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ZTE Mimosa X raises a glass to Ice Cream Sandwich

ZTE's Android efforts will continue with the ZTE Mimosa X, a mid-range Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich smartphone that we can expect to see in the second quarter of 2012...somewhere. ZTE hasn't announced a market just yet, but this is a phone we should hear more about at Mobile World Congress next week.

The Mimosa X will have a 4.3-inch qHD screen (that's a 960x540-pixel resolution) a 5-megapixel camera, a front-facing camera, and an expandable memory slot capable of 32GB.

It will also include HD video capture and playback are also on-board, along with … Read more

Now you can Swype Ice Cream Sandwich

In addition to ICS support, the side-load-only Swype Beta comes with new downloadable languages for tablets, accuracy improvements, and a plug-in to the nifty voice-powered search engine Dragon Go. With Dragon Go, you can simply speak your search terms or ask a question, and be brought directly to the most relevant result. It skips right over the typical hyperlink-filled search engine results pages.

Swype is one of the more popular Android replacement keyboards because it lets you type by quickly swiping from letter to letter. It comes preinstalled on many devices, and cannot be downloaded from the Android Market.

Swype … Read more

First Take: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0)

Remember the original Samsung Galaxy Tab? The 7-inch Android tablet was Samsung's first strike against the iPad, and versions of it existed for every carrier under the sun.

Unfortunately, the Tab's high price, two-year carrier commitment, and relatively small screen size prevented it from catching up to the iPad.

For reasons I don't entirely understand, Samsung is trying this recipe again. Announced in February 2011, the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) puts Android 4.0 on a 7-inch screen and includes a 3G cellular data connection (and presumably, a carrier contract).

Pricing has not been formally announced, … Read more

Acer CloudMobile Ice Cream Sandwich phone ready for MWC

Well, well, well. Acer has already won an award for a phone that few in the mobile industry knew existed.

The electronics maker issued a press release today sharing its iF design award for the Acer CloudMobile, an Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone that the company plans to launch later this month at Mobile World Congress.

Although it'll pack Android's newest operating system, Acer isn't positioning the CloudMobile device as just another Android phone. Instead, expect to hear a pitch about securely grabbing personal information through AcerCloud, an online home for photos, music, and documents … Read more

How to download Google fonts to your computer

If you're looking to expand your font selections, Google's Web Fonts collection has you covered.

A lot of sites say they offer free fonts, but there's either a catch, or it's just a gathering of all the fonts that came standard on your computer. Google's Web Fonts hosts hundreds of fonts that you probably don't have, and lets you download them for free. Here's how to grab your favorites:

Step 1: Head to http://www.google.com/webfonts in your Web browser.

Step 2: Adjust the filters on the left side … Read more

Ice Cream Sandwich update dripping out to Motorola Xoom

Ice Cream Sandwich is finally providing some flavor to Motorola Xoom tablets.

A Motorola representative confirmed to CNET today that the company has deployed the Ice Cream Sandwich update, aka Android 4.0, to a small number of Xoom users for testing. The company has promised to confirm additional details when the upgrade is more broadly available, added the rep.

Motorola initially seems to have teased the update, without specifically mentioning ICS, in the following e-mail sent to select Xoom owners yesterday, according to tech blogging site AndroidCentral:

Thanks for your patience as we've waited for this project to … Read more

Google evangelists release bible of good Android design

Google doesn't reject apps from the Android Market just because they're ugly.

But that doesn't mean the company doesn't care--especially now that Matias Duarte has seized the spotlight as director of Android user experience. So, absent the banhammer, Google is trying gentler persuasion to get others besides itself to care about designs that look and work well in the Ice Cream Sandwich era.

For that reason, Google has released an Android design guide for ICS, aka Android 4.0. As my colleague Kent German observes, Google's accommodating ways up to this point have led to … Read more

How to disable preinstalled apps on the Galaxy Nexus

Bloatware and custom apps preinstalled by wireless carriers are to be expected on Android devices. These types of apps have even made their way on to one of Google's own devices--the Samsung Galaxy Nexus on Verizon.

While rooting your device will allow you to uninstall any unwanted apps, we know rooting isn't for everyone, no matter how simple it may be. We also know how annoying it can be to have multiple apps preinstalled on your device, with no way of uninstalling them.

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich allows you to disable an app, in lieu of … Read more

Lenovo's Android 4.0 tablet wants to be your laptop, too

The key word around Lenovo these days is "convergence."

In the case of the Lenovo IdeaTab S2, we're seeing an Android 4.0 tablet converging with the keyboard and touch pad of a conventional notebook computer. Like Asus' Eee Pad Transformer Prime, the IdeaTab S2 comes as two separate, interlocking pieces: a tablet and a keyboard dock. It's a great combo for anyone who feels that their tablet needs to do more than just Angry Birds and Web browsing and actually serve as a tool for working and communicating.

The keyboard accessory also provides a number … Read more