Android Community |
- Adobe Announces Flash update for Honeycomb
- PlayStation Suite Expands on Android Officially
- Deal: Samsung Nexus S $100 at Best Buy
- Motorola XOOM OTA Update for Flash Out Now [VIDEO]
- SoftMaker Office coming to Android
- Android survives Pwn2Own hacking contest
- Grace Digital Audio launches Android remote control app
- Motorola Xoom OTA Update rolling out tonight to prepare for Flash 10.2
- WeatherBug for Honeycomb [REVIEW]
- Feedly RSS Reader for Android [BETA] [Android 3.0 Honeycomb on XOOM] [Mini Review]
- Motorola Xoom gets USB Host feature, use USB drives and keyboards [Hack]
- HTC Thunderbolt now available according to Verizon Flyer
- Samsung Galaxy Tab copies Apple saying PC has evolved
- HTC Inspire: A fast phone for fast people [Commercial]
- Surprise… Android on a Nokia Phone
- MIUI Developers Weather Beta 1 Free for all
| Adobe Announces Flash update for Honeycomb Posted: 11 Mar 2011 10:50 AM PST Adobe has announced that Flash Player 10.2 will be available for download through the Android Market starting March 18th. Initially designed for Honeycomb devices, this beta release is also available as a general availability (GA) release for Android handsets using Android 2.2 (Froyo) and 2.3 (Gingerbread) as well. All Honeycomb tablets need to have Google’s 3.0.1 system update as well. It will be an automatic update in conjunction with Google’s first system update for Honeycomb, but Froyo and Gingerbread users will have to go out and get it when it comes on the 18th.
As the latest Flash Player, 10.2 for Android offers hardware acceleration video playback in H.264, deeper integration with the Android browser, enhanced performance for smartphones and tablets, and automatic soft keyboard support. There’s even an improvement to handle Daylight Savings Time. It’s important to note, however, that only Flash certified handsets should apply the download. For information on if your Android phone or tablet meets the requirements, head over to Adobe’s Certified Devices page.
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| PlayStation Suite Expands on Android Officially Posted: 11 Mar 2011 09:57 AM PST It’s been rumored recently that Sony was bringing their Playstation Suite to the Tegra Zone. Well, we’ve just confirmed the story through NVidia that it is indeed the case. The Playstation Suite, originally designed to bring classic Playstation One games to the Sony-Ericsson Xperia Play, will now make those same games available to all Android handsets which run the NVidia Tegra 2 chip and Android 2.3 or above. Sony is also making available games from their Next Generation Playstation Portable device.
And in concert with the PS Suite announcement, Sony is also putting into place a "PlayStation® Certified" license program for hardware manufacturers who wish to take advantage of the PS Suite capability. Through this program, Sony will offer development support, logo licensing, and other support to keep the Playstation experience consistent across various devices. There will also be a Playstation Store, which will allow Android users to purchase and download games directly from their Android devices, and are actively developing new games for the Playstation Suite experience. Sony plays to start with original Playstation games such as Syphon Filter, Cool Boarders 2, and Wild Arms. After that, it’s anybody’s guess. So stay tuned and we’ll let you know as soon as they do. For more information on the Tegra Zone, check out our game guide here. )
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| Deal: Samsung Nexus S $100 at Best Buy Posted: 11 Mar 2011 09:13 AM PST Best Buy has the Samsung Nexus S for $100 with a two year contract from T-Mobile for a limited time. The sale runs from now until March 23rd and customers must be enrolled in Best Buy’s Reward Zone program to be eligible for the deal, which is featured as an “in store only,” price. The Nexus S is the pure Google Experience, with no overlays like MotoBlur or TouchWiz. Just a pure Gingerbread flavor of Android. It has a 4 inch WVGA Super AMOLED display with Samsung's 1GHz Hummingbird processor. IT also has twin cameras including a rear facing camera that shoots 720×480 video. Sadly, no HD. The Nexus S comes in both Black and White.
The Best Buy Reward Zone Program is like those mileage points offered by credit cards, only instead of mileage, customers get points that they can turn in for gift certificates, to the tune of 250 points for a $5 reward certificate. Premiere Silver status is awarded after spending $2500 in one calendar year, and that earns customers 1.25 points per dollar spent. Customers also get a 45-day extended return period on purchases and free standard shipping from orders at BestBuy.com. There’s also special access to promotions and deals like the sale price on the Nexus S, as well as a 6 months free music streaming membership, with downloads. And the best part, membership is FREE. The only mixed bag here is having a T-Mobile contract. Recently, T-Mobile received less than stellar remarks from a customer satisfaction survey by J.D. Power. Power found that the “Get More” network received consistently below average marks across the board in factors such as dropped calls, failures to connect, voice quality and late arriving text messages. Verizon was listed as getting the highest ratings with Sprint and AT&T battling it out for second. With T-Mobile’s current marks down on the list, the question remains would it be better in the long run to forgo this $100 deal and go with the Nexus S at full price? At least then, users can choose a better network. Then again, depending on a users location, the service may be just fine. Check out our review of the Nexus S here.    )
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| Motorola XOOM OTA Update for Flash Out Now [VIDEO] Posted: 11 Mar 2011 07:01 AM PST Before we continue, lets again be clear that this update does not GIVE YOU Flash Player, it only paves the way for you to be able to download and work your Flash Player download which will be available officially on March 18th via the Android Marketplace. In addition to Adobe Flash Player 10.2 support, this update includes improvements to daylight savings time. Weird! Below we’ve got a video sent in by a fan of Aphex Twin that appears to be the download screen leading to the update.
This dude has great taste in music as well as apps (he’s got the Android Community app!) We must say though that he needs to get his camera work in order – what a dork! What we can tell from this video is that the update takes less than 5 minutes, and has a neato Android with gears greeting you whilst you wait. To get this update for yourself, just wait on it! There aren’t just a whole heck of a lot of people out there with XOOM tablets quite yet (more than likely, comparatively with say, Nexus S machines,) so you wont have to wait too long to receive it if you haven’t already. The update will pop up on your screen no matter what you happen to be doing while you’re waiting for it, so feel free to continue playing Monster Madness. Murder some spiders for us! UPDATE: you can now also grab the update from http://www.verizonwireless.com/xoomsupport or http://support.vzw.com/system_update/xoom.html      )
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| SoftMaker Office coming to Android Posted: 11 Mar 2011 06:13 AM PST If you are the sort of user that loves your Android phone, but uses Microsoft Office for document editing frequently in the home or office a new app is heading to the Android Market soon that you might like. The app is coming from SoftMaker and is the firms Office suite. SoftMaker has announced that it is nearly ready to release the beta version of SoftMaker office for Android that will let you edit those Word documents on the go.
There are already some apps on the Android market that will let you do this, but ZDNet reckons SoftMaker Office has enough features that it will be able to compete well with existing offerings. The screen shot you see here from the app shows lots of formatting options. Those formatting options might make this as robust as your desktop application. The controls for the app will be optimized for Android’s touch interface and the app will work with Android 3.0 making it viable for tablet users. [via ZDNet] )
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| Android survives Pwn2Own hacking contest Posted: 11 Mar 2011 05:58 AM PST Each year the Pwn2 Own hacking contest is held to see who can hack various browsers, software and OS’ the fastest. There are money award to those that are able to hack the software in some instances. In the latest edition of the content Google put in its Chrome browser and the Android OS to see if anyone could do the deed.
Google made it through the competition with no one reportedly able to hack Chrome or Android. The same can’t be said for the iPhone 4 with the browser on the iPhone falling and the smartphone being hacked during the contest as well. Along with Android, Windows Phone 7 survived the hack contest. Exactly what hacks were used to gain control of the devices hasn’t been announced. The Google Chrome browser was running a chrome OS Cr-48 notebook when the hackers tried to break it. It’s nice to see the OS is secure despite all the malware that has been popping up in the Android Market lately. [via ibtimes )
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| Grace Digital Audio launches Android remote control app Posted: 11 Mar 2011 02:52 AM PST
The key features for the remote control app include the ability to turn the radio on or off, volume, channel selection, preset navigation and the ability to control alarms on the radios. The app also allows the Android user to control many other functions as well. Grace notes that the app is on the Android Market right now and can be downloaded at no cost. Naturally, you will need a Grade Digital Audio radio to use the app and the radios are able to access hoards of free radio broadcasts that are on the web including Pandora, iheartradio, CNN, CBS Radio, and lots more. )
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| Motorola Xoom OTA Update rolling out tonight to prepare for Flash 10.2 Posted: 10 Mar 2011 11:17 PM PST Motorola Mobility tonight has tweeted a small bit of information that some of you early adopters like us here at AC might find important and useful. According to the Motorola twitter page, starting tonight Motorola is rolling out an OTA update that will provide some fixes, and changes for the Motorola Xoom that will prepare it for Adobe Flash 10.2 and upgrade the Xoom to Android 3.0.1
About 3 hours ago on Motorola’s twitter page the comment went up. Saying that it will be rolling in phases starting tonight. So far this is all the news that has dropped regarding this, there is currently no change-log, or list of improvements or things they are tweaking. Just that it is for the Adobe Flash 10.2 update.
According to our friends at Engadget the update is also fixing an issue with a daylight savings time glitch. I didn’t know that there was an issue with that, but daylight savings is this weekend so it’s probably good they pushed this tonight. For now there is no talk about when Flash 10.2 will actually be delivered but a few sources in the past make us believe it will be within the next 2-3 weeks, and another post mentions it coming Spring 2011. Either way the sooner the better, it’s a feature I miss having that I enjoy on my Nexus One. Update: I got a quick screen shot of the build number change. Oh and look its Android 3.0.1 too. Thanks hdub32 [via Motorola Twitter] )
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| WeatherBug for Honeycomb [REVIEW] Posted: 10 Mar 2011 08:13 PM PST Have a look with us at the most dominant weather app in the Android world, this one optimized not only for Android 3.0 Honeycomb, but specifically for the giant screens that Honeycomb is meant for. This is WeatherBug, an app made by WeatherBug Mobile, and we’ve got it working on the Motorola XOOM. This app is not only free, it’s utterly professional, and the ads that make it free are basically completely hidden (or built in so well you don’t even notice them as out of place.
First Impressions When you first open the app, you notice one thing – your location shows up. Of course, there’s several other locations that show up as well, but you’d like to see the temperature in New York, right? I would. Every other little bit of weather you could ever want to see, the same stuff you’d see on the screen whilst watching the daily news and weather on television. And more. Each city has a tiny arrow in the corner showing that you could click it, or click it twice quickly rather, and there’s even MORE information, like what time of the day the sun is going to rise and set – a feature we’d like all by itself, and here it is in a bigger more awesome app.
And all of this is on the first screen. It’s difficult to say anything negative about this app, and not at all because it’s totally free. The first page has weather information and forecast, the second page has a map that’ll show you a Weather Layer on top of Satellite and Traffic layers fed by Google, those layers adjustable by opacity and animation frames delivered as clouds pass by.
There’s More? Yes there’s basically a bonus feature that consists of real-world photographs from participating locations in your city. How often are these photos updated? It’s unclear, but that’s alright. Clearly these photos are inside the… hour? We can see that it’s night, and that there’s snow on the ground. That seems pretty accurate for us. If these photos are updated inside the hour, all the better.
The final two features aren’t features really, they’re settings including Units, My Location, and Background Weather Updating, and a screen that’ll allow you to add cities to your list of watched locations. This feature is dense too in that you’re allowed to get quite specific on where you are as well as which weather station you’d like to follow. Well played! Wrap-Up Get it. Required downloading. I’m assigning you to download and use this app. Get it over here: [WeatherBug for Honeycomb] or scan this:
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| Feedly RSS Reader for Android [BETA] [Android 3.0 Honeycomb on XOOM] [Mini Review] Posted: 10 Mar 2011 05:49 PM PST What you’re about to see is a fantastic free app from the folks at Feedly. This is an RSS feed reader you can use on your Android tablet, (or your smartphone, or your Chrome browser, or etc, etc,) as it’s quite versatile and, in addition to several more platforms across many devices, looks fabulous on a big screen. This app is not entirely perfectly ready for Honeycomb, as you’ll see in the video, but we’re already using it as its totally amazing even in this skeletal state. This is the BETA version for Android, not even tested on XOOM until we get our hands on it. Have a peek!
First Impressions When you first enter this app, you’ll have a series of feeds already displayed for you front and center. In the full working version of this app, there’s more options here, and it’s a bit cleaner, but we’re just going to go ahead and judge this based on where we are at the moment, as there’s not many bad things to say about this whole situation. That said, we wish SlashGear and Android Community were in the pre-sets – let’s make that happen!
Next you’ll find that not only is it intensely simple to add feeds at your leisure, you have the option of connecting directly to your Google Reader account. You’ll want to do this because it shoots all of the feeds you’ve already got set up directly into the reader and gives you the option of looking at any set of feeds you’ve already got set up in Google Reader. Simple, super, neat. Viewing Stories Each story is opened in a simple separated manner (based on the way the original blog has it set up, of course, but basically the same no matter what the original blog has provided.) This looks good, basic, shows you what you need to see if you just want to read a story, but then there’s also a “Mobilize” button you can use to what I call “smash” the article up into a more essentially squished version. All images are smallish to start with, but you can click them to view them bigger. Videos don’t appear to work in several places, but you’ve got the ability to jump directly to your web browser for that.
Then there’s the in-app web browser. You’ve got this option in addition to being able to jump out into whatever other browser you’ve got available. This in-app browser looks as good or better than every other browser we’ve used on the XOOM thus far. Then of course there’s the button that allows you to insta-copy the web address to the story you’re reading to your clipboard for later pasting. NOTE: This is the place where the video was today, but we realized there was a vast update in the time between filming it and posting this review. We’ll be filming a new video tomorrow! Wrap-up Like all other similar apps (like Pulse, which is undeniably the biggest competitor,) you’ve got to try it yourself to see if it’s the one for you. Unlike pulse, there’s no limit to the amount of feeds you can read, and if we might be so bold, the layout on this app (the full version, mind you, not this Beta version, might even be better than Pulse – DONT HATE! Pulse should love the competition.
This app is totally free, especially since it’s in Beta, and you can download it not only on your Android device, but on several other platforms as well. Check out their homepage] for plugins for your desktop browser if you like, but make sure you head to the [Android Marketplace to give this app a free whirl.]                        )
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| Motorola Xoom gets USB Host feature, use USB drives and keyboards [Hack] Posted: 10 Mar 2011 02:51 PM PST Looks like our favorite Android Tablet, the Motorola Xoom has got a new feature. You can read out review on the Xoom here. As usual the great developers over at XDA have got another trick up their sleeves. Developer Roebeet has hacked the Xoom to allow USB Hosting.
Roebeet is well known at XDA in the tablet area’s. He worked hard on the Augen Gentouch, and also on the G-Tablet by Viewsonic. The first three roms I flashed to my G-Tab were all by him. You will need to Root your Xoom for this little hack, but it will be well worth it. I’ll send you to Roebeet’s instructions because it is a pretty involved procedure. If you are not comfortable messing with your brand new, shiny and expensive Xoom, you might want to pass on this. Adding USB Host feature will allow you to plug in USB drives for music and media, additional storage, wired keyboards, and many other things so this is a good feature to have. As always, do these changes at your own risk. Instructions can be found in this post. [via XDA Forums] )
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| HTC Thunderbolt now available according to Verizon Flyer Posted: 10 Mar 2011 02:12 PM PST One tease after another the HTC Thunderbolt just can’t stay out of the news. It’s been delayed time and time again, or has it. Technically it has not because it wasn’t actually ever given a set date. The February date many threw around was because that was posted on a 30ft screen at CES2011. Today we have an entire next level of Seriously Verizon, with ads coming in the mail to customers saying “Now Available”.
This is just another disaster for Verizon Wireless as they’ve been fighting off stories of reasons for delays such as Delayed because of iPad 2, and poor battery life reasons, and more. No one really knows what is going on, except maybe for Verizon and HTC. Tuesday Verizon came out with a little bit of a testy attitude regarding all the rumors, posting a little comment on Twitter trying to calm the thunderstorm of rumors.
Personally all that tweet does it make the launch seem even farther off, but I could be wrong. Almost as if the writer doesn’t have any idea when they are coming but is saying “when we do, they will rock”. Either way this entire flyer going out in the mail is not good for Verizon, or the Thunderbolt. We shall wait it out and see.    [via DroidLife] )
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| Samsung Galaxy Tab copies Apple saying PC has evolved Posted: 10 Mar 2011 01:50 PM PST Today Samsung Mobile has just released a new commercial for the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Ya know, that tablet that sold 2 million units that Sammy later backtracked to say sold much less. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great little device, very portable and fun. It has an amazing screen but it was just to much money to sell in large numbers off contract.
Feel free to work, play, video chat, or create all on the go with the ultra portable 7″ Samsung Galaxy Tab says the commercial. Then they move on to say “The PC has evolved, that’s the wonder of Samsung”. Didn’t Apple just say the exact same thing during the iPad 2 Event? I think they did. Overall this is actually a pretty great commercial, the idea behind it is pretty genuine and the way they show everyone at once all “learning” about the Galaxy Tab is pretty neat. For all your Samsung Galaxy Tab news and information be sure to stay tuned to AndroidCommunity. Samsung has a lot in store for us over the coming weeks for their new lineup of tablets. For your reading pleasure here is some stories all about the Galaxy Tab for you readers: Galaxy Tab 8.9″ Super-skinny tease [via YouTube] )
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| HTC Inspire: A fast phone for fast people [Commercial] Posted: 10 Mar 2011 12:48 PM PST The gigantic HTC Inspire is here, and its blazing fast. You can check out our HTC Inspre Hands-On Review for anything you’d like to know about this beast of a phone. It is a beautiful device. Today HTC has released a new commercial for the Inspire called the HTC Inspire Cop. A fast phone for fast people is their motto.
The HTC Inspire is AT&T’s first 4G phone, its got all the specs you’d want and come to expect from an Android device. It’s blazing fast says AT&T despite many reports of AT&T capping Android speeds. The commercial shows a cop flying through the middle of a busy city, using Google Maps to track a suspect, and in the end using his blazing 4G speeds, and blazing fast feet to catch a criminal. HTC is pretty famous for these short but sweet commercials, if you’d like to watch a few more we’ve got you covered. Check out the HTC Desire HD in two commercials , or another minute long showing of the Inspire right here. Also while you are here feel free to read and learn how to overclock the HTC Inspire. [via YouTube] )
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| Surprise… Android on a Nokia Phone Posted: 10 Mar 2011 12:14 PM PST What do we have here, a new beginning, Nokia finally getting with the times, or did someone just get fired because they didn’t photoshop the right image on a Nokia phone. We don’t know which but we just had to post this little mistake up for the world to see. What we have here is an advertisement at a Orange store showing Deezer on a Nokia phone. Somehow they accidentally threw in a little Android love.
This is simply a mistake, I don’t want to get the Android on Nokia fire going again, but this might have done it for us. This has been discussed many times in the past and if you’d like to learn more about all things Nokia I’ve got you covered. Here are a few stories you can’t miss. Android leaves Nokia and Blackberry in the dust For now I guess we can just sit back and watch as things unfold. There is still plenty of possibilities with Nokia and Android in the future. The bigger Android gets, the more people like Nokia will start to recognize what an opportunity they have passed on, and they might jump on the Android Train. [via PointGPhone] )
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| MIUI Developers Weather Beta 1 Free for all Posted: 10 Mar 2011 11:49 AM PST The Android developers better known as MIUI have released a beautiful Weather Widget pack today. Called the Weather Beta 1. It is a nice blend of the Sense UI weather widget, Beautiful Widgets (my personal favorite) and a little iOS all wrapped into one. Although iOS is not cool enough to get widgets, MIUI ROM’s do have a certain iOS look to them, and so does the settings for the widget, but that is another story.
The weather widget is still in beta, given the name. So expect things to improve and change over the coming weeks. Even though this is beta 1, I feel it’s pretty polished and works great. I flashed it on my MT4G before writing just to look it over. It’s very well done and might just be my new widget for good. They are also about to release a Gingerbread ROM that will I’m sure be ported to many many other devices just like the last few ROM’s they released. The weather widget needs to be downloaded for your specific location. The European APK is good, but for the US you need to get the file that is specific to your state. Since there is many different versions to download I’ll just send you over to XDA to choose what you need. Enjoy your new widget and tell us how you like it in the forums or comment below. [via XDA Forums]      )
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Grace Digital Audio has announced a 
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