Hasta La Gadget!

Ladies and gentlemen, the days of spending $600 for an Android Honeycomb tablet are nearly done — on April 24th, the Acer Iconia Tab A500 will wash that price away with waves of brushed aluminum. That’s when the WiFi-only version of Acer’s Android 3.0 tablet will hit Best Buy and online retail for $450 sans contract, but with the same basic raft of specs as the WiFi-only Motorola Xoom: a dual-core 1GHz Tegra 250 SOC, a 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 LCD screen, 1GB of RAM, a 5 megapixel camera around back and a 2 megapixel imager up front, HDMI-out, not to mention a pair of 3260mAh batteries that Acer claims are capable of eight full hours of life while playing HD video. Sure, it’s a wee bit thicker and heavier and only sports half the flash storage (16GB), too, but if you’re attracted to shiny things, look for our review in the coming weeks — or wait until this summer to get one with AT&T. PR after the break.

Update: As Acer mentioned in its press release, pre-orders for the device are beginning exclusively at Best Buy today, and you can now get your order in online.

Continue reading Acer’s Iconia Tab A500 soaks up the WiFi rays, hits shelves April 24th for $450

Acer’s Iconia Tab A500 soaks up the WiFi rays, hits shelves April 24th for $450 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There hasn’t been much good news coming out of Japan lately and this sadly keeps up with the unhappy trend. Sony Ericsson has officially bumped the broad launch (it’s already available in limited quantities) of its Xperia Neo handset to at least July, explaining the delay as the result of “supply chain disruptions.” Additionally, the Xperia Arc and Play devices, two other members of the company’s new Android Gingerbread family, will be available in smaller volume than expected, at least for the near term. We guess that might go some way to explaining why the Xperia Play failed to reach some UK carriers in time for its April 1st launch date. Skip past the break for a statement from Sony Ericsson, who promises to be more explicit about the situation when it delivers its latest quarterly results on April 19th.

Continue reading Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo delayed to Q3, Arc and Play facing limited supply due to Japanese quake

Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo delayed to Q3, Arc and Play facing limited supply due to Japanese quake originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 06:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you had any doubts about HTC’s Incredible S making it to our shores, they’re probably dissipating as we speak — not only has the phone obtained Verizon’s shiny red checkmark, it’s now got the robotic eye of Sauron staring at us with ferocious intensity. PocketNow obtained these pictures of the likely Droid Incredible 2 without naming so much as an anonymous source, and we wouldn’t be surprised if it’s Verizon’s way of reminding us that the handset is rapidly on its way to market. You’ll find two more pictures at our source link.

Update: Android Central got hold of some new shots of the actual phone itself, which shows off its model number ADR6350 and firmware 2.2.1. Thanks, Bla1ze.

HTC Droid Incredible 2 struts its stuff in leaked press shots? (Updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 20:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google's Andy Rubin speaks at an Android Honeycomb event in February. Photo: Mike Isaac/Wired.com

Android chief Andy Rubin took to the blogs Wednesday evening to combat recent reports of Google clamping down on Android’s openness.

“We continue to be an open source platform and will continue releasing source code when it is ready,” wrote Rubin on the Android Developer Blog. “As I write this the Android team is still hard at work to bring all the new Honeycomb features to phones. As soon as this work is completed, we’ll publish the code. This temporary delay does not represent a change in strategy.”

Google has championed its platform as the open alternative to Apple’s closed iOS system. That openness has been called into question recently, as Google has yet to release the Honeycomb source code to all developers and manufacturers.

Honeycomb is Android’s first tablet-optimized software release. Rubin cites the difference in form factor between tablets and phones as the reason Google hasn’t released Honeycomb’s source code to device manufacturers and developers.

Motorola is the exception: The company’s Honeycomb-fueled Xoom tablet has been on the market for more than a month, which makes Google’s decision to hold the code from wide release a bit mystifying.

Members of the Android industry showed faith in Google, however.

“They say they’re going to release it, I’m not gonna call them liars,” Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin told Wired.com in an interview. The Android OS is based on a version of the Linux OS, which has been an open source, collaborative platform since its release decades ago.

Rubin’s post also addressed questions raised in a recent Bloomberg story about Android’s level of control over its partners. Bloomberg wrote:

Over the past few months, according to several people familiar with the matter, Google has been demanding that Android licensees abide by “non-fragmentation clauses” that give Google the final say on how they can tweak the Android code — to make new interfaces and add services — and in some cases whom they can partner with.

Rubin combats this claim directly, stating Google’s so-called “anti-fragmentation program has been in place since Android 1.0,” citing a list of compatibility requirements manufacturers must adhere to in order to market a device as “Android-compatible.”

He’s referring to Android’s compatibility test suite, or CTS, an automated litmus test to measure whether or not a piece of hardware can claim to run Android.

“Our approach remains unchanged: There are no lock-downs or restrictions against customizing UIs,” wrote Rubin.

Motorola vouches for Rubin’s statement.

“In the time since we’ve started working with Google, our relationship has matured, but it isn’t any more limiting than it ever has been,” Christy Wyatt, Motorola’s VP of mobile software development, told Wired.com. “I don’t believe that anything has changed in the CTS since the beginning.”

Finally, Rubin emphatically denied other rumors of ARM-chipset standardization in the platform, much of which arose in the wake of an anonymously sourced DigiTimes story.

“There are not, and never have been, any efforts to standardize the platform on any single chipset architecture,” Rubin wrote. With the Nexus One, Google’s first flagship phone, the company worked with Qualcomm to install its 1-GHz Snapdragon ARM processors in the HTC-manufactured handsets. The subsequent Nexus S came equipped with Samsung’s 1-GHz Hummingbird processor, which is also based on ARM architecture.

It’s out of character for Rubin and Android to post such a defensive update. Rumors circulating in the media are usually given a brusque “no comment” by Google’s communications team.

But the title of Rubin’s post — “I think I’m having a Gene Amdahl moment” — explains it all. Amdahl coined the acronym FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) in 1975. After leaving IBM to form his own IT company, Amdahl claimed he suffered attacks by IBM sales staff attempting to undermine his new venture.

All of this negative attention isn’t good for Android’s “open” image, and maybe that’s what overcame Rubin’s reluctance to speak: too much FUD about Android’s future.

Whether or not this FUD is warranted, however, remains to be seen.

See Also:

• Android Trojan Highlights Risks of Open Markets
• Amazon Launches Its Own Android App Store
• Google Removes Flash App From Android Market
• Google Launches Android Market Web Store, Improves Payment System

You’ve seen it before and now you’re seeing it again. The Droid X2 that Motorola seems unwilling to announce has made another unsanctioned appearance in the wild. It’s still rocking Android 2.2 and there’s sadly no indication of any LTE goodness for it, but we suspect the changes that justify the 2 in its name will be happening under the hood. The 8 megapixel camera round the back comes with the same dual-LED flash array and HD Video label as the original Droid X, once again giving us no hint of what exactly Motorola’s upgraded. Then again, what’s the fun in knowing everything in advance?

Droid X2 reappears in the wild, still indistinguishable from Droid X originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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