Hasta La Gadget!

Sure, Google might have just dropped Android 2.3 Gingerbread on the Nexus S just today, but that’s old news — Andy Rubin just took the stage at D: Dive Into Mobile and announced that Honeycomb is due “next year” with support for tablets. Andy demoed the new version of the OS on a Motorola prototype tablet, and it was very different, and highly customized — although there were still grids of icons, the apps were more “desktop” in flavor, and the traditional Android buttons weren’t present. We’re waiting for more details, we’ll let you know what’s up.

Android Honeycomb coming ‘next year,’ adds tablet support originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 22:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It looks like this CES could be a hot one for Motorola. Can you believe it was only a bit more than a year ago that Motorola introduced the Droid? Now it has a whole lineup of incredibly hot phones, and CES seems like a perfect time for the beating of chests in front of an industry. Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha just went on record during a keynote at the Credit Suisse 2010 Technology Conference, saying Motorola will be entering the tablet space ‘in the near future.’ He also said that he sees both 7-inch and 10-inch tablets as viable sizes — something that seems perfectly logical to us, and might jibe with how we initially heard of Motorola’s “Stingray” tablet as a smaller device, but later heard it was a full 10-incher upgradeable to LTE. This all follow’s on Sanjay’s statement in September that Motorola wouldn’t be joining in on the tablet space until next year, a year which is rapidly approaching. Meanwhile, Sanjay also confirmed that Motorola would have 4G devices “early” next year, which also sounds like a CES hint to us, though it might just be 4G modems and hotspots at the outset. Still, bring it on.

Motorola planning 4G devices for Verizon, 7- and 10-inch tablets early next year originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 20:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With the precedent the Galaxy Tab has set, it was an open question whether carriers would embrace the WiFi version of RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook — after all, it’s a little harder to fully monetize a data plan on a device that lacks its own cellular modem. Thing is, the WiFi version is the first one that’s going to be available; RIM hasn’t given much guidance yet on when the cellular version will follow on — and RIM doesn’t have much of a distribution channel outside its carrier partners. Well, Rogers has thrown its hat in the ring today at its TabLife event in Toronto, where it has been chatting up the success of the tablets it’s sold so far (the Tabs apparently won’t stay on shelves) and noting that it will be carrying both versions of the PlayBook as they become available.

How’s that going to work from a data perspective? Well, a concurrent announcement out of Rogers seems to hold the answer. A pair of new so-called “data sharing plans” can be tacked onto your existing smartphone plan, effectively opening up your data bucket to other devices — so it’s basically like the tethering plans we’ve started to see sprout up on American networks under a different name. One oddity, though, is the CAD $20 (roughly $20) data sharing plan that allows unlimited social networking on “popular sites” above and beyond your normal bucket of gigabytes — sounds silly, but when we think about what percentage of our mobile time is spent on Twitter and Facebook, it might just be crazy enough to work. Follow the break for Rogers’ press release and a quick clip of Rogers exec John Boynton with the PlayBook mention.

Continue reading Rogers adds ‘data sharing’ plans, will carry both WiFi and cellular versions of BlackBerry PlayBook

Rogers adds ‘data sharing’ plans, will carry both WiFi and cellular versions of BlackBerry PlayBook originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 16:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wondering just how well a tablet would do if picked up and marketed by all four major carriers in America? We’re still waiting for the breakdown within our borders, but there’s hardly a doubt that the unprecedented carrier arrangement has helped Samsung shatter its estimates on Galaxy Tab sales. Purportedly, the outfit has just passed the one million mark in global sales of the 7-inch Android tablet, but Information Week is quick to point out that Sammy’s not clear on whether that’s units in the sales channel or units in the hands of consumers. Either way, one million’s nothing to scoff at, particularly when you consider that only 600,000 had been sold as of November 22nd. The firm’s now hoping to move 1.5 million of ’em by the year’s end, and while that’s still well short of the estimated seven million iPads that have been sold to date, it’s a sales rate that we’re sure no one at Samsung is kvetching about.

Update: CNET heard from a Samsung representative that the company hasn’t officially announced the sales figure here, but hopefully we’ll get some clarification soon. It’s possible that the PR team simply isn’t ready to dish out the number in official fashion yet. We’ll keep you posted.

Update II: So, it’s just what we expected — the numbers are real, but Samsung wasn’t quite ready to come clean with ’em. According to Kim Titus, Director of Public Relations for Samsung Mobile, the company has “sold one million Galaxy Tabs globally.” Good on ’em!

Samsung sells one million Galaxy Tab units (update: confirmed) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 11:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Okay, maybe not everybody, but the vast majority of the Android offerings from Archos are receiving some guilt-free sweet treats. Models 23, 32, 43, 70, and 101 (you know, these guys) are all on the lucky receiving end of firmware updates that bring Android 2.2.1 to the table. That comes with improved performance, better battery life estimation, and support for external GPS adapters. All yours for the low, low price of free — well, assuming you’ve already bought the tablet, of course.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Archos Internet Tablets get firmware updates, everybody gets a Froyo originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 22:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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