Motorola Xoom Android 3.1 update starts tomorrow in India

The Android 3.1 update for the Motorola Xoom may only start in August in Europe, but apparently it can arrive outside the US earlier than that. According to FoneArena, Motorola has officially announced that the update will start rolling out in India tomorrow, on July 29.

The update will come over-the-air, and your tablet will notify you about its arrival and ask you to install it. The update will finally activate the SD card slot in the Xoom. Multitasking has been improved, and widgets are now resizable too.

There’s also keyboard and mouse input support over Bluetooth, support for most joysticks and gamepads via USB or Bluetooth, a File Manager comes preinstalled, and high performance Wi-Fi access can now be maintained by apps even when the screen is turned off.

The size of the update will be around 40 MB. If you’re itching to get Android 3.1 on your Xoom, you can start manually checking for the update tomorrow by going to Settings > About tablet > System updates. Other countries are also poised to receive the update soon: Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. Though it’s unclear right now whether the rollout will start tomorrow in these countries as well. Anyway, regardless of where in the world you’ve purchased a Xoom from, the Android 3.1 update is on its way to you.

Karbonn's first Android phone, A1

Karbonn Mobiles has launched its first Android smartphone, A1. Karbonn A1 comes with a 2.8 inch touchscreen and is based on Android 2.2 OS.

A1 has a 2.8 inch touch screen along with WiFi, 3G and Bluetooth. Karbonn A1 supports WiFi Hotspot and ability to store application in external memory. Other features of the A1 include Adobe Flash 10.1 version, 600MHz processor, 7.2 Mbps support (3G), a 3.2 MP camera, 1100mAh battery, expandable memory (up to 32GB) and GPS.

Standard Android applications and features like Google Map and G-sensor come with the smartphone, as well as the ability to download applications from the Android Market.

The phone is priced at Rs 6,999. The company plans to introduce three more Android smartphones in the coming months.

Why Samsung's Galaxy Tab is 'meh'

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 was launched at the company's headquarters in Seoul. Photograph: Jo Yong-Hak/Reuters

Ever since the iPad shipped, I've been waiting impatiently for a comparable Android device to emerge – something of like shape, size and capacity, but from a more open ecosystem than the one Apple offers.

Like Apple, Google operates an Android App Store that it controls – if your app doesn't please Google, it doesn't go in the store. But unlike Apple, Google allows you to install apps from unofficial sources, meaning that you can download apps directly from their authors or buy them from stores that compete with (or complement) Google's store.

This is the kind of thing that's important to me. After all, a tablet without software is just an inconveniently fragile and poorly reflective mirror, so the thing I want to be sure of when I buy a device is that I don't have to implicitly trust one corporation's judgment about what software I should and shouldn't be using.

The introduction of the iPad sparked a series of Android tablet launches, and none of them had sufficiently impressive specs or form-factor to capture my desire, until Samsung announced its Galaxy Tab 10.1. Despite having one of the stupidest and most awkward product names in recent memory, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 boasted specifications that met or beat the iPad 2 on every axis, and came with the latest Android tablet OS, 3.1, preloaded.

So I asked a friend who was coming over from Chicago to buy one for me and bring it with him (the device isn't available in the UK until 4 August), and I greedily unwrapped it, charged it up, and got down to business with it. I've used it on my own at home and office, given it to my three-year-old to test, and taken it on a quick overseas trip, and at this stage, I'm prepared to venture a verdict: meh.

It's true that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 does all the basic stuff you'd like from an Android tablet, has a long-lived battery, weighs little, and has a good, sharp screen and two very good cameras – one facing you and one facing away. The camera is a delight – there's something really fun and right about using a big, 10.1in screen as a viewfinder, especially when shooting video, and the pictures are beautiful. By and large, the OS is easy and intuitive, and the software offerings from Google's Android store and its competitors are fine as they go.

But there are a few annoyances and a couple of dreadful flaws that make the Galaxy Tab 10.1 into a disappointment. First, and worst of all, there is the business of the USB connector. Apple's iOS devices famously use a long, flat proprietary connector that provides some easy cash for the company in the form of specialist cable sales, and locks competing devices out of using speaker-docks and other accessories. This is one of my gripes with Apple devices, and the use of standard, cheap, widely available mini-USB cables in Android phones (including the excellent Samsung Galaxy S, which I am delighted to own) is a major selling point for me.

But Samsung's tablets – for no discernible reason – use a custom tip that isn't any of the standard mini- or micro-USB ends. Instead, it's a wide, flat connector, like the one Apple uses, but of course, it's not compatible with Apple's cables, either. I've already lost mine, run down the battery and now I can't use the tablet again until I find another one. I passed through three airports recently, and none of them had a store that stocked them.

I have phone charger cables in my office, my travel bag, my backpack and beside the bed. The very last thing in the entire world that I need right now is to have to add another kind of USB cable to all those places. The decision to use a proprietary connector in a device whose major selling point is that it is non-proprietary is the stupidest thing about the Galaxy Tab 10.1 – even stupider than calling it the "Galaxy Tab 10.1."

Likewise disappointing was the decision to omit the microSD card slot on the Wi-Fi-only version of the tablet. The 3G-equipped models come with a built-in microSD reader (handy to have, especially if you need to load some data onto the device and you've mislaid the stupid proprietary cable). This is integrated into the Sim assembly used by the 3G devices, and rather than leaving the empty Sim assembly in place and leaving the card-reader intact, Samsung removed the whole thing.

Continuing on the theme of data-transfer, the new versions of Android have made fundamental changes to system by which devices talk to personal computers. Up until now, Android devices showed up on your desktop as standard USB storage, and you could move files off or onto them by dragging them around in your file-browser. This was straightfoward, fast and easy, but it did have one minor annoyance: when your Android's storage was mounted on your PC, it wasn't available to the Android device, meaning you couldn't work with the files on your Android at the same time as it was using the storage to play back movies or audio.

To fix this, Android borrowed MTP, a Microsoft technology developed for the Zune, which theoretically allows you to use your tablet's files even as you're using your PC to move files off or onto the in-built storage. It's a nice idea, and would represent a minor improvement to the Android experience, if it worked.

But it doesn't. When you plug your Galaxy Tab 10.1 into your PC, Android automatically launches a Samsung file-transfer app that takes up your whole screen. This communicates with a desktop app to allow you to transfer files – very, very slowly. And if you try to launch another Android app while the file-transfer is taking place, it severs communications with your PC, causing the file transfers to fail. In other words, the system that's supposed to let you use your Android while you transfer files requires that you not use your Android while you transfer files.

What's more, the adoption of MTP means that Android now requires a proprietary desktop app to effect simple file transfers – an app that is, if possible, even worse than iTunes, and represents no selling-point for those of us who want non-proprietary, "just-works" mobile devices.

Samsung really doesn't seem to have its head around the notion of Android's strength being its non-proprietary, open nature. They've preloaded the device with several Samsung apps that, insultingly, can't be deleted without "rooting" the device, a process that voids your warranty.

The 32GB, WiFi-only Galaxy Tab 10.1 will ship in the UK in August, at an unrevealed price, though Play.com lists it for pre-order at an insane £899 (the comparable iPad 2 costs £479.00 and I paid US$699 for my Galaxy Tab 10.1).

I'm not giving up on my search for a great Android tablet – I'm eyeing up the forthcoming Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet. I love Lenovo's ThinkPad laptops, and the ThinkPad Tablet comes with standard USB connectors, video out and an SD slot (it also has an optional stylus and carry-case with an integrated ThinkPad keyboard – my favourite keyboards in the world).

iPad Trumps Android Smartphone Activations in the Enterprise: Good

Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad isn't just the hottest consumer tablet in the market; it's also beating all Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android-based "Honeycomb" tablets and smartphones combined in the nascent enterprise market for mobile devices.

The iPad, which sold more than 28 million units worldwide, accounted for 95 percent of business tablet activations, according to Good Technology's latest data report on mobile devices in the workplace.

Android tablets, such as the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, declined to 3.1 percent of overall tablet activations for the quarter.

Perhaps few people are shocked by this; there are myriad tales of weak Honeycomb tablet sales, with influential blogs such as Daring Fireball reporting that only 1.35 million Honeycomb slates have sold.

However, Good said the number of iPad and iPad 2 activations in the enterprise exceeded the total amount of Android smartphones activated for Q2 by a count of 27.2 percent to 24 percent, respectively.

Android smartphones represented nearly 33 percent of all smartphone (non-tablet) activations compared with iPhone's 66 percent.

More broadly, Good also said Apple iOS, the platform on which the iPad and iPhone are built, represented 78.7 percent of net new activations, with Android accounting for the remaining 21.3 percent.

By comparison, Good said in April iOS devices represented just under 70 percent of net new activations from Jan. 1 through March 31 this year. That was before the launch of the iPhone 4 on Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZW).

Good surmised that the rise in iOS device representations is partially due to Apple selling the iPad and iPhone through AT&T (NYSE:T) and Verizon, which began selling the iPhone 4 in February and sold 2.3 million iPhones in its second quarter.

But it's also reflective of the fact that consumers are bringing their iPhones and iPads into the workplace, said Good, which sells software to manage mobile devices to 182 of the Fortune 500 companies.

Regardless of the "why," these are interesting statistics considering that Android is the smartphone market leader with anywhere from 35 percent to 38 percent market share, according to current reports from IDC, Gartner, Nielsen and comScore.

"While Android continues to gain market share overall, Good's enterprise end users are showing clear preference for Apple products," said John Herrema, senior vice president of corporate strategy at Good Technology.

Interestingly, some 46 percent of iPad activations came in the financial services sector. That dispels the notion that risk-averse industries are shunning mobile devices not made by big enterprise brand Research In Motion, whose BlackBerry smartphone and PlayBook tablet sales are waning.

Overall, little about Good's data is encouraging for BlackBerry or Android's enterprise representation. But it's important to remember, Good is just one mobile device management shop and this is just one quarter. The market has way to go before all of the places in the mobile platform race are assured.

iPad stays top tablet: Faces growing Android challenge as Amazon circles

Apple’s iPad continues to dominate the tablet market, with global shipments up to 9.3m units according to the latest figures, though its percentage marketshare has declined by over 33-percent thanks to increasing competition from consumer-centric rivals. 61.3-percent of tablets sold worldwide run iOS, analysts Strategy Analytics calculate, with Android taking the lion’s share of what remains, at 30.1-percent.

Android’s rise from Q2 2010 is significant, with the Google platform on just 2.9-percent of the tablets a year ago and seeing shipping numbers of just 100,000 units. The analysts now believe that 4.6m Android tablets were sold in Q2, not least because of the dedicated tablet version of the OS, 3.x Honeycomb, which was designed specifically to suit larger-screen devices.

Despite generally negative reviews, Windows 7 holds third place, with a reported 4.6-percent of the marketshare. That puts it ahead of QNX, the platform RIM has used for the BlackBerry PlayBook, which lags in fourth place with 3.3-percent. Strategy Analytics blame the absence of key apps like a native email client on the PlayBook for its placement

Since the figures detail Q2 2011 – April through June inclusive – newer slates like the HP TouchPad don’t get a look in. Looking forward, the Android tablet segment is open to a single, dominant vendor, and there are suggestions that it could well be Amazon. “If Amazon decides to enter the Android tablet category later this year, that will bring fresh excitement and buzz to the Android community” Neil Mawston, Director at Strategy Analytics suggests, ”but Amazon will need to deliver a truly standout offering if it really wants to make headway against the popular iPad.”

Google unveils Android 3.2 OS

The Honeycomb 3.2 operating system was in the news for a long time, but now it has been finally announced by Google, in a blog posts on the Android Developer forum.

The latest Android version will be more capable than its earlier version and will also support Qualcomm processors, which is an added advantage in order to improve the compatibility.

The apps with fixed size that are actually designed to run on smaller gadgets will run better than ever before. The latest upbringing of Google will not try to optimize the application as per the screen resolution. Besides, it provides you with manual choice to opt whether the application has to be stretched to fit the screen or a tad bit zoom would do better.

With the new improvements, the Android 3.2 system will also allow media sync, which will now be possible straightly from the SD card unlike the system memory earlier.

To make it more interesting, Google has provided the control to the developers to enhance the use of system resources such as the display resolution with regards to the application and their display, which in turn will result in much better view.

As Google is working hard on the new Android Honeycomb 3.2, so just get set to hear very soon that the developers are releasing the update patches for tablets. The update is likely to hit the tablets over the next few months, while some of the companies have already announced their tablet to be released with this new version of Android OS.

So, just get ready to see this amazingly improved operating system on the tablets in the near future. Some of the recently released tablets are also compatible for this update and they might also get the upgrade soon after its release.

ITC ruling against HTC may spell trouble for other Android makers

An examination of the two patents the U.S. International Trade Commission found handset maker HTC infringed upon in an initial ruling on Friday has revealed that the patent claims in question may apply to "every Android device out there."

Apple won a skirmish on Friday in its ongoing dispute against HTC when a judge for the ITC ruled that the Taiwanese company had infringed upon two patents.

"HTC will vigorously defend these two remaining patents through an appeal before the ITC commissioners who make the final decision," Grace Lei, general counsel for HTC, was reported as saying. "This is only one step of many in these legal proceedings."

The judge's findings are subject to review, with a target date for the final commission decision set for December 6, 2011, according to patent expert Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents.

The commission has the power to ban imports of products deemed to be in violation of patents, a move that would devastate Google's Android mobile operating system platform if multiple handset manufacturers were blocked.

The patents HTC was found to have violated are 5,946,647, "System and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data" and 6,343,263, "Real-time signal processing system for serially transmitted data."

An in-depth analysis by Mueller of the specific patent claims HTC has been found guilty of violating suggests that the infringing technologies are part of the Android architecture, rather than unique enhancements made by HTC. As such, competing Android vendors such as Motorola and Samsung may also be at risk.

Apple's '643 patent appears to relate directly to the iPhone's practice of detecting contact information, such as phone numbers and email addresses, and forming a link that, when clicked, performs contextualized actions. Documents submitted by Apple accuse HTC of violating this patent through Android's "Linkify" functionality.

According to Android's own developer reference site, which is cited in the documents, Linkify takes "a piece of text and a regular expression and turns all of the regex matches in the text into clickable links."

Given that, according to Mueller, the feature is "most probably built into each and every Android device out there," a final ITC ruling upholding Friday's ruling would pose a serious threat to all U.S. Android vendors.

Apple's '263 patent describes "the use of real-time application programming interfaces (APIs) interposed between application software or driver software and the real-time processing subsystem."

In spite of HTC's claims that it has "alternate solutions" for the issues, Mueller believes the signal-processing patent will be "extremely hard" to work around. "In Android's case, it's possible that working around this patent requires a fundamental change to Android's architecture, and possibly even to the architecture of the underlying Linux kernel," he wrote.

In fact, prominent Android smartphone and tablet maker Motorola Wireless seems to have recognized the danger of these patents, as the company preemptively sought to have them invalidated last October after filing suit against the iPhone maker. Apple subsequently added the patents to a countersuit against Motorola.

AppleInsider uncovered job listings on Friday that indicate Apple is shopping for lawyers for litigation team in preparation for the coming intellectual property showdown between Apple and its rivals, namely HTC, Motorola and Samsung.