android

Taking a cue from LG, Lenovo has pulled back from releasing an Android 2.2 tablet. PC World reports that Rory Read, COO of the company's U.S. operations, feels Lenovo would be better served waiting until the tablet-friendly version of Android (Honeycomb) arrives next year. Initially expected by the end of 2010, this means the "LePad" will not arrive until around the summer of 2011.

Aside from the Samsung Galaxy Tab, I would not expect to see many Android tablets from some of the bigger players. As Google puts the finishing touches on Gingerbread, it's … Read more

Apple finally (round about the end of our show) gets around to its "one more thing": a knife-edge MacBook Air that inexplicably lacks anything resembling a modern processor. Plus, Mac OS X goes all iOS on us. Meanwhile, the Galaxy Tab gets a price tag that doesn't disappoint (shocker!) and Facebook deals with even more unintended consequences: painful personal memories. --Molly

With less than eighty days to go before the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show kicks off in Las Vegas, the tech rumor mill already is in high gear. Building off of the momentum created this year, I expect to see Android take on a major role at the electronics conference.

A big part of the platform's future hinges on tablets and the arsenal of iPad rivals that will be unleashed in the new year. DigiTimes is reporting today that Google is putting the final touches on Android 3.0 and is prepping sample tablets for a December rollout. Google is … Read more

Revenue from mobile ads for Android outstripped that for the iPhone for the first time on Millennial Mobile's ad network in September.

For its September Mobile Mix report, the mobile ad network, which hosts ads on the popular smartphone platforms, found that ad requests (the number of times a mobile ad is clicked on) on Android phones rose 26 percent from August and have jumped 1,283 percent since January. In July, Android pulled ahead to become the second largest mobile OS tracked by Millienial and now grabs 29 percent of all ad impressions (the number of mobile ads … Read more

One Valley exec's "daunting challenge" is another's "hackalicious" Candyland, it seems.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs had some forceful words about Google's Android operating system in Monday's company earnings call--Jobs' first appearance on a quarterly call in two years--calling the open-source mobile software "very, very fragmented and [it] becomes more so every day." Android boss Andy Rubin hit back at him with a tweet full of open-source code.

Iain Dodsworth, the CEO of Twitter client manufacturer TweetDeck, joined the fray on Tuesday morning with a Tweet that read, "Did we … Read more

Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs had fighting words for Google Android on Monday, and Andy Rubin, the leader of Google's mobile operating system, apparently took to Twitter to counter the challenge.

Too bad the response mostly missed its target.

On a conference call for a strong quarter during which Apple sold 14.1 million iPhones, Jobs criticized both Android and Google's more-open-than-thou sales pitch:

"We think the 'open' versus 'closed' argument is a smokescreen for what's really best for the customers," Jobs said. "We think Android is very, very fragmented and becomes more so every day. We think this is a huge strength of our approach when compared to Google's. We think integrated will trump fragmented every time."

After which Twitter user ARubin, who appears to be the genuine article, had this response in his inaugural tweet:

the definition of open: "mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make"

Rubin didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. But if you're not up on your command-line interfaces, the tweet translates to making a directory, pulling in the Android source code, and building the operating system from scratch. In other words, exercising the full potential of open-source software, a pretty empowering idea for developers. … Read more

After 100 relatively trouble-free weekly episodes, it's at number 101 that things really start to fall apart. Over the weekend, our entire video podcast studio was ripped out and replaced with a new high-definition version.

That's great, and today's video stream looked awesome, but unfortunately, the day one gremlins are also holding our video of this week's show hostage.

Until we get that worked out, you'll have to settle for the audio version, available below.

In actual news, Apple has a big press event this week, so naturally we're in full-on prediction mode, especially when it comes to 11-inch MacBook Air laptops. We also debate the coming 4G/LTE wave in New York, and what it means for the iPhone/Android wars.

Finally, we take a look at the new deluxe Rock Band 3 Fender Mustang guitar, and compare it to a real-life guitar. Pics and a side-by-side video demo are here.

Don't forget: You can download the show's theme song as a free MP3 here for a limited time!

… Read more

ALK Technologies, provider of the CoPilot line of navigation software, has just announced a new low-cost version of its CoPilot 8 software for Android phones, dubbed CoPilot Live USA. It costs just under $5.

Navigation software has typically been a hard sell for Android phones, since Google started offering its Google Maps Navigation app for Android 1.6 and higher, but CoPilot Live USA has one feature that makes it worth a second look: local map data. By storing its maps locally, users are still able to plan routes when their data connection goes dark, which is a godsend for … Read more

Steve Jobs made an unusual appearance on Apple's earnings call today. The reason?

"I couldn't help dropping by for our first $20 billion quarter," he said, by way of explanation. But the real reason soon became clear: to deliver a very pointed message to Google, Research In Motion, customers, developers, and competing smartphone and tablet makers. It had been two years since his last earnings call appearance.

Here's an edited transcript of his comments (a recording of Jobs' comments during the call is available at YouTube):

"First let me discuss iPhone. We sold 14.… Read more