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| Image courtesy of androiduknewsetc.com |
Welcome to the new year , I hope you, as one of our loyal and faithful readers had a great break. Here at AndroidNZ we are getting back into the swing of things and you should expect to see a ton of quality content from here on out.
This week has not been quiet on the tech front and it's not surprising with CES sneaking up on us. From 10-13 January next week a multitude of the latest and greatest consumer electronic devices will be announced. Personally I'm holding out for Samsung to reveal the Galaxy SIII and quash some of the rumours that have been floating around (3D anyone?).
If you're keen to know what's been going on in the week leading up to CES then catch us after the jump for news, reviews and how to's for the week ending 8 January, 2012
Device & Technology Announcements
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| We have one of these babies! |
- The Kindle Fire had amazing holiday sales. We wrote about it here
- Asus have confirmed there is a 3G model of the Transformer Prime coming in March, this will include a more powerful GPS module
- The latest Transformer Prime firmware update is now available from the Asus Website
- For those concerned about the Transformer Prime GPS - it is an issue and Anandtech has a straightforward article explaining why (but not whether it actually matters). If you love innards then you'll also want to check out the tear-down
- Samsung announced the Galaxy Ace Plus and Galaxy M Style - both midrange phones, so not terribly exciting. You can check them out over at The Verge
- Over in India, a $60 (NZD) tablet has netted 1.4 million orders in two weeks. Pretty impressive
- What's news without an Android rumour or two right? well apparently Google are going to be releasing a high-end 7" Android tablet this year. Keep your eyes peeled for any sign of this at CES
- eFun announced a budget 9.7" tablet with fairly impressive specs. We should hear more at CES as well
- While previous iterations of Google TV were failures, a new version is coming with Marvell's Armada 1500 SoC. Anantech have a geez here
- If you own a Galaxy Note and want some official accessories, you can get em from Clove.co.uk
- The folks at WowWee have come up with some toys that combine Android devices and physical toys. TalkAndroid have a short article with links to some pretty cool videos
- For those with the Samsung Galaxy S i9000, you may be out of luck when it comes to getting an official Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) upgrade. First Samsung said they weren't upgrading, but were providing a value pack, then they scrapped even the value pack. You can find more details over at XDA. Fortunately some resourceful XDA folk are already working on unofficial roms
On the Patent/Lawsuit front
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| courtesy of frugaldad.com |
App News
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| Free for lucky Samsung customers |
- Inisoft managed to release an Ad supported version of their amazing DicePlayer video app
- Android Market has hit a pretty big milestone, there are now over 400,000 active applications, unfortunately we don't know how many of these are "fart" apps
- Galaxy on Fire 2, previously a Tegra exclusive is coming to other devices sometime in Q1 2012.
- EA and Samsung are offering Dead Space for free on Samsung Apps. It's a good idea to take advantage of this while it lasts as it's normally $9.99 and a very high quality game
- Swype have announced that a Beta version supporting Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) will be coming by the end of the month. Little do they know that current versions have already been modified to work on ICS.
- If you're running ICS but don't have the stock browser (for example running an HTC Sensation rom) you can get the stock browser with enhancements by installing ICS Browser Plus
- On the same note, if you're running ICS and want a Launcher similar to stock but better, then check out Nova Launcher
- Qualcomm have announced GameCommand, a market within Android Market (for games) - coming at CES 2012
- Mashable have come up with a questionable list of the top 10 Android games of 2011
- Some industrious hackers over at XDA have found a way to get the Amazon Kindle Fire "Silk" browser working on other devices
Interesting other stuff
- We released a new navigation menu onto our site, you can find details here
- Android version distribution has had an update with Android versions 4.0 and above finally showing on the charts (with less than 1%)
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| Gingerbread still has a majority share |
- Have you ever wondered why mobile devices seem limited in speed, even when connected via 802.11n? well, Anandtech have some answers
- Apparently all ICS devices are going to include the default Holo theme, although it's up to manufacturers whether they use it. This has some complex implications when it comes to future apps. I found a great explanation over at XDA with links to discussions from reknowned developer Chainfire
Reviews
While we wait on the forthcoming reviews of the Galaxy Nexus and Motorola Razr you can be thankful that we have another exciting device:
- Our industrious leader NZtechfreak has gotten hold of the ever elusive Asus Transformer Prime. He has an unboxing video here and viewable below
- If you're concerned about video playback (and rightly so) then he has also done one of his famous video playback shootout articles
- You want to store a massive amount of movies and music on your shiny new Transformer Prime? well NZtechfreak has also ensured that 64GB SDXC cards do in fact work
- He also ensured that the Transformer Prime is ready to go when it comes to connectivity. You can watch him play Super Mario 64 if you'd like
- Planning on selling your Galaxy SII anytime soon? you may want to restore it back to stock. Fortunately we have a guide on how to do this
- While I'm sure NZtechfreak will release a guide to rooting the Transformer Prime in due time, in the meantime over on XDA there is an easy to use tool that can root and unroot the TF Prime
If you feel there's anything important we've missed, let us know in the comments below.
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