Android Atlas Weekly 54: Stealing stuff with Jaymar Cabebe! (Podcast)

Kent German shares what he’d like from the Google Nexus 4G
http://cnet.co/kP7r75

Sony Ericsson unveils Xperia Ray, Xperia Active
http://cnet.co/lbDtso

Dual-screen LG handset leaks with T-Mobile branding
http://cnet.co/kCNkgI

Rumored Thunderbolt update to include Skype video calling
http://cnet.co/kpE4sB

Motorola Atrix bootloader to be unlocked with Gingerbread update
http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/06/22/motorola-to-unlock-atrix-4g-bootloader-with-gingerbread-update-looks-like-it/

EU Motorola Xoom 3.1 update rolling out with SD card support
http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/06/22/european-motorola-xoom-android-3-1-update-rolling-out-and-it-includes-sd-card-support/

Zipcar app for Android drops the beta tag
http://cnet.co/jVh9XD

Play by Yahoo mashes up other players’ talents
http://cnet.co/kGqjXK

Mozilla Firefox 5 and Dolphin 6 Beta 2 hit market
http://cnet.co/leDUKg

Crackle: Free movies, TV shows on Android devices
http://cnet.co/krc1j3

LATEST DEVICE REVIEWS

Samsung Exhibit 4G
http://cnet.co/msUBqt

Jessica Dolcourt says that it’s less ambitious than megaphones like the HTC Sensation 4G, but as a sub-$100 4G phone, it should be.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
http://cnet.co/jpG8rN

Eric Franklin says it’s the best Honeycomb tablet yet.

EMAIL

Archiving unnecessary apps from Altaira, a faithful listener
I change keyboards on my EVO the way [Antuan] changes ROMs. I have several old keyboards and other apps in phone memory that I’d like to archive to my PC in case I want to use them again. Is there any way to do this? BTW, my phone is not rooted. Thanks! “Because you’re not rooted, you can’t use our favorite backup app Titanium Backup, but free file manager app Astro (market link: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.metago.astro) has a neat hidden feature that lets you back up most apps.

Fire up the Astro app, hit the Menu button, then Tools. Select the Application Manager/Backup from the resulting popup and Astro will present you with a list of the apps on your phone. Select the apps that you want to Archive and then hit the Backup button. Astro will save the apps to your SD card as .apk files in a folder called backups/apps. When you next connect your phone to your computer, simply save these .apk in a safe place. You can now uninstall the apps you want to free up the space you need.

If you ever want an archived app back, just put the appropriate .apk file back on your SD card and launch it using Astro to reinstall. Unfortunately, your app data won’t be preserved using this method, so your Angry Birds progress will not be saved, but at least the app itself will. Also, Astro’s backup process will not work on copy protected apps, but for the vast majority of applications, this should get the results you want.

—–

Sheketa wants to know where the Gingerbread’s at?
Quick question. I have heard rumors that the Droid Charge by Samsung will and will NOT get the gingerbread update. This is so frustrating! Can you please set the record straight for me? I just traded in my HTC Thunderbolt for this phone only to discover this terrible news! Also, if it is true that there is no update, are there any work-a-rounds to getting it anyway (preferably without rooting but I will if I have to)?
I’ve heard nothing about the status of the update, but the rumor I did hear on VZW’s support forums is that the reason we’re not seeing GB updates is because Samsung is holding out for Ice Cream Sandwich. That’s seems a bit pie-in-the-sky for me. What’s most likely is that Samsung is taking its sweet time with the GB update and that it’ll come out whenever it gets good and ready. On the other hand, the Thunderbolt is rumored to get the GB update next month (a full four months after its launch), so you may have jumped that ship too early.

If Samsung decides to skip this update, there’s not much you can do until the hacking community gets a GB ROM running on the Charge (most likely CyanogenMod7) but even that will require a root. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Possible solutions to Austin’s overheating problem from last week
Last week we asked you to help us to help a listener named Austin with his overheating Droid 2, here are the solutions you posed: “Ryan B: Try a different ROM, Some ROMs just run better on the same hardware than others. For example, I used to have the OG Droid. I tried using SetCPU and the stock ROM, and it ran hotter than I liked, but I never had reboot issues. Once I started rocking Bugless Beast, I retained the performance enhancements, but it ran SIGNIFICANTLY cooler than stock.

Jason L: Try underclocking it first and see what the results are. If it works then the cpu is probably going bad or he lives in an area that is hot or high humidity. Also you can clean the battery terminals with a pencil eraser and clean the ones in the phone too.

Josh C: I think Austin’s problem is the battery or the internal battery charger. To see if it is the battery, I would suggest to buy, borrow, or steal a battery and see if it overheats with the new battery. What he could do to see if the battery is actually overheating is to shut down the phone and plug it in. Since the cpu will be mostly sleeping (if it is turned on at all) it won’t overheat. Therefore, if it does over heat, it must be the battery.”

—–

BLOG cnet.com/android-atlas
STREAM cnet.com/live/
TIME Thur 2pm PT
EMAIL androidatlas@cnet.com
TWITTER @androidatlas
JAYMAR @jaymarcabebe
ANTUAN @antgoo
JUSTIN @notmyrealname