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Have you ever thought to yourself, "Gee, I wish I could get a real smartphone for $150 with no contractual commitment"? Well, you can. One with a 4" display, front and rear cameras, a microSD card slot, and a 1GHz processor. For half the price of the original Motorola Pebl (that thing cost $300 back in the day).
Thinking about picking up a Nexus 7? You might want to get on that before the end of this month (right here), as the $25 Play Store credit promotion Google announced with its slate at Google I/O expires on September 30th. That means you must redeem the promotion before that date by signing into your Nexus 7 with a Google Wallet-linked Google account (that has a credit or debit card on file). Here are the terms indicating as such, emphasis ours:
LG has confirmed that its upcoming flagship, the Optimus G, will be launching in the United States this November. Carrier partners went unannounced, but given LG's historical relationship with Verizon, we'd hedge our bets there first and foremost, though AT&T could be another likely contender for the first major handset released with a quad-core Qualcomm processor.
Yesterday, a great many tech sites were quick to jump on the bandwagon about rumors of a Galaxy S IV. It doesn't really matter what these rumors were - they were reported by The Korea Times, a publication that has regularly offered up Samsung leaks because of their geographical proximity to the company's supply chain. They also tend to get a little, shall we say, cheerleady about anything Samsung lately, so perhaps they jumped the gun on this one.
Chameleon Launcher Beta Updated To 0.9.5 - First Release Candidate Build
Chameleon Launcher Beta Updated To 0.9.5
The team at Chameleon Launcher appear to be keeping up their breakneck-pace for updates, and today have hit a significant milestone in that ongoing process: their first release candidate. It's a pretty big deal for the once-upon-a-time Kickstarter project, and while I personally haven't found much use for it, there's no denying the Chameleon team has absolutely blown through the bugs and issues from the first beta released just a little over a month ago. The 0.9.5 release adds the following:
In the last week, many tech-savvy westerners have gotten more familiar than they probably would have ever liked to with a Chinese company by the name of Alibaba. Most of those people still probably aren't aware just quite how huge the Hangzhou-based firm is.
Samsung has just released the kernel source for one its devices running Jelly Bean for the first time; specifically, the Galaxy S III LTE that will be released in various markets across Europe (such as the UK's Everything Everywhere network) next month.
[The Android Police Week In Review] The Biggest Android Stories Of The Week (9/9/12-9/16/12)
The Biggest Android Stories Of The Week
Welcome to the Android Police Week In Review - your source for the biggest Android stories of the week. Don't forget, you can catch a lot of these stories (and more) on our weekly podcast.
Privacy on your mobile phone is kind of a big deal. And a company named Carrier IQ made it an even bigger one about a year ago by getting all up in a bunch of people's business. If you don't remember the Carrier IQ debacle of last winter, let me give you a rundown.
Notice something new on the Play Store today? Google just added another featured area that should provide just a little more discoverability for apps with slightly narrower audiences, in the form of the "Apps Focus" section.
What David Uses: The Apps, Tools, Devices, And Other Stuff I Can't Do Without
The Apps, Tools, Devices, And Other Stuff I Can't Do Without
We've been ruminating on the idea of a series like this for a while at Android Police, and today, we're finally taking the plunge. Want to know the Android apps, tools, and hardware the editors of Android Police use day to day? Now you can! I mean, if you want to know. We won't be offended if you don't. Promise.
Have you ever found yourself annoyed that returning a leased vehicle to the dealer takes too long and requires too much paper? Well, if you're a car dealership, you actually might find this to be a real hassle. And it's a problem Nissan has decided to tackle in the US. Starting this month, Nissan and Infiniti dealers will use an app (for iOS or Android) to return a customer's leased vehicle to the dealership.
[The Android Police Podcast] Episode 27: Droid RAZR M, The Liam Neeson Of Smartphones
The Android Police Podcast: Episode 27
Welcome to the Android Police Podcast, Episode 27. Don't forget - the Android Police Podcast's live broadcast is every Thursday at 5PM PST (www.androidpolice.com/podcast).
According to an internal document sent to us by a tipster, Sprint will be turning on the four-gee taps in two major US cities this week - Boston and Chicago. As we know, Sprint is in something of a panic-mode in regard to its 4G rollout, and has decided to begin bringing its network online in some locations before it's fully ready. As you can see in the document below, that is exactly what's happening here.
In case you forgot, we thought we'd give you a heads-up that Amazon's new Kindle Fire HD is officially available today - if you want the 7-inch, 16GB version. It's packing a 1.2GHz dual-core TI OMAP4460 processor, a 1280x800 display with advanced anti-glare tech, and a set of stereo speakers that really do blow away any other slate on the market. For a more complete look at the HD 7, check out our hands-on (with a comparison to the Nexus 7), and our original announcement post.
After a back and forth over at TmoNews, first with T-Mobile claiming that yes, the Galaxy S Relay (announced several days ago) has an S4 processor, and then Samsung's own product packaging saying otherwise, we've gotten a definitive answer from the source.
Samsung and Sprint let loose the Galaxy Victory today, a not-quite-budget phone that we saw leaked back in May, then again in July. The official announcement basically seems to confirm what we already knew about the device: that it's not exactly anything to get excited over.
I make no bones of the fact that I find 3rd party voice assistants to be increasingly redundant, especially with the arrival of Google Now on Jelly Bean.
[Update: Pulled] eBay For Android Updated To Version 2.0 - UI Overhaul, Brand-New eBay Motors Interface, And More
eBay For Android Updated To Version 2.0
Update 2: eBay has acknowledged the issue, and given a statement:
Speaking to CNET UK, Samsung has confirmed the Galaxy S III sold abroad will be getting Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) "as soon as" October. Which sounds wonderfully non-committal. Though if that October estimate holds true, it'd probably be a record for Samsung. Perhaps they've finally realized people care about OS updates.