Essential Official Android Thread

[Rohiggidy]

HTC says departing executives will be replaced by end of month

HTC has recently suffered a striking exodus among executives, but marketing head Benjamin Ho says the company plans to fill some of its many vacancies by the end of June. Yesterday, COO Matthew Costello left HTC; HTC Asia CEO Lennard Hoornik and chief product officer Kouji Kodera, among others, have also departed. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Ho said that they had left for various reasons, including opposition to changes meant to turn the struggling company around.

"You can't have 100 percent of your staff agree with every action you have to take to improve the company," said Ho. "HTC has to recover its business. We've had to make difficult decisions." Costello's role has already been taken over by Fred Liu of engineering and operations, while Hoornik and others have yet to be permanently replaced.

Despite receiving praise for its flagship phones, HTC has recently struggled to make inroads in the Android market, especially compared to competitor Samsung. The HTC One in particular was delayed because of supply chain problems, possibly caused by its failure to consistently sell previous devices, and the HTC First "Facebook phone" has been called "a disaster" for the company. But Ho says HTC has overcome at least one of these problems: the component shortages, he insists, are "completely solved." In the coming year, Ho says HTC will place a premium on building its brand — possibly as a nod to Samsung, whose dominance has been cemented by a massive publicity blitz.

 

[Rohiggidy]

Android to be #1 app platform by October

Apple says that more than 850,000 titles are available at its App Store, while Google recently said that 48 billion apps in total had been downloaded from Play. Approximately 2billion iOS apps are downloaded each months, compared with 2.5billion from Play.

Continuing at current rates, Google is expected to be in the lead by October.

 

[Rohiggidy]

HTC Phablet

Recently, @evleaks decided to leak the specifications for an upcoming HTC device codenamed T6. The T6 is rumored to have a 2.3 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, Ultrapixel camera, 2.1 MP front-facing camera, 2 GB RAM, 16 GB of internal storage, a microSD slot (unusual for HTC devices), and a 3300 mAh battery. But the biggest (literally) feature is a 5.9" 1080p SLCD display, beating out all of the phablet competition (except the Galaxy Mega 6.3). It is also rumored to feature BoomSound and a design very similar to the HTC One, plus an ultra-thin tipped stylus. Obviously the T6 name won't stick, but I think the HTC One Pro would be a good name.

 

[Rohiggidy]

Google Begins Wide Rollout Of Refreshed Gmail App (v4.5) - Slideout Bars For Everyone

 

[Rohiggidy]

FREEDOMPOP ANNOUNCES THE FIRST 100 PERCENT FREE MOBILE SERVICE FREE VOICE, FREE TEXT, FREE DATA

No monthly fees, no hidden charges, no carriers

LOS ANGELES, CA, JUNE 5, 2013 – FreedomPop, today announced the first-ever completely free mobile service with free voice, free text and free data. FreedomPop’s ground breaking service will give users a guaranteed 500 MBs of 4G data for free, unlimited texting, and 200 free anytime voice minutes each month. In addition, FreedomPop users will enjoy free unlimited calls to each other.

“This is not only disruptive, but game-changing,” said Jonathan Chaplin from Newstreet, an investment firm focused on the telecom industry. “This move completely marginalizes the voice network by leveraging VoIP over cellular and is extremely threatening to already declining voice margins.”

The FreedomPop service will be available on several popular Android phones later this summer and will be the first-ever all-data devices running 100 percent VoIP over cellular networks.

“The quality of over-the-top VoIP services is now at a stage where we can deliver the major mobile services completely free to consumers. FreedomPop is changing the mobile market for good with the sole intent of bringing better value to the consumer,” said Stephen Stokols, FreedomPop’s CEO and co-founder. “FreedomPop’s mission is to ensure that everyone has access to affordable, convenient and essential communication services. With this launch, we’ve just taken a very big step towards delivering on this promise.”

With gross margins of over 50 percent on its ‘freemium’ products and services, led by outstanding consumer demand and high growth rates, FreedomPop has demonstrated the commercial viability of its model of delivering 4G wireless to the mass market.

FreedomPop is looking to officially launch the service and phones later this summer, but interested users can sign up for early access now at FreedomPop.com/phone.

 

[diggy]

I installed vine to check it out, looks pretty useless to me(for my use), but could be good for advertising. Def uninstalling this shortly,cant take all the annoying noise at times. Wonder how long before someone buys this.

 

[Rohiggidy]

I installed vine to check it out, looks pretty useless to me(for my use), but could be good for advertising. Def uninstalling this shortly,cant take all the annoying noise at times. Wonder how long before someone buys this.

its owned by twitter

 

[diggy]

its owned by twitter

Did not know thanks

 

[Rohiggidy]

Did not know thanks

They did buy it though. They saw the idea and bought it before the app came out from the creator

 

[Rohiggidy]

HTC One coming to Verizon this summer

HTC One, complete with 4G LTE, will be coming to Verizon this summer. Details on the Verizon variant of the HTC One, like when it will ship or if there will be any major changes made, are scarce at the moment. Still, this is great news for anyone on Verizon who has been dying to get their hands on HTC’s latest flagship device.

The HTC One will finally bring Verizon’s device lineup back up to par with the rest of big carriers in the US, giving customers a choice of any of the hottest Android phones available right now, including the Note II and Galaxy S4. Congratulations, Verizon customers. Now who’s buying one?

 

[diggy]

They did buy it though. They saw the idea and bought it before the app came out from the creator

Cant blame him for getting his money early

 

[Rohiggidy]

Hangouts Easter eggs: Someone at Google really likes My Little Pony

Looking for your this-day-is-really-dragging-on-and-I-need-something-to-entertain-me-for-five-minutes Friday reading material? Look no further. Word is, Google has programmed a bunch of Easter eggs in their new Hangouts app that feature everything from a, “shy dino,” to “My Little Pony.” I was skeptical, even after seeing posts about the Easter eggs on Google Plus, but as it turns out they’re all real.

Some of the codes are actually useful, like color coding all your different windows (bikeshed). And some are, well, we’ll just go with less than useful (ponies). Try them all out and let us know which ones you like best. I’m a big fan of the Google Now style background you get from the Konami code. If you’ve found any others, be sure to share in the comments. You’ll find all the codes in the image above.

 

[Rohiggidy]

Cant blame him for getting his money early

its not monetize so its a great come up

 

[Rohiggidy]

56% of American adults are now smartphone owners

* 55% of cell phone owners say that their phone is a smartphone.
* 58% of cell phone owners say that their phone operates on a smartphone platform common to the U.S. market.

 

[Rohiggidy]

Sony Planning Xperia Z Google Edition, Says Insider

It was recently "Confirmed" with Android Geeks from an inside source at Sony that they will be releasing a stock version in partnership with Google for their Xperia Z device. Also much like HTC for those who have already bought the Z with the Sony experience they are reportedly going to be able to enable stock Android in the next update. Xperia Z has a 5-inch TFT 1080p display with a 13MP camera on the back. It’s also dust and water resistant

Looks like Google could be setting a new trend.