Rea's Tech

Our friends at Droid-Life have confirmed what we’ve been told all along, the Droid Razr and the Droid Razr Maxx are 100% the same aside from that gigantic battery in the Droid Razr Maxx and the thickness it brings.

As you can see from the image above the software within the original Droid Razr and the Droid Razr Maxx is identical. Even the software version is the same.

What does this mean? It means that when an update rolls out for the Droid Razr it should be available for the Droid Razr Maxx as well. It also means that the root methods, custom ROMs and everything else should be the same.

source: Droid-Life

Google has officially killed the menu button for Android.

Scott Main the lead tech writer for developer.android.com wrote in a blog post today via Tim Bray, that with the release of Android 3.0 Honeycomb on tablets, Android started to make a transition away from the menu button and to the action bar. Now, Google is encouraging developers to stop using the menu button and gravitate towards the action bar.

More after the break

The menu button was customizable in any app to give the end user options that the developer selected. For instance when you hit the menu button on thedroidguy app you get options for news, reviews, about, contact and listen. If you pick another app like the official Weather Channel Weather app you get choices for my location, search and exit.

Main writes Not only should your apps stop relying on the hardware Menu button, but you should stop thinking about your activities using a

It’s been a big week for quarterly results. We’ve heard from Verizon, Apple, and AT&T just to name a few. Motorola Mobility also reported their Q4 2011 earnings today. Motorola also recapped their entire 2011 year.

In 2011 Motorola Mobility’s total net revenue was $13.1 billion which was up 14 percent over 2010. Net earnings were $.33 per share which was up from a $.28 loss per share in 2010. Motorola generated $225 million in positive operating cash flow in Q4 with a total of $357 million in positive operating cash flow for the entire year. Obviously the fourth quarter was good for them.

In Q4 Motorola shipped 10.5 million mobile phones, and 42.4 million mobile phones for the year. In Q4 Motorola shipped 5.3 million smartphones and 18.7 million smartphones for the year. Motorola also reported shipping one million tablets in 2011.

Motorola also gave an update on their pending merger with Google. According to Motorola the merger should close in the early part of the year.

source: Motorola

If you thought AT&T would be down in out after their exclusive, flagship iPhone went to Verizon as well you were wrong. Very wrong, in fact, after their 2011 Q4 results came in they announced a fantastic quarter with smartphone sales through the roof. AT&T added to their 103.2 million subscribers by 2.5 million over the holidays, boasting a huge revenue in Apple’s iPhone sales.

On the Android end, sales doubled for a whopping 9.4 million smartphones sold, a large amount being Android devices. This was again, the best quarter ever for AT&T’s smartphone sales, meaning Big Red’s huge subscriber list and iDevice lineup really hasn’t changed things too much. People are still choosing AT&T, and even with Apple’s new iPhone 4S coming to both carriers at the same time, many AT&T subscribers opted to stay with their beloved carrier instead of jumping ship for Verizon’s shiny 4GLTE network.

With wireless being 50% of AT&T’s revenue, AT&T also sold 311,000 tablets, making a huge dent in contract subscriptions in that department as well. The company has boasted some of it’s highest earnings ever, not just in smartphones, but in the mobile department as a whole. This will be an impressive year in the carrier race, with Verizon looking strong with their very first Nexus and contract with Apple, and Sprint launching their 4GLTE network as well. Be sure to check back with TheDroidGuy for more news and updates throughout 2012.

One of the great things about Android is variety. Another is that with variety comes the availability of a smartphone OS in emerging markets. With Android phones varying in cost from under $100 to over $700 even off contract, just about anyone can own an Android phone.

Somewhere along the way that vision may have been skewed as Android’s main OEM partners started releasing device after device after device. At one point Samsung was releasing a new Android powered device every 15 days, yes 15 days (worldwide).

More after the break
Motorola was the first OEM to stand up at the turn of the year and say that they were going to scale back the release of their devices. They went on to say that in the United States they were going to focus on top tier phones and 4G/LTE.

HTC released a good number of Android smartphones in 2011. Despite 2011 being HTC’s best year to date, they’ve now come out and said that their 2012 strategy is to focus on quality over quantity. According to this report from Pocketnow, HTC’s Phil Roberson told Mobile Magazine about the company’s strategy. HTC is also going to focus on high end handsets. They are also going to put tablets on the back burner for now.

The 7″ HTC Flyer (HTC Evo View 4G) is a great device, it may have come to market with a much larger price tag than it should have had. When HTC and retailers adjusted the price it may have been too late. The Flyer didn’t get nearly the adoption we thought it was going to.

HTC’s second foray into the tablet space, the HTC Jetstream is battling 50 other tablets with very similar specs. Although the Jetstream is 4G/LTE it’s on AT&T’s network which has just 20 markets at press time.

HTC did well with lower tier Android phones globally however their best selling low range Android phone the HTC Wildfire, was released in the US it didn’t get nearly the reception it did in the rest of the world.

Samsung has yet to comment on strategy although their Q4 earnings call is set for tomorrow (overnight tonight)

source: Pocketnow

NC Governor Bev Perdue pictured with Tom Looney VP/GM of Lenovo at announcement of Lenovo's Android App building curriculum at Apex High photo courtesy of Lenovo

20 somethings and 30 somethings in this day in age are already looking towards the days when kids won’t remember not having internet. Can you imagine a day when Android Application Engineer is a full blown career field? Well that day is getting closer and Lenovo in partnership with the National Academy Foundation are spearheading that effort.

According to the IDC Lenovo is the largest provider of laptops and desktops to education in the world. They’ve shipped over 3.6 million units to educational institutions. In case you were wondering Apple is ranked 4th in providing computers for education. With that kind of commitment to education its no wonder that Lenovo is spearheading a program like this.

Five schools that are part of NAF’s network of career academies are piloting a new curriculum based on developing Android app development. The program is geared towards student’s in NAF’s STEM program (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).

More after the break
One of the five schools launching the program is Apex High School’s Academy of Information Technology in Apex NC. Lenovo (US HQ is in Raleigh NC) alongside NC Governor Bev Perdue announced the program.

If you were lucky enough to be in the stands in Miami or catch a telecast of the Miami Heat’s 92-85 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers earlier this week than you would have caught NQ Mobile’s advertising on the sidelines.

Pictured above NQ Mobile, the largest mobile security provider in the world, with over 122 million users, has recruited some big guns as of late. Former Samsung CTO/CSO Omar Khan and former Samsung Director of Public Relations are now spearheading efforts at NQ Mobile to educate consumers about mobile security and privacy threats and the comprehensive suite of Security tools offered in NQ Mobile’s 6.0 software.

And on a side note we learned in an interview with Khan yesterday, despite the fact that he lives in Dallas (Mavericks), used to work at Motorola (Bulls) and was educated at MIT (Celtics), Khan is a die hard Miami Heat fan.

You can download NQ Mobile here and catch their ad when the Heat play at home!

New research out of Strategy Analytics says that the tablet computer market grew 260% last year to 66.9 million units overall. In the fourth quarter alone tablet reached “an all time high” of 26.8 million units sold.

Of course the majority of the tablet share comes from iPad which has 58% of the market. However in the same quarter in 2010 Apple’s iPad saw 68% of the tablet market, so they lost 10% of the market share year over year. Where did that market share go?

Android had 39% of the tablet market in Q4 2011 and 29% in Q4 2010.

“Dozens of Android models distributed across multiple countries by numerous brands such as Amazon, Samsung, Asus and others have been driving volumes,” Strategy Analytics, analyst Neil Mawston said in a statement.

Strategy Analytics said that Microsoft had a 1% stake in the global tablet space last year which leaves the Blackberry Playbook as part of the undefined remaining 2%

source: Reuters via Pocketnow

A new study has been released with some astonishing, well maybe not so surprising results.

According to a new study actually put on by Google, more consumers are accessing the internet from a smartphone as their primary device. Although we knew it was coming, we weren’t expecting smartphones to surpass internet access via desktop and laptop quite yet.

Google’s study which focused on smartphone and feature phone ownership took a sample set from the United States, France, Germany, Japan and the U.K. The study found that 78 percent of internet users in the U.S. accessed the internet via their phone. 68% of of internet users say they used a desktop or laptop while some said they use both phones and laptop/desktops.

More after the break

Tablets weren’t part of the study.

Smartphone adoption has been growing and by leaps and bounds. For example, Verizon Wireless, the largest carrier in the U.S., reported that smartphones made up 44% of their postpaid base in Q4 2011 up from 28% in Q4 of 2010. As feature sets and data speeds increase in the handset more and more internet usage comes from the phone.

Google spent nearly a decade as the king of the search on desktops and PCs. In the past few years they’ve quickly grown to the goto search for mobile searches on the internet and that trend will only continue going forward. Many Android fans often times forget that Google makes money from mobile searches, not just for Android, but from iOS, Blackberry, Bada, Symbian, Windows Phones and feature phones.

Source: Adage via PhoneArena

If you’re not familiar with the MIUI series of custom ROMs, you really should be. MIUI is based on the CyanogenMod project, but taken to a whole new level of customization and beautification. The latest MIUI release is version 4 based on CyanogenMod 9 and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

This release combines the code of the CM9 project, along with the a leaked Samsung kernel and some various other bits to form a (nearly) fully functional ROM. This is only a Release Candidate and there remain a couple of minor issues such as less than stellar battery life, some theme issues and getting the file manager to read the SD card. Other than that, it’s a full Android 4.0 ROM with a gorgeous look.

Right now it’s only available for the international version of the Galaxy S II, the i9100, but hopefully we’ll be seeing MIUI ROMs on other SGS2 variants soon. Head over to the XDA Developers link for more info and downloads.

[XDA Developers]