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April, 2011 Articles

Samsung Galaxy S II with NFC Inside Available for Pre-Order in South Korea

by Kevin Krause on April 26th, 2011

The UK isn’t the only part of the world that will receive the Samsung Galaxy S II very soon. Samsung’s native South Korea now has access to the first pre-order for the anticipated device on service provider KT. The bigger news here is that the South Korean market will be one of several to receive [...]

Has Developer Interest in Android Leveled Off?

by Kevin Krause on April 26th, 2011

Has the golden era of Android ended? It has for developers, at least one survey is reporting. Interest in developing for Android phones and tablets has dropped, according to the latest survey conducted by Appcelerator and IDC. It had been seeing a steady increase up until this point. Interest in Android phone development was down [...]

LG Licenses ARM Platforms, Begins Planning Their Own Mobile Processor

by Kevin Krause on April 26th, 2011

LG has announced its intention to begin development on mobile processors of their own based around the ARM Cortex-A9 and Cortex-A15 platforms. The company’s current line of smartphones and their LG Optimus Pad feature chips based on the same architecture but produced by third party vendors such as NVIDIA and Texas Instruments. While it hasn’t [...]

Android Overload: Incredible S Gets 2.3, Verizon 4G Rolls Smoothly and More

by Quentyn Kennemer on April 26th, 2011

We don’t miss anything. That’s why “Things We Missed, You Shouldn’t” – our former title for the end of the day roundup – was absolute garbage. With so much Android News every day, we try to focus on the things you care about most, leaving the rest as a footnote in the Phandroid archives. If [...]

BREAKING NEWS: Sony S1 and S2 Tablets Take Center Stage In Tokyo [Video]

by Chris Chavez on April 26th, 2011

Just a few moments ago Sony held a press event in Tokyo where they announced a pair of Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablets. What’s the difference between these and the slew of Honeycomb tablets hitting the market? Pure. Unadulterated. Sex appeal. The first is the Sony S1. Its a 9.4 inch tablet powered by an Nvidia [...]

Twitter To Begin Focusing On Improving It’s Mobile Experience

by Chris Chavez on April 25th, 2011

When Twitter first started out they had a huge focus on mobile. One of the reasons we have the current 140 character limit on tweets was so you could easily send an update to all your friends using nothing but SMS. Not too long ago we saw the roll out of the new improved web [...]

Facebook Launching New Group-Buying Discount Service “Deals” In Select Cities!

by Chris Chavez on April 25th, 2011

Check-in services are all the rage these days. Just about everyone has heard of Foursquare and the now infamous Groupon. Even Google caught wind of the craze and started rolling out their own discount based check-in program in select cities. While Facebook introduced “checking-in” a few months back it didn’t really offer any kind of [...]

Google to Introduce Video Calling for Android 2.3.4 at I/O 2011

by Chris Chavez on April 25th, 2011

A guy by the name of Saad (@MAFiA303 on Twitter) who apparently “works with Samsung,” made a video call today using the Gtalk app on Android 2.3.4 with his Nexus S. He was generous enough to share his experience on Twitter and noted that “impressive video quality” as well as I/O 2011 which leads us [...]

Leaked Pics of a Mysterious New Multi-core Motorola Handset

by Chris Chavez on April 25th, 2011

DroidLife is showing off some pics they were sent of an apparent multiple core, 12MP, qHD display, 1900mAh battery packin,’ unannounced Motorola handset. When it comes to Motorola and Nvidia, we’ve received our fair share of leaked roadmaps and shadowy handsets but this? I can’t barely tell if I’m looking at the pics upside down [...]

Featured App of the Day – WiFi Status [Video]

by Chris Chavez on April 25th, 2011

Hello, everyone! Today I wanted to show off one of my personal favorite apps from the Android Market called WiFi Status. I found time and time again that when I leave my house, I always forget to turn off my WiFi and I don’t always figure it out til hours later after my phone is [...]

Samsung Goes On An Ad Blitz For Their New Galaxy S II Line

by Chris Chavez on April 25th, 2011

With the soon to be released Samsung Galaxy S II line of phones hitting the UK as early as next week, we’ve seen a recent ad blitz from the Korean handset maker. It wasn’t too long ago I posted a video of a (not too bright) little girl dumping her GS II into a fishbowl [...]

Analyst: XOOM Sales Could Be as Low as 25,000 Units

by Kevin Krause on April 25th, 2011

Another analyst is chiming in to give his take on sales of the Motorola XOOM, and Trip Chowdry of Global Equities outlook is dire. By his number, Motorola has produced between 500,000 and 800,000 and only sold 5 to 15 percent of them. At best, Chowdry believes only 120,000 of the Honeycomb tablet have been [...]

HTC Reaffirms Honeycomb for Flyer Tablet

by Kevin Krause on April 25th, 2011

Since its initial announcement, there has been somewhat of a backlash against the HTC Flyer for its lack of Android 3.0 Honeycomb. Several times word has surfaced that the first Android tablet from HTC would eventually receive an upgrade to Honeycomb, and today HTC reaffirmed that notion via Twitter. In response to a user mention [...]

Droid Charge and Droid Incredible 2 Featured In Best Buy’s May Buyer’s Guide

by Kevin Krause on April 25th, 2011

The two newest member of the Droid family from Verizon have landed amongst the pages of May’s Mobile Phone Buyer’s Guide at Best Buy. Verizon officially announced the launch of the Samsung DROID Charge for April 28th, though Big Red hasn’t down the same for the HTC Droid Incredible 2. Almost all of the information [...]

Honeycomb on the BlackBerry PlayBook? No, That’s Just a Photoshop Fail

by Kevin Krause on April 25th, 2011

Actually, it’s more of a Google Image Search Fail. See, when creating the above flyer for the BlackBerry PlayBook, the ad wizards behind it must have simply grabbed the first thing they came across with a decent resolution. Yes, the PlayBook has the ability to run Android applications natively without too much fuss. No, the [...]

Droid Does 4G In Second Charge Teaser

by Kevin Krause on April 25th, 2011

It isn’t groundbreaking news, but a second Samsung DROID Charge teaser adds on to the list of things Droid does. As the first member of the Droid lineup to come 4G-equipped, you best believe Verizon plans to leverage that fact in their advertising campaigns going forward. Droid does 4G LTE, and it does it quickly. [...]

The Motorola XT316 Hits the FCC, Looks Like a Smaller Droid Pro

by Kevin Krause on April 25th, 2011

Motorola has another BlackBerry-esque handset in the works, and the handset has just hit the FCC. Known simply as the Motorola XT316, the phone carries the same form factor as the Droid Pro with a QWERTY keyboard positioned directly under the handset’s touchscreen. The 3.1-inch screen of the Droid Pro gives way to a smaller [...]

Dell: Android Tablets Will Follow in Smartphone Footsteps, Outpace Apple’s Success

by Kevin Krause on April 25th, 2011

It seemed almost inevitable for smartphones: after Apple jumped ahead to an early lead in the smartphone race, the singular manufacturer would be quickly outpaced as Android showed up on handsets of all shapes, makes, and price points. Could the same eventually hold true for Android tablets in their fight against the iPad? If you [...]

Download: Galaxy S II Live Wallpapers

by Quentyn Kennemer on April 25th, 2011

The Galaxy S II has been in the hands of quite a few folks outside of Samsung now and you had to guess that a system dump would be in the pipeline. We don’t get the full plate of things such as ringtones and static wallpapers, but we do get several very nice live wallpapers [...]

What Phones Should These People Get? [Forum Talk]

by Quentyn Kennemer on April 25th, 2011

A quick look at AndroidForums.com shows me that there are many undecided folks looking to either upgrade their existing Android phones or get one for the first time. That’s great and all, but we have one big problem – they don’t know which to get! One user wants one with a nice keyboard, while another [...]