Phandroid Newsletter

Get weekly news recaps, access to exclusive contests and giveaways, invites to beta applications, promotions/coupons and more!

We respect your privacy. We'll never share your Email address and you can always unsubscribe.


January, 2011 Articles

Worms for Android is Out – Go Get It For $2.99

by Quentyn Kennemer on January 26th, 2011

Waiting for Worms, were you? Wait no longer my friends – EA has delivered the game late tonight, just as promised. You’ll be able to find the classic turn-based strategy game in the Android market right now for $2.99. We’re going to be taking this for a spin. Early reviews point toward issues with the [...]

Things We Missed, You Shouldn’t [Jan. 26]

by Quentyn Kennemer on January 26th, 2011

We’re starting a new “thing” here at Phandroid.com. We sometimes miss things, and we feel very guilty if we don’t write about them. Instead of leaving out the bits of news that we feel aren’t big enough to flood your Twitter timeline or your feed reader with, we’ll round all of it up into a [...]

Atrix 4G, XOOM Coming End of February, DROID Bionic & LTE XOOM Beginning of Summer

by Quentyn Kennemer on January 26th, 2011

Sanjay Jha just said in Motorola’s earnings call that both the Atrix 4G and the Motorola XOOM tablet would indeed be arriving at the end of February – lining up with rumors we’ve heard before. Unfortunately, the DROID Bionic isn’t expected to see a release until the end of the second quarter, meaning summer will [...]

Motorola Posts Q4’10 Numbers, Fears Verizon’s iPhone Will Cut Into Q1’11 Profit

by Quentyn Kennemer on January 26th, 2011

Motorola Mobility has just posted their numbers from Q4 2010 and for the entirety of 2010. Revenues were up 21% year-on-year with the newly-formed company earning $3.4 billion, while net revenue grew 33% to $2.4 billion. They shipped nearly 14 million smartphones last year, but don’t let their booming Android business fool you – their [...]

Barnes & Noble Issues Firmware Upgrade for NOOKcolor

by Quentyn Kennemer on January 26th, 2011

Barnes & Noble has just released the first firmware upgrade for their NOOKcolor, one of the hottest holiday items this past season. It brings the firmware version up to 1.1.0 and is said to improve performance, fix a host of bugs, adds pinch to zoom in the browser, and more. Those who wish to apply [...]

Samsung’s MWC Schedule Leaked – Galaxy Tab 2 and Galaxy S2 On-Hand

by Quentyn Kennemer on January 26th, 2011

If you needed any confirmation that Samsung would be heading to Mobile World Congress with their latest tricks, then look no further: their plan for the February 13th event has been leaked from within. Approximiately 34 minutes will be spent showing off the Samsung Galaxy S2 and the Galaxy Tab 2 – two devices we’ve [...]

In-Depth Look at Honeycomb Preview in SDK Emulator [Video]

by Quentyn Kennemer on January 26th, 2011

Engadget recorded a screencast of the preview version of Android 3.0 inside the SDK emulator. Chris Ziegler says a preview is the most appropriate word you can use to describe the preview as parts of Honeycomb were unfinished compared to what we’ve seen in other videos and live demos. Watch the video of it in [...]

DROID Bionic, Atrix 4G Do Not Have Overheating Issues, Says Motorola [Debunked]

by Quentyn Kennemer on January 26th, 2011

Motorola caught up with Droid-Life regarding a rumor that slipped out earlier saying the Motorola DROID Bionic for Verizon and the Motorola Atrix 4G for AT&T had some overheating issues, suggesting a delay was possible. Thankfully, their response was that nether of these beasts suffer from overheating issues and that both will be launched as [...]

Google Snaps Up Paypal’s Vice President of Mobile

by Quentyn Kennemer on January 26th, 2011

Some interesting news just came out of GigaOM: vice president of platform, mobile, and new ventures at Paypal Osama Bedier has left the company to work with Google on similar advancements. His responsibilities with Paypal dealt with bringing mobile payments to handsets and refining that experience, and it’s said he’ll be doing much of the [...]

More Details Regarding a Possible Facebook Phone

by Quentyn Kennemer on January 26th, 2011

Following the rumor earlier today that HTC was working on Android-based “Facebook phones”, BGR received a tip from someone who was part of a focus group for what appeared to be a Facebook phone. I won’t get into whether or not I believe this and earlier rumors personally, but here’s the full rundown: Location aware [...]

Quick Take: Android 3.0 Honeycomb

by Quentyn Kennemer on January 26th, 2011

We just took a gander at the platform highlights for Android 3.0 and came away a bit impressed. It’s a shame that this version of Android is only available for tablets starting out. (Though we’re sure some of you XDA-bred folks will cook some interesting things up nonetheless with the SDK that is now available.) [...]

Android 3.0 Platform Highlight Shows Hardware Acceleration, Multi-Core Support is Finally Here

by Quentyn Kennemer on January 26th, 2011

Our biggest wish was granted: hardware acceleration – the trick that makes iOS run so smoothly – is now a part of Android starting with version 3.0 Honeycomb. (That damned Google Code issue can finally be put to rest.) This was one of many changes highlighted by Google today. Among 2D and 3D hardware acceleration, [...]

Simultaneous Voice and Data over 3G Confirmed for HTC Thunderbolt

by Quentyn Kennemer on January 26th, 2011

We were just wondering if a tip we received regarding the HTC Thunderbolt’s capabilities to do voice and data at the same time over 3G were true, and it turns out it was according to this shot taken from within Verizon. It states that the functionality isn’t advertised due to the fact that it’s not [...]

Shift & Shift Lite Will Puzzle You for $1.99

by Quentyn Kennemer on January 26th, 2011

Handmark announced yesterday that their puzzle game Shift (and its free “Lite” companion) is available for Android. After trying it out for a few minutes, it’s undoubtedly one of the most interesting puzzle games I’ve come across. Like most of them, there’s a point A and a point B: you already know your job. How [...]

Phancast 32: LIVE at 2:30pm EST

by Rob Jackson on January 26th, 2011

Our first podcast in 2011! Tune in as we recap our CES in Las Vegas and look forward to the upcoming Sprint event and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. We’ll have a heavy heap of Android goodness to discuss as usual… things like the XOOM, Android Market improvements, Eric Schmidt no longer being Google CEO, [...]

HTC Thunderbolt Training Reportedly Began This Week; Simultaneous Voice + Data on 3G?

by Quentyn Kennemer on January 26th, 2011

Reports out of Droid-Life are suggesting that store training for the HTC Thunderbolt has started this week – giving more credence to the rumored February 14th launch date we heard before. (Devices usually launch two weeks after training.) It also matches up with a source of ours who tells us that internal Verizon events to [...]

[Update] Popular CraigsNotifica Craigslist App Pulled from Android Market for Reasons Unknown

by Kevin Krause on January 26th, 2011

One of the best Craigslist apps for Android (LifeHacker said so), CraigsNotifica, has been pulled from the Android Market. The problem is its creator Rafael Sanches has no idea why. The app has been available for quite some time now, making the sudden removal from the Market even more mysterious. Sanches has reached out to [...]

Xperia Play Gets Extensive Preview

by Kevin Krause on January 26th, 2011

The Xperia Play is one of the worst kept best secrets in the history of Android phones. With Sony Ericsson doing little but denying the handset up and down, countless videos, hands-on, images, and specs have leaked since the phone was first rumored. Topping it all off several weeks before the handset should be launched [...]

Rumor: BlackBerry PlayBook and Future Smartphones will Support Android Apps

by Kevin Krause on January 26th, 2011

BGR has got their hands on a bit of information, that if true, could really shake up the mobile apps market space. According to their sources, the BlackBerry team over at RIM is aiming to get a Java virtual machine running on their upcoming QNX devices, including their debut tablet the BlackBerry PlayBook. The same [...]

BioWallet Demos Iris Recognition Technology, Introduces BioWallet2Browser in Beta

by Kevin Krause on January 26th, 2011

Bio-recognition technology for phones is something that hasn’t quite caught on just yet, but many are eager for the day when it is perfected. We’ve seen a few attempts at facial recognition and even a phone or two with fingerprint scanner on board, but BioWallet has an interesting video up of a demo of their [...]