In addition to the rollout of the paid streaming music service on its own PlayStation Vita handheld today, Sony also updated the Music Unlimited mobile app on Google Play. The update only brings one new feature: The ability to download and listen to playlists offline. To enable the new feature, “Go to My Library, choose Playlists, and press the options button (+) for the playlist you want to make available offline.” You can find the updated app on Google Play here. The separate tablet app has not received an update yet. Read more
There are not many huge surprises on the list, but Verizon made things official for users wondering if their device will be getting an update to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. However, Verizon did not provide any specific dates for when the updates might be rolling out. If you are still in the dark about your device, head past the break to see if it made the cut.
Following a report from Bloomberg in December featuring advice from analysts, we asked you if Apple should settle for up to a $10 royalty per Android device and not keep paying its lawyers to fight patent disputes. Today, Dow Jones Newswires reports that Apple is interested in seeking settlements. According to the report, Apple “indicated a willingness to cut deals with competitors,” including Motorola and Samsung: Read more
Google rolled out a handy new feature yesterday to its mobile search page on Android and iPhone smartphones that provides access to the list of past places-related search queries. According to a post over at the official Google Mobile blog, the new Recent icon “shows information about places you have recently searched for on any of your devices.” You must be logged in to your Google Account when searching for places (such as the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco). Web History must also be enabled. Users can swipe to the right to see more icons for other categories of places.
Next time you are heading to a place you have recently searched for, no need to worry if you can’t remember the address or phone number. Just go to Google.com on your smartphone and tap on the “Recent” icon.
This improvement also allows you to research places of interest on your desktop and view them later while on the go— without having to bookmark or email places’ URLs to yourself. One thing to keep in mind: This information about your previously searched places will be available under the Recent icon for about a day, Google said. This handy new feature is the first in a series of enhancements aimed at unifying search experience across devices.
Samsung today announced its latest addition to the Galaxy device lineup, the Galaxy Pocket smartphone seen on the right. As the name suggests, this Android 2.3 Gingerbread device easily fits into your pocket as it is just 12mm thin and weighs only 97 grams.
The diminutive phone packs a 2.8-inch QVGA 240-by-320 pixel resolution display, 832MHz processor, 3GB user memory (expandable to 32 gigs via MicroSD cards), built-in FM radio, and runs Samsung’s upgraded TouchWiz user interface. On the connectivity front, the Galaxy Pocket supports Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi wireless networks, and 3G HSDPA 3.6Mbps cellular networks.
The included social features cover Samsung’s Social Hub and the downloadable ChatON cross-platform communication service. The Galaxy Pocket will be available in Italy starting from March and will gradually roll out to Europe, CIS, Latin America, Southeast and Southwest Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and China. No price points, model numbers, or United States availability information were released at press time.
According to latest data released on the official Android blog, Android 2.3 Gingerbread and the latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich both gained during a 14-day period ending March 5, 2012. Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest and greatest Android version found on the Galaxy Nexus device, is rising slowly. Although, its growth remains hindered by both limited availability of the announced ICS devices and slow roll out of ICS updates to existing devices. It is worth noting that the numbers represent only active Android devices that accessed Android Market in the past 14 days.
Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) powered 1.6-percent of all active devices in the past 14 days, a 0.5-percent increase. Gingerbread (Android 2.3) also grew to 62 percent, up from 58.6-percent in February, which likely due to a greater number of inexpensive and entry-level Gingerbread handsets hitting the market. Froyo (Android 2.2.) still accounts for one-quarter of all active devices. Éclair (Android 2.1) fell to 6.6-percent, and Donut (Android 1.6) and Cupcake (Android 1.5) together accounted for 1.2-percent of active devices.
Google also said in a blog post that Android apps could now be larger than 50 megabytes in size.
