Android Atlas- Page 426

T-Mobile turns on the Motorola Charm

T-Mobile has come under the spell of another Android device, and it goes by the name of Motorola Charm.

Available later this summer, the Charm will ship running Android 2.1 and an enhanced version of Motoblur. The latter includes such improvements as resizable widgets (much like the Droid X), better management of your social-networking streams, and the option of different power modes to conserve battery consumption.

Setting it apart from the flood of other Android devices coming this summer is the Motorola Charm's squarish design, complete with a full QWERTY keyboard. It also has a 2.8-inch capacitive … Read more

Report: More than half of Android apps are free

Google's Android Market offers the largest share of free apps at 57 percent, while the Windows Mobile Marketplace offers the smallest share at 22 percent, says a report on mobile app stores released last week by Distimo.

The report looked at trends in the U.S. for May 2010 among the major app stores, including Apple's App Store for the iPhone, Apple's App Store for the iPad, RIM's BlackBerry App World (worldwide), Google's Android Market, Nokia's Ovi Store, Palm's App Catalog, and Microsoft's Windows Marketplace for Mobile.

A large percentage of free … Read more

LG announces plans for Android-based tablet

LG Electronics plans to release an Android-based tablet computer by the fourth quarter, the company announced Monday.

The South Korea-based company said in a press release that it will use Google's open-source operating system but provided no pricing or technical details. The tablet is part of an upcoming line of about 10 smart devices and smartphones that the company plans to release by year's end, LG said.

The press release stated that the first tablet LG plans to release will be based on the Android operating system. It's unknown whether the new tablet will replace or compete … Read more

Android gets app love from mSpot

Music services for mobile phones are enjoying increased popularity thanks to the fact that cell phones are replacing standalone MP3 players for many people. MSpot is one of many solutions that has cropped up as a solution for on-the-go listening. The company offers a music cloud service that lets you upload up to 2GB of music for free and access it from any Wi-Fi-capable computer or Android device.

Continue reading the mSpot for Android review.

Google Voice newbies, start here

Once invitation-only, Google Voice's free telecommunications service for U.S. residents is now available to all. There are so many features, getting started can be confusing for first-timers. We won't walk you through every step--especially since Google has produced some good help files to explain your options--but we will point you in the right direction.

What is Google Voice?

Google Voice is best known for its visual voice mail features. If you miss a call, Google Voice uses computers to transcribe the voice message into text, which it can send to you via SMS or e-mail.

You can … Read more

Hands-on: SlingPlayer Mobile for Android

Owners of Android-based smartphones have been clamoring for a version of SlingPlayer for some time now, and last week the streaming software finally made its way to the platform.

Sling Media had promised various improvements in overall performance, and these speed tweaks are immediately noticeable compared with the experience on Windows Mobile or even an iPhone. We were impressed to see how quickly the software loads, and once we configured all the appropriate settings, we were able to get video less than two seconds after hitting the application icon.

We used SlingPlayer for Android with a Slingbox Solo and an older Slingbox AV model. Even though Sling says the AV model isn't designed to work with the Android player, we had no issues getting a clear picture from our AV box. The only drawback we could find using a Slingbox AV is that we weren't able to get a full-screen video playing with the AV as our source. On the other hand, the Solo had no problem streaming video that fit our HTC Evo's entire screen.… Read more

Yahoo, IMDb apps hit Android Market

Android users who want to to keep tabs on their Yahoo mail and learn more about their favorite movies should welcome the addition of a couple of new apps to the growing mobile marketplace.

Yahoo announced Thursday the launch of Android apps for its Mail and Messenger programs topped off by a new mobile-search widget. Available free at the Android Market, the new apps support Android 2.0 or higher and are optimized for the Motorola Droid, HTC Incredible, and Google Nexus One, according to Yahoo.

The Yahoo Mail app offers a variety of enhancements optimized for Android, said Yahoo. … Read more

AdMob: iPhone tops ad requests but Android surging

The iPhone still enjoys a commanding lead of all ad requests on AdMob's network. But the growth of Android phones continues to boost the share of Google's OS, according to AdMob's "May 2010 Mobile Metrics Report."

Released Wednesday, the new stats (PDF) peg the iPhone's share of all AdMob ad requests in May at 40 percent, down from almost 50 percent in May 2009. Android's share hit 26 percent, up from 5 percent a year ago.

Google in late May finalized its acquisition of AdMob, which gives the ad network more visibility but … Read more

Motorola delays Android 2.1 for Cliq and Cliq XT

Motorola expected to have Android 2.1 on Cliq and Cliq XT handsets by today, but it's unfortunately not going to happen.

A posting on Motorola's forum says that the company is working to deliver the "best possible user experience" as soon as it can and that sadly, it will miss its expected Q2 deadline. The handset maker has updated the status of the two phones to "testing in progress." I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I bet it's better than the "upgrade under evaluation" status that is … Read more

Android Atlas Weekly 5: Adobe spills the beans on mobile Flash (podcast)

Adobe's Anup Murarka talks with us about mobile Flash, Android 2.2 begins rolling out to select phones, and the Kindle Android app is finally released. Plus, we review the cloud music service MSpot and share a timely tip on speeding up Flash sites on Froyo. Josh Lowensohn guest hosts.

InterviewAnup Murarka, director of technology strategy for the flash platform.

News stories

Google issues Android 2.2 to Nexus One phones