Aaron Gingrich
Contributing since June, 2010
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711articles
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About Aaron Gingrich
Aaron is a geek who has always had a passion for technology. When not working or writing, he can be found spending time with his family, playing a game, or watching a movie.
Latest Articles
The Galaxy Nexus launched with rather little accessory support from Samsung. Recently, they (finally) released a GPS mount, and now the pogo desktop dock has hit the store and is available for purchase. What's special about a pogo dock compared to a normal dock? This dock uses pogo pins - which match up to the three metal dots on the side of the GNexus - to charge the phone, rather than a normal charging port. You can simply drop your phone in, and when the metal dots touch, the phone charges - it's that easy.
Acer just revealed their newest budget smartphone, and unfortunately details are pretty light at the moment. What they have told us: it's going to ship with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), a 3.7" screen, 5MP rear shooter with LED flash, and NFC support. As you can see below, it will also ship in 3 colors: Sakura Pink, Alpine White, and Cat's-eye Black. Oh, and "the onscreen display style varies with the external color, making each smartphone a unique fashion statement."
Google Music launched just 3 months ago, but CNET is already hearing from Google managers and record labels that the company is disappointed by the service's performance so far. In a nutshell: when Google Music launched, there were 200 million Android users, and that number was growing extremely quickly. The expectation was that it would be fairly easy to convert some of those users to Music customers. Unfortunately, that just isn't what's happened, with adoption lower than expected.
Yesterday, HTC dropped a teaser on their Facebook page: a vector outline of a phone with an HTC logo and a big "5" in the center and a caption of "This Sunday you'll discover something fast." With 5 days to go until MWC began, we took a few stabs at what it could mean. Today, the company has followed up with a "4" teaser image on their Facebook, with the caption of "This Sunday, you'll hear something authentic."
Just two days ago, we saw how blazingly fast Qualcomm's new Krait-based Snapdragon S4 CPU is in dual-core MSM8960 guise. Today, they've announced that the S4 line of CPUs - including the MSM8960 and its quad-core brother APQ8064 (seriously, who came up with this naming system?) - will pack the next-gen 802.11ac Wi-Fi spec.
Early last month, it was revealed to much outcry that the Transformer Prime had a locked bootloader. Angry customers took to the forums to vent and started a petition to get Asus to change its stance. And just 24 hours later, that's what happened, with Asus promising an unlock tool down the road.
Mobile World Congress is just around the corner, and it looks like LG is trying to make a splash before the stampede of news and new devices come flowing out during the show. Yesterday they announced three new phones, and today, a fourth: the Optimus 3D Max (or Optimus 3D Cube if you're in Korea).
Yesterday on their Facebook page, LG Mobile teased that something was coming today, with a heavy emphasis on "L". As promised, they revealed just what the L is today via a press release, and it turns out to be 3 new Optimus smartphones: the L3, L5, and L7. While the press release is light on actual details (but heavy on marketing mumbo-jumbo), they do reveal that the L3 will have a 3.2" screen and launch in Europe in March with Gingerbread (Android 2.3). The L5 and L7 will be 4" and 4.3" respectively, and both will pack Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) and ship sometime in the first half of 2012.
The topic of using a stylus with a tablet is a bit controversial. When discussing the iPad in 2010, Steve Jobs (semi-)famously said, "...if you see a stylus, they blew it." And for the most part, recent tablets - whether they're running Android, iOS, or something else - have been designed with that philosophy in mind. Run a quick Google search, though, and you can see two things: styluses are hotly discussed in news and editorials, and they're on sale everywhere and in every price range.
Though it has garnered a lot less attention than Amazon's Kindle Fire, Barnes and Noble's latest NOOK - the NOOK Tablet - it was released to solid reviews. The $50 price premium over the Fire - while warranted because of the doubled internal storage, doubled RAM, and SD card slot - also helped the Kindle Fire sell more units. Now, though, the Tablet is on sale for 9 with free shipping at eBay Daily Deals - meaning it matches the price of the less powerful Kindle Fire. Certainly a bargain, especially considering that the NT is a powerful budget tablet with a small but dedicated developer community backing it up.
Just 9 days ago, Asus rolled out an update for the quad-core Transfomer Prime that brought things to build 9.4.2.13. Today, a new (apparently incremental) was released that brings things up to 9.4.2.14. The only official word we have on the update is from Gary Key, Technical Marketing Manager at Asus, in an XDA thread:
While The Secret of Grisly Manor wasn't exactly a smash hit, it was a huge cult favorite of those who enjoy Myst-style puzzle games. Now, Fire Maple Games (the developer behind Grisly Manor) is back with a new game. While the gameplay style is much the same as Grisly Manor, the setting is quite different - and quite beautiful:
A new beta update for Swype has begun rolling out and will hit tester's handsets over the next 72 hours. The big changes, if you couldn't tell by the title, are Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) support and the integration of Dragon GO! - unsurprising, since Swype was purchased by Nuance and Dragon Dictation support has been rolled in since December. Specifically, the update adds functionality to the "Dragon" key which allows users to dictate speech using the infamous engine, as well as launch the Dragon GO! app.
Last week, we found out that Apple was bringing a fresh suit against Samsung - specifically, seeking a preliminary injunction against the Galaxy Nexus over four patents. Now the official complaint document has been posted by the court, and it turns out the suit is aimed at a lot more than just the beloved GNex, and involves more than the four patents initially mentioned. In fact, Apple explicitly names seventeen Samsung devices and cites eight of its patents.
Facebook For Android Updated To v1.8.3, Brings... Well, We Don't Really Know, But Probably Not Much.
An update to the Facebook app just hit the Market, and looking at the changelog, you'd think it's a major update:
Shortly after CES ended, we heard word of a new phone from LG that would be the first to sport NVIDIA's impressive new quad-core CPU, the Tegra 3. Other specs were rumored to include a 4.7" 1280x720 display, 16GB on-board storage (plus a microSD slot), a 2000mAh battery (!), an 8MP camera in the rear, and a 1.2MP front-facer.
Let's say that you are touring a new city with your family. You stop in front of a famous monument and gather all the kids to take a picture, but because it's a popular spot, there are tons of people walking around in the background. Kind of ruins the picture, doesn't it? Short of some serious Photoshop talent, there isn't really a good way to get around this problem. But now, a company called Scalado has revealed software they call "Remove" which allows you to do just that - remove unwanted moving objects from an image.
Generally speaking (and apparently like most Android owners), I love the idea of live wallpapers, but in practice, the cost (on the phone, not the wallet) is too high to stomach in return for a bit of show. For quite some time (probably about 6 months of my nearly 2 years with Android), though, I ran the absolutely awesome Mario Live Wallpaper. Until recently, that is - after roughly 3 months straight with it, I switched to a static wallpaper (specifically, this one) once more.