Motorola’s Atrix 4G for AT&T isn’t released quite yet, but that doesn’t mean some clever early-users can’t extract and upload the Atrix’s entire filesystem! That’s just what happened. The Atrix 4G system dump is now online so developers and users alike can go ahead and poke around in the Atrix’s internal files.
We’ve uploaded the system dump for you below, and we’ll piece out the good stuff.

Download

• System Dump
  
  • Mediafire mirror
  
  
• Ringtones
• Wallpapers
• Boot Animation
  
  • Flashable .zip
  
  
• Build.prop

Apple has an 'internal' goal of shipping 40 Million iPads this year, which many in the industry think is an unrealistic number even from the market leader. To do that they have flopped around a sizeable chunk of their massive money reserves to the tune of $3.9 - $7.8 Billion Dollars. This has secured a full 60% of the global touch-screen capacity which will intern create a shortage for their competition this year. What looks like simple 'needs-based' spending is more likely a strategic business move by Apple. This indirect control of supply will make it tough for the likes of Motorola, LG, Toshiba and others to hit the demand they expect for the slew of Android tablets set to arrive this year.

Lest you think this is just coincidence, here's a quote from DigiTimes that expresses Apple's past behavior,

Sources from iPad distributors pointed out that in 2010, Apple's order forecasts to its OEM partners were all high and the biggest problem on the supply side was not capacity, but low yields of touch panels. In 2011, Apple's strategy of taking up most of the capacity should help the company quickly expand its sales, while reducing its competitors' shipment growth.

Furthermore, to add more fuel to the fire, they did the same thing with NAND chips in 2009 to attempt to slow their competition's capacity to compete with them. The side-benefit of this 'strategy' isn't just less parts for their competition to use in their products, but also it will drive the pricing of these parts up as well, making it more expensive for other companies to compete with Apple.

You basically see this same thing in Texas Hold 'Em Poker. The person with the most chips at the table can afford to lose more so they bet more in order to scare others away from the hand. What do you guys think of this? Cheesy or 'just the way to win'?

Source: Engadget via DigiTimes

We've just been tipped off that the release date for the Motorola Atrix has now been set to February 22nd, 2010. Almost 2 weeks ahead of schedule, this will surely make AT&T users jump up and down. Hopefully we'll get the same news for the Droid Bionic in the coming month.



For more information on the Atrix, be sure to check out our sister site @ Motorola Atrix Forum - Atrix Forum

Thanks Jeremy, (*CONFIRMED* Atrix 2/22/11 by AT&T)

Even though Apple has far more apps in their market than Android does, 350,000 Apple apps to 88,000 Android Apps, a new report from the mobile security firm 'Lookout', indicates that Android Apps are growing at a rate 3 times faster than Apple Apps. Since August, apps in Apple’s store increased just 44% while Android apps increased by 127%. Lookout's Chief Technology Officer Kevin Mahaffey, had this to say, “If apps continue to be developed for each platform at this same rate, the Android Market will have more apps than the Apple App Store by mid-2012.”

In reference to paid apps, the CNET article had this to say,

Apple may have a higher percentage of paid apps but the number is rising on Android - from 22 percent of the total to 34 percent since August, while the number of paid apps in the Apple App Store declined slightly, from 70 percent of the total to 66 percent.

Interestingly, there is a disparity that would seem to subvert this rapid growth when you look at the number of developers for each market. There are still more developers heading to Apple. Between August 2010 and February 2011, The Apple App Store attracted nearly 23,000 additional developers, but the Android Market attracted only 4,000 additional developers. This disparity ends up being explained when you find out that the average number of apps submitted per developer is less for the Apple Store than for the Android Market; For Apple Apps the average is 4.8, but for the Android Market it is 6.6.

It's possible that the new changes for developers that Google implemented to the Market, like in-app purchases, might end up accelerating this growth. Is there any market that 'Andy' can't eventually dominate?

Source: AndroidTablets.net via SlashGear and CNET via Lookout

Yesterday, we reported that HTC won "Device Manufacturer of The Year," and it is well deserved. They consistently have higher build-quality and more advanced smartphones than most of their competition. It would seem that everyone is entitled to "slip-up" now and again, and HTC is not excluded.

HTC is about to release a weak product with a ridiculous price-tag. If you thought the Motorola Xoom seemed pricey, you'll gag at this one. Amazon.de (a European arm of Amazon in case you didn't know) revealed the price of HTC's new Flyer tablet, and it's going for 669 Euros. As of the exchange market today, that coverts to almost $910 dollars! We reported the lackluster specs of this non-Honeycomb, non-dual core Tablet previously, and it still doesn't compare to the Xoom, or even the Toshiba Tablet.

I'm scratching my head on this one. Let's hope HTC realizes how insane this pricing is, and reconfigures their marketing and pricing strategy. I'm confident they can do for the Android Tablet market what they have done for the Android smartphone market. They just really need to 'get serious'. (Just for the sake of CYA, I suppose it's possible that this is a misprint. - Let's hope so.) What do you guys think?

Source: AndroidTablets.net via AndroidPolice and Amazon.de

If you haven’t learned all there is to know about the Motorola XOOM by now, then you are in luck. Below, we have the entire XOOM user guide for you to browse through before next Thursday when you’ll finally be enjoying your new Honeycomb tablet. It’s a pretty standard UG, but I wanted to point out that I’m not seeing a mention of a required data plan anywhere and am starting to think that will be part of the Best Buy deal and not at actual Verizon stores. BBY requires a similar 1-month data subscription with the Galaxy Tab, but VZW never has, so we’ll see.

Download: XOOM_Manual.pdf

Source droidlife/and thanks to Wicked for the find

Yesterday, we shared with you the official pricing of the Motorola Xoom. Today we have the full official specs for the different models. This info was released on Moto's Motodev website. This isn't terribly interesting news, as the specs aren't any different than reported in the past, they just get the "official" stamp now. The radio is really the only significant difference between the models.

Source: Engadget via Motorola

Motorola CEO already confirmed pricing for the XOOM today and gave us word on pricing for a wifi-only version, but he isn’t stopping there. During his time at MWC, he also let slip some tidbits about the upcoming music service from Google that will compete with Apple’s iTunes. While it’s no secret that Google Music has been in the works, this is one of the first times we’ve heard anyone with any sort of voice actually make reference to it. Jha also made it sound as if Honeycomb would be the first version of Android to take advantage of this new service…

Speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Jha said: “If you look at Google Mobile services [via Android] today, there’s a video service, there’s a music service – that is, there will be a music service.” He added that the value of the upgrade to the Android system, known as “Honeycomb”, which will power the forthcoming Motorola Xoom tablet is that “it adds video services and music services”.

I don’t know about the majority of folks out there, but to me, this is huge news. There is nothing more frustrating than having to download songs in iTunes and then transfer them over to my device. Having the ability to handle all of your multimedia needs on a phone and/or tablet is one of the key ingredients that have been missing from Android since the beginning.
We’ve seen bits and pieces of a Honeycomb music player that hinted at streaming or syncing of music, so here’s to hoping for a Google I/O unveiling. Did I mention we’ll be there?
Your thoughts?


Source droidlife and Wicked on android.net

Nvidia shows off 'heroic' level powerhouse chips on the horizon at MWC, and shares their roadmap. The next chipset from Nvidia to replace the current Tegra 2 dual-core will be a quad-core chip codenamed, 'Kal-El' (after the Kryptonian name of Superman for those who don't know comic books). It's official name has not been confirmed as either Tegra 3 or Tegra 4.

Amazingly, not only does this chipset include a quad-core central processeor, but also includes a twelve core GPU as well! You read that correctly... 12 Cores for the GPU. To demonstrate this new tech, Nvidia streamed a 1440p video on a tablet PC, and simultaneously on a connected 30 inch LCD monitor at 2560 x 1600 resolution!

This new chipset, is scheduled to arrive as early as August for Android tablet PC's, and Christmas of this year for smartphones. In fact, their 'roadmap' indicates that by 2014 they will release their 'Stark' level chip that will be 75 times faster than the Tegra 2!

That's just insane if they can actually keep that pace. I'm beginning to wonder if some alien technology is slowly being doled out to us incrementally...

Source: AndroidPolice via NVIDIA

The Incredible went big on verizon, followed by the evo 4g on sprints network; it is no wonder HTC was named Device Manufacturer of the Year. So congrats to HTC and we expect the Thunderbolt and the Incredible S to live up to expectations. Full press release below:

HTC AWARDED AS ‘2011 DEVICE MANUFACTURER OF THE YEAR’ BY THE GSMA
Device Manufacturer of the Year Award Is Industry’s Top Global Honour

BARCELONA, SPAIN - Mobile World Congress - 16 February, 2011 - HTC Corporation, a global designer of smartphones, has been honoured this week with the highest industry honour as ‘Device Manufacturer of the Year’ by the GSMA at its Global Mobile Awards ceremony in Barcelona. The award follows a year of global momentum for HTC, which saw the launch of a large portfolio of industry leading smartphones such as the HTC Desire HTC was awarded from a list of three finalists that included Apple and Samsung.
"For HTC to be recognized by the industry in this way for the growth and success we have experienced in the last year is truly humbling. Thousands of people at HTC work tirelessly to create the intuitive and deeply personal smartphone experiences for which we have become known. This award is a measure of their passion and dedication," said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corporation. "This award also belongs to the tens of millions of customers around the world who enjoy our phones and inspire us each day to create new innovative experiences. To those people, to our partners around the world and to the HTC family, you have my sincere thanks and congratulations."

The GSMA judges commented, "this company (HTC) has built its market presence from nowhere, with fresh branding and marketing and a strong portfolio of devices across many platforms. In particular, it has proven an exceptionally popular and enduring phone manufacturer. With great communication and good customer service, this is a well-deserved award."
HTC previously was awarded for the ‘Best Mobile Phone of 2010’ with the HTC Hero

A committee of judges that include industry analysts and consultants, mobile operators, educators and other industry leaders determines the GSMA Awards. For more information on the 2011 GSMA Global Mobile awards please visit – Global Mobile Awards | GSMA
About GSMA

The GSMA represents the interests of the worldwide mobile communications industry. Spanning 219 countries, the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world’s mobile operators, as well as more than 200 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset makers, software companies, equipment providers, Internet companies, and media & entertainment... [Read More]

Previously, we reported some leaked pics and specs for the Motorola Droid X2 that is coming in Q2. Unfortunately, new industry intelligence indicates that the specs are a bit lower than originally thought. Sources from Engadget suggest that the new Droid X2 will not come with a dual-core processor, 1GB of Ram, and an enhanced screen, but instead will only be a refresh of the current model. It's new specs will be a 1.2GHz single-core cpu, 768MB Ram, and the same screen it currently has. It still will not come with LTE/4G support, and it is still due to be released in the second quarter.

Personally, I hope Preach2k's original report turns out to be accurate and that this new info is false.

Source: Android.net via Engadget

Android.net is proud to announce our first release of free Android icons. We commissioned this set from Icon Design Labs and will be doing future icon releases as well. This set features the following Android characters:

• Android Nerd
• Baby Android
• Business Android
• Flame Android
• Android Girl
• Android Ninja
• Super Android
• Tablet Android
• UFO Android
• Wally Android

The full icon pack can be downloaded at this URL: Android.net Icon Pack - Series 1

These icons are free to use but we do ask commercial entities to please provide attribution via a link to Android.net. We already have the second batch of icons on the way but I'll keep the identities a secret for now. However, for our third series we are asking the community to make suggestions to us as to what type of Android Characters they'd like to see... To suggest a character, all you need to do is register @ Android.net (don't forget, you can get your free @android.net email address as well) and post in this thread with your suggestion. Suggestions should look similar to the following:

My suggestion is the following: <character name> - <character description, including objects he may be wearing and/or holding>

Thread: Introducing the Android.net Icon Pack - Series 1

That's it! So, have fun and let the character suggestions fly!

As reported by Reuters today, the Chief executive or Motorola, Sanjay Jha, confirmed the pricing for the Motorola Xoom. The unsubsidized Verizon version of the Xoom will be $799, and the W-Fi only version will come in 'around' $600. Although he did not indicate when they would start becoming available, most industry info suggests that pre-orders will start as early as tomorrow, and the Tablet should have its full launch on Thursday of next week.

Jha had this to say, "Competing with Apple you have to deliver premium products." There you have it straight from the horses mouth. Apparently those premium products come with a 'premium price'. What do you guys think? Is the Wi-Fi Only version less than you thought, more than you wanted, or right where it should be?

Source: AndroidTablets.net via Reuters

Eric Schmidt gave his keynote presentation at MWC today. The most interesting bit of info that he shared was really more of a teaser. He indicated that the next iteration of Android for the smartphones and tablets will arrive according to a "six month cycle" schedule after Honeycomb. More importantly, he indicated that it will be a combination of Honeycomb and Gingerbread that combines them into a cohesive whole. He also hinted that it's name will start with the letter "i" and be named after a dessert.

We kinda already knew that last part.

Source: Android.net via Engadget

Motoblur Gets An Update

New MotoBlur UI coming to Motorola Android Phones. Some phones, like the Atrix 4G will receive the new UI through an update, while others will have it shipped on device later this year. Many of the upgraded features include enhanced photo-sharing and media syncing and location based social interaction.

Other feature updates include:
* Tracking and remote wipe in case the device is lost or stolen
* Improved data and contact backup
* location based social interaction
* Connected music sharing service and photo gallery

BY JAMES DERUVO
Source: Android Community