It’s been a crazy week of tech news, and we’ll try to cover the most important bits in this issue of Android Community Weekly! The Motorola DROID Bionic cleared the FCC this Sunday and later on we even saw some more spy shots. What really came as a surprise was when the device showed up at a Verizon Wireless retail store! We should definitely see some more on this long awaited superphone soon, so just stay tuned.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 was caught on camera Sunday for some quality hands-on treatment. It seems this sleek tablet will be shipping with the Touch Wiz UX pre-installed. Later on we discovered some leaked pictures of T-Mobiles Samsung Galaxy S II! From the looks of the pictures provided, the phone looks very similar to the Nexus S. It has a similar mound on it’s rear, and even seems to sport the same shaped contour display. For those that already own an international version of the Galaxy S II, you will be pleased to know that the BLN (Backlight Notification) mod has been successfully ported to the GT-I9100 model. It is compatible with every ROM currently available except those using the CyanogenMod kernel.
Another smartphone soon to see CyanogenMod is the Motorola ATRIX 4G; and if you’re one of the brave, the pre-Beta is already available for download. The pre-Beta has limited functionality, so this may not be a good “daily driver” quite yet. The Nexus S 4G now has ROM nighties available from Peter Alfonso. Until now, Alfonso has been developing solely for Motorola Droid; I’m sure the Nexus S 4G community will welcome his future work there.
Monday, HTC launched HTCdev; a website devoted towards assisting the many developers out there in their present and future development. Features of HTCdev include complete accesss to HTC SDK’s, kernel sourcecodes, and an official way to unlock the bootloaders of HTC devices! Developers, rejoice.
Facebook has released it’s second application in the Android Market, Facebook Messenger. Just as it sounds, this app will be based solely around Facebook Chat. Be sure to check out our Hands-On! There has also been speculation of future Video Chat support. After Skype was integrated into the non-mobile Facebook Chat, integration into the mobile-OS is not surprising. The key to successfully implementing this feature will be supporting a wide variety of devices no later than launch. Another recently popular application, Google Videos, was currently hacked to allow root users full functionality. This hack will work on devices running Android 2.2 and up, so give it a try.
Photos of Android Ice Cream Sandwich seem to have finally leaked, and we really don’t know what to think! All we know at this point is, that the UI will have some heavy modification. Finally, don’t forget to enter for a chance to win a Motorola PHOTON 4G straight from Motorola! This contest will be live all month, with plenty of chances to win.
