Cranking out news for the geeks, music buffs and gossip junkies, my way. -Greg

Beginning today AT&T will begin rolling out an update to the Samsung Captivate Glide to support Commercial Mobile Alert Service (CMAS). The update will be simliar to the update recently released for the Samsung Galaxy SII that I just posted recently. This will bring the Captivate Glide to Android 2.3.6 and will include fixes for Exchange Active Sync as well. The roll out will begin in NYC and Washington, D.C. first and the rest of the US to follow. Here is an excerpt from AT&T:

Effective December 21, 2011 AT&T will release new software for the Samsung Captivate™ Glide that supports Commercial Mobile Alert Service (CMAS). CMAS is a new public safety system that allows customers who own an enabled mobile device to receive geographically-targeted, text-like messages alerting them of imminent threats to safety in their area. Consumers will receive only three types of alerts through CMAS:

• Presidential Alerts (automatic alerts that cannot be disabled by the customer)
• Imminent Threat Alerts (FEMA type alerts – customers can opt out of messages – see screen shots below)
• Amber Alerts (e.g., child abduction alerts – customers can opt out of messages – see screen shots below)

Note: While the emergency alerts are free, customers may opt out of receiving the “Imminent Threat” and/or “Amber Alerts” but they may NOT opt-out of receiving the “Presidential Alerts”. To opt-out go to; Messaging application > Menu > Settings > Notifications settings > Emergency Alerts and uncheck the box for each type of alert you do not wish to receive; a) Extreme alerts, b) Severe alerts, and/or c) Amber alerts. (See screen shots below)

The initial AT&T roll out is to its customers with compatible handsets in New York City and Washington, D.C. The CMAS software update for the Samsung Captivate™ Glide will enable the device to be Wireless Emergency Alert Capable (WEAC). The update also supports a Google security patch which upgrades the Samsung Captivate Glide operating system to 2.3.6 and a fix for Exchange Active Sync (EAS). This is an OTA update (no side load option is available).

 

Looks like we will continue to see this hit more phones as time goes on and will likely be included on future phones from the factory as they are released. I’m curious how soon and often we will begin to see the types of alerts and if there will be any type of user interaction requested. I’m sure with the Presidential Election next year it could be interesting to see how much electoral spam we receive. -Greg

That’s right Google is celebrating 10 billion Android Market downloads by offering 10 apps for just $.10 each. That’s 10 apps for a buck for those of you counting on your fingers right now. Google is going to keep this promotion going for the next 10 days with a different 10 apps each day. Here is an easy  link to get to the 10 apps I’d bookmark it and check back each day – Android Market 10 Billion Promotion. Google made the announcement today on their developers blog. Here’s more about what they had to say. -Greg

One billion is a pretty big number by any measurement. However, when it’s describing the speed at which something is growing, it’s simply amazing. This past weekend, thanks to Android users around the world,Android Market exceeded 10 billion app downloads—with a growth rate of one billion app downloads per month. We can’t wait to see where this accelerating growth takes us in 2012.

To celebrate this milestone, we partnered with some of the Android developers who contributed to this milestone to make a bunch of great Android apps available at an amazing price. Starting today for the next 10 days, we’ll have a new set of awesome apps available each day for only 10 cents each. Today, we are starting with Asphalt 6 HD, Color & Draw for Kids, Endomondo Sports Tracker Pro, Fieldrunners HD, Great Little War Game, Minecraft, Paper Camera, Sketchbook Mobile, Soundhound Infinity and Swiftkey X.

Of course, none of these apps would have existed if it weren’t for the developers who created them. Every day, these developers continue to push the limits on what’s possible and delight us in the process. For that, we thank them.

Please join us in this 10-day celebration and check in every day to see what new apps our developer partners are making available on Android Market—for only a dime.

Google finally made its official release of Android 4.0: Ice Cream Sandwich. Packed with more new features than you can imagine and a polished look that will make your hair stand on the back of your neck!

According to Matias Duarte, Android 4.0 was created with 3 principles in mind:

1. Enchant Me
2. Simplify My Life
3. Make Me Awesome

Here are the goodies that ICS has to offer:

• Designed with 16:9 1280×720 as the native resolution
• New “Roboto” font throughout OS
• Navigation buttons are virtual, but can hide when not in need
• Side swiping will be used across the platform (say goodbye to scrolling apps menu)
• Make folders by dragging and dropping icons onto each-other
• App launch is now customizable
• Quick application switching with previews (swipe a preview off screen to remove from list)
• Built-in screenshot taking
• Improved notifications, including music controls
• Swipe to remove individual notifications (ehem, kang’d from CyanogenMod?)
• New and improved keyboard with in-line spell checker
• Improved cut, copy, and paste, usable throughout OS
• Instant talk to text
• Face Unlock!!!!
• Redesigned Google Apps
• All new browser that syncs with Chrome from your desktop (and much more)
• Completely new Gmail experience (it’s awesome)
• Pinch-to-zoom in calendar
• Data usage management
• New camera with easier sharing capabilities, panorama mode, 0 shutter lag, etc.
• Photo editing capabilities
• Take photos while recording video
• People app that pulls info from all services that are linked
• Full-screen high res pics during calls and ability to reject calls with quick response message
• New phone app with built-in visual voicemail
• Android Beam – allows you to send things via NFC by just touching phones together

Google’s official blog announced today that they have acquired Motorola Mobility to the sum of 12.5 billion dollars. Google is quoted as saying “Supercharging Android”, which I think is a perfect way of putting it. Android will now have a long time proven mobile hardware company in its shop to work even closer with Android developers. BOOM goes the dynamite, as the headline will read to good old Steve Jobs. This will definitely be putting enormous pressure on Apple and likely become the slow demise of the iPhone and iPad as we currently know it. Good show Google, good show. –Greg

Credits:
Android Guys

Over this past weekend I was able to put Captivates GPS and Google Maps and Navigation to real world good use. I took a 2-3 hour trip one way and ran Google Navigation and GPS the entire time both ways. The Google navigation itself worked as we all know it does, great.

That being said I’ll move onto the GPS itself. I know I’ve read on a few sites here and there of some issues and fixes for the GPS on the Captivate. I want to note before I go on that I did not change anything with the default use of the GPS, nor applied any type of fix. The GPS seemed pretty accurate, there was 1 moment when it though I was on an outer road along the highway when I started the navigation up, however it quickly repositioned itself to the highway. There were a couple times through out my trip (there and back) that it had some issues locating satellites, but it seemed every time I noticed this it would find them again fairly quickly. I don’t actually have a car mount for my Captivate just yet, so I used my empty sun visor CD holder. I was able to hear when it gave me directions and could pull it down and take a visual look at what Google was telling me. The first time I pulled it down to do this is when I noticed the heat.

Apparently running the Navigation keeps the screen live therefore the Captivate was getting very hot. Assuming that sliding the phone into my CD holder was also helping to trap the heat it was actually hot enough to make me concerned it would cause some damage. I used the A/C to cool it off then I hit the power button to force the screen off. This seemed to do the trick of keeping it cooler, while the Navigation app ran in the background it would still notify me of turns or anything it needed. I want to also note that when it does give you a new direction and the screen comes on, you will have to hit the power button again to turn off the screen.

The battery life was unbelievable for this, as it barely seem to use anything; I don’t even have a car charger yet, so I never had it plugged in. The entire driving trip, each way, barely used a notch on the old battery meter. I did have the screen off as much as I could, but the GPS and the Navigation app itself was still running in the background. So, I would say an average of 2.5 hours barely touched the batteries juice. I did of course charge the phone completely once I reached my destination.

The view of the Captivates beautiful Super AMOLED screen in the day light was excellent. I had no problems seeing the screen in brightest of sun on my trip. Visibility of the screen didn’t matter if I had sunglasses on or not. This made it very easy to look at the upcoming turns and or highway changes without the need for turning or covering the screen from the sunlight. This was with the power saving and auto brightness adjusting enabled.

Overall I’d say the with the exception of the significant amount of heat the Captivate creates with the screen being on for any extend period of time, which can easily be resolved by forcing the screen off just by hitting the power button, the Captivate GPS and Google Navigation experience a big win. -Greg

**Update: GPS lock onto satellites is about 1 in 25 uses. I’m not sure how, but I really lucked out on my trip mentioned above. Hopefully Samsung will be pushing an update VERY SOON! I know they originally said Android 2.2 would be in August. I’m guessing they pushed it back to September so they could include the GPS fix. Well Samsung it’s the middle of September, where is the updates?

The newest Android 2,2 release will come with Wi-Fi Hotspot creation. Its also going to have USB tethering. Android / Google I love you guys, you make it so very easy for me to poke fun at iPhone users. -Greg

Looks like a Google employee has updated status on apps being stored on an SD card to “Future Release“. This is great, now you will be only limited to the number of apps by the size of you SD card. Just another reason that the iPhone will quickly be falling off the mobile device map. Android is the future of mobile devices and that future is here. – Greg