Samsung Page Lists Seven Galaxy Nexus Carriers, VZW First?

So this will probably answer the question we asked earlier regarding the carriers which will feature thenew Samsung Galaxy Nexus in their line-up. According to the phone sign-up page, there are seven network operators listed.

AT&T, Cellular South, Metro PCS, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular and Verizon are all in the drop-down list named Carrier preference over at an official page which takes your information in order to deliver news about the phone. Another interesting bit comes from Samsung's Facebook page where people were initially told that Verizon will get the Galaxy Nexus first with other carriers added later. Later there came an update saying "no U.S. carrier has been determined yet".

Judging by the list of seven above and the rumors of an initial Verizon exclusive, the rep might have been right in the first place but such information wasn't supposed to be public that way. Or not! 

Microsoft Unveils Pictures Of AT&T Samsung Focus S, Focus Flash

A little bit more than a month ago AT&T made its Windows Phone Mango line-up public and the HTC Titan, Samsung Focus Flash and Focus S are part of it. While we've seen the HTC Titan get launchedand even reviewed it (the European model), there was no real information regarding the Focus Flash and the Focus S.

To be quite fair, everyone was expecting the Focus Flash to be the American variant of the recently announced Omnia W just as everyone was expecting the Focus S (probably Omnia S outside the U.S.) to be a Windows Phone powered GalaxyS II. Those who believed that appear to be right as Microsoft made the first official pictures available of the two phones.

Last time they did this to the ZTE Tania, an announcement came just a little bit after so we're expecting official wording from Samsung any time now. On to the phones and let's start with the Focus S! Is that a Galaxy S II in your pocket? No, it's the Focus S!

It's the same device we've seen in the wild, looking shamelessly like the manufacturer's Android flagship. It will run on a 1.4GHz processor and feature a 4.3-inch, WVGA Super AMOLED Plus display. The maincamera is a 720p-capable eight-megapixel shooter, while the front-facing webcam clocks in at 1.3 megapixels. All the rest is just Galaxy S II on Windows Phone. You just need to imagine that Super AMOLED Plus screen offering true blacks behind the Tiles on the Home Screen!


The Focus Flash, pretty much like its Omnia W cousin, packs a 1.4GHz single-core processor, 3.7-inch Super AMOLED display with WVGA resolution, 8GB Internal Storage, five-megapixel main camera with auto-focus and flash (720p 30fps video recording capable), and VGA front-facer.




To take a look at the HTC Titan for AT&T which is pretty much like the European one we've already seen, follow the source link below!

Update: The official AT&T Press Release which unveiled the trio of Mango phones listed the Focus S and Focus Flash as both running on a 1.4GHz processor. The official Windows Phone site talks about theFocus S 4G and Focus Flash 4G as being powered by the same 1.5GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 CPU. Either Samsung changed the processor along the way or one of the two sources has the wrong specs. Also, the European Omnia W has a 1.4GHz processor so, you be the judge!

iOS App Picks 19 Oct 2011

In this episode of the iOS App Picks we demonstrate five applications in 30 seconds each. These apps will keep you entertained, allow you to view worldwide ski resort maps, and share contact information and files easily. To download these apps directly to your iPhone, just click on the title of the application and the iTunes software will automatically launch to the app in the App Store. If you have the free Google Search app installed on your iPhone just snap a picture of the QR-Code using Google Goggles or any other QR-Code scanner that will launch the App Store on youriPhone. 

Bump – A free application



Share files and contact information with other smartphones using Bump. This app is really easy to use, just select what you want to share and Bump the two devices together. If you are sharing between two iPhones you can share apps, music, and more.



Addicting Games – A free application



Addicting Games is exactly that, many Addicting Games. From Achoo to Zombie Burger this app will keep you entertained for hours. Get suggestions to other games you may like and view achievements.


RedLaser – A free application



Scan barcodes, qr-codes, and more with RedLaser. This app will help you save some cash during your next shopping spree. Just scan a barcode and RedLaser will search online and locally for the exact item you are looking for. Many physical retailers are now price matching online prices to help out their customers.



iTrailMaps – A lite and $4.99 full version



With the skiing and snowboard season coming up (in the northern hemisphere) it is a great time to start planning trips. View practically every ski resort map in the world with iTrailMaps. Check to make sure the resort will be either challenging or tame enough for your skill level. With the paid version you can view 3D maps that are much more detailed.



TuneWiki – A free application



TuneWiki is a great app for anyone that enjoys singing, karaoke, or for just trying to decipher what the artist is trying to convey in song. This app will automatically download the lyrics to your currently playing music and will scroll the lyrics along with where the song is. Add lyrics to the TuneWiki database to keep your music and others up to date. Find lyrics by searching or use the music identification tool for music playing around you.

Will Ice Cream Sandwich Run on Older Phones?

With yesterday's announcement of Android 4.0 IceCream Sandwich, one of the big questions in the back of everyone's mind is "Will it work on my phone?"

Great question... but the answer may be a little complex.

(To address the picture above: no, chances are Ice Cream Sandwich isn't going to run on your G1... but if you get it to work, please send us a videoproving otherwise!)

Like we've said in previous articles, Google's Gabe Cohen says Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Android, "theoretically should work for any 2.3 device". That puts the ball squarely in the hands of phone makers and custom ROM developers. Whether or not they get a build together or not will probably be more a political decision than a technical one.

So, let's talk about technical capabilities.

The hardware Ice Cream Sandwich runs on compared to what Gingerbread runs on is a little different. How is ICS going to work on "older" hardware? To answer that, let's look at a couple of the more notable differences.

Hardware Graphics Acceleration

Not all phones that run Gingerbread include full Hardware Graphic Acceleration. That's okay, the newversion of the Android SDK takes care of all that, so developers that want their apps to to take advantage of the added acceleration in ICS simply need to target the new framework. Phones without the super-fancy hardware should still run the apps, just not as fast as they could have if they were using ICS's hardware accelerated code.

Buttonless User Interface

Android-powered smartphones have always had four buttons: home, menu, back, and search (albeit not always in that order). Sometimes the buttons were physical, sometimes capacitive, but always there, and always four.

With the Galaxy Nexus, gone are the physical buttons. Like Honeycomb-powered tablets, the "physical" buttons have been replaced with "virtual" buttons that can be lit up, turned off, changed, hidden, or even relocated to accommodate the orientation of the phone. (I remember when Apple learned the same lesson and changed the "dock" from a non-back-lit, stationary area of the touch-screen to a "floating" dock that was back-lit, able to be customized, and changed location when you rotated your Newton Messagepad 2000. But I digress.)

I suspect older phones will simply add the new "soft button bar" to the bottom of the display, above (or to the side of) the old "physical" buttons. The "old" buttons will continue to work just as they have in the past, they just might be a little redundant.

Zero Shutter-Lag Camera

One of the cool features of the Galaxy Nexus is the new camera app with "zero shutter-lag" -- you cantake pictures as fast as you can press the "shutter" button. Will your older phone be able to do that? Possibly. The camera is made up of two parts, the app itself, and the physical camera hardware. The appwill certainly be capable of snapping pictures as fast as you want. Whether or not the physical hardware will be able to keep up remains to be seen, and will likely vary from one smartphone to another.

Facial-Recognition Screen Unlocker

Again, we don't know for sure, but if your current phone has a front-facing camera, chances are that the new facial-recognition screen-unlocker will work on your phone, too.

Barometer and NFC

I'm running the same version of Android on my T-Mobile G2 (without NFC) as the Nexus S (the first Android-powered phone with NFC built-in). Android runs great, I just don't have any NFC capabilities because I don't have the NFC hardware.

Similarly, ICS should run fine on phones without barometers, they just won't be able to get any barometric pressure readings.

Screen Resolution

ICS is designed specifically for a 16:9, 1280x720 (or 9:16 720X1280, if you prefer) screen. No otherAndroid smartphones have that resolution.

However, not all Android's have the same resolution today, so Google probably thought through the issue of screen size, and the new user-interface elements will probably adapt to your screen's dimensions with little complication.

Everything Else

That should help answer some of your questions regarding the possible differences between ICS running on "old" versus "new" phones.

Did we cover your questions? Did we miss something? If you've got additional questions or want to add your own insight to the conversation, let your voice be heard in the comments below!

Netflix for Android Comes to Honeycomb, Canada, Latin America

After Netflix was updated to support all Froyo and Gingerbread devices, it felt like there wasn't much more to be done so far as extending the app'scompatibility. It had started out with a very short list of approved smartphones, but there have always been ways of running the app unofficially on additional phones, and the officially approved list has been steadily growing up to its current state. Today the app is taking things one step further, adding blanket support for Honeycomb tablets, as well as granting access to users in additional nations.

With this full Honeycomb support, you should be able to now install the app on any Android 3.x device. That's great news, because as much as we love our high-resolution smartphone screens, TVand movies ache to be seen on a display more like a tablet's size.

We've heard that Netflix subscribers in Canada have been able to access videos via the Android app for some time now, but it's apparently never been officially sanctioned, and has been known to spit out error messages complaining about the service not being available in that location. Those concerns are now in the past, with Netflix for Android now OKed for both Canada and Latin America.

Though Netflix doesn't mention it in its blog post announcing the new version, release notes describe the inclusion of closed captioning, as well as support for streams with alternate audio tracks. Netflix 1.5.0 isavailable for download in the Android Market now.