MobileViews Blog

Category: Mobile Devices

  • Windows Phone app update weirdness

    I have a SIM-less HTC Surround that is used to try out Windows Phone apps. It works like you would expect for a WiFi-only device for the most part. The one exception is that the Windows Market app does not update software for it as expected. In fact, until last week, no app had been updated in a couple of months. Even going to the product page in the Market app does not force updates to appear. So, imagine my surprise when I saw not just one but 23 apps ready for update recently. I haven’t seen any other updates since then even though several apps for my HD7 (which has a SIM) have been updated in the past few days. Even the HD7 does not get updates when expected, however. It sometimes gets updates a week or more after an app was reported as updated by others.

  • Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 software update delivered 2012.05.06


    The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 has only been available in the U.S. for two weeks. However, it already has a software update available. I woke up this morning to see this notice on my device after powering on its display. It is not clear what the update brings. However, Samsung’s notice states: Software and Stability improvements included. The Tab 2 7.0 has not had any issues in the 9 days I’ve been using it. So, I’m not sure what stability issues it addresses. I should note that the device’s apparent stability is a welcome change from the Honeycomb based Tab 10.1 which saw either an Android subsystem (like the windows manager) or apps crash several times a day.

    You can find my review of this tablet at BYTE. Samsung Galaxy Tab 2: The First Must-Have Android Tablet

    You can see other screen photos of today’s Tab 2 7.0 update process below.
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  • 40GB tablet for under $275? 32GB SD card for Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 arrived

    The new Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 is a great little tablet for a very reasonable price ($249). However, the price of that price is having only 8GB of internal flash storage. And, only 4.6GB of that space is actually usable for end-user storage. Fortunately, the Tab 2 7.0 has a microSD slot for storage expansion. So, I bought the SanDisk microSDHC 32GB Flash Memory Card for $22. I inserted it and copied a couple of files from my notebook to check its storage. It is working fine so far.

    You can find my review and photos of this new Android tablet over on BYTE:

    Samsung Galaxy Tab 2: The First Must-Have Android Tablet

  • PAC-MAN Kart Rally for Windows Phone: Great looking graphics. WiFi multi-player mode too!

    Fans of “Kart” racing games will enjoy PAC-MAN Kart Rally for Windows Phone which was released today for $4.99. The game has great looking graphics and smooth animation. Kart control is challenging but not impossibly so.

    The game’s unique feature is the ability to for up to four Windows Phone owning players to compete in a multi-user mode over WiFi. All participants need to have the app installed on their phone. I have not tried the multi-player mode yet.

    Disclosure: Microsoft provided the game free of charge for evaluation purposes.

  • Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 (7-inch display) running Ice Cream Sandwich arrived

    My Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 running Ice Cream Sandwich (Android OS 4.0) arrived. Look for a review and thoughts about tablets with smaller-than-10-inch displays in BYTE soon.

  • TweetCaster Pro for Android crashing like mad on my Honeycomb tablet. Switched to freshly updated Twitter for Android 3.2.0


    I like TweetCaster Pro for Android ($1.99 in the Amazon App Store and $4.99 in Google Play) a lot. In fact, it has been the default Twitter client on Android phones and tablets that I use. Unfortunately, however, it has been crashing nearly everytime I open in on a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (Honeycomb 3.2) in the past few days. It crashes so often that I deleted my account settings in the app and switched back to the recently updated Twitter app. The Twitter for Android 3.2.0 update provides the following enhancements.

    1. Updated design and improved relevance of Discover stories
    2. Activity in Discover tab shows who your connections follow, updates to their lists, and which Tweets they retweet and favorite
    3. Spelling suggestions and related searches in search results
    4. Username autocomplete in search
    5. New push notifications for when your Tweets have been retweeted, favorited, or when you have new followers
    6. New languages: Traditional Chinese, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Polish, Hungarian, Thai