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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.
Earlier this morning, news broke of a horrible deed - the entire stock of Xperia Play phones was allegedly stolen from Vodafone NZ, leaving hundreds of giant-thumbed customers button-mashing nothing but air for the foreseeable future. We deliberately skipped this story, even though it was spreading like fire, but what happened next prompted me to grab my pen keyboard and give this crime some coverage.
About 2 weeks ago, in collaboration with NVIDIA we threw our largest giveaway ever, with the grand prize of a Wi-Fi Motorola XOOM, one of the hottest tablets around. What happened next was way above any expectations I've set for this contest - there were over 3,300 entries between Twitter and Facebook, with Twitter leading the pack with about 1900 and Facebook trailing behind with about 1400.
Users of Synology branded NAS (network attached storage) boxes have been pleading with the company for a long time to add Android support for direct file management to the existing suite of apps - DS Audio, DS Photo+, and DS Cam. While having apps dedicated to remotely playing music, looking at pictures, and monitoring cameras is great, the primary functionality one would naturally want from a pile of hard drives attached to the network is, well, file management. Think Dropbox, except instead of the cloud, you use your own NAS box.
The upcoming version of Sense 3.0, found on such devices as the HTC Sensation, Sensation 4G, EVO 3D, Flyer, and EVO View 4G, will offer polish of unprecedented quality to the custom software layer HTC puts on all of its non-Nexus devices. The new lockscreen widgets and quick controls, spinning homescreens, updated camera software, and snappiness are just some of the features Sense 3.0 brings to the table (some nice demos here).
The 1.5GHz 7" HTC EVO View 4G tablet doesn't even have a definitive release date on Sprint outside of "this summer," but that didn't stop the infamous 911sniper HTC ROM blog from releasing the full dump yesterday, full of EVO View's guts. After downloading and looking through it in hopes of delicious goodies (wallpapers, ringtones, etc), I was disappointed to see pretty much nothing new besides a bunch of 1200x1024px static wallpapers.
Last week, TechCrunch posted a little announcement that got all 9 people who still used AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) very excited, as all their buddies had already left the dying empire and migrated to Google Talk, and AIM was starting to get kind of boring without them. AOL to the rescue - the company (or whatever is left of it) quietly announced that starting sometime this week, AIM and Google Talk users would be able to become BFFs again, all without switching away from their respective clients.
The Android 3.1 update that's been rolling out to Motorola XOOMs all week (yes, including the Wi-Fi versions) contains quite a few improvements to the Android experience, such as better stability, resizable widgets, and an extended app switcher. However, one thing this update does not contain (and actively cleans up if you had it before) is root.
While roaming around Google I/O and looking for answers to numerous questions you guys posed, I ran into Wei Huang, the tech lead on Google Talk for Android. Yup, the same guy who announced video chat two weeks ago on the Google Mobile blog. Here are some questions I had for Wei, echoing many of you guys:
If you've beaten all 456930 levels of all 3 flavors of Angry Birds and can't wait for 30 more that Rovio teased us with, take a deep breath and go in for the kill - the update to Rio just went live in the Amazon Market.
Announced back in April, the HTC Sensation (Sensation 4G on T-Mobile USA) is undoubtedly the company's most exciting and powerful Android phone arriving in the near future (starting late May in the UK and most likely June in the U.S.). Think of it as T-Mobile's and the rest of the world's response to the HTC EVO 3D on Sprint. This dual-core monster will without a doubt aim to challenge even the current top contender, the screaming fast Samsung Galaxy S2.
On the night before Google I/O 2011, I posted an open call for any questions you might have had for Google core developers. And you delivered - within a few hours, we had over 50 questions of varying complexities, and I realized I was in trouble. Office hours are meant for developers asking dev questions, whereas most of the ones you've asked were about policies and availability. Still, I proceeded to ask away at office hours and at the end of each session, fearing being shunned forever. Unsurprisingly, some devs would force me to move on after realizing the volume of questions, but some persistently tried answering, referring me to the right people along the way if they didn't know something.
Beginning and experienced developers will appreciate the latest altruistic move by the core Android team member Roman Nurik who, now that the Google I/O conference is over, revealed the full sources for the I/O 2011 Android app for everyone to see.
Ahh, Google I/O, how we'll miss you for the next 365 days or so. The last 2 days have been filled with anticipation, knowledge, surprises, excitement, and fun - the perfect recipe for happy developers. As a developer myself, I've picked up heaps of new information, especially from the SDK Tools and ADT session by Tor Norbye and Xavier Ducrohet, and viewing the keynotes was simply a blast.
The Galaxy Tab 10.1 hasn't even been in our hands more than 12 hours, but it has already been rooted. Turns out Samsung left absolutely no protection on the device, and rooting it is even easier than rooting a XOOM, and that says a lot (the XOOM was meant to be easily unlocked and rooted).
The first day of Google I/O 2011 is now over (see our highlights) - in fact, the next one is starting in mere 7 hours (4 hours of sleep - check). That doesn't mean, however, that the information presented was lost forever - on the contrary, Google has archived most, if not all, of the footage and made it available to you on YouTube via the GoogleDevelopers channel.
While it doesn't affect those of you who have no idea what FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is, today's Android 3.1 announcement (see the SDK release here) will make a lot of people who gave up MP3s for FLAC files happy. Forget happy - think ecstatic. Unlike MP3s, FLAC is a lossless codec, meaning it does not degrade in quality after compression, making it the perfect solution for audiophiles who really care about the quality of their sound.
If you've been following the Google I/O coverage today at all, you are probably aware that Google and Samsung gave out about 5,000 Galaxy Tab 10.1 units early to all conference attendees. I didn't take the XOOM with me to the conference to avoid carrying extra bulk, so I didn't have a chance to compare the 10.1 to it while doing the deep dive first look.
Holy mother of all hotness - Amazon has been absolutely killing it in the mobile deals lately, already firmly capturing our Deal of the Week spot with the sweet $174.99 HTC Thunderbolt deal.