Thread: All Things Android

^ Add $150 for the dock (same one as the Prime), but you get the proper keyboard and extra battery for that.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Look! An ipad killer!

Nice to see that you do have a sense of humor.

After all, the Asus Transformer line has done so well - what was it, they sold something like 5,000 of them.

They shoot themselves in the foot by announcing the next one before they've started shipping the last one.

Uh huh. I'm sure that's what it is.

Seriously, I've been waiting for the Prime HD to replace my netbook, but I'm not going to bother now if this is coming out in July. But then the bastards will probably announce something else.

And don't forget the PadFone, a good looking concept but I've forgotten how many targets they've missed since they failed to get it to market for Christmas.

It's still only just available in Taiwan.

I think Asus take product evolution a bit too far...

Uh huh. Yeah. Sure.

^ Oh dear, have you been drinking? Reduced to monosyllables.

Well Google I/O starts tomorrow, wonder what surprises are in store?

Although the leaks seem to be that they aren't going all out for Android 5.0, having seen the feeble effort Apple have come up with to try and catch up, it will probably now be an update release (JellyBean a.k.a. 4.1).

I wonder if they'll announce the Glasses? (And if they do, I wonder how quickly Apple will follow suit, making them in White with a "Cornea" display? ).

While Google has said the conference will focus on the cloud, Google Drive, Google Maps, and Android, industry analysts and watchers are hoping there will be some surprises.

Google is expected to launch its own 7-in. Nexus tablet. The tablet is expected to run Jelly Bean, the likely name of the next version of the Android operating system.
Speaking of Jelly Bean, more details are expected about the next iteration of Android. Code-named for what is likely to be Android 4.1, few details are known about Jelly Bean but it's not expected to be a huge update.

There's also expected to be news about Google's cloud platform. Analysts are hoping to hear more about Google Drive, the company's cloud storage service, first launched in April. Google may also go a step further and show off a cloud computing platform that would serve as infrastructure as a service.

Will Google show off its computer-powered eye glasses? There has been a lot of excitement building around the goggles, which Google co-founder Sergey Brin was spotted wearing earlier this spring. The glasses are expected to be priced between $250 and $600, and will include 3G or 4G data connections along with motion and GPS sensors. They also are expected to have a small screen that will sit a few inches from a user's eyes, along with a camera, microphone and speakers.

Well it's officially out, comes as a 17Mb update to the Beta. I'll give it try over the next couple of days and report back, meanwhile here's the gumph:

Firefox for Android Gets Faster, Adds Features [PICS]


1 hour ago by Emily Price 0
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Mozilla first launched Firefox for Android in March 2011. Although Android users were enthusiastic about the launch, that enthusiasm quickly turned to frustration over things like the start-up speed of the app, the amount of memory it took to run it, and the browser’s inability to support Flash.
Mozilla decided later that year to redesign the app from the ground up. Today, the product of that redesign and the past eight months of work officially coming out of beta.
Enhanced Performance

“The first thing users are going to notice is the performance,“ Johnathan Nightingale, director of Firefox Engineering told Mashable. “It’s nice to use. It’s pleasant. You don’t feel like you’re fighting against it. The stuff you want is literally at your fingertips.”
The new Firefox for Android features a substantial enhancement as far as speed, as well as a number of little ergonomic changes to make using the browser easier to do.
“The way that you interact with a browser on a phone is different than the way you would on a computer,” says Nightingale. Tuesday’s update, however, allows you to do almost anything you do on your home computer using Firefox on your mobile phone as well.
Firefox Sync

Firefox Sync will bring your browsing history, bookmarks and even your passwords from your desktop to your mobile phone. So if you’re filling out a form with your mailing address on your mobile phone, that form might auto-populate with your information just like it does on your home computer. Passwords you have saved to fill in automatically on your desktop will do the same on your mobile phone as well.
Flash Support

Firefox for Android also now supports Flash. Flash can often be a hindrance on mobile devices, and a “tap to play” feature attempts to take care of that issue, allowing you to have the Flash portions of a website play when you want them to. If you know you always want to see Flash sites and content on your mobile phone you can also set the browser to display Flash content all the time.
New HTML5 Capabilities

For developers, Firefox for Android now allows developers to create rich web apps and websites based on HTML5, JavaScript, CSS and other open web standards. Among the standards that Mozilla helped build are Camera API, Vibration API, Mobile Connection API, Battery Status API, Screen Orientation API and Geolocation API.
Future Plans

While Tuesday’s release is focused primarily on performance enhancements, Mozilla already has plans for a number of other improvements to the mobile browser in the future. Plans are in the works to port the browser over to tablets, add support for copy/paste, offer search suggestions (so, as you’re typing in the URL, bar quick options will appear), and a reader mode so you can read stripped-down versions of sites without header/footer info or ads.
Plans are also in the works to let users create HTML5 apps that can be saved to a phone’s home screen, much like any other app, and will launch in the browser without displaying things like the browser toolbar.
Firefox for Android is available for any Android handset running Froyo or above. Have you been test driving the beta in the past few months? Let us know your thoughts on the browser in the comments.

Nevermind Jellybean, where is my fukin Ice Cream Sandwich??? Come on Sony, pull ya finger out; having said that, Gingerbread has been great.

I don't know why you're dicking about, put it on yourself. Either go Cyanogenmod 9 or the latest MIUI, or one of the ones here

It's not that difficult to root an Android phone and customise it to suit precisely your own requirements, whether that be performance, battery life, functionally or razamatazz.

And if you don't like it, you can go back to the boring old Sony Stock ROM.

Mmm, I'd fuk it up somehow and wish I hadn't...

Meh, life is a gamble mate, I've been reflashing phones since the XDA and never had a problem that I couldn't recover from.

If you can reinstall Windows, you can flash your phone.

You could always insure it then drop it down the bog if you fuck it up.

Yeah, sounds awesomely user-friendly - consumers having to make up for the shortcomings and unwillingness of the Android manufacturers, time and time again.

Enjoy.

Originally Posted by Cthulhu

Yeah, sounds awesomely user-friendly - consumers having to make up for the shortcomings and unwillingness of the Android manufacturers, time and time again.

Enjoy.

Shortcomings? Wanting to customise a phone to suit your needs? A phone that you've paid for?

Rather than buying Apple shit and being told you're stuck with it until THEY decide to do anything new, and when it comes out it's streets behind the opposition?

Yeah, right.

Tell me Daffy, have you jailbroken any of your Apple devices?

Amazon Kindle Fire 2 landing just in time for Christmas?
Expect an 8.9-inch display
By John McCann May 17thCOMMENTS

All I want for Christmas is...

Online retail giant Amazon is readying its Kindle Fire 2 tablet for the festive period and it could sport a larger 8.9-inch display.
If you're already thinking about Christmas then firstly, shame on you, but secondly, Amazon may have the answer to your gift-giving conundrums.

The news comes via a Reuters source, who claims "Amazon plans to launch a new tablet closer to the holiday season later this year".

It's been suggested that the increase in screen size is an attempt by Amazon to challenge Apple's 9.7-inch iPad range, which currently dominates the market.
However the Amazon Kindle Fire offers a simple, budget option for those US consumers unable to stump up the cash for the extravagant new iPad or even the iPad 2.

The Kindle Fire 2 is expected to make the dash across the pond and land in the UK and the rest of Europe, with hopefully the same low price tag, as Amazon looks to take on the worldwide market.

Smallest (& cheapest) Android PC debuts for £33
by Desire Athow, 26 June, 2012



Chinese retailer DealExtreme has put a new network media player on sale which looks like a USB drive (and weighs a tiny 40g) but is actually a fully-fledged Android based computer capable of, well, replacing a desktop computer.

The device connects, via a HDMI port, to the TV set and is apparently powered via USB (although we're not sure how that is done).

At only 82 x 25 x 12mm, it is as powerful as some entry level tablets we've seen on the market and by far the cheapest computer we've seen at $51 (or roughly £33).

There's a single core Cortex-A8 based processor clocked at 1.2GHz, 512MB of RAM, 4GB onboard storage, Wi-Fi, a USB and microUSB port and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

The computer - which is not more expensive than the Raspberry Pi - supports 1080p plus a number of audio and video formats. You will also be able to plug USB flash drives (no hard disk drive) up to 32GB.

As expected you can literally plug and forget this computer behind your television. Note that it doesn't come with any keyboard or mouse (a bog standard wireless one combo would do the job).
Source : DealExtreme



Read more: Smallest (& cheapest) Android PC debuts for £33 | ITProPortal.com

I was looking at DealExtreme, which sells that gismo above.

If you click on Tablets they have about 7 pages of them.

I don't know how they could possibly tabulate exactly how many of these are sold each month, on that website or any other. Most of them don't even have a name.

Mind you, they also have lots of weird shit, like baseball caps with programmable scrolling LED displays, USB-powered cigarette lights and the like!

Originally Posted by Plan B

So far there's been so many iPad killers, so I wonder why the fucker isn't dead already?


Stevie (ran with the genius Woz, claimed all the credit) Jobs would be thinking along the same lines (if the fucker wasn't dead already). If anything can kill Android it'll be Win8 if it integrates with all the businesses still running windows and hooks in seamlessly with Win mobile.

Jobs (even dead) is still pissing in the wind.

I can tell you straight away that I'll be dumping every iPad in the company, simply because they'll run Office flawlessly, they have a keyboard and printing will be a doddle.

Our senior managers all asked for iPads because their kids told them to (great reason, eh?) and they haven't got a fucking clue what to do with them but surf.

^

I think that's the cruncher.


Every Business in the planet is running windows office. MacTard has the fanboys, but Apple in the last ten years has made no ground in the Business suite software.

Best effort has being Open.Office. still doesn't format docs to the M$ standard.

MacTard will win the casual tech user. And not a small market, so good for them.
The real battle now will be between Google online Docs or WinOffice online.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

I was looking at DealExtreme, which sells that gismo above.

If you click on Tablets they have about 7 pages of them.

I don't know how they could possibly tabulate exactly how many of these are sold each month, on that website or any other. Most of them don't even have a name.

Mind you, they also have lots of weird shit, like baseball caps with programmable scrolling LED displays, USB-powered cigarette lights and the like!

Yep. Good stuff on their site. I order a lot of weird shit from them. Free delivery to Thailand.

Originally Posted by Plan B

^

I think that's the cruncher.


Every Business in the planet is running windows office. MacTard has the fanboys, but Apple in the last ten years has made no ground in the Business suite software.

Best effort has being Open.Office. still doesn't format docs to the M$ standard.

MacTard will win the casual tech user. And not a small market, so good for them.
The real battle now will be between Google online Docs or WinOffice online.

Interesting that, I listened to someone from Japan's CERT last week talking about how after an earthquake and a tsunami they were royally fucked, because all of their controlled documents were unavailable because the servers got fucked, or the ones that might have been accessible were unavailable because the admins with the passwords were dead.

It's changed their whole approach to document management.