Friday, August 20, 2010

Nexus One

Still the best Android phone!

Amplify’d from techcrunch.com

Remember when Google killed the Nexus One a month ago? Yeah, it’s still sold in a few places here and there, but it’s mostly dead. And apparently it had to die in order to find its heaven: Android app developers.

A new post tonight on the Android Developers Blog declares that the now-for-developers-only Nexus One has proven to be “a little too popular.” As Tim Bray writes, “we blew through the (substantial) initial inventory in almost no time, and they’re back-ordered from HTC.” In other words, they’re now completely sold out.

To be clear, Google is selling unlocked versions of the Nexus Ones to registered developers through a publisher page in the Android market. What’s odd is that though they didn’t say so in their very brief post announcing the Nexus One’s death, the assumption is that they were killing it off because it wasn’t selling well. In fact, CNN had them just over 100,000 units in the same time that other phones like the iPhone and another Android-powered phone, Droid, had sold a million units.

I’m still convinced that the Nexus One is the best Android phone I’ve tried. Even the newer ones (EVO and Droid 2) simply don’t stack up. And I loved Google’s ballsy attempt to sell it themselves and bypass the carriers — but clearly that didn’t work too well, and they quickly abandoned that model.

At least the Nexus One is apparently having a good afterlife.

Read more at techcrunch.com
 

Smartphone watch concept

...add two (2) straps to a smartphone, attach to wrist and you're set!

Amplify’d from www.ubergizmo.com

Concept: PCOD Ultrathin And Lightweight Wearable Smartphone

Concept: PCOD Ultrathin And Lightweight Wearable Smartphone

Mankind seems to have some strange obsession with wristwatch cell phone designs; perhaps it has something to do with Dick Tracy. Now an Irish designer has come up with an ultra thin and light wearable phone concept, dubbed the PCOD (Personal Communications and Organization Device), which can honestly be summed in a single word as a "smartphone". The PCOD offers useful features such as a 10-megapixel camera, anti-shake camera, GPS, MP3 playback, built-in storage, PIM features, games and even third-party apps. The PCOD also offers a super long battery life along with a 64GB SSD for storage purposes. The user interface is customizable and the holder and straps are swappable to suit your mood or preference. It's water resistant, which is good news, as you're bound to be caught in the rain sooner or later.

Read more at www.ubergizmo.com
 

Appa Organizer for Android

This app looks promising. Its FREE and allows you to easily organize your apps into a label/folder based system instead of just alphabetically.

Amplify’d from lifehacker.com

Apps Organizer Makes Better Home Screen Folders on Android

Apps Organizer Makes Better Home Screen Folders on AndroidAndroid only: Creating folders on a home screen, then finding and dragging apps into them, isn't quick or precise. Apps Organizer, and its broader cousin Folder Organizer, make creating and accessing batches of apps, contacts, and bookmarks much easier.

Rather than creating a folder and having to do a whole lot of scrolling and dragging to fill it up, Apps Organizer lets you create "Labels," which you can then add apps to from a single list of your device's apps. The organizer comes with a few labels pre-loaded, but you'll probably want to create your own, give them a unique icon (from stock choices or your own images), and place an icon wherever you'd like from the Shortcuts or Widgets menus. If you want to quickly change up the rotation of a particular label, you can create a shortcut to a Starred Apps label.

When you want to get even geekier with your home screen labels, you can download the same developer's Folder Organizer app, "Lite" or full, to create auto-updating labels and widgets that contain apps, bookmarks, contacts, and whatever else you can fit on your home screen:

Apps Organizer Makes Better Home Screen Folders on Android

Apps Organizer is a free download for Android phones only.

Read more at lifehacker.com
 

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Google Android BIG Announcement

Amplify’d from www.boygeniusreport.com

Google enhances “Voice Actions” on Android

At Google’s media event today, the search giant unveiled enhanced Voice Actions for their Android mobile operating system. Voice actions allow you to preform certain functions on your device just by using verbal commands. Voice Actions include:


  • send text to [contact] [message]

  • listen to [artist/song/album]

  • call [business]

  • call [contact]

  • send email to [contact] [message]

  • go to [website]

  • note to self [note]

  • navigate to [location/business name]

  • directions to [location/business name]

  • map of [location]

The implementation of the new feature looks really, really slick. We’ve got a video after the bounce of Google showing off just how powerful the new enhanced Voice Actions can be. If you have an Android phone running version 2.2 hit up the Android market and download Voice Search and the Google Search Widget. Let us know what you think of the new features!

See more at www.boygeniusreport.com

Project Emerald speculations

This sounds like fun.

Amplify’d from m.gizmodo.com

Rumor: T-Mobile's HSPA+ Phones (HTC Vision and Desire HD) Will Appear Next Month

Rumor: T-Mobile's HSPA+ Phones (HTC Vision and Desire HD) Will Appear Next MonthSo many different names are being bandied about for T-Mobile's "Project Emerald," that it makes sense they're readying two models. After all, we've heard about the HTC Desire HD and Vision, as well as the Glacier, Vanguard and G1 Blaze.

According to T-Mobile's teaser site, the mobile network is working on their first-ever HSPA+ handset, but it's very much a singular release by the sounds of it.

Of course, this doesn't debunk the rumor that they're about to stock two HSPA+ phones. Perhaps that page is merely for the flagship device? Phandroid spoke to some sources who claimed that the HTC Desire HD will be renamed as the MyTouch HD when it launches on T-Mobile, and the HTC Vision will be known as the G1 Blaze.

The other phone, the Desire HD/MyTouch HD, appeared in a short video the other day. Resembling more of an EVO 4G than a Desire, it's looking likely to have a 4.3" screen and dual-LED flash.

Phandroid's putting a lot of trust in their source (who they claim "has been dead-on in the past"), and is reckoning on one of the phones launching September 22nd, and the other on the 29th. This places the G1 Blaze almost two years after the original Android phone, the G1—just in time for customers who signed a 2-year contract, by the sounds of it. [Phandroid]

That suggests the Vision/G1 Blaze will be the model with the slide-out QWERTY keypad, which was spotted in early July. There was some skepticism over the authenticity of the photo, but we did hear it's sporting a 3.7" touchscreen, 1GHz processor and a redesigned keypad with just four rows of keys. Phandroid has claimed it'll have a forward-facing camera, too.

Read more at m.gizmodo.com
 

Overclocking your Galaxy S / Captivate

Out of the box, the Captivate is plain FAST! A 1GHz Hummingbird processor will do that.



Apparently it's not fast enough.



Read on to see an overclock to 1.2 GHz with plans to go for 1.6 GHZ and beyond.

Amplify’d from androidspin.com
Captivate Overclocked To 1.2 GHz

Captivate Overclocked To 1.2 GHz

Be it an international version or a stateside version, I haven’t talked to a single person that doesn’t love their Galaxy S device.  With development for Android devices forging ahead, and new devices coming out so rapidly it is always exciting when a new achievement is reached. XDA member blackjackboy and devs like AJerman got to working on the Captivate’s kernel. The nicest report from the newest Kernel is upping the 1 GHz hummingbird processor to 1.2 GHz. All you need is a Rooted Captivate, the new kernel and SetCPU which is available in the market or in the forums.

Theoretically the hummingbird chip should be easily be clocked at 1.6 GHz and still be very stable, which is pretty impressive since my wife’s last laptop was 1.33 GHz. They are looking into the possibility of the chip even clocking higher at some point and still not be at the break point.

“OK guys, thanks to AJerman and many others who have posted in this thread, we have had success in compiling, loading and running a bug free kernel. The wakeup lag is there, but is highly reduced. Also, if someone could figure out how to compile a boot.img so that we can simply flash the kernel through recovery (I have no idea how), we would really be grateful, for all of us with either Linux or Mac. Anyway, here is the link, flash it through Odin3 . http://www.multiupload.com/8UM79T8VNE Bug reports are welcome, as are logcats. Please download SetCPU from the market, or for free from an xda thread (I forgot where it is, I think it’s in the G1 section). Set to OnDemand to reduce wakeup, set lowest possible value for min, and highest for max (1.2 GHz). Of course, you can also use profiles if you are an advanced SetCPU user. Thanks for reading, here we go!”

The enthusiasm of this dev and his friends is amazing. He is really pushing for a stable kernel that can push the 2k quadrant score. I’m behind him 100%, how would like it if your phone pushed a 2k quadrant score and was set at 1.6 GHz?

Read more at androidspin.com
 

Will the real Google announcement please stand up.

Wild speculation abounds about the Google/Android announcement today 08/12/2010. What will it really be about?

I can't see there being a press conference about an app. This would seem somewhat wasteful.

I would like to see an actual Google Adsense subsidized phone service.



or...



The Google T1 Android tablet perhaps?

Amplify’d from thenextweb.com

Google To Announce New Android App Today

Over the past couple of days, a number of media outlets received invitations to a “small event” held by Google, today (August 12th) in San Francisco.

PC Mag confirmed with the search giant that the event will be used to showcase a new Android application and will result in a new Google blog post.  This means we are unlikely to see a major announcement like Android 3.0 (Gingerbread).

We imagine that Google will take the opportunity to reiterate the success of its Android mobile operating system, possibly focusing on the fact the company is now seeing 200,000 Android handsets being shipped every day.

Also on the bill could be a mention of the controversial net neutrality pact with Verizon, something that has had tech analysts up in arms over the past few days.

Read more at thenextweb.com
 

Wednesday, August 11, 2010