News - 836/946 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Nov

T-Mobile G2 Overclocked To 1.9 GHz, Hitting 2800 In Quadrant

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Desire Z (Vision), Development, G2 (Vision), News

Who says the G2's processor is slow, eh? While its stock 800 MHz clockspeed didn't break any benchmark records, it's showing itself to be nicely capable of overclocking. Unlike the QSD8250 in the original Snapdragon, which gets rather unstable anywhere past the 1.13GHz (+15%) mark, the MSM7230 in the Scorpion of the G2 sails right on past +100% with apparent stability. The kernel was posted on XDA-Developers by member Flippy125, with the usual "NOT MY FAULT IF-" disclaimers, but also noting that the kernel runs stably for him.

The scores posted are quite remarkable: between 2700 and 2800 in Quadrant and 55-60 in Linpack.

Nov

Android 2.2 Froyo Coming To European Dell Streak Before The End Of The Month

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Dell, Froyo 2.2, News, Streak

Android 2.2 isn't new by any means, but if you're using Dell's five-inch Streak, it looks like you're only now going to receive the update:

Worse still, this only applies to Streaks in the UK - the rest of us will just have to keep holding out. Before you go off to silently pout in a corner, though, there is one more twist to this story - what's actually contained in the update:

To recap, it looks like Dell will soon be allowing customers to download the update directly from its website (much like Motorola has done with the Backflip and the Cliq for the update to Éclair), although actually installing the update will wipe all data from the device.

Nov

Movie Buffs Rejoice - Netflix Might (Or Might Not) Be Coming To Your Android Device Next Year

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Applications, News

Netflix for Android has been long in the making, and... well, it still isn't quite there yet. However, according to Netflix's Greg Peters, an app is coming early in 2011 - for "select devices," that is. Apparently, holes in the Android OS similar to those that often lead to piracy can also be used to bypass the common DRM system. Therefore, Netflix may have to work with individual manufacturers to add content protection to their devices. Great - even tighter restrictions are on the way.

Source: The Netflix Blog via Android Central

Nov

T-Mobile G2 And HTC Desire Z Get Their First CyanogenMod 6.1 Nightlies - Download Away

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Desire Z (Vision), Development, G2 (Vision), HTC, News

After getting rooted four days ago, the T-Mobile G2 and its European counterpart, the Desire Z, finally joined the ranks of fully unlocked Android phones, which give us the freedom to replace the ROMs on these devices with something better and more custom.

It took the CyanogenMod team a few days, but the very first CM 6.1 ROM is now available for download. It will work on both the Desire Z and the G2 due to the similarities between the 2 phones. Keep in mind, this is the first nightly build and not a final version in any way - it's not even a release candidate; therefore, bugs should be expected.

Nov

T-Mobile's Galaxy Tab Takes On A Life Of Its Own, Can Now Make And Receive Phone Calls

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Development, Galaxy Tab, News, Samsung, T-Mobile

This article deals with a couple of advanced topics. If you’re unfamiliar with some of the terms, hit up our primers here:

It was only a matter of time, right? Samsung couldn't possibly have expected the US versions of the Galaxy Tab to remain phone-less, especially not after giving its European counterpart the privilege.

Nov

iControlPad Bluetooth Gamepad Design Finalized, Units To Be Available By The End Of November

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Apps/Games, Devices By Manufacturer, Games, News

If you excuse the name (it started as an iPhone-only device), the iControlPad appears to be a pretty nice solution for "real" gaming on a touchscreen phone. Culled from left-over Open Pandora gaming console parts, the iControlPad includes dual analog sticks along with rear trigger buttons. The device pairs with your phone over Bluetooth, so it should be supported by your favorite emulators. Craig Rothwell of the iCP/OPP team has just posted a video updating folks on the status of the project, finishing by saying that we should see the iControlPad shipping out by the end of the month.

While it's certainly a utilitarian design, it easily bests this rather ungainly contraption assembled by yours truly:

The kind peeps at iControlPad have promised us a review unit, so stay tuned for our thoughts on the device.

Nov

US Cellular To Begin Testing LTE Network Next Year; To Start Rolling It Out In 2012

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in News, US Cellular

Believe it or not, Verizon and AT&T aren't alone in the LTE scene; not by a long shot, as US Cellular CFO Steven Campbell has just reminded us all. During the Wells Fargo Technology Conference in NYC, he stated that the carrier will be rolling out LTE to one test market next year, while the rest of us will just have to wait until 2012. Rather discouragingly, the carrier hasn't even chosen a network equipment vendor yet, although Clearwire and LightSquared are, reportedly, being considered. You could argue that the carrier's really shooting itself in the foot here by waiting so long (Steven said that "I don't think we're feeling a sense of crisis or urgency"), but maybe they plan on introducing some awe-inspiring launch devices to save their bacon.

Nov

T-Mobile Unveils Official Tethering Plan, Charges $15 For Something Root Users Have Been Enjoying For Free All Along

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in G2 (Vision), myTouch 4G (Glacier), News, T-Mobile

Carriers' official tethering plans never cease to amaze us - $15 to $30 per month for something that users with rooted phones can enjoy for free via Wireless Tether or Tether for Android (not to mention the free tethering app that comes built right into stock Froyo). Nevertheless, T-Mobile's gone ahead and announced that starting this Sunday, November 14th, its users will be charged $14.99 per month for the feature. This will buy you unlimited data for your laptop/netbook to choke down, although there will also be a $10 monthly plan, which will get you just 200MB of data.

To soothe your anger, the carrier also announced that on the same day (11/14), it will introduce two new variations of its Even More plan.

Nov

Amazon Wireless Temporarily Drops All Of Its 6 AT&T Android Phones Down To $0.01: Backflip, Bravo, Xperia X10, Flipout, Flipside, Captivate

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in AT&T, Backflip, Bravo, Captivate, Flipout / Twist, Flipside, News, Xperia X10 (es209ra)

Amazon Wireless, Amazon's mobile arm, launched a big sale on all AT&T Android phones today in a weekend promotion that could easily rival even the upcoming Black Friday deals (BF is happening on Nov 25th). All of the AT&T Android phones Amazon Wireless carries are temporarily exactly 1 penny:

Motorola Backflip
Motorola Bravo
Motorola Flipout
Motorola Flipside
Sony Xperia X10
Samsung Captivate

In addition to the above, a few other Android and some Win Phone 7 (if you're into that sort of thing) phones are also bearing the sweet sticker price of a mere cent:

HTC Droid Incredible
Motorola Droid 2
Motorola Citrus
HTC Surround (Win Phone 7)
LG Quantum (Win Phone 7)

Get them while they're hot out of the oven - the promotion ends November 15th.

Nov

QuickOffice Spamming Your Notification Bar, Sign Of Things To Come?

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

When you use free software, ads are usually part-and-parcel of the experience. However, typically developers are considerate enough to limit the advertising to within the app itself. Sadly, whoever programmed the popular document viewing application QuickOffice lacks such scruples and has decided to start pushing notifications to users, inviting them to upgrade to the paid version of their app. In many cases, QuickOffice is pre-installed with a phone's version of Android - even something carrier agnostic like the Nexus One - and is difficult to remove, leaving non-root users at the mercy of the app's creators.

^{Credit to TheFunkyMonk of reddit for the image}

While the notification has only appeared once on people's phones so far, and is easy to dismiss, this really seems like an over-stepping of the bounds.