Android in Canada Blog

Samsung’s Quad Core Galaxy S III in May?

Tom Gray — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:27:13 +0000

I normally shy aware from rumours and such, as I like to state facts mostly. This story is going on and on and It’s finally to the point where it’s just too juicy for me to pass up.

The latest rumour floating around is of course about Samsung’s Galaxy S III. This phone has been getting a lot of buzz due to the fact it’s going to be the successor to it’s older brother, the Galaxy S II. This phone is going to feature the next generation of Exynos quad core technology, although the exact Ghz has not been confirmed. I heard a rumour that it was suppose to be right around the 1.8Ghz to 2Ghz area, but no solid ground to go with yet.

The last years Galaxy S II measured in at a crazy thin 8.49mm and set headlines due to it’s very slim size. Now the Galaxy S III is said to be 7mm thin, while still packing those quad core chips. The Galaxy S III is also said to sport a 8MP Camera, with a 2MP front camera as well. Clearly this new phone will also come pre-loaded with Google’s latest edition of Android OS, the Ice Cream Sandwich which has also been turning heads day after day.

Obviously there is a lot of unconfirmed speculations about this phone, but it doesn’t stop us from getting all excited over the next big beast to taunt our wallets.

The release date has been rumoured to be in the early May. Will the Galaxy S III follow the same steps as the Galaxy S II? Will we Canadians get it first and set the U.S customers in a rage once again? I sure hope so…

Samsung’s Quad Core Galaxy S III in May? is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S to have 4.0.5 by March

Tom Gray — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:36:03 +0000

Currently the latest ‘Official’ OS running on the Galaxy Nexus is 4.0.2, although some are still stuck on 4.0.1 for some unknown reason.

Google has been pushing updates very slowly for the the Nexus S, and the Galaxy Nexus has numerous 4.0.3 roms flying around the keep their users entertained. The latest news to be seen flying around the internet is the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S are scheduled to get 4.0.5 OTA by March.

French carrier SFR has outlined, in a leaked photo, its plans to update the two Google devices by March. Most devices should currently be situated between Android 4.0.1 and 4.0.2 depending on what version of the handset you received. Why is it more complicated than it used to be? Because unlike the Nexus S, whose updates were fully administered by Google, some variants of the Galaxy Nexus are being updated by Samsung and not Google.

Over the weekend we seen Verizon version of the Galaxy Nexus get pushed to 4.0.4 to help improve performance and fix a couple other bugs. After we heard this news, some Canadians have been standing on their toes wondering if we can be expecting an update soon too. The answer is yes.

For us rooters and Nexus modders, perhaps we will see some early builds of the 4.0.5 released before it is pushed OTA around March.

Keep your eyes open for that. I will keep you guys updated on the situation as I find more information.

Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S to have 4.0.5 by March is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

LeanKernel Minimalistic for Galaxy Nexus

Tom Gray — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:53:55 +0000

If you’re searching for that 4.0.3 rom that fits you perfectly, than surely you have a quest for a good kernel to go with it. Not to long ago I covered the Franco Kernel, but not I want to cover this new beauty I stumbled across and has really caught my attention.

The LeanKernel Minimalistic is created by the developer imoseyon. As the title says, he’s going for a straight forward minimalistic kernel for that snappy speed we are all looking for. Here’s a detailed list of some of the things you can expect to see in this kernel.

Patched to latest in Linux 3.0.x branch: 3.0.18, which was released 1/26/12 (lots of new/updated kernel code).
All unnecessary kernel components removed to make kernel lean and fast!
OC to 1.35Ghz (Michael Huang, optimized by me). Boot speed is maxed at 1.2ghz within kernel (in addition to ramdisk) for stability.
GPU overclock (Michael Huang).
User voltage control (Michael Huang, fixed and enhanced by me).
InteractiveX V2 (screen-off hotplug of cpu1) added. Select it using setcpu if you want to use it.
Ramdisk tweaks (sysctl, vm, filesystem speed, etc.)
SWAP & zram (next generation compcache) support. Run “zram enable” in terminal.
init.d support in ramdisk.
Hotplug governor.
cpufreq backport from Linux 3.2/3.3
rcu code backport from Linux 3.2/3.3
other linux 3.2/3.3 backports: dm, futex, voltage regulator, etc.
Undervolted by default (1.35ghz/1325, 1.2ghz/1300, 920mhz/1250, 700mhz/1150, 350mhz/950)
Experimental version features (in addition to stable build):

What really catches my eye is the InteractiveX governor. Allowing one CPU to shut off while the device sleeps is just brilliant, and you can imagine the battery savings from it. Using this kernel and the undervolt guide Bigxie offers, I am getting some of the best battery I have ever got before without sacrificing performance.

If you have a Galaxy Nexus running on 4.0.3, I highly suggest checking this kernel out. You can find Imoseyon and his kernel here.

LeanKernel Minimalistic for Galaxy Nexus is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

BestBuy Offers Galaxy S II LTE for Free

Tom Gray — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:32:38 +0000

BestBuy does it again. For the next three days (until Thursday), BestBuy is offering the Samsung Galaxy S II LTE from Rogers for free on a 3-year contract. Original price at Rogers is $99

This is the phone that had me debating against my Galaxy Nexus. Deciding whether I wanted this phone or the Galaxy Nexus was probably one of the more harder decisions in life. This phone packing a massive 1.5Ghz dual core processor and 1GB of ram, there is no wonder they beast packs a punch.

For a full list of details on this phone and where to pick it up, you can head over to BestBuy.

Don’t wait to long, this sale ends Thursday!

BestBuy Offers Galaxy S II LTE for Free is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

REMINDER: We want to hear from you [poll/survey]

Ryan Moore — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:00:39 +0000

REMINDER

We want to hear from you, our readers. So far, if the pageviews are right, about half of those who saw the last post have commented. If you haven’t put in your thoughts, please consider doing so now.

I will most likely close this on Wednesday, in order to write a summary for Thursday’s article.

For those that have provided input, wow… WOW. You love us, you really love us! j/k

But really, it’s made me blush a little to hear some of the nice things that you have said, and all criticism has been TRULY listened to and we find this kind of information highly valuable.

[can't see the survey? click here]

REMINDER: We want to hear from you [poll/survey] is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

#patentfun January 30 – Feb 3 2012

Ryan Moore — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 18:58:50 +0000

#Patentfun is a weekly roundup of some of the legal case proceedings that surround the Android OS.

Another week has gone by and there have been some large developments, as you’ll see. This week it seems to be all Apple, and Germany. With all the ‘case law’ seeming to be done in Germany first, I have yet to see real external implications. Only time will tell I guess.

German appeals court upholds Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 injunction — but on different legal basis than Apple’s design right

So, initially Apple filed against Samsung because their products “looked too closely like ours”, and won an injunction to keep Samsung out (remember when Sammie had to hid half their booth at one of the trade shows?). Well, Samsung appealed and also lost on the basis of the design, but has now gone on to Germany’s HIGHER court and appealed again. Here, they lost, but… not for the design reason, but for “unfair competition”… which for the life of me, I’ve gone and read a few articles trying to understand this… but I can’t. I don’t see where they got that ruling, or what were the grounds that they believed it was unfair.

Maybe, it has to do with a result of Samsung’s response to the ruling, then coming out with the 10.1N… but I don’t know. Will have to get my friend to explain some day.

Here’s the upshoot to the story. Yeah, Samsung lost. But… remember they now have lost but not about the design patent that Apple initially wanted. So… more and more we’re starting to have people ‘get it’ that Apple really is just crying the blues when it comes something that comes close to competing. It’ll be interesting to hear what they finally say about what the ‘unfair competition’ was that Samsung did…, but my understanding after that article is that it tends to be a nebulous term … which means it won’t travel over the sea to any other courts. PLUS (as you’ll read below) the 10.1N is still fine. So… in the end Apple just was victorious in spending a whack of their own and Samsung’s legal budget. Way to go team!

German court rejects Apple bid to ban sales of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1N, Galaxy Nexus

Obviously the case was not over patent design, as it includes the Nexus (and Apple should see the writing on the wall re: design), but apparently over some touch-technology. Funny how EVERY phone/tablet out there has touch technology, but only these 2 new kids on the block were targeted. Things that make you go hmm…

Apple went after Samsung based on a patent that it was awarded a while back, hoping to get a ban on the sale of the items.

But that didn’t go so well.

The judge even stated:

“Samsung has shown that it is more likely than not that the patent will be revoked because of a technology that was already on the market before the intellectual property had been filed for protection,”

Interesting. So, not only did Apple lose the injunction, but even the judge felt that Apple will lose out on the patent as a whole

I doubt Apple will let it go just at that… they (Steve Jobs) have said that they will spend every last dollar to right this wrong (i.e. end Android). I can’t tell whether this is just starting to heat up, or whether it’s the beginning of the end…

Judge hands Apple key patent interpretation which could be used as victory against Motorola

Back on North American soil Apple is battling it out with Motorola, and the recent agreement a judge has with Apple on an interpretation of one of the patents (on ‘realtime api’) could have huge ramifications on all Android devices. I’m not so sure what real-time API means, but it sounds something deeply embedded and could be difficult to code around. Hrmm..

Motorola wins German injunction against Apple‘s iCloud and client devices

Back to Germany…

Motorola is winning the cloud patent fight. Specifically how the cloud can be allowed to use push technology to the phone / tablet. Now, apple has gone and temporarily removed products that would infringe, but then went and got a temporary reprieve (however short a reprieve it will be).

So what does this mean? It could be huge.

Motorola could be the next Blackberry, in terms of being able to say that their devices rule the cloud.

Now, push technology has been around for a while, so I’m not sure where Motorola wins out over this (is BB paying a licensing fee?), but it’s become so entrenched in every device that it would be hard to not have them in (as Apple found out and needed the reprieve for).

As Motorola is going to become Google, I can’t imagine they’d use this win for nefarious means, however, using it to crush Apple when they can, I’ll be okay with!

Apple expands patent claims against Samsung in Australia

For me, this is where it all started… ground zero.

Initially Apple wanted Samusng out of Australia so it could sell iPad’s unfettered.

There was heaps of holey dooley as the battle went back and forth.

The latest is now Apple is expanding the devices it wants to attack ‘down under’. It is now going after 10 different devices.

Crikey!

As usual, thanks to all the other blogs out there, who have been able to provide the news, and give me a chance to provide my insight. Please, I’d love to hear your insight into all this hullabaloo..

I apologize if this seems a little rushed out, been a little bogged down lately with parties for little’uns around here, and as a result I believe the cold I’ve been trying to shake off for weeks has taken this opportunity to catch up to me.

#patentfun January 30 – Feb 3 2012 is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Dropbox experimental build brings you extra space

Ryan Moore — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:46:30 +0000

I live in the cloud. If you’ve read anything from me, you’ll see that!

Well, one of my least used cloud service options has just provided an experimental build version which now offers auto-uploading of photos and videos (much like all the others now).

To entice you to make use of it they’re offering you some free space. Upload your first photo via this and you’ll get an extra 500mb.

Upload another 500mb of stuff and they’ll throw you another 500mb… every time! (up to a max of 4.5GB). This will even work on their new experimental build of the desktop app.

Auto uploading is a great feature (after all my errors with SD cards and losing some choice pictures), multiple backups are even better… but the best is that it’s FREE.

I’ve put the photo here in the APK folder we have set up. Download it and have at ‘er. I’ve so far only gotten the first +500mb, and trying to work on the next few.

Dropbox experimental build brings you extra space is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Aviary Plugin Now Available

Ryan Moore — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:37:41 +0000

Aviary, a great web editing tool is now available on your Android phone.

This is a great tool if you don’t have it built in (like in ICS). Some apps have already been using the plugin, like my favourite cloud storage MINUS. It’ll upload photos after editing if you like.

Now, keep in mind, this is NOT an app unto itself, but a plugin. To use it you can click on a photo in the gallery and choose to ‘edit’ or ‘send to’.

Everything after that is very similar to what you may have seen already by using Aviary in Minus, etc…

If you don’t have a photo editing piece on your phone, this is one to get.

Market Link

Aviary Plugin Now Available is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Angry Birds Rio updated!

Ryan Moore — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:32:20 +0000

A few days after they officially announced the update… we now can take advantage!

Go get it now and go after that final boss!

Angry Birds Rio updated! is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Samsung Galaxy Nexus Now Available at Wind Mobile

Tom Gray — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:19:54 +0000

Just a quick little update here for you guys. As the title says, the Galaxy Nexus is now available through Wind Mobile.

The price is set at $599 outright, $449 on the WindTab, or $249 on the WINDTab+.

If you have been waiting for Wind Mobile to drop this phone, your long journey is over. Hit up your nearest Wind location and grab yours today.

Don’t forget about the “Leap” promo plan that is also now in effect.

$40 a month
Unlimited Canada wide calling
Unlimited Texting
Unlimited Data
Call Control – Call ID, Call forward, Missed Call Alerts, Conference calling.

This does NOT include Voicemail or Canada wide MMS.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus Now Available at Wind Mobile is a post from: Android in Canada Blog