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If your Galaxy Nexus future includes custom ROMs and kernels, you should stop what you are doing and unlock the bootloader of the device first. With an unlocked bootloader, your phone is opened up for you to essentially do as you please. Not only that, but you get that sweet little unlock icon on the boot screen.
To help you with this process, we tossed together this quick video. For the full written instructions, you will want to check out this post.
via Droid Life.
Say bye, bye to Android 4.0.2. In the coming weeks, the Android team will roll out the next version better known as Android 4.0.3. Through the new API that has also arrived, developers will have the ability to integrate their social apps into contacts like Google has done with G+ and Google Talk. You can imagine that this likely means Facebook and Twitter updates showing in you friends’ contact pages as well. In other goodies, apps will now be able to access more camera and calendar capabilities while additional polish was added to graphics, the database, spell-checking, etc.Social stream API in Contacts provider: Applications that use social stream data such as status updates and check-ins can now sync that data with each of the user’s contacts, providing items in a stream along with photos for each. This new API lets apps show users what the people they know are doing or saying, in addition to their photos and contact information.Calendar provider enhancements. Apps can now add color to events, for easier tracking, and new attendee types and states are now available.New camera capabilities. Apps can now check and manage video stabilization and use QVGA resolution profiles where needed.Accessibility refinements. Improved content access for screen readers and new status and error reporting for text-to-speech engines.Incremental improvements in graphics, database, spell-checking, Bluetooth, and more.
via Droid Life.
Android Market, the official, Google-sanctioned app marketplace for Android, is announcing a major milestone December 6th 2011: 10 billion total downloads. More important, the rate of growth is surging. Google says that it’s now seeing 1 billion app installs every 30 days.
To give some context to that, it took 20 months for Android to hit its first billion downloads, and another five months to reach its second billion. Asked what’s driving the growth, Google didn’t share any specifics, but pointed to the 550k Android devices being activated each day as the major contributor. The increase in international support and a revamped Android Market have been factors as well.
Android still has a long way to go to catch up to its iOS rival in terms of total downloads — Apple’s App Store has roughly 20 billion cumulative downloads at this point (the most recent stat I can find is 18 billion downloads as of October 4). But the number of new downloads per month is probably more important to developers figuring out which platforms to build for, and the race is much closer there — during the same event, Apple also announced it was seeing one billion monthly downloads.
The story is less clear for developers building premium apps, though. During its October event Apple also announced that it’s paid developers on iOS $3 billion to date. Google isn’t breaking that number out for Android, which likely means it doesn’t have anything to boast about on that front.
To mark the occasion, Google has teamed up with a number of Android developers to offer a special promotion. For each of the next ten days, it’ll be offering a new set of top applications for 10 cents each (the apps are all normally priced between 99 centers and $6.99). Google isn’t eating the cost of the discount, but instead asked the developers if they’d be willing to participate in the sale.
Also worth noting: while Android Market is far and away the most popular way to download Android apps at this point, the open nature of Android means that users can install third-party marketplaces, and device manufacturers can pre-install competitive markets as well. Amazon is the most prominent company to this with its Amazon App Store (which you can download to any Android device, and comes pre-installed on the Kindle Fire). In other words, while the iOS App Store is the only place for users to download apps, Android Market doesn’t account for all app installs across Android devices.
I spoke with Jeremy Statz, the founder of Android developer Kittehface Software, which makes several popular live wallpaper apps including Snowfall. Statz has been developing popular apps for Android Market for years now, so he has an unusually good perspective on the state of the marketplace.
Asked what the biggest inflection points were in Market’s growth, Statz says that the launch of support in South Korea was big, and that the company typically sees a surge in downloads around the holidays (which isn’t surprising — other developers on both Android and iOS often see the same). But aside from that, it doesn’t sound like there were any specific launches or events that resulted in more downloads. Rather, it’s been the steady (and fast) rise in Android’s install base, as well as the gradual improvements in international support.
I also asked Statz about Android users’ willingness to actually pay for apps. Google didn’t break out any data around the number of paid downloads, and Android has gotten a reputation for having users who will gladly download free apps but aren’t nearly as willing to cough over any actual money, at least not to the extent iOS users are. But Statz says he hasn’t witnessed this trend — even since the early days of Market, he says the number of users converting from the free version of his Live Wallpapers to the 99 cent premium versions has been around 2% (he says 1% is generally considered “good”).
via TechCrunch.
Pop quiz: List, in alphabetical order, all of the Google Nexus phones that officially have access to Google Wallet.
If you aswered the Sprint Nexus S 4G — and only the Sprint Nexus S 4G — you’re exactly right. And it looks like it might stay that way for the time being. 9 to 5 Google, citing an unnamed source, reports that the Verizon Galaxy Nexus won’t have access to Google Wallet, despite that sweet NFC chip tucked into the phone’s battery.
And the kicker: Verizon is said to be the one keeping Google Wallet off its Galaxy Nexus. (Never mind that it’s a Nexus phone, and remember that we’re expecting a couple of Verizon-specific appliations preloaded. We called it Verizon’s Nexus for a reason.) And the reason for no Google Wallet on the Galaxy Nexus, according to the anonymous source, is that it’s a direct competitor to ISIS, another NFC standard backed by Verizon, along with manufacturers LG, HTC, Motorola, RIM, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.
Oh, and guess who else backs ISIS: AT&T and T-Mobile — two U.S. carriers that have network-specific versions of the Samsung Nexus S in the United States, which, despite also having NFC capabilities, have no official build of Google Wallet. (Like with the Galaxy Nexus, you can hack Google Wallet on just fine, thank you very much.) Maybe that’s just our tinfoil hat talking, but you can’t deny that Google Wallet’s only officially available on a single phone.
Source: 9 to 5 Google;
via Verizon reportedly blocking access to Google Wallet on its Galaxy Nexus | Android Central.
From TheVerge.com: By Dante D’Orazio on December 3, 2011 05:06 pm
We got our hands on a Verizon Wireless-bound Galaxy Nexus today, courtesy of the Samsung Experience store in New York City (thanks to Droid Life for tracking this one down). Unfortunately the price and release date are still nowhere to be found, though we were told that it may be coming in “the next few days.” The phone was identical to the GSM variant that’s been available for a few weeks in many ways, though it was thicker. Not terribly so — around a half millimeter, according to the official specs — but it’s noticeable, particularly if you’re coming from the GSM model as we were.
Other than the size difference, the LTE version has 32GB of internal storage and two pieces of Verizon-branded software: My Verizon Mobile and VZ Backup Assistant. As advertised, they can both be disabled from Android 4.0′s built-in app manager. Unfortunately, we couldn’t test the speeds that LTE offered the device (there’s no SIM card installed), though we did find an LTE toggle down in the network settings. Lastly, a quick peek behind the battery cover showed that things have been rearranged a bit — the SIM card slot is now on the left side. For more details on the LTE Galaxy Nexus, check out the gallery below and our product page!
KEY FACTS
We’ve confirmed that the model on display has 32GB of internal storage.
There are two Verizon apps installed: My Verizon Mobile and VZ Backup Assistant. Both can be disabled by the user.
We’ve heard rumors of Android 4.1 floating around on these units, but the one in the store is running 4.0.1, which is the same version that GSM users currently have.
The Verizon model is roughly half a millimeter thicker than the GSM one, and you can definitely see it when you’re holding the two side by side (in the profile view, that is). We don’t think it’ll bother users in the slightest, though — especially if you’ve never held the GSM model.
The coloration of the body is very slightly lighter than the GSM model’s, but the difference is pretty minor.
Behind the battery cover, the SIM card has moved from the top edge to the left side (looking at the back of the phone), perhaps to make room for LTE guts.
http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/3/2608598/galaxy-nexus-verizon-lte-hands-on
In a possible setback to AT&T and T-Mobile’s proposed merger, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski Tuesday circulated a draft order to seek a further administrative hearing on the deal, potentially placing another barrier in the road to one of the largest mergers in telecommunications history.
If the order is passed, the merger decision would then go in front of a judge presiding over an administrative hearing on the matter.
The last major merger proposal referred to this type of hearing occurred almost a decade ago, in the case of the proposed DirecTV and EchoStar merger, which was ultimately shot down.
The draft order, created by chairman Genachowski, must be circulated to all of the members of the FCC, who will then decide to sign off on the order, amend it or deny it. The commission gave no time frame on when it would come to a decision.
If the order is approved by the rest of the FCC, the administrative hearing would be another in a line of stumbling blocks for the two companies. In late August, the Department of Justice moved to block the merger by filing a federal antitrust lawsuit, stating the deal would “result in tens of millions of consumers all across the United States facing higher prices, fewer choices and lower-quality products for mobile wireless services,” according to deputy attorney general James M. Cole.
Rival telecom Sprint has also lobbied fiercely in opposition to the deal, with CEO Dan Hesse previously arguing the takeover would create “a 1980s-style duopoly,” doing “irreparable harm” to the U.S. economy and consumers as a whole.
Sprint was quick to issue a comment on Tuesday’s decision, lauding chairman Genachowski for his efforts and upholding that the merger “more than justifies moving this matter to an Administrative Law Judge for a hearing,” according to Vonya McCann, Sprint SVP of Government Affairs.
AT&T also issued a statement, essentially condemning Genachowski’s move. “The FCC’s action today is disappointing,” said Larry Solomon, SVP of corporate communications for AT&T. “It is yet another example of a government agency acting to prevent billions in new investment and the creation of many thousands of new jobs at a time when the US economy desperately needs both.”
Although it isn’t clear whether or not all members of the commission will agree upon the statement, any hearings that could take place would not proceed until after litigation between AT&T, T-Mobile and the Department of Justice has concluded.
UPDATED 2:38 P.M. PST with AT&T statement
via Proposed AT&T/T-Mobile Merger Hits Yet Another Snag | Epicenter | Wired.com.
Thanksgiving is coming, but techies are salivating over something that doesn’t involve turkey and stuffing: Ice Cream Sandwich—the operating system of the newest Google phone, the Galaxy Nexus.
The Galaxy Nexus from Samsung is the first device to run Google’s Android 4.0 operating system, known by its dessert code name. Ice Cream Sandwich is designed to be a blend of the Android phone and tablet operating systems that irons out many geeky wrinkles. Android’s former annoying reliance on menus to perform tasks is reduced with the inclusion of more user-friendly icons, and these dynamically change according to whatever program is opened.
It has familiar swiping gestures across apps, of which there are over 300,000 available in the Android Market, as well as playful new features like facial recognition to unlock the phone. Several existing Android devices from HTC and Motorola will receive free software updates so that they, too, can run this OS.
The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is stylish, with it’s 4.65 inch display and svelte profile.
There’s much speculation that the Galaxy Nexus will be available in the U.S. in the next two weeks, since its release in the U.K. last week. A Verizon spokeswoman says it will be out sometime before the end of the year and it will run on the carrier’s 4G network. It could cost as much as $300 if it’s treated like some other recent Android phones considered flagship models.
I got my hands on a U.K. version of the Galaxy Nexus and enjoyed using Ice Cream Sandwich, which is the most well-rounded version of Android yet. My phone’s battery lasted nearly a full day under heavy testing.
But some of Android’s inelegant traits remain, like the confusing way it organizes Widgets (icons representing programs) and restricts their placement on home screens according to the icons’ various shapes and sizes. And its folders for apps look cluttered.
The Galaxy Nexus itself is stylishly designed. Its giant 4.65-inch display may be overkill for some people. But its svelte build, which measures just over three-tenths of an inch thick, balances it out. Its rear- and front-facing cameras capture 5- and 1.3-megapixel images, respectively, and it records video in full 1080p HD quality. A built-in barometer helps with more precise GPS detection, and an NFC (near field communication) chip enables swapping data with other NFC-enabled Android phones, a process called Android Beam.
I found the facial-recognition feature to be unreliable. To set this up, I held the Galaxy Nexus up as if I was about to take a photo of myself with the front-facing camera, and a traced image of my face appeared on the screen. I also set up a back-up unlocking option: tracing a pattern on the screen. Whenever I wanted to use the phone, I held it up to my face and if facial recognition worked, it unlocked.
But this only worked half the time, sometimes because of low lighting, whether outside at night, in restaurants or even in my own kitchen. Other times it just didn’t recognize me. When I stood on city streets and held the phone up to my face to unlock it, I looked as if I was taking a photo of the people around me. And it’s impossible to slyly check your phone under the table during meetings or dinners using this unlocking method.
A facial-recognition feature unlocks the phone.
Google warns users this isn’t necessarily the safest method for locking a phone. Case in point: I was able to unlock the phone by holding a photo of my face up to its lock screen. But a Google engineer noted most people who find lost phones don’t know what the phone’s owner looks like.
Like Microsoft’s Windows Phones and the iPhone, the Galaxy Nexus can be unlocked just for using its camera, or unlocked fully to access the rest of the phone’s features. When calls come in, a large image representing the caller appears on the screen along with options to drag an on-screen icon to ignore, answer, or send a text reply.
In Ice Cream Sandwich, app folders can be created by dragging app icons on top of one another. These icons seem to stack up in a messy pile; in one folder I made, called “Social,” only the blue beak of Twitter’s bird icon was visible.
In place of the Android Menu button, a small three-dot icon appears in all apps and this opens the menu. More icons at the bottom of each app screen perform actions, such as an envelope with a plus sign beside it in Gmail that opens a screen for composing an email. A Multitasking soft key displays all opened apps in one tap. Small images show the screen last opened on these apps like a webpage or a search term in a box. And the Android Market icon is now easier to find in the top right corner of the App Tray.
The photo gallery feels more lush and magazine-like than the text lists of albums in previous versions of Android. Thumbnail images representing albums appear side-by-side and fill the phone’s screen in a checkerboard fashion. Albums from my Flickr account were automatically pulled in here, and any photos I captured on the phone were automatically sent to my Google+ account using Instant Upload, a feature also available on other iterations of Android.
Ice Cream Sandwich has more options for photo editing and adds silly effects and backgrounds to videos. You can even make a time-lapse video.
Typing on this phone felt more accurate than in the past, and text can be dragged and dropped to different places using a gesture to swipe down and up. Items in the drop-down Notifications menu can be deleted with a swipe right.
If you’ve been curious about Android, the release of Ice Cream Sandwich will mark a good time to jump in.
Write to Katherine Boehret at katherine.boehret@wsj.com
Be sure to watch this in 720p, full screen! Awesome!
iOS 5, Apple’s latest update to its mobile OS, was released this week, and with it came a ton of great new features for iPhone and iPad owners. If you own an Android phone and wish some of those new features can be yours, they’re closer than you think. Here’s how you can get some of them, like Wi-Fi sync, cloud storage for music and documents, and free messaging right now on whatever Android phone you have.
This guide isn’t meant to shoehorn iOS 5 on your Android phone. If you wanted iOS, you would have purchased an iPhone. The goal here is to show you how to incorporate a few features into your device that may have made you the tiniest bit jealous when you saw some of the iOS 5 feature demos.
Feature: iCloud; Solution: Google Apps/Dropbox
What it is: iCloud offers iPhone users the ability to synchronize and store information in the cloud. It’s essentially a beefed up version of MobileMe, and synchronizes everything from documents created on a mobile device to photos taken, contacts, and calendar appointments. Plus, the service is completely free.
How you can get it: Much of what iCloud offers to iOS users is already handled by Android natively. Your contacts and much of your account preferences are already synchronized with Google’s servers (you can verify this by going to Settings > Accounts and tapping your Gmail or Google account to see what’s being synchronized.)
However, Android does fall a little short when it comes to documents, photos, and files. That’s where Dropbox comes in. Dropbox’s Android app integrates well, and because the files in your Dropbox account only take up space on your Android device when you specifically download them, it makes for a great way to see and have access to your data without worrying about the amount of storage you’re using. Dropbox also inserts itself into the “Share” menu of just about every Android application, including your photo gallery and favorite camera app, making it easy to upload files. It’s not quite as easy as the hands-off approach that iCloud promises, but it’s close.
The one drawback to this combination is that Dropbox is a little kludgy when it comes to photo uploads. You can create galleries by uploading to your Dropbox Photos folder, but if what attracts you to iCloud is its seamless photo uploads, consider the Google+ Android app, which instantly uploads your photos to Google+ as you take them.
Feature: iTunes Match; Solution: Google Music or Spotify
What it is: Another notable feature about iCloud is that, for an additional $25/year, you can synchronize your music across all of your devices. The iTunes Match service supports up to 20,000 songs, and will even scan your music library and provide a high-quality iTunes version of the song in your iCloud account that you’ll be able to stream—or more appropriately, download and play locally— when you’re on a computer without that song.
How you can get it: Google Music is the closest service for Android we’ve seen to iTunes Match. It’s web accessible, the Android app and music player is gorgeous, and it supports downloading some of your songs for offline play when you’re without a data connection. Yes, you’ll have to upload all of your music to Google Music before you can listen on the go, but you get room for 20,000 songs and the service is completely free. While Google Music won’t identify or organize your music for you the way that iTunes Match promises to, it addresses the core need: free, cloud-based backup and storage of all of your music with easy access from any device.
However, Google Music is currently invite-only and only available in the United States. For everyone else, try Spotify instead. Spotify serves up the music you already own and gives you access to a broad selection of streaming tunes from Spotify’s own database. You can’t upload your own music to Spotify to stream elsewhere, but it will link songs in your collection to Spotify tracks in its database so you can listen to them on the go. You’ll need to drop $9.99/month on Spotify Premium to use the mobile app, but if you’re in love with streaming music on the go, it’s worth it.
Feature: Notifications Menu; Solution: Already Available
What it is: When we got our first look at notifications in iOS 5, more than a few people sat up and took notice that iOS 5′s slide-down notifications screen looks like Android’s default notifications pane, and is accessed the same way. The addition of weather to the notifications pane and organizing notifications by type or application are a nice touches.
How you can get it The way Android handles notifications works pretty well, and Apple clearly built on that idea in iOS 5. Depending on the ROM you’re using, you already get access to valuable information like your power controls and weather in the notifications pull-down, and it’s already organized based on ongoing alerts and those that are spawned by specific applications, each with their own icon to tell them apart.
Feature: Wireless Sync; Solution: AirSync, Spotify, or Google Music
What it is: In iOS 5, you can sync your device with iTunes without connecting it to your computer, backing up your apps, account preferences, and all of your phone’s data easily and seamlessly. It’s a great and hassle-free way to make sure your photos, music, apps, and everything else are safely synchronized and backed up before you head out on the town with your iPhone, and it’s a long time coming in iOS 5.
How you can get it: If you get your apps through the Android Market or Amazon App Store, they each keep a record of what you’ve downloaded. As for your music, videos, photos, and other files, we’ve mentioned ways to completely back up your phone before, whether you’re planning to migrate to a new device or just want complete, automated backups. However, in this case, we don’t want to sit around waiting for everything to back up, we want to sync some new music and be on our way. Here are your options:
- AirSync ($4.99) – This utility works withDoubleTwist to synchronize apps, photos, videos, playlists, music, and more wirelessly between your Android device and your computer. It’s the closest parallel to iOS 5′s Wi-Fi Sync. Plus, it supports AirPlay, so you can stream video to an AppleTV in your home.
- Spotify ($9.99/month for a Premium Account) – You’ll need a Spotify Premium Account to get the Android app, but once you have it, Spotify will wirelessly sync playlists and songs from your local music library with your Android phone. It also gives you access to Spotify’s massive library on the go. It won’t handle photos, videos, or other files however.
- Google Music (Free) – Streaming from the cloud isn’t as good as sync, and it doesn’t take care of your photos or videos, but you have access to all of your music, and you can choose to store as much music as you like on your Android phone locally for offline listening. Plus, it’s completely free.
Feature: iMessage; Solution: Google Talk/Google Voice
What it is: iMessage in iOS 5 lets you send text messages to your friends with iOS devices without paying the SMS charges imposed by your carrier. In the United States, we’re still stuck paying for text messages we send and receive, which makes the problem especially annoying. You can communicate with any other iOS device, including iPads and IPod Touches, for free with iMessage, as long as they have some connection to the internet. It’s a great way to stay in touch with friends and cut off your carrier’s texting plan entirely—assuming all of your friernds have iOS devices, that is.
How you can get it: Just by virtue of having a Gmail account and an Android device, you have access to Google Talk. In fact, you may already be signed in to Google Talk on your Android device. Since every Android user has access to Google Talk on their Android phone, as long as you exchange phone numbers or Gmail addresses, you can send any Android user text messages for free.
Google Talk for Android also supports video chat, and while it’s not our favorite video chat app for Android, it’s definitely a good one. Plus, you can use the Android app send messages to Google Talk users on their desktops or laptops. Best of all, all of this is completely free (exlcuding data charges, of course.)
If you’re in the United States and use Google Voice (GV isn’t available outside the US, sorry!) you can take this a step further and shunt your SMS messages over to Google Voice instead of using Google Talk. This gives you a way to send SMS messages to any phone, not just Android devices, and bypass your carrier’s SMS charges in the process. Unlike Google Talk, your recipient may have to pay to get your message, but hey, at least you can cancel your texting plan, right?
Feature: Siri; Solution: Vlingo
What it is: Siri, iOS 5′s new voice assistant (only available on the iPhone 4S) is a generational leap in speech-to-speech and speech-to-text technology. Siri’s ability to understand common language and the way it is deeply integrated into iOS makes it an excellent tool for hands-free phone operation at home or on the road. Siri can compose and send SMS messages and emails, perform complex actions like calculations, web searches, play music and playlists on your phone, fetch the weather, schedule appointments, and more.
How you can get it: We discussed this earlier this week when we looked at somegreat Siri-like alternatives for Android, andVlingo was the app we found that came the closest to Siri, complete with voice-activated listening modes, an in-car mode that’s sensitive to hands-free operation, and an impressive number of commands that the app recognized and could perform when asked to. Vlingo can update your social networks, find the closest cab company, locate a nearby Chinese food restaurant, send an SMS to your best friend, and pull up turn-by-turn driving directions for you.
Google’s own built-in voice features are no slouch, and Google isn’t likely to let them be eclipsed by Siri for long. Plus, they’re already on your phone. Still, none of alternatives are quite as integrated with Android the way Siri is with iOS, none understand common language to the same degree, or are capable of having quite the same level of back and forth conversation with you.
Feature: Location-Based Reminders; The Solution: ReQall, Astrid, or Remember the Milk
What it is: Reminders is an Apple-provided to-do manager that supports location-aware notifications. Since the reminders are location aware, you can set up areas on a map where certain to-dos are supposed to be completed. When you leave or arrive at one of those areas, you’ll be alerted to a to-do relevant to that location.
How you can get it: Android has a wealth of to-do managers that support location awareness. None of them are built-in to the OS, but many of them are more feature-rich than Reminders is. ReQall Pro ($2.99/mo or $24.99/yr) is one of my favorite to-do applications for Android, partially because it will alert you when you’re in proximity to a location where a task needs to be completed. You can configure as many locations as you want, and when you add to-dos, just assign them to a location and the app handles the rest. Astrid is a free alternative, but you’ll need theLocale Add-On ($1.49) for location-based alerts. Remember The Milk Pro ($25/year) is another robust, location-aware alternative.
Feature: Camera Updates; The Solution: CameraZoom FX
What it is: iOS 5 boosts camera speed, and provides a new camera grid that makes lining up and framing your shots easier.
How you can get it: CameraZoom FX, our pick for the best camera app for Android will set you back just under $5 USD in the Android Market, but for your money you get the ability to configure which hardware buttons trigger your camera and you get a camera grid so you can line up your shot.
You also get filters to apply to your photos, options to tweak the white balance, the ability to shoot in burst mode, and one-tap uploads to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and other services. If you’re looking for a powerful camera app, this is it. If you want to mimic iOS 5′s new one-tap access to the camera, previously mentioned Widgetlockerlets you add an icon for the camera right on your phone’s lock screen, so you can tap it to go directly to the camera app, even if your phone is locked.
Read the entire article at How to Get iOS 5’s Biggest Features in Android Right Now.
You can reach Alan Henry, the author of this post, at alan@lifehacker.com, or better yet, follow him on Twitter or Google+.
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