News - 734/945 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Apr

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, Neo, And PLAY Will All Face Supply Shortages, Neo Delayed

Posted by David Ruddock in News, Sony Ericsson, Xperia Arc (Anzu, X12), Xperia Neo (Hallon), Xperia Play (Zeus, PlayStation Phone)

Facing massive infrastructure disruption caused by the earthquake and tsunami last month, Japanese manufacturer Sony has been forced to cut back production on all of its upcoming Xperia devices.

The Xperia PLAY and Arc are both going to be in short supply at launch, just how short Sony Ericsson will come up on shipments is unknown. This could be a massive blow to the much-hyped Xperia PLAY, which Sony has spent a bundle advertising here in the US and abroad.

The super-thin Xperia arc will also be feeling the crunch, having launched in the UK with its US-debut presumably right around the corner.

Apr

FCC Gets Hands On: Regulates Data Roaming And Suggests Signal Boosters

Posted by Zak Stinson in AT&T, News, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless

When we talk about the Federal Communications Commission, we usually do so in regards to a new and highly anticipated device they have just finished testing. Today, there is a little something different in the news regarding the FCC. On Thursday, the FCC made a couple of moves that have received mixed responses from the major wireless carriers.

Roaming Data

The first order they passed was to establish a rule forcing carriers to allow competitors to send and receive data on their networks for an established price. This move means that no matter where you are outside of your carrier's network, you will have roaming data coverage.

Apr

Canucks Rejoice: Nexus S and Motorola Xoom Now Available In Canada

Posted by Zak Stinson in News, Nexus S (Crespo/Soju), Rogers, TELUS, XOOM

If you travelled back in time to the middle of 2010 and asked your average Canadian about the selection of Android devices available to them, you would not be impressed with their answer - it seems that up until this year, the Android selection in Canada was about 6 months behind the curve.

Canadians, myself included, can now stop bemoaning their second rate options. As of today, two major new devices, the Nexus S and the Motorola Xoom, have been made available to those in the Great White North.

The Nexus S has landed on Videotron, Mobilicity, Telus and Koodo as of today, with Wind and Rogers expected to release it in the very near future.

Apr

SD Maid Cleans Up The Mess Left Behind By Old Apps, Leaves Your Phone And Your SD Card Minty Fresh

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News, Tips & Tutorials

We have all been there before - you're running low on space and want to get rid of some apps. Or perhaps you just want to do your device a favor and remove old apps that you no longer use. Sure, the app is gone, but most leave behind unwanted data, taking up precious room on the /data partition, your SD card, or both. Fortunately, XDA member Dark3n has created a app to address such a situation, aptly titled SD Maid.

This app is for rooted users only.

SD Maid is a simple, yet much needed app that searches your device for anything left behind by apps that have been uninstalled.

Apr

ASUS Releases Eee Pad Transformer Kernel Source Code Before It Even Lands On Shelves

Posted by Cameron Summerson in ASUS, Eee Pad Transformer, News

While it seems like it's becoming more and more difficult to get manufacturers to do what they are supposed to do in regards to releasing source code on time, ASUS stands tall and fulfills its responsibilities to the Android community by releasing the source code for the Transformer before the device even hits shelves. Take note, HTC, Motorola, Notion Ink, and the rest.

This means a great deal to those of you who are looking to pick up the Transformer when it's finally released and hope for a quick turnaround on custom ROMs and tweaks to the kernel.

If you are interested in developing for the Eee Pad Transformer, head over to the official Transformer page, hit the "Download" tab, choose Android in the dropdown, download the code, and get to work!

Apr

Extreme Android Geekdom: Replace Your Boot Animation With Your Device's Actual Linux Boot Log

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, Development, News, Videos

Most users will probably look at this unusual boot animation tweak and wonder why in the world anyone would do this, but developers and Linux lovers will nostalgically giggle and cheer. Rather than having boring pre-recorded boot animations, why not see the actual boot messages fly by, akin to booting a Linux machine?

Chainfire, one of xda's moderators, cooked up a boot animation replacement called live dmesg boot ani that does just that - now instead of your carrier's logo, you can see all kinds of geeky boot goodness your device has been secretly spitting out all along. The program requires root (there is no doubt that it would be impossible without it) and is available in the Market for ~~$2.83~~ Update: the author emailed in to let us know he knocked the price down to $1.99.

Apr

HTC Incredible 2 Press Shots Surface, Evince DROID Branding

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in HTC, Incredible 2 (Vivow), News, Rumors, Verizon Wireless

Like all good things Verizon, the HTC Incredible 2 didn't remain hidden from the public's eye for long; following the release of a leaked RUU and a Big Red roadmap confirming the device's impending launch, PocketNow got its paws on the following triad of press shots:

From the looks of it, the Incredible 2 will be virtually identical to HTC's popular Incredible S, with the exception of a Verizon logo and the inclusion of a CDMA radio. In fact, Android Central reports that it'll sport the same 8MP camera, Android 2.2.1 firmware, and HTC Sense keyboard.

Also noteworthy is that, as shown by the eerie red robot eye, the Incredible 2 will most likely belong to Verizon's DROID family.

Apr

Motorola XOOM Hack Brings Forth Desktop Browsing, Voice Calls, SMS, And More

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Development, News, Tips & Tutorials, XOOM

WARNING: This fix is for rooted 3G XOOMs only. The Wi-Fi only version is not supported (yet).

Most XOOM owners will tell you that they love their tablet, but that it does have its annoyances - like the fact that the stock browser loads pages in their "mobile" view by default. What good is a 10 inch screen if you can't load the desktop version of a website? Of course, there is the about:debug fix, but that can be tedious, since you have to reapply it every single time you restart.

Thankfully, sangreal06 over the XDA forums has created a hacked framework-res.apk that not only fixes that little annoyance, but also adds some other desired features to the XOOM.

Apr

Motorola Milestone X, LG Axis, HTC Merge, and Samsung Gem All Hit Alltel Wireless

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Alltel, Axis, Droid X (Shadow), Merge, News, Samsung

It looks like it's Android season in Alltel country, because four new handsets have just dropped on the regional provider's network. As of right now, Alltel customers can choose between the Motorola Milestone X - most of us know this one as the Droid X, the LG Axis - a low-end phone with a full slide-out QWERTY, the Samsung Gem - a tiny Froyo starter phone, and the HTC Merge - a mid-range Froyo device with a slide-out QWERTY.

This many phones coming out so close together can be a little bit confusing, so allow me to break each one down for you.

Apr

One Size Does Not Fit All: Andy Rubin Responds To Recent Cases Of Misinformation And FUD In The Press

Posted by Abhiroop Basu in Android OS, News

Android In Recent News

Fragmentation has been one of the biggest criticisms of the Android platform. Essentially, Google allows anybody to take the Android code and tweak it suit their own needs. This is how manufacturers like Motorola, HTC, and Samsung are able to create custom layers (MotoBlur, Sense UI, and TouchWiz, respectively) over the vanilla Android interface and how some carriers load up new phones with crapware. Although this is a price to pay for openness and customizability, a recent study indicates that 86% of developers are unhappy with the state of Android fragmentation (24% of them describing it as a "huge problem").