostly) stock experience to your device with just the right amount of tweaks and extra features. Plus, there are nightly updates that satisfy my need to stay on the bleeding edge and get a daily fix of… fixes. The only downside to this is that each nightly update (for my EVO, anyway) hovers around 180MB, a download that takes just a little more time than I care to spend sometimes.

Enter CyanDelta Updater.

18
Oct
image

The Jelly Bean update for the Galaxy S III is steadily spreading to more countries in Europe, in addition to Poland, Sweden, France, Spain, Romania, and Austria. Today, it started rolling out in Italy (H3G), United Kingdom (H3G), Switzerland (Swisscom), and Ireland (Three), as well as on another Austrian carrier called 3 Austria. As far as I can tell, H3G, Three, and 3 are all owned by the same giant company - Hutchison Whampoa (some names are even interchangeable), so four out of five pushes today seem to be a coordinated effort.

Curiously, the majority of the updates (those pushed by Hutchinson-owned carriers) are no longer I9300XXDLIH dated September 28, but rather I9300XXDLJ1 which is a fresher build dated October 8.

17
Oct
asus-transformer-pad-infinity

A small update is making is way to the ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity (TF700), bringing a slew of minor bug fixes along with it. We actually got our hands on a changelog this time (a rarity for ASUS):

Camera (All SKUs)

  • Fix the issue that switching to front camera in Facebook app would cause Facebook app to crash.

Wi-Fi (All SKUs)

  • Fix the issue that some 802.1x Wi-Fi APs cannot be connected after upgrading to Jelly Bean.

ASUS Software Keyboard (All SKUs)

  • Fix the issue that "Y" and "Z" characters are opposite in ASUS Czech (QWERTY) keyboard.
  • Fix the issue that Backspace key on dock does not work in Browser input field to delete words randomly.