Articles about Android

Motorola Mobility on Tuesday revealed its newest flagship Android smartphone, the Droid Razr, a device that combines Motorola's most lasting brands in a single package.

Droid Razr has a 4.3" Super AMOLED qHD display with Corning's Gorilla Glass protecting it. The original Razr's claim to fame was that it was flat and dramatically thinner than other flip phones available at the time of its release. The Droid Razr attempts to do the same thing for touchphones, and comes in at a slim 7.1mm in thickness. Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha on Tuesday said it will be the thinnest smartphone on the market.

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You can call me disappointed. I was psyched for the Google-Samsung event that was scheduled to take place in San Diego, where I live, this week. But then the companies cancelled, claiming they wanted to show respect for Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, who died last week. Bloggers, journalists and phone geeks had gone gaga over the "Unpacked" event, which presumably was to announce the next Google phone and Android 4.0 -- aka Ice Cream Sandwich. The new invites are out, and as you can see from the image right, there's little doubt what's coming.

But the location isn't good for me, and perhaps not for you. From the companies: "The Samsung/Google media event has been rescheduled to take place on October 19 in Hong Kong, China at S221 Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre. The event starts at 10:00 a.m. HKT with doors opening at 9:30 a.m. HKT. The event livestream will be available at YouTube.com/Android at 10 p.m. EST on October 18 for US media who cannot attend the event".

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National wireless carrier AT&T on Tuesday simultaneously announced five new Android smartphones, none of which are flagship devices for the carrier, but each of which answers the needs of a specific type of phone user.

For the Power User: Motorola Atrix 2

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Silicon Valley startup BlueStacks on Tuesday officially launched the alpha version of its App Player for Windows, which lets users run Android apps right from their Windows desktop.

It is as easy to understand as it is to appreciate. It's an application that virtualizes Android inside Windows, and can be run with a touchscreen, or can convert mouse actions into virtual touchscreen actions.

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According to a statement we received from Sprint Nextel today, the wireless carrier's nationwide network upgrade will bring instant "walkie talkie" communications to its regular Android phones as a downloadable app. Previously, this feature was exclusive to phones that had the appropriate iDEN radio installed.

Friday, national wireless network operator Sprint Nextel laid out its most current plans for transitioning its 4G network from WiMAX to LTE and rolling its multi-protocol Network Vision platform.

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Following extensive leaks earlier in September, T-Mobile and HTC finally made an official announcement that provides the launch date and price for the HTC Amaze 4G, T-Mobile's latest HTC exclusive.

Going up for pre-sale on October 10th, and for regular retail on October 12th, the Amaze 4G will cost $259 after a $50 rebate and new two-year service contract with T-Mobile. Though it's a somewhat steep price; the power and feature set somewhat justify the expense.

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It was  only last week the iPhone version of Facebook was updated; the Android app followed suit this week. The Android app is not quite as fully featured as the iOS version, but the update brings a number of important improvements that bring it in line with the features of the Facebook website.

The big news here is the mirroring of the privacy controls that can be found on the Facebook website. When making a post, it is now possible to choose its visibility and choose whether location data should be attached to it. The same options are available when tagging images and sharing content online.

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Android's recent success in the tablet market seems to have hit a minor roadblock, as increased competition from RIM's PlayBook and now HP's fire-saled TouchPad chip away at its slice of the pie. Apple seems unaffected for the time being, with its market share increasing quarter-to-quarter.

Apple took a 68.3 percent share in the second quarter, up about 3 percent from the previous period, according to research firm IDC. Android tablet share on the other hand dropped significantly, falling to 26.8 percent from 34 percent in the first quarter.

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Intel and Google jointly announced on Tuesday that future versions of Android will offer support for Intel's Atom mobile processor family, meaning Android will finally make the jump from being ARM-exclusive, to also supporting x86.

The x86 instruction set has historically been used only in computers that run desktop operating systems, and the reduced instruction set ARM has been used in devices that run mobile operating systems.

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The Philadelphia Media Network, parent company of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com, on Monday officially announced its program to subsidize Android tablets for newspaper subscribers.

The program first came to light two months ago, when Philadelphia Media Network said it expected to begin a pilot program in August, where it distributed 2,000 Android tablets at a discounted price with each $2.99 weekly subscription to its publications.

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Verizon Wireless and Motorola Mobility on Wednesday announced the Droid Bionic will go on sale nationwide on September 8. It will be Verizon's thinnest LTE smartphone, and the second Motorola smartphone (after the Atrix 4G) to utilize a Lapdock and Firefox 4-based Webtop environment on top of Android.

Who could forget the Motorola Atrix 4G, right? That Android smartphone that could fit into a notebook dock or an HDMI dock and turn into either a netbook computer or a set-top box?

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Last March, I said low-end Android handsets had already begun their market takeover, and cited a half dozen companies that had released, or were planning on releasing mass market Android smartphones in 2011 and 2012.

One of the companies I mentioned, Chinese telecommunications equipment maker Huawei, had just released the Ideos X3, which had a consumer-friendly unsubsidized price of $199, falling in line with the company's tradition of releasing cheaper mass market handsets and modems.

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As it stands right now, there are no fewer than 50 different Android tablets on the international market, many from competitors you've probably never heard of unless you regularly shop in Chinese electronics shops, so differentiation is of crucial importance.

At IFA 2011 in Berlin this week, quite a few new Android tablets were either announced or launched, and each of the top-tier manufacturers who debuted a new product seemed to have homed in on a specific quality that they've improved over previous generations or over their competitors.

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In what is likely an effort to stave off any further erosion in market share, RIM is said to be planning to add Android app capability to phones running its new QNX software, according to those close to the company.

The first QNX phones are expected in 2012: RIM's PlayBook was the first to ship with the operating system in April of this year. Adding Android support to QNX-based phones should not be surprising: there is already support in the PlayBook for Android apps.

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In August, US LCD TV leader Vizio launched its 8" Android tablet for an agreeable $299 at most common big box retailers. Today, streaming TV provider Hulu announced it has partnered with Vizio to bring Hulu Plus to its new tablet.

Though Hulu Plus is available on many platfoms --video game consoles, TVs, connected media players, set-top boxes, and iOS devices-- it is only available on a dozen Android devices, and until today it was only on select Android smartphones.

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