News - 858/939 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Sep

Arabic Support Comes To FroYo, Google Looks On In Stunned Silence

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Development, Froyo 2.2, News

Last Updated: September 27th, 2010

Update: As several commenters have pointed out, Android does support some right-to-left languages like Arabic out of the box, it just doesn't do so correctly. The method described below does.

Surprising as it may be that Android, which is now a major player in the mobile operating system game, does not ship with support for any right-to-left languages such as Arabic, Persian, or Urdu, there's no denying it; languages were never one of Android's strengths.

Well, at long last, it appears our beloved operating system is getting support for at least one of those three languages (Arabic), but, surprisingly enough, Google was not involved.

Sep

Leaked T-Mobile Slides Show Wi-Fi Calling On G2, More Phones In The Pipeline

Posted by Brian O'Toole in G2 (Vision), News, T-Mobile

Back in the good old days, before our fantasies were crushed by manufacturer-carrier partnerships and vested interests, we dreamt of being able to make calls over whatever medium we damn well pleased. T-Mobile fed that desire further, with “Hotspot Calling” in 2007, subsequently causing temper tantrums with levied surcharges in a way that now reminds us of Ma Bell and their ludicrous femtocells. It’s such a pity they never took it any furth-

… wait, what? TmoNews just got some leaked slides of plans to push WiFi Calling on select T-Mobile Android phones? You don’t say!

Yes folks, it’s another week and another coup by the ninjas at TmoNews.

Sep

Wirefly Launches T-Mobile G2 Preorders, Bests The Competition: $149.99, No Tax, Free Shipping

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in G2 (Vision), News, T-Mobile

Wirefly is notorious for its aggressive pricing when it comes to new phones, and we can't blame them: being an online-only seller, they need to offer something exciting to win customers over from the carriers themselves and other retail locations, such as Best Buy or Radioshack.

The T-Mobile G2 preorder deal that went live today is no exception - it beats out all competition:

$149.99 for new accounts ($199.99 for existing ones). Considering T-Mobile itself isn't even letting non-T-Mo customers preorder at all, this is a pretty damn good deal already. However, read on.
No tax - Wirefly.com doesn't charge tax, which makes this deal better than even Radioshack's $150 offer and is way under Best Buy's $200 price tag.

Sep

Sony Ericsson: No Plans For Any New Symbian Products, It’s All Yours Nokia

Posted by Brian O'Toole in News, Sony Ericsson

To the sound of a resounding “Meh”, Sony Ericsson have publically indicated that they have dropped Symbian off their roadmap for future handsets. Having been a member of the Symbian Foundation since its creation, Sony Ericsson are now jettisoning the aging platform for greener fields, leaving Nokia as the sole steward of the Symbian brand. According to spokesman Aldo Liguori:

“[Sony Ericsson] have no plans for the time being to develop any new products to the Symbian Foundation standard or operating system”

Funnily enough, Sony Ericsson are still part of the Symbian Foundation, they just don’t have any Symbian handsets planned.

Sep

Project Porting MeeGo OS To Android Phones Starting To Yield Results

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

Last Updated: August 1st, 2012

People like Android because they like openness and because they like choice. The ability to boot a second, open-source operating system on your Android device is then a pretty compelling proposition. Following a flurry of activity around various fora, some progress has been made in booting the Linux-based Maemo 5 successor, MeeGo, on select Android devices. These devices, namely the Nexus One, Streak, and Desire are all based on the Snapdragon QSD8250 and it is that chipset the development community is focusing on.

Credit: vgrade/M.Brook

Right now, it’s unclear exactly how functional the OS is, and, as usual, the development is suffering from issues with driver cross-compatibility and other similar obstacles.

Sep

Stefano Giovannoni's AlessiTab Cooks Up November Release Date (In Italy), €399 Price Tag

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Eclair 2.1, News

Last Updated: August 1st, 2012

Well, it looks like Motorola's updates to Android 2.1 Eclair updates aren't the only things leaving users hopelessly disappointed due to delays; Stefano Giovannoni's AlessiTab, which promises to be the ultimate kitchen device, has just been delayed from its scheduled release date of October to a vague point in November of this year. Worse still (at least for us who live in the United States), the home tablet will initially launch exclusively in Italy, and for the price of €399 (about $535), which is a full €99 more than what it was originally priced at. Still, with:

a DVB-T digital TV tuner
a 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen
a front-facing camera for video chat
a unique and super sexy design (see pictures above)

it's no wonder this device got me so excited at first.

Sep

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Google Set To Expand Paid Android Market App Support Beyond Current Tally Of 14 Countries

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

Those of you following the official @AndroidDev account on twitter may have spotted a cryptic tweet sent out yesterday, urging developers to check their e-mail inboxes. Contained within was an e-mail with some exciting news: Google will be bringing access to paid applications to more countries. The when and the where have still yet to be determined, but Ireland bleedin' better be one of those countries.

Considering the fact that the Android Market is currently available in a pitiful 14 countries, listed below, any increase will make for a dramatic improvement. However, when you look at how many countries the iTunes App Store is available in (90), there is still a lot of ground to be made before catching the Apple juggernaut.

Sep

Original Motorola Milestone Comes To Alltel - 10 Months Too Late, $200 Too Much

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Alltel, Milestone, Motorola, News

Considering the fact that the original Motorola Milestone was launched almost a year ago alongside the original Droid, it may seem a bit ridiculous that the device has just now landed in Alltel's measly lineup of Android phones (the only other option is the HTC Hero). Again, that's the original Milestone, not its recently announced successor, which closely mimics the Droid 2, nor a version that, if nothing else, includes a processor upgrade or at least a camera upgrade of some sort, but the original, unmodified, device.

Even more unbelievably, Alltel is somehow expecting customers to cough up $199 after a $100 mail-in rebate and on a new two-year contract, with the off-contract price remaining a steep $499.

Sep

HTC Launches 4 New Promotional Videos For Desire HD, Desire Z, EVO 4G, And Droid Incredible

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Desire HD (Ace), Desire Z (Vision), EVO 4G (Supersonic), HTC, Incredible, News, Videos

The new HTC Desire HD and Desire Z handsets are coming very soon, and we're incredibly excited about both of them (just take a look at that 5-second Fast Boot technology again).

In order to keep our excitement going, HTC just pushed out a new video of these bad boys flying up in the air, showing themselves off in various ways. I even got slight chills a bit at the end but I think it's mostly due to the epic music selection. Have a look (don't forget to notch up the quality to at least 720P):

Next up we are surprised that HTC hasn't forgotten about the slightly older but nevertheless one of the most game changing devices of this year - the EVO 4G and its smaller brother - the Droid Incredible.

Sep

Battery Lives Of 8 Flagship Android Phones Tested And Compared - LCD Wins, AMOLED Loses, Droid X Takes Home The Crown

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Captivate, Devices By Manufacturer, Droid 2, Droid X (Shadow), Epic 4G, EVO 4G (Supersonic), Incredible, News, Streak, Vibrant

Here’s something to get your teeth into. Over at LaptopMag, a whole host of Androids have been put through their paces in a grueling battery life endurance test. The goal was to keep the phones’ screens on while doing a moderate amount of processing, namely cyclically browsing a collection of web pages. Despite the supposed power savings afforded by AMOLED screens, the phones employing that screen technology fell quite a ways behind in comparison to the traditional LCD phones.

Why is that? AMOLED is supposed to only use up power on non-black pixels, right? Well, as LaptopMag points out, the majority of webpages are actually dark text on a light background, a scenario in which AMOLED actually uses more power than an equivalent backlit LCD.