Official 'Apps2SD' headed to Android phones soon |
- Official 'Apps2SD' headed to Android phones soon
- Will Sprint Android users finally get 2.1 this week?
- Movie Gallery to shut down all remaining U.S stores
- Skyfire mobile browser has Flash 'support', could be accepted to App Store
- HP drops Windows 7 from 'Slate' tablet, will use WebOS variant
- Adobe giving away Android phones to employees
- Chrome gains more browser market share
Official 'Apps2SD' headed to Android phones soon Posted: 02 May 2010 08:13 PM PDT Users of older Android devices such as the T-Mobile G1 and even newer devices like the Motorola Droid have always complained about the lack of available room for apps downloaded from the Android Market. Droid users, for example only get 256MB of space, and G1 users much less. When the company launched the Nexus One, engineers said they were working on a solution, and it appears finally that an official "Apps2SD," the feature found in all rooted ROMs is on the way, giving users almost unlimited (who can possibly fill an 8GB microSD card with apps?) amount of room for their apps, and freeing up internal memory. Issue 1151 in the Android Code page now says "future release" after months of saying "assigned." The engineer who changed the note, San, had the following to say: "Apologies, but I'm not permitted to disclose scheduling information suffice to say it's coming soon. Sorry for being vague, and thank you for your continued patience I sincerely appreciate it." Perhaps it will be revealed at the upcoming I/O conference. |
Will Sprint Android users finally get 2.1 this week? Posted: 02 May 2010 07:48 PM PDT Promised for the "near future" in early March, it appears that Android handsets on the Sprint network will finally receive the 2.1 firmware update. XDA Developers revealed the screenshot today, a memo leaked from Sprint itself. The memo says the Samsung Moment will get the update this weekend and the HTC Hero will get it in the next week. A leaked Best Buy Mobile memo seems to point to the Hero update coming next week as well but seeing is believing in this situation. The updates will not be OTA as they are both pretty large (80MB and 117MB respectively) so it seems like they will have to be downloaded manually. |
Movie Gallery to shut down all remaining U.S stores Posted: 02 May 2010 03:04 PM PDT Movie Gallery, the parent behind the once popular video rental chain Hollywood Video has announced today that they will close all 2415 remaining U.S. stores, liquidating all inventory and the stores over the next few months. The company is currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, for the second time since 2007. There are 184 Hollywood Video chains that remain in Canada, and it is unclear whether they will be shut down. The worst part of the news may be that Movie Gallery had 19,000 employees when they filed for bankruptcy, meaning at least 15,000 more people will be laid off soon from their jobs, depending on how many employees still remain since the bankruptcy filing. The company is the second largest brick-and-mortar rental chain in the U.S. behind Blockbuster (which is struggling as well). Redbox and Netflix continue to strive, without the need for physical store. |
Skyfire mobile browser has Flash 'support', could be accepted to App Store Posted: 02 May 2010 02:34 PM PDT As Apple and Adobe continue to fight over the positive or negative affects of Flash in the mobile universe, browser maker Skyfire has released Skyfire 2.0 for Android, which has pseudo-Flash support giving "access to Flash videos on a web page that otherwise would not play." The company has said it is creating an iPhone version, that it hopes to submit to the App Store later in the year. When we say pseduo-Flash support, we really mean it. When the browser identifies any Flash content in a web page, it sends that content to Skyfire's cloud servers which then converts it to HTML5 on-the-fly and streams it back in that format. Apple has so far refused to allow Flash on "i" devices and at this point has said support is never coming. Skyfire says the cloud support allows for "faster and smoother video playback and extended battery life by off-loading more of the work to cloud servers." While Android is way more open in terms of Flash than the iPhone OS, Android smartphone users will not see OS-level support of the format until the release of firmware 2.2 (Froyo), which is expected later this year. Skyfire could help those who do not want to wait. If it is accepted to the App Store, Skyfire CEO Jeff Glueck says, via Yahoo: "Apple can get the best of both worlds." |
HP drops Windows 7 from 'Slate' tablet, will use WebOS variant Posted: 02 May 2010 01:05 PM PDT Less than a week after computer maker HP agreed to purchase the struggling smartphone maker Palm $1.2 billion in cash, sources are noting that it will be removing Windows 7 from the Slate tablet, instead choosing to use a WebOS variant, arguably the best smartphone operating system available. Sources say HP was not happy with the overall performance of Windows 7 on their unreleased tablet, saying the OS was too power-hungry. Additionally, a Windows 7 license will bring up the price of any final Slate product, and now that HP owns WebOS, the move makes sense. TechCrunch says also that HP is set to drop the Intel processor used in the tablet, which would completely kill off any chance of Windows 7 being used. The Slate, in its original state, would have run on Windows 7, would have been $549 at its cheapest, and had an 8.9-inch 1024x600 multi-touch screen. Additionally, the tablet had a 1.6GHz Atom Z530 processor, 1GB RAM, SDHC slot (with support up to 128GB), two cameras, a USB port, a SIM card slot, and five-hour battery life. |
Adobe giving away Android phones to employees Posted: 02 May 2010 12:31 PM PDT In just the next step in the ongoing battle between Adobe and Apple, the former company has decided to give away free smartphones running the Android operating system to its employees. Although the company hasn't decided on which phone to give away, it is expected it will begin distributing the high-end HTC Incredible. Adobe additionally announced that it will demo a version of Flash for Android in May, at the Google I/O conference. The point of the free phones, (which are not mandatory) is a way to give employees more time to practice using Android, as well as Flash Player 10.1. Google also said that all attendees of the I/O conference will be given either a Motorola Droid or a Nexus One. |
Chrome gains more browser market share Posted: 02 May 2010 12:06 PM PDT According to the latest figures from NetApplications, Google's Chrome browser continues to take market share at a rapid pace, and should be on pace to surpass the 10 percent milestone by the end of the year. The browser has been out for 19 months, and has no marketing campaign, yet continues to steal share from leaders Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox. Additionally, Safari continues to take share as well, albeit at a slower pace. Chrome jumped to 6.73 percent share, from 6.1 percent last month, while Internet Explorer fell to 59.95 and Firefox remained about flat at 24.59 percent. Safari jumped marginally to 4.72 percent. IE continues to fall since its peak in 2003, when the browser was used by 93 percent of those connected to the Internet. Google and NetApplications have said they expect Chrome to have anywhere between 8.5-10 percent share by the end of 2010. |
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