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Android Police is getting into the spirit of the holiday season, by throwing so much free Android goodness at you that you just might be sick (not really, we hope). We'll be giving away over 150 prizes over the next ten days from many of our friends, including NVIDIA, RadioShack, Texas Instruments, Beansoft, Gameloft, and more. It's going to be our biggest giveaway ever. You'll have the chance to win phones, tablets, cases, headphones, books, and other miscellaneous awesome Android-related stuff.
Google has released the latest of its monthly Android version distribution charts, and for the first time Android 2.3 Gingerbread is present on over half of all Android devices. A milestone, to be sure.
If you haven't heard, Germany has pretty much become the hotspot for smartphone and tablet patent litigation. Most recently, HTC has been hitting headlines in its ongoing battle against IPCom, an intellectual property firm. IPCom claims that HTC's smartphones violate a number of its patents in the realm of 3G GSM technology. HTC says that the last time it made a phone which might have violated those patents was in 2009, and that it has since developed a workaround which does not infringe on IPCom's patents.
If you don't know who Trevor Eckhart is, you might remember a little piece we published earlier this year about a massive HTC data vulnerability caused by the company's data-logging operations. Trevor was the guy who found that vulnerability and did almost all of the legwork in investigating it. Since then, Trevor has been hard at work looking at more mobile data logging applications used by various manufacturers, including one written by a company called Carrier IQ.
Dear Android Custom ROM developers: I love most of you. Really. You're part of what makes Android so awesome, because you're so enthusiastic about it, and about making it better. Because of you, we have awesome things like CyanogenMod.
A court in Mannheim, Germany today held a preliminary hearing in a patent dispute between Motorola Mobility and Apple Sales International (a European Apple distribution subsidiary), and it seems like Apple's on the ropes.
Google Music is old hat. Sorry, guys - it's true. Streaming? Amazon's Cloud Player and iTunes iCloud both have it. Locker storage? Amazon gives you a decent amount, too - and they might even increase it if they feel Google Music is one-upping them. Purchase options? Apple and Amazon both have more music you can purchase digitally, including titles from Warner Music Group (which Google Music does not have), where many major contemporary artists are signed.
It sure seems that way, according to Android Guys. They claim competing eBook apps such as Kobo and Aldiko don't appear in search results when using the Amazon Appstore on a Kindle Fire tablet. Additionally, eBook reader developer BlueFire claims that while his app is listed as Kindle Fire-compatible on the Amazon Appstore, it too fails to show up in search results on the device.
Update: The Music section of the Market is now live! (Link). Access to Music in the Android Market (on-device) will be rolling out over the next few days on the server side (there is no new version of the Market to get the Music section). A new version of the Music app is out as well, check it out here.
Now, this all based on one German online retailer (where imports of the Tab 10.1 were banned), but it's very interesting nonetheless. It appears that a new version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has been launched in Germany, called the Tab 10.1N. The difference? So far, all we see is a re-designed bezel and the fact that it's now shipping with Android 3.2. Take a look at this comparison shot from Mobiflip:
It seems that invitees to Google's big not-yet-officially-about-Google-Music-event have just received a second invitation - to the after party. Oh, and Maroon 5, Busta Rhymes, Dirty South, R3hab, and Drake will all be in attendance - and so will we. We'll be watching the earlier event via livestream along with most everyone else (space is apparently very limited), but Android Police will present for the post-event-event Wednesday night, below. We're excited.
Wow, this happened sooner than we expected - but Google just announced only minutes ago that the source code for Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich is on its way to Google's AOSP tree right now. We'll update as we learn more. Here's the original post:
The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is the best Android tablet I have ever used - hands down. No contest, nothing else comes even close. I've used the Tab 10.1, the Toshiba Thrive, the Motorola XOOM, the ASUS Transformer, the HTC Flyer, the Acer Iconia A500, and the original Galaxy Tab. The Tab 10.1 is probably the next best thing (with TouchWiz UX), but it seems downright slow next to the Tab 7.0 Plus at times.
People who constantly wear Bluetooth headsets annoy me. I'll admit it. Yep, it's probably pretentious, judgmental, and just kind of mean, but nonetheless, that's where I stand (see: this highly relevant video). I figure it's only fair warning for you, our readers, going into this review. So, when Samsung offered me a chance to spend some time with their latest high-end Bluetooth headset, the HM7000 (the product naming department was on vacation), I accepted with a good deal of hesitancy.
Earlier today, I received my review unit Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, Samsung's latest addition to the Tab family of products. Now, you probably thought, upon hearing about this little device, "gee, this is just another scaled-down version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 - boring." But you thought wrong - very wrong.
PayPal's popular app for Android has received a significant update this morning, and the biggest change allows those with NFC phones to request money from other NFC-enabled devices using PayPal - nifty. While NFC has been slow to see adoption, Google's efforts with Wallet and MasterCard WavePay have no doubt raised a few eyebrows (and one lawsuit) over at PayPal, the world's largest online-only payment service.
Android has a mysterious case of gigantism, and I'm not entirely certain why manufacturers keep feeling the need to have a bigger phone than the next guy. The size war (all male anatomical euphemisms aside) is on, and we're not sure when it's going to end. Take a look at these device charts for the three major Android manufacturers in (pretty much) chronological order of release:
Oh, the DROID RAZR - the very name RAZR brings back memories of the turn of the century (we can say that now, right?) - flip phones and cheap, unlimited data. Those were the good 'ol days. But let's talk about the here and now, Motorola's latest Android phone is the company's most ambitious handset to date, and the general consensus? It's good, but... [insert complaint about battery life or width / Galaxy Nexus is coming comment here.]
HTC's UK Facebook page was updated last night with information regarding just which HTC handsets would be in the "first wave" of phones to receive an update to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in early 2012. While the post was made on HTC's UK Facebook, the list contains a number of US-only devices. Those handsets are asterisked to indicate US-only availability (the Rezound, EVO Design, and Amaze). The others on the list include the Sensation (plus XL and XE versions), the Vivid, and the EVO 3D. Those phones are not asterisked, indicating the ICS update will be making its way to the European versions of those phones around the same time frame as well.