Articles about Android

Suddenly, Microsoft is a major developer for iOS. The software giant better known for Windows dropped three iOS apps or updates in just two days, and there are rumors of more coming (e.g. Office). But what about Android? "What about Android?" you ask, surprised. "Why should Microsoft give a hoot's fart app about Android? Google and open source are reasons enough why not Android". Yes, but Microsoft makes heaps of money from Android. Nothing from iOS.

Shouldn't Microsoft support the platform that is more personally profitable? The Redmond, Wash.-based company now has convinced most major Android developers to pay licensing fees, presumably because the open-source OS violates Microsoft patents. Perhaps threat of lawsuit is enough. It's serious money, too, $10 or more per device -- if rumors are to be believed. "Patent trolling with Microsoft" I called it in July. Microsoft makes what from iOS? Diddly.

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Why keep those special moments to yourself, when you can share them with the people that matter most? There's Facebook, or even Google+, but what good is that when you're Skyping Claire Beauvoir in Brussels and you're in Washington, DC? Today, Skype 2.6 posted to Android Market, and its big new feature is sending photos and videos. Share and share alike. The new capability works over cellular data networks as well as WiFi.

"We've also improved battery life and video quality with Skype 2.6 for Android on devices using Nvidia's Tegra 2 chipset, which include amongst others; the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Motorola XOOM and Acer Iconia Tablet. Now you can take full advantage of the big screen with better video quality than ever before", says Dan Chastney, Skype senior product manager.

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This week, Nielsen listed the most popular Android apps by age group -- 18-24; 25-34; 35-44. Well, well, talk about age discrimination. Perhaps people 45 or older are considered to be iPhone users? For shame! The data is interesting not for what is there but what's not. Facebook tops all three age groups, when looking at actual apps. Android Market ranks higher. Google+ -- and Twitter, for the matter -- is nowhere in sight.

For all the buzz about Google+, and I am a big fan, it's not among the top-15 apps for each age group. That's no small thing. Mobile phones are by and far the most personal devices everyone uses. They're where people connect to other people and things that are important to them. Facebook clearly matters, Google+ and Twitter do not -- as measured by most-popular apps. I suppose some people could use browsers to access the services, but why would they?

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The world of smartphones and mobile media tablets may be dominated by processors based on the ARM architecture, but other instruction sets are getting their due with Android.

There is development on Android on x86, spearheaded by processor makers AMD and Intel; and this week, MIPS Technologies announced the availability of the first mobile tablet running Android 4.0 on the MIPS architecture.

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Motorola Mobility and Verizon Wireless on Tuesday introduced two new Android-powered tablets sporting the Droid brand name and 4G LTE connectivity and the promise of an Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) upgrade: The Droid Xyboard 10.1 and 8.2. The devices are the successors to the popular Motorola Xoom tablet which first debuted in early 2011.

As the names suggest, one model of the Droid Xyboard has a 10.1" touchscreen and the other has an 8.2" touchscreen. Both models have dual-core 1.2 GHz processors, 1GB of RAM, LTE radios with 8-device hotspot functionality, 5 megapixel flash cameras and 1.3 megapixel chat cameras.

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Taiwanese PC maker Asus has announced its quad-core Eee Pad Transformer Prime Android tablet will be available for order December 12th online and December 19th in physical retail stores.

The tablet is the first device to be built on Nvidia's new Tegra 3 system on a chip, and will carry a pricetag of $499 for the version with 32GB of storage, and $599 for the 64GB version. The Eee Station keyboard dock adds $149 to the total, but comes with the benefit of an additional battery that expands the life of the Transformer Prime by approximately six hours, bringing it to a total of 18 hours of battery life.

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PC benchmarking software company Futuremark announced on Tuesday that it has begun developing a version of its 3DMark software for Android tablets which it expects to have ready in 2012.

"In 2012 we will bring 3DMark to the Android platform with a professional grade benchmark that can be trusted by manufacturers, suppliers and vendors to provide the definitive measure of gaming performance on Android while showcasing the very best in real-time graphics and effects," said Jukka Mäkinen, CEO of Futuremark in a statement on Tuesday.

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Verizon kicked off helluva holday sale for XOOM LTE on Black Friday -- and you can still get it today online: $199.99 with new two-year activation. But hurry, if interested. Surely pricing like this can't last. That's $529.99 less than the closest comparable iPad 2, and you won't get an LTE radio from Apple.

Is that price low enough for you to buy? In February, when XOOM pricing first leaked, I asked: "Would you pay 800 bucks for the Motorola XOOM?" Eh, no, you wouldn't. You didn't like $600, when I asked about it later on. But now the price is way less, so I'm asking again. Would you pay $200 for Motorola XOOM LTE? Please answer in comments.

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Today marks the official beginning of the holiday gift shopping season in the United States; a time when commerce shifts into high gear and product sales spike for the year.

And with each passing holiday, retailers seem to focus even more closely on consumer electronics.

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PhatWare, makers of WritePad, CalliGrapher, PenOffice, and PhatNotes, launched the public beta of PhatPad for Android on Wednesday, a brainstorming, note taking and free drawing app for tablets.

PhatPad lets users draw with their fingers, jot handwritten notes, or use a mixture of pictures and drawings, handwritten text, typed text, and audio notes in a single field. With its handwriting recognition engine, users can hand write notes, and then convert them to copy-and-pasteable text. Documents created in PhatPad can then be synchronized with Dropbox, or exported as a PDF to local storage.

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Last night I watched Samsung TV commercial "The Next Big Thing is Already Here" about a dozen times on YouTube. I'm a sucker for good advertising, and this one is clever to a punch and already is viral among tech blogs. Apple used to make adverts like this one -- inventive, clever, memorable -- now they're staid and boring. Anyone remember Apple's hugely successful "Switchers" and "Get a Mac" marketing campaigns from the last decade? This new TV spot is a hilarious poke at yokels waiting in line for the newest iPhone, all without mentioning Apple; meanwhile something better is already here -- from Samsung.

Now before some commenter calls me anti-Apple, because I watched the commercial a dozen times and it snarks the iPhone cult, my interest is bigger. The advert is clever in so many ways, particularly how it uses jump cuts or little touches make it real. Example: When the iPhone line waiters ask to see a Samsung Galaxy S II, the owner holds it up. Someone in the line leans forward, raises his arm and says: "Can I see it with my hands?" I've embedded the long version above, which isn't as tight or dramatic as the 60-second spot. There's something to be said about tighter editing, more closeups and shorter jump cuts. The 30-second edit is good, too. Update: The 15-second ad is absolutely cruel.

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Using the upcoming Asus Transformer Prime which was rumored to be the first Tegra 3 tablet graphics company Nvidia on Tuesday officially showed off what Tegra 3 and Android 4.0, "Ice Cream Sandwich" can do.

This early demonstration quickly shows off the 1080p video playback, and an all-too short demo of Android game Tegra 3-optimized racing game Riptide GP from games studio Vector Unit.

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BlueStacks App Player, the Windows application capable of smoothly virtualizing Android apps has launched for Windows XP. The alpha version that launched in October only ran on Windows 7 machines, but the company says nearly 20 percent of Android users are also Windows XP users, so this new version is for them.

So far, BlueStacks App Player has been downloaded by 500,000 people, an impressive feat for a company that was unheard of just six months ago. With this new version, the application's reach will grow even larger.

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Early Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" adopters must do without Flash, as Google confirms that current versions are incompatible. However, Adobe says they won't wait long: a compatible Flash release should be available by the end of the year.

Adobe announced earlier this month that it would end support for mobile versions of Flash, a move that acknowledges the shift towards HTML5 among mobile developers. Indeed, Adobe confirms that its port of Flash for ICS will be its last: future versions of Android will not be compatible.

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Malware aimed at the Android platform has increased five-fold since July, raising questions on the open-door policy Android has in installing apps. IT company Juniper Networks says the reason for this is the Mountain View, Calif. company's own lax attitude when it comes to oversight.

"With no upfront review process, no one checking to see that your application does what it says, just the world’s largest majority of smartphone users skimming past your application’s description page with whatever description of the application the developer chooses to include", it says. Of course, Juniper's description of how the review process works in Android is generalized and somewhat inaccurate.

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