Android OS - 141/164 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Dec

Misunderstanding Over, LG Optimus One Line To Receive Gingerbread

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Gingerbread 2.3, LG, News

LG definitely struck a nerve In the Android community when they said that their LG Optimus One series would not be updated to Android 2.3 due to not meeting the hardware requirements, when it has already been stated that all phones running Froyo (such as the Optimus One) were capable of running Gingerbread. Well, LG have not only retracted that statement and offered an apology, they've delivered a great piece of news: every phone in the Optimus One line will get updated to Gingerbread!

LG will upgrade all Optimus One smartphones currently using the Froyo OS to the next version of the Android OS, Gingerbread.

Dec

Froyo Now Rolling Out To All HTC Legend Variants

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Froyo 2.2, HTC, Legend, News

Almost a month ago, lucky HTC Legend owners on Vodaphone UK began receiving their Android 2.2 (Froyo) OTA updates. Surprisingly, carrier independent Legend variants, which would normally get updated first, were instead left behind.

Today, HTC finally let everyone in on the party and announced Froyo availability for all Legends:

To check for updates, turn on your device and go to Settings > About phone > System updates.

Welcome to the club!

Source: @HTC

Dec

Android Passes 300,000 Activations Per Day, According To Android Chief Andy Rubin

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, News

Andy Rubin is a man of few words, at least on Twitter. Followed by 15,000, he only ever tweeted once before today, defending Android's openness. His second tweet - an update on the daily rate of Android activations, which was 100,000 per day in May during Google I/O, 160,000 in June, 200,000 in August, and now topped 300,000.

300,000 Android phones a day! That's 2.1 million phones per week, about 9 million phones per month, or 108 million phones per year. That's a whole lot of phones.

Shortly after, Dan Morrill, Android's tech lead, echoed Andy with his take:

Just for fun, I entered the data points into a spreadsheet and extrapolated them using a trendline.

Dec

MoDaCo's Paul O'Brien Releases Gingerbread Launcher For Android 2.2, Now Available In Market

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Development, Gingerbread 2.3, News

Our (OK, mainly Brian's) man Paul O'Brien of MoDaCo has been hard at work porting the Gingerbread launcher to Froyo (Android 2.2). What's different? Well, frankly... not a lot.

The major differences are that there's a bit more green and that the app drawer fades in/out. In my minute or two with it, that's about all I noticed, and really, that's all you can ask for at this point. That said, if you're using vanilla Froyo now, there's really no downside to using the Gingerbread launcher.

Nothing revolutionary, but given the amount of fervor over Gingerbread, the launcher and the keyboard may be just enough to whet your appetite and hold you over until some official releases start rolling out.

Dec

Watch Andy Rubin's Honeycomb Android Tablet Demo From D: Dive Into Mobile

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Google, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, Motorola, News, Videos

Last night, Andy Rubin appeared at AllThingsD's D: Dive Into Mobile conference and, to everyone's surprise, demoed not a Gingerbread, but a Honeycomb Motorola tablet, which ran on a next generation dual-core processor. If you want to read more about the demo, head over to our report from yesterday; however, if you want to jump right into action and see the demo in all its glory, AllThingsD just posted a full 9-minute video of Andy's interview for everyone's enjoyment.

The new Google Maps, the absence of hardware buttons (which make it impossible to "hold it wrong"), and the very much refined Honeycomb interface are all there:

Source: AllThingsD

Dec

NFC In Gingerbread Is Crippled - It's One-Way-Only, And Not The Way We Want

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Gingerbread 2.3, Google, News, Nexus S (Crespo/Soju), Samsung

Last Updated: February 9th, 2011

Update 2/9/11: Writing/transmitting via NFC is now possible thanks to the 2.3.3 update.

One thing that was very much anticipated in the Nexus S and Gingerbread in general was NFC (Near Field Communication) support, which is a feature we've never seen before on an Android device. In fact, the vast majority of us took it to mean that it will allow you to use your phone as a credit card, which would indeed be very exciting and insanely cool. Unfortunately, that's not the case here; rather, the technology will allow the Nexus S (and other NFC-capable Android phones) to act as a glorified barcode scanner of sorts.

Dec

Andy Rubin Teases Honeycomb-Running, Video Chat-Featuring, Dual-Core Processor-Packing Motorola Tablet

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Google, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, Motorola

While the announcement everyone was expecting Andy Rubin to make at today's D: Dive Into Mobile conference was already made earlier today, the head of Android operations still had a few things hidden up his sleeves, not the least of which was a dual-core Motorola tablet:

If that didn't catch your attention, consider this: the man himself said that it will run Honeycomb, will feature video chat, and will be powered by a "dual-core 3D NVIDIA processor." Additionally, Engadget, whose editor-in-chief was sitting at the event, noticed that the tablet has no buttons at all, for better or for worse.

Dec

Awesome: Android-Gingerbread-Skeleton-Zombie Painting Found In The Official Gingerbread SDK

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Gingerbread 2.3, News, Off-Topic

Google loves putting Easter eggs into their products, and whoever sneaked this late Halloween piece into the official Gingerbread SDK release over at Google is a real master. This is art, people! Found among the boring buttons and icons in the depths of the new Android SDK at this path: platforms\android-9\data\res\drawable-nodpi\platlogo.jpg, this painting is a work of a pure genius:

Source: Android Central

Dec

[Updated: With Working Text Prediction] Gingerbread Keyboard Now Available For All Rooted Android 2.2 Devices

Posted by Stephen Tenerowicz in Development, Gingerbread 2.3, News

Having finally seen the Android 2.3 Gingerbread release happen, I can't tell you how happy I am. All I can say is that this is better than Christmas and New Year's Eve combined!

Amidst all this holiday spirit and joy in the air, one amazing person (Peter Alfonso of Bugless Beast) has already ported the Android 2.3 keyboard to rooted 2.2 devices. Be sure to thank him kindly for the following Android 2.3 keyboard port. I should warn you, however, that at this point the keyboard does not have a proper functioning dictionary, auto-correct is not working, and multi-touch is not active.

Dec

Walkthrough And Hands-On With The Gingerbread UI And The New Gingerbread Keyboard In All Its Sexiness

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Gingerbread 2.3, News

As you may have seen, Google took the covers off Gingerbread today and released the new SDK, which allowed me to immediately jump into an emulated Gingerbread instance. After playing with the new UI for a while, I've taken a bunch of screenshots, which you can find below, along with some of my notes.

Before I dive into the Gingerbread screenshots, here is a side-by-side comparison of the same Settings screen in Donut (1.6), Froyo (2.2), and Gingerbread (2.3):