Archive for Android

Sony Z1000 Android media player announced in Japan

Now this is a bit of a surprise, Sony announcing an Android media player that isn’t a phone, next to their Xperia models. It might be released as late as 2012, and maybe it stays in Japan – but we sure wouldn’t mind an international release.

The Z1000 looks like the much needed upgrade for the slightly outdated X1000, which was Sony’s first foray into touch screen media players. It runs on Android 2.3, has a 4.3″ 480×800 screen (of unknown technology), Bluetooth 2.1, Wifi B/G/N, no camera or SD slot, and comes in capacities up to 64GB. Knowing Sony’s usual modus operandi, these larger capacities probably won’t make it to North American shores…

So far it sounds quite a bit like the Cowon D3, but the audio and video codec support of the Z1000 sure seems a bit meager: MP3, AAC, WMA, and – of utmost importance – ATRAC for audio. On the video side we get MPEG4, h264 (Baseline only), and WMV support up to 1080p resolution. Well, let’s just hope VLC for Android is out when the Z1000 is going to be released.

Before I forget it, the one thing that decidedly doesn’t resemble the Cowon D3 is the processor used in the Z1000: a 1GHz dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 with 512MB RAM. Let’s see if the claimed battery life of 20 hours for audio and 5 hours for video can be reached in reality…

Thanks to TheFaze for the tip. Sony Z Series website (in Japanese), with lots of juicy product shots.

Cowon D3 Gets Android 2.3 Update

After a long time being held back by Android 2.1, the D3 recently got an upgrade to version 2.3, usually referred to as Gingerbread by the cool kids.

It should make the device faster, more responsive, and improve system stability. Of course Cowon also packed in some new functionality (sleep timer, plug-in codec support, search widget, VoIP) and fixed some bugs under the hood.

Proud D3 owners, head on over to Cowon Global to download the update and give your player a serious boost in usability.

Thanks to Copperface for the tip.

PowerAMP Now Plays Gapless and Does Other Stuff, Too

Pink Floyd fans, DJs, audiobook aficionados, and others – rejoice. After Rockbox, PowerAMP now appears to be the second audio player for Android that supports gapless playback. However, results seem to be mixed so far, not all Android devices appear to be truly gapless with PowerAMP yet.

Of course gapless playback isn’t the only update in the current build 369 of PowerAMP. Other highlights include crossfade between tracks, configurable fade in/out, CUE sheet support, tweaks for tag browsing, album art, equalizer settings, and several more. Read the full change log on PowerAMP’s official site.

Thanks to Hirudin for the tip. Via Android Police. Android Market download.

Philips GoGear Connect, Now With Android 2.3

It’s a bit confusing – gone is the pretty brushed aluminum GoGear Connect with its track ball and ancient Android 2.1, to be replaced by a more generic looking revision that runs on Android 2.3. Not that I ever saw the old GoGear in the wild, or even in any store. It almost seems like it was just a concept, never released at all.

The new Philips is said to have access to the official Android Market right out of the box, unlike Cowon and Archos Android PMPs. It should come in capacities of 8 and 16GB, and maybe even 32GB later on. I wouldn’t get my hopes up though, seeing how Philips never got the marketing and publicity for their players right. Display is said to be capacitive, at a 3.2″ size – no word about actual screen technology or resolution. Philips’ own FullSound audio enhancements are implemented on the GoGear, and standard 720p video playback should be no issue as well.

It should be released in September, price for the 8GB version should be a fair $180.

Thanks to JxK for the tip. Via Engadget. Photo partially pilfered from Übergizmo.

New Android MP3 Player is Not What You Think…

There are plenty of Android-based MP3 players out there these days, from the Cowon D3 to the Samsung Galaxy Player. Since Android is free, it’s also being used on a lot of “lesser quality” items from the good’ol China, be it ereaders without e-ink displays or tablets that are so slow you might as well use them for something else. Something went a bit wrong when whoever is in charge of counterfitting electronics over there asked for an Android MP3 player though, as the thing that popped up on DealExtreme today is not an MP3 player than runs Android, but rather an MP3 player shaped like the Android mascot.

It has no internal memory but rather a MicroSD (not MicroSDHC) card slot for storing music, and no screen. It does however have an FM radio and line-in capabilities, both of which will come in handy with the built-in speaker. It comes with a combined charging/line in cable and a stand so you can get it a bit away from the tablet as the speaker is located in its…eh…butt…and pointing down. It also has some LEDs and you control it by twisting and tapping its head.

As fun as it is to make fun of what comes out of sites like DealExtreme (remember the world’s ugliest MP3 player? I still have nightmares about it)  this thing actually looks semi-useful. Not for grown-ups mind you, but rather for kids. Assuming it doesn’t fall apart and choke the kid or poison it with whatever they use for materials, the look of the thing, built in speaker and control method. In fact it looks and function scary much like the Sansa Shaker from back in 2007 which was designed for that exact purpose. It should also make a neat, cheap gift to any Android lover- as long as they can look past the fact that the color makes it look more like a Dalek and the fact the logo says something like Golge rather than Google.

Samsung Galaxy S Wifi 4.0 and 5.0 Quick Preview

Samsung insider Lebellium posted some first impressions of the two new Samsung Galaxy S Wifi devices which he gathered at Samsung France Open Day.

Check out the nitty gritty in the forum thread.

Archos Generation 9 Tablets Announced

Information about the next generation of Archos Internet tablets, based on the official Archos 2010 Annual Results PDF (page 18), appeared on several sites. Unfortunately, this is somewhat off-topic for Anythingbutipod. Archos seems to discontinue truly pocketable sizes of their Android tablet lineup: no more 2.3″, 3.2″, or 4.3″ screens as in the current Gen8 devices, the smallest Gen9 is obviously going to be a rather large 5″. Too bad about them abandoning the ‘micro-tablet/PMP’ market, I’m sure they have their (financial) reasons for that.

Some preliminary Gen9 specs:

  • Six tablet sizes, ranging from 5″ to 10″
  • Flash memory and HDD versions
  • Plastic-overmolded stainless steel housing
  • ARM Cortex-A9 dual core @ 1.6Ghz
  • 3G modem

Above specs appear to be rather solid. Others are rumors and speculation as of now – such as Gen9 devices having capacitive touchscreens, running on Android 3.0, available NAND/HDD memory sizes, and so on. We sure will find out more ASAP – at least before June 2011, when the new tablets are going to be released.

Thanks to deadohiosky for the tip. Via Bestofmicro, ARMdevices, Liliputing.

Android Market Hack for the Cowon D3

The moment everyone – well, everyone who owns a D3 – waited for is here: Android Market is working on the Cowon D3. Forum member roebeet posted his full installation instructions over at the iAudiophile forums.

It’s not the easiest or most straightforward hack, but anyone should get it working without issues. The hack requires ADB (Android Debug Bridge, from the SDK) and root access (z4root, Superuser) as prerequisites, and some commandline actions. It should be manageable in both Linux and Windows. Since Cowon managed to lock the D3 down properly, this hack will have to be repeated/adjusted for each new firmware version the D3 might get in future.

While it is nice that Cowon employees started posting selected Android apps for download/sideload in our D3 software forum, it sure feels right to cut out the middle man and go for the full, unrestricted Market straight away.

However, there seems to be more to Cowon not supporting Market on the D3 than monetary licensing issues. Unfortunately the D3 runs on a somewhat exotic Telechips processor that isn’t properly supported by many apps available (the ever popular Angry Birds won’t work well on the D3, for example), and it seemingly doesn’t have enough RAM as well. It might have been a bad choice by Cowon to use this processor instead of a well supported, say, TI OMAP… but that’s how it is.

Cowon D3 users now have access to the Market – make the best of it, but don’t be surprised if things don’t work as well as on an Archos tablet or similar.

Update: Cowon representatives posted APKs of alternatives to the official Google Market in our forums: 1MobileMarket, AndAppStore, and Slideme.

Android Market and Root for Archos Gen 8 Devices

Archos’ current range of Android players/tablets sure are some of the best bang for the buck at the moment. If one wishes connectivity on the go, the Archos 28 to 101 deliver rather high quality hardware (not the screens but the innards), for a price that isn’t much higher than Chinese off-brand devices.

There’s two things however that are obvious drawbacks with the Archos Internet Tablets. The minor issue is a lack of root user access (same as most other Android devices), the major flaw is that they have no Android Market support.

While the advantage of Market access is pretty obvious – can’t have Angry Birds or similar vitally important apps without it – having a root user on an Archos is nice to have, but probably not quite as essential. There are two ways of gaining root on an Archos – one involves installing Archos’ SDE and voids your warranty; the other one is an easy single-ish-click affair, perfectly safe and reversible. It’s called Archangel (here’s the direct link to the newest Archangel version).

While the system still stays read-only with Archangel, contrary to the SDE/custom kernel rooting method, there are still some wonderful things one can do with it. Some examples include moving the Linux swap file from the player’s internal memory to the SD card or disabling it entirely, supposedly prolonging the life of the memory since it doesn’t get bombarded with random R/W access. Another application (which might be morally debatable) is loading a hosts file at startup that blocks ads – in any browser and the embedded ones in applications.

Thanks to these kind hackers, both Market and root access can be added easily, as linked above.  Thanks as well to the XDA Developers forum for hosting all this knowledge that makes life just a bit easier.

Samsung Galaxy S WiFi 5.0

Samsung’s new oversized iPhone/iPod Touch lookalike, announced at Mobile World Congress, causes a bit of confusion. It’s obviously the bigger brother of  the equally tediously named Galaxy S WiFi 4.0. Some people say the 4.0 was formerly known as YP-MB2/Galaxy Player 50, while our very own industry insider, lebellium, clarifies that it’s actually the YP-GB1, released without Korea-specific DMB features for the international market. So where does that leave the 5.0, in the sea of all these confusing names and acronyms? I don’t know, my head is already spinning. Maybe it’s just a shrunken Galaxy Tab 10.1…

What we know is that the Galaxy S WiFi 5.0 (let’s just call it GSW5, ok?) runs on Android 2.2, uses Samsung’s TouchWiz interface, sports a 5″ Super Duper Clear LCD screen at 800×480, a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, a MicroSD slot, and a 5 megapixel camera with flash, for all your artsy Facebook photography needs.

The great thing about this phone-without-a-phone is that it comes with Android Market support right out of the box. This is a huge advantage over the non-phone Android offers from Archos (Gen 8 devices) and Cowon (D3), which have no official access to the Market – therefore rendering them quite inferior, software-wise, to even the humblest of Android phones, such as the ZTE Blade. While some kind hackers already gave Archos users the possibility to access the Market, there’s no such option for the D3 yet, leaving you at the mercy of Cowon to come up with some quality apps, such as scientific calculators. Samsung licensing the Market on their Galaxy players is the smartest move so far for devices without SIM card slot.

Availability of the GSW5: sooner or later.

Thanks to sideways for the tip. Read more in the forum thread. Additional info via Engadget (1, 2).