Apple succeeds in getting Google Nexus banned [u]

Following a Friday hearing before Judge Lucy Koh at the Californial District Court in San Jose, Samsung’s Google Nexus smartphone has been temporarily banned in the US. Apple was successful in convincing the Judge that its claims of patent infringement were likely to succeed based primarily on the validity of the so-called “Siri” patent. Although there are four patents at issue, the Judge has issued the temporary injunction based on the one she believes may be costing Apple sales of its flagship iPhone 4S.

While the Galaxy nexus is not Samsung’s biggest seller, the fact that it’s the latest “vanilla” development device, designed and built with input from Google, gives it an importance that exceeds its mere sales numbers. Judge Koh, in her ruling on the injunction, stated… "Apple has clearly shown that it is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary injunctive relief”.

However, she also acknowledged that Samsung was definitely going to suffer irreparable harm as a result of her agreeing to the injunction, and ordered Apple to post bond to the tune of US$96 million as compensation for lost sales should the forthcoming patent trial find Samsung was not infringing Apple’s patents.

Galaxy S III: USB audio, is it really working?

Could this be THE audio lovers Android handset? Your
gateway device to the world of hard audio?
(apologies in advance for your wallet)

I hope you guys don't mind hearing about my little hobby horse once again, but I have some news that I thought I'd share with you in relation to the back-and-forth saga of USB audio and the Galaxy S III.

If you want to know whether the S III can really be a portable player to satisfy the more demanding audio fans out there, then you'd better read on just over the break...

Samsung Galaxy S3, more secrets revealed: Samsung extends USB OTG and bluetooth capabilities in ICS

If you were with us earlier today then you'll have noticed that my update path to the official ICS release for the Note was less than smooth, but could have been far worse. Long story short: I'm on official ICS on my Note and its running well, for now at any rate.

As per usual I soon got down to testing some of the connectivity options at the Note's disposal with various peripheral devices. Not only were my findings very interesting for Galaxy Note owners, they also give us some additional and previously unknown insights into the connectivity options that we're likely to see enabled in the Galaxy S III.

I may be drawing a longer bow here than I did in my previous secrets revealed piece, but I think the conclusions will prove sound.

Make the jump for the big reveal...


(For now let me just say that gamers and composers will be pleased!)

Official ICS starts rolling out for the Galaxy Note

IMPORTANT UPDATE - RISK OF HARD BRICK WITH ICS UPGRADE:

So, last night I updated to the new official ICS release firmware from Samsung. I was coming from the leaked ICS repack, so it was a riskier and more difficult proposition than it might be for people who are still on Gingerbread. I managed it in the end, but not without some tribulation in the form of bootloops at a couple of junctures in the two-part flash.

I was just starting to think about getting down to writing my guide for you all when I was alerted to this thread at XDA (via Chainfire on Twitter). The thread is a dire warning about a bug in the firmware that can result in a hard brick. If you're not familiar a hard brick means your phone is dead without chance of recovery. Dead. Without. Chance. Of. Recovery.

The thing is that the bug is unpredictable, and short of abstaining from flash there is no way to protect yourself from it. This seems to apply mostly to unofficial methods of installing ICS and the use of CWM recovery, but there are ominous and thus far unsubstantiated reports of hard bricks with the official update too. For that reason I will not be producing a guide for flashing to the ROM at this time, and will also be removing my instructions for flashing to the Chinese repack once I'm done with this post. Naturally once the issue is resolved you can expect a guide for safely flashing up to ICS here at AndroidNZ, but for the meantime I can only recommend that you remain on Gingerbread until it rolls out to you officially. Sorry folks, but there it is.

[IMPORTANT UPDATE - DO NOT UPGRADE TO ICS - RISK OF HARDBRICK] Samsung Galaxy Note: ICS installation guide, detailed impressions with video walkthrough [At Your Own Risk]

Up until a few days ago I was really beginning to worry that Samsung wasn't on track with it's release schedule for bringing ICS to the Galaxy Note. I'd been watching leaked ICS ROMs come to the Galaxy S II with an alarming frequency for weeks and weeks, but nothing for the Note. Given Samsung seem to be as leaky as a sieve when it comes to keeping their firmwares in-house, this just made me think the Note might have been getting a bit neglected. Fortunately those fears have proven unfounded, as an ICS build for the Note leaked a couple of days ago. Naturally I flashed it ASAP, I mean, what's a self-respecting Android geek to do?

The video above is a walkthrough through some of the highlights and lowlights of this early build [Spoiler alert: it's nearly all highlights]. After the break I throw down a few more thoughts, and, possibly more importantly, lay out how you can flash this onto your own Note.

...and trust me, you'll want to.

The Transformer Prime 'Real-user' Review: Part 2 - "A tale of two concepts..."

Transformer Prime and dock, flash drive inserted in dock's USB port.

The Asus Transformer Prime is probably, as I write this, the quintessential Android media tablet. Besides the fact that it appears to be the only Android tablet running Ice Cream Sandwich that the public can actually get their hands on, it also has a hardware specification basically unequalled in Androidville, or anyplace else for that matter. Yet the Prime's dock most certainly adds another dimension entirely.

In Part One of this review, we explored the concept of the media tablet. Or perhaps, more accurately, we explored the difficulty in defining the role of the tablet. In this second part, we'll see that it's even more of an enigma than we might have expected, especially given the rapid evolution the category is undergoing.

At the conclusion of this review, we'll come back to this point and hopefully make some sense of the ever-morphing beast, but as a starting point it's helpful to recognise that there's the iPad - and there's the tablet - and they're not the same thing at all.

The Transformer Prime 'Real-user' Review: Part 1 - "A first time for everything..."

Prologue...

The Transformer Prime with optional dock.

This is my first ever media tablet review. In order to review it, I had to work out how - you have to understand what it's supposed to do if you're to determine how well it does it and that, my friends, is not as easy as it sounds when you say it fast.

For background, I took time to read web articles and talked to friends and family about their expectations for tablets. I read blog posts and Wikis and encouraged people to play with the Prime. I looked at the software and the hardware. And especially the form factor to see how well it interfaces with those with little or no previous media tablet experience (including me).

In the end, that's really all you can do without a predetermined set of expectations. So the following review is very much from the point of view of a tablet neophyte – somebody who is looking for an answer to the question “what's it for?” while at the same time trying to determine whether or not it succeeded in achieving that.

It's safe to say that I had a few surprises.

The Galaxy Nexus "Real-user" Review: Part 1 - Initial impressions, design/build quality, benchmarks, software and user experience

Image courtesy of GalaxyNexus.com

Sometimes being a gadget loving geek can be tough. I have to manage two Android phones, an Android tablet, play with accessories like the Breffo SpiderPodium and sometimes NZtechfreak even has the audacity to send me new devices! I mean who wants to test out a cutting edge devices all the time?

Well, actually I do! And that’s why I’m now writing a review for the official Google handset of 2011, the Galaxy Nexus. While you poor sots are stuck with devices running Gingerbread (or earlier), I’m being treated to a much tastier morsel – Ice Cream Sandwich, with a pretty sweet piece of hardware to boot.

If you’re interested in finding out what I thought then keep reading after the jump:

A Brief History Of Android - Part 4: Crossroads

Ice Cream Sandwich. Sweeeet...

In this series so far, we've looked at the modest beginnings of Android through its various iterations, with our last chapter focusing on the explosive growth of the platform in the last year. To the makers of competitive platforms, Android's rise to dominance has been a serious impediment to their own good fortune. And they haven't been shy in roundly criticising Google's effort whenever the opportunity arises either.

Although Android's perceived weaknesses have been the subject of regular negative commentary from the opposition camps, the spectacular performance of the little green robot has continued unabated. So what's going on here? If Android is the disaster that its opponents claim it to be, shouldn't it be failing miserably? Is it failing at all? Let's have a peek after the jump.

Ice Cream Sandwich spotted on the ASUS Transformer Prime

With the impending release of the ASUS Transformer Prime, I can definitely say it is up there on my christmas list. The Tegra 3 processor, ultra-thin design and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich are all features that I've been longing for.

The original Transformer was notable for its keyboard docking station which essentially turned the tablet into a netbook, whilst also adding extra battery life.

To quench some of your Prime thirst, NVIDIA has released a video showing off the power of the Tegra 3 processor in gaming, video and overall usage. Check out the video below and if you're anything like me, you'll agree the performance looks buttery smooth.

[At Your Own Risk] Get the Roboto font on your Rooted Galaxy Note

If you're waiting for my next Galaxy Note review instalment I'm afraid this post will disappoint you; this is not the post you're looking for. Don't worry though, those posts are coming very soon!

This post is for people who have, or will have, the Galaxy Note - a brief guide for how to get the Roboto font from Ice Cream Sandwich on your Note right now. If you missed out on the press surrounding the Roboto font, it's the default font in the upcoming iteration of the Android OS, and it's something a little bit special. You see, the typeface for Roboto has been specially designed with high density, high resolution screens in mind. It promises to give you the best text reading experience on your HD screen, which of course makes it a must on the 5.3 inches of gorgeous Super AMOLED HD found in the Note.

Hit us up after the break to see how simple it is to get this running on your Note.

[Announcement] HTC Rezound coming to Verizon

Image courtesy of GSMArena.com

Earlier today in New York, HTC announced the imminent release of the HTC Rezound handset. Previously known as the HTC Vigor; the HTC Rezound comes with Beats Audio, a promising 4.3" 720p display (that's 342ppi!) and LTE 4G support in the US.

Unfortunately HTC are still using the outdated Qualcomm MSM 8660 Snapdragon core processor (albeit at 1.5GHz) so I think it's pixel pushing powers may be a little lacking - especially without the hardware acceleration of Android 4.0 ICS. It is also very thick, weighing in at 13.65mm, more than 1.5 times the thickness of a Galaxy SII.

Despite any apparent shortcomings this may turn out to be quite a decent handset with such a high res display.Unfortunately it's going to have to compete with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus which is being released at around the same time.

If you're interested in getting one and live here in little ol' New Zealand you're out of luck; however if you live in the USA then check out Verizon and Best Buy stores from 14th November onwards.


Over at The Verge you can find full coverage including a hands-on and if you're interested in the technical specs, over at GSMArena they have the full list.