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You may not have heard, but Android turned 10 this week. Over the course of the past decade, Google has loaded its phones up with tons of quality wallpapers — and here, we've tried to create a comprehensive repository of them.
I've been working my way back through Google's Nexus line, re-examining older hardware and software for fun and profit. After the Nexus 5 and Galaxy Nexus, my every-other-phone cycle landed me on the Nexus One: the first Nexus smartphone. Never having used Android 2.3 Gingerbread or earlier full-time, I was curious to see what it would be like. So far as I can tell, the experience I missed out on is gone forever.
Google kicked off the Nexus program back in early 2010 with the Nexus One. It was a fine phone for the time, but it's vastly different than the most recent iterations of the Nexus flagship. That's illustrated quite well by this quick GIF.
Happy New Year! It's that time again; with the new year comes our new annual prediction post. I tackled this last year, and rather than do a bunch of crazy, pulled-from-thin-air predictions, I ended up with a link-filled research-fest for the year. It worked out pretty well, so that's what's on the docket for today. First though, I'll take a look and see just how many of last year's predictions and rumors came true, and provide some updates for the more important topics.
After the successful landing of NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars this month, space exploration is once again at the forefront of everyone's minds. While the rover goes about its mission on the red planet, there are plenty of other exciting projects happening closer to home.
CyanogenMod: Nexus One, Desire, EVO 4G, Incredible, Hero, Legend, Xperia X10, And Many More Won't Get Official Updates Past CM7
The day that many ROM enthusiasts have been dreading has arrived: the CyanogenMod Team has announced the end of life support for the original Nexus One,
The day that many ROM enthusiasts have been dreading has arrived: the CyanogenMod Team has announced the end of life support for the original Nexus One, along with other first-generation Snapdragon devices, including the HTC EVO 4G, [Droid] Incredible and Desire and others. None of these devices have official builds of CyanogenMod 9 (though plenty of independent ROM developers have done their best) and they won't be getting any CM updates beyond the 7.X Gingerbread branch.
Go ahead and file this one under the we're not surprised tab: Google's Hugo Barra told the Telegraph that the Nexus One won't be getting updated to Android 4.0, as the hardware is just too old. Honestly, we didn't expect the Big G to support the original Nexus forever, so this shouldn't really come as a shocker to anyone.
Nexus One owners, you've got an update waiting for you this evening. The version number is 2.3.6 (GRK39F), which will apply right over 2.3.4 GRJ22. If you still haven't gotten yours OTA, we've got the download link and instructions below.
Nexus One owners, tonight you're getting a nice treat in the form of the incremental Gingerbread update 2.3.4, previously available only to Nexus S owners. To recap, the main feature in this release is the video and audio enabled Google Talk, although since the N1 lacks a front-facing camera, it's not going to be as useful as it was for the Nexus S.
Fragmentation has been one of the biggest criticisms of the Android platform. Essentially, Google allows anybody to take the Android code and tweak it suit their own needs. This is how manufacturers like Motorola, HTC, and Samsung are able to create custom layers (MotoBlur, Sense UI, and TouchWiz, respectively) over the vanilla Android interface and how some carriers load up new phones with crapware. Although this is a price to pay for openness and customizability, a recent study indicates that 86% of developers are unhappy with the state of Android fragmentation (24% of them describing it as a "huge problem").
CyanogenMod 7 has earned its reputation as the most reliable Gingerbread ROM, even though it hasn't yet entered stable mode. And tonight, the fun goes on - RC4 RC3.14159265358979323846264338327, as the CM team so lovingly refers to it, has just been launched for all supported CM devices.
That's right folks - CyanogenMod7 RC3 is up for grabs, and we'll be posting the devices it's available for as they come in. Here's the links we have so far:
While rooted Android users have been taking screenshots on their phones for a while now, stock, non-rooted owners have been left out of the fun (there are some notable exceptions to this rule, like the EVO 4G). No longer, according to Paul O'Brien, one of the visionaries in the Android community, who posted the following in reply to Cyanogen (aka Android god):
Google may have jumped the gun on announcing that the Android 2.3.3 update for the Nexus One was available - although they did say that it could be a few weeks until the update deployed OTA, it wasn't available for download and install, either. Or, rather, it wasn't until now: the update .ZIPs have been posted and can be downloaded directly from Google.
Today, Google got the ball rolling on Gingerbread updates for the two official "Google phones", the Nexus One and Nexus S. While this is exciting, long awaited news for owners of the Nexus One, the Nexus S crowd may have some reason for disdain.
It seems Google has a funny definition of "a few weeks" - the Nexus One has been waiting for an update to Gingerbread for almost three months now - but late or not, the update is finally rolling out.
HTC Nexus One, the predecessor to the Gingerbread-sporting Samsung Nexus S, has been teased with the Android 2.3 over-the-air upgrade ever since Gingerbread was released. At the time, we anxiously waited for the upgrade that seemed to be imminent, but weeks flew by without any news. Then, Google said it was coming "in the next few weeks," but months slowly churned, and thousands of Nexus Ones owners are still GBreadless.