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May

Galaxy S, Vibrant, And Nexus S 4G Join The Captivate As The Latest Officially Supported CyanogenMod Devices - First Gingerbread Nightlies Served

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Captivate, Development, Galaxy S, Gingerbread 2.3, News, Nexus S 4G (Crespo4g), Samsung, Vibrant

What a week for Samsung Galaxy S family device owners! First, the Captivate was officially added to the list of devices supported by CyanogenMod, the largest Android ROM community in the world, and now not 1 but 3 more phones are following suit - the Galaxy S, the T-Mobile Vibrant, and the Sprint Nexus S 4G (crespo4g).

The news hit yesterday, but since no downloadable builds were available from the CM mirror network until late last night, we decided to wait until they're up.

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

Rooting Explained + Top 5 Benefits Of Rooting
Top Android Apps Every Rooted User Should Know About: Part 1 (Apps 1-8), Part 2 (Apps 9-16), Part 3 (Apps 17-25)
Custom ROMs Explained And Why You Want Them
How To Fully Back Up And Restore Your Android Phone Using Nandroid Backup
How To Flash A Custom ROM To Your Android Phone With ROM Manager + Full Backup & Restore

Of course, support for these Android 2.3.4 "Gingerbread" (GRJ22) releases is right now limited to said nightly builds of CyanogenMod 7, which will graduate to release candidates and stables releases when the time is right and all but non-serious bugs have been ironed out.

May

Qik Releases Video Chat/Mail App Optimized For Samsung Devices

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Applications, News, Samsung

While browsing some new arrivals this afternoon, I noticed that Qik, one of the large players in the mobile video chat business, today released an app called Qik for Samsung, clearly targeted at users of Samsung Android devices. Qik has been releasing apps customized to certain classes of devices, or even individual ones, for as long as I can remember, starting with the EVO 4G last year, so seeing yet another variant doesn't surprise me (see Qik for Sprint, Qik for T-Mobile, and Qik for Atrix).

What is not clear is exactly what is optimized for Samsung devices compared to the regular Qik app and whether higher resolution video is available, so I'm going to leave it to you, Samsung device owners, to figure out and report back.

May

CyanogenMod Gets First Official Galaxy S Release - Captivate Nightlies, Now Serving Gingerbread 2.3.4 (GRJ22) On Aisle You

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in AT&T, Captivate, Development, Epic 4G, Fascinate, Galaxy S, Gingerbread 2.3, News, Samsung

Galaxy S owners, you may have a reason for some early celebration. CyanogenMod 7 for the GS variants, which has been around in relatively unsupported early alpha stages for the last couple of months, has just gone quite a bit more formal with the introduction of the new "captivatemtd" device branch.

What does it mean? Captivate is the first device of the Galaxy S bunch to move to the official CM download area in the form of nightlies. Once the nightlies, which, as the word implies are rebuilt nightly, are stable enough to warrant a daily driver, you can expect to see a number of RCs (release candidates), culminating in a stable release.

May

T-Mobile's 2011 Roadmap Leaked: Features MyTouch 4G Slide, Samsung Hercules, And The Mysterious HTC G-Infinity

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Exhibit 4G, Galaxy Mini (Tass), Hercules, Huawei, News, T-Mobile, Wildfire S / Wildfire 2 (Marvel)

One awesome T-Mobile leak isn't good enough for you? Well then, you'll be interested to hear that the folks at This is my next have a second (albeit related) leak for Magenta customers - a roadmap detailing their device releases from now until September of 2011, as well as some glimpses of what we can expect beyond that. Without further ado, let's introduce the devices:

June

HTC Sensation 4G, Samsung Exhibit 4G, and Samsung GT2: Admittedly, these won't come as much of a surprise, as their release has already been confirmed. June 8
Samsung Galaxy Suit: Originally announced as the Galaxy Mini, T-Mobile will be releasing their own version called the Galaxy Suit, though we don't know how it will differ from the original.

May

Samsung Hercules Headed To T-Mobile: It's Like An Infuse, But Dual Core

Posted by Nate Kimmey in Hercules, News, T-Mobile

T-Mobile customers who were concerned that they may not be getting their own version of the Galaxy S 2 need not worry any more - according to a big leak over at This is my next, T-Mobile is prepping to release the Samsung Hercules (a codename, so it will likely be something far more vague and meaningless by the time it hits stores). The specs are very similar to both the Galaxy S II and Infuse 4G:

4.5" 800 x 480 Super AMOLED Plus screen
Android 2.3
NFC support
Measurements: 5.16 x 2.76 x 0.37 inches (nearly identical to the Infuse)
Qualcomm 1.2GHz dual-core APQ8060 processor (as opposed to Samsung's own Exynos)
8 megapixel camera with flash
1080p video capture
Front-facing camera

Sounds awesome, right?

May

[Download] Samsung Kernel Source Code For The Infuse 4G

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Development, Infuse 4G, News

Last Updated: November 23rd, 2011

Remember the Samsung Infuse 4G? Yeah, the one with 4.5-inch screen and 1.2GHz processor that just hit AT&T shelves two days ago. Well, continuing with its newly-found source-code-release motif, Samsung dropped the code for the Infuse 4G over at the Open Source Developers Center.

Let the homebrewing begin! Hit the link below for download.

[Open Source Developers Center]

May

Samsung Launches Lab.dev Remote Device Testing Service For Developers

Posted by David Ruddock in Development, News, Samsung

File this under "super awesome developer things" - today Samsung launched its brand-spanking-new developer portal for Android, along with an awesome new service: Lab.dev RTL (Remote Testing Lab).

Basically, it gives you, the developer, access to any of Samsung's line of Android devices for remote testing of applications and other such developer-y things via your web browser and the Java plugin. Basic members of the developer portal receive 10 "credits" of testing time per day - or 150 minutes. Premium members get up to 100 times that much, but that program remains "invite only" for the time being.

You can, presumably, buy additional credits - should you so desire.

May

T-Mobile Is Getting A Triad Of New Android Phones On June 8th: HTC Sensation, Samsung Exhibit 4G, And Samsung GT2

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Exhibit 4G, GT2, News, Sensation / Sensation 4G (Pyramid), T-Mobile

It looks like June 8th is going to be quite a day around T-Mobile, because three new Android devices should be hitting the shelves. Among the three devices is the HTC Sensation - the highly anticipated 4.3 inch beast that rocks Sense 3.0. Not to distract from the others that are dropping at the same time, though, here is a spec-sheet rundown of each.

Samsung GT2

As the lowest-end of the three devices, the GT2 is a sequel to the Samsung Gravity T, but this time it's packing Android under the hood.

3.2 Inch display
Slide-out QWERTY keyboard
800MHz processor (they call it "impressive" - ha!)
3MP rear camera
Android 2.2

While this phone clearly isn't breaking any records, it appears that the younger generation may be the target audience for this text-centric device.

May

AT&T Sending Out An OTA Update To Allow Sideloading On Select Devices

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Aria (Liberty), AT&T, Captivate, Inspire 4G (Ace, Stallion), News

If you happen to own a Samsung Captivate, HTC Aria, or HTC Inspire 4G, then the dream of many, many Android owners on AT&T is about to be yours - the ability to legitimately sideload apps. AT&T lifted its sideloading-barrier on the newly released Samsung Infuse 4G, and naturally, the question arose: What about older Android devices? Now we have our answer.

This means that you will be able to enjoy the little pleasures that other Android users currently have - like the Amazon Appstore and non-market apps like wireless tether. According to the above document obtained by Android Central, the OTA update should start rolling out today to the aforementioned devices, so make sure to let us know when you get yours.

May

Galaxy S And Tab To Get Gingerbread According To "Regional Plan" - Whatever The Hell That Means

Posted by David Ruddock in Galaxy S, Galaxy Tab, Gingerbread 2.3, News, Samsung

Samsung has just announced via press release its plans to officially update its Galaxy S line of phones (yep, including North American ones) to Gingerbread starting this week, with the UK and Scandinavian countries first on the list to get the Ginger-bump. Samsung has again remained characteristically ambiguous about exactly which Galaxy S devices will be eligible (and when) for the update directly from Kies, Samsung's device management software.

It's entirely unclear if "North American" Galaxy S phones include the heavily carrier-customized versions of the device in the United States (Captivate, Fascinate, Vibrant, Epic), or merely unbranded Canadian versions of the phone and European imports that have snuck their way onto US shores.