Gmail App Inverted with a Black Color Theme

In the world of Android we all love tweaking and hacking our devices so I figured I’d share this quick little theme with our readers. What we have here is another blacked out app theme but this time it’s for Gmail. What we have is the latest version 2.3.5 Gmail that has been inverted to be completely black and fits in nicely with the rest of Android, not to mention could help with battery life.

Last week I posted something very similar with the Google + App being treated with the same black theme and many users really enjoyed that. The developer does mention this should work for both rooted and non-rooted phones but I’d be careful if Gmail is your main email client as things could potentially have problems. Obviously doing a nandroid backup using something like Astro to backup Gmail and settings before continuing would probably be a good idea.
I have not tried this myself so I cannot guarantee how the process will go but from reading a few replies over at XDA most seem to be able to figure it out pretty easily and are enjoying their new Black Gmail client. I’d advise anyone wanting to try this to ask any questions in the forum first and make sure you know what you are doing and have any important settings or emails backed up just to be safe, but then you can always uninstall and just get the stock Gmail from the market if needed. Give it a try and feel free to report how it goes in the comment section below — Enjoy!
[via XDA Forums]

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Sony In-Dash Car Stereo syncs to Pandora, Comes with Android Support

After years of waiting it appears Sony will finally be launching a full line of in-dash car audio receivers that will sync with all of our favorite Android devices. Sony and Pandora Radio have partnered up to bring car stereos with Pandora Internet Radio support to Android, iOS, and even those Blackberry phones. While playing music from our favorite devices might be nothing new to in-car stereo’s doing it all wireless and with Pandora is — sort of.

The digital music service can now be accessed through four of Sony’s latest connected car stereos — the DSX-S210X, DSX-S310BTX, and even the SiriusXM compatible CDX-GT660UP and CDX-GT565UP models. The higher DSX units connect to Pandora via the smartphone application and an integrated “tune tray” with easy navigation while the other models have to go old school and use USB. Sadly only the bluetooth models will work with Android for now but this is nothing new.
Don’t forget we still have pretty great music on that one thing if you remember, called the FM radio (or AM radio for the oldies). While this new line-up from Sony is a nice change of pace and something I’ve been waiting to see for a while it wont really help many users like myself. I’ve been using Bluetooth to sync to my car stereo and stream music in my Chevy truck for like 4 years now. With Pandora Radio, Google Music and my new personal favorite Spotify, I’ve been wirelessly listening to all the music my heart desires while on-the-go over bluetooth with all of the recent Android phones I’ve owned, you just need a bluetooth enabled stereo and their is plenty of those on the market.
When I can wirelessly stream YouTube and Netflix from my Android phone to the 7″ TV in my truck, then I’ll be excited.
[via Engadget]

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Nokia still ahead of Apple in smartphone sales, according to Gartner

 

Whoa there, Apple, we know you're starting to feel pretty darn good about besting Nokia and Samsung for the title of world's largest smartphone manufacturer, but hold on for just one minute. Gartner has a different idea of how the numbers game really works, and its interpretation makes all the difference in determining who earns the title. Rather than measuring the number of units each manufacturer ships out to the distributors (as IDC, ABI Research and Strategy Analytics do), Gartner gauges its numbers by how many devices were actually sold to end users instead. Thus, Nokia still keeps its title -- for one more quarter, anyways. The firm is confident Espoo won't be the top smartphone contender for much longer, thanks to the company's grim Q3 outlook as it continues to await the transition to Windows Phone. But hey, there's always Q4, right? Right? Check out the full press release after the break.

 

Gartner Says Sales of Mobile Devices in Second Quarter of 2011 Grew 16.5 Percent Year-on-Year; Smartphone Sales Grew 74 Percent

ZTE Became Fifth-Largest Mobile Phone Manufacturer and RIM Dropped to No. 6
Egham, UK, August 11, 2011-  

Worldwide sales of mobile devices to end users totaled 428.7 million units in the second quarter of 2011, a 16.5 percent increase from the second quarter of 2010, according to Gartner, Inc.

The channel built up stock at the end of the first quarter of 2011 in preparation of possible component shortages following the Japanese earthquake. As a result, sell-in demand slowed in the second quarter of 2011 to 421.1 million units, a 4.4 percent decrease from the previous quarter.

Sales of smartphones were up 74 percent year-on-year and accounted for 25 percent of overall sales in the second quarter of 2011, up from 17 percent in the second quarter of 2010.

"Smartphone sales continued to rise at the expense of feature phones," said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner. "Consumers in mature markets are choosing entry-level and midrange Android smartphones over feature phones, partly due to carriers' and manufacturers' promotions." However, replacement sales in Western Europe showed signs of fatigue as smartphone sales declined quarter-on-quarter.

In smartphones, Nokia's sales into the channel in the second quarter of 2011 were low. This was partly due to a very competitive market that deflated demand for Symbian, but also to inventory management issues in Europe and China in particular. The channel bought less and worked hard to reduce stock levels, partly by cutting prices on older products. These factors reduced Nokia's average selling price for smartphones, compared to the first quarter of 2011. "The sales efforts of the channel, combined with Nokia's greater concentration in retail and distributors' sales, saw Nokia destock more than 9 million units overall and 5 million smartphones, helping it hold on to its position as the leading smartphone manufacturer by volume," said Ms. Cozza. "However, we will not see a repeat of this performance in the third quarter of 2011, as Nokia's channel is pretty lean."

Samsung achieved strong growth in sales of mobile devices. For example, the Galaxy S II sold well, and this model went on to chalk up 5 million sales by the end of July. A strong performance in the smartphone market helped Samsung increase its market share, to become the third-largest smartphone vendor. However, its overall share dropped year-on-year, and grew only marginally quarter-on-quarter, mainly due to Samsung's weaker presence in more price-sensitive market segments.

Apple continued to exceed expectations, even though the iPhone 4 will soon be replaced by a new model. Part of its growth came from the 42 new carriers and 15 new countries that it entered in the second quarter of 2011, which brought its total coverage to 100 countries. This expansion caused its inventory to grow a little by the end of the second quarter of 2011, when sales to end users stood at 19.6 million units. In mainland China, Apple is the seventh-largest mobile phone vendor and the third-largest smartphone vendor.

Research In Motion's (RIM's) share of the smartphone market declined to 12 percent in the second quarter of 2011, from 19 percent a year ago. Also, the company lost its No. 5 position in the worldwide ranking of mobile device vendors to ZTE. Demand for RIM's devices in the second quarter was impaired by an aging portfolio and delays in shipping products. In the coming quarters RIM will have to deal with increased competition to its messaging offering and manage a platform migration from BlackBerry 7 to QNX.

Google and Apple are the obvious winners in the smartphone ecosystem. The combined share of iOS and Android in the smartphone operating system (OS) market doubled to nearly 62 percent in the second quarter of 2011, up from just over 31 percent in the corresponding period of 2010. Gartner analysts observed that these two OSs have the usability that consumers enjoy, the apps that consumers feel they need, and increasingly a portfolio of services delivered by the platform owner as well.

"We expect manufacturers and distributors to remain cautious about raising their stock levels in the second half of 2011, following the recent uncertainty on the world financial markets," said Annette Zimmermann, principal research analyst at Gartner. Gartner expects sales of mobile devices to grow around 12 percent in 2011.

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Google Nexus One vs Google Nexus Prime (Rumours)

We see how the rumours of the Google Nexus Prime compare to its predecessor, the Google Nexus One

We take a look at the new Google Nexus Prime to see how it stacks up against the first Google-branded handet, the Nexus One.

Form and Display:
The Google Nexus One is a smart looking piece of kit. It’s very clean and minimalist with flattering proportions and nicely shaped bodywork.
The screen takes up a decent amount of space and extends quite far to the edge of the device, we always feel this improves the look of phones and tablets.
Touch sensitive buttons and an unobtrusive track-ball control compliment the overall smooth appearance and ‘premium’ feel.
An initial glance at the Google Nexus Prime and you could be forgiven for thinking not much has changed, the overall design appears much the same.
The devil is in the details though, for a start we’re expecting the phone to be a bit larger in its proportions to accommodate a bigger screen, which has been indicated as at least 4-inches, possibly larger, against the Nexus One’s 3.7-inches.
The Nexus One used an Amoled capacitive touchscreen at 480x800 pixels and a pixel density of 252 pixels-per-inch (ppi).
It sports multi-touch input, an accelerometer sensor and a track-ball. The new Nexus Prime upgrades this with a new Super Amoled HD screen and a 720p resolution.
We expect the pixel density to be ramped up too and the phone will feature multi-touch and an accelerometer.
Most notably this will be a button-less device with the screen takes up the whole handset and relying on gesture control for interface navigation.

Processor and Memory:
The Nexus One was well catered for on power and storage, a single core 1 GHz Qualcomm Scorpion processor on the QSD8250 Snapdragon chipset provides plenty of brawn, but it’s also backed up by an Adreno 200 graphics processing unit (GPU), 512MB of RAM and the same again in ROM.
Potent stuff to be sure.
However, the Nexus Prime aims to thrash it soundly with a dual core TI OMAP4460 clocked at 1.5GHz and 1GB of RAM.
No details on the GPU specifics as yet but we expect it to pack considerable punch into an already impressive setup.

Operating System:
Google’s HTC made Nexus One runs on Android 2.4 Gingerbread, while the Nexus Prime will be the first phone to use the brand new version 4.0, dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS).
First and foremost Google has said with Ice Cream Sandwich it is aiming to put an end to fragmentation across devices, and will from now on be updating directly to handsets rather than via providers or manufacturers.
It should be noted that this could mean the Nexus One will soon be running Ice Cream Sandwich too. With 2.4 Gingerbread there were a number of key changes.
Overall performance was a step up and in addition multi-tasking performance was tweaked to be even better than before, which is saying something as it was pretty good to start with.
On top of this a new app management suite was included, so not only does multi-tasking on Gingerbread work more efficiently but you also have a greater degree of control over what goes on and when with your apps.
The interface was generally polished and demonstrated the usual smooth and intuitive nature of Android systems.
In relation to this the touch keyboard was changed from a gloopy mess to something actually workable, and not far removed from Apple’s iOS touch keyboard experience in terms of responsiveness and fluidity.
Browsing is the only area where we have a problem with Gingerbread, it’s clunkier performance-wise than we would like and functionally it’s missing things like tabbed browsing.
Ice Cream Sandwich improves on Gingerbread by bringing all the enhancements Google lavished on Android tablets with the 3.0 Honeycomb build. Amongst those changes is a much happier browsing experience which is faster, has better Javascript support and features tabs.
OpenGL graphics acceleration and a custom Renderscript 3D graphics engine was added to Honeycomb so there’s a chance this too will be making its way onto ICS.
Multi-tasking was further improved on Honeycomb with the combined applications and notifications bar, which lets you quickly see messages from apps and allows you to switch between active apps rapidly.
Pop-up notificatons and alerts were improved to contain images and more detailed text info. A dual-screen contacts list with fast scrolling was also new in Honeycomb.
As well as combining features from the last two updates there are some known enhancements unique to this build.
Android will now support USB peripherals which should mean much more versatility for devices. You can now, for example, use USB gaming controllers with your phone or tablet.
Honeycomb updated the Android interface with a new look and ICS will be no different with a new app launcher, enhanced multitasking and app switching menus, a holographic user interface and scalable widgets.
Lastly, there’s a lot of interest in Google’s new face recognition and video face tracking capabilities but at the moment exactly how this will work is a little vague.

Camera:
The Nexus Prime’s camera will be a 5-megapixel primary with 1080p HD video capture capability.
Known features include autofocus, digital zoom, video calling and an as yet un-rated secondary camera, but no doubt the list will be more extensive on release.
In the meantime the Nexus One’s camera is also 5-megapixels with LED flash, geo-tagging and autofocus. The resolution is 2560х1920 pixels and video capture is DVD quality.

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Apple iPhone 5 vs Google Nexus Prime (Rumours)

We take a speculative look at the iPhone 5 and Google Nexus Prime to see which has the most potential

Both Google and Apple have new handsets coming before the end of the year – they're known as the iPhone 5 and Google Nexus Prime, respectively.
But which will be the best? We take a speculative look at what to expect.
Form:
At the moment talking about the visuals and build of both these phones is like describing some mythical creature. Some internet rumours are clearly way out, even going as far as some very convincing-looking, but nonetheless clearly fabricated, 3D mock-ups of some very sci-fi looking devices.
Having said that, there are some level-headed ideas floating about.
An iPhone will of course always be instantly recognisable as such by the distinctive Apple signature style. But behind the overall consistent image there will be some aesthetic changes with the iPhone 5.
Many progressive smartphone designs are becoming thinner with each release and there’s no reason to believe this won’t continue with both the iPhone 5 and the Google Nexus Prime.
However, in the case of the iPhone 5 at least there is the distinct possibility of it getting a bit bigger in length and width to accommodate a larger 4-inch touchscreen.
With previous iPhone’s the back panel has been idiosyncratically made from the same Gorilla glass as the touchscreen, with an aluminium surround.
It wasn’t always like this though. The first iPhone had a completely aluminium back panel and rumours hint that this will return with the iPhone 5.
We’re betting the iPhone 5 will keep a physical home button, even though successive versions of iOS have incorporated more gesture navigation.
Plus all the negative reactions to the rumour that Apple might be removing the Home button have probably secured its survival for some time to come.
Not so with the Nexus Prime, it seems. Reports and sneak-peeks indicate a button-less device with a very large Samsung branded Super Amoled HD capacitive touchscreen.
Actual size is still unknown. Measures of between 4 and 4.7-inches have been mentioned and a 720p resolution is on the cards.
Other information is scarce but at this point it looks like the Prime will also be larger than its predecessor to allow such big screen technology.
In terms of overall shape and design little else appears to have changed with rounded corners and a textured back panel.

Processor and Memory:
There’s a pretty solid case for the idea that the iPhone 5 will be the first dual core Apple smartphone.
Many rumours imply it will use the same technology as the iPad 2, meaning a dual core ARM processor on the Apple A5 chipset.
A clock speed of 1GHz or more seems probable in this case, along with the iPad 2’s dual core graphics processing unit (GPU).
At the very least we’d expect the iPhone 5 to mimic its predecessor with both 16GB and 32GB options for internal storage. But as with similar high-end devices there’s the possibility of a third 64GB option too.
It would be silly to have all that power with inadequate RAM to back it up, so at least 1GB of the stuff is a more sensible prospect.
Whether the iPhone 5 will be Apple’s debut in external card storage is totally up in the air at this point – we’d hope so but we may yet be disappointed.
On the Google Nexus Prime we’re hearing a dual core TI OMAP4460 at a whopping 1.5GHz supported by 1GB of RAM and an unidentified GPU, though no doubt it will be suitably slick.
Storage space is also a mystery but 32GB seems likely with perhaps higher and lower options too.
It’s looking as though it will have external storage too with Micro SD support, there are no specifics on how much but 32GB seems pretty much standard high-end fare these days.

Operating System:
The iPhone 5 will be powered by iOS 5 – Apple's latest iteration of its mobile platform.
It’s a pretty extensive revamp, with over 200 new features Apple certainly has had plenty of new ideas to cram in.
The new Notifications Centre, no doubt inspired by Android, removes the much-lamented and intrusive pop-ups in the centre of the screen.
Now you’re getting a neat little notification bar peeking in from the screen edge. After the bar pops up it’ll slope off in short order but if you want to attend to it straight away a single tap on the message will take you to the app which spawned it.
If you’re feeling a bit more organised you can drag out the whole Notification Centre for a comprehensive list of past and present alert messages sorted by app.
You can of course also delete obsolete messages but how much control you have over deleting multiples or indeed ‘clearing all’ is uncertain right now.
Tapping on any particular alert from your message history will take you to the source. Further to this, the notifications can be accessed from the lock screen.
If messages appear while the phone is locked they have individual swipe locks, which you can use in place of the standard tab – doing so will take you to the relevant app directly.
Obviously keen to capitalise on BlackBerry Messenger’s popularity, Apple will debut its own iMessage service in iOS 5, which, just like RIM’s original, allows you to freely send text, image and video messages between Apple handsets.
Not only this but it also supports group messaging and push notifications while working on both 3G and WiFi connections. The best part is that everything you send will be encrypted.
Apple’s Mail app has also received some attention with the addition of further formatting options. Indentation settings and rich text formatting is now part of the package, allowing you to use bold, italic and underline functions.
Not content with the blinding speeds of the iOS 4 Safari browser’s Nitro Javascript engine, Apple has done a bit more tuning and squeezed yet faster speeds out of it in iOS 5.
New features are also on offer with The Reading List, a section where you can store interesting pages for postponed viewing, and Safari Reader, which lets you strip pages into raw text for cleaner, faster reading.
The Newsstand app archives all your digital newspaper and magazine subs, additionally background downloads mean you’ll never be left wondering where your new issue is.
‘PC free’ was an Apple watchword this time round. The result is that there’s no need to tether your phone to a PC or Mac to use iTunes, or indeed any other service.
Most stuff which formerly needed a computer can now be sorted directly on the device, including composing, organising and synching cloud based features such as mailboxes and calendars.
This PC free ethos extends to updates, which Apple has said will now be available over-the-air.
The Nexus Prime will be the debut handset for Google’s brand new and long-awaited Android Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), also known as Android 4.0.
It will be a merging of Android Gingerbread 2.3 for smartphones and Android Honeycomb 3.0 for tablets, with the best features taken from each and all wrapped up in a nice new interface.
USB support is a big step forward for the platform offering a much wider scope to devices running it – fancy using a console joypad for gaming? No problem.
We know this will be the update where Android becomes less fragmented. Google is promising to push updates out past the manufacturers and networks so you don’t have wait anymore. It should also work on most existing Android phones.
The updated interface will offer extensive new functionality. It won’t be anything drastically different from Honeycomb but there will be a new app launcher, multitasking and app switching menus, a holographic user interface and resizable widgets.
Tabbed browsing is also making the leap from Honeycomb as Gingerbread was sadly lacking in this area.
There’s also some fancy face recognition and video face tracking, which sounds fun.

Camera:
Some details on the Nexus Prime’s camera have crept through, it’s looking like a 5-megapixel primary will be used, capable of 1080p HD video capture and with autofocus, digital zoom and video calling.
There’s also a secondary camera but no details as to how powerful it will be.
Speculation on the iPhone 5’s camera is still wide open and it could go either way.
There’s the possibility of a big, feature-packed 8-megapixel primary but we’ve also been hearing rumours of an enhanced 5-megapixel camera with improved sensors

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NFL Fantasy Football 2011 App Now Available

I know plenty of you readers are just like me and have been sitting home wishing and hoping the NFL would just start already. The time has finally come, the lockout ended and things are starting to get back to normal. Today in the Android Market the official NFL Fantasy Football App was released and you can get it right here. Although I play plenty of Madden during the season, I find myself playing it even more during the off-season since there isn’t any football to watch. I’ve been going big the last few weeks with excitement.


FINALLY! They can get over all that other junk and get down to real business — and that is Football. For those that love fanstasy football the official NFL app is one of the best ways to keep track of everything. Managing your team doesn’t get any easier than with the NFL app especially while on the go or if you need to make a quick change at work (Who does that? I don’t).

The official NFL Fantasy app features include:
-Join or create a league
-Check live fantasy scoring
-Sit/Start and Add/Drop players
-Propose and accept trades
-Read up-to-the minute player news
-Manage teams in multiple leagues
If you used the NFL app last year you’ll quickly notice the 2011 version has some new user interface changes, plenty of custom icons and more. Being able to quickly join leagues and get everything set up sure is nice. I’ve already got two of my own, not counting the big league with my old work buddies where most likely I’ll be winning the cash prize this year. Trust me I’m going to win just like the Packers will — Go Green Bay!
[via Android Market]

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Sony Ericsson LT18i Ayame benchmark leak also suggests 1.4 Ghz CPU

Earlier today we mentioned the recently leaked SE Nozomi with a 720p display and now we are seeing another leak hit the inbox. Just like the Nozomi the “Ayame” leak suggests the device will indeed be powered by a Qualcomm S2 Snapdragon processor speeding along at 1.4 Ghz. Sadly this device is listed with a standard 480×854 resolution and no 720p here.

While benchmarks can always be cheated or altered this shows another device coming from Sony Ericsson soon. If the benchmark is to be believed this phone sounds similar to the Xperia Arc but with a faster processor boosted up to 1.4 Ghz. The Ayame will also be running on Android and it shows 2.3.4 in the benchmark with a pretty impressive NenaMark score of 46.80 which is pretty high for a single-core device.
We recently saw the HTC Vigor dual-core leak on the same benchmark with much lower scores but then it has a 1280x720p display so it has a lot more work to dish out. Whether these leaked benchmarks are to be trusted or believed are up to you, the readers. According to our source the LT18i Ayame will see a global release but nothing has been confirmed.
[via xperia blog]

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Sony Ericsson Nozomi Leaked, 1.4 Ghz CPU and 4.3″ 720p display

Some new leaked information from some anonymous tipsters is suggesting that Sony is prepping a few nice handsets to be released soon. The main leaked device is codenamed “Nozomi” and should be available sometime in November. The details and specs are the important part as this leak suggests Sony Ericsson will be getting a pretty nice handset. The model number listed was SO-02D and the specs leaked are after the break.

The leaked screenshot shows it running Android with a pretty UI overlay. The device should feature a 1.4GHz single-core Snapdragon S2 processor (MSM8655T) with Adreno 205 GPU and 4.3-inch display with 1280 × 720 pixel resolution. We have started seeing this 720p HD resolution more and more but nothing actually official from any of the leaks has been seen. The Nozomi leak also mentions a micro-SIM like the iPhone 4 currently uses.

A few more pictured were quickly leaked over at the xperiablog but for now that is about all the details we have. From the picture above you can clearly make out the model number, screen resolution, and Android 2.3 Gingerbread as well as a few other things but the rest of the details are missing. Hopefully some actual device pictures are leaked soon and we will find out more on whether this will be released globally or just in Japan. We will be digging for more details shortly.
[via se-nse blog]

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Samsung Roadmap Leaked, Tips 720p I9250 Android ICS phone and more

  

We have some super-sized phones and tablets coming soon if the leaks are correct. First off Samsung’s 7-inch slate, the P6200, (Galaxy Tab 7 replacement) is tipped to run Android 3.x Honeycomb on a 1024 x 600 display, with HSPA+ and twin cameras, a 3-megapixel shooter on the back and 2-megapixels up front. They also mention a Wi-Fi only variant of the same device.
Next, speaking of phones, GT-I9250 is what sounds the most impressive to me. This beast should rock a 4.65-inch 1280 x 720 resolution display and a 5-megapixel camera, and run Ice Cream Sandwich, most likely with a dual-core processor but that was unspecified. Then it had a bigger brother listed as the GT-I9220. It’s even bigger, with a phone/tablet sized 5.29-inch 1280 x 820 Super AMOLED Plus panel, a dual-core 1.4GHz processor, 8-megapixel camera and Android 2.3 Gingerbread — while that phone sounds pretty amazing it doesn’t appear to be launching with ICS but if it hits the streets you can bet it will get updated.
The last on the list you would have to call mid-range after seeing the last few listed devices specs and that is the GT-I8150. Rumored to be sporting a 3.7-inch WVGA LCD Display running on an unconfirmed build of Android, with 4GB of internal storage, HSPA+ connectivity and a 5-megapixel camera and the rest of the usual specs like wi-fi and a front facing camera.
They also had a few entry level and feature phones listed so we wont get into all those details. You only want to hear the good stuff right? For full details as well as the rest of the entry level offerings leaked head on over to the source link below. I’m thinking that beastly ICS phone I first mentioned might be something I can see myself buying in the near future.
[via SlashGear]

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