Hasta La Gadget!

We’re headed over as we speak to get an early look at what TouchWiz has in store for Tab 10.1-totin’ New Yorkers, but in the meantime, Samsung’s served up a laundry list of details (after the break) to clue everyone in on what it’ll bring. Aside from pushing the TouchWiz UX overlay atop Android 3.1 (Honeycomb), the new digs will also enable Samsung Kies 2.0 support for PC and Mac, solving an issue we spotted a few weeks back. For those unfamiliar with Sammy’s Android dressings, this one promises to bring a Live Panel (described as a magazine-like widget view for immediate access to weather, social updates, email, and news on the home pane), a Mini Mode Tray (providing one-touch access to commonly used apps), Clipboard (it’s copy and paste, advanced), Photo Editor (it edits JPEGs, y’all) and the token Indicator Quick Panel (which enables users to quickly toggle on / off WiFi, notifications, sound, brightness and settings in lower right hand corner of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 display).

Of course, proceeding with the update means that you’ll get Amazon’s Music Cloud Player, the Kindle app and ‘Words with Friends’ preloaded, but enterprise folk can at least look forward to full support for Exchange ActiveSync version 14, on-device encryption and compatibility with Cisco’s VPN / Sybase MDM / WebEx. Still hungry for more? How’s about wireless printing to any “compatible” printer, as well as a bolstered Swype app that enables resizing of the keyboard and movement of the keys to any position on the panel. You’ll also find Adobe’s Flash Player 10.3, a redesigned Samsung Media Hub service and a promise that all Galaxy Tab 10.1 owners will start to see it beginning August 5th. If you’re eager to get prepped for Friday’s release, hit the source link to setup a required Samsung account; once registered, you’ll be notified when your device is ready for the upgrade and given drop-dead simple steps to complete it. Naturally, we’ll be bringing you an early look of the changes as soon as humanly possible.

Continue reading Samsung details TouchWiz UX update for Galaxy Tab 10.1, OTA rollout goes public on August 5th

Samsung details TouchWiz UX update for Galaxy Tab 10.1, OTA rollout goes public on August 5th originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Aug 2011 11:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon announces Android 3.2 update for Motorola Xoom 3G, available today? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Aug 2011 03:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Groupme, the little group messaging service that made a bit of a splash at Google I/O, turns 3.0 today. There are some shiny new features on board, including a simpler way to exchange private messages and “Questions” for sparking conversations when you’re not sure who to talk to. But, the big news — Groupme 3.0 is now platform and nation agnostic. With the latest update, the service will be available in 90 countries and add Windows Phone 7 to its list of supported OSes, alongside iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android. Even if you’re sitting in front of your desktop you can still take part in the mass messaging fun. The website has been overhauled and now sports all of the same features, like photo-sharing and group management, as the mobile apps. Check out the source link to get the latest version for your handset of choice — provided you’re not a Symbian fan — and don’t miss the gallery below.

Groupme 3.0 goes international and cross-platform, questions everything originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Aug 2011 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Currently, there are plenty of Android tablets. The problem is the lack of tablet apps. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Despite the flood of tablet debuts this year, Google’s Android slates aren’t taking off. It’s not the hardware — in part, it’s the lack of tablet-optimized apps.

Google wants that to change.

Beginning Tuesday, Google is hosting a series of workshops tailored specifically for programmers who want to bring their apps to Android tablets. Dubbed Android Developer Labs, or ADLs, Google will host the one-day workshops in three different cities in the United States, as well as one in Bangalore, India.

“It’s specifically aimed at optimizing Android apps for tablets,” wrote Android developer Tim Bray on Tuesday in a blog post. “In particular, creating high-quality tablet apps with an emphasis on polish and user-experience.”

Google’s app workshop is one of many recent efforts to rally support for the mobile platform. Last Friday, Google rolled out a new version of its search engine optimized specifically for tablets, mainly focusing on user interface tweaks focused on adapting to the tablet form factor. Google has also attempted to make the Android Market more user friendly, rolling out major site changes — which include a revamped interface and the inclusion of featured app categories — over the past few months.

While aesthetic changes may help to spurn a customer-friendly app environment, there’s still hardly any tablet-specific apps in the market. At last count, only 292 tablet-optimized apps were available for Android Honeycomb users, according to mobile enthusiast site AndroidCentral. Apple’s App Store boasts over 100,000 iPad-specific apps.

There’s at least some explanation for this: Some developers say that when taking screen size into account, iOS devices like the iPad and iPhone are easier to develop apps for.

“In terms of layout, iOS is pixel perfect,” said Jake Mintz, co-founder of Bump technologies, at Tech Crunch’s mobile conference last Friday. Essentially, Mintz speaks to the fixed ratios of Apple products: While there’s only a handful of devices offered by Apple, there are over 400 different Android phones and tablets currently on the market. “On Android,” Mintz says, “you end up needing to design on multiple screens and multiple layouts.”

This may change, however, with the next software version release of Android codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich. Though details on how this might happen are scant, some at Google have given hints of what we should expect.

“We’re trying to make one-size-fits-all, and there are different products for different needs,” Director of Android user experience Matias Duarte told Wired.com. “Ice Cream Sandwich gives you a lot of tools to help build one app that works more seamlessly across a variety of screen sizes and different form factors.”

Regardless of what happens with its software in the future, for now Google’s proposed workshops aim for quality first, quantity second. While anyone can register for the tablet-centric workshops, space is limited at the events, with priority given to those developers whose Android applications have “the potential to be a top-tier tablet app.”Though it’s not clear what that entails, it’s apparent Google doesn’t want to populate its application store with shoddy merchandise for the sake of filling online shelf space.

Google’s list of dates and cities in which the workshops will be hosted can be found here.

Mobile malware is nothing new, especially for Android users who have trained themselves to navigate the sometimes shady back alleys of the Market. The fine folks at CA Technologies came across an interesting new trojan though, that does something slightly more unnerving than max out your credit cards — it records your conversations. There’s no evidence that this has actually found its way into the wild yet, but it’s entirely possible that some nefarious developer could capture your calls and upload them to a remote server. Obviously, this wouldn’t hold much interest for your traditional cyber crook, but suspicious significant others and corporate spies could have a field day with such capabilities. All we can do is suggest you remain vigilant and maintain a healthy dose of paranoia about any apps on your phone.

New Android trojan can record phone calls, expose your embarrassing fantasy baseball talk originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 11:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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