Development

Asus announces Transformer Prime ICS date, addresses GPS and bootloader issues

When Asus unveiled its Honeycomb-powered Transformer Prime tablet last November, it stated that Ice Cream Sandwich would be on the tablet by year's end. As owners of the tablet can tell you, that didn't pan out. However, according to its Facebook page, the company will begin pushing the update to Prime owners worldwide, starting January 12.

That's the boring part though, since Asus made no secret of the fact that ICS was coming. More intriguing however, are the other parts of Asus's Facebook post.

Since the release of the Transformer Prime, two potential issues have come … Read more

HTC makes locked bootloaders a thing of the past

As promised by HTC CEO and president Peter Chou, all HTC Android devices launched after September 2011 can have their bootloaders unlocked.

The bootloader is a program that controls the startup process for a device. Unlocking the bootloader is a key step in customizing Android to make a phone do things its manufacturer (or carrier) never intended. That's something most people don't want to do, but according to HTC, its customers have been asking for it so much that it sounds like it couldn't ignore them.

Note, this is not for unlocking your SIM lock. It is … Read more

Looking back on Android in 2011

Strap yourselves in. We're about to hit another Android year at full speed.

2012 is breathing down our neck, which means that CES, Mobile World Congress, and even CTIA are fast approaching. In other words, get ready for an onslaught of new Android announcements.

Looking ahead at some of the rumored devices, consumers are in for some seriously powerful smartphones and tablets. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's take a look back at some of the key trends from this year's products. What was it that made Android so successful in 2011 and what will … Read more

Rotary phone dials up iPhone's Siri

Remember the days of Betamax, turntables, and Zenith TVs with rabbit ears and big honking dials?

Siri has just taken a little trip back to those simpler times of yore with a quaint little hack that turns the voice assistant into an operator reachable via rotary phone (cue the Jim Croce, those of you who remember hearing a voice say "operator" on the other end of the line).

Computer programmer Davis Remmel ripped apart a $2 Bluetooth headset purchased on eBay, fitting its earpiece into the earpiece section of the old phone and the microphone into the mouthpiece. The headset is enabled by dialing "1" on the rotary encoder.

In the video below, Remmel picks up the 20th century handset, dials "1," and delivers the command "Call John Doe." Siri then says, "Calling John Doe's mobile," and proceeds to call the number on Remmel's iPhone 4S, which is connected to the rotary phone. (For more on Remmel's rewiring job, see this detailed account on his blog.) … Read more

Google tops Ice Cream Sandwich with version 4.0.3

Google is serving up Ice Cream Sandwich with a new base version that promises several improvements and bug fixes for the Android operating system.

Detailed in Friday's Android Developers blog, ICS 4.0.3 is expected to roll out to production phones and tablets in the "weeks ahead," according to Google.

As such, the company is advising developers to test their mobile apps with the new flavor. Though it didn't get into specifics, Google is promising incremental improvements in graphics, database, spell-checking, and Bluetooth, among other items.

Developers can also tap into other features with the … Read more

Google offering new tools for aspiring Android developers

Google has long offered Android developers a number of resources for creating quality applications and games.

Indeed, whether it's the oft-updated platform version chart or a member of the team dropping by the developer blog to share some code or best practices, there's plenty of official information available.

If that wasn't enough, today brings another valuable set of tools for new and seasoned Android developers with a beta program called Android Training. Presented in a wiki-like format, this collection of classes is designed to help developers create compelling apps.

Initially, there are only a dozen courses offered … Read more

iPhone, iPad processor made by Samsung in Texas, report says

The processor running in the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 is being produced in Texas, a new report claims.

According to Reuters, citing sources, Samsung is producing the Apple A5 processor at a new 1.6-million-square-foot factory in Austin. The facility, which went into full production earlier this month, cost Samsung $3.6 billion. Although the facility doesn't only produce Apple's processors, Reuters' sources say, "nearly all of the output" comes from the A5.

Samsung's Apple-branded A5 is a system-on-a-chip (SoC), featuring a processor, graphics, and system memory.

Reuters' finding is rather interesting when one … Read more

Google's project Majel gets more interesting by the day

Ask any honest Android fanboy what he envies about the iPhone 4S and chances are good that he or she will menton Siri. And since we're speaking honestly, I'll be the first to admit that this is one feature that I wish my Android could do.

Sure, there are plenty of apps vying for the "Android version of Siri," but none of them are as quite as well-rounded as the iOS app.

Thankfully, we should have an official client on the way as rumors of a "Majel" project began picking up steam this week. … Read more

For Samsung Vibrant, no 911 means no Android mod

CyanogenMod has decided to drop support for the Samsung Vibrant after discovering that the phone can't dial 911 running the crew's own open-source Android build.

The CyanogenMod team relayed the bad news on its own forum earlier this week:

We are no longer supporting the Vibrant due to the inability to dial 911. We consider the issues related to this unresolvable without source code from Samsung related to the Radio interface layer and its interactions with the Audio layers and have taken the decision to no longer support this. We apologize for the inconvenience and strongly suggest that … Read more