Say goodbye to another excellent week of Android news, and prepare for more coming soon. This was another fun week for Android fans especially anyone that loves Motorola. While we had tons of great news like Google Play Store gift cards, Motorola finally launching a bootloader unlock tool was probably the most important for Android enthusiasts. Head on past the break for your weekly news fix.
Just like mentioned above we wanted to start with Motorola simply for the fact that they made two large announcements. One being that on September 5th Motorola will be holding a media event to announce a new device, likely the DROID RAZR HD for Verizon Wireless. The important thing though is their bootloaders. Anyone wanting to fully unlock and enjoy their Motorola devices haven’t been able to because of locked down bootloaders. This week Moto finally launched their Unlock My Device website — following in ASUS and HTC’s footsteps. Thanks guys!
Next up and probably the other biggest thing you’ll need to hear this week was the fact that Google’s finally prepared to offer gift cards for their Play Store. Just like iTunes, you’ll soon be able to buy $5, $10, $25, and $50 gift cards for use in the Play Store on music, apps, books, games, magazines, and movies. Support arrived on a recent Play Store update and the cards are already shipping from some Target stores. We’ve been waiting for this a long time and are happy to finally see it coming.
In other news worth mentioning we saw our first glance at the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, or what it could look like. We are hearing it’s a highly accurate rendering of the next-gen 5.5-inch phablet from Samsung that leaked, but don’t know for sure. That will be unveiled come August 29th so stay tuned. We also reviewed the newly announced Galaxy Note 10.1. Then while we are mentioning Samsung, their lawsuit vs Apple is still as ridiculous as ever and growing more irritating by the hour. The judge is so fed up in fact she asked Apple’s lawyers if they were smoking crack — seriously!
Last but not least ASUS beat everyone at the game and has already starting updating their devices to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Starting with the ASUS Transformer Pad TF300 earlier this weekend. We can expect more of their tablets to receive the same treatment hopefully later this week. Stay tuned next week for tons of excitement and hit the timeline below for other news bits.
