iPhone 4S Test Notes: Browser Benchmarks (Versus the Fastest Android Phones) [IPhone]

By Sam Biddle Oct 14, 2011 6:19 PM 25,446 72

The iPhone 4S is faster than the iPhone 4. How much faster? And how much faster than its non-Apple kin? We did some benchmark bench pressing to find out. Feel the burn!

First, some synthetic benchmarks, courtesy of Sunspider. How fast could these phones crush JavaScript? We tested each phone on the same Wi-Fi network, inches away from one another. A lower score (faster) is better:

iPhone 4S: 2237.8 ms
iPhone 4: 3611.8 ms
Droid Bionic: 3963.9 ms
Samsung Galaxy S II: 3523.2 ms

The iPhone 4S is the champ by a wide stretch—and its little brother still beats the beefier Bionic.

But what about some non-synthetic testing? We loaded up two popular, image-heavy sites under the same conditions. Again, lower is better:

iPhone 4S
Awl: 6 sec
NYT: 5 sec

iPhone 4:
Awl: 7 sec
NYT: 8 sec

Droid Bionic:
NYT: 12 sec
Awl: 13 sec

Samsung Galaxy S II:
NYT: 5 sec
Awl: 8 sec

Again, the 4S crosses the finish line first. Is this a completely comprehensive test? No. Is this highly indicative? Yes.

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Samsung Stratosphere Hands On: For Keyboard-Loving Internet-Hounds [Android]

By Brent Rose Oct 11, 2011 7:15 PM 6,891 7

There are really just two things that make the Samsung Stratosphere worth looking at: the 5-row physical QWERTY keyboard, and Verizon's 4G LTE. Aside from those two elements it's decidedly mid-range, but if you covet those things here's the nitty-gritty.

They keyboard isn't bad at all. They keys are pretty small, and the layout will take a bit of getting used to, but the keys have just the right amount of click to them which means that with a little practice you'll be able to type without looking (much). That's one of those forgotten beautiful things. Who among us would use a keyboard on our laptops that we couldn't type on without looking? I would like to have seen the keys raised just a bit more as they are extremely flat, but at least they're spaced-out nicely, and I liked the dedicated numbers row.

As for the other main ingredient, it's Verizon 4G LTE. It's awesome. It's the fastest and best 4G out there, hands down, assuming you're in one of their rapidly expanding coverage areas. There's not much to not-like there except that LTE is a voracious devourer of batteries. To compensate, they stuffed in a 1800mA battery, which is way heftier than you find on most 4G smartphones (the high-end Droid Bionic has a 1735mAh battery and that's larger than most).

To squeeze all that stuff in they had to make the device very thick and it will cause a noticeable bulge in your pocket. Its body is light plastic which makes it feel pretty cheap. It's got the same Super AMOLED WVGA screen and 1GHz Hummingbird processor that was standard about a year ago, and it's only got a half gig of RAM. This is not a phone for spec-hungry power-users. If anything it's for business users who need to bang out emails and download large PowerPoint presentations in a hurry, and who don't care about HD gaming at all. It's one of Samsung's "S.A.F.E." (Samsung Approved For Enterprise) devices, which means it's more ready for business usage with enhanced security compared stock Android phones. It runs Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), and it'll run you $150 on-contract. If you're on Verizon and you must have a keyboard (and some must), it's between this and the Motorola Droid 3. The Droid 3 has a dual-core processor and it's a world phone, but the Stratosphere has 4G LTE. The choice is yours. You can keep up with Brent Rose, the author of this post, on Google+ or Twitter. Related Stories

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Who Doesn't Want to Play With Android Apps on Windows? Anyone? [Apps]

By Gary Cutlack - gi... Oct 11, 2011 6:20 AM 9,561 21

Bluestacks has launched an alpha test version of its App Player software, which integrates Android support right into Windows. You can have Android apps on your desktop right now, for free. Any takers? Anyone at all?

We are currently playing Bebbled at 1680x1050 resolution, which is easily one of the more pointless activities we've indulged in this year, but there you go. Installing the 117MB PC app creates a Windows Gadget on your desktop, which pops out into a listing of available Android apps.

There's no Android Market support within the App Player software itself, but Bluestacks has provided its own Apps Channel as part of the desktop App Player. This opens a web browser with a very limited selection (31 at the moment) of additional apps and games to install to PC.

However, the company has also launched an accompanying app it calls Cloud Connect on the Android Market, which sits on your mobile and lets you send apps to your PC from your phone, using a PIN number to verify connections. That way you can seamlessly send every app currently on your phone to PC.

And it totally works, very well. Now we just need to think of a mobile app we actually want to use on a desktop PC. It shouldn't be this hard, thinking of one? [Bluestacks]

Our newest offspring Gizmodo UK is gobbling up the news in a different timezone, so check them out if you need another Giz fix. Related Stories

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New TeleNav For Android Will Help You Get To Work On Time [Android]

By Kelly Hodgkins Oct 11, 2011 8:59 AM 5,307 10

TeleNav GPS Navigator has been overhauled to include new personalized, navigation features that'll help you get to work on time and may even make the drive fun.

TeleNav GPS Navigator has a new personalized My Dashboard view that'll pinpoint your location and let you see your drive times to home and work. These details include traffic information so you won't be late for dinner or your morning meeting.

There's also three new home screen widgets that'll provide your current location, estimate your drive times to work and home and provide a quick access to search. Underneath the hood, new map information will render faster and include real-time live traffic and satellite layers. For those that dare to be different, there are even custom car icons that can be downloaded for 99-cents each.

TeleNav GPS Navigator will land on Sprint handsets running Android 2.3 Gingerbread and will be bundled for free into Sprint's Everything Data and Simply Everything plans. Extra features like lane assist, speed trap and red light camera will cost $4.99 per month. [Sprint]

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Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 Review: The New Best Android Tablet, Again [Video]

By Brent Rose Oct 10, 2011 5:30 PM 21,362 64

I had major deja vu writing this. That's because as cool as the Galaxy Tab 8.9 is, it's basically just the Galaxy Tab 10.1, but slightly smaller. Which actually makes it noticeably better.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the best Android tablet I've used. It's light, slim, quick. The Galaxy 8.9 Tab is almost perfectly identical to the 10.1, they just managed to get the same goodness into a smaller package.

Everyone I've handed the 8.9 to has had this moment of, "Oooh, this feels nice!" It really does. It's an extremely tight package. The 10.1 felt a little flimsy, but despite having a similar plastic back plate, this one just feels much stronger. I don't know if they've upgraded the plastic, or if it's just stronger because it isn't stretched across as large an area, but that worrisome flex is gone, and that's a very good thing.

It comes running Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) with Samsung's TouchWiz UI overlay. I'm not generally into these 3rd party skins, but this is one of the least offensive ones. It comes pre-loaded with some of Samsung's proprietary software like Media Hub, Music Hub, and Social Hub, none of which are particularly compelling, and it just emphasizes why I kinda wish Samsung would stick to hardware. It does come with a full version of Polaris Office, which is excellent for creating/editing documents on the go.

I'm loving the 8.9-inch screen. It really feels like they've hit the sweet-spot, size-wise. It's big enough that watching movies and playing games looks good, but it's small and light enough that it's super portable. I can fit it in my jacket pocket and walk out the door, which is more than I can say for some 7-inch tablets that are thicker. Also, while the screen is smaller it has the same number of pixels as its 10.1-inch brother, giving it a little better pixel density. It's no retina display, but it's damn good. It's also light enough (0.98 pounds) that, though it's bigger than 7-inch tablets, it's easier to hold than most of them. This will provide a great digital magazine experience.

This thing is just as fast as its big brother, making it one of the fastest tablets you can get your hands on. Even with a ton of apps running at the same time, it was nearly impossible to slow this tablet down, and when it did slow down, it wasn't by much. The slightly reduced size makes it better for typing, too. Battery life was excellent. With moderate use I was able to get three or four days on a charge, no problem, and standby time is even better.

The one thing that seems to have suffered for this size reduction is the audio. The speakers weren't great on the 10.1, but they sound even tinnier on the 8.9, which is too bad. It employs the same rear camera as the 10.1 which isn't great. That said, you probably don't need it for much more than taking a picture of a business card or something, and the 2 megapixel front-facing camera is plenty capable for video chat. One thing I did notice is that sometimes the screen seemed to miss touches. It wasn't constant, but it was enough to kill me a few times while playing Samurai II: Vengeance (which is awesome, by the way).

While it feels stronger than the 10.1, I'd still feel much better about this thing if the whole body were aluminum, not plastic. The only ports the 8.9 has is a headphone jack and a proprietary connector. If you want to connect your tablet to an HDMI display, you have to buy a special adapter. Yeah, I'd really rather not, thanks. (It's DLNA compliant to stream content over Wi-Fi, but most consumers don't have DLNA TVs and stereos yet.) There's also no removable storage slot, so you're stuck at the capacity you buy, and there's no USB port (mini, micro, or otherwise). This makes putting your media on the device more of a chore than it should be. Oh, and maybe most significantly, at $469 for the 16GB model and $569 for the 32GB version, it's just too expensive.

If this tablet cost $300, I would recommend the crap out of it. Of all the Android tablets I've played with, this is my favorite (with the Sony Tablet S coming close). For 470 bucks, though, it just doesn't make much sense. Obviously this is a more capable device than the Kindle Fire, but the Kindle Fire is only $200. Is this thing really $270 dollars more capable? No, it isn't. It's about $100 more capable. Also, in the coming months we are going to be seeing tablets that are way better. My crystal ball tells me there will be quad-core processors and true HD displays. Those much beefier tablets will probably launch right around this price-range, too. Tech moves too fast. $470 and $570 just barely made sense in January of this year, but here in October it makes no sense at all. As soon as there's a real, significant price-drop, then I'd absolutely recommend it. If Samsung is smart, they won't wait.

Specs
8.9 inch 1280x800 screen
1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor
1GB RAM
3MP rear-facing camera, 2MP front-facing
No expandable storage
Wi-Fi only
Weight: 0.98 pounds
Price: 16GB/$469 32GB/$569
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AT&T's New Android Phones: From Awesome (Motorola Atrix 2) to Weird (Samsung DoubleTime) [Android]

By Brent Rose Oct 11, 2011 12:01 AM 25,270 33

Sweet Jesus. AT&T is adding five new Android phones to their portfolio this week. That will bring them up to 19 Android devices in for 2011. The 'droid is strong with this one.

Here they are in order that you probably care about them:

When the original Morola Atrix was announced at CES back in January it had as calling it the best Android phone in the show. It was a real beefcake, and it could power a laptop dock (which we thought was cool for like five seconds). It really was an excellent phone (full review). Truth be told, the Atrix 2 isn't the most monumental upgrade we can image. The biggest difference is that it has AT&T's answer to 4G (HSPA+) which should give you theoretical download speeds of 21Mbps. It's no LTE, but it's significantly faster than 3G. It's camera has gone from 5 megapixels to 8 megapixels, and it's now capable of recording 1080p HD video. And the screen has been stretched to 4.3 inches from the original Atrix's 4 inches. While more screen real estate is good, they both have 960x540 pixels, which means pixel density will actually be worse on the new bigger screen. Hrmm... that sounds a lot like the screen on the Droid Bionic, which we were none too keen on.

Not content to let Verizon have all the Samsung QWERTY keyboard fun today, AT&T brings to the table the Samsung Captivate Glide, a sequel to AT&T's first serious Android phone. It's a 4G (HSPA+) phone with a 4-inch Super AMOLED screen, and a slide-out keyboard. The kicker with this one is that it has a dual-core 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, to Verizon's phone's (the Stratosphere) just has a single-core 1GHz Hummingbird processor. I'll take two cores over one every day, however, balancing out the scorecard is the keyboard on the Stratosphere looks way more usable (five rows of keys vs. four on the Captivate Glide) and Verizon's 4G LTE is faster than AT&T's 4G HSPA+.

This phone is significant because it's only the second Android phone to be available on GoPhone, AT&T's pre-paid network (the first being the LG Thrive). For a pre-pare (which are lower-end, by definition, basically) the AT&T Avail (made by ZTE) ain't bad. It's got a 3.5-inch touch screen, 5- megapixel camera and runs on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). No mention of processor speed, but if I were a betting man I'd gamble on... 800MHz. We'll update when we know for sure. I will say that this looks like it's the nicest pre-paid phone you can get on GoPhone.

Now, here's where the phones start slowly devolving into weirdness.

"Fat boy on a diet, don't try it. I'll check your ass like a looter in a riot." -Cypress Hill. So, here's an odd duck. The Pantech Pocket has a 4-inch screen and it's pretty slim from back-to-front at only 11.3 millimeters. But check out the width on this thing. Sucker is wiiide. That aside, it's a pretty decent mid-range phone with 4G support, 5MP camera, and Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). Again, no mention of processor here, so I'd bet on 800MHz. Maybe 1GHz.

I bet this poor phone got teased in high school. It's kind of a wimpy weirdo. Whereas the Pantech Pocket was wide, the DoubleTime is thick. That's because it has not one but two screens (both low-resolution 3.2-inch touch screens), and a clam-shell fold-out keyboard. It's got a 600MHz processor, a waifish 260MB of RAM, and it runs Android 2.2 (Froyo). This phone would have been awesome two-and-a-half years ago, but it's pretty terrible by today's standards. It's also got a lot of pink on it. Basically, this is a glorified feature phone aimed at high school girls. There, I said it.

These monkeys should all be out of their respective barrels by Q4. Who's excited about what?

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No One Uses Android Tablets (Or No One Has Android Tablets to Use) [Tablets]

By Casey Chan Oct 11, 2011 9:48 AM 22,833 293

There's something like 8,142* different Android Tablets on sale right now yet it seems like no one is really using them. I mean, I've yet to see one in public! But that's an inexact method of testing. More exact? How the iPad usage obliterates Android tablets in web traffic. According to Comscore, iPads made up for 97.2% of all tablet web traffic. That leaves 2.8% for the other tablets to split.

That's, um, a startling number. Where are all these Android tablet users? Actually, are there any Android Tablet users? The exact number of Android tablet users has always been doubted (some semantics on whether shipped or bought equals market share) but as late as July of this year, some folks were guessing only a million or so have been sold (compared to nearly 30 millin for the iPad at the time). With so few Android tablets around for people to use, I guess it should be no surprise that web traffic from Android tablets are so low.

And Android Tablets shouldn't feel too bad, the iPad now accounts for more web traffic than the iPhone too (46.8% vs. 42.6%). These numbers are crazy. [ComScore]

*exaggerated

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The Samsung Stratosphere: You Can Finally Mash QWERTY Buttons on a 4G LTE Phone [Android]

By Casey Chan Oct 10, 2011 1:11 PM 5,508 22

The Samsung Stratosphere doesn't seem that special on first glance—Android 2.3, 1GHz Hummingbird processor, 5 megapixel camera, 4-inch Super AMOLED screen—but it's the first 4G LTE phone with a slide-out QWERTY, that's got to count for something right? $150 with two year contract on October 13th. [Verizon]

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Flickr's New App Might Be Android's Instagram [Android Apps]

Flickr, who should have jumped on the Instagram filter train earlier, has finally put out an Android app and along with letting you scan photostreams, upload pictures, share photos to other social networks, you can also take filterized pictures. Woot!

The app looks like a better version of the iPhone app (it's Flickr on your phone but with the added dimension of using an in-app camera) but might be too little too late for Android users. I've been waiting for a Flickr app on Android for so long that I eventually made the move to Picasa, er Google Photos. I'd imagine some Android user have faced the same dilemma?

I hope not though, Flickr has always been the apple of my eye and I'd definitely like it to regain some traction. With a filtered camera option that automatically uploads to Flickr and gives you options for other social networks, maybe it can find new life. [Android Market]

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Here Come The Next Generation of Androids From Samsung [Android]

Samsung just sent out invitations to a product launch on October 11 coinciding with CTIA. It's certainly going to mean a new Android phone from Samsung, probably the Nexus Prime.

The invitations cloyingly show the Android robot peeking out of a box, refers to "Google Episode," and invites to "come see what's new from Android." That pretty much gives away the game. There's only one new thing from Android, and that's its next OS, Ice Cream Sandwich. We're hopeful this will mean the new Nexus Prime phone as well, and I'm even optimistic that maybe there may be yet another tablet.

I guess it's time to wait and see. And hey, enjoy product launch season.

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Like HTC, Samsung Now Pays Microsoft to Put Android On Its Phones [Patents]

Samsung now pays Microsoft for the privilege of selling Android phones. Of course, it's being called a "partnership." And yes, we've seen this before: Microsoft also strong armed HTC into giving them a cut of the profits for every Android device sold.

Microsoft, sitting on a stack of patents they believe have been infringed upon by Google's Android platform, has bullied yet another handset manufacturer into handing cash over. In fact, between HTC and Samsung, they're going to make more money off Android than they do Windows Phone 7. And Google isn't happy about that, calling this move extortion and issuing the following statement to TechCrunch:

"This is the same tactic we've seen time and again from Microsoft. Failing to succeed in the smartphone market, they are resorting to legal measures to extort profit from others' achievements and hinder the pace of innovation. We remain focused on building new technology and supporting Android partners."

Of course, Microsoft is also trying to pull the same maneuver on the (now) Google-owned Motorola, but Moto keeps wriggling out of that conflict. If Motorola, who has plenty of patents of their own (not to mention Google's), doesn't budge, what happens next? Will there be a winner takes all patent war? Then again Samsung sells more Android devices than anyone, and they didn't want to mess with Microsoft, so it's anyone's guess what Moto will do. [Microsoft, TechCrunch, AllThingsD]

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Samsung Galaxy Player 4 and 5 Hands On: Of Course It's the Right Time for an Android iPod Touch [Android]

We've been hearing about Android's answer to the iPod Touch since the days when men were men and HP made computers, but the rebranded-wait-no-back-to-the-original Galaxy Player 4 and 5 are finally here.

The prosaically named Player 4 and 5 have 4- and 5-inch screens, and weigh 4.2 and 6.4 ounces respectively. They run Gingerbread 2.3.5, come with 8GB onboard storage (expandable to 32GB microSD), and the 5 has a 2,500mAh battery, to the 4's 1,200mAh. The Players also have 800x480 screens (yes, both of them), front and rear facing cameras, and record video in 720p. Previous reports put the processor at 1GHz.

The jump from the four inches to five is pretty jarring, especially considering that it's 0.3 inches (which matters!) larger than the already-behemoth HTC Titan. The upshot is that it's a much better option for viewing media than its smaller-screened little brother, and unlike a phone, you might not be compelled to lug it around in your pocket all day. Both models are made of the by-now typical cheapy Samsung plastic, though, and feel noticeably less sturdy than the metal-clad Tab 8.9.

Both Players have access to Samsung's Media, Music, Social, and Reader hubs. Media, music, and social let you buy or rent movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, and newspapers. So basically most of the things you can do in other, more mature, marketplaces. But hey, if it has to be Android, your ship's finally come in. [Samsung]

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Western Digital's WD 2go App Creates a Personal Cloud for Your iPhone or Android Phone [Apps]

Western Digital has a new iOS and Android app that works with the My Book Live (an external hard drive). When you plug the My Book Live into your router at home, you can access all the files through the app, from anywhere in the world.

It's sorta like having your own personal cloud storage, you can read your documents, listen to your music, check out pictures, basically access anything that's stored on your external hard drive, on your phone. Even better you can upload whatever you do on your phone (videos, pictures) onto the My Book Live through the app, it's like carrying an extra terabyte of storage around. [WD]

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Autocorrect Is Not Only Annoying, It Also Kills Apps [Android]

Here's a pro tip for mobile developers: before you submit your application to an app store, check to see what auto correct does to your application's name. Just ask Dallas company Locai, this simple check could make or break your app.

Locai recently submitted their check-in app to the Android Market and were surprised when nobody could find it. The developers realized after submission that Google's auto correct feature changes "Locai" to "Local". Oops.

Right now, the developers have to make the difficult decision of either changing their name to one that is search friendly or clinging to obscurity until Google decides to tweak their search algorithm to ignore autocorrect. [Tech Crunch]

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The Invisible Universe, Classic Notes and More [Android Apps Of The Week]

In this week's best Android app roundup, you have a better note taking app, an app that lets you see the invisible, a Shazam for TV and much more.

Check out the apps by clicking right here. You'll be directed to the Android apps tag page. Apps will be listed in the side bar. Not in the post

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Google Goggles Now Works Automagically on Your Android Phone [Google]

The latest version of Google Goggles will kick into action without your lazy ass doing a thing. All you have to do is enable a setting that allows Goggles to work in the background each time you take a photo.

If Goggles recognizes something, it will send you a notification. If it doesn't you'd never know it was there, except for your battery hemorrhaging power a little faster. If you want to use the latest version of Google Goggles (1.6), you need to be running Android 2.1 or newer. Download it here. [Google]

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Archos' G9 Android Tablets Have Superfast Processors and... Hard Drives? [Android]

Archos Android tablets. Typically considered also-rans, but these things do have a 1.5GHz dual-core processor and up to 250GB harddrives.

UPDATE: Archos accidentally sent us a lot of incorrect info on these. Pardon all of the corrections.

The 10-inch G9 "Turbo" are each is packing Texas Instruments 1.5 GHz dual-core OMAP 4 processor, and Archos claims that will make page loading 50 percent faster than competitors tablets (which typically run 1GHz dual-core Nvidia processors). I cannot wait to find out if that's actually true. The 8-inch model also use a dual-core TI OMAP 4, but it will only be clocked to 1GHz.

The biggest point of differentiation is that these guys have the option of gargantuan 250GB harddrives from Seagate. While that's eight times more storage than the more common 32GB tabs, something important to keep in mind is that this isn't SSD, it's a regular old spinning harddrive. Spinning harddrives are bigger, heavier, more fragile, and way more energy-hungry. Not only that, they're slower. Will the spinning harddrive totally hamstring the superfast processor? (To be clear, both tablets come standard with 16GB of flash memory. These larger options are optional with additional cost.) Archos claims that these Seagate drives' special "4GB flash caching system" will make it just as fast as flash. Right. They also note that these drives will spin up only when in use, so it's likely that these tablets contain enough flash storage to run the OS and probably all of your apps, and the 250GB would just be used for storing media.

The G9 80 has an 8-inch, 1024 x 768 4:3 screen, similar to the iPad, aiming more at e-book readers. The G9 101 has a 10.1-inch, 1280 x 800 16:10 screen, similar to other widescreen Android tablets, emphasizing video and multimedia. Both tablets have enhanced video players (more codecs for you sneaky torrenters) and HDMI out, and you should be able to cram 50 hours of 1080p video onto those harddrives. They're both Wi-Fi only out of the box, but you can drop 50 bucks and get an Archos 3G USB dongle, if you so desire. They both run Android 3.2 Honeycomb without any kind of skin.

These suckers are starting at priced to sell at $279 $299 for the eight-incher and $349 $399 for the tenner. Options are the 16GB solid state vs. the 250GB HD, and you can chose to upgrade to a 1.5GHz processor in the 8-inch model, too (see updated price breakdown below). My biggest reservation is the spinning harddrive they've put in these things. While that kind of capacity is neat, do we really need it in a tablet? Further, tablets are portable devices and most standard harddrives don't like to be moved while they're spinning, plus there's heat and energy consumption to think about. Regardless, I like seeing manufacturers differentiating themselves by their hardware, and not by putting a crappy overlay over Android. They will both be available in late September.

Updated pricing breakdown:
• ARCHOS 80 G9 8GB – 1 GHZ at $299
• ARCHOS 80 G9 16GB - 1.5 GHz at $329
• ARCHOS 80 G9 250GB – 1.5 GHz at $369
• ARCHOS 101 G9 16GB – 1.5 GHz at $399
• ARCHOS 101 G9 250GB – 1.5 GHz at $469

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Download Free Travel Guides for Your iPhone, iPad or Android Phone with Triposo [Apps]

In a foreign country where you know nothing and nobody, you have two options: carry around a gigantic Frommer's guide and look like a toolish tourist or download Triposo to your phone and look like a slick local.

Best part about Triposo is that it's free. The devs culled seven sources—WIkipedia, Wikitravel, World66, Openstreetmap etc.—via an algorithm to create guides for 50 different destinations on Android (30 on iOS). You can use the app to see what's worth sightseeing, where to go out, where to eat and more. There's even tidbits of landmarks and major sights (thank you Wikipedia!) and the app, which comes with a map of the city, works offline too. Free. [Android Market, iTunes via TechCrunch]

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The Next Version of Android After Ice Cream Sandwich Will Be Called Jelly Bean [Android]

This is my next is reporting that the next version of Android after Ice Cream Sandwich will be called Jelly Bean. It's supposed to pack "game-changing stuff" that was originally supposed to be on Ice Cream Sandwich but didn't quite make it in time.

Of course, we're still impatiently waiting for Ice Cream Sandwich so looking even past that is kinda crazy at this point but at least we know the name! I'd have much rather seen Jell-O (probably nixed for copyright issues since they have enough of that) or just jelly (jelly sounds incredibly funny by itself) though.

And if you want to take a look back into history at how far Android has come, these have been the updates to Android so far: Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Gingerbread, Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich. [TIMN, Image Credit: Buried in Betsy's Closet]

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Netflix Is Finally Available on Nearly All Android Phones [NetFlix]

It took a few false-ish starts, but all Android phones running Froyo or Gingerbread are FINALLY getting full Netflix support. No more workarounds or rooting. Just sweet streaming. For now, anyway, and if you haven't jettisoned your account.

Needless to say, if you're running anything other than 2.2 or 2.3 (why???), you're out of luck. And tablet owners stiiill need to wait a bit before an update comes their way. But how much longer could that take? [This Is My Next]

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