Android Community Weekly: October 30, 2011

It’s time to wrap up the last week of tech news for October 2011 – just in time for Halloween tomorrow. Monday, HTC partnered with DropBox to offer all Android users 5GB of free storage on their HTC devices. Whether or not this applies to HTC’s past devices or only future ones still remains unclear. Also Monday, Cory Gunther performed a hands-on of the new HTC EVO Design 4G. Near the end of the week a much more comprehensive review was completed.

Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) will be hitting more devices this week and some soon to come. Those of you that own a DROID 2 Global or LG Revolution 4G should see the update pushed to your phones soon enough. The HTC Thunderbolt should also be receiving a needed security patch; yet some of you may be ahead of the game and already be testing the Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) SDK port. Android 4.0 on the Samsung Galaxy S II, Galaxy Note, and Galaxy Tab was confirmed by Samsung Italy Friday, yet still no official word on the actual time of release. Motorola has also confirmed that it will bring Ice Cream Sandwich to its capable devices 6 weeks after Google and Samsung release the Galaxy Nexus; they also committed to leaving future bootloaders unlocked on their devices to come. This may very well mean official over-the-air bootloader patches could become a reality. DROID RAZR pre-orders are set to ship out November 10th, and it would be the most obvious contender for a future Android 4.0 upgrade.

If you’re waiting eagerly to see some Android 4.0 features on your own device, then you might find the new Widget Locker update very interesting. It brings the fluid “lens shaped” Ice Cream Sandwich lockscreen to your phone or tablet. The Sony Ericsson XPERIA Ray and Motorola ATRIX 2 were given hands-on treatment this week, so expect to see their full reviews very soon. Sony finally purchased Ericsson out of their joint venture for $1.47 billion dollars Thursday, so whether or not we will continue to see the Ericsson name on their future smartphones is still up in the air.

Our own Michael Crider put the CyanogenMod Android OS port to the HP Touchpad to the test for an entire week. He presented a very detailed analysis of what to currently expect from the alpha version and even what one should expect on future releases to come. Finally, don’t forget to check out our Android 4.0 Q and A session straight from Hong Kong!

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