Tag Archives | Tablets

Google Music and Movies: Your Questions Answered

Posted by JR Raphael on May 10, 2011 at 10:09 pm

That little green robot must be struggling to catch his breath.

In addition to unveiling two significant updates to its Android operating system on Tuesday — Android 3.1 and the next-generation Android Ice Cream Sandwich — Google took the wraps off its long-discussed Google Music service and launched a new movie service for Android, too. It was all part of Google’s annual I/O conference for developers, taking place this week in San Francisco.

So what are Google’s new music and movie services all about, and how will they work for you? Here are answers to all your burning questions.

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Google Releases Android 3.1, First Major Update to Honeycomb

Posted by Melissa Perenson on May 10, 2011 at 11:19 am

Google today announced its first significant update to Android 3.0 Honeycomb. Google will roll out the update to Verizon Xoom 3G users today, and to other Honeycomb devices over the next couple of weeks.

The announcement was made during today’s keynote address at the Google I/O developers’ conference in San Francisco.

What I find most interesting are the things Google focused on here at the keynote. Namely, that the improvements mentioned, though welcome, don’t seem to address many of the issues I’ve already identified in Android 3.0. At the forefront: The image rendering glitch that’s very obvious in the Gallery app, where images appear fuzzy and lack detail as compared with their original versions.

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Meet the new Android: Ice Cream Sandwich

Posted by Ginny Mies on May 10, 2011 at 11:07 am

Google unveiled a new version of Android (deliciously nicknamed “Ice Cream Sandwich”) at this morning’s keynote at Google I/O in San Francisco. Ice Cream Sandwich brings the best features of Honeycomb to mobile phones. Still, other than a few intriguing demos, Google did not disclose many details about the update such as when it will be available to consumers.

Interestingly, Google addressed one of the biggest gripes both developers and consumers have about the Android platform: Fragmentation. There are hundreds of Android devices out there in many shapes and sizes. And while choice is great, it is incredibly difficult for app developers to meet the needs of so many different types of phones and tablets.

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SketchBook Pro 2.0: Art on the iPad, Done Even Better

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 9, 2011 at 12:28 am

The iPad is blessed with several excellent apps for drawing and painting using tools that mimic the look of real art supplies. Of the ones I’ve tried, my favorite is Autodesk’s SketchBook Pro–and it just got an extremely meaty upgrade to version 2.0.

The user interface is much improved over the original version that shipped the same day as the first iPad–for instance, you can pin toolbars to the sides of the screen. On the iPad 2, it supports a high-resolution 2048-by-1536 canvas. You can shuttle files back and forth using Dropbox. And while I haven’t tried this yet, Autodesk says the app is better at sharing images with the Windows, Mac, iPhone, and Android versions of the program.

There’s also a SketchBook Store that lets you download and install additional drawing tools, such as fancy pencils. (So far, all its offerings are free.)

The iPad isn’t my dream digital art device, mostly because its technology doesn’t allow for anyone to build a pointy, pressure-sensitive stylus of the sort you can use with a Wacom tablet. Even so, once you get the hang of drawing with one of the blunt, non-pressure-sensitive styluses that are available–I like this one–it’s addictive. And SketchBook Pro, like many iPad apps, is a bizarrely good value–it’s $4.99, vs. $79.99 for the Windows/Mac desktop version. If you like to draw and have an iPad, you need this software.

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Sprint’s Rumored Blackberry Playbook Delay is No Surprise

Posted by Jared Newman on May 5, 2011 at 2:50 pm

More bad news for Research in Motion’s Blackberry Playbook: A leaked Sprint memo says the carrier has indefinitely delayed its plans to sell a 4G version of the tablet.

The news follows a non-committal from Verizon Wireless, which last month said it was still evaluating the Playbook. Sprint’s alleged memo gave no reason for the delay.

We shouldn’t be suprised to see this happen, but not simply because the Playbook is a critical flop so far. The real issue, I think, is tablet fatigue on the part of wireless carriers. The market’s about to be flooded with competition for Apple’s iPad, so it’s not only a buyer’s market for consumers, it’s a buyer’s market for carriers as well.

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Sony’s Android Tablets: One’s a Wedge, One Folds Up

Posted by Harry McCracken on April 25, 2011 at 11:33 pm

When you jump into the teeming Android tablet business, you choose to use an operating system that’s also used by a bunch of manufacturers. And there’s only so much you can do to differentiate the hardware–almost every tablet is basically a skinny slab with a great big touchscreen.

Sony, however, just announced two Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablets with hardware that’s not the same ol’ same ol’. They’re not shipping until this fall, and are known at the moment only by the codenames S1 and S2.

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Lenovo To Release an Android Tablet This Summer

Posted by Ed Oswald on April 25, 2011 at 4:25 pm

The ThinkPad brand–one of the most iconic names from the world of PCs–is coming to tablets. This is My New’s Joanna Stern reports that she’s obtained a PowerPoint presentation from Lenovo dealing with the planned launch of a Android 3.0 Honeycomb-based tablet this summer apparently aimed at business users. And it doesn’t look too shabby.

Stern expects the device to sport a 10.1-inch display and front and rear facing cameras, and to come in 16, 32, and 64GB versions. Pretty average for today’s tablets. Lenovo also plans to include a stylus for input and offer a folio case with included keyboard (no word on whether that case would include ThinkPad’s famous red pointing stick).

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Nook Color’s New App Market, Software Emphasize the “Tablet” in “Reader’s Tablet”

Posted by Harry McCracken on April 25, 2011 at 5:30 am

A little over a week ago, I wondered whether the world needed tablets that were significantly less costly and significantly less fancy than the iPad and its most prominent rivals. A couple of commenters said that such a beast already existed: Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color e-reader. They had a point. At $249, B&N’s Android-based tablet is half the price of the cheapest iPad. Its 7″ color screen and industrial design are quite nice, but it doesn’t have a 1-GHz dual-core processor or  cameras or gobs of storage (it has a merely adequate 8GB) or 3G or other features which are becoming de facto accouterments on higher-end models.

Of course, Barnes & Noble has never pitched the Nook Color as an iPad killer. It calls it a “reader’s tablet,” and it gave the device a modified version of Android that doesn’t have the standard Android interface or access to the Android Marketplace. It’s Amazon.com’s cheaper, E-Ink-sporting Kindle that’s been in B&N’s crosshairs.

But when the company released the Nook Color last year, it did say it was working on an app marketplace of its own–a move that would make the Nook Color a little less of a dedicated e-reader and a little more of a general-purpose device. (Already, some geeky buyers had rooted their Nooks to turn them into standard Android tablets.) Today, B&N is launching that marketplace–which is a new section in the shopping area where it already sells books and magazines–as part of the Nook Color’s version 1.2 upgrade. And while it’s sticking with the “reader’s tablet” idea and saying it’ll focus on reading materials and complementary items, it’s also saying that it’s listened to consumers who think that a $249 Nook Color has a place as an alternative to pricier, more powerful tablets.

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