Tag: Android

Latest Apple patent lawsuit targets Galaxy Nexus lockscreen

The latest installment of Apple vs. Samsung saga sees Cupertino taking offense with the lockscreen on the Galaxy Nexus. The complaint, filed once again in Germany, is the first directed towards the Android 4.0 flagship device. The claim made is that the Galaxy Nexus infringes upon Apple’s own slide-to-unlock utility model. 

FOSS Patent’s blogger Florian Mueller describes this utility model as a limited fast-track patent that companies are allowed to file for alongside traditional patents. Apple has done just this with slide-to-unlock in Germany. Samsung’s defense points to a device from Sweden known as the Neonode, which managed to persuade a court in the Netherlands in 2011 to question the validity of the Apple’s slide-to-unlock filing.

The court is expected to reveal its decision on Mar. 16. What’s clear already, though, is that we’re sure to see more of these patent lawsuits as the year continues.

via Android Central.

How to: Unroot the Galaxy Nexus, Re-lock the Bootloader and Return to a Factory State

Unlocking the bootloader and rooting your Galaxy Nexus is really only half the battle. There may come a time when you need need to lock everything back up, including that bootloader. Thanks to the Android team, we have the factory images that can not only fix a bootlooping or soft-bricked device, but make it look like you just pulled it out of the box.  

Instructions:

1.  Download the Android 4.0.2 factory images to your PC. [Download]
2.  Unzip the file and its contents into your SDK/Tools folder (wherever your adb.exe and fastboot.exe files are).

*Make sure they are not in their own folder, but have all been extracted to Tools.

3.  From within your Tools folder, open a command prompt (SHIFT + right click – “open command prompt here”):
4.  Type the following commands, allowing each to finish before moving onto the next:

adb reboot bootloader
fastboot flash bootloader bootloader-toro-primekk15.img
fastboot reboot-bootloader
fastboot flash radio radio-toro-i515.ek02.img
fastboot reboot-bootloader
fastboot flash radio-cdma radio-cdma-toro-i515.ek05.img
fastboot reboot-bootloader
fastboot -w update image-mysid-icl53f.zip
fastboot reboot-bootloader
fastboot oem lock

5.  Reboot your phone by highlighting “Start” and pressing the lock switch.
6.  It really is as simple as that. Your phone is now back to a 100% stock, unrooted and locked state.

via Droid Life.

How to: Root the Galaxy Nexus 4G LTE, Flash a Custom Recovery and Make a Backup [Verizon]

Time to root your Galaxy Nexus now that @Koush has released official Clockworkmod Recovery for the LTE version. We have gone ahead and posted the manual instructions for you, because well, if you have a Nexus you should probably know most of these standard adb and fastboot commands. It’s not hard by any means, especially knowing that you all have the SDK set up after unlocking your bootloader. Should take all of 5 minutes, maybe less.

Ready?

Rooting and flashing a custom recovery:

*Unlock your bootloader first. [Instructions]

1.  Download ClockworkMod Recovery for the G-Nex. [Download]
2.  Place that file in your SDK/Tools folder (same place as your adb.exe).
3.  Download the superuser file aka the root file. [Download]
4.  Place that file in your SDK/Tools folder.
5.  Open a command prompt from within your Tools folder and type the following:

adb push su.zip /sdcard/

6. Then reboot into the bootloader:

adb reboot bootloader

7.  When the boot menu loads, flash the new recovery image:

fastboot flash recovery recovery-clockwork-5.5.0.4-toro.img

8.  When that finishes, use the volume keys to highlight “Recovery mode,” press power to select it.
9.   From recovery, scroll to “Install zip from sdcard.”
10.  Then “choose zip from sdcard.”
11.  Choose the “su.zip” file and install it.
12.  When that finishes, back out of recovery and reboot the system.
13.  Enjoy being rooted with a temporary recovery. (Permanent instructions below)

Afterwards, you will want to install ROM Manager from the market and have it re-flash recovery for you.

Make your first backup:

1.  Now that you are rooted and have a custom recovery, it’s time to make your first clean backup.
2.  In ROM Manager, flash Clockwork recovery again (it’s the first option up top).
3.  Then tap the option to reboot into recovery just below that.
4.  Once in recovery, scroll down to “backup and restore.”
5.  Choose “backup” and let your phone create a backup.
6.  When finished, back out of recovery and reboot the system.

If you want permanent Clockwork Recovery (via XDA):

1. Install Root Explorer from the market and delete /system/reboot-from-recovery.p – *Mount as R/W first*
2. Reboot into Fastboot Mode: Power off your device and (Power + Volume Up and Down)
3. Flash CWM (fastboot flash recovery recovery-clockwork-5.5.0.4-toro.img)
4. Reboot into OS (fastboot reboot)
5. You now have CWM recovery permanently installed

via Droid Life.

Video: How to Unlock the Bootloader on the Galaxy Nexus [Verizon]

If your Galaxy Nexus future includes custom ROMs and kernels, you should stop what you are doing and unlock the bootloader of the device first. With an unlocked bootloader, your phone is opened up for you to essentially do as you please. Not only that, but you get that sweet little unlock icon on the boot screen.

To help you with this process, we tossed together this quick video. For the full written instructions, you will want to check out this post.

via Droid Life.

Android 4.0.3 Announced: Better Social App Integration to Contacts, Camera Capabilities, and Polish

Say bye, bye to Android 4.0.2. In the coming weeks, the Android team will roll out the next version better known as Android 4.0.3. Through the new API that has also arrived, developers will have the ability to integrate their social apps into contacts like Google has done with G+ and Google Talk. You can imagine that this likely means Facebook and Twitter updates showing in you friends’ contact pages as well. In other goodies, apps will now be able to access more camera and calendar capabilities while additional polish was added to graphics, the database, spell-checking, etc.Social stream API in Contacts provider: Applications that use social stream data such as status updates and check-ins can now sync that data with each of the user’s contacts, providing items in a stream along with photos for each. This new API lets apps show users what the people they know are doing or saying, in addition to their photos and contact information.Calendar provider enhancements. Apps can now add color to events, for easier tracking, and new attendee types and states are now available.New camera capabilities. Apps can now check and manage video stabilization and use QVGA resolution profiles where needed.Accessibility refinements. Improved content access for screen readers and new status and error reporting for text-to-speech engines.Incremental improvements in graphics, database, spell-checking, Bluetooth, and more.

via Droid Life.

Android Market: 10 Billion Apps Served So Far, And Another 1 Billion Each Month

Android Market, the official, Google-sanctioned app marketplace for Android, is announcing a major milestone December 6th 2011: 10 billion total downloads. More important, the rate of growth is surging. Google says that it’s now seeing 1 billion app installs every 30 days.

To give some context to that, it took 20 months for Android to hit its first billion downloads, and another five months to reach its second billion. Asked what’s driving the growth, Google didn’t share any specifics, but pointed to the 550k Android devices being activated each day as the major contributor. The increase in international support and a revamped Android Market have been factors as well.

Android still has a long way to go to catch up to its iOS rival in terms of total downloads — Apple’s App Store has roughly 20 billion cumulative downloads at this point (the most recent stat I can find is 18 billion downloads as of October 4). But the number of new downloads per month is probably more important to developers figuring out which platforms to build for, and the race is much closer there — during the same event, Apple also announced it was seeing one billion monthly downloads.

The story is less clear for developers building premium apps, though. During its October event Apple also announced that it’s paid developers on iOS $3 billion to date. Google isn’t breaking that number out for Android, which likely means it doesn’t have anything to boast about on that front.

To mark the occasion, Google has teamed up with a number of Android developers to offer a special promotion. For each of the next ten days, it’ll be offering a new set of top applications for 10 cents each (the apps are all normally priced between 99 centers and $6.99). Google isn’t eating the cost of the discount, but instead asked the developers if they’d be willing to participate in the sale.

Also worth noting: while Android Market is far and away the most popular way to download Android apps at this point, the open nature of Android means that users can install third-party marketplaces, and device manufacturers can pre-install competitive markets as well. Amazon is the most prominent company to this with its Amazon App Store (which you can download to any Android device, and comes pre-installed on the Kindle Fire). In other words, while the iOS App Store is the only place for users to download apps, Android Market doesn’t account for all app installs across Android devices.

I spoke with Jeremy Statz, the founder of Android developer Kittehface Software, which makes several popular live wallpaper apps including Snowfall. Statz has been developing popular apps for Android Market for years now, so he has an unusually good perspective on the state of the marketplace.

Asked what the biggest inflection points were in Market’s growth, Statz says that the launch of support in South Korea was big, and that the company typically sees a surge in downloads around the holidays (which isn’t surprising — other developers on both Android and iOS often see the same). But aside from that, it doesn’t sound like there were any specific launches or events that resulted in more downloads. Rather, it’s been the steady (and fast) rise in Android’s install base, as well as the gradual improvements in international  support.

I also asked Statz about Android users’ willingness to actually pay for apps. Google didn’t break out any data around the number of paid downloads, and Android has gotten a reputation for having users who will gladly download free apps but aren’t nearly as willing to cough over any actual money, at least not to the extent iOS users are. But Statz says he hasn’t witnessed this trend — even since the early days of Market, he says the number of users converting from the free version of his Live Wallpapers to the 99 cent premium versions has been around 2% (he says 1% is generally considered “good”).

via TechCrunch.

Verizon reportedly blocking access to Google Wallet on its Galaxy Nexus

Pop quiz: List, in alphabetical order, all of the Google Nexus phones that officially have access to Google Wallet.

If you aswered the Sprint Nexus S 4G — and only the Sprint Nexus S 4G — you’re exactly right. And it looks like it might stay that way for the time being. 9 to 5 Google, citing an unnamed source, reports that the Verizon Galaxy Nexus won’t have access to Google Wallet, despite that sweet NFC chip tucked into the phone’s battery.

And the kicker: Verizon is said to be the one keeping Google Wallet off its Galaxy Nexus. (Never mind that it’s a Nexus phone, and remember that we’re expecting a couple of Verizon-specific appliations preloaded. We called it Verizon’s Nexus for a reason.) And the reason for no Google Wallet on the Galaxy Nexus, according to the anonymous source, is that it’s a direct competitor to ISIS, another NFC standard backed by Verizon, along with manufacturers LG, HTC, Motorola, RIM, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.

Oh, and guess who else backs ISIS: AT&T and T-Mobile — two U.S. carriers that have network-specific versions of the Samsung Nexus S in the United States, which, despite also having NFC capabilities, have no official build of Google Wallet. (Like with the Galaxy Nexus, you can hack Google Wallet on just fine, thank you very much.) Maybe that’s just our tinfoil hat talking, but you can’t deny that Google Wallet’s only officially available on a single phone. 

Source: 9 to 5 Google;

via Verizon reportedly blocking access to Google Wallet on its Galaxy Nexus | Android Central.

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