Hasta La Gadget!

In case you were worried that it was just Apple love that got major news outlets on the iPad so quickly, you should know that the general sense of desperation (or is it their never ending sense of adventure?) pervading the likes of the The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today has them building apps for the Galaxy Tab as well. The news comes courtesy of The Wall Street Journal, and has yet to be announced officially by the parties involved — though we have a hard time doubting any of it. It makes sense, of course: the big cost is producing content for a tablet form factor, not building the reader app, and the Galaxy Tab naturally won’t be the last of its Android kind. The WSJ and The Financial Times are also apparently some possible gets for RIM’s PlayBook, though less is known about those deals. On the Tab, The New York Times is supposed to be pre-loaded with some carrier’s versions of the device, and its app will be free until January of next year when The Times starts charging for its website.

News publishers looking to the Galaxy Tab and BlackBerry PlayBook for refuge as well originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Oct 2010 13:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  The Wall Street Journal  | Email this | Comments

We’re not going to make any apologies. So long as Sony Ericsson continues to pretend like Android 2.x doesn’t exist and keeps kicking out new devices running Android 1.6, we’ll keep docking it points like the meanest of Russian judges. The 3-inch X8 is set to be Sony Ericsson’s most affordable Android handset — we were told it’ll cost south of $300 unlocked — to date, but then you get your money’s worth with a 600MHz processing core and a 3.2 megapixel fixed focus camera. Oh, even better news is that the X8 will get updated to Android 2.1 “a little later” than SE’s X10 line. If you want to avoid all this Android upgrade drama (and save a few more pennies), Sony Ericsson is also starting to ship out its no-frills Cedar candybar as well — perfect if you just want your phone to act like a phone and little more.

Continue reading Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 starts shipping its outdated self around the world

Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 starts shipping its outdated self around the world originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Oct 2010 03:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Sony Ericsson Product Blog  | Email this | Comments

After a healthy alpha (and pre-alpha) period, Mozilla is taking the mobile version of Firefox 4 to beta on Android and Maemo this week, promising improvements in stability, performance, and functionality. Actually, this represents a shift in branding for Maemo, where Firefox 1.1 has already been gold for some time — but odds are good you’re going to want to upgrade in any event, since this new version nets you the so-called Layers framework that aims to improve scrolling and zooming responsiveness. As you might expect, you get built-in Firefox Sync — basically making this a superset of Firefox Home — and support for HTML5. Makes that ol’ N900 look a little shinier, doesn’t it? Follow the break for Mozilla’s announcement video.

Continue reading Firefox 4 for mobile goes beta on Android and Maemo

Firefox 4 for mobile goes beta on Android and Maemo originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Oct 2010 21:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  The Mozilla Blog  | Email this | Comments

Amazon’s always worked hard to make sure it’s in the digital goods business as well as its obviously successful physical one, but this might be one of its boldest steps yet: another app store for Android. We heard the rumor a couple weeks ago through TechCrunch, and The Wall Street Journal is now claiming to have proof, including an Amazon document explaining some of the terms to the developers. It’s apparently still unclear when the store will be launched or even what it’ll be called, and since so far it seems like Amazon is mainly talking to developers about this behind closed doors, some of the specifics might still be in the air. According to the WSJ, Amazon stipulates an app can’t be sold for less anywhere else (which was hinted at in the earlier leak), and there’s a stranger requirement that the app can’t be on offer anywhere else for more than two weeks before it’s given to Amazon. We’re guessing that’s an Android only stipulation — or else a bit of a high barrier for iOS ports — but that just brings up more to worry about: is Amazon building a store just a first in an onslaught? And is this indeed part of an Android tablet launch for Amazon?

Amazon app store for Android confirmed by WSJ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Oct 2010 17:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  The Wall Street Journal  | Email this | Comments

It’s a tad later than initially promised, but it looks like Vibrant users frustrated by those serious GPS issues will soon have a fix — Samsung has just announced that it’s begun rolling out the JI6 over-the-air update to remedy the problem and finally bring it in line with the Captivate. No word on what else the update might include and, as with all OTA updates, there’s also no guarantee as to exactly when you’ll get it, with Samsung only saying that it will be distributed randomly over the next “several weeks.”

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Samsung rolls out JI6 update to fix Vibrant GPS issues originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Oct 2010 13:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  @GalaxySsupport (Twitter)  | Email this | Comments