Lenovo commits to Android tablets after Dell abandons the Streak

OK, Dell Streak fans, this is your chance to speak up. No one? OK. After Dell stopped selling the Streak 7 tablet, essentially giving up on the Android tablet scene in America, many believe that it’s preparing to transition to Windows tablets. A new 10-inch Windows 7 slate is already coming, and Windows 8 tablets should be available in late 2012 or 2013. Dell didn’t confirm any definite plans. But either way, Lenovo appears ready and willing to become the PC manufacturer with the greatest presence in the Android tablet world.

“Our tablet strategy today is an Android operating system,” said a North American Lenovo executive in an interview with CRN, backing up the evidence of recent leaks. Lenovo’s S-series tablets and an upcoming quad-core monster labelled the LePad K2 are poised to launch in the first half of 2012, giving Lenovo one of the widest Android tablet lines this side of Samsung. It will also be one of just two PC manufacturers with a solid Android ARM-based tablet presence, sharing the stage with Acer.
Dell isn’t necessarily out of the game – there’s no confirmation that they’re done with Android. But given the vicious competition in the tablet space overall, it could be that the company is just looking to focus on its more traditional strength, a la HP. Dell still has some pretty strong showings for Android smartphones, though they only seem interested in the Chinese market at the moment. Is anyone really broken up about Dell’s probable exit from mobile tablets? Sound off in the comments.

Read more »

Holier than thou: Pope Benedict lights Christmas tree with Android tablet

The Lord hath spoken: “What iPad?” MSNBC reports that at a tree lighting ceremony in a small Italian town, Pope Benedict XVI used a Sony Android tablet to remotely activate the lights on a huge electronic display. The Pope himself was in his apartments at the Vatican, and a remote trigger was rigged up for the special occasion. He greeted crowds gathered at the event via teleconferencing.

The tablet in question is absolutely the Sony Tablet S, the company’s flagship slate. The lights in question were placed on a mountainside overlooking the town of Gubbio. MSNBC reports shock and surprise at the fact that His Holiness wasn’t using an iPad, but as Android Community readers know, Droid Does what iOS can’t. And after all, when comparing Apple and Google, which one has “don’t be evil” built right into their motto? I rest my case.
This opens up all sorts of religious opportunities for Android expansion. American megachurches could probably afford pews full of Nook Tablets loaded up with KJV, NIV and all sorts of alphabetically inclined Bible translations. Sliding the Torah across a Galaxy Tab screen would be a whole lot easier than unrolling those scrolls every time. And when all else fails, there’s the old standby of sitting in the back row and playing with your smartphone until either the service ends or the priest falls asleep. Not that I’d know anything about that.

Read more »

Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus LTE battery appears with 2100mAh of juice

LTE speeds are fantastic. So is LTE power drain, in a purely technical sense of the word. Verizon’s LTE version of the Galaxy Nexus is already a hair bigger than its HSPA+ brother to accommodate a slightly larger 1850mAh battery, or at least it will be, if the company ever deems the phone fit for release to us mere mortals. But Samsung aims to extends its battery life even further with a plus-sized 2100mAh battery and a slightly larger cover.

Samsung has already shown an extended battery for the HSPA+ version of the Galaxy Nexus, which gets included with the hardware in its home country of South Korea. The two extended batteries aren’t identical, but they’re very similar. The snapshot above was taken by a customer who purchased the extended battery at a Verizon store or reseller. The price is $49.99, which might not justify a couple of hours of extra runtime, but would be a decent upgrade if you were planning to get multiple batteries anyway. Galaxy Nexus to DROID RAZR: “Stick that in your MicroUSB port and smoke it.”
The 250mAh boost doesn’t hold a candle to the 2750 mAh extended battery for the HTC Rezound, which appears to be designed with a natural disaster in mind. Once the battery finally runs down, you can use the extra bulk for shelter. And no, there’s still no confirmation from Verizon on any sort of date for the phone itself, because they hate you and don’t want your money.

Read more »

Verizon Wireless data outages have a bad sense of timing

Among the Android audience, Verizon has been something of a punching bag over their mishandling of the Galaxy Nexus launch. Now reports are coming in form all over the US that the wireless carrier’s data is down, centering in the Midwest. The outage is affecting 4G LTE and 3G services. There is no word on when it might be repaired, though Verizon assures its customers that a fix is incoming.

It’s a pretty lousy time for Verizon to have a major outage. Not 24 hours ago, Consumer Reports lauded Verizon as Americans’ choice for the most reliable carrier, notably placing its biggest competitor AT&T at the very bottom of the short list. Now instead of capitalizing on some free publicity from a trusted source, they’re playing damage control and scrambling to get service back to millions of unhappy customers.
Verizon’s wireless data isn’t out of service everywhere – this very story is being written from the secret Android Community bunker miles beneath North Texas, using a Verizon 3G connection that seems to be intact. While assurances that people are working on the problem are good, no communication as to the time for a fix isn’t. And given Verizon’s reputation as one of the most expensive options for wireless service, they’d best get all their ducks in a row sooner rather than later.

Read more »

Facebook App overhaul brings faster performance, better UI, ICS support and more

Today Facebook will be pushing a much needed update for their Android application. It is currently not available yet but should hit the Android Market sometime today according to the official Facebook Blog. They are calling it a faster Facebook for Android and it has tons of new features, improvements to the UI, faster performance, and that all important support for ICS (since the menu button has been missing for Nexi users). Check out these renders on the Galaxy Nexus and the full details below.

Apparently this update is all about speed, something that has been needing some attention for some time in the world of Android and Facebook. The UI has some awesome changes and the screenshots above only show us a small glance. A huge part of Facebook is photos and that part of the application has received a huge overhaul too. Photos and albums are said to be around two times faster than their current app. With photo sharing, comment viewing, and caption editing all seeing major improvements.
Messages and notifications have now been moved to the top of the display. Respond to friends and more all without leaving the current page you are on. Having notifications on the top as well as the menu button up there as well should make things easy, simple, visible, and extremely fast for users. A lot of these changes are similar to the desktop version and it’s nice to finally see Facebook making some huge improvements for Android. It is not available yet but should be pushed to the market later tonight for download. I’ll be hanging out at Google+ personally.
Facebook Market Link
[via Facebook Blog]

Read more »

HP TouchPad firesale starts again December 11th on HP Ebay Store

Who’s ready for another crazy round of HP tablets selling like crazy for the low low price of just $99? New details have now confirmed HP will be having a huge sale on refurbished TouchPads starting at $99 for the 16GB model and going up from there. Sunday December 11th on the HP Ebay Store you’ll get a chance to snag an awesomely cheap tablet — then install CM7 on that bad boy.

Apparently starting December 11th (Sunday) at 6:00 PM Central time the Ebay store will open up and start accepting orders for the refurbished units. I have a feeling things will get a little crazy and they’ll probably sell like hot cakes. From there you’ll see information on Android OS installations such as CM7 and more for the TouchPad.
We are hearing there will be limited quantities but I have a feeling they have a pretty big stash. Users will be required to pay via paypal but that shouldn’t be an issue for most that have used Ebay in the past. Although this is awesome news there is a small catch:
— The tablets will be refurbished tablets.
— TouchPads are limited to two per customer.
— All sales are final.
— There is only a 90 day warranty.
It was recently updated to alpha 3 and should work quite well for all you current and future TouchPad users.
Who’s buying one?
[via liliputing]

Read more »

Google+ update: Snazzy new icon, +1 photos, higher resolution photo support and more

Our new favorite social site Google+ just received a huge update today from our friends at Mountain View. Google is pushing the update now and with it comes tons of improvements and changes. We even have a snazzy new icon for G+ and the Messenger too. That isn’t all as they’ve added tons of new feature and stability improvements and all the details are available below.

Especially now with all the higher resolution support coming with Android 4.0 ICS today Google+ added support for adding higher resolution photos — we can also +1 said pictures. They’ve also enabled +1 for comments instead of entire posts too, something I’ve been waiting for although I’d also love a -1 for comments at the same time. That would be perfect. Here is a full list of the new features for the mobile app:
— Search
— +1 photos
— +1 comments
— High resolution photo upload support
— See if someone’s online and currently typing in Messenger conversations
— Start Messenger conversations by just entering a phone number
— Links to posts or profiles can now open inside of the app
— Instant Upload supports videos again
— Several stability improvements and bug fixes
Gone is the black Google+ app icon and instead Google’s opted to go with an all red icon for both the main app and the messenger (huddle, group) or whatever they are calling the chat function these days. Another big feature is links inside posts will now open inside the app instead of exiting. Sadly it appears notifications still seem to struggle and while they’ve been improving the app steadily I’d still love a stable notification system for Google+. The new version is available now so head down to the source link below and enjoy it.
Google+ Market Link

Read more »

New Android app lets you add Facebook friends via NFC

Remember Bump, that app that allowed you to swap contacts with a quick nudge of both party’s phones? The one that everyone forgot about in a week or so? Well there’s a new app in the Android Market that’s brought the same functionality to Facebook, with an NFC-enabled twist for the new generation of Android smartphones. Simply titled “Add Friend“, the app connects to your Facebook account and adds someone when a similarly-equipped phone is activated.

So it’s come to this. Digital, vicarious spooning through smartphones. As an extension of the social world, the image of two smartphones smothered against each other is hard to beat – and judging by the app’s featured picture on the Android Market, that’s exactly what the developer had in mind. Still, to each his (or her) own. The usage case seems a little limited, though; you’ll need two high-end Android phones, each equipped with the free app and connected to your Facebook account, three separate conditions that are hard to combine at the moment.
The success of these types of apps will largely depend upon Near Field Communication’s adoption worldwide, and it isn’t looking good outside of Asia. The payment options of NFC are complicated by cross-company deals and alliances, at least one of which is probably keeping Google Wallet off of the Galaxy Nexus for the time being. But with Android Beam, Ice Cream Sandwich users should at least become more comfortable with the idea of “bumping” information across devices.
Say, why don’t we just go back to IR ports? It worked great on my old Palm M105.
[via Engadget]

Read more »

Eric Schmidt Says 'Android will be bigger than iOS'

Eric Schmidt was addressing the crowd at Le Web in Paris and recounted a tale when an Android user asked why apps were often written for iOS first, and then ported over to Google's OS. His response? "My prediction is that six months from now, you'll say the opposite." After the uncomfortable silence had died down, he added that Android's "open" model meant the company had volume on its side -- and volume is what he feels will attract developers. He added that Ice Cream Sandwich would redress Android's device fragmentation and the sheer number of hardware makers would ensure that 2012 would be Google's year to lose. At which point, everyone in the audience probably went back to their iPads to read Twitter. 

Read more »