Search Results for: droid

Motorola DROID owners were supposed to start getting the Android 2.1 update yesterday, but unfortunately the idea fell flat on it’s face… at least for now.

The OTA software update for the DROID by Motorola is TBD reads the message on Verizon’s internal systems, ‘A new date will be communicated as soon as possible.

What this means is that no date is available for the OTA update to happen. Depending on the reasons for delaying the launch we could be looking at days or weeks before the Android 2.1 update arrives. [Read more…]

Google Maps has been updated for Android 1.6+ based phones and brings a new set of features to the software.

New features include a new search results page that now allows you to swipe to get to the next result. Account switching is now possible allowing you to log in to a different Buzz, Latitude and other accounts on the device and a Latitude widget can now be added to your homescreen that allows you to see a map of where current friends are located.

“You can select any section to see more reviews, buzz, etc. If you want to get to more search results without going back to the list, simply grab the page with your finger and swipe it away to the left or right to see the next or last result.”

[Read more…]

We recently found out that the Motorola DROID was going to be getting an Android 2.1 update this month sometime. The exact date has now been provided and is happening tomorrow (March 18).

The updates won’t all happen at once with some upgrades starting before others although there should only be a day or two delay between updates with them finishing by the weekend from what we understand.

The information has come from a screen capture that shows the release date and what is included in the update and says the roll outs will start at 12pm EST. [Read more…]

If you are a Google Android device user in Canada then you should now be able to download paid apps from the Android Market.

People are currently reporting that they are able to pay for apps now which up till now, hasn’t been possible in the country. However, it seems like only customers on Rogers and Fido currently have this ability with users on Bell and TELUS still not able to get the downloads.

It is unknown what hurdles or how many there were that prevented this function from working, but it’s good to hear of some progress in that area although we do hope that the other two mobile networks follow on and allow the same. [Read more…]

The Opera Mini 5 browser (in beta) has launched for Google Android based handsets. The Android OS version of the browser aims to run quicker than the regular Android OS browser built in. To achieve this the Opera Mini 5 browser uses Opera’s servers that are used to cache files ready to be downloaded. I guess you could say it acts as a proxy in between and each time a page is requested the server makes the image smaller and compresses the HTML making the data needed to be downloaded a lot less, thus a faster transfer.

The only downside is that images do download at a lower quality although you can change settings to balance speed over quality. [Read more…]

Last week we heard that AT&T were getting rid of Google apps from their Android based phones, in particular the Motorola Backflip that was going to be using Yahoo! search instead.

We are now hearing that Google apps are now being replaced by Motorola to other phones and that a new global alliance with Microsoft [MSFT] has been formed that will bring MS Bing services to their Android powered phones. The switch will give users a choice rather than restricting them to just one search and mapping feature.

“We believe that consumer choice is one of the most critical components to ensuring a rich and seamless client experience,” said Christy Wyatt, corporate vice president of software and services, Motorola Mobile Devices. “Motorola and Microsoft have enjoyed a longstanding collaboration and the addition of Bing services to our Android-based smartphones in China is another important step in empowering our end-users.”

[Read more…]

Microsoft has launched a new Android App called Microsoft Tag. The application isn’t brand new in that it’s just new to Android based phones as it’s been available for other mobile devices for a while now.

The Microsoft [MSFT] Tag application lets you scan barcodes on the go. It works similar to how a QRCode works in that specific information is stored in the MS Tag barcode that can be deciphered by the Android Tag application. [Read more…]

Google have launched Google Gesture Search for Android based mobile phones. The new search system for Google [GOOG] allows you to search everything on your phone by basically squiggling on the screen with your finger. Searchable items include contacts, bookmarks, applications and music. You simply write the letter of what you want on the screen and all the details load up for you.

To get the application you need to be running Eclair as the minimum, ie Android 2.0 and above which narrows the list of phones it works on down to just the Nexus One and Motorola DROID at the moment although more will follow soon. [Read more…]

AT&T are about to launch the Motorola Backflip in the next few days. What we are now hearing is that AT&T are going to be dropping Google Search from the Android install replacing it with Yahoo Search. This is the first time we have heard of a Google [GOOG] Android handset not using Google Search by default.

The reason AT&T can do this is because Android is an open platform that allows them to make changes as needed to suit the phones launching on their network. We just didn’t expect that AT&T would drop a core search feature.

We don’t know the full reasons why they would switch the search to Yahoo! and perhaps they are trying to keep Apple [AAPL] happy by keeping google away from their Android phones, but anything right now is just pure speculation. [Read more…]

Last week we reported that Google Earth was now available for Android 2.1 based phones such as the Google [GOOG] Nexus One.

To get a run down of how it performs on the Nexus One versus the Motorola DROID, AndroidHD have put together a side-by-side comparison. In some cases the Nexus One seems to win hands-down while in others it appears like the DROID and N-One are very similar in what they can handle as well as the speed of the data transfer to get the textures and imagery to the Google Earth application. [Read more…]

UPDATE: We just head that the paper mis-quoted Williams… this is all not happening. Oh well!

We are hearing rumours that Nokia [NOK] are going to be porting Ovi Maps Navigation on to Android and Windows Phone devices in the near future. The information came as follows…

Greig Williams who is Nokia’s general manager for the Alps and South East Europe, told the Austrian newspaper Die Presse that porting Ovi Maps to Android and Windows Mobile “will be the next step.”

Reading between the lines a little here could reveal a couple of things. First is that they might want Ovi Maps Navigation to function on other platforms to give it away… but could it mean that Nokia are looking at creating Android and Windows Phone devices that will launch with Maps Navigation pre-installed? [Read more…]

Back in 2009 Android and Me posted a competition to see who could port Quake 2 and 3 over to an Android based device. After being forgotten about for a while a winner suddenly appeared. The winner managed to get Quake working on the Motorola DROID and says it should also quite easily port on to the Nexus One.

Two developers have actually managed to get things working well. The first guy is called Julien who managed to create Quake2Android and has managed to get network games and touch based and accelerometer based controls to function. Although it works on the Motorola DROID at a frame-rate of 30 – 40 frames per second, we do hear it also will work on other Android based hardware such as the G1. [Read more…]