As the summer starts in earnest, we’ve got some exciting news for Android fans everywhere. Most notably that Oracle’s lawsuit against Google over various Java copyrights and patents has effectively ended, and in Google’s favor to boot. While Oracle could appeal the decisions on its APIs and software patents, odds are unlikely that they will. We’ve also seen the very first reputable evidence of Google and ASUS’ Nexus Tablet collaboration, the Nexus 7, and the ASUS MeMO 370T (rumored to be the base device) made it through the FCC.

In other hardware news, Lenovo’s IdeaTab S2109 tablet will go on sale in the US this month for $350, while the HTC One S finally gets a Taiwanese release, with an older but faster 1.7Ghz Snapdragon S3 processor. Sony announced high-end and low-end waterproof phones, the Xperia Acro S and Xperia Go, respectively, and ZTE appears to have taken the crown for the “world’s thinnest phone” with the 6.2mm Athena. At least this month. The Motorola DROID RAZR HD was spotted in a Verizon internal system, ASUS teased us with the possibility of a dual-boot Android and Window 8 tablet, and Google began selling Galaxy Nexus docks on the Google Play Store.

As usual, the Galaxy S III got more than its fair share of news. The GSIII officially went on sale this week in 28 different countries, none of which are anywhere near the US. The FCC now has versions for Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. And speaking of T-Mobile, convincing “leaks” of the carrier’s version of the phone show a physical home button, like the international version – a first for a US Galaxy S phone.  The Canadian version got an upgraded 2GB of RAM to go along with the Snapdragon S4 processor, and in a minor detail, we can confirm that the Galaxy S III uses the newer, tougher Gorilla Glass 2.

On the software side of things, ICS updates were sent out for the Sony Xperia Arc and Neo, plus the long-delayed 4.0.4 update made it to the Galaxy Nexus LTE on Verizon. T-Mobile and Verizon scheduled ICS updates for the Galaxy S II and Motorola XOOM, respectively, and the LG Spectrum got a leaked ICS ROM. Pandora got a long-overdue update, gamers will be glad to know that Shadowgun creator MadFinger will release a new shooter, Dead Trigger, and we’re hearing more rumors of an Android version of Microsoft Office.

Huawei broke my heart by announcing yet another manufacturer skin, and strangely Chinese search engine Baidu released their own ROM for the Nexus S. There’s big news for CyanogenMod, which passed an amazing 2 million users for its custom Android ROM, and there are new versions of CM9 for both the HTC One X (international version) and ASUS Transformer Pad TF300.

Here on Android Community, we’ve got some star-studded gaming reviews for both N.O.V.A. 3 and Renaissance Blood THD. We also take a look at the new Flipboard beta, and examine five features from custom ROMs and skins that need to be ported over to the main Android development tree. Last but not least, we’ve got a review of Samsung’s latest media player, the Galaxy Player 4.2. As always, stay in school, don’t do drugs and always make a Nandroid backup.

1 COMMENT

  1. It means we have some more cool devices with us from android, All the way Android rocks. The latest beast of it and that is Galaxy S 3 have all the debuts features in it makes android a perfect one. I’m just a big fan of this OS and I just love Android.
    Anyways a nice share from you, Thank you for making me more lovable with this Android community, 🙂

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