T-Mobile Sidekick 4G Hands-On and Unboxing

Looks like we’ve got the brand new T-Mobile Sidekick 4G in today for our ultimate pleasure and handson-edness! Not only do we have this lovely handset here in full working order, activated, shiny, perfectly lovely, we got the pink edition! Hooray forever! Now let’s take a look at what it’ll be like for all the consumers of the earth to be unboxing this lovely little beast, piece by piece. Looks like quite the hipster machine to me.

We have had an opportunity to take a peek at this device when we were back at CTIA 2011, clicking about here and there and photographing our eyes out, but nothing beats the ability to carry it around in your pocket. That’s what we’ll be doing for the next few days and weeks so we can get a good idea on how this device is going to be faring out in the field. Watch out for the custom user interface – heavy scrutiny ahead!

See the video here and the close-up photos below, keep tuned to Android Community’s front news feed here and our Facebook page at http://facebook.com/androidcommunity.com/ for unique content on this device from each! Then head back to our T-Mobile Sidekick 4G portal for all the coverage your eyeballs can handle!
 







 

 

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Motorola XOOM Gets SD Card Activation Early via Tiamac Kernel

Behold a fabulous kernel that’s been modified to allow YOU usage of the SD card slot on your Motorola XOOM. It’s called Tiamat, and word on the street is that the dude who’s one of the main creators of this lovely beast has used bits and pieces of code from the Asus Eee Pad Transformer to push the Motorola XOOM another step closer to perfection. Perfection, I tell you!

Now you’ll be able to take that XOOM that you got completely free and clear from us here at Android Community and the fine folks over at NVIDIA, and you can use that slot to load all your favorite oddities. You’ll be loading this and that and whatever you like with all the ease in the world. On the other hand, everyone knows that rooting and booting kernels and all that good stuff isn’t for everyone, so perhaps this isn’t the solution for you.

If you ARE the kind of person who likes to live in the wild side and wipe their systems clean and buff out the insides for a chance at eternal hacking glory, consult the oracle. The oracle in this case is bigrushdog, a fellow who’s sitting pretty over at XDA Developers just waiting to provide you with Tiamat for your goodness. Use caution! And don’t say we didn’t warn you!

Also note – you need to reboot once you put your SD card in for it to show up, so it’s not PERFECT, but it works!

• [via XDA Developers Forum]

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WIN a XOOM in Android Community’s Gigantic Tablet Giveaway!

It’s the day you’ve been waiting for, the day where we give you one of THREE Motorola XOOM tablets we’ve got stowed away, courtesy of our awesome friends at NVIDIA! Of course, as you know, the Motorola XOOM Android 3.0 Honeycomb-laden 10.1-inch tablet is powered by NVIDIA’s always excellent Tegra 2 dual-core processor, and the ones we’ve got for you here at the wifi-only versions. That means no data plan for you, just a free and clear powerhouse of an Android tablet! We’re going to use this opportunity to get everyone in the community hooked up with our recently born AC Facebook page, too – wins for everyone!
 
To win one of these fabulous tablets, you must:

1. “like” us on Facebook: facebook.com/androidcommunity.com
2. Comment on the wall saying something nice like “Android Community and NVIDIA have no less than dual-core generosity!”

Contest begins April 11, 2PM PST, and ends May 1, 2PM PST. A winner will be announced every Monday @ 5PM PST here in the main news feed and at our official Facebook page.

WINNERS will be given the opportunity to submit a review of their XOOM and have it posted on the front page of AndroidCommunity.com! *Reviews may be edited or modified before publication and are considered works for hire under the 1976 Copyright Act. Submissions will be ineligible for payment or remuneration.

Competition is open to residents of the US over the age of 18. One entry per contest per person. Family members of Google and SlashGear/Android Community are not permitted to enter. Competition entries are only accepted via the specified Android Community Facebook page; entries left in the comments section of this or any other post will not be recognized. One entry per person (and yes, we check). Winners of the April 2011 SlashGear XOOM giveaway are ineligible to win the April 2011 Android Community XOOM giveaway, and vice-versa.

The winners will be announced on SlashGear and will be expected to contact Android Community via the following email: chris@androidcommunity.com ; they will be expected to respond within 24 hours else their prize may be forfeit and another winner selected. Editors decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into. Winner agrees that their name and details of their entry may be used for promotional purposes by, but not limited to, NVIDIA and Android Community.

Prize consists of five Motorola XOOM Wi-Fi-only tablets distributed between SlashGear and Android Community: 2 for SlashGear’s contest and 3 for Android Community’s contest. One prize per winner. There is no cash alternative or any other alternative for prize winners unless this prize should become unavailable, in which case Android Community and NVIDIA reserve the right to substitute another prize of equal or greater value.

Contest provided by SlashGear/Android Community. Prizing provided by NVIDIA. Any questions regarding this contest should be directed to chris@androidcommunity.com.

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Android Community 101: What is Flash Builder? (4.5)

Behold the great conquerer of world, the great unifier that works better than a big bar of chocolate, or so they’re hoping. This is Flash Builder 4.5, a version of the app to build apps that’ll soon create standalone Flex AIR apps that’ll work on Android, Blackberry, and Apple’s iOS, all inside the same framework! What this means, if it’s adopted by enough individuals, is that developers are about to have a whole heck of a lot easier time creating cross-platform moneymakers to turn awesome experiences into cash.

 Flash Builder is what Makes a Flash-Based Project

Of course, that’s not the only reason people make apps, right, not just for the money – but it IS a reality, developers gotta get paid, so an Action Script language-based mini-platform in Flash might well be the answer. Flash, as we know it right this moment, is primarily used for video inside browser windows – people might argue that it’s attempting to fan out, and that it HAS fanned out, but the main functionality remains inside video. What this version of Flash Builder will be doing is encouraging developers to create apps that’ll run on essentially any platform that can work with a Flash plugin, or in the desktop’s case, Flex AIR.

PHP and Further Integration

This newest version of Flash Builder, there’s also support for PHP (another scripting language) that’ll allow developers to have PHP on their side, Flash on the user’s side, and this new development environment in between. This newest version of Flash Builder has also moved on to Eclipse version 3.6.1 (Helios) – Eclipse being another environment in which a developer of Android apps can create, edit, fix, and generally go wild. Have a peek at this official video from Adobe on this brand new version of the creator of Flash worlds:

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Android Community at CTIA Wireless 2011

Android Community is hard at work at CTIA Wireless 2011, the annual mobile confab which this year is in Orlando, Florida. We’re expecting a ton of wireless news including stories on Android phones and even more tablets. In fact, news has already been leaked that AT&T is bringing the Nexus S 4G, with it’s pure Google Android experience, to mobile customers this year along with the LG Thrill 4G and HTC HD7S.

Sprint has already teased that they plan to release a wide range of devices including the 4G HTC Flyer tablet. But they’re also going all in with Google Voice services in a move that will certain have ripples as the confab continues this week. T-Mobile, who recently got swallowed up by AT&T, is still here and are bringing the HTC Pyramid and Doubleshot along with them. And it’s even more important now that AT&T has decided that all T-Mobile customers will have to transition to 4G phones after the merger.

Samsung is going to be launching it’s mid-size 8.9 inch Galaxy Tab here in Orlando, as a part of the 78910 marketing campaign we teased here earlier this month. The campaign clearly means marketing of the entire 7, 8.9 and 10.1 inch line of Galaxy Tabs. And then there’s LG, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and it’s new Xperia Play, and we’re sure tons of tablet stories. So stay tuned for all our show coverage with the CTIA 2011 tag, and of course follow along on the Android Community homepage!

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