Hasta La Gadget!

How much better will that Samsung Galaxy Note be when you have Ice Cream Sandwich on it? AT&T users are about to find out, as Samsung confirmed to us that the long-awaited upgrade will be knocking on their doors beginning tomorrow (with a few lucky testers getting it later today). As for the new features, the Galaxy Note’s latest refresh won’t offer anything we weren’t already expecting: in addition to the standard suite of ICS features, it’ll also come with the same Premium Suite we saw show up on the international Note a couple months ago. The new Suite offers some huge improvements in S-Memo and S-Note, as the latter is now integrated with Wolphram Alpha. Sadly, the software features we’ve seen highlighted in the Galaxy S III series (S-Beam, S-Voice, Smart Stay and so on) are nowhere to be found, but at least you’ll have plenty of other new items to keep you occupied for a while.

AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note ICS update coming tomorrow, offers Premium Suite originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Jul 2012 13:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twitter has been making a push for expanded tweets in mobile, and there’s now some very strong indications that its native apps’ tweets will get extra-stuffed in the near future. Some skulking around the future App Store layout from 9to5 Mac reader Sonny Dickson has shown an as yet unreleased Twitter 4.3 release carrying “more interactive experiences” for links within certain posts — in other words, expect a multimedia extravaganza if a friend really digs that New York Times article. Notifications should also get a much-needed refinement through an end to overly aggressive alerts in-app while bringing in selective, by-user notifications to find out when Mark Zuckerberg finally posts again. While Twitter has stayed mostly hush-hush on the update, the company’s own corporate development VP Kevin Thau couldn’t contain himself: his attempt to one-up Facebook this weekend showed a slightly redesigned iOS app that most certainly isn’t sitting on our own devices. Controversies from The Next Web over the update’s identification of third-party apps notwithstanding — we don’t know if it’s intentional — all signs point to Twitter on iOS (and no doubt Android) getting a tune-up before long.

Twitter for iOS 4.3 gets early teases from Twitter itself and the App Store, promises gobs of in-tweet content originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Jul 2012 11:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Got a Toyota with Entune? Then keep an eye on your mailbox. We’re getting word that a free upgrade has started to be sent out to customers. The refresh adds some of the apps we first heard about back in January last year: iHeartRadio, MovieTickets.com and OpenTable. As well as being able to enjoy more radio, book movie tickets and restaurant tables, a new voice recognition update means you can do even more while keeping your eyes on the road. Toyota says that it’ll be upgrading most models, if you want to know for sure, tap up the more coverage link for the breakdown.

[Thanks, Nate]

Toyota sends out free Entune upgrade, adds three apps and voice control originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 08 Jul 2012 08:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It wasn’t that long ago that Samsung pushed out an OTA update for the Galaxy S III promising “improved stability”, and now the company is pushing out another update with the same changelog. We just got notified of the update here on our Galaxy S III, with the package coming in at 72.68MB. As usual, the changelog is frustratingly vague, although we’ve managed to spot some changes.

Samsung has added a brightness toggle to the notification drawer, which is a much welcome addition. You’ll now be able to adjust the brightness with a pull down of the notification bar, and the “Auto” setting is there if you don’t want to constantly adjust it (although you might need to considering how aggressive the Auto setting is).

Other than that, there doesn’t seem to be anything too earth shattering. One thing we wish Samsung would fix is the home screen redraw time after exiting out of apps. Sometimes it takes a few seconds to redraw all the apps and widgets you might have running, which can get somewhat frustrating after a while. It seems to be ever so slightly quicker with this new update, but we’ll reserve judgement until we’ve spend more time with the phone.

Make sure to head into the Android settings to check for an update if you haven’t already been notified. As usual, the update will vary in size depending on where you sourced your handset, and we imagine it will be staggered across unlocked and carrier models.

Samsung Galaxy S III adds brightness toggle to notification area in OTA update is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Ah, what a difference a couple years can make. After earning notoriety for is frustrating MotoBlur skin, the manufacturer has made strides on the Android user interface front. Its next attempt, known by many as “BlueBlur,” was a far better experience, if only because the original user interface could hardly get any worse. These modest improvements aside, though, we’ve always wondered how the company would make its mark on Android 4.0, a newer version of the OS that ushered in a major redesign. Would Motorola once again choose a heavy, proprietary skin, or would it be more heavily influenced by its new Google overlords and develop a UI more in line with stock Ice Cream Sandwich?

Unfortunately, Motorola kept us waiting in suspense longer than any other major OEM: Samsung, HTC, Sony and (gasp!) even LG have already started shipping devices loaded with skinned versions of ICS. But while Motorola popped the update onto one specific tablet earlier this year, it only managed to push test copies of Ice Cream Sandwich to a handful of Droid RAZR and Droid RAZR Maxx devices before Jelly Bean was announced. Even now, we still haven’t seen how the now-antiquated firmware will look on new Motorola handsets (though we hopefully will find out with the upcoming Atrix HD, RAZR HD or Photon Q). We have to wonder if the drawn-out acquisition process put the outfit in an awkward holding pattern, preventing it from cranking out fresh handsets and accompanying firmware updates.

So is HelloMoto making a grand entrance by being the last to show up to the Ice Cream Sandwich social? What makes Ice Cream Blurwich tick? We’ll take you through the major elements of the user interface to give you a sense of what to expect when your Motorola phone is ready to make the jump.

Continue reading Motorola ICS UI review: this isn’t the Blur we used to know

Motorola ICS UI review: this isn’t the Blur we used to know originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Jul 2012 13:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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