Nexus S with Android 2.3 Gingerbread in stores Dec 16

By Sergey Povzner | Published: December 6, 2010

Google announced today that Samsung Nexus S will be the first phone to get Android 2.3 Gingerbread when it goes on sale December 16 at US Best Buy stores. It will be available for $529 unlocked or $199 with 2-year T-Mobile contract. Similarly to Nexus One, Nexus S is a developer phone with an unlocked bootloader (for easy installation of custom system images) and is not locked to a carrier (can be used on any GSM network using a SIM card).

Hardware

Nexus S specs include 4.0″ WVGA Super AMOLED screen, 1Ghz Hummingbird CPU, 16GB internal storage, Quad-Band GSM, Tri-Band 3G (T-Mobile frequencies), HSDPA, Near Field Communication (NFC), gyroscope, 5 MP rear camera w/ flash and front-facing VGA camera. Notable omissions from the specs are: HSPA+, microSD slot, 720p recording.

Samsung Nexus S

Software

Nexus S will be the first phone to ship with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and with NFC chip, gyroscope and front facing camera it is equipped to fully utilize new Gingerbread features.

For more info see Google’s Nexus S page, brief Techcrunch review (good news: no problems with gps) and watch the promotional video:

Posted in Android, Mobile | 3 Comments

Android 2.3 Gingerbread announced, SDK released

By Sergey Povzner | Published: December 6, 2010

Today is a busy day for Android users and developers. Android 2.3 was officially announced with lots of new features. Android 2.3 SDK is released. Samsung Nexus S is announced as the first phone to be sold with Gingerbread on December 16 at Best Buy (unlocked or with a T-Mobile service plan).

For users, the most notable additions in Android 2.3 Gingerbread are:

  • increased speed and responsiveness
  • improved stock keyboard and select text/copy/paste functionality
  • better power management
  • support for devices with large screens such as tablets
  • Internet telephony with native SIP support (WiFi only?)
  • near-field communication (NFC) protocol (device specific, meaning that phone’s hardware has to include NFC chip)
  • support for multiple cameras (e.g. front facing camera) in stock Android
  • user interface refinements

You can find more details at the Android 2.3 highlights page and Gingerbread user’s guide.

For Android developers, new features include enhancements for gaming, support for new forms of communication (VOIP, NFC), mixable audio effects, and support for new media formats.

Android 2.3 Gingerbread home screen

Sources: developer.android.com,  Android Police

Posted in Android, Mobile | 1 Comment

News: Google Docs editing on Android/iPhone, Google Voice app finally approved for iPhone, Galaxy S owners keep waiting for 2.2 update

By Sergey Povzner | Published: November 19, 2010

News:

  • Editing of Google Docs is now available on Android (2.2+), iPhone and iPad (iOS 3.0+). Editing Google Spreadsheets in the mobile browser has been available for a while now.

Google Docs editing on Android

  • Apple approved official Google Voice app for iOS. Finally, a ridiculous 1.5 year App Store ban of a very useful application has ended. Google Voice app was famously rejected by Apple in July 2009 for “duplicating” functionality prompting FCC inquiry. Apple didn’t comment on whether FCC inquiry or competition from Android, where Google Voice has been available since day one, prompted the end of the ban.
  • Samsung Galaxy S owners keep waiting for Android 2.2 update and Samsung has not yet announced dates for official update for US customers. Samsung Canada promised Vibrant and Captivate Android 2.2. updates in mid-December and Fascinate in early 2011.These delays do not help Samsung’s reputation of poor support (slow releasing or not releasing updates) of existing models. HTC and Motorola updated many of their phones to Android 2.2 in August-October.
  • Using Gmail? A Gmail security list from Google.
  • What Google knows about you and how to tweak it.
  • Google Maps for Android updated with Hotpot: ability to rate places on the go and get personalized recommendations.
  • Rovio updated Angry Birds for Android  to version 1.4.2. The update didn’t go very well with Android Angry Birds fans: while the update includes 45 new levels, the ads are now more prominent and annoying. Moreover, a lot of  users complained about various performance issues on some phones, which prompted Rovio to post on their blog that another update is coming.
Posted in Android, iPhone, Mobile, News | 1 Comment

Full version of Angry Birds now available for Android

By Sergey Povzner | Published: October 15, 2010

The title says it all: full version of insanely addictive Angry Birds game with 150 levels is now available on Android Market. It works on most Android 1.6+ devices (those that support Open GL ES 2.0, which means all newer Android phones). Number of levels to increase to 200 in few weeks. For Android it is released as a free ad-supported app. If you don’t see it in the Android Market, here’s the download link from Android Zoom. Enjoy!

Angry Birds Full Android Version

Posted in Android, Apps, Mobile | Leave a comment

Speed up your Android: free up internal phone storage

By Sergey Povzner | Published: September 30, 2010

If your Android phone seems to be running slower than it used to, check how much available internal storage it has left. If it has less than 30% left, freeing up some space will speed up the phone. That is because flash memory which is used for internal storage gets significantly slower as it gets full.

How slow? Take a look at the chart below from Google I/O talk by Brad Fitzpatrick, Android developer (and creator of LiveJournal and dev tools such as memcached). The chart shows how long it takes to write 512 bytes to the phone internal storage (NAND flash) on two different Nexus One phones. As you can see, write times slow down significantly as the internal phone storage gets full. Another point is that performance between different devices varies a lot, but there’s little you can do about that.

Writing to NAND flash memory on Nexus One

While performance of the disk write operations does not directly translate to overall performance of the phone, it has a significant influence on the phone performance. Fitzpatrick mentioned that when some Android users notice phone performance improvement after factory reset, that is due to the fact that internal phone storage has been freed up by the reset.

You can check how much space you have left on internal phone storage by going to Settings->SD card & phone storage. This, however, won’t tell you the total space which you can either look up on wikipedia’s page for your phone or by using any of the system utilities, such as Android System Info (download link). If your phone’s available space is less than 30%, you should consider freeing more space up by following these simple steps:

  1. Remove unused apps. Go to Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications, click Menu, Sort by Size and remove all unused apps with greater attention paid to the larger apps at the top of the list.
  2. Move apps that officially support apps2sd to SD card. Use “App 2 SD” application (download link) to find out which of your installed apps can be moved.
  3. Move remaning apps to SD card by using an easy hack described in this article: How to move all Android apps to SD card.

Spending a little time on these maintenance steps will pay off by your zippier Android phone.

Related posts:

Posted in Android, FroYo, How To, Mobile, Tips | 5 Comments

How to move almost all Android apps to SD card (no root required)

By Sergey Povzner | Published: September 24, 2010

One of the most anticipated additions to Android 2.2 (aka Froyo) was ability to install applications to SD card, because it helps to free internal memory. When internal phone memory gets full, Android users have two problems: 1) users can’t install any more apps and 2) phone starts working slowly. The slow down is caused by the lower speed of write operations to the internal memory (see this post for more information on this topic), but the bottom line is that having low available space in the internal memory is not desirable.

So what should a user do when Android phone is running out of internal memory? Uninstalling rarely used apps is an obvious and easiest solution. Moving apps that support Froyo’s apps2sd feature to SD card is another option. However, for this feature to work developers need to enable this option in their apps and unfortunately many large apps still do not support apps2sd.

It turns out there is a hack that lets you move almost any Android app to SD card, even if the app developer did not enable this option. And the best part: obtaining root is not required for this to work. More about this hack below, but first let’s take look at the limitations of the Android apps2sd feature.

Apps2sd limitations

Apps2sd functionality is a step in the right direction. However, the way it is implemented creates some restrictions which you should know about:

  • When an app is moved to SD card, portion of an app still remains in the internal phone memory. On average, you can expect that application’s footprint in the phone memory will be reduced by a factor of 2. Note that for some apps the move will save less than 50%, e.g. Google Earth size in the internal memory reduces from 20.5 MB to 15MB, Adobe Flash Player 10.1 reduces from 12.4 MB to 8 MB.
  • If you use a widget on your home screen from an app, this app should not be moved to SD card because the widget will stop working.
  • Android OS doesn’t have any batch tools to move all movable apps to SD card at once. You will need to manually move one app at a time by going through the list of installed apps in Settings->Applications->Manage Applications. This means 2 taps per app and can be a tedious process.
  • System apps such as Maps and Youtube cannot be moved to SD card using stock firmware on unrooted phone. On some phones Adobe Flash Player is pre-installed as a system app and also cannot be moved. Providers may also install bloatware as system apps, which also cannot be moved on unrooted phone. However, on a rooted phone system apps can be deleted or moved – see FAQ below.
  • If you re-flash phone’s firmware, some backup applications may not restore your apps to SD card, but will restore them to the phone memory.

Despite these restrictions, moving apps to SD card is a good way to free up internal phone memory and speed up your Android phone.

Read More »

Posted in Android, Apps, CyanogenMod, FroYo, Gingerbread, How To | 344 Comments

News: Android walking navigation, Verizon cripples Samsung Fascinate, Google Instant launched, Apple relaxes dev tools restrictions

By Sergey Povzner | Published: September 10, 2010
News:
  • Android Google Maps application is updated with walking step-by-step navigation. User interface of the Maps app has been slightly updated and now Layers, Places and My Location icons are always visible in the main view.

Android Google Maps 4.5

  • Samsung Fascinate goes on sale with Verizon. An otherwise excellent version of the Samsung’s Galaxy S line has been significantly crippled by Verizon: Google search has been replaced with Bing search and users cannot change the search engine in the stock firmware. This earns Samsung Fascinate a place in the Android Phones to Avoid list.
  • Google launched Instant Search: search results are displayed as users type their queries.
  • Apple relaxed restrictions that should have never been placed in the first place on using 3rd party compilers to create apps for iPhone OS (iOS). The infamous section 3.1.1 has been added in April to block Adobe’s Flash development tool that compiled Flash apps into native iPhone apps. The sudden turnaround has been caused by the rapidly increasing popularity of Android OS, which doesn’t place any restrictions on development tools.
  • Apple made no changes to its censorship policies of the App Store, but the guidelines are now available to the registered iPhone developers. For the rest of the world, this creepy document can be read at gizmodo.
  • Notifications of the missed calls to your Google Voice number can be delivered to your Gmail Inbox.
  • 5 tips for using Priority Inbox.
Posted in News | Leave a comment

Angry Birds game arrives to Android (beta)

By Sergey Povzner | Published: September 7, 2010

Warning: stop reading this and navigate away if you are an addictive person and/or have important things to do in your life in the next few days.

Angry Birds, which is a smash hit game on iPhone OS, arrived as a public beta to Android last Friday. According to the developers, the game sold 6.5 million copies from Apple App Store and its free version was installed 11 million times. It is currently number one paid game at the App Store and for a good reason: the game is cleverly made, has excellent graphics and sounds effects, and is super addictive. In the last few days Angry Birds Lite has been downloaded over 250,000 times from Androud Market, got over 13000 ratings and has average rating of 4 out of 5 despite not working on some devices (see below). To download free Angry Birds Lite beta for Android click on this link from your phone’s browser (it is currently available only for Android 2.2+ devices) or scan this QR code with Barcode Scanner on your Android phone:

Angry Birds QR code

Read More »

Posted in Android, Apps | 3 Comments

News: CyanogenMod 6.0 arrives, Gmail Priority Inbox, Sprint Epic 4G released, Android LVL tips

By Sergey Povzner | Published: September 3, 2010

News:

  • CyanogenMod-6.0, first stable Android 2.2 based CyanogenMod distribution, is released for the following phones: Nexus One, Motorola Droid, HTC EVO, HTC Desire, HTC Incredible, HTC Hero (GSM/CDMA), HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1), HTC Magic, HTC Aria, MT3G Slide. Find a version for your phone here. CyanogenMod is a free, community built distribution of Android 2.2 (Froyo) which greatly extends the capabilities of your phone. List of changes in CyanogenMod-6.0.
  • Samsung Galaxy Tab presented at the IFA conference in Berlin. First impressions from Android and Me and Tim Bray.
  • In response to a recently published article on how to disable Android LVL (License Verification Library) check, Android Developers blog published must read tips for any paid Android app developer on making LVL  related code more secure: code obfuscation, modifying the license library, making your application tamper-resistant and offloading license validation to a trusted server.
  • DROID Incredible gets Android 2.2 update.
  • Samsung Epic 4G is now available from Sprint. Sprint’s variation of Samsung Galaxy S line includes slide-out hardware keyboard, dual cameras, LED flash and 4G. The phone currently runs on Android 2.1, although it is expected to be upgraded to 2.2 soon.

Samsung Epic 4G i9000

  • Gmail introduces Priority Inbox: an inbox for your most important emails.
  • Get more out of calling in Gmail: call screening, switching calls between Gmail and other phones, recording incoming calls, click to dial with the Chrome Extension.
  • Chrome browser turns 2 and first stable build of Chrome 6 is released.
  • Arstechnica: No longer a hobby? $99 Apple TV drops storage, integrates Netflix.

Interesting articles:

  • New York Times: Four Useful Google Docs Tricks – group editing, language translation, OCR and editing of scanned documents, self-updating spreadsheets.
  • Telegraph: Netflix lets its staff take as much holiday as they want, whenever they want – and it works. 128-page presentation by Netflix: Reference Guide on our Freedom & Responsibility Culture.
  • Article by Vivek Wadhwa about ageism - Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age. Dave Winer nods in agreement: What they say about age is true.
  • Luke Hutchison: Carpal Tunnel? Maybe not, it’s probably your shoulders (Everything I have learned about RSI).
  • Fred Wilson:  What A CEO Does – “A CEO does only three things. Sets the overall vision and strategy of the company and communicates it to all stakeholders. Recruits, hires, and retains the very best talent for the company. Makes sure there is always enough cash in the bank. CEO should delegate all other tasks to his or her team.“
  • Techcrunch: Y Combinator’s Biggest Demo Day Yet Draws Throng Of Investors.
Posted in CyanogenMod, News | Leave a comment

Tip: Receive Google Voice calls in Gmail

By Sergey Povzner | Published: August 31, 2010

Last week Google added an ability to call phones directly from the Gmail page. All calls to US and Canada are free this year and international rates are low. By now all US users should see Call phone button on their Gmail page under Google Chat widget (if you don’t see this button, log out and then log back in to Gmail):

Everybody with a Gmail account can now place calls from Gmail without subscribing for Google Voice. However, if you have Google Voice number, you can also receive calls in your Gmail. For this you need to go to your Google Voice settings, and check Google Chat option (which is unchecked by default).

google voice settings google talkNow all calls to your Google Voice number will ring in Gmail (if Gmail page is open in the browser on your computer). If you don’t have Google Voice number, you can get one here.

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News: Android Voice Actions, Chrome to Phone extension, call phones from Gmail, Droid gets Android 2.2

By Sergey Povzner | Published: August 27, 2010

News:

  • Android voice search app is updated with Voice Actions which can be used to speak into your Android phone and dictate texts and emails, get directions and launch turn-by-turn navigation, listen to music, set alarm clock, call businesses and contacts, and browse the web. For more details see Voice Actions page.
  • Chrome to Phone extension for Chrome Browser and accompanying Android Chrome to Phone app are officially released. The Chrome extension and Android app use Cloud to Device Messaging API of Android 2.2 to send current web page, map, YouTube video, or selected phone number or text from the Chrome browser straight to your Android device (2.2+). See the earlier blog post for the detailed demo.
  • Google added ability to make and receive calls from Gmail page.
  • Gmail updated Contacts user interface.
  • Advanced Task Manager developer made ~$80,000 in a year.
  • Happy iPhone to Android convert shares his impressions - iPhone to Droid X: Lots More Good Than Bad.
  • One year anniversary of Apple’s response to FCC regarding Google Voice rejection. Back then Apple stated that they were not rejecting Google Voice, but were merely pondering about it since the app “appears to alter the iPhone’s distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail.” Among many great features, Google Voice indeed replaces racket AT&T international rates with much more reasonable Google Voice rates. One year later Apple’s pondering continues.
  • Android 2.2 roll out for Motorola Droid began.
  • Nexus One is temporarily sold out even through the Android developers program.
Posted in Android, Mobile, News | Leave a comment

Tip: know which Google Talk contacts are using Android

By Sergey Povzner | Published: August 24, 2010

If from time to time your Google Talk buddies are ignoring you, that maybe because they are logged in on their Android phones and are not seeing your messages, while in the call or watching videos.

When you are on the Gmail page in your computer’s browser, you can see if you are chatting with somebody who is currently using Android by turning on the Green Robot feature in Gmail: Settings > Green Robot! > Enable. Once enabled, contacts using Android will be displayed with an Android robot icon:

Similarly, in the Android Google Talk client, contacts using Android are always displayed with the robot icon in the background.

Posted in Android, Mobile, Tips | Leave a comment

24 most useful Android apps

By Sergey Povzner | Published: August 12, 2010

Why 24? That’s how many apps I have on my main Home screen. But my homescreen fits only 16 apps. I use ADW.Launcher which allows customizing number of shortcuts per screen (see FAQ below for more details on ADW.Launcher).

My 24 most used Android apps are:
Read More »

Posted in Android, Apps, Mobile, Reviews | 1 Comment

News: goodbye Google Wave, Nexus One is ADP3, iPhone OS security flaw

By Sergey Povzner | Published: August 6, 2010

News:

  • Active development of Google Wave stops
  • Nexus One officially becomes Android Development phone. Unlocked Nexus One is now availalable for purchase to registered Android developers for $529
  • Symantec: iPhone OS security flaw could be exploited by remote attackers to take complete control of a vulnerable device.
  • Google: Android Wallpaper Apps Were Not Security Threats (PCWorld)
  • 200,000 Android devices are being sold each day according to Eric Schmidt
  • Android sales grow 886%, surpass iPhone in Q2 ‘10
  • PCWorld’s getting started guide to Google’s new multiple account sign-in feature
  • Intuit continues to try to cut free popular state programs that help taxpayers file their state returns
Posted in Android, Mobile, News | Leave a comment

News: Android sales grow 886%, surpass iPhone in Q2 ’10

By Sergey Povzner | Published: August 4, 2010

Two separate surveys released on Monday showed that Android smartphone sales surpassed iPhone sales in the second quarter of 2010. In the US, Android OS accounted for 27% of new sales, while Apple iPhone OS accounted for 23% according to Nielsen. Both are still behind RIM, which sold 33% of smartphones.

Android OS market share beats iPhone OSNote how Apple’s market share started to drop with the arrival of second generation of Android phones (such as Motorola Droid) in Q4 2009. However, remember that Apple’s numbers do not include iPod Touch or iPad, which also run iPhone OS, but obviously are not counted as smartphones.

Second survey from Canalys showed that worldwide Android sales grew 10 times over the year and Android’s worldwide market share is now 17%, behind Nokia (38%) and RIM (19%). Apple is in the fourth place with 13%. Ed Burnette at ZDNet has obtained from Canalysis the chart below which was not included in the press release. Note Android’s worldwide growth at 886% .

Worldwide smart phone market

OS vendor Q2 2010 shipments % share Q2 2009 shipments % share % growth
Symbian 27,129,340 43.5 19,178,910 50.3 41.5
RIM 11,248,830 18.0 7,975,950 20.9 41.0
Android 10,689,290 17.1 1,084,240 2.8 885.9
Apple 8,411,910 13.5 5,211,560 13.7 61.4
Microsoft 3,083,060 4.9 3,431,380 9.0 -10.2
Others 1,851,830 3.0 1,244,620 3.3 48.8
Total 62,414,260 100 38,126,660 100 63.3

Source: Canalys, Smart Phone Analysis, August 2010

(Update 08/4/2010): Another report released by NPD Group showed that among US consumers Android became top selling smartphone platform with 33% of all smartphones purchased in Q2, ahead of RIM (28 percent) and Apple (22 percent).

Posted in Android, iPhone, Mobile, News | 1 Comment

News: farewell G1, Droid X – no jacket required, Google Maps update, new Android licensing service.

By Sergey Povzner | Published: July 30, 2010
Notable articles:
News:

Posted in Android, Mobile, News | Leave a comment

Funny stuff: Panasonic camera software

By Sergey Povzner | Published: July 29, 2010

Panasonic camera software

Posted in Funny | Leave a comment

Antennagate press conference: Apple’s unconvincing non-apology

By Sergey Povzner | Published: July 21, 2010

If Apple still has a PR department, after watching Friday’s press event they should not have come to work on Monday. If they sanctioned that performance from Steve Jobs, they are incompetent. And if they didn’t, they should have resigned in protest.

Speaking at Apple’s Cupertino campus, clearly irritated by the whole “Antennaegate” saga Steve Jobs made a few points: 1) other smartphones have exact same reception issues, 2) data confirm users are happy with iPhone’s 4 reception, 3) the problem has been blown out of proportion. Let’s look closer at each of the claims.

iPhone 4 Read More »

Posted in iPhone, Mobile | 1 Comment

Why Nexus One is (arguably) still the best Android phone

By Sergey Povzner | Published: July 20, 2010

Jan 2011 update: Google and Samsung have released Nexus S, a successor to Nexus One. Nexus S offers multiple benefits over Nexus One such as better screen (Super AMOLED), better touchscreen, Android 2.3, faster GPU, more internal storage and front facing camera. Similarly to Nexus One, Nexus S is a developer phone with an unlocked bootloader (for easy installation of custom system images) and is not locked to a carrier (can be used on any GSM network using a SIM card). The only disadvantages of Nexus S are lack of SD card slot and arguably worse build quality.

July 21, 2010 update: Google sold out its stock of Nexus One phones :-( . Nexus One can still be purchased directly from Vodafone in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and United Kingdom. In the US, it is now available only through the Android developers program.

You probably haven’t heard about Nexus One phone in a while amid all the coverage of HTC Incredible, EVO, Droid X, and Samsung Galaxy S launches. On Friday, Google announced that they will stop selling Nexus One phones soon:

This week we received our last shipment of Nexus One phones. Once we sell these devices, the Nexus One will no longer be available online from Google. Customer support will still be available for current Nexus One customers. And Nexus One will continue to be sold by partners including Vodafone in Europe, KT in Korea, and possibly others based on local market conditions.

To ensure our developers have access to a phone with the latest Android OS, Google will be offering the Nexus One through a partner for sale to registered developers. Visit the Android Market Publisher site and log into your developer account to purchase a Nexus One.

My reaction to this news: get it while you can. If you are thinking about buying an Android phone, you should seriously consider getting Nexus One despite its ancient age (7 months) by mobile industry standards. In my opinion, if you want a light Android phone without phone manufacturer’s bloatware and without physical keyboard, Nexus One (aka HTC Passion) is still the best choice. Here’s why.

Nexus One Android phone

Read More »

Posted in Android, Mobile, Reviews | Leave a comment

Tip: drag and drop Gmail attachments using Chrome and Firefox browsers

By Sergey Povzner | Published: July 13, 2010

In case you missed this news: if you are using either Chrome or Firefox browser, you can now drag and drop attachments directly onto email messages. For details and screenshots, see Gmail blog.

Drag and drop Gmail attachments

Posted in Tips | Leave a comment