• Operating System: Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
  
• Processor: Snapdragon 1.2GHz dual core
• Display: 4.5″ 960×540 IPS with Corning Gorilla Glass
• Battery: 2150mAh
• Internal Memory: 4.3GB
• Expandable Memory: Up to 32GB MicroSD
• Connectivity: 4G LTE, Bluetooth 3.0, WiFi (802.11 b,g,n), GPS
• Camera/Video: 1.3MP front camera, 5MP rear camera with up to 1080p HD video recording, rear LED flash
• Features: Quick Memo, gestures, file manager, video editor, accelerometer,  media sync, Google Apps

The phone was released today at a price of $199 after a $70 mail in rebate. This means that you’ll pay $269 (not including taxes) up front and get a $70 rebate card in the mail after you send in the rebate form.

Ubuntu Phone OS

Canonical, the people behind Ubuntu have announced the release of their Ubuntu Phone OS. They expect it to be shipping on devices in 2013 but are still in talks with manufacturers. Expected features include a Welcome Screen instead of a lack screen, full screen apps, integration with html5 and native apps as well as the ability to be docked and used as a full blown desktop OS. For more information check out http://www.ubuntu.com

Samsung Backs Tizen

Recently Samsung became a member of The Linux Foundation and now have announced their support for The Linux Foundation’s mobile OD Tizen. Tizen is the predecessor of Nokia’s Meego OS that died a slow death when Nokia and Microsoft joined forces a coupe years ago. No information has been given as far as a time frame (other than sometime in 2013) or what devices will ship with Tizen… or how this will effect Samsung’s relationship with Google/Android.

MetroPCS GS3 Owners to Get Jelly Bean Update?

A response on the MetroPCS Facebook page hints at MetroPCS and Samsung working closely to release a Jelly Bean update in the “February time frame”. No word on it it will be 4.1 or 4.2.

The phone and tablet versions are very similar, so unless I specify otherwise, everything I go over here will apply to both.

Upon waking up a 4.2 device you will immediately notice a change with the lock screen. First the clock style has changed slightly giving the “hour” digits a bolder font than the “minutes”, also the date is in bold font, and if you have an alarm set it will on the same line but in the non bold font.

The lock screen is actually now lock screens, and act like your normal home screens that swipe left and right allowing for one widget per screen. Another change to the lock screen is the location of the Google Now and Camera shortcuts. Google Now has been moved to the bottom center where the Home button would be and where Now is usually accessed from. The Camera (on the phone version), by default is accessed by swiping the lock screen to the right.

Notifications

The Notification Shade has been updated as well with the addition of Quick Settings. These new settings shortcuts are accessed a little differently on a phone and tablet. On a tablet you get to notifications by swiping down on the left side of the bar, the quick settings are accessed by swiping down from the right side of the bar.

On a phone this is a little different. Swipe down with 1 finger to get the notifications or swipe down with 2 fingers to access the quick settings. Or you can also switch between the two by touching the icon on the top right. It changes depending on which screen you are on.

Keyboard

The stock keyboard in Android 4.2 adds gesture typing by default. Basically this is Google’s version of Swype. The nice thing about it is, there’s no need to switch keyboards. You can type normally when you like or use the gesture typing whenever you like, plus it uses your user dictionary. If you are unfamiliar with Swype or gesture typing, it allows you to type by gliding a finger from letter to letter. You’ll see a trail follow your finger and a pop up showing the word Google thinks you’re typing.

Daydreams

Daydreams are similar to screensaver on your PC. You’ll find settings for these in the Display area of settings. You can set the Daydream to activate when your device is charging or docked (or both), and will appear instead of the lock screen when your device is set to put the screen to sleep. If you lock the screen the Daydream won’t appear.

Camera and Gallery

The new camera app has been completely redesigned with the view finder now taking up the full screen. The focus area is now represented by an animated circle and all the camera options for Flash, Brightness, front or rear camera switching and  Settings are accessed by touching and holding the screen and the sliding to the option you want. A new camera mode called Photo Sphere has been adding allowing yo to create a 360 degree panoramic photo. Simply align the little blue dots the view finder shows you to create your photo.

The Gallery has received an update as well, adding more features for photo editing and a refreshed “filmstrip view” mode that can be accessed via pinching a photo while viewing it in the gallery.

Overview

So, even though Android 4.2 keeps the Jelly Bean name, it’s much more than just an incremental upgrade. In fact, it’s packed full of great new features while retaining its fast and smooth look and feel. Google has taken what they started with Ice Cream Sandwich and ramped it up to a whole new level. So, if you have a Nexus tablet or a Samsung Galaxy Nexus or LG Nexus 4 enjoy your new features, otherwise you’ll have to wait for your phone manufacturer and service carrier to roll out your update. You could also look into a custom ROM for your phone once they start using Android 4.2.

Yesterday, regional CDMA/LTE mobile carrier MetroPCS announced the launch of Rich Communication Services on their 4G LTE network, making them the first 4G LTE carrier to do so in the world. They will be using Joyn, a GSMA-licensed brand. So, what does this mean to MetroPCS users? Well, at first not much.

The Joyn service, at launch, is only available to customers using the Samsung Galaxy Attain 4G handset. The company states that other handsets will be made compatible, although why only the Attain would have the capability is a little beyond me. Since the launch of the Galaxy Attain, MetroPCS has released 7 other 4G LTE devices including the recently released Samsung Galaxy S3. The GS3, as most people already know, is one of the most advanced smartphones on the planet. MetroPCS had to know at the time of the GS3′s launch that Joyn was right around the corner, why wouldn’t they make sure the service was compatible at that point?  I love that MetroPCS is willing to embrace new technologies and is able to get the jump on other, larger carriers but they really need to focus more on common sense instead of “beat ya to it”.

OK, so now that I got my little rant out of the way, what exactly does Joyn RCS allow you to do? It allows for tighter integration between contacts, communication and media. On Joyn enabled devices this happens seamlessly as long as the service is installed on your phone. MetroPCS makes the app available via its @Metro App Store. Once installed, people in your Contacts who also have the service will have a small Joyn icon next to their name. Those contacts will have access to the following:

• Contact availability (online, busy, away, unavailable)
• Calendar Sync
• Social network interaction
• Enriched chat including: threaded messaging, sent/read notification and group chat
• Content sharing like: share videos, images and files while on a call or chat
• Geo-location
• WiFi video and calling

Check out this video from MetroPCS showing the new service in action and let’s us know what you think of the new service in the comments.

Google Now on a Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Personal assistant apps are a great way to get things done quickly and relatively hands-free. For users of Android 4.1 and higher, you’ll find Google Now to be a great improvement to previous versions of Android’s integrated Google Search app.

It gives you quick glimpses at things like weather, traffic and directions to recently searched destinations, sports scores and more. From the main window (pictured left) voice recognition can be activated by simply saying “Google” or by touching the microphone in the search bar. Of course, searches can also be carried out by typing as well.

Google Now can carry out web searches, get directions, find images, set alarms, send texts and even place phone calls… but out of the box it can’t set calendar reminders. Luckily, there is a work around…. for most people.

Calendar events can be added using Google Now by sending a text to your Google Calendar account. This will work for U.S. customers of  Alltel, AT&T, Cellular One, Cincinnati Bell, Dobson Communications, Nextel, Qwest, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Verizon and Virgin Mobile USA (Google Support). There are a couple steps needed to set this up.

1. Go to http://www.google.com/calendar and log in to your Google account
2. Click on the Gear icon on the right side of the page and select Settings
3. Near the top of the page select Mobile Setup
4. You’ll see a few categories Status, Country, Phone Number, Carrier and Verification Code
5. Enter your phone number and click Send Verification Code
6. Once you receive the text from Google with your code enter it in the box next to Verification Code and click Finish Setup

Sending text to Calendar with Google Now

That takes care of the Google Calendar setup, next you need to create a Contact on your phone for your calendar. I called mine Calendar to make it easy, for the phone number use the short code 48368 (GVENT), I even added a picture of a calendar to the contact so it is immediately recognizable as my calendar contact. That’s it.

Next, open Google Now, activate voice recognition and say something like “Send text to Calendar take out trash at 8am next Monday”, where I said Calendar you say whatever name you gave your calendar contact. You’ll be shown a screen like what I have to the right, verify the right information is being sent and then select Send Message. Wait a few seconds and you will get a confirmation text back from Google verifying your calendar event has been created. It will now show up in your Google Calendar.

Event added to calendar

So, I took a month off and while I was gone everything got all crazy! But, in a way it didn’t. In the past month I had to move back to north eastern PA from the Daytona Beach area of Florida. I knew that with that move I would have to drop my MetroPCS service… simply because they don’t offer service in Scranton. I debated what avenue I should take, cell phone-wise. I knew I wasn’t going to go back to “on contract” service, but should I go with Boost, Virgin Mobile or maybe Cricket? I also looked at MVNO’s like Straight Talk, Simple Mobile and H2O, but I keep hearing stories of people using those services getting data speeds throttled or cut off completely.

So, I started thinking about T-Mobile and decided to check out their no-contract offerings. For $70 a month you can bring your own unlocked GSM device, sign no contracts and get unlimited talk, text and data… the catch is only up to 5GB is at their “4G” HSPA+ speeds, after that you get knocked down to 2G speeds. But still that’s not bad. They have a $60 plan that caps your 4G speeds at 2.5GB. They also offer their own line of pre-paid phones, but like MetroPCS the good ones are insanely expensive. On the bright side, on the bring your own device option you can (at the time of this writing) get a T-Mo SIM card for only $0.99.

I decided to go with the no contract T-Mobile plan, mostly because I like the idea of being able to use any unlocked GSM phone of my choice. I went ahead and bought a new Samsung Galaxy Nexus… I know what you’re thinking… “That phone is almost a year old and a new Nexus is on it’s way any time now”. Very true, but the upcoming new Nexus is made by LG and, although I had great luck with my LG Optimus M and LG Esteem, and thought highly of the LG Connect and LG Motion, I just don’t know if I can handle another LG.

It’s only after I had decided to take this route that the T-Mobile/MetroPCS merger was announced… How about that, looks like I might be able to go back to Metro after the merger is completed and they get access to T-Mo’s nationwide network.

Late yesterday, 6/11/2012, version 1.2.1 of theZUDreport Android app was released. The update includes minor UI tweaks, improved in app handling of the Blogs and Facebook sections, updated layout of the Apps section, including updating the Android Market URLs to their Google Play Store  equivalents. Also getting a refreshed look is the launch Splash Screen, sporting a new “Glass style” tZr icon and a semi transparent background.

Under the hood, a significant amount  of code clean up was done, along with some all out rewriting of some code to make things more streamlined and easier to update in the future. The overall layout has remained unchanged, for now.

If you are in the market for a new LTE Android phone, and you are on a budget… a new option has been thrown into the mix. This week MetroPCS announced the Huawei Activa 4G. This is the Chinese manufacturers first LTE enabled smartphone in the United States.  Let’s take a look at the specs:

• LTE enabled
• Android 2.3.6 (Gingerbread)
• 3.5″ Screen at 854×480 resolution
• 800MHz Qualcomm Processor
• 1880mAh battery, rated 330 hours talk time/200hours standby
• 512MB RAM
• 512MB Internal memory with approximately 150MB user accessible
• 4GB MicroSD card included with Kung Fu Panda II pre-loaded
• Supports up to 32GB MicroSD card
• 5MP rear camera with LED Flash
• VGA front camera
• Swype and Android keyboard pre-loaded

As you can see, the specs aren’t top notch, high end kind of stuff, but I guess not all phones can be, right? At the time of this writing, the Activa 4G is selling for $149.00.. kind of. Here’s how it breaks down:

Regular price: $249.00

Instant discount: $50

Mail in rebate: $50

So, expect to pay $199 out the door, with another $50 coming back to you after you complete and mail in the rebate form. Be sure to keep track of your rebate’s progress as it can sometime take MetroPCS 2-3 months to complete the rebate process.

If you are like me, you may not be satisfied with the default keyboard options on your Android phone, I have an LG Esteem, and LG removes the default Android keyboard in favor of their own, and leaves you with only two default options… LG Keyboard and Swype.

Let’s take a look….

Swype is an OK keyboard with lots of options, but it’s just not for me, I’m not a fan of sliding around my screen to make words. I’m actually pretty good at it, but it just doesn’t feel right. On the other hand… The LG Keyboard has an OK layout, but the user dictionary is very un-intuitive and kind of frustrating. So I opt for a 3rd party keyboard, like Gingerbread Keyboard… which is free in the Google Play Store… it’s got a better dictionary and multi-touch, so you don’t have to switch back and forth from the QWERTY layout to numeric just to capitalize a letter or add some numbers…

But, how do you get it to show up in your Input method list once you’ve downloaded it?

So, I’m going to walk you through how to do all of that, and this will work with just about any 3rd party keyboard. First… we need to go to the Google Play Store. I’m going to search for an Ice Cream Sandwich style keyboard, and as you can see here there are currently two that show up.

The 1st one by Johntamni is free, but in order to get advanced options you need to buy the donate version, and also comes with added themes, which I don’t need. The 2nd one by Binary Bulge is the actual ICS keyboard with all the settings available on an ICS device for free, so I’ll grab that one. Like any app you may want to look through all this information and decide if you like it. For the purpose of this tutorial it doesn’t matter what keyboard you choose, the steps will be pretty much the same. once you’ve downloaded and installed your keyboard app of choice, do not open it. Instead, let’s go back and look and how it shows up in our input method. When you go back to a text input, long press and select Input Method you will notice it doesn’t show up in the list… and this is where most people get stuck. There is an additional step needed.

Go home, press Menu → Settings and then scroll down to Language and Keyboard and open that. When you scroll down, you’ll see a section for Keyboard Settings containing all your input methods like Swype, the default keyboard and any other keyboards you have installed. You’ll notice that ICS keyboard (or whatever keyboard you just downloaded) isn’t checked. Go ahead and check that, you’ll get you notice that this could log your keystrokes, all keyboards will display this warning as a precaution.

Next, You’ll see the settings for this keyboard below it with options similar to:

• Input language
• Auto-capitalization
• Vibrate
• Sound
• Popup
• Settings and Voice Input keys
• Auto correction
• Advanced settings

I’m not going to get into all of these since every keyboard is a little different, but you can set these however you like.

Let’s go back to our text input and get your new keyboard activated. Once you get back to your text input, long press and select Input method you’ll see your newly downloaded keyboard is now listed. Select it and now you’re all set.

This ICS Keyboard, like the Gingerbread keyboard is multi-touch and uses the default style dictionary and word prediction. The ICS keyboard has a little more room in the layout especially for the space bar and also uses the ICS style word suggestion bar allowing you to select one of the 3 main suggestions by tapping on it, or bringing up more suggestions by long pressing the middle suggested word.

So, that’s How To: Install a Different Keyboard on Android, this method will work with most 3rd party keyboard apps… no go on and get your keyboard working!