I’ve often wondered what it would be like to play Angry Birds in space, except the bird would be a comet and the game would mash together the fierce style of a Japanese fighter pilot with the speed of light and the physics of space. Much to my entertainment, Cometkaze has created such an app, [...]

Continue reading href="http://www.appcraver.com/cometkaze/">Cometkaze is Intergalactic Physics-based Game with a Love Twist or visit our website for more great href="http://www.appcraver.com/">iphone apps.

AppCraver

Tablet-less Android users may remember the Wall Street Journal’s puzzling decision to release their app exclusively for tablets back in November, and thus alienate the majority of mobile users who use their service. To protest this injustice, Android users from around the world began picketing, rioting and holding journalists’ tablets hostage. The Wall Street Journal has finally surrendered and released The Wall Street Journal Mobile App. That’s right, the mobile version of the tablet version of the Wall Street Journal app is now available in the Android Market and ready for download.

Android smartphone users can now enjoy WSJ news, articles, real-time market quotes and rich media along with the ability to save articles for later viewing. This is great news for those looking to access WSJ content quickly while on-the-go or during those long porcelain throne “meetings.” In order to use the service you will need to register with WSJ, and if you wish to have access to the subscriber content, then well you’ll have to subscribe (about $ 2 a week).

If you’re looking to download The Wall Street Journal Mobile from the Android Market, be sure to follow the link provided because performing a market search for it will result in a Google “Fail” for some reason, as you can see below.

So, has anyone picked up the WSJ mobile app yet? What do you think? Leave a comment below or on our Facebook Wall!

conversione applicazioni iphone android

The Wall Street Journal Mobile
Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
FREE
1,000-5,000
Link Android Market | Link AppBrain

The Wall Street Journal App Shows Android Phones Some Love originally appeared on AndroidGuys.

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AndroidGuys

Woo your loved one with a Grammy-winning iTunes exclusive, find nearby birth control options with your iPhone, spy on your neighbors with an iPhone telephoto lens, and otherwise celebrate the heck out of Valentine’s Day.

View full post on Macworld

Valentine’s Day is rapidly approaching and what a better way to get you into the mood than by listening to some sweet sweet love tunes on Slacker Radio. So when you’re ready to get your groove thing on, fire up the Slacker Radio app on your BlackBerry and check out these stations:

• Rock Ballads Radio
• Country Love Radio
• Metropolitian Mood Radio
• Broken Heart Radio
• Slow Jamz Radio
• Love Songs Radio 

If you’re not sure what Slacker Radio is, or if you’d just like a refresher on what it has to offer and how it works, check out this Slacker Radio review.

CrackBerry.com‘s feed sponsored by ShopCrackBerry.com. Get your Valentine's Day groove on with some love song stations from Slacker Radio

View full post on CrackBerry.com blogs

I’m not sure if it’s the device itself that I love or if it’s the laptop dock ability. No matter what I see of this device, I wish more and more that it would come to T-Mobile, but I know there is no chance of that ever happening.

We do know that the Atrix 4G will be going on sale through Costco and Amazon for only $150, which is a smoking deal for a device of this caliber. This will be the first Dual-Core Android device to hit the U.S., which is a pretty exciting thing for all of us and for AT&T, the carrier making it happen.

We had a little one on one time with this device at CES. Check out the link for what we got to play with.

Now on to the promo video from Motorola. It almost gives me the chills.

View full post on AndroidSPIN

I’m a relatively new Android user, having gotten my HTC EVO 4G in early September of last year. However, before switching to Android from the iPhone (and let me say, thank GAWD I did), I did tons of research on the benefits on Android, and one thing that kept coming up was rooting. Rooting, if you’re unaware, basically gives you superuser access to your phone, removing certain protections put upon your phone by carriers or manufacturers. Some phones are easier to root than others, and I was pleased to see that the EVO could be rooted fairly easily (thanks to the wonderful folks on the Unrevoked team).

Read More…

Why I Love Rooting (A Case for Rooting Your Phone)

View full post on Android News, Rumours, and Updates

Voice search, a relatively new idea of two years, has made major strides. The newest version works with Android 2.2, better known as Froyo. Google’s desires were beyond their capabilities until this moment. Using speech models, Google hopes to identify with its customers on a personal level by accommodating Android enthusiasts around the world regardless of their limitations – whether it be age, race, gender, or even as specific as variations in pitch and pace.

Read More…

Feel the love from Google as they go Personal with Voice Search

View full post on Android News, Rumours, and Updates

A new set of studies conducted by Arieso reveals that Android users love to consume data.  According to their findings, phones running Android tend to have more data call volumes, time connected to the network, and data volume  uploaded and downloaded than iPhone counterparts. It’s not all downloading and streaming either, as Samsung Galaxy users upload roughly 126% more data than iPhone3G users.  One other detail in the report, which I can attest to personally, is that today’s smart phone users are  using their devices for data consumption more than making calls.  Arieso‘s findings are part of a white paper called “Emerging Smartphone Trends: The Next Wave in the Data Tsunami” which available upon request.

Via: Fierce Mobile

Android Users Love Data originally appeared on AndroidGuys.

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Here are the latest ComScore numbers. Results wont shock you.

If we bump them with last month’s digits it’s plain to see that the trends are holding. Apple managed to get a slight bump in points, but nothing compared to the momentum that the Phandroids are gaining.

[via Engadget]

View full post on Android Phone Fans

Apple recently updated its iOS software for iPhones, iPods and iPads. While there were plenty of new features for users (which you can read about on Gadget Lab), the updated version of Mobile Safari has quite a few nice new tricks for web developers.

Mobile Safari has long been at the front of the mobile pack when it comes to HTML5 support, and the latest version adds several more welcome new features. We now get support for WebSockets, better @font-face handling, better HTML5 forms and even support for the bleeding edge DeviceOrientation API — that’s the API that lets you access the accelerometer from inside the browser.

So far it doesn’t appear that Apple has fully documented the new features, but Maximiliano Firtman, the author of Programming the Mobile Web, has been testing the latest version of Mobile Safari and offers a nice overview of what’s new in iOS 4.2.

If you’re developing mobile-optimized site, or just want to play with next generation HTML features like WebSockets, check out Firtman’s overview of what Mobile Safari can and can’t do. If you’d like to see what Android 2.2 is capable of, Firtman has a similar overview of Froyo’s support for HTML5 and its related APIs.

See Also:

• Make a Big Splash on Tiny Screens With Media Queries
• Slide Show Time: Rethinking the Mobile Web
• TinySrc Shrinks Your Images for Mobile Browsers
• New Frameworks Give Mobile-Web Apps a Boost

View full post on Webmonkey

Asus is one of the latest manufacturers to admit they are focusing on Android development, despite working on a Windows Phone 7 device.

Many other companies also seem to be hanging on the fence to see just how these mobile OS wars pan out in the popularity game over the next quarter.

Read More…

Asus Showing Android Some Love

View full post on Android News, Rumours, and Updates

As you know my own dark gray Nokia N8 arrived yesterday and I am still working on full review for you all. I am at the tail end of finishing up my upcoming Windows Phone 7 Companion book though so my time is very limited and I have to put the paying job above the hobby work I have been spending a lot of time with the Nokia N8 though and am getting lots of questions that I am trying to respond to. Make sure to check out the Definitive Nokia N8 Guide page for a collection of posts and links to N8 coverage here and from elsewhere.

So now that I have had a couple of weeks with the Nokia N8, I have some pros and cons that I wanted to share with you all. Keep in mind that details on some of these issues will earn their own full post or a place in my full review too.

20 Things I LOVE

1. The camera ROCKS! This is pretty obvious if you have read all the coverage online and I continue to be impressed with the video recording capability and still camera quality. With the N8, I find no need to take a dedicated pocket digital camera or camcorder. I do still take my DLSR for super still photos, of course.
2. Hardware construction is fantastic. The two N8 devices I have tested are rock solid with great buttons, covers, and attention to detail in the construction.
3. The display is excellent. It may not be the highest resolution display on the market, but it is bright, clear, has vibrant colors, and is very viewable in full sunlight.
4. Threaded SMS is finally here. As a father of 2 teenage daughters and one approaching those teen years, I NEED to be able to keep track of the conversations being carried out via SMS. I am so glad to finally see it in a Nokia device natively.
5. The task manager is slick. I used to use Handy Taskman, but I actually find the new Symbian^3 task manager to do just fine with helping me switch applications and so far I haven’t found the need to manage running applications manually.
6. Media player cover flow is fun. Now that I have my Zune subscription content up and running on my N8, I find I am using it as my main music player. The media player album art selector interface is super fast and lots of fun to scroll through.
7. Three customizable home screens are nice to have. I have an Android device with 7 home screens and honestly only ever use up to 3 so having these with their continuous wrap around layout is quite nice. I like that we can customize the background of each to have a different image too.
8. Custom organization still present. I personally like using Symbian devices because I have full control over how I want my launcher screen to be organized. I create custom folders and organize my applications to be most efficient for me and love that this is still present on the N8.
9. The Ovi Store is finally good. I will have a full post on this with screenshots and my take on it, but I am relieved to finally see the Ovi Store at a place where I am buying apps from it without a problem.
10. Gravity rocks on the N8! I could likely live with the default Symbian^3 OS and a single application on my device and that would be Gravity. I use it for Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader, and Foursquare so I get four apps in one with a fantastic user interface and capabilities that make it easily worth $10 price.
11. Penta-band 3G data. I have yet to see ANY other manufacturer achieve this and think Nokia deserves more attention for this revolutionary feat.
12. The main home screen is extremely useful with the areas to tap to manage the clock, wireless connection, profiles, etc.
13. The battery goes and goes and goes.
14. HDMI port. It is very handy to take photos and video and then easily show them to family and friends using the HDMI port and cable.
15. The clock and date that show up when the display is off is extremely useful  and doesn’t seem to use any battery power.
16. RF reception and call quality continue to ROCK on the N8! Great job here Nokia.
17. The FM transmitter is handy. I enjoy listening to podcasts and with the FM transmitter I have been able to do so in seconds with good sound quality.
18. Ovi Maps. I am using the latest 3.06 beta on the N8 and it performs well and looks great on the N8.
19. Dual charging capability. I like that I can charge via the microUSB port or the standard 2mm Nokia charging port.  Nokia users likely have a few of the 2mm chargers lying around so being able to still use them is a nice option.
20. Lock switch. The physical lock switches are great for quickly locking and unlocking the display and I like the one with ridges used on the N8.

As happy as I am with my $611 purchase (although I would rather have the orange one) everything is not perfect on the N8. I know that many of my cons that I list below can be and are planned to be fixed with updates, but I still want to mention them before you go out and buy your device.

5 Things I DON’T

1. Nokia email client on the N8 is not very good. While there are some improvements in the Nokia email client and at first I was pleased,the more I use it the more issues I find. For example, the fonts are inconsistent across accounts so sometime they are huge and sometimes you have to squint, you can’t send email using Global Address Lookup searches in Exchange, and you cannot respond to any calendar invites.
2. Keyboard implementation blows: Wow, the keyboard experience is really bad on the N8. I don’t mind the full landscape keyboard itself and have gotten quite fast at entering text. However, the prediction/correction is virtually non-existent, there is no portrait QWERTY or half-QWERTY, and there are too many steps to enter text with the keyboard. I really hate when the keyboard opens up and takes you completely out of the app so you have no association with the app and for apps like Twitter you can easily enter more text than is allowed in a field. UPDATE: Check out my new post on how to make the QWERTY keyboard perform MUCH better.
3. The vibration is not very strong. I work in a quiet office environment and have to leave my phones on silent vibration mode. With the N8 I never feel or “hear” the vibration even when the N8 is sitting on my bare desktop.
4. Where is the sharing? One thing that was nice about Symbian^1 and S60 was the ability to share pictures out to different services with ease. I do now have PixelPipe that I am trying, but don’t know why Nokia took this away.
5. No Nokia Podcasting? I am a huge fan of podcasts and came to rely on the Nokia Podcasting application to download them right onto the device. This is missing on the N8 so I have had to result to using a Symbian^3 podcatcher that still needs quite a bit of work.

What do you like or dislike about the Nokia N8? I am sure I can come up with more for each list as I continue to use the device daily.

View full post on Nokia Experts

The Samsung Galaxy Beam brings the Pico projector and has the specs for success, but due to its small customer base Samsung is not willing to spread Froyo goodness to this device. The Galaxy Beam is currently only available in Singapore and Samsung obviously doesn’t plan on sharing his device with anyone else. The Galaxy Beam features:

• 3.7-inch WVGA Super AMOLED display
• Android 2.1
• TouchWiz 3.0 UI
• 8-megapixel camera with LED flash and autofocus
• front-facing VGA camera
• GPS
• DLNA

While the Galaxy Beam and S share similar specs it doesn’t seem too hard to bring Android 2.2 to the device, but Samsung can’t justify the resources for such a small consumer base and we all know that time is money. It looks like this device may be getting the ax anyway as the device is currently listed “out of stock.” It was fun while it lasted, right Mr. Galaxy Beam?

Via: Samsung Hub, Phandroid

View full post on AndroidSPIN | Your No.1 source for Everything Android.

For those of you who thought your Sprint Hero was dead, think again! Sprint has released a new update: software version 2.31.651.7. It is supposed to fix the GPS and dialer issues and this is an OTA update. All you need to do is hit settings on your phone, system updates, and then HTC software update. Some people have already pushed this and are saying the dialer loads in seconds now instead of a full minute prior to the update. Sprint has also confirmed another update for the Hero in October. A lot of people are speculating as to whether this will be a 2.2 (Froyo) update or some kind of patch for 2.1 update 1. Sprint has said that the Hero will not be getting Froyo, and that pretty much shuts down that dream, but you never know. One can still hope for an official Froyo release on the Hero! Until then, keep your fingers crossed and hope HTC and Sprint have been paying attention to what some developers have been able to do with the Hero in regards to Froyo.

View full post on AndroidSPIN | Your No.1 source for Everything Android.

It was bound to happen some time right?  With the explosive growth of Android recently, it was only a matter of time before the big gaming companies realized that Android could be a cash cow for them.  Electronic Arts seems to have come to this conclusion, according to an article over at pocketgamer.com.

EA CFO Eric Brown is quoted saying at the Deutsche Bank 2010 Tech Conference:

Brown cited a report stating that Android was expected to own 25 per cent of the smartphone market by 2014 compared to Apple’s 11 per cent. “There’s a lot to happen in the future in Android,” said Brown, “and we’re trying to position our mobile business to take advantage of that trend.”

With OpenFeint, id Software advertising and Unreal Engine 3 coming to the platform, it is going to be exciting to see how EA takes advantage.  More HD games for my Vibrant FTW!

EA is Ready for Some Android Love originally appeared on AndroidGuys.

View full post on AndroidGuys

HTC’s SenseUI definitely has its positives and negatives, but most people have good things to say about their weather widget. Some people even like it so much that they’ll port it onto their PCs.

Called HTC Home, it’s an obvious port of the weather widget from SenseUI. The widget itself is pretty customizable, you can resize it, put it in the taskbar, switch animations on/off and change your location pretty easily (as seen above). If you’re not sure how well this works, just check out the video:

Read More…

Love the HTC weather widget? Get it for your Vista/W7 PC

View full post on Google Android News Android Forums

Probably one of the coolest things about Android 2.1+ devices are live wallpapers. Whether it’s Super Mario running around on your phone or a circuit board there are quite a few attractive options. The latest one that I’ve found is called ParticleStorm. ParticleStorm is a very customizable wallpaper that you can configure both ascetics and performance. Just take a look at the video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rate & download: Particle Storm (Free)

Download the ParticleStorm Live Wallpaper, you’ll love it

View full post on Google Android News Android Forums

Video sharing site Vimeo has taken the HTML5 plunge one step further with a brand new “universal” embeddable player aimed at mobile devices like the iPhone or the iPad.

Vimeo’s new “Universal Player” is actually capable of serving several different kinds of video formats, but it uses a script to check the browser’s video capabilities. Depending on what the browser can handle, Vimeo may display an HTML5 player, a Flash player or a platform-native player. For users, the playback experience and user interface are the same, regardless of the player being used.

The new embed code, now the default throughout the whole Vimeo site, still serves Flash to desktop browsers, reserving the native options for iPad and iPhone users. But eventually, Vimeo plans to let desktop users in on the HTML5 fun — including perhaps serving WebM videos to Firefox, Chrome and Opera users.

So, if you’re reading this post on an iPad or an iPhone, this movie will launch in a native player wrapped inside the browser’s skin:

WORDS from Everynone on Vimeo.

Interest in HTML5 video is reaching a fever pitch. It’s being fueled mostly by the iPad and other mobile browsing devices that can’t play Flash. Also, the recent launch of the new WebM video format, and the HTML5 video capabilities being built into the latest browser releases have publishers and video services exploring non-Flash alternatives for their viewers.

Vimeo’s new player builds on the HTML5 video player the company first launched as a beta project back in January. But the rapid growth of HTML5 video on the web has urged Vimeo to push this new player to the fore. Other video sites, most notably YouTube, have also launched their own site-wide non-Flash experiences in the last few months. But in most cases the only way to use the native web video players is to visit the actual website. Vimeo is the first to offer an embeddable native player by default.

Despite the new browser sniffing code that lurks behind the new embedding methods, we didn’t notice any significant speed difference from the old code, though of course on mobile devices restricted bandwidth and does make for somewhat choppier video playback.

If you’d like to start using the new player, just head over to Vimeo and grab some embed code and drop into your site. Visit the page with a mobile device and you’ll see the new player.

If you’ve got older Vimeo embed code on your site you’ll need to upgrade it, but fortunately Vimeo is offering a handy JavaScript tool that can do the upgrade with a single click. See the Vimeo blog post for more details. For those of you who don’t want to bother with upgrading old code, fear not, the old code will continue to work just fine. It will just serve up the Vimeo Flash Player.

Indeed there are several reasons you might not want to use Vimeo’s new code, the most troublesome being that it uses an HTML iframe to load the player. Since many popular publishing platforms and social networks don’t allow iframes, you may want to stick with the older code. The new player also got off to a bumpy start, some videos we tested worked just fine on our iPhone, others threw various errors. Thankfully, most of the bugs appear to have been solved since the initial announcement Tuesday.

If you’ve been wanting to take advantage of HTML5 video, but still want the ease of uploading that comes from using a video sharing service, Vimeo is currently your best bet. Look for other services to follow suit in the near future.

See Also:

• SamplePlayer Makes Your Browser Sing, Sans Flash
• More Cool HTML5/JavaScript Video Players
• YouTube: HTML5 Video Is No Match for Flash
• Where on the Web Is HTML5?
• Vimeo Showcases The Future Of HD Web Video

View full post on Webmonkey

The nascent Web Open Font Format (WOFF) is getting a boost this week thanks to some new initiatives being kicked off by the W3C, the web’s governing body.

The W3C recently created a working group to build a WOFF into a web standard, and that group will be holding its first face-to-face meeting at the TypeCon 2010 conference taking place this week in Los Angeles.

Representatives from the major browser vendors, several font foundries and web services providers will be in attendance. Also, a dozen or so select individuals will be participating in a series of presentations and panel discussions about WOFF throughout the conference. All the design industry folks in attendance will get a peek at the future of high-quality typography on the web. There are scores of topics on the program, but this year, WOFF is getting top billing.

Things are looking up for web fonts in general. Monday, Webkit announced a partnership with Adobe to include the company’s fonts as part of its licensing service. Last month, Google launched a new tool (tied to its Font API) that makes it dead easy to include any of its open source fonts in website designs.

The Web Fonts working group was formed earlier this year at the W3C, and the group has already released the first working draft of the specification that will eventually lead to WOFF becoming a recommended web standard.

WOFF works just like OpenType and TrueType — you use the @font-face CSS property to drop the fonts in — but the font data is compressed, so the files download faster, and you can include more fonts in your designs without worrying as much about payload bloat.

The W3C adds this bit: “The WOFF format is not expected to replace other formats such as TrueType/OpenType/Open Font Format or SVG fonts, but provides an alternative solution for use cases where these formats may be less performant, or where licensing considerations make their use less acceptable.”

Support for WOFF is already strong — Google, Mozilla, Apple, Opera and Microsoft browsers either ship with or are building support, and the fast-moving foundries are releasing WOFF fonts — so why is the W3C’s involvement a big deal when the open source format is enjoying such success?

Standardization by the W3C is the best path to true interoperability. It will keep all the parties on the same page when it comes to things like accessibility, cross-browser compatibility, internationalization and search engine indexing. How much metadata to include and how it is handled are also big issues. Plus, fonts have taken an astonishingly long time to arrive on the web because of red tape around licensing, and a collaborative process for developing licensing infrastructures will go a long way toward convincing some of the more conservative type designers to make web-friendly versions of their creations.

The standard will take years to complete (the process is very slow — we’re guessing 2012 or so), and until then, we’ll see designers, developers and innovative service providers like Typekit and Google continue to feed the interest in fancy web fonts. Those not on the bleeding edge may be stuck in the boring world of “web safe” fonts for a while, but at least the future is bright.

TypeCon 2010 runs from August 17 through 20.

Photo by Leo Reynolds/Flickr/CC

See Also:

• Typekit Teams Up With Adobe to Offer More Web Fonts
• Dealing With the Dreaded ‘Flash of Unstyled Text’
• Test Drive Your Type With Google Font Preview

View full post on Webmonkey

Froyo has been the subject of conversations lately and since the HTC Evo users have received their update, HTC Droid Incredible users are checking their devices daily in hopes to receive their frozen treat. HTC has the update ready, it’s now on the carriers to fulfill their duties to provide the update to their devices. The Motorola Droid started receiving their upgrades recently and is scheduled to receive flash support on August 18th. The Motorola Droid 2 which was launched yesterday, are shipping with Android 2.2 and the only Droid devices left to receive Froyo are the HTC Droid Incredible and the Motorola Droid X. The talks with sources suggest that the HTC Droid Incredible users will receive their update the same day the Motorola Droid is expected to receive flash support on August 18th. We’ll just have to wait and see, but it only makes sense.

Source: Phandroid

Do you Droid Incredible owners feel left out?

View full post on AndroidSPIN | Your No.1 source for Everything Android.

We already showed you one Android tshirt and decal that blatantly showed your distaste for a certain company. Well we were just sent this one as well. Unlike the first tshirt we showed you, this one is actually available for sale in the US. You can obviously see the inspiration here, I think it’s pretty clever. There’s even a womens version for all your lady Android-lovers out there.

Hit up the link below to grab one of these.

Pac-Droid for men & Pac-Droid for women

Thanks Joel for sending this in!

For more information on Android and the current Android mobile phones, check out our Android Guides

Another great Android love / anti-Apple tshirt

View full post on Google Android News Android Forums

Hey, Kids and Teens! If you love to read, add one more book to your summer reading list and you’ll have the chance to win some pretty cool prizes. Joanne Manaster of Joanne Loves Science and Jeff Shaumeyer of Scienticity have teamed up to encourage kids to read science books. There are two contests, split up by age ranges: Kids Read Science is for ages 8-12, and Teens Read Science is for ages 13-18. The rules are the same, and pretty simple:

1. Choose a non-fiction book about nature, science, engineering, or math, or about people who work or worked in those fields. The book should help you understand more about what science is and how it works. Textbooks are not acceptable choices. If you need suggestions it’s good to ask a science teacher or librarian for ideas.
2. Read your book.
3. Make a video about your book. The video must be less than 5 minutes long, and must give the name of the book, the name of the author, and reasons why you would or would not recommend the book to your friends.
4. Post the video online. We’d prefer that you post it to your own account on YouTube.com and tag it with “KidsReadScience2010″ or “TeensReadScience2010″ . There are other posting options in the long form of the rules.
5. Fill out our official online submission form so we can find your video and so we know how to contact you if you win one of our fabulous prizes.
6. Do all this before the deadline: 11pm (CDT) on 22 September 2010.

Some of the prizes include an iPod touch for the teens, quality-optics binoculars for the kids, iTunes gift cards, T-shirts, and signed copies of science books (including the intriguingly-How to Defeat Your Own Clone). Check the prize list for more details.

Here’s a video of Joanne explaining the contest:

Now go read a book!

View full post on GeekDad

A Motorola Employee announced via the company’s support forum that Verizon Wireless will start pushing Android 2.2 (Froyo) to the original Droid by Motorola during the week of August 2.

The report also claimed that Froyo could have been pushed to a small select few as a pre-launch test as early as July 30.

There has been no official word yet but Verizon’s website now has an updated Mandatory Upgrade page for the FRG01B update in the System Update section of their website.

Through forums, the closest lead I found was a timeline on Motorola’s support site detailing plans for upcoming Android Software upgrades. The timeline indicates that an upgrade to Android 2.2 is expected to begin the week of August 2 for the Droid. From the looks of the chart, the Droid X doesn’t have a targeted date yet.

The Motorola Software team’s Android software upgrade timeline can be found below:

Device: DROID by Motorola (USA)	Timeline: Upgrade to Android 2.2 expected to begin the week of August 2
DROID X by Motorola (USA)	Upgrade to Android 2.2 expected in late summer.
MILESTONE (Europe)	Upgrade to Android 2.1 for select countries/carriers* is currently rolling out in stages
MILESTONE (Latin America)	Upgrade to Android 2.1 for select countries/carriers* is currently rolling out in stages
MILESTONE (Asia-Pacific)	Upgrade to Android 2.1 for select countries/carriers* is currently rolling out in stages
MILESTONE (Canada)	Upgrade to Android 2.1 is currently rolling out in stages
BACKFLIP (USA)	Upgrade to Android 2.1 planned for Q3
BACKFLIP (Asia-Pacific)	Upgrade under evaluation
BACKFLIP (Canada)	Upgrade under evaluation
BACKFLIP (Europe)	Upgrade under evaluation
BACKFLIP (Latin America)	Upgrade under evaluation
CLIQ (USA)	Upgrade to Android 2.1 – testing in process
CLIQ XT (USA)	Upgrade to Android 2.1 – testing in process
DEVOUR (USA)	Upgrade under evaluation
DEXT (Europe)	Upgrade under evaluation
DEXT (Asia-Pacific)	Upgrade to Android 2.1 planned for Q3
DEXT (Latin America) and Mexico	Upgrade under evaluation
QUENCH (Asia-Pacific)	Upgrade under evaluation
QUENCH (Canada)	Upgrade under evaluation
QUENCH (Latin America) and Mexico	Upgrade under evaluation

Q2 = Second Quarter of 2010

Q3 = Third Quarter of 2010

* Some country / carrier combinations in this region are still under evaluation for an update.

**  Droid owners in the U.S. who have not upgraded to Android 2.1 can initiate the upgrade by going to Menu > Settings > About phone > System updates on their Droid and following the instructions to download and install.

Any early receivers of Froyo on the Droid? Let us know if you received an early Froyo update.

For more information on the Froyo update for the Droid, see the official Verizon support page.

Source: Motorola, Verizon

View full post on AndroidSPIN | Your No.1 source for Everything Android.

With so much built into the Samsung Vibrant, it’s hard to focus on just one aspect of the device. I am going to do my best to dive into my Vibrant and share with you some of the finer details. Today, I bring you an in depth look at the 5 Mepgaixel camera.

Shooting modes:

• Single shot – Just one shot.
• Beauty – For taking photos of people.
• Smile Shot – Smile detection. It won’t take the photo till the subject is smiling.
• Continuous – can take up to 9 shots continuously, just keep the shutter button depressed.
• Panorama – Takes 8 pictures from left to right. The screen creates a green box to guide you to the next shot.
• Vintage – Give you a nice vintage style ring around the photo.
• Add me – Creates a side by side shot option.
• Action Shot – For fast moving action shots.
• Cartoon – Turns your photo into a cartoon looking photo.

Here is a sample of each shot mode taken outside on a clear bright day. Not all shots were taken due to similar out comes such as continuous; it takes 9 shots back to back. Pretty much the same thing as single shot. Resolution set to their max at 2560 X 1920, with image quality set at Superfine. Also in the settings I have the Anti-Shake turned on as well. Each picture on the top is normal and each picture on the on the bottom is with Outdoor Visibility turned on.

Single Shot

Beauty – I did take this one indoors. The windows and doors were open.

Smile Shot – Same as other shooting modes. I tested it on my self and my wife. The camera would not take the photo till the person smiles.

Continuous – Again, the same as single shot just takes 9 shots in a row.

Panorama – Yes my grass is dying.

Vintage

Add Me

Action – One of the greatest features in my opinion. It only took a picture of my daughter moving and didn’t blur the background at all.

Cartoon

We can now move on to ‘Scene Mode’. I will be working on collecting samples of as many of these as I can in the next few days for you to enjoy. For now, here’s the list:

• Portrait – For Pictures of people.
• Landscape – Distant scenery. Infinite focusing.
• Night – For Beautiful night scenery, such as city lights.
• Sports – Fast moving sports action.
• Party/Indoor – Indoor scenes.
• Beach/Snow – Bright scenery shots like the beach or snow.
• Sunset – To capture that sunset just as you see it. Daylight white balance.
• Dawn- Daybreak scenes. Slow shutter speed.
• Fall Colour – To help emphasize reds and greens.
• Firework – Catches flame. Slow shutter speed. Hold camera still.
• Text – For text or document photos, emphasizes sharpness or contrast.
• Candlelight – For scenes under candlelight.
• Backlight – For when the sun or light is behind the subject.

I swear this phone has more camera settings then my $300 digital camera! With so many scene modes’ to choose from, you should have no excuse for taking a “Vibrant” photo no matter what the situation is, pun intended. I have had cell phones for a lot of years and I can honestly tell you, I have taken more photos with my Samsung Vibrant in the last week, then I have ever taken with any other phone I have owned.

I know the argument will come up about the phone being just a 5 MP camera and the DROID X having an 8 MP camera. Yes 8 is larger then 5. I took rocket science 101. With so many tests and studies done on the comparison of 2 MP – 8 MP on cell phones, the truth may sting. 5 MP is more then enough to print crystal clear prints even at 16 x 24. HERE is a link to my favorite article about the subject, that has the least technical jargon. Also, HERE is another link with another test study. Now I’m more then positive there will still be a battle to ensue on that statement. So to defuse the situation slightly, the AVERAGE person, with AVERAGE point and shoot skills, will not know the difference between 5 MP and 8 MP when taking photos and printing them as a NORMAL human would do. For the select technical gurus out there, the actual numbers are different and I won’t argue that. The average person out there buying a phone and taking photos will not see a difference, can we agree on that?

So setting aside the debate, what are your impressions so far on the camera quality and options available in the Samsung Vibrant?

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