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Welcome back to another week of the Android Police Podcast. To catch us live on Hangouts On Air every Thursday at 5:30PM PST (subject to change as per the calendar widget below), just head over to androidpolice.com/podcast. For the unedited video show, click here. As always, we'll take your questions at 530-HELLO-AP and also at our email address: podcast at androidpolice dot com.
Android 3.2.1 Honeycomb Update Now Rolling Out To HTC's EVO View 4G
The HTC Evo View 4G will see Android's Honeycomb update in its latest rollout.
Sprint's variant of the HTC Flyer - the HTC EVO View 4G - is finally getting a taste of Honeycomb, bringing it up to par with competing Android tablets.
Do you like connectivity? Well, today you're getting a chance to win what is probably the most connectable Android tablet around, the Toshiba Thrive. Our friends at Toshiba have graciously provided us with one, along with a Toshiba Wireless Keyboard for maximizing your tablet productivity.
Thrive owners, grab your slate and start checking for updates -- Android 3.2 is now available. The bump in Android version is the nuts-and-bolts of this update, along with improved screen rotation speed.
When we first saw ASUS' Eee Pad Slider at CES, we very nearly dismissed it at once. It was thick, tablets with physical keyboards showed no sign of gaining popularity, and Honeycomb had yet to come out of the woodwork. Besides, ASUS' own cheaper, slimmer Transformer had already caught our hearts. Our confidence was not raised by the long period of silence that followed - in fact, the only Slider-related posts we've written since January are an unofficial hands-on by a Romanian blog and the announcement of the slate's pricing.
If the insanely high-res screens of the Galaxy Note and Galaxy Tab 7.7 have you drooling, you're certainly not alone. But if you live in the US, it's all too likely that you will never have the opportunity to see either of the devices in person.
Thanks to Samsung's Unpacked app, we already knew that the South Korean company would be announcing the Galaxy Tab 7.7 today, but now we have official confirmation along with a full list of specs to match.
While the US variant of the Motorola XOOM recently received Android 3.2, the European version has been patiently waiting to leave version 3.0.1. That wait is finally coming to its end, as the official Android 3.1 OTA has started rolling out in Europe, according to Motorola EU's Facebook page. Of course, this is a staged rollout, so it may be days - or even weeks - before some users actually see it hit their device.
Motorola XOOM 3G owners, today is your lucky day. Okay, well, maybe not lucky, but still good - the OTA update to Android 3.2 has officially started rolling out. This update brings some subtle, yet nice new features to the Motorola tablet:
ASUS just announced via its official Twitter account that the Eee Pad Transformer would be receiving the latest iteration of Honeycomb -- Android 3.2 -- on July 28th (tomorrow). The newest version of Honeycomb will bring bug fixes and a few new features to the tablet-netbook-hybrid, including the new "app zoom" feature that makes phone-specific apps scale more appropriately on the larger, 1280x800 display.
Following the Android 3.2 update that began rolling out to Wi-Fi Xoom models a few days ago, Google has now released the Android 3.2 SDK into the wild, adding a number of new features whilst bumping the API level from 12 to 13 following the introduction of some API changes.
While we reported earlier today that Motorola Xooms would be receiving Android 3.2 "in small batches," the update is available now for those of you who have the wifi-only model. The update brings long-awaited features like app zooming and support for SD cards.
Last week we heard a rumor that Android 3.2 could be rolling out to the Motorola XOOM "within days," and it looks like that claim may have been realized starting today. According to Droid-Life, the update is rolling out in small batches at the moment and, along with the nifty new zoom feature, brings the long-awaited support for SD Cards. Other than that, it appears that this is more of a maintenance update, as the other features of 3.2 don't really apply to the XOOM.
In a world void of many Honeycomb-specific apps, we often turn to small screen variants in order to fulfill our on-the-go needs. While many of the apps designed for phones work and scale appropriately on the large screen, it often to leads to odd placement of objects, tiny buttons to tap, and other inconveniences that end up being less-than-ideal. Fortunately, Google incorporated a solution to this problem in Android 3.2 (Honeycomb): "zoom mode."
Here's an interesting tidbit of information for the XOOM owners out there: there may be a system update heading your way within the next few days that bumps you up to Android 3.2. Details are pretty scarce right now, but here's what we can tell you: in the comments of AOSP issue number 16992 - which is in regards to the lack of Exchange support post-3.1 update on the XOOM - one line stands out. The line simply states that "there should be a 3.2 update coming within days, and that should help those of you with Xoom [sic]." Now, while it may not be a lot to go on, and there is no confirmation of the source aside from the fact that s/he appears to be a Google employee - this is still quite promising information.
When Huawei announced the new 7-inch MediaPad Honeycomb tablet this morning, chaos confusion ensued. The device runs Android 3.2, a new build of Honeycomb that nobody outside Google or Huawei seemed to have seen before. It didn't help that Huawei was quite secretive about what additions the new OS brought (other than support for 7-inch tablets and a new version number).
So it's true: the reason we haven't seen any 7-inch Honeycomb tablets thus far is that Android 3.0 just doesn't fit well on screens of that size. This has been our pet theory for some time now, but this morning, Huawei came right out and confirmed it with the announcement of their Android 3.2-running MediaPad.