Hasta La Gadget!

This intelligent SanDisk mobile memory card provides specific, real-time network data to MetroPCS to measure customer interest in digital content. Details of aggregated, anonymous consumer usage will allow MetroPCS to determine the impact of its movie offering, which in turn allows them to provide customers with more customized content and services in the future.

Continue reading Galaxy Indulge microSDHC card regularly reports back to MetroPCS (but hey, you get Iron Man 2 for free!)

Galaxy Indulge microSDHC card regularly reports back to MetroPCS (but hey, you get Iron Man 2 for free!) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Mar 2011 13:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A dude making a living writing Android apps — who, by all appearances, is an upstanding guy with actual quality software in the Android Market — is taking Google to task this week for what he calls “unacceptable” treatment. His beef seems to originate from the unexplained pulling of one of his titles — Rapid Download — a fact that he discovered not through any sort of communication from Google, it seems, but by the fact that he noticed was no longer making any coin from it. He goes on to say that he was unable to get anyone in Mountain View to explain the situation until his third attempt, at which point he received some unhelpful “generic information” plus a threat tacked on that if he violated the rules again, he’d have all of his titles pulled. For someone whose Market apps are breadwinners, we can imagine that would be a little scary.

Long story short, this particular developer decided he wasn’t going to take it — not after paying “over $14,000 in ‘service fees'” — and started a site to get his story public and enlist fellow devs unhappy with the way Google’s been treating them. Now, we can’t vouch for the accuracy of the guy’s story, but if this movement and ones like it gather enough steam, it puts Google in a precarious position; the Market, after all, is the crown jewel in the company’s strategy of allowing only approved devices to be the most relevant to consumers. Take away the absolute importance of the Market — like, say, Amazon is trying to do — and the power structure starts to shift.

Update: If you look at the legacy Market posting for Rapid Download on AndroLib, we can immediately spot at least one thing that’s wrong here — the guy is encouraging users to infringe copyrights right in the product description. Whoops! Sure, Google should be more proactive in letting developers know where they went wrong… but if you don’t see the problem in this, you probably have no business being a professional developer — at least, not one that’s claiming ethics on their side. Thanks, everyone!

Disgruntled Android developer sounds battle cry, rallies troops, demands Market tweaks from Google (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Mar 2011 09:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shortly after our first hands-on encounter with LG’s Optimus Pad, we came across a press release from the company announcing the price for its 8.9-inch Android Honeycomb tablet in Germany: €999 ($1,380). We rubbed our eyes and pinched our cheeks, but we weren’t dreaming — that’s LG’s recommended retail price, alright. Now Amazon has listed its pre-order page for the same slinky slate, though it’s sagely opted to chop €100 off and offer it up at €899. We still don’t know who exactly will be jumping at this opportunity, even with 32GB of onboard storage, a dual-core CPU and a dual-camera array on the back allowing for 3D video recording, when equally or more compelling products are about to hit the market at lower price points. At least shipping’s free.

Update: And just like that, Amazon’s listing is gone. Did we just alert them to LG’s RRP or something?

LG Optimus Pad listed on Amazon.de for a slightly less crazy €899 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Mar 2011 05:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve confirmed with our own sources what was almost an established fact already: there will be a version of Samsung’s 4.3-inch Galaxy S II Android smartphone relying on a dual-core Tegra 2 chip for its processing. The second-gen Galaxy S launched at MWC this year with Samsung’s own Exynos dual-core solution at its heart, but it seems that yields of that chip haven’t been good enough to sate the expected high demand for the handset. So, in steps NVIDIA with its soon-to-be-ubiquitous Tegra 2 — which runs at the same 1GHz as Exynos and offers comparable performance — to fill in the supply gap. The decision as to which part you’ll get in your next Samsung smartphone will depend on which territory you’re in, with Americans and Brits likely to get first bite at the Exynos cherry.

[Thanks, Anshul]

Confirmed: Tegra 2-equipped Samsung Galaxy S II is coming originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Mar 2011 04:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RIM held a little PlayBook party here in New York yesterday, giving us a chance to hang out with Ryan Bidan, the company’s senior product manager for the seven-inch tablet. In addition to chatting with us about battery life, connectivity, and pricing, Ryan clarified the PlayBook’s app development model — although devs can choose to work with native code, Java, Adobe Air, and HTML5 / WebWorks, the idea is for the ultimate user experience to be seamless, and RIM is considering offering standard UI widgets for each environment. We also had to ask about those swirling rumors of Android support, and while we commend Ryan for his practiced non-answer, we can’t help but feel we detected a hint of a smile on his face. Or was that just another tray of snacks going past? Check the video and decide for yourself.

The Engadget Interview: Ryan Bidan, BlackBerry PlayBook senior product manager originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Mar 2011 10:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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