That’s the good news. The less good news is that:

1. The native editor only works with documents, not spreadsheets or presentations.
2. The native editor supports basic formatting such as bullet points and indentation, but not more complex features such as charts.
3. You still need an internet connection to create or edit documents. Even if you’ve saved a document to your device for offline viewing you can’t edit it until you connect to the internet.

In fact, I started to create one document, lost my internet connection, and was unable to even save that document without internet access. If I wanted to return to the previous menu, I had to agree to abandon all changes.

On the one hand, today’s update is probably the most impressive improvement Google has made to the Android version of Google Docs.

On the other hand, there are half a dozen apps in the Android Market which offer more features for creating and editing office documents… although Google Docs is free while apps such as DocumentsToGo, Quickoffice Pro, and Office Suite Pro tend to cost between $10 and $15.

Google Docs is available from the Android Market.

Google Docs for Android gets native editing, collaboration tools is a post from: mobiputing

When you pull the phone from your pocket, you’ll be able to use the familiar, finger-friendly Android operating system.

But drop the phone into a docking station and plug in a monitor, keyboard and mouse and you’ll have a full Ubuntu Linux desktop experience.

Both operating systems will be able to access shared storage and other features. That way you can access documents whether you’re using Android or Ubuntu and you won’t need to sync anything.

The address book is also shared, as is your Android calendar data. You can even answer incoming calls or reply to SMS messages while using Ubuntu.

Ubuntu for Android will be able to run on phones with 1 GHz dual core processors with hardware video acceleration, 2GB of disk space, 512MB of RAM, USB host mode, and HDMI output. It supports Android 2.3 and up.

The system sounds a lot like Motorola’s Webtop solution which lets you dock certain Motorola smartphones into a multimedia dock or laptop docking station and access a light-weight Linux OS and full Firefox web browser. But the Ubuntu solution is much more powerful since it provides access to a fully functional OS with a number of preloaded apps including photo and video players, and even the PiTiVi video editor.

Canonical will showcase the new software at Mobile World Congress later this month, but the company hasn’t announced any hardware partners yet.

Ubuntu for Android turns a smartphone into a PC is a post from: mobiputing

CyanogenMod 9 is currently under development and pre-release builds are available for dozens of phones and tablets. But for the most part they feature the default boot animation you get with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, or an old-fashioned C77 boot animation.

The new animation starts out looking much like the CM7, but then it gets all Doctor Who time vortexy with the familiar Android on a skateboard flying through a field of shifting whisps of aquamarine.

It’s pretty slick, and while the boot animation is far from the most important feature in an operating system, it does give you something nice to look at while waiting for your phone or tablet to reboot.

via Phandroid 

CyanogenMod 9 boot animation revealed is a post from: mobiputing

Now you can also replace the B&N operating system with alternate versions of Android.

The most full-featured custom ROM available for the NOOK Tablet so far is CyanogenMod 7 Alpha.

CyanogenMod 7 is based on the open source version of Google Android 2.3 Gingerbread. But what sets it apart from the official B&N software is that CyanogenMod makes it easy to customize your tablet by installing the Android Market, changing app launchers, or tweaking dozens of settings.

An independent developer who goes by the name of CelticWebSolutions has posted a public build of CM7 Alpha at the xda-developers forum. There may still be some bugs, but for the most part CyanogenMod seems to run extraordinarily well on the NOOK Tablet. Audio, video, touch and WiFi are all working.

You can find instructions for installing CyanogenMod 7 Alpha at Liliputing.

Eventually you’ll be able to follow the same steps to install custom ROMs based on Android 4.0 or other software.

Note that if you install CyanogenMod 7 you won’t be able to access the B&N app store, but you can install the NOOK eReader app from the Android Market to read eBooks and periodicals from the B&N store.

Install CyanogenMod 7 alpha on a NOOK Tablet is a post from: mobiputing

But if you want to get a sense of how the operating system will look you don’t have to wait. Since the user interface is written using HTML and other web languages you can download an early version of the Boot to Gecko (B2G) user interface and run it in a Firefox web browser now.

Just download the latest software from github, unzip it to a folder on your computer, and open the homescreen.html file in your browser.

B2G actually consists of several components, including a Linux kernel and some basic software to interact with phone hardware, the Gecko rendering engine used by the Firefox web browser, and the user interface. What you’re doing if you fire up the homescreen in a desktop web browser is just interacting with the UI.

But that will give you an idea of what the OS looks like, how it scales to different screen sizes (just try resizing your window), and what some of the apps including the web browser, maps, and phone dialer will look like.

At this point Boot to Gecko looks a lot like other smartphone operating systems, but that could change as the platform evolves. One of the key features is a reliance on web-based apps, so that apps you install on a Boot to Gecko device could theoretically be run just as easily in any other web browser.

Take Mozilla Boot to Gecko user interface for a test drive is a post from: mobiputing

Now the developers at Swype have released a public beta of their keyboard that supports Android 4.0.

The latest beta version of Swype also adds support for Dragon Go! speech recognition, downloadable language packs fro tablets, and improved accuracy.

You can sign up for the beta at the Swype Beta website.

via GottaBeMobile

Swype keyboard beta now available for Android 4.0 is a post from: mobiputing

One thing Samsung hasn’t done yet is release Android 4.0 for the phone. It currently runs Google Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

But it looks like the company is working on a version of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich for the tablet, because a leaked Chinese ROM for the Galaxy Note based on Google’s latest operating system popped up recently.

It includes Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface running on top of Android, so while you get Android 4.0 features such as the new recent apps menu, you also get Samsung’s home screen, app launcher, and home screen widgets.

There’s a very long thread about the ROM at the xda-developers forum, and you should probably check it out before trying to install this software. But now that the ROM has leaked, it’s likely that some of the software will find its way into third party ROMs from independent developers.

via Android Community

Leaked Android 4.0 ROM for the Samsung Galaxy Note is a post from: mobiputing

The folks at the Dark Forces Team are working on a new project called WML which allows you to load Windows Mobile in an emulator window on a Windows Phone 7 device.

That means you can run classic Windows Mobile apps such as the TCPMP media player or games like Worms World Party.

DFT hasn’t released WML to the public yet, but the team has published a video showing the emulator running Windows Mobile 6.1 on an HTC HD7 smartphone. Windows Mobile 6.5 is also supported, and you can switch back and forth between WML and native Windows Phone 7 apps.

You’ll need an unlocked phone with a supported processor to run WML when it’s eventually released to the public.

via TechCrunch and Windows Phone Hacker

WML emulator brings classic Windows Mobile apps to Windows Phone 7 is a post from: mobiputing

Basically, when you’re using Cornerstone a toolbar will show up on the right side of the display. You can pull it out to view two more Android apps — and you can choose which apps you want to show up.

So you can surf the web in one window while keeping an eye on your Facebook and Twitter feeds, for instance.

Cornerstone is open source software, and the folks behind the popular CyanogenMod version of Android are looking at incorporating it into the next version of their operating system based on Android 4.0.

Nothing is finalized yet, so it’s not clear whether CyanogenMod 9 will have Cornerstone built in. But if you want to get an idea for how it would work, check out this demo video.

But if you want to try out Cornerstone yourself, there’s already an unofficial build of CM9 with Cornerstone integration available for the HP TouchPad.

via Android Police

CyanogenMod 9 could bring Cornerstone multitasking to Android 4.0 is a post from: mobiputing

There are only a handful of apps available from Fireplace Market right now, but they include popular apps that require root access such as Titanium Backup and Set CPU.

The app store has a pretty barebones look and feel, but you can browse apps by category, search for apps, or view a list of all apps. There’s also a built-in package manage that lets you launch or remove apps from your device.

Fireplace Market 2.0 came out this week, and it includes a new homepage, interface improvements, and other updates.

You can download and install Fireplace Market on any rooted device running Android 2.1 or newer. You can also follow the development thread at the xda-developers forum or submit your own apps for inclusion.

Fireplace Market: Android app store for root apps is a post from: mobiputing

The Amazon MP3 2.4.0 change log also suggests there’s a new layout optimized for tablets, but there still appears to be an awful lot of wasted space on my HP TouchPad screen.

The new app also has a new grey and orange color scheme which brings a little Kindle Fire flavor to pretty much any phone or tablet running Android 4.0 and up.

Amazon MP3 is both a music player and a music store. You can stream music purchased from Amazon over the internet or download it to your device.

Version 2.4 of the app also adds personalized recommendations to the Amazon MP3 store, based on your purchase history. Recommendations are only available in the United States.

Amazon MP3 is available as a free download from the Android Market.

Amazon MP3 adds Android 4.0 lock screen controls is a post from: mobiputing

BlackBerry 10 will be designed to run on both phones and tablets, and in some ways it’s expected to look a lot like BlackBerry PlayBook OS. But according to a leaked document, the smartphone version will feature a user interface designed to fit on smaller screens.

So what’s new in BlackBerry 10? It looks like here are a few highlights:

• Home screen widgets which provide at-a-glance information from weather, music, phone, or other apps
• Video chat
• iOS-like folder icons which show some of the apps hidden in the folder

Overall BlackBerry 10 looks a lot more like Android or iOS than earlier versions of the BlackBerry smartphone operating system. That’s probably a good thing for a company that’s trying to keep up with the competition — but it’s not yet clear if it will be enough to convince anyone to put down an iPhone and pick up a BlackBerry again.

BlackBerry 10 will bring widgets to the home screen is a post from: mobiputing

Now the developer has added a few new features including lock screen controls for devices running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. This lets you pause or resume audio playback or skip tracks without unlocking your device.

PowerAmp 2.0 also includes notification controls for devices running ANdorid 3.0 and up, support for multichannel FLAC audio files, and support for HTC Beats/SRS audio.

There are also a number of bug fixes and translation for Japanese, Polish, Korean, and Chinese.

You can download a free trial version of PowerAmp from the Android Market. A full license costs $4.99.

via Droid Life

PowerAmp 2.0 music player adds Android 4.0 lock screen controls is a post from: mobiputing

That’s because none of those devices comes with access to the Google Android Market. Instead they have their own app stores. Now the folks at WordPress have announced that you can download the official WordPress app from the Amazon Appstore and B&N Shop.

Both the NOOK and Kindle apps are available as free downloads, and both let you create new posts for your WordPress blog, upload photos, edit existing posts, manage comments, or view statistics.

Basically WordPress for the NOOK and Kindle is the same WordPress 2.0 app that’s already available for other Android devices… but now you can download it outside of the Android Market.

Or you can always root your NOOK Tablet or Kindle Fire and install the Market.

WordPress blogging apps hit Kindle Fire, NOOK Tablet is a post from: mobiputing

CyanogenMod 7.2 Release Candidate 1 is due out soon, and the changelog shows many of the new features, including:

• Ice Cream Sandwich transition effects
• Ice Cream Sandwich rotation effects
• Ice Cream Sandwich telephony fixes

Other updates include a number of bug fixes, calendar improvements, a T9 predictive phone dialer, and lockscreen updates. CyanogenMod 7.2 will also add support for additional phones and new features for specific phones, including support for tv output on Samsung Galaxy S phones.

The system requirements for Android 4.0 are a little different than those for earlier versions of Android, so some phones that can run CM7 won’t officially be supported when CM9 is released. So it’s nice to see that some of the latest features will still find their way into CM7.

via reddit

CyanogenMod 7.2 will bring some Android 4.0 features to Android 2.3 is a post from: mobiputing

In March, the HTC Sensation 4G, HTC Sensation XE, and HTC Sensation XL should get software updates. Later this year we’ll also see updates for these phones:

• Amaze 4G
• Desire HD
• Desire S
• EVO 3D
• EVO 4G
• Incredible S
• Rezound
• Vivid

Noticeably absent from that list is the original HTC Sensation smartphone. When the company first plotted its roadmap for ICS updates late last year, the Sensation was one of the phones listed. But now it’s nowhere to be seen.

Fortunately independent developers are already taking up the slack. Several unofficial builds of Android 4.0 are already available for the Sensation. You can find more details about these custom ROMs at the xda-developers forum.

HTC to start rolling out Android 4.0 updates in March is a post from: mobiputing

A group of developers have been working to port Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to run on the N9, and it looks like some serious progress is being made.

The goal is to create a dual boot solution so that users can run both MeeGo and Android on the phone.

The Nokia N9 has a 3.9 inch, 854 x 480 pixel curved AMOLED display, a 1 GHz TI OMAP 3630 processor, and an 8MP camera with a 28mm lens. It’s a nice piece of hardware — but unfortunately it never went on sale in the US.

via Maemo forum and The Verge

Android 4.0 coming soon to the Nokia N9 (unofficially) is a post from: mobiputing

OneNote for Android lets you create notes that include text or pictures, and you can either add photos from your gallery or snap new photos using your camera.

The app also includes support for to-do lists with checkboxes and text formatting. You can also add hyperlinks to web pages.

You can synchronize your notes with Windows Live SkyDrive, but notes saved on your device are also accessible when you’re offline.

OneNote Mobile for Android lets you create or access up to 500 notes for free. If you hit that limit you can make an in-app purchase for $4.99 which will remove the limit.

OneNote runs on Android 2.3 and up.

Microsoft finally brings OneNote to Google Android is a post from: mobiputing

But today Google has launched the first version of Chrome for Android. It looks like the desktop version of Chrome and features the same omnibox that lets you enter a URL or a search query — with suggestions popping up as you type.

When you sign in with your Google account you’ll automatically be able to access your bookmarks, search history, and other data from the desktop version of Chrome.

There’s also an option to view browser tabs that are open on other devices. If you’re signed into Chrome on your desktop, you can fire up Chrome on your mobile device and quickly open the pages you were just reading on your PC.

Google Chrome requires Android 4.0 or higher to run. I took it for a spin on my HP TouchPad today, and it feels ridiculously fast — especially when visiting pages that it can preload in the background.

Chrome also makes it easy to open an incognito window when you don’t want sites you visit to be saved to you history.

Google Chrome browser now available for Android 4.0 and up is a post from: mobiputing

MIUI is a custom version of Android that, quite frankly, looks a lot like iOS. The default MIUI home screen, for instance, replaces common application icons of all shapes with square icons — and there’s no app drawer. Instead all of your apps are displayed on the home screen. Unlike Apple’s mobile operating system, MIUI does support home screen widgets though.

The software also has a series of custom apps, a custom notification tray, and a consistent look and feel that was missing from Android until fairly recently.

MIUI is already available for a number of Android phones and tablets. Now that the project is going open source it’s likely that it will be ported to even more devices — and third party developers may have an easier time customizing the software or writing apps that feel like they were designed for MIUI.

The developers have already released the source code for  handful of apps including the compass, sound recorder, and file explorer apps.

via Android Central

MIUI Android ROM is going open source is a post from: mobiputing

The Aviary Android app behaves in an unusual way — it doesn’t show up on your list of apps. Instead, you open it by firing up the Gallery app (or any other photo app), finding a picture you want to edit, an then “sharing” it with Aviary Editor.

Once you do that you can apply a number of digital effects, crop, resize, or adjust colors, or make other changes. Out of the box, Aviary includes a decent number of basic tools — but you can also buy additional effects through in-app purchases.

Aviary is available for Android 2.2 and up.

via Android Police

Aviary photo editor comes to Android phones, tablets is a post from: mobiputing

While anyone can publish an Android app to the Market in a matter of minutes, Google is taking steps to scan apps to detect malicious software automatically.

For the last few months Google has already been using a new scanner which is codenamed “Bouncer.” It looks at new apps as they’re uploaded and also scans existing apps and developer accounts to look for potential problems.

Bouncer looks for known malware, but also identifies behavior that could be an indication that something shady is going on. Google says the number of downloads of potentially dangerous apps dropped 40 percent between the first half of 2011 and the second half (when Bouncer was implemented).

So what do you think? Do you feel any safer? Or would you prefer if someone from Google examined each Android app manually before it was added to the Market the way Apple does? Because that’s not going to happen… it’s not how a company that doesn’t even offer customer support works.

Google gives Android Market a “Bouncer” malware scanner is a post from: mobiputing

Paul Thurrott followed up with more details at WinSuperSite.

Here are a few of the highlights:

• The operating system will be based on the Windows 8 kernel, not Windows CE.
• While Windows 8 apps won’t run on Windows Phone 8, the two operating systems will share enough code that developers can port Win8 apps to WP8 easily.
• The Zune Client desktop sync app will go away and Microsoft will launch a new app dedicated to synchronizing Windows Phone 8 devices with Windows computers.
• Windows Phone 8 will support multicore chips, new screen resolutions, NFC radios, and other high-end hardware.
• There will be a Wallet app to compete with Google Wallet.
• Microsoft plans to use a proxy server to speed up webpage load times in Internet Explorer 10.
• Windows Phone 8 will support 128-bit full-disk BitLocker encryption.
• Microsoft is introducing a “lens app” for camera functionality.

The new mobile operating system is expected to ship around the same time as Windows 8, which probably means the second half of 2012.

Microsoft accidentally spills the beans on Windows Phone 8 is a post from: mobiputing

But now the company is launching a $5 version designed for the Apple iPad.

Avid Studio for iPad is optimized for touchscreen input and the Apple tablet’s small screen. The mobile app can’t export videos in Adobe Flash format, but you can export apps to the Avid Studio for desktop app, which means that you can start working on a video on your iPad and finish on your PC.

The iPad app lets you work with audio, videos, and photos on your device or capture videos and photos while using the app. There’s support for 3D animations, transitions and titles as well as other effects such as picture-in-picture, pan and zoom.

All Things D reports that the $4.99 price tag is introductory. Avid will raise the price to $7.99 after 30 days. That’s still a bargain compared with the company’s desktop software, but Avid Studio for iPad will have to compete with Apple’s $4.99 iMovie app which offers many (but not all) of the same features.

Avid Studio for iPad is available from the iTunes App Store.

Avid Studio video editor hits the iPad, looks a lot like iMovie is a post from: mobiputing

Like Xbox Live, the new Gameloft app isn’t just a store for buying and downloading games. It’s also a social hub that lets you send messages or chat with your friends, invite them to play games, or share your achievements. You can also create custom avatars for you account.

This isn’t the first time the company has taken inspiration from outside. Many of the top Gameloft games are blatant rip-offs of other titles. Order and Chaos, for instance, is a World of Warcraft clone, Eternal Legacy draws heavily from Final Fantasy, and NOVA is basically Halo for Android.

Even if you don’t care about the social aspects, Gameloft Live might be worth checking out. The company promises to offer exclusive discounts to members, and the service should make downloading and installing Gameloft titles on an Android device a little simpler. Some of the company’s many games aren’t available in the Android Market.

via EuroDroid

Gameloft Live: social app store for Gameloft Android games is a post from: mobiputing

The company has offered a mobile app for Android for a while, but up until now it’s been optimized for phones. Now Mint has released a new version which looks great on tablets running Android 3.0 and up. It’s available as a free download from the Android Market.

While the tablet-friendly app is new to Android, it actually looks a lot like the iPad app Mint released late last year.

The new app makes better use of the screen real estate on tablets, offering some of the attractive graphics that you can find on the website but which aren’t available in Mint’s smartphone app. There’s also a whole lot more information viewable on a single screen — but in a way that doesn’t look cluttered.

I’ve been a Mint user for over a year, and the smartphone app is great for adding transactions on the go. But the tablet app is a whole lot prettier.

Personal finance app Mint comes to (some) Android tablets is a post from: mobiputing

You know that touch-friendly version of ClockworkMod Recovery which was released this weekend? It’s kind of a pain to install manually. But developer Koushik Dutta has come up with a much simpler way to install it.

All you need to do is download the latest version of ROM Manager from the Android Market on your phone and you can install the new touch recovery automatically. You’ll need a rooted phone with an unlocked bootloader for that to work — and only a handful of devices are supported initially.

But Dutta is working on adding support for additional devices.

ClockworkMod Touch Recovery allows you to backup or restore your device, install custom ROMs, or apply software updates.

ROM Manager is available as a free download, but you’ll have to pay $1.99 if you want to use it to install ClockworkMod Touch Recovery. Or you can install it manually for free if you know your way around the Android SDK, adb, and fastboot. You can also continue to use the older version of ClockworkMod Recovery which relies on volume and power buttons for navigation rather than touchscreen input.

Flash ClockworkMod Touch Recovery with ROM Manager (for $1.99) is a post from: mobiputing

There are hundreds of thousands of free and paid apps available in the Google Android Market. It’s easy to download and install any of them with just a few clicks — but Google doesn’t provide an easy way to bookmark apps that you might want to install later.

That’s where a free app called MarketMarks comes in. It can act as a sort of shopping list for Android apps.

Once MarketMarks is installed, just browse the Android Market and click the share icon anytime you find an app you might want to download in the future. Then choose MarketMarks from the share menu.

MarketMarks will create a list of apps you’ve saved. You can then tap any app in that list to bring up the Android Market page.

You can also organize multiple lists by placing them in folders, delete apps from your list from a long-press context menu, or move apps between lists.

MarketMarks can come in handy if you’re not sure whether you want to spend money on an app but you don’t want to forget about it. You can also use the app to bookmark apps that you don’t want to download over 3G so you can easily find them again when you get back to your WiFi network, or if you want to wait until you’ve cleared up some space on your device before downloading a new app.

via reddit

MarketMarks is like a wish list for the Android Market is a post from: mobiputing

HTC Sense is a custom user interface designed to run on HTC’s Android phones. The company is preparing a new version of Sense designed to work with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and it’s reportedly called HTC Sense 4.0.

Last week the folks at PocketNow described some of the new features we can expect to see in Sense 4.0, but at the time no pictures or videos were available. But now the folks at HTC Hub have gotten their hands on a pre-release version of the upcoming HTC Ville smartphone running Sense 4.0 — and they’ve posted the first video of the new user interface.

There are new animated transitions between screens and support for some Android 4.0 features including the new widget menu.

While Google designed Ice Cream Sandwich to work on devices like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus that don’t have dedicated buttons below the screen for home, back, menu, or recent apps functions, it looks like the Ville and HTC Sense 4.0 still use the same sort of capacitive touchscreen buttons found on older Android phones.

The HTC Ville smartphone is expected to have a 4.3 inch, qHD display and a 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon dual core processor.

via Android Central

First look at HTC Sense 4.0 with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is a post from: mobiputing

Update: Touch Recovery is now available for a number of additional phones.

The custom recovery app allows you to backup or restore your device, wipe data, or flash (install) custom software. Eventually it will likely be available for additional phones and tablets.

In order to ClockworkMod Touch Recovery you’ll need to use fastboot and adb to push the app from your computer to your phone. You may want to install the Android SDK in order to use these tools, although strictly speaking you don’t necessarily need the entire Android SDK if all you want to do is access fastboot and adb.

If you know your way around adb already, you can find some basic instructions for installing the new custom recovery at Droid-Life.

ClockworkMod Touch Recovery beta released for Nexus S, Galaxy Nexus is a post from: mobiputing

ClockworkMod Recovery is a utility that can be used on Android devices to backup, restore, or wipe data on your phone or tablet, and to flash new software. For instance you need a custom recovery tool like ClockworkMod to install CyanogenMod or MIUI versions of Android.

Up until now ClockworkMod has relied on the volume, power, and home buttons on most devices for navigation, since it doesn’t include touchscreen support. That’s made the popular utility difficult to use on devices that don’t have all of those buttons, including the Amazon Kindle Fire. That’s one of the reasons the touch-based TWRP 2.0 recovery software has proven popular with Kindle Fire users.

But ClockworkMod developer Koushik Dutta is showing off a new version of his utility that will work with touchscreens. This will allow ClockworkMod Recovery to work on the Kindle Fire, and it will also allow users to navigate through various menus more quickly even on devices that do have volume, home, and power buttons.

The touch-friendly version of ClockworkMod isn’t ready for the public yet. Dutta plans to improve the graphics and other functions before releasing it, but the video gives us an indication of what to expect when one of the most widely used custom recovery apps adds touch support.

via reddit

Touch-friendly version of ClockworkMod Recovery on the way is a post from: mobiputing

In other words, you can use Google Music to backup your music library, stream it to any computer with a web browser or to your Android phone or tablet, and download your music to a PC.

So you can create a backup of your music collection using Google Music and re-download it if your hard drive crashes, you laptop is stolen, or you buy a new PC.

Unfortunately there’s no easy way to download just a few songs at a time using the music manager. What happens when you click the “Download my library” button is that Google asks you what folder you’d like to store your music in, and then is starts to download all of your songs.

But you can download individual tracks or albums from the Google Music website.

Google Music now lets you download your music collection is a post from: mobiputing

Just three days after the jailbreak utilities were first released, the iPhone Dev Team reports that nearly half a million iPhone 4S devices have been jailbroken. The iPad 2 numbers are a little funkier, with about 300,000 new iPad 2 jailbreaks and around 150,000 people who had jailbroken their iPads while running iOS 4.x now upgrading to iOS 5.0.1 and jailbreaking again.

The stats are compiled from the number of new devices pinging the server for the Cydia store for jailbroken devices. Cydia is installed when you jailbreak your iDevice.

In addition to enabling support for apps that aren’t available from the App Store, jailbreaking allows you to access hidden files and settings on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad and make changes to the look and feel of the operating system.

Up until recently it was easy to jailbreak an iPad 1, iPhone 4, or earlier devices including all iPod touch models. But the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 both have new hardware that had proven more difficult to crack… until now.

Nearly a million iPad 2, iPhone 4S devices jailbroken this weekend is a post from: mobiputing

A day after the first tools for jailbreaking an iPad 2 or iPhone 4S were released for Mac users, the iPhone Dev Team has updated their utility to work with Windows.

The process is a bit more involved since it relies on a command-line utility that walks you through the process one step at a time for debugging purposes. But if you don’t want to wait for the Windows version of the tools to get a graphical user interface, now you don’t have to.

Update: Chronic Dev Team has also released an easier-to-use program for Windows as well as a Linux utility for jailbreaking an iPhone 4S or iPad 2.

Just download the latest CLI from the bottom of the official post at the iPhone Dev Team Blog, unzip it to a folder on your computer, open a command prompt and type “cinject -i payloads/jailbreak.mobileconfig” (without quotes) to get started.

You can also find a step-by-step walkthrough at FSM or more information at iPhone hacker Musclenerd’s website.

Now you can jailbreak an iPad 2, iPhone 4S on Windows too is a post from: mobiputing

The new tool is called GreenPois0n Absinthe and you can download it from the GreenPois0n website. It’s available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

The iPhone Dev Team also has also released a command line-based jailbreaking tool soon which walks you through the process one step at a time. It works on Mac or Windows.

This should help identify any remaining problem spots. Eventually the latest jailbreak tools will be incorporated in the next version of the popular redsn0w utility for jailbreaking iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad models.

Jailbreaking an iOS device allows users to install apps that aren’t available in the App Store including software which can change the boot logo, notification system, multitasking tray, or make other system-level changes to the operating system. It will also probably void your warranty.

Absinthe performs an “untethered” jailbreak, which means you can reboot your phone or tablet without having to connect it to a computer via a USB cable.

Jailbreak the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S with Absinthe is a post from: mobiputing

Google’s official app store isn’t nearly as restrictive as Apple’s, but apps are regularly pulled from the Android Market for violating Google’s rules – or for running afoul of wireless carriers.

For instance, there are very few video game console emulators left in the Android Market. And Koushik Dutta’s own app for tethering an Android phone to a computer to share a wireless internet connection was recently pulled at AT&T’s request.

While the app store would be named for the popular CyanogenMod open-source Android operating system, it would be available for any custom ROM developers to include in their software. The idea is that it would provide a place for developers to upload free and paid apps which aren’t available in the Android Market — and with over a million active CyangoenMod users, those developers would have a pretty large potential customer base on day one

The app store isn’t a done deal yet, but Koush has already posted a picture of the upload page he’s working on to his Google+ page.

CyanogenMod App Store could be one-stop shop for non-Market Android apps is a post from: mobiputing

Some of the top iOS hackers have announced that the great white whale of jailbreaking is about to go down: they’ve successfully jailbroken both the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S.

Update: The Chronic Dev Team has released GreenPois0n Absinthe, which you can now use to jailbreak the iPhone 4S or iPad 2. 

Apple’s two latest iOS devices use the dual core Apple A5 processor and aren’t vulnerable to the same tools used to jailbreak earlier devices — but a new exploit has been discovered that will jailbreak those devices.

Hacker pod2g and the folks at the iPhone Dev Team and Chronic Dev Team are working out the last few bugs, but they each plan to release tools that will allow users to perform an untethered jailbreak on the iPhone 4S or iPad 2 soon.

Jailbreaking an iOS device allows you to install third party apps that aren’t available from the App Store or make other changes to the look and feel of the device by accessing files and settings that are normally hidden from end users.

This will be an untethered jailbreak, which means you’ll be able to reboot your device without connecting it to a computer with a USB cable.

Chronic Dev will release a tool with a graphical user interface which you can run on a PC or Mac to jailbreak the devices. The iPhone Dev Team will eventually incorporate the ability to jailbreak devices with A5 chips into its popular redsn0w jailbreak utility, but first iPhone Dev will release a command-line utility that walks you through the process one step at a time. This will help diagnose any problems users are having.

The jailbreak will work on iPad 2 models running iOS 5.0.1 and iPhone 4S devices running iOS 5.0 or iOS 5.0.1. If you’re hoping to carrier unlock an iPhone 4S you should stick with iOS 5.0.

Untethered jailbreak for iPad 2, iPhone 4S coming soon is a post from: mobiputing

The Motorola Droid was one of the first really popular Android smartphones. But at this point the 2009 era device is considered pretty ancient. Motorola has no plans to update the Droid to Google Android 4.0, and even the hackers at CyanogenMod have announced the plan to drop support for the aging smartphone when CyanogenMod 9 (based on Android 4.0) is released to the public.

But there’s always someone who won’t take no for an answer — and this time it’s xda-developers forum member kabaldan. He’s ported an early build of CyanogenMod 9 to run on the original Motorola Droid.

Some features don’t work. For instance there’s no support for hardware accelerated video and the camera doesn’t function. Because the Droid doesn’t have as much internal storage space as most modern Android phones, kabaldan’s software also carves up the storage in interesting ways and makes use of an sd card if it’s properly partitioned and formatted.

The boot animation is also disabled because it uses enough RAM to cause problems on the Droid.

If that’s not enough to scare you off, you can find download links for CyanogenMod 9 RC0 and a working version of gApps at the xda-developers forum.

via xda-developers

Android 4.0 ported to the original Moto Droid (unofficially) is a post from: mobiputing

Apple and Google may have kicked the official Grooveshark apps out of their respective app stores, but Grooveshark has found another way onto your mobile device. The company has launched an HTML5 app which runs in a web browser but which feels a lot like a native app.

All you have to do is visit html5.grooveshark.com in nearly any web browser (desktop or mobile) to access a new version of the web-based streaming music service optimized for mobile devices.

Grooveshark’s HTML5 app is free to use while in beta, but it doesn’t have all the features you might expect. There’s no opportunity to login with your username and password to access playlists or favorite tracks, for instance

The reason Apple and Google booted the Grooveshark is because it’s not at all clear that the service acquires its music in a legal fashion. Grooveshark has a sort of post music first, acquire the streaming rights later approach and the company has been sued by pretty much every major music label.

While Grooveshark’s future remains unclear, the present is also a little funky. Because the company’s music catalog comes from user subscriptions, Grooveshark often has multiple listings for the same song while many songs that you might expect to find are simply not available. For instance, it’s no uncommon to find just 3 or 4 tracks from an album that has 10 or 12 songs.

Grooveshark’s desktop browser-based service is typically free, but the company charges to use its mobile apps. For the complete experience you can still download the mobile apps — but iOS users will need to have jailbroken devices and Android users will need to be able to install apps from unkown sources, since the app isn’t available from the Android Market

Grooveshark HTML5 app beta streams music to iOS, Android, pretty much anything is a post from: mobiputing

Developer Android Neal has been working on a new default music player for CyanogenMod 9. While CM9 isn’t ready for public consumption yet, the music player is ready to go and you can download and install it on any device running Android 4.0 or up. That includes devices running alpha or beta versions of CM9.

CyanogenMod is a custom version of Android based on the the open source code available for Google’s operating system.

The new music player adds a number of options that you won’t get from the music player Google ships with Android, including:

• Support for themes
• Gesture support
• Motion-based controls
• Search the Android Market for a currently playing song
• Share track info with social networks
• Set songs as ring tones
• Control music playback from the lock screen

While the app currently requires Android 4.0 and up to run, Neal plans to develop a version that will run on earlier versions of Android as well, although it may lose some of the features such as lock screen controls and notification controls.

CyanogenMod 9 music player available for Android 4.0 is a post from: mobiputing