Tag Archives: upgrades

Sprint puts its Upgrade Now program on hold

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Sprint pauses its Upgrade Now program

Sprint has been scaling back its upgrade perks for more than a year, and another just met its end -- momentarily. The carrier has confirmed to us and Android Central that it's freezing its Upgrade Now program, which lets subscribers pay extra for a quicker hardware refresh than usual. While Sprint can't provide an explanation at present, or say how likely it is we'll see a revival, it does offer a glimmer of hope: the company asks that we "check back later" to see if Upgrade Now returns. No doubt many customers would rather have it be matter of when, not if, they can resume upgrading on a quicker schedule.

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Source: Android Central

Clearwire moves forward with Huawei in network upgrades after federal consultation

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Clearwire moves forward with Huawei in network upgrades after federal consultation

China's Huawei has found itself followed by a cloud of suspicion from governments and national security agencies, both in America, and futher afield. A recent announcement from Clearwire stating it will use the firms hardware in a network upgrade, however, could see some sunshine of confidence finally poking through. Reuters reports that the service provider consulted several technical departments from various federal agencies before making the decision. Clearwire already uses some Huawei equipment in its infrastructure, and it's in these areas that the hardware will be used for upgrades. The firm went on to assure that, overall, less than 5 percent of its LTE budget involves Huawei gear, and irrespective of origin, all vendors are subject to approval from US government approved third parties.

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Clearwire moves forward with Huawei in network upgrades after federal consultation originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 27 Oct 2012 08:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung announces Android 4.1 availability for Galaxy S III in South Korea

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Samsung announces Android 41 availability for Galaxy S III in South Korea

It was pretty much inevitable, and true to its promise, Samsung has announced the availability of Android 4.1 for the Galaxy S III. Now before you get too excited, it appears that the upgrade applies only to the SHW-M440S variant, which is specific to Samsung's home turf in South Korea. Nonetheless, if the translation is correct, the new Jelly Bean release is said to bring usability improvements to the home screen, along with the ability to pause movies during recording and a smart rotation feature to the camera. Samsung's Kies software is specifically mentioned in the announcement post, although it looks as if an over-the-air install may be possible as well. Hopefully this news is a sign that certification for the global model and its domestic counterparts is just around the corner.

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Samsung announces Android 4.1 availability for Galaxy S III in South Korea originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Oct 2012 22:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceSamsung Tomorrow (1) (translated), (2)  | Email this | Comments

Clearwire starts building LTE network this month, wants to salve (and profit from) Sprint growing pains

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Sprint hearts Clearwire

Clearwire doesn't have much time left before its promised LTE rollout goes live in early 2013, so it's with some relief that we know the deployment is getting underway. CFO Hope Cochran told those at Goldman Sachs' Communacopia Conference this week that construction of the first cell sites starts this month, with efforts truly swinging into full gear during the fall. The executive also reminded us of a very pragmatic reason why many of the 5,000 LTE sites due by June 30th will target high-traffic areas -- as Clearwire is only selling the faster data access to other providers, it should pocket more money in any regions where Sprint needs all the help it can get. Call it a virtuous cycle. Cochran certainly does: while Clearwire is free to make deals with others, Cochran says her company weighs any alliances against what it still considers a very special pact with Sprint. No doubt the 4G pioneer is hoping that it's making the right choices, as other carriers aren't waiting around.

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Clearwire starts building LTE network this month, wants to salve (and profit from) Sprint growing pains originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 23 Sep 2012 07:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink GigaOM  |  sourceFierceWireless  | Email this | Comments

Refresh Roundup: week of September 10th, 2012

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Refresh Roundup: week of September 10th, 2012

Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it's easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don't escape without notice, we've gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!

Continue reading Refresh Roundup: week of September 10th, 2012

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Refresh Roundup: week of September 10th, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 Sep 2012 21:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google enables Play Store delta updates, helps you conserve precious data

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Google enables Play Store delta updates, helps you conserve precious data

At Google's developer conference, the company announced that it would soon offer the ability to download delta updates in its Play Store, and we're starting to see the promise fulfilled before our very eyes. These delta upgrades, which save time and bandwidth when updating larger apps by only downloading the actual changes (rather than the entire program), were spotted earlier by Android Police and verified by our staff. While it may seem like a minor feature, you'll likely be happy that you don't have to think twice about updating your graphically-intense games when you're not within range of a hotspot. Head below for a video showing the delta updates in action.

Continue reading Google enables Play Store delta updates, helps you conserve precious data

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Google enables Play Store delta updates, helps you conserve precious data originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Aug 2012 17:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Droid-Life  |  sourceAndroid Police  | Email this | Comments

Sony backpedals on Android 4.1 upgrade statement, is now ‘actively investigating’ all Xperia updates

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Sony backpedals on Android 41 upgrade statement, is 'actively investigating' updates for 2011 Xperia devices

Let's chalk this one up to something being lost in corporate translation. After a UK company rep issued a statement just days ago confirming the lack of an Android 4.1 upgrade path for certain 2011 Xperia handsets, Sony's delicately backtracking and claiming that public info was made "in error." While this official retraction may soothe previously irate owners' concerns, it's still not an outright commitment to Jelly Bean, as the company's only now pledging to "actively [investigate]... upgrades for all devices" -- a carefully worded PR promise par excellence. To the Japanese electronics giant's credit, it has been pretty transparent and diligent about delivering ICS updates to its elder smartphone progeny, so we have plenty of reason to remain cautiously optimistic Google's newest OS will make the transition, too.

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Sony backpedals on Android 4.1 upgrade statement, is now 'actively investigating' all Xperia updates originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 Jul 2012 18:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jelly Bean now available to Nexus S via OTA download, we coat our phones in more sugar

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Carriers begin feeding Jelly Bean to Nexus S, we coat our phones in more sugar

It's already possible to force Android 4.1 onto your Nexus S without much trouble, but for those of you that prefer life on easy street, then kick up those heels: many carriers have now made Jelly Bean available for OTA installation. The good news comes from Google itself, which has listed T-Mobile, Three, Rogers and Vodafone among the carriers. It doesn't stop there, however, as MobileSyrup also reports that Mobilicity and Wind users are also receiving a similar bit of Android 4.1 love. We've confirmed the rollout here in the US with T-Mobile, where the 114MB download is currently only available for download via WiFi. Seeing that it's Friday night, seems like a perfect opportunity to take Google Now for a spin, no?

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Jelly Bean now available to Nexus S via OTA download, we coat our phones in more sugar originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Jul 2012 22:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Android Central, Mobile Syrup  |  sourceNexus (Google+)  | Email this | Comments

Raspberry Pi announces Raspbian, an optimized OS upgrade with performance improvements abound

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Raspberry Pi announces Raspbian, an optimized OS upgrade with performance improvements aboundNo software update is quite so sweet as one that brings improved performance, and that's exactly what Raspberry Pi users can expect from the latest Debian-based OS known as Raspbian. Optimized specifically for the $35 computer, Raspbian introduces more comprehensive support for floating point operations, and with that, a faster web browsing experience. The latest release also brings improvements to the firmware, kernel and applications, and is recommended as the distribution most appropriate for general users. An SD card image of Raspbian is now available for download, so do yourself a favor and snag it today.

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Raspberry Pi announces Raspbian, an optimized OS upgrade with performance improvements abound originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Jul 2012 20:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceRaspberry Pi (1), (2)  | Email this | Comments

Crucial ships mSATA-based m4 SSD upgrade, your Ultrabook never felt better

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Crucial ships out mSATAbased m4 SSD upgrade, your Ultrabook never felt betterCrucial has already managed to stuff its m4 SSD into Ultrabook sizes, but the 7mm thick design may still be too portly for the thinner laptops in the pack. With that in mind, the flash memory guru has just started shipping the m4 mSATA, a barebones card that sits cozily next to the motherboard either as a cache for a rotating disk or as a main drive. It's still as speedy as many of its bigger cousins, with read speeds of up to 500MB/s per second. We suspect most buyers will be lured in by the low prices: at just $53 for a cache-friendly 32GB SSD and no more than $226 for a 256GB example, it's entirely feasible to give that spinning-drive Ultrabook a shot in the arm.

Continue reading Crucial ships mSATA-based m4 SSD upgrade, your Ultrabook never felt better

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Crucial ships mSATA-based m4 SSD upgrade, your Ultrabook never felt better originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Jul 2012 15:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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