News - 833/942 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Nov

Official Rhapsody App Drops On AppBrain, Sorta On The Market

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, News

Looks like the Rhapsody app has just dropped on the market, only... you can't find it by searching. However, barcode scanners work, so we're not really sure what's going on. The app itself seems to feature, well, just about what you'd expect:

*Download and offline playback of your playlists!
- Download playlists and manage your downloads through the My Playlists menu.
- New toolbar with download and other options on the playlist screen.
- Offline mode displaying unique UI and available menu items.
- Settings: Clear Pending Downloads from the My Playlists menu; Force Offline Mode or Remove All Downloads from the Settings screen.

Nov

Rumor: Best Buy Getting Ready To Set Up Samsung Nexus S Displays By November 14th

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in News, Nexus S (Crespo/Soju), Samsung, T-Mobile

What a barrage of Nexus S news today! First, a brief appearance at Best Buy, then an actual picture of the new Nexus on BestBuy.com, confirming it will run Gingerbread, and now we have a supposed snap of the Best Buy internal Live Mock memo, showing, among other things, the Nexus S getting a dedicated endcap on the November 14th planogram. It doesn't look like it is going to be a live mock just yet, which means it will either contain a dummy unit or various Nexus S promotional material and information.

Let me break this down a bit:

an endcap is the area at the end of a store aisle dedicated to displaying highlighted and featured products
a live mock, from what I understand, is a real demo version of the device, as opposed to a dummy unit
a planogram is essentially a store product location diagram

The picture was taken by @anrblog, who claims he persuaded a Best Buy employee to allow him a quick glance at their system.

Nov

Rumor: AT&T To Launch Samsung Galaxy Tab On November 21 For $649.99 (!)

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in AT&T, Galaxy Tab, News, Samsung

AT&T isn't exactly known for fair pricing schemes - just take a look at their monthly service plans if you need any evidence of that - but frankly, if this latest rumor proves to be true, they've just crossed the line.

At $649.99, AT&T's Galaxy Tab will be about $20 more expensive than the carrier's 16 GB 3G-capable iPad and $50 less affordable than the off-contract options offered by the three other nationals. Additionally, a November 21st launch date doesn't exactly add value to this package, and the fact that AT&T won't be offering an unlimited data plan of any sort (instead, you'll be coughing up $14.99 per month in return for 250MB of data or $25 per month for 2GB) doesn't help either.

Nov

Amazon Wireless Finally Starts Selling Sprint Phones

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Devices By Manufacturer, Epic 4G, EVO 4G (Supersonic), Hero (Sprint, HeroC), HTC, Intercept, Moment, News, Samsung, Sanyo, Sprint, Transform, Zio

Last Updated: February 4th, 2012

One of the best places to buy your next Android smartphone is, undoubtedly, Amazon.com, due to its excellent customer service, aggressive pricing, abundance of conveniently placed user reviews, lack of tax, and free shipping. Even better, a few months ago, Amazon opened up a dedicated Amazon Wireless store to concentrate on competitively selling cell phones and service, including support for existing customer upgrades, family plans, and much more competitive deals.

One obvious omission in the Amazon Wireless store has been a complete lack of Sprint devices and plans. Sprint support was said to be coming for months, and while Sprint phones were available on Amazon.com itself, AmazonWireless.com remained Sprint-free, which means no aggressive pricing, support for existing line upgrades, or family plans.

Nov

T-Mobile Nexus S Pre-Order Ad Briefly Appears On Best Buy Mobile, Quickly Shot Down

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in News, Nexus S (Crespo/Soju), Samsung, T-Mobile

Fear not, stock Android fans - despite a slight delay due to some hardware issues, T-Mobile's Nexus S is still on track, as Best Buy Mobile's website has just confirmed.

The banner you're seeing above is no longer up on Best Buy Mobile's website, and the pre-order link never worked, but there's no denying that this is pretty solid evidence that the Nexus S is indeed real and out there somewhere in the wild. I'd prefer a launch date of "November" rather than sometime "this holiday season," but I suppose it's better late than never. Besides, if Best Buy can hook us up with a halfway decent price tag once the thing is actually ready for us to pre-order, T-Mobile may have one very hot Gingerbread dish on its hands.

Nov

Samsung Orion Cortex A9 Processor Previewed On Video, Still No Arrival In Sight

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Devices By Manufacturer, News, Samsung

The first time we heard about Samsung's Orion chipset was back in September. Two months later, we're getting our first tantalizing glimpse at what will soon be packed into your favourite TouchWiz-running gadgets. ARMdevices' inimitable Charbax got a look at Samsung's demo boards at the ARM Techcon conference, and came away with some impressive performance details. While we knew most of these specs already from the original Samsung announcement, it's always nice to see it in the flesh, so to speak.

The demo board was shown running stock Froyo fairly smoothly, and was also outputting high definition video content with ease.

Nov

Eco-Friendly Motorola Citrus Launching Today On VZW For $50AR, Amazon And Wirefly For Free

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Citrus, Motorola, News, Verizon Wireless

Motorola Citrus, Verizon's newest Android phone that is launching today, won't be turning many heads - it's as budget as it gets. If you remember the specs, it has Android 2.1 (update: no MOTOBLUR on this phone - thanks, Laclyn; however, it's still not entirely stock 2.1 - the launcher and widgets look like MOTOBLUR), a tiny 3" 320x240px screen, and a 3MP camera - it is surprising that Verizon dares charge anything, let alone $50 after a $100 rebate. Add Bing, which now replaces Google search on all Verizon Android phones, and you really have to wonder why anyone would go for something this low-end.

Nov

RUMOR: Dell Opus One To Succeed Streak, Feature Dual-Core CPU And 5" HD Screen

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Dell, News, Opus One

This one is definitely, definitely, firmly in the rumor bin, folks - and if history teaches us anything, it's that in the Android community rumors tend to stick to the lines of "Somebody tells you something somewhat ridiculous, but plausible. Post. Watch it spread like wildfire." Still, sometimes we get things right, too, and with that in mind, I present to you the Dell Opus One.

_{AndroidPolice render of the Dell Opus One}

The Opus One was leaked by somebody who attended a private Dell presentation. Supposedly scheduled for release in May 2011, the phone/tablet is easily mind-blowing on paper: it features a dual-core 1.2 GHz CPU and a 1280x800 ("or somewhere in that range") 5-inch screen.

Nov

Tim Bray Reveals Android Market Now Has Support For Developer "Draft Uploads," Recaps Previous Improvements

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Android OS, Apps/Games, Development, News

Last night on the Android Developers blog, Tim Bray recapped a few improvements that have come to the Android Market since Froyo landed. Most of them (five out of the six) are old news by now, but the sixth is one we haven't heard about before:

Sixth, Market now has a “draft upload” feature; this removes a lot of the tension and strain from the app-update process. Get your screenshots and feature graphics and text and APK all squared away with as much editing as you need to, then update them all with one click.

Hardly a major improvement, but it illustrates the fact that they're still working on the market - particularly from the developers' side of things.

Nov

8pen Updated To v1.1 Bringing New Features And A Free Price Tag

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Applications, Apps/Games, News

It seems that the creators of 8pen have been listening intently to user feedback on their radical new input method (see our original post for a video demonstration), because yesterday they released a rather nice update. One of the main issues of contention that Android users had with 8pen was that it was not free, and simply took too long to get used to to trial fairly within the Android Market's 24-hr refund period. It appears that 3qubits have either made enough money from 8pen already, or are planning to pursue a different revenue model, since this update removes the entry fee altogether.