Motorola Droid gets early Android 2.2 ROM, ready to download… now!

What shall we call this, Frodroid or Droyo? Either way, an Android 2.2 update has been made available for Motorola’s all-conquering slider, and it awaits eager firmware upgraders at the download link below. Produced by the good folks at My Droid World, this includes almost everything you’ll need to get your Froyo on in style, though it excludes WiFi support at this stage. Such is the way with unofficial upgrades, but if you really need consolation, there’s a whole set of superuser privileges to explore as this bad boy comes pre-rooted. You could of course skip this whole community business and wait for Moto’s official update, but that company’s idea of the “near future” is about as precise as the length of a piece of string.

Motorola Droid gets early Android 2.2 ROM, ready to download… now! originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Jun 2010 13:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Boy Genius Report  |  sourceMy Droid World  | Email this | Comments

HTC Pushes Out Fix for Evo 4G Storage Glitch

HTC and Sprint are moving fast to fix a storage card-related bug that left some early users of the Evo 4G smartphone frustrated.

As Wired reported Thursday, a problem with the 8-GB MicroSD card that ships with the HTC Evo returned error messages to some people when they tried using the phone’s camera app. The bug also prevented some people from saving files and documents to the card.

HTC has started pushing out a software fix to current and new Evo users, the same day the phone goes on sale at all Sprint stores.

HTC spokesman Keith Nowak confirmed that the updates started streaming out Friday morning so “anyone who currently has an HTC EVO 4G and people who are lining up to buy it today should not experience the issue.”

HTC and Google gave about 5,000 of the devices to attendees at Google’s developer conference two weeks ago, which is how many early users discovered the problem.

The Evo has been a much anticipated phone because of its position as the first 4G smartphone. HTC and Sprint unveiled the Evo in May. The feature-packed gadget has a huge 4.3-inch touchscreen, 1-GHz Snapdragon processor, a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera for video conferencing and a 8-megapixel camera for shooting photos and videos. (Evo’s MicroSD card has been manufactured by SanDisk.) Evo runs the 2.1 version of the Android operating system, and costs $200 with a two-year contract. Despite poor battery life, the phone has gathered positive reviews.

See Also:

Photo: (closari/Flickr)


HTC Hero (GSM) Android 2.1 update finally arrives… in Taiwan

In its day, the HTC Hero with its brand new Sense UI and browser with Flash Lite was a breakthrough, multitouch Android handset. As such, it quickly became a big seller for HTC and the carriers that sold it. Now one year later, owners of the GSM variant are still waiting for their chance at the latest Android 2.1 update. As a harbinger of things to come (we hope), the Hero 2.1 update just landed in HTC’s home country of Taiwan. Unfortunately, this will likely be the last update Hero owners receive… via official channels, anyway.

[Thanks, Lee]

HTC Hero (GSM) Android 2.1 update finally arrives… in Taiwan originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Jun 2010 04:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceHTC Taiwan (translated)  | Email this | Comments

Microsoft updating Live app suite, declares Windows ‘better than Mac for photos, hands down’

Looks like it’s blowhard season up in Redmond these days, as the latest word from Microsoft on its Live Essentials suite of apps has been accompanied by the brash pronouncement that it’s now markedly superior to Apple’s efforts in Mac OS X — at least when it comes to photos. This verdict was delivered by Brian Hall, General Manager for Windows Live, and is backed by a laundry list of new features we can expect by the holiday season of this year. Windows Live Photo Gallery and Movie Maker will soon be able to link up directly to sites like Flickr, Facebook and YouTube — which will allow for painless uploads as well as pulling in any additional tagging done on Facebook. New photo stitching and retouching abilities, along with face recognition (rather than mere detection) are also being touted, but the ultimate arbiter of the new software’s utility will obviously be the real hands-on experience for users. We shouldn’t have to wait too long for that, as a beta version of the freely downloadable (on Vista and 7, XP holdouts are no longer being served) suite should be making the rounds in the coming weeks.

Continue reading Microsoft updating Live app suite, declares Windows ‘better than Mac for photos, hands down’

Microsoft updating Live app suite, declares Windows ‘better than Mac for photos, hands down’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Jun 2010 06:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink CNET  |  sourceWindows Team Blog  | Email this | Comments

Kindle 2.5 update pushed back a few weeks for some ‘small adjustments’

Well, it looks like you should count yourself lucky if you were among the first few to get the Kindle 2.5 firmware update — Amazon has now announced that it’s pushing back the update for everyone else in order to make some “small adjustments” based on user feedback. Exactly what those adjustments are isn’t clear, and Amazon isn’t offering a new date for the updated update either, with it only going so far as to say that will be rolling out to “more users over the coming weeks.” As far as we can tell, however, there isn’t actually anything wrong with the 2.5 update that did roll out to some users, so go on enjoying your social networking and PDF zooming — if you can.

Kindle 2.5 update pushed back a few weeks for some ‘small adjustments’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Jun 2010 03:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceAmazon  | Email this | Comments

Samsung planning Android 1.6 update for Behold II — but that’s it

Remember the good ol’ days when companies were honest to their customers? Aw, who are we kidding — those days never actually existed, so it’s good to see Samsung carrying on the time-honored tradition of playing the CYA game by belting out a bald-faced lie or two. So the Behold II for T-Mobile USA has been the subject of some serious buzz the past few days as buyers have grown weary of the lack of new builds, all while the Android world has passed them by with not one, not two, not three, but four major updates. Samsung Mobile finally broke the silence today on a forum — good on them — saying that there’s a Donut update in the works featuring “Swype, an improved Media Player, updated core Android applications and improved Bluetooth capabilities.”

That’s all well and good, but Samsung goes on to say that “the Behold II is not upgradeable beyond Android 1.6” — and we’ve got a serious problem with that wording. We know (and Samsung knows) damn well that they could upgrade the Behold II beyond Android 1.6, considering that the community has managed to shoehorn even Froyo onto prehistoric devices like the Dream; rather, Samsung chooses not to upgrade it beyond Android 1.6. That’s a business decision that Samsung has to make, and far be it from us to try to push Sammy into continuing to sink cash into a phone that didn’t sell very well — but the least these guys could do is be honest, face the music, and tell us that’s what’s going on rather than insulting our collective intelligence and insisting that there’s some cosmic force preventing Eclair or Froyo from loading onto a phone that was just released a few months ago. Seriously though, Sammy — thanks for the Donut, we guess.

Update: We’ve now received Samsung’s official response independently and have it for you after the break.

Continue reading Samsung planning Android 1.6 update for Behold II — but that’s it

Samsung planning Android 1.6 update for Behold II — but that’s it originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 May 2010 01:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Samsung Behold II fails to fulfill Android 2.0 promise, jilted users contemplating lawsuit (video)

When Samsung launched its Behold II with Android 1.5 on board, it made something of a big deal about the fact the handset will be upgradeable to version 2.0 when that software became available. Such a big deal that it even put the promise of an OTA update into a promo video — a video that subsequently got yanked as the company realized it wasn’t going to be able to stick to its word. Well, that evidence has now been tracked down (see it after the break), and all those buyers who were left with a Cupcake in lieu of a promised Eclair have hardly forgotten about it either. Samsung’s position varies between the boilerplate “we don’t have a future release date,” to a stone cold “the SGH-T939 will never qualify for the Android 2X update,” depending on which rep you speak to. The disappointed users have therefore resorted to putting a petition together, which asks that either a refund, replacement Android 2.x handset, or a real update be provided to them, and concludes that “legal action will be taken” if Samsung fails them. That’s not exactly unreasonable , given the unfulfilled expectation — Samsung, what say you?

[Thanks, Yitzhak]

Continue reading Samsung Behold II fails to fulfill Android 2.0 promise, jilted users contemplating lawsuit (video)

Samsung Behold II fails to fulfill Android 2.0 promise, jilted users contemplating lawsuit (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 May 2010 08:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceAndroid Headlines  | Email this | Comments

Sony Dash software update adds USB playback by month’s end

Looks like Sony will be dishing out a new software update to Dash owners shortly. The first over-the-air update for Sony’s Personal Internet Viewer is expected to arrive at the end of the month carrying a number of usability and feature enhancements according to a Sony email sent to Dash owners. These include MP3 playback and picture viewing off USB, a full-screen app theme, and enhanced alarm functionality like adjustable snooze duration and one-touch alarm dismissal. Sony’s also promising new themes and additional internet radio options in a June update. Too bad Sony can’t deliver the device a battery and faster processor OTA but hey, free software is free. See the full contents of the Sony email after the break.

[Thanks Doug S.]

Continue reading Sony Dash software update adds USB playback by month’s end

Sony Dash software update adds USB playback by month’s end originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 May 2010 03:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Motorola expects Android 2.2 update to hit Droid ‘in the near future’

Hearing Google say that Android 2.2 would be filtering out to the Nexus One in short order was no huge shock — after all, it’s Google’s first smartphone. But for those who purchased Motorola’s first heavy-hitter since the RAZR, it looks as if they’ll be close behind in enjoying the spoils. According to a Motorola spokesperson quoted at Slashgear (full statement is past the break), the company is expecting the original Droid to get Android 2.2 “in the near future,” though he / she wouldn’t go so far as to provide specifics beyond that. Better still, the same person stated that Motorola is excited about Froyo in general, and it’s “looking forward to integrating it on [the firm’s] Android-based devices as [the software] is made available.” We hate to read too deeply into anything, but “devices” sure gets our digits tingling.

[Thanks, Alex]

Continue reading Motorola expects Android 2.2 update to hit Droid ‘in the near future’

Motorola expects Android 2.2 update to hit Droid ‘in the near future’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 May 2010 05:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceSlashgear  | Email this | Comments

Intel Core i5-580M speeding toward a fall release at 2.66GHz?

The Core i5-540M is still quite rare on the ground, but we’re hearing word that Intel is already prepping the assembly line for its successor. A new Core i5-580M has been dug up by the sleuths at Notebook Italia, who say it’ll run at a default 2.66GHz and ramp up to 3.33GHz via Turbo Boost when needed. Those numbers compare favorably to the 2.53GHz and 3.06GHz of the 540M, and if Intel and company get their timing right,the 580M should be stealing some of that Core i7 thunder just in time for the back to school shopping rush. Won’t hear any complaining from us if that turns out to be the case.

Intel Core i5-580M speeding toward a fall release at 2.66GHz? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 May 2010 04:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Electronista  |  sourceNotebook Italia  | Email this | Comments