Gingerbread 2.3 - 18/19 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Oct

Weekend Tablet Rundown: Japanese Carrier Gets Custom Samsung Galaxy Tab, Advent Vega Won't Have Market... At First?

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Devices By Manufacturer, Galaxy Tab, Gingerbread 2.3, News

Two-for-one on this post: Japanese carrier KDDI revealed this morning that they'll be selling a customized version of Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Tab. On a similar tablet note, it looks like the Advent Vega will be joining the list of budget Android tablets that won't have the market. Turns out we've never covered the Vega either, so I'll provide a few extra details on it. Let's start with the Galaxy Tab: what's custom about it?

First and most obviously, it comes with a slightly redesigned appearance - white edges (bumpers?) along the top and bottom, capacitive buttons that are rotated for landscape use (versus the normal portrait orientation), and a custom dock.

Oct

Rumor: Android Gingerbread SDK To Drop Next Week

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, Gingerbread 2.3

Take this with a large grain of salt as it's just a rumor at this point, but one of our sources very close to the Android core who has been testing and working with Gingerbread for quite a while recently shared a little tidbit of info. According to the source, we won't have to wonder what exactly Gingerbread, the next Android OS, is going to bring to the table for too long because the Gingerbread SDK is going to go public next week.

Getting access to the latest revision of the Android SDK means we'll find out all the new API calls showing new OS functionality and, more importantly, will have access to the latest emulator showing exactly what the stock Android Gbread will look like.

Oct

FroYo's Share Grows to 33.4%, Eclair Still Dominates In Latest Android Platform Versions Chart

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Cupcake 1.5, Devices By Manufacturer, Donut 1.6, Eclair 2.1, Froyo 2.2, Gingerbread 2.3, News

The latest Android platform numbers are out, and thanks to carrier support of updates (Verizon and Sprint, anyway) FroYo has made an impressive boost to capture 33.4% of Android devices. This isn't enough to upset Android 2.1, which remains on top with 40.4%, but it's a good sign of diminishing Android fragmentation nonetheless.

When Gingerbread hits this fall/winter, however, this chart is bound to get pretty ugly - while Donut and Cupcake continued their decline, together they still make up a decent portion of Android devices, at 26.1% combined. Fortunately, while phones running these outdated operating systems will probably not be updated in the near future, they will be discontinued by carriers and replaced with newer models running newer versions of Android (for example, T-Mobile is discontinuing the original myTouch, Motorola CLIQ, and CLIQ XT today, and has already done it to the G1).

Sep

Samsung: Honeycomb (Android 3.5) Will Come After Gingerbread (3.0); Larger Honeycomb Tablet Coming

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Galaxy Tab, Gingerbread 2.3, News, Samsung

Disclaimer: initially, I was reluctant to pass this one on, but it looks like it may be more credible and less speculative than I first thought.

During IFA today, Samsung confirmed that Gingerbread is next and will be Android 3.0, and that it will be succeeded by Honeycomb (3.5). It is possible that things will change between now and then, but this is an official, public word from Samsung in direct response to a question - fairly concrete.

They also divulged that they're working on a larger (presumably larger than the Tab) tablet for Honeycomb. As for the Tab itself, it'll ship with Froyo (which we already knew), and will be updated to Gingerbread once it's released.

Aug

Acer And Motorola Waiting For Gingerbread To Release Android Tablets

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Acer, Gingerbread 2.3, Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless

If you can’t wait any longer for a quality Android tablet, this may come as a bit of bad news. Both Acer and Motorola are planning to delay the release of their respective Android tablets until the release of Android 3.0, which is expected to feature support for higher-resolution screens.

Acer’s tablet may be pushed back until the first quarter of 2011, which could put a damper on previous rumors that Gingerbread would be released some time before the end of the year. Motorola’s tablet, on the other hand, may see Gingerbread much earlier, as Google is working directly with Motorola to get Android 3.0 working on their 10.1” device (which could be the rumored “Stingray” tablet headed to Verizon).

Jul

Meet Andy: Android’s History In A Nutshell

Posted by Ron Hamelin in Android OS, Carriers, Cupcake 1.5, Devices By Manufacturer, Donut 1.6, Eclair 2.1, Editorials, Froyo 2.2, Gingerbread 2.3, News

Last Updated: November 5th, 2010

Before Apple's iPhone and Google’s Android OS burst onto the mobile device scene in 2007, there were few significant advances in mobile technology. Frankly, "smartphones" (if we could even call them that at the time) were boring: they did little more than email, general messaging, picture taking, some basic apps and games, rudimentary internet browsing, and enterprise integration.

The biggest players at the time were Microsoft Windows Mobile, RIM's Blackberry, Palm, Symbian, and Linux. They all had their respective place in the mobile world (see chart below).

The Status Of Mobile Operating Systems In Late 2006

EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) was clearly led by Symbian.

Jul

Google Music Coming In Gingerbread…. Says Questionable Source

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Gingerbread 2.3, News

I want to say up front that I don’t have much faith in this. In fact, I only agreed to do it if I could clearly indicate how dubious I am in the article. So, I’m opening with a screenshot of just how sketchy this is:

If you haven’t read the article in the image (which I’m hoping you haven’t), here are the important details (according to the article):

Gaurav Jain, Google Android Product Manager, has said, “Google will combine music download service next version of Android launched for the U.S. holiday season.” [Not bad, Google Translate.]

Awesome, right? We already know that a music service is coming, and hey, the folks at Google always do right by us, don’t they?

Jul

Gingerbread “Minimum” Specs Fake, Say Android Engineers

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Gingerbread 2.3, News

Given that everyone in the Android blogosphere is chomping at the bit for information regarding Google’s next Android release, codenamed Gingerbread, it was only a matter of time before someone took advantage of this appetite.

We reported a couple days ago that a rumor regarding the minimum specifications for Gingerbread was floating around via a certain mobile news website. It seems now, though, that Android engineers #romainguy and #morrildl have both lashed out at the author whose podcast broke the “leak”.

I can make up crap, too. Check it out – NEXT ANDROID PHONE: http://goo.gl/qPfd REVOLUTIONARY 1-BUTTON OPERATION

-@morrildl

While #romainguy’s response isn’t quite as humerous, it’s equally as dismissive.

Jun

Rumor: Minimum Specs For Android 3.0 Gingerbread; Aims For Complete Break From Android 2.1/2.2

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Gingerbread 2.3, News

A leak provided by Mobile-review’s Eldar Murtazin has confirmed some concrete system requirements for Android 3.0 Gingerbread. His information confirms what has been expected; Gingerbread is going to be a major release for the Android platform. Here’s the summary, translated from Murtazin’s podcast “Digestiv” by unwiredview.com’s Staska…

Android 3.0 Gingerbread will be released in mid- October (around 15 -16th), 2010. First handsets shipping in November/December – for the Holiday Season.

Minimum hardware requirements for Android 3.0 devices are: 1GHZ CPU, 512MB of RAM, displays from 3.5” and higher. (We all, of course, heard that Android handsets with 2GHz CPU’s are coming)

New 1280×760 resolution available for the devices with displays of 4” and higher.

Jun

Google Wants The Next Version of Android’s UI to Blow Your (And Manufacturers') Minds

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Gingerbread 2.3, News

Last Updated: December 3rd, 2010

Word on the street (and by “the street,” I clearly mean TechCrunch) is that the next version of Android, (Gingerbread, which is rumored to be coming in 4Q2010), will focus on refining the UI. It may seem like a waste of time, as most Android phones today run a custom UI (HTC, Motorola, etc) – but that’s just the point. By stepping up the default UI, handset makers (hopefully) won’t feel the need to layer on their UIs.

As things stand now, proprietary UIs mean handset makers have to modify the stock Android build, test the build, fix bugs, and retest before finally pushing the build out as an update in order to keep the UI.