Android and Me |
- Google Maps for Android gets updated with better check-ins, better transit info, and more
- Does your G2x have quality control issues?
- Sprint and Motorola holding a press event on June 9th
- Get the Xperia Play, Nexus S, HTC Incredible S, and Atrix 4G for free from Best Buy Canada
- Midweek Madness! Score a free Motorola XOOM tablet from NVIDIA!
- Motorola Droid X is finally getting Gingerbread, for real this time
- Official: AT&T bringing 4G LTE speeds to 5 markets this summer
- Does Google have a Chrome OS Phone incoming?
- LG Revolution made official, coming out tomorrow for $250 (Updated with video)
- Blockbuster app hops on the modder-blocking bandwagon
| Google Maps for Android gets updated with better check-ins, better transit info, and more Posted: 25 May 2011 03:21 PM PDT  Google Maps for Android keeps getting better and better. El Goog just released a new version of the popular app to the Market with a handful of new features. It hasn’t been more than a week since the company updated Google Maps for the mobile browser, and here we are once again with a new version of Google Maps for Android. Seeing the service get updated so frequently, you get the sense that the company is extremely obsessed about the local space. In this new version, Google has improved the way users can check in and check out of places. Now, when you go to a Place page, you can check in and give the place a rating right there on the same page. Last month, Google released the Location History dashboard, which allows people to see where they’ve been and how much time they spent at work or home. I’m not sure how many people actually use this feature but you’ll now be able to change your home and work address right from inside Latitude. Have fun realizing that you’re spending way too much at work — or slacking at home for that matter. Google Maps is not only good at giving you driving directions, but the app is also extremely useful for those of you who walk everywhere — and now it’s better. In this version, Google has updated the transit station page, making it easier for users to plan their trip. With each page now showing “a list of upcoming scheduled departures for different lines, all the transit lines serving the station, and links to nearby transit stations.” I find it a little coincidental that Google updates the Google Maps app right before a big press event. Something tells me that this version of Google Maps has something to do with tomorrow’s event. Maybe it has some hidden feature that the company will show off tomorrow. You know what would make me want to use Latitude’s Location History dashboard, if it showed me all the places where I’ve used my Nexus S to pay for stuff. I guess we’ll find out soon. Gallery
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| Does your G2x have quality control issues? Posted: 25 May 2011 12:10 PM PDT  David over at Tmonews has leaked that T-Mobile’s current flagship, the LG G2x, is no longer available for purchase from tmobile.com. Tmonews goes on to speculate that the deactivation of the G2x is likely related to the various quality issues that have plagued the device since launch. For those saying “Whoa, what device quality issues? I love my G2x!” several users have reported the device randomly rebooting, instances of “screen bleed” (light leaking from around the edges of the phone – especially noticeable on black screens), and other small issues since the phone was released in April. As someone who has been using the G2x as his daily driver for a couple of weeks now, I have personally experienced both the random reboots and screen bleed issues and can attest to the annoyance these issues can cause. We are hopeful that LG and T-Mobile are hard at work on a fix, including for those who have already purchased the device. We will keep you fully appraised of the situation once T-Mobile issues a statement. If you’re a current G2x user, have you noticed any of the above-mentioned issues with your G2x? Do you find them as glaring issues or infrequent annoyances? Sound off by leaving a comment below.
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| Sprint and Motorola holding a press event on June 9th Posted: 25 May 2011 12:07 PM PDT  Right on time. Just two days after we broke the news that Sprint and Motorola are working on a version of the Atrix 4G, we now find out that both companies will be holding a press event on June 9th in New York. Coincidence? I don’t think so. We might see something else announced at the event, though. The recently-announced Motorola XPRT and Titanium could make an appearance at the event. But we have our fingers crossed for a Tegra 2-packing superphone by Motorola. Sprint is currently the only U.S. carrier without a Tegra 2 device. If the company wants to keep up with competitors like Verizon and AT&T, it needs to step up its game and release some truly amazing phones. Wonderful devices is what makes people want to switch to a certain carrier. A version of the Motorola Atrix 4G is a step in the right direction, but they shouldn’t stop there. Now that AT&T is buying T-Mobile, Sprint needs to take Magenta’s place as the primary wireless carrier for Android. Starting by being the first to sell the upcoming Tegra 3-powered Nexus 3.Now, that’s something that’d make people really want to switch to Sprint.
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| Get the Xperia Play, Nexus S, HTC Incredible S, and Atrix 4G for free from Best Buy Canada Posted: 25 May 2011 10:46 AM PDT  Attention dear Canadian readers, you might want to hold off on buying that Android superphone you want so badly. Because this Friday, Best Buy will be selling a handful of Android devices for the lowest price possible: free. The giant retailer will be giving out the following phones with a 3-year contract:
That’s one enticing deal, right there. Almost makes me want to move to Canada, almost. Is it me or is it kind of hard to decide which phone to get? I like the Nexus S ’cause it’s a Google phone and has an NFC chip, but then there’s the Atrix 4G with a Tegra 2 chip and a fingerprint reader. Or maybe I’d go with the Xperia Play with all its PlayStation features. Decisions, decisions. How many of you guys will be taking advantage of this incredible opportunity? If you’re, let us know which device are you going with.
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| Midweek Madness! Score a free Motorola XOOM tablet from NVIDIA! Posted: 25 May 2011 09:57 AM PDT  Hello and welcome to my Wednesday. History has shown me that Wednesdays have a tendency to be ultra lame. To combat that, the team at Android and Me came up with Midweek Madness. For those unaware, we like to give away small prizes during the week to help make things suck a little less. Oh, I’m sorry, did I say small prizes? Let me fix that, because today we have a brand new XOOM tablet featuring the NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor. We’ve got our hands on the newest WiFi-only model (no carrier contracts) and want to give it to you, the loyal reader. To win today, we’ve made things easy. All you have to do is leave a comment below. Tell us what XOOM feature is your favorite. Make sure you use a REAL email address (seriously, last time one of the winners used a fake and missed out on a prize) and don’t bother down voting each other’s comments- the winner will be chosen at random.
After today, we’ll only have one XOOM left to give away. So make sure you leave a comment for a chance to win! We’ll be announcing the winner around this time tomorrow, you’ve only got a single day to enter! To recap: leave a comment below for a chance to win a XOOM. Use your real email address so we can contact you. Tell us your favorite feature. Make Wednesdays less lame. And if you’d like to help make Wednesdays less lame for others, use the tweet box below to share this contest!
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| Motorola Droid X is finally getting Gingerbread, for real this time Posted: 25 May 2011 09:34 AM PDT  We’re not kidding this time, I promise. After a handful of leaks, Verizon and Motorola are finally ready to update the Droid X to Gingerbread. You can expect your Droid X to update itself starting this Friday, according to Verizon: Verizon Wireless will begin pushing Android 2.3, Gingerbread, to the DROID X by Motorola on Friday. Enhancements include a download manager app, a refreshed user interface, app grouping and more. Customers can visit www.verizonwireless.com/droidxsupport for more information about the update.Albert AydinVerizon Wireless
Specifically, Droid X users will be able to enjoy all the following new features and enhancements:
As we’ve said many times before, it’s always nice to see one more Android device get updated to Android’s latest and greatest. At the same time, it’s quite sad that it took Motorola and Verizon more than six months to update the Droid X. If both companies don’t improve in this area, you can expect Ice Cream Sandwich to drop on your Droid X2 a year from now — if at all. We’d love to know if any of you guys already got the update. Is it faster? More stable? Do you like the new features? Let us know in the comments.
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| Official: AT&T bringing 4G LTE speeds to 5 markets this summer Posted: 25 May 2011 09:21 AM PDT  It must be mentioned that AT&T is not keeping satisfaction very high when it comes to their 4G network. Though this carrier has the largest 4G coverage out of the four major carriers, backhaul hasn’t been deployed in most markets. If AT&T’s HSPA+ network doesn’t convince you yet, the following network very well might. AT&T is finally rolling out their new 4G LTE network this summer, starting with the following 5 markets: AT&T plans to bring some LTE action to 10 or more other markets during the second half of the year, and claims that it will cover about 70 million Americans by the end of the year. Consumers will be able to take advantage of 4G speeds through the twenty 4G devices that this carrier will be adding to its repertoire. AT&T also mentions that only “some” of these devices will be LTE capable, leaving us quite confused about what we should expect. Let’s just hope some of those are Android-powered devices! What do you guys say? Are you looking forward to see how much AT&T improves with the release of their new 4G LTE network? Do you think AT&T will be able to hold some competition against the other big boys on the block, like Verizon (which also has an LTE network)? Show Press ReleaseAT&T's 4G Evolution Dallas, Texas, May 25, 2011 By John Donovan, AT&T Chief Technology Officer AT&T has delivered five mobile broadband speed upgrades in recent years, including our HSPA+ deployment last year. And average nationwide speeds on the AT&T network have increased – more than 40 percent over the past two years alone. The next network evolution will arrive this summer with the addition of LTE in five markets – Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta and San Antonio. We plan to add another 10 or more markets in the second half of the year, and cover 70 million Americans with LTE by year-end. We also have plans to add 20 4G devices to our robust device portfolio this year, with some of those being LTE capable. We're positioning to deliver a great mobile broadband experience in the near term with HSPA+ and a growing LTE footprint. We've invested $75 billion in our wireless and wired networks over the last four years – more capital invested in the U.S. than any company in any industry. And we plan to invest $19 billion in our wireless and wireline networks and other capital projects this year. The investments we've made to evolve our mobile broadband network in recent years, plus what we have planned for the future, put our customers in position to benefit fully from a host of coming mobile broadband innovations.
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| Does Google have a Chrome OS Phone incoming? Posted: 25 May 2011 08:59 AM PDT  Ever since Chrome OS was announced, the excitement for the operating system seemed to be matched by the curiosity of its purpose. Shortly after the initial announcement, when the CR-48 devices were being shipped, I remember being asked repeatedly “If I have an Android phone and a tablet, do I really need a cloud computer?” To be honest, I didn’t have a good answer for them. Chrome OS fills a use case that most Android tablets don’t fully reach, and the same goes for the opposite direction. So, the issue fizzled out a bit until Google I/O, when the release of the ChromeBooks brought back the same set of questions. This time, however, Google was equipped with an autoresponder to the sound of “we’re not currently exploring other form factors for Chrome OS” when prompted. Since then, however, analysts have begun speculating as to whether or not Google is playing with the idea of a “Chrome Phone” behind the scenes. In a recent article on The Street, Anton Wahlman provided an extremely detailed breakdown of whether or not Google was planning to stick Chrome OS into a phone-shaped device. Among the many reasons that were stuffed into the article, the most prominent seemed to be his notions of competition and control. It’s true that both Motorola and Samsung have announced plans for cloud based phones slated in 2012. There are those that would draw lines indicating that Samsung and Motorola would be making this move in response to the SkyHook debacle. It is indeed possible that both companies were rubbed the wrong way by Google’s strong-arm tactics in this matter, but it seems much more likely to me that these companies are looking at the rebirth of the feature-phone. Ah, the feature-phone. Customers love them because they can get them for their kids for next to nothing, carriers love them because they provide the additional revenue of a dataplan without all that pesky data usage, and manufacturers love to make them because they run on essentially recycled parts, making the devices significantly higher in profit. A cloud-based feature-phone would be perfect, since they’d run on slower hardware, require next to no storage, and wouldn’t even need an SD card slot. The cost for the manufacturer goes way down, but the profit per device is still more than they get from a smartphone. Still, even if Samsung and Motorola aren’t doing this to spite Google, there’s no reason Google shouldn’t respond. After all, they’ve got this shiny new cloud based toy. Why not try to stuff it into a low-power phone to see if it dances? As an added bonus, Google would have a completely secure and controlled OS on a phone-shaped thing of their own design. That’s awesome, right? We Android fans are all about open, but it’s really not any secret that Google kind of isn’t. Their apps are all closed source, they get really cranky if you try to include them in roms, and then there’s that pesky DRM block for rooted phones that came up recently. Oh yeah, open like a tank. Still, the nature of Android allows the extremely clever to find ways around it and provide some really cool, unique experiences, which is awesome. The Chrome OS environment is completely secure, and totally controlled by Google. In many ways, that’s a really good thing. Chrome remains to this day one of the most secure user experiences on the web, and their sandboxing methods have probably kept more viruses from computers than there are stars in the sky. Obviously the Web Store on Chrome is no Android Market, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find Google looking to shoehorn the Market onto a “Chrome Phone”. Well, that was the “bending facts to suit theories” portion of this exercise, based primarily on the information in the article I mentioned. Now, let’s take a stroll down the “bending theories to suit facts” side of this street! Android is huge. So huge, in fact, that Andy Rubin described it as no longer being something you bought in a store and took home, but something that existed to bring your home to you. Plus, it’s got that sort of “aged to perfection” thing going for it right now. It’s not perfect, but Android as it exists right now is a culmination of the trials and errors that brought those developers to this conclusion. So is it likely that Chrome OS would be able to fill Androids shoes in the mobile space? I doubt it, but that doesn’t mean that Chrome and Android couldn’t learn a few things form each other. The Android browser is extremely powerful for a mobile browser. Put it next to even the most recent BlackBerry, and you’ll laugh yourself to death and how good you have it. That’s not to say it couldn’t get better. An Android phone, or tablet, turbocharged by the power and dexterity of Chrome? That would be an impressive thing indeed. If you didn’t pick up on this with the Nexus S, and if you’ve ever used a ChromeBook you’d know, Google really wants to hold on to all of that data for you, and would prefer that you not mess with those bothersome SD cards. This isn’t so much a “it’s happening tomorrow so throw your cards away” but the trend across all of Google’s products is there. With all of the belt tightening going on with the carriers, a device that lived 100% in the cloud will be problematic for users. It will be difficult to sell someone on the ideals of being “always on the web” when there’s a meter counting down every time you wake the device. Unless Google goes and buys Sprint, there’s going to be some problems there. Is a Chrome OS phone on the way? That was the question right? It seems likely to me that what is coming will much more closely resembles a smarter, hybridized solution. Pushing everything to the cloud will decrease the performance required of the hardware, and securing the device within a sandbox will allow Google to innovate at a pace that they see fit. Chrome gets updated on a ridiculously fast cycle, do you know how amazing it would be if Android were able to do the same? Of course, we lose the ability to call ourselves open at that handoff, and it could be that things like ROMs fade into obscurity. In short, I don’t think that Chrome OS will be stuffed into a phone-shaped thing, but rather it will be blended with existing products to create something new, or at least new-ish.
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| LG Revolution made official, coming out tomorrow for $250 (Updated with video) Posted: 25 May 2011 08:57 AM PDT  It’s finally here, folks. It’s been a long time since we first saw the LG Revolution at CES, but the phone has arrived at last. Verizon and LG announced today that the LG Revolution will be available for purchase via the Verizon website, starting tomorrow. Unsurprisingly, Verizon will be selling the LG Revolution for a whopping $250 — that’s about $50 more than I’m willing to pay for it. Despite its price, the LG Revolution does have something going for it. The device will be the first Android phone to come preloaded with the Netflix app. On the other hand, it will come preloaded with Bing as well, so you’ll have to take the good with the bad. If having to use Bing puts you off, maybe the following specs will change your mind (or not):
Does the privilege of roaming free on Verizon’s 4G network outweighs the $250 price tag, the outdated Android version, the single-core Processor, the lack of NFC chip, and more importantly the fact that it has Bing preloaded? I’m having some doubts. What do you guys think? UPDATE: LG Girl just uploaded a video of the LG Revolution. Check it out below. Revolution by LG Arrives for Verizon Wireless Dynamic Trio of 4G LTE, Entertainment and Power Combine to Make Revolution™ by LG BASKING RIDGE, N.J., and SAN DIEGO, May 24, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Verizon Wireless and LG Mobile Phones today announced Revolution™ by LG will be available in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores and online at www.verizonwireless.com on May 26. An entertainment powerhouse, Revolution by LG is the first Android™ smartphone preloaded with the Neflix application, allowing Netflix subscribers access to movies and television shows. Revolution customers can capture and share HD images or videos on a 4.3-inch capacitive touchscreen. Built-in HDMI output and SmartShare capability allow customers to share multimedia content with HDMI capable displays, creating an exceptional entertainment experience. Key features: * 4G LTE – customers can expect download speeds of 5 to 12 Mbps and upload speeds of 2 to 5 Mbps in 4G Mobile Broadband coverage areas Additional features: * V CAST Apps Pricing and availability: Revolution by LG will be available in Verizon Wireless Communication Stores and online at www.verizonwireless.com for $249.99 with a new two-year customer agreement. Revolution customers will need to subscribe to a Verizon Wireless Nationwide Talk plan and a data package. Nationwide Talk plans begin at $39.99 for monthly access. An unlimited data package is available for $29.99 for monthly access. The Mobile Hotspot feature will be included for a limited time at no additional charge. The Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Mobile Broadband network, launched in December 2010, is the fastest, most advanced 4G network in the United States, providing speeds up to 10 times faster than Verizon Wireless’ 3G network. Verizon Wireless’ 4G LTE Mobile Broadband network currently reaches one-third of all Americans, with plans to expand the network to the company’s entire 3G coverage area over the next three years. For more information on Verizon Wireless products and services, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 1-800-2 JOIN IN or go to www.verizonwireless.com.
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| Blockbuster app hops on the modder-blocking bandwagon Posted: 25 May 2011 08:21 AM PDT  Root users were not happy last Sunday, after hearing that Android Market Movie Rentals would not be accessible through their unlocked devices. It seems like the reasoning for this shutdown lies along the lines of it creating a copyright infringement. This suggests that the movie industry is probably putting some pressure on developers/movie distributors, believing that having a rooted device would increase the chances of us "big-time thieves" stealing their $4.00 movies. Well, fasten your seat-belts, because it seems like this is going to become a trend. The Droid Charge was treated with a Blockbuster app a few days ago, which seemed good and dandy, but the excitement didn’t last long for root users. The app actually comes with Widevine’s DRM software (owned by Google), and it detects whether your device has been rooted or not. If you are a firm believer of freedom (openness) and have a rooted device, said app will go ahead and let you know that you are out of the picture for accessing movies. The movie industry needs to understand that rooting a device does not make us criminals, and it will not increase the chances of us stealing its films. Likening modders to thieves and blocking us from accessing your services is insulting, and does nothing but hurt your potential income as rooted Android users are going to simply go elsewhere to get their content. If someone really wanted to steal a movie, it can be easily done with a computer (even HD quality). Contrary to your wishes, such practices will only further entice consumers to pirate copyrighted content, since you are pretty much stripping them of the legal way of watching movies. Of course, there will always be other options, where rooted users can happily go and invest their money. So if you are one of the rooted users suffering from lack of access to these services, please comment below and let the big boys know where you are spending your hard earned cash! Don’t forget to also share your opinions on this trend with us in the comments.
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