We’re guessing people over at HTC never have any holidays, since the Taiwanese manufacturer keeps on churning new smartphones. The latest devices to have found their way out on ‘the Internets’ are the 4.5-inch HTC Holiday — fitting name — behemoth and the 1.5GHz dual-core Ruby. We have juicy details and pictures of the two handsets waiting for you after the break.
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Google has announced that it will be acquiring Motorola Mobility — these are the guys that brought you the Droid, the Atrix, the Xoom and yep the StarTAC back in the day — for $12.5 billion. The announcement was made in a blog post by Google CEO Larry Page.
Google reiterated the commitment of Motorola to the Android platform while pointing out that the acquisition of Motorola will strengthen Google’s patent portfolio helping it to fend off legal attacks by Microsoft and Apple. Just to put some numbers into the equation, Google has around 1,000 patents while Motorola has around 17,000 patents. Larry goes on saying that Android will remain an open platform and that Google will run Motorola as a separate company; which we are sure has put Google’s Android partners at ease. Both HTC and Samsung have come out with similar statements in the lines of We welcome today’s news, which demonstrates that Google is deeply committed to defending Android, its partners, and the entire ecosystem.
Full press release after the break.
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When video chatting was initially released on Skype for Android there was only official support for four devices. That didn’t stop many of you however from enabling video calling ‘un-officially’.
Skype has just updated their application, version 2.1.0.46, with added support for 17 more smartphones and tablets. Skype is forewarning however that you if your device is running Android 2.2 (Froyo), only the back camera will work, as only Android 2.3+ allows access to the front facing camera.
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We’ve been covering this app, from LauncherPro developer Federico Carnale, since its humble beginnings; we’ve watched it quickly grow from alpha to beta and now its final built, UberMusic v1.0, has hit the Android Market.
We first fell in love with this Android music app because of its uncanny resemblance to the Zune and Windows Phone 7 music players. The app has grown however to be much more than just a copycat of Microsoft’s Metro UI; UberMusic is fully customizable with a number of skins, which you can download from the Android Market. Sure enough however the Zune/WP7 look is still available as the downloadable Metro skin.
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One of our biggest frustrations with Google Maps for devices has been that you couldn’t set the application to pre-download a specific area, city or country. So, if you were travelling to, let’s say France, with no data access — unless you opted to enable very costly data roaming — what you could end up looking at was a not-so-helpful blurry image, like the one below.
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Skype released yesterday a new version of its Android app, v2.0.0.45, which brings much awaited free Skype-to-Skype video calls over 3G or WiFi.
Unfortunately, although everyone can download the updated application, official support for video chatting is restricted to the Google Nexus S (excluding the US Google Nexus S 4G), HTC Desire S, Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo and Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro, at least for now.
It didn’t take long though for the Android modding community to fiddle with the installation APK file and allow support for more handsets. You can find the modded files and installation instructions after the break.
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While Samurai II: Vengeance started its life as a Tegra powered only Android game, it has just been released for all Android devices (except the HTC Sensation and Evo 3D, for now). We’ve taken the game for a run and we can surely say it’s one of the best executed games so far on Android.
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We love the Zune’s stylish, flashy and efficient music player user interface which, by not simple luck, has been inherited by Windows Phone 7. Official Zune development might or might not have stopped, nevertheless it’s created something bigger and also quite a following. So, when we found out that it’s been ported into an Android music player we were pretty excited.
The application comes from LauncherPro’s developer, and although it’s still quite an early alpha build, we’ve taken it through its paces and its pretty smooth and really close both functionally and visually to the original.
UPDATE 1: Zune/WP7 styled music player shown running on Nook Color, images after the link.
UPDATE 2: Alpha 3 just released with many bug fixes and new features, link for download after the break.
UPDATE 3: Alpha 4 now out with widget support and playlist creation, link for download after the break.
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We can now confirm that the HTC Sensation has started to ship to Vodafone UK customers who had pre-order the smartphone. Full confirmation email after the break.
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HTC’s superhero, superphone, smartphone the HTC Sensation (a.k.a. Pyramid) is launching today in the UK as a Vodafone exclusive. Pre-orders have been going on for a while now with a promised ship day, today, the 19th of May; so some of you out there should be getting a big piece of new tech pretty soon. New Vodafone UK marketing material and ads have also been spotted with the HTC Sensation prominently taking the front row.
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A Chinese blog, 911HTC, has uncovered evidence in a leaked ROM of a new HTC tablet codenamed HTC Puccini. If the leak is to be believed, then, this device will join HTC’s tablet line-up as the larger brother of the 7″ HTC Flyer, sporting a 10-inch form factor with a WXGA resolution (1280 x 800 pixels).
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Well it’s something we’ve been expecting for some time now, and finally Google is launching Google Talk with video and voice chat for Android phones. However it’s not coming as a market update of the Google Talk application, at least not initially, but rather as part of the Android 2.3.4 over-the-air update for Nexus S devices. Devices should be updated over the next few weeks.
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Well The long wait for Nook Color owners seems to be over. Barnes & Noble’s popular e-reader has finally been updated to Android 2.2 (‘Froyo’) while at the same time users can for the first time install apps without having to resort to rooting their device.
When we initially reviewed the Nook Color, the update was still in the works; nonetheless we thought it had great potential as a well-designed budget Android tablet. However, the $250 device is still not getting full Android Market access, but rather its own app store with applications having to first be approved by B&N for inclusion. This means that you will not find every obscure Android app out there, actually the catalogue right now is quite limited with no Facebook app or any of the standard Google apps like Maps, but available apps should increase over time.
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While we are still waiting for Barnes & Noble to release their own, and official, app store for the Nook Color you can go ahead and install Amazon’s just released Appstore for Android on the lovely e-reader/tablet device. Irony aside, you will need a rooted Nook Color and you can easily install the Amazon Appstore by following these instructions:
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Fujifilm X100S camera announced with fast AF and new 16.3MP X-Trans II sensor (hands-on video)January 6, 2013
Supposed Sony Nexus X images leakOctober 15, 2012
Asus 4.7-inch Padfone 2 demoed in video with new slimmer tablet dockOctober 14, 2012
Upcoming Google Nexus 4 smartphone by LG poses for camera in leaked picsOctober 11, 2012
Skype for Android with video chat official for some, unofficially for Galaxy S II, HTC Evo 3D, Thunderbolt, Sensation and othersJuly 1, 2011
Stuff-Review giveaway: win a B&N Nook Color, leather case and 4GB microSD cardOctober 12, 2011
Stuff-Review giveaway: win a PowerSkin silicon case with built-in batteryAugust 21, 2011
Connecting the Galaxy Nexus to your computer via MTP and the lack of USB Mass StorageDecember 10, 2011
