Android in Canada Blog » Android Phones

Samsung Galaxy Nexus Now Available at Wind Mobile

Tom Gray — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:19:54 +0000

Just a quick little update here for you guys. As the title says, the Galaxy Nexus is now available through Wind Mobile.

The price is set at $599 outright, $449 on the WindTab, or $249 on the WINDTab+.

If you have been waiting for Wind Mobile to drop this phone, your long journey is over. Hit up your nearest Wind location and grab yours today.

Don’t forget about the “Leap” promo plan that is also now in effect.

$40 a month
Unlimited Canada wide calling
Unlimited Texting
Unlimited Data
Call Control – Call ID, Call forward, Missed Call Alerts, Conference calling.

This does NOT include Voicemail or Canada wide MMS.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus Now Available at Wind Mobile is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Madden NFL 12 for Only $.99

Tom Gray — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:47:35 +0000

Are you a fan of football? I got good news for you. Madden NFL 12 is now on sale for only 99 cents commemorate the super bowl. This game normally costs $4.99, so if your looking to save a couple bucks and grab this game, I suggest hitting up the Android Market while the sale lasts.

You get 32 teams with authentic playbooks and you can even play a full 16-game season, as well as the 2010-2011 playoffs where the Packers can ultimately beat the Steelers in Super Bowl 45!

Don’t sit on your hands to long, this sale wont last forever. Sadly, there is no support for the Galaxy Nexus at this time.

You can find Madden NFL 12 here on the Android Market

Madden NFL 12 for Only $.99 is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Facebook for Android Updates to 1.8.2

Tom Gray — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:26:31 +0000

Facebook for Android updated their app today to 1.8.2 and is now available on the Android Market. As usale, they were very unclear about what was fixed and patch, let’s hope they don’t create more problems than they fix which is also what usually happens. One of the more notable enhancements is the “Better memory management” and apparently fixes Photo uploading that had been broken for a bunch of users.

Many reports are floating around that this latest causes the Facebook app to preform much slower than previous builds. Normally there are mixed results and unhappy among happy users, so you be the judge.

If you haven’t found you way over to Google+ yet, you can find Facebook here at the Android Market.

Facebook for Android Updates to 1.8.2 is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Cyanogen Base Roms Start Popping Up for Galaxy S II LTE (Skyrocket)

Tom Gray — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:12:04 +0000

As a Galaxy S II LTE (Skyrocket) owner, I know this phone has very little developer support compared to the more popular models. The Galaxy S II LTE doesn’t even have its own ClockworkMod recovery yet, we are forced to use one made for the T-Mobile Galaxy S II. That aside, some pretty impressive roms have been popping up recently and I want to share them with you.

Seanzscreams has put together a rom based on the Cyanogen rom as well as playin4sheezy‘s CM7 build ported rom from T-Mobile to the Skyrocket.

playin4sheezy’s Cyanogen port was one that was getting lots of attention and showed a lot of promise. Due to recent events, he has gone M.I.A. There is a lot of speculation and cooked up stories such as running from the police, becoming homeless, sick, etc. All that aside, sadly we lost a very good dev who made great roms for the skyrocket.

Back to the point. Seanzscreams released Cyanogen TouchWizzery with an Ice Cream Sandwich Twist. Though this rom is in early stages and has many reported problems, it’s showing a lot of promise.

If your interested in trying the latest Cyanogen based rom on your Galaxy S II LTE/Skyrocket, I suggest giving this one a try. Of course a rooted phone is necessary.

You can find his rom and a full list of instructions here at XDA

Cyanogen Base Roms Start Popping Up for Galaxy S II LTE (Skyrocket) is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Apex Launcher for Galaxy Nexus

Tom Gray — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:42:21 +0000

Looking for new and improved way to enjoy your Galaxy Nexus? Dennisxl has release a new launcher for you to try out.

The Apex launcher is an alterative launcher that you can run on your Galaxy Nexus. It will not replace your current launcher, so you’ll be able to seamlessly switch back and forth between them should you prefer one over the other. Of course this launcher requires an Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 device

The following features are:

Custom number of homescreens and homescreen grid size
Infinite & elastic scrolling (homescreen and drawer)
Transition effects (homescreen and drawer)
Customizable scrolling indicator (homescreen and drawer)
Homescreen gestures (pinch, swipe up/down)
Enable/Disable auto-rotation
Enable/Disable wallpaper scrolling
Show/Hide persistent search bar
Show/Hide notification bar
Show/Hide icon labels (homescreen and drawer)
Lock/Unlock desktop
All/Downloaded/Widgets tabs in drawer
Drawer apps sorting (title, install date, mostly used)
Add widgets from drawer (must install as system app) or system picker
Resize any widget
Backup/Restore settings and data

This launcher runs pretty simular to other alternative launchers already available, but everyone has their own style and taste. Perhaps this one is yours?

Apex Launcher is still in beta stages, but has been well received by its users and testers.

There is No Root Required to install this, but if you want to get all fancy with, there is a root required way of installing this as a system file. Those instructions can be found on XDA link provided below.

If you want to give Apex Launcher a try, you can downlaod it here: ApexLauncher.apk.

If you want to get more info and find the original source, you can hit up the Apex Launcher thread on XDA here.

Apex Launcher for Galaxy Nexus is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Better Looking ICS Icons (Root)

Tom Gray — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:05:38 +0000

Have you ever noticed that some of the stock icons don’t really fit together with the rest of Ice Cream Sandwiches stock them? They seem to clash with the some of the darker menu and theme style.

Thanks to Fatsix, you can have your icons look and feel more uniform to the stock Ice Cream Sandwich theme.

Blue_Graphic Package, Barrowed Themed apps by others, Icons by me, Notification icons by me.
Blacked out Gtalk (Thanks xcape) Notificatoin icon does not work, you need to have your framework-res.apk modified (it’s stupid)
Blacked out Gmail (Thanks b-boy)
Blacked out SMS (Thanks Mastur Mynd)
Blacked out Contacts/Dialer and people (Thanks xcape), I removed the annoying cyan lines in the dialer background.
New Icons for Browser
Includes New glass transparent Gtalk icon. weeeeeeeeeeeeee
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6879136/Blue_Graphic.zip
See thumbnail below for screenshot.

If this is something you’re interested in, you can find these files over at XDA. You can find the Link here.

Better Looking ICS Icons (Root) is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

New Google Docs Now in Black!

Tom Gray — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:00:48 +0000

My friend and partner Ryan Moore posted yesterday about the new updated Google Docs. You can find that article here.

Since then, Rujelus22 has updated and released an inverted black edition of the updated Google Docs. You’ll still get the new following features:

Make any file available offline for view access while not connected.
Manage offline contest, including seeing what’s out of date.
Automatic syncing of offline content while on wifi.
Star and rename files while offline.
Improved reading experience of Google documents while on a tablet.

but all in black and a blue trim. What could be more beautiful?

Best of all, there is no rooting required to use this black version of Google Docs.

You can find this inverted Google Docs, as well as many other ‘inverted’ Google apps by Rujelus22 found here.

Note: This particular apps doesn’t require root access, but some of the other ones do. If you decide to try the flashable files, you will do so at your own risk.

New Google Docs Now in Black! is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Extra Phone Tweaking (getting help getting good data)

Ryan Moore — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:12:07 +0000

Well, chalk this one up as a “never thunk of that!” moment. I never claim to be the ‘expert’, and it’s what I love about the Android community, that if I run into an issue, it’s absolutely SIMPLE to get an answer. There are tons of folk that are ready to offer their expertise (thanks Renaud).

So, here’s what happened. My new Galaxy Nexus has been dipping into the EDGE and 1G bands lately for data. I don’t notice it as much as I tend to have excellent wifi coverage where I go. But, when I had to rely on the towers often HSPA/3G was fairly weak compared to the older tech, and as such the phone would switch. The problem was that it wouldn’t switch back. 1 bar of H is way better than full EDGE. Anyways…

On my old phones there was an option to plunk in that would tell the phone to stay off 2G and be 3G/HSPA only. I set about in my Nexus to find that option… but it’s not there. What was I to do? Well, a quick G+ post to my Android circle and I got a reply pretty quickly.

Caution: Tread with care!

…here it is. And it’s something I should have known … I knew about this feature before, but hey… you forget things.

If you go into your dialer and enter:

*#*#4636#*#*

it will automatically enter the TESTING setup for the phone. In there you can choose PHONE INFORMATION, and then there’s the PREFERRED NETWORK option.

Typically it’ll be on something like AUTO. Which is okay if you’re comparing decent signals for either connections. But in an area like mine where one is pretty weak, it’s probably dropping down.

I set mine to WCDMA PREFERRED. That seemed to fix it. Now, if I go back into the screen it still says “GSM/CDMA auto”, but it hasn’t switched to EDGE since. If you know you’re only going to have better connection you can set it to WCDMA ONLY.

—-

So there you have it. A simple fix. But, keep in mind you really shouldn’t be mucking about in there if you don’t know what you’re doing.

I remember in the old days programming all those old phones… each had their own great sequence of *#*#23j234290uaskda… codes to enter the NAM and whatnot to register the phones.

Extra Phone Tweaking (getting help getting good data) is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Wind Mobile to Launch Galaxy Nexus February 3rd

Tom Gray — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:45:53 +0000

After weeks of teasing and “Coming soon” pictures, Wind Mobile finally slaps an official release date on the Galaxy Nexus. Many Wind Mobile customers have been waiting somewhat patiently, but finally the wait is over.

On February 3rd Wind will sell the Galaxy Nexus for $599 full price, $449 on the WINDtab, and $249 on WINDtab+. This is great timing as well, because Wind Mobile is also offer a promo plan starting February 2nd. The promo plan is called “Leap” and comes with the following:

$40 a month
Unlimited Canada wide calling
Unlimited Texting
Unlimited Data
Call Control – Call ID, Call forward, Missed Call Alerts, Conference calling.

This promo does NOT include Voicemail or Canada wide picture messaging. So before you decide to jump on this promo to save a couple extra bucks, make sure it’s right for you. This promo will expire February 29th, and is open to all Wind Mobile customers.

Wind Mobile to Launch Galaxy Nexus February 3rd is a post from: Android in Canada Blog

Samsung to Start Using Quad-Core Processors

Tom Gray — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:10:51 +0000

Samsung is among the top manufactures for Android devices, and this latest announcement is just adding more excitement to the rapidly growing popularity of futures phones.

Samsung is taking another step further in the mobile device world with their Exynos 5250, which is an ARM Cortex A15 chipset, that boasts of a 2GHz clock speed, without the need of sucking much power from the device. As of now, the chipset has begun sampling and will come into full production sometime this year.

Rumor has it that Samsung will put the chip into test on a new Galaxy Tab, which is reportedly bigger than their usual 10 inches tab, and showcase it at this year’s Mobile World Congress. Some people have reported seeing the prototype of the said device but without any pictures or other types of proof of it, it will be hard to believe, even for the biggest Android fans, that a Samsung Galaxy Tab with a WXQGA (2560×1600) does exist.

Another rumour of another upgraded Galaxy Nexus has been floating around. This is unconfined of course, but it leaves the mind to wonder and dream of happy thoughts. It’s very early to tell of course, but could this be future plans of the next Nexus phone to hit near the end of this year?

[Source:AndroidAuthority]

Samsung to Start Using Quad-Core Processors is a post from: Android in Canada Blog