Tag / Android
NEC Terrain for AT&T does nothing for the reputation of portrait QWERTY Android devices
Samsung’s interchangeable lens Galaxy NX Android camera appears in leaked shots
HTC One Mini revealed in clearest blurry shot yet
Digixav Podcast 010 – June 7th 2013
Henry makes a triumphant return to the show after Chris and Xavier break the biggest story of the week, in that you can now subscribe to and rate us in iTunes and all other leading podcatchers! Do that now! Please! We beg you!
There’s also a bit of minor tech news to go through, such as Apple’s new iPod Touch, Googlified editions of all your favourite Android phones, diminuitive and rugged editions of your favourite Samsung Galaxy S4, white editions of your favourite LG Nexus 4 and how the Nokia EOS leaks are probably deliberate ones from Nokia. There’s also the small matter of Computex craziness from Asus, Acer, Dell and Sony to go through, before a regular culture section dissolves into hardcore critiquing of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby.
If you have any feedback, questions or comments, tweet us or send us an email to podcast@digixav.com. We’d love to hear what you think!
Right click and save this link to download, and you can now subscribe (and rate and review the show) using iTunes! Don’t fancy iTunes or use a different podcatcher? Here’s our RSS link!
You should also check out our intro music on SoundCloud! It’s Melodic Trap by Harry Ling.
HP announces SlateBook x2, a convertible Tegra 4 Android tablet for $479.99
I like to call HP the most unpredictable company in tech. One minute they’re acquiring Palm for $1.2 billion, then the next they’re discontinuing all webOS products and throwing TouchPads out of the door for less than £100 a pop. There is literally no way of telling what wacky thing they’ll do next, and at MWC they proved this by announcing the Slate 7, a £129 Nexus 7 competitor with near-stock Android and Beats Audio. While there was absolutely no reason to buy one over a Nexus 7, it still suggested that HP had an interest in good value Android machines with unmodified software. Now it seems that theory is correct, as the company has unveiled the SlateBook x2.
If you’ve ever seen HP’s Windows 8-powered Envy x2, then the SlateBook x2 should instantly feel familiar. It’s smaller, at 10.2″ compared to 11.6″ for the Envy x2, but it follows the same basic concept of a slate being paired with a detachable battery-equipped keyboard to make a notebook form factor. The slate itself is powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 4 chip, has a 1920 x 1200 IPS display and 64GB of storage which is expandable via microSD and, in the keyboard dock, a full size SD. The software is also pretty much stock Jelly Bean with HP’s only additions being printing stuff and some document editing/file management capabilities. Best of all the whole keyboard and 64GB tablet package will only set you back $479.99, so less than a 16GB 9.7″ iPad, meaning that it’ll probably end up at around £390 in the UK. If Android tablet app offerings were more compelling, I’d be seriously tempted.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9EcgzjT7e8]Source HP (YouTube)
Via Android Beat
Facebook Home launch liveblog: live now!
As usual with tech events, we already know what we’re going to see today as Facebook unveils its new ‘home on Android’. Facebook Home is set to be an Android launcher with, as you’d expect, a ton of Facebook, and the HTC First, a mid-range Android 4.1 device in a range of colours, is set to bring the launcher to consumers as the closest we’ll get to a legitimate ‘Facebook phone’. Mark Zuckerberg may have some surprises, though, so join our liveblog below to get the latest news as it happens.
Click here for the liveblog – live!
App of the week: Pocket Casts
If you’re like me, you listen to a lot of podcasts, and you will know that it can be quite hard to keep track of what you have or haven’t listened to or what episodes are new. This week’s app of the week, Pocket Casts by Shifty Jelly, is perfect solution for Android users who want to keep track of all the different podcasts conveniently and easily. It automatically checks for new episodes and notifies you when new episodes pop through via RSS, and presents you with options to either stream or to download. The app will even delete any episodes which you have listened to automatically, and use smart playlists to isolate those episodes that you need to finish first. All this comes alongside a plethora of other useful features such as cross-platform subscription sync.
On Android, the new version 4.0 follows the Holo guidelines to the letter, but manages to add its own flavour of red and white to the mix, making this one of the best looking apps I have ever used. While not quite as good-looking or feature-rich, the iOS version of the app still looks great. All in all, I seriously recommend this app to anyone who listens to podcasts.
Pocket Casts, Android (£2.70), iOS (£1.49)
Download from Google Play or the App Store
Facebook teases Android-powered HTC phone launch for April 4th
For years, rumours of a full-on Facebook phone, like a more intense HTC ChaCha/Status or Salsa, have been rife, and the ever-reliable @evleaks told us that a new HTC phone with even more Facebook integration would be on its way to us in spring with mid-range specs. Now, the social behemoth has released an invite for next Thursday inviting press to see its ‘new home on Android’, and TechCrunch sources confirm that this means the Myst #UL is coming with a forked build of Android 4.1, plastered with Facebook. We’ll be liveblogging the event – Facebook’s third of the year at its Menlo Park, CA headquarters – and bringing you all the latest news as it happens, so stay tuned.
Via TechCrunch
Google Play Store v4.0 for Android leaks, bringing italicised text to Holo
Kellex over at Droid-Life has obtained what is purported to be build 4.0.16 of the Google Play Store for Android, and this gives us our best hint yet of how Matias Duarte and company are planning to take Android’s design with the expected release of Android 5.0, codenamed Key Lime Pie, at Google I/O. In the 6 minute video below, Kellex shows off the functional parts of the new store (with many pages such as the home page not yet working with the new design) but what is evident is that the new version of the Holo design language is set to be a lot lighter and colourful than the black and blue introduced with Ice Cream Sandwich in October 2011, with italicised Roboto Light being used in headings for the first time. Contrary to Google Keep, a note-taking service that the company officially launched today with an overdose of yellow, responses to the new look seem overwhelmingly positive, and we will wait with baited breath to see what further UI overhauls Google may announce for Android, now under the reigns of Chrome and Apps head Sundar Pichai, at I/O in May.
Source Droid-Life
Digixav 