A Week On The Dark Side: A webOS User Reviews ICS on the TouchPad

 

Last week, I showed you how to install the CyanogenMod9-Alpha 0.6 build of Android Ice Cream Sandwich on the HP TouchPad. Seven days worth of using Google's software on the ill-fated tablet have left me with a few observations to share. As a recovering webOS die-hard who's carried the TouchPad since launch day, the experience was equal parts surreal and exciting, with one or two dollops of frustration and fear thrown in. 

If you're a fellow webOS expat, or if you'd just like to see what the CM9 experience is like for someone more used to flipping cards than tinkering with widgets, check out the video below. 

UPDATE: CM9 Alpha 2 has since been released for the TouchPad, which may fix some of the bugs I report on in the video below. 

As The Sidekick 4G Dies, The Sidekick Name May Live On

 

A recent T-Mobile leak showed that the Samsung-made Sidekick 4G was getting discontinued. We wondered at the time what that might mean for theSidekick brand in general, since we've already seen the name die and be resurrected once. Would T-Mobile play phoenix with the Sidekick again, or were we really looking at the end of the road? The carrier's since released a statement confirming the Sidekick 4G's fate, but leaving the door open for future Sidekickdevices. 

Maybe we were concerned with the future of the Sidekick name out of nostalgia more than anything, but there's certainly something interesting about all these smartphone sub-brands like this that we see. Verizon probably does it best with its Droids, but we also see it come up from the manufacturers themselves; rather than give each phone a unique identity, a new model just gets a "2" ("II" if you're being stylish) or "3" slapped-on the end. 

Do you think you're more likely to buy a new smartphone if it's been associated with an established lineup like this? If you were in the market for a model with a keyboard, might you think about the Sidekick LTE before the Random-Name-Q?  

Motorola's Droid Pro Is Fixing To See a New Update Arrive

 

Motorola's Droid Pro, which took the smartphone family in a very BlackBerry-like direction, looks like it will soon find itself on the receiving end of a new software update. As should be painfully obvious, the Droid Pro isn't getting Ice Cream Sandwich (Motorola doesn't even mention the handset, or its Sprint version, the XPRT, on its update info page), at least not through official channels. But, as you can see, that doesn't mean that support is dead for the phone, and users should expect to keep seeing a few more maintenance updates like the one teased today. 

Release notes for the update are up on Verizon's site in anticipation of its distribution. There are some nice-sounding changes, like improved control over the keyboard's backlight, along with a few bugfixes; problems pertaining to spontaneous power-on events, crashes following the installation of software updates, and the system locking-up when you press the space bar are all being addressed. The phone also gets updated to support emergency alerts, receives a security patch, and Verizon's got new VCast and VZ Navigator software. 

Look for system software 4.7.3 to start going out to Droid Pro owners in the next couple weeks. 

Nokia Commits to Wireless Hotspot Feature For All Lumia Models

 

Early this morning, we found out that Nokia had revealed a new feature for its Lumia 610 when publishing the phone's specs online, confirming support for sharing the handset's cellular data connection with other devices via a wireless hotspot. At the time, we wondered if this news meant that the extant Lumia models would see similar support via update one day in the future. Sure enough, that now looks to be the case, with Nokia mentioning that tethering will be making it to all of the Lumia-series Windows Phone handsets. 

The subject came up in a Q&A posted on the company's Nokia Connects site. There, the manufacturer confirms that the 610 and 900 will have hotspot functionality right out-of-the-gate, but more importantly that the 710 and 800 will both get the feature as part of an upcoming software update. 

As shouldn't be too surprising, Nokia didn't make any comment as to when owners of the 710 and 800 might actually see such an update actually delivered to their phones. Nokia's been pretty good with coming out with timely Windows Phone updates thus far, so hopefully we'll see tethering on all its Lumias before summer arrives. 

CyanogenMod 9 To Offer Customizable Levels of Root Access

 

Android users, maybe more so than any other group of smartphone owners, are used to making plenty of security-related decisions regarding their phones. While you've got the jailbreak crowd with iOS, and both the legit unlockers and full-on custom ROM guys with Windows Phone, neither platform puts so many security decisions in the hands of its end-users as Android does. When we're talking about custom ROMs, there can be even more security-critical options directly under the user's control. Probably the most common question faced by Android users, starting to stretch their wings out into the world of more powerful apps, is whether or not they should root their devices. There are good arguments on both sides of the issue, but not all users get a choice; some custom ROMs make the assumption that users will want root access and don't make it easy to give it up. The CyanogenMod team would like to try doing things a little differently, and is planing on offering new customizable root options to give you even more control over how you secure your phone. 

Previously, CyanogenMod releases gave you full superuser access. If you don't really find yourself using apps that need it, it might be nice to be able to turn it off. That's why CyanogenMod 9 will let you choose from four levels of root. 

Besides disabled everywhere and enabled everywhere, CM9 will include two custom options. You'll be able to grant root to apps without the Android Debug Bridge getting it, or you can give ADB root while keeping apps locked-down. Sounds like a pretty graceful solution to us.