Samsung’s own Android “skin”, the TouchWiz user interface, received a new version in the Samsung Galaxy S II. The phone features TouchWiz 4.0 over Android 2.3 Gingerbread, and while there are no drastic changes, some of the updates are worth mentioning.

Interface

First off, there are a number of visual improvements – the icon set has been redrawn anew, the widgets have been polished and more transparent backgrounds are abound. Everything looks much slicker now and, at times, reminds us of the HTC Sense UI graphics quality, which, of course, is still a much more comprehensive Android overlay than TouchWiz.

Having both Phone and Contacts icons in the dock strip at the bottom of the screen is a waste of space, if you ask us, since both lead you to the same phoning app. Good that you can replace the first three icons on the dock with any shortcut of your choosing from the main menu edit function.

The phone functions screen has four tabs at the top – Keypad, Logs, Contacts and Favorites – so you can easily switch from direct dialing to searching for one of your contact’s details, for example. As usual, you can integrate your Facebook, Gmail and Twitter friends in the contacts list, as well as your corporate buddies from your company’s Exchange server. Syncing all those allows you to view plenty of details without ever leaving the Contacts app; for example – Facebook status updates or uploaded picture albums…

Read the whole Walkthrough at PhoneArena.com!

The tech world witnessed another newsworthy I/O conference keynote by Google yesterday, with the announcements of Android Ice Cream Sandwich, Honeycomb 3.1, Music Beta and movie rentals.

While these were great to kick the two-day event in high gear, they were not the only things announced for the relatively short 55 minutes keynote. Google also demonstrated the so-called Android Open Accessory project. In a nutshell, it allows accessories to connect via USB ports to Android-powered gear (Android 2.3.4 and above only), where they act as an USB host, providing at least 500mAh at 5V for charging.

The whole premise is based on the Arduino open source electronic prototyping platform, and was demonstrated in a funny way by one employee riding a stationary bike. The bike was connected via USB to a phone running Android Ice Cream Sandwich, and the guy had to guide a little green robot through a cave’s perils by speeding up and down, in an app called CardioQuest.

Google has released a free Android Development Kit for techies to start working on the numerous possibilities that come to mind, and also demoed how a Motorola XOOM tablet commands a physical Labyrinth board via USB. The fun starts at 35:40 into in the video.

Another glimpse into the future of Android was shown with the so-called Android@Home automation service. Google’s mobile OS is seriously gearing up to control your home lighting, HVAC, and home appliances. Lights can be turned on and off according to your alarm schedule or events in your Calendar, washing machines can be given marching orders, and one cool music device concept named Tungsten was shown. It is an Android-powered device hub, demonstrated in different shapes and forms, and an ability to store and playback your CDs by just nearing their NFC tags to Tungsten was showcased. The Android@Home demonstration starts at 42:37 into the video

When we think of robots, we tend to think about the two major types: high-end robots and vacuum cleaners. Some examples of high-end robots include bomb disposal units, and radiation detecting robots. But iRobot CEO Colin Angle hopes to create a market for mid-range service robots.

And what’s better than a robot serving as your daily helper? That robot, named AVA, will be powered by Android tablets! The Android tablet, a Motorola XOOM in this case, will serve as the processing and sensory core, while the iRobot machinery underneath will provide the mobility and physical functions.

Angle explains how the tablet and AVA came together: “We in the robot industry realized this is a fantastic head for a robot…what was missing was the body.” With the front-facing camera, microphone, speakers, and accelerometer, the XOOM requires only the body and the programming.

Some keen readers might remember that AVA was initially demonstrated with an iPad at CES. Angle explains that the change was made for features like voice and video chat. “We’re tablet-agnostic…Right now, Android has what we need,” explains Angle.

iRobot’s hope is to sell AVA to developers this year, and enter businesses next year. And once the price comes down, AVA can enter homes, and provide everything from domestic assistance to virtual doctors’ visits.

source: CNET

Pyramid Research senior analyst Stela Bokun expects Windows Phone 7 to take off this year with its popularity even exceeding that of Android since Google’s open source OS was introduced in 2008. The reason for this explosion? Microsoft’s deal with Nokia should help bring prices of Windows Phone 7 devices down. Besides Nokia, other manufacturers will also support Windows Phone 7 allowing for a wide range of styles and price points.

Writing on Pyramid’s blog, the analyst says, “With the change in the price of WP devices, and the multivendor strategic approach of Microsoft, the main advantage of Android – scale – may be removed.”

Sounds like an ambitious forecast by Bokun, especially when considering the momentum that Android still has in the marketplace, and the lack of it on Windows’ part. And remember, it was a particular piece of hardware-the Motorola DROID-mixed with Android 2.0 that set off Androidmania. For Windows Phone 7 to copy this, it will require a major upgrade to the OS, which is indeed coming in the form of the Mango upgrade, and a particular piece of hardware that captures the attention of cell phone fanatics the way the DROID did in late 2009 on the way to being named Time Magazine gadget of the year. The hardware is the missing piece to the Windows Phone 7 puzzle that remains a wild card for now.

source: BGR

Pyramind Research analyst Stela Bokun sees Windows Phone 7 passing Android in demand by 2013

Since Apple’s recent location tracking scandal, both Google and Apple have been trying to explain or refute their alleged infringements on users’ privacy. Today, they got the opportunity to present their cases to a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.

Apple, which was the first to be implicated in a potential breach of privacy, argued that they aren’t really tracking device locations. Instead, they say they are using crowdsourcing to locate cell towers and Wi-Fi hotspots. And the “Consolidated.db” file, which prompted the privacy investigation, is allegedly not tracking individual user locations.

Google said that all of their location tracking is optional, and users can choose to turn their location services off. Apple’s iOS, on the other hand, was still adding information to “Consolidated.db” even when location services were off. But a recent iOS update has remedied this.

Google further demonstrated their commitment to users’ privacy by suggesting that privacy legislation be adapted to the present technological landscape. They point out that a user’s data on a remote server isn’t protected by the 4th Amendment (regarding search and seizure) in the same way that their physical property might be.

So is this just a dog-and-pony show for the consumer’s benefit? We figure that even if Google and Apple are just trying to pacify consumers, it will still lead to an improvement in consumer privacy laws. What do you think?

source: MobileBurn

One of the worst kept secrets about the Google I/O conference was that the company will announce a cloud-based music service. And it did indeed – Music Beta will be available to US-based users for now, and it will be free, also for now. The service will be accessible with invites at first, similar to what Google did with Gmail back in the days.

Buyers of the Motorola XOOM tablet on Verizon, however, will be given a priority with invites, rubbing our nose once again at who’s the poster child of Android Honeycomb. Music Beta will be specifically optimized for Honeycomb, but handsets with Android 2.2 Froyo and above will be also able to dip in.

The bad part is that Google didn’t manage to score license deals with the major labels, citing their business demands as unreasonable, so essentially you will be getting one huge amount of online storage for up to 20 000 of your own songs to stream, and you won’t be able to download anything. Still, from the video below it seems that there is some sort of caching service for your most recently played songs, so you can play them even if you are offline, like Google Maps 5.0 caches your route. We are not sure the labels will be ecstatic about this option. Music Beta reminds us of Amazon’s Cloud Drive, which also didn’t have luck with the music publishers, but it offers only 2000 songs/5GB of space for free anyway.

Now for the techie details – uploads will be handled by dedicated clients for Mac and PC, but the web-based player will be Adobe Flash-based, sorry, iOS. Moreover, Music Beta will be accessible from Android devices only for now, and both online-based and songs in your local storage will be seamlessly integrated in the Android music player, similar to what Google is doing with the Android Gallery and your Picasa photos.

Streaming will be done with up to 320kbps quality, depending on the network strength, and you can create playlists accessible from anywhere you can run your Music Beta account – desktop computer or your Android smartphone and tablet. There is even a service called Instant Mix that can make you a mixtape based on a single song you point it to, pretty neat.

We can finally save on memory cards and external hard drives by moving our music to the cloud, and accessing them from anywhere with an Internet connection. Now where’s that invite? If Google Music stays beta the amount of time Gmail did, our music streaming needs will be covered for quite some time pro bono.

Google’s Android OS has quickly matched the seemingly unbeatable iOS. But their one shortcoming has been the lack of music and movie support in the Android Market, to match the established and polished iTunes storefront.

But Android users are one step closer, now that Google has announced a movie rental service through the Android Market. Rentals begin at US$1.99, but new releases appear to be $3.99 each.

In addition to streaming the films, you can also “pin” them, meaning that you can temporarily save them to your device for offline viewing. While it’s still no iTunes, the Android Movie Market appears to have a wealth of new releases and old favorites.

But the question remains: Are you really interested in renting movies for your mobile device? Obviously, tablet-owners will get greater enjoyment, but they make up a relatively small segment of the total Android population. So perhaps Google is just planning ahead for when their tablet market share grows.

source: Android Market via Android and Me

After bragging about 100 million activations hit in 2011, and Android Market reaching 4.5 billion downloads to date, at Moscone Center in San Francisco Google announced the newest version of Android – Ice Cream Sandwich.

It’s not just bringing over the good stuff like the holographic UI and richer widgets from Android Honeycomb, the tablet version, but adding a few new features of its own.

Speaking of Honeycomb, it is getting updated to 3.1 as of this moment, and users of the Motorola XOOM on Verizon can get the update right now. It adds USB host support to Android, for hooking up tens of peripherals like cameras, keyboards and game controllers directly to your Android tablet. Some of the other new features are cosmetic – the widgets can now be customized to stretch vertically or horizontally any way the developers like. Some include new apps, like Movie Studio for video editing, new Movies and Books apps, for renting said media, and a faster browser with new Quick Controls settings. Not to mention that Honeycomb is heading to Google TV as well, if that ever takes off.

Ice Cream Sandwich, in its turn, was just called Google’s “most ambitious release to date“, and the aim is for it to power tablets, convertible tablets, and, of course, phones. Google will be ramping up its efforts developing the application framework, to avoid fragmentation. Mike Claron from the Android Engineering Team said that Google wants one OS that runs on everything.

Read the whole story at PhoneArena.com!

When it launched back in February, the $99.99 on-contract price that graced the HTC Inspire 4G was in itself spectacular on so many different levels – even more when it’s classified as a top notch smartphone from HTC’s camp. In addition, as we all know, strictly online retailers like Amazon, Lets Talk, and Wirefly might have the upper hand when it comes to handset pricing, but generally you’re required to stick with a specific plan – and in the event you drop from it, hefty penalties are usually in-bound.  Moreover, pricing is not uniform all the time with their lineup.

Thankfully, RadioShack is pricing the HTC Inspire 4G at $29.99 with a 2-year contract – and best of all, it’s available to new and existing customers with qualified upgrades. Although some will point out its last-generation like specs, especially taking into account the wave of handsets we’re seeing with dual-core processors, it’s still nevertheless an admirable smartphone that’s top notch in so many ways.

For $29.99, you really can’t deny the fact that it’s one alluring price, but it’s definitely nice to see that existing customers can get in with that deal as well. If you’re considering scooping up this handset, just remember that this limited time offer is good until May 21st.

via BGR

If you missed out on scooping up the aggressively priced T-Mobile G2x last week through RadioShack when it was set at $99.99, fear not because it appears that Wirefly is giving the handset the same treatment this week.

Considering that it’s arguably the best Android smartphone that’s gracing Big Magenta’s lineup right now, the $99.99 on-contract pricing it’s being offered to new customers is astoundingly fantastic – and half off to what T-Mobile is asking for. Although upgrades generally do not receive much love from online retailers, existing customers with qualified upgrades are still being given a $50 discount versus the usual pricing – meaning, you’ll only need to shell out $150 for an upgrade.

In a time when other equally respectable smartphones are priced higher than $200, say like the HTC ThunderBolt and Samsung Droid Charge, the asking price that Wirefly is presenting us for it isn’t that bad at all. Luckily, this doesn’t seem to be a one-day sale kind of thing, but rather, it’s probably going to be offered at that price point for the rest of the week.

source: Wirefly