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Samsung has removed the jack from it's LATEST phone. You seriously do not think it likely the rest of the models will follow?

I do not think that is likely. Why do you think it is? The Galaxy A8s has many differences to other phones that Samsung offers, why do you think the lack of a headphone jack on the A8s is any different to other differences between the A8s and other Samsung phones?

But rather than speculating we can see from the latest leaks of the Galaxy S10 casings that it does indeed have a headphone jack.

Do the mocking ads they produced apply to this phone or not?

Seriously? "I just don't understand the ads, I can't understand what they apply to?!?!?!?!". Perhaps you're better off ignoring that and focussing your menial capacity on something a little more simple.

They apply to the company. They are saying Apple makes no phones with headphone jacks, Samsung makes a lot of phones and thus far only one of them lacks a headphone jack while certainly going forward (the S10 at least) the headphone jack will still be included in many phones Samsung sells.

At least you can replace the Samsung one for free with one that works.

Yeah, then you are only left with Embarrassing Real-World Performance and easily scratched display. Nothing that can't be rationalized away, especially since it won't burn your house down.

Some critics think that Apple is boring now, setting itself up to iterate on its successes and lock customers into their services with products that are very good...but not those eye-popping leaps we've seen before.

We don't really know what they are working on in their labs.

I suspect the next leap with be some kind of "iGlasses", somewhat similar to Google Glass, but using hand-gestures in the air. The goggles will use 3D (stereoscopic) movement and image detection to understand the gestures.

Google has already filed related patents (below), but I imagine Apple is experimenting also. They have too much money to ignore the possibility.

http://phandroid.com/2013/10/1...

Either that, maybe direct brain control of some kind where an implant is made that allows one to use thought control as an interface. Experiments are gradually leading to less intrusive implants (see below). iBorg?

These are my best guesses as an amateur futurologist as to what the next logical device/UI leap is. If they play their cards right, Apple's deep pockets will allow them to be early-to-market players in these.

They better hope they have somebody akin to Steve Jobs so that they get the equivalent of an iPad instead of say the poorly executed Microsoft Tablet of 2000. Steve knew to say "no" to (most) stupid ideas and implementations, even if it meant expensive delays. Microsoft's half-ass ways and addiction to desktop Windows burnt them. Sometimes you gotta eat your own children.

http://fusion.net/story/266187...

These calls had a very apt descriptive term. Now they are calling pocket dialed calls? Is pocket the new euphemism for butt?

Well, probably because butt dialed doesn't make much sense when 11% of people who keep their phone in their pocket keep it in one of their back pockets. Then there are all the people who wear their phone on a holster.

How did Cyanogen screw over phone makers? Not saying they didn't I just have never heard that.

Where they acted like children:
http://www.engadget.com/2014/1...

The fun continues:
http://phandroid.com/2015/01/2...

And then this:
http://www.knowyourmobile.com/...

So yeah - they're nowhere near a mature company - and lets not forget when they forked CyanogenMod and pulled the "You made this? .... I made this!" move when getting venture capital in the first place...

Calling doctored/cherry pick vid on the Android one because 1) the guy is trying to sell the phone and 2) he doesn't actually run anything on it to see how well it works.

Even Android fanboys admit that Windows Phone runs better on less hardware

Even if that was the case, it would prove that currency unity needs to be properly applied. Ubisoft wasn't the only company to recently change their prices related to current exchange rates. http://phandroid.com/2015/01/0...

pointed this out before, but google's policy of forcing people to give their *real* names is incredibly dangerous.

So I'm going to try to respond with "both sides" of this issue--

1. Google's real name policy was horrific.

2. Still, they abandoned it months ago, with a pseudo-apology.

3. Still, it was too late for me, and I still refuse to sign up. In part this is because they have a no-opt-out "real location contact" address policy for developers which I find just as dangerous as their Google Plus real name policy.

4. Yes, I've sacrificed the ability to review Youtube videos and Play store apps/movies.

5. That said, 9% of 2.2 billion users is 198000000 users. Had the article been titled "198 million active users use Google Plus" regularly, this phrasing would have sounded to me like a success story.

Official release date for Lollipop for all devices was November 3rd. My wife's Nexus 4 got it about 3 weeks later, my Nexus 5 got it in a week. My wife's 2013 Nexus 7 got it the first day of December.

Looks like there was a showstopper bug for the 2012, but it'll be out for OTA soon (or you can install it now manually). It was a 2+ month lag , but that's pretty much the last supported device getting it.

http://phandroid.com/2015/01/2...

Sam

Twitter is going to start curating your feed for you as well... http://phandroid.com/2014/09/04/twitter-facebook-style-filtered-feed/

The patch already exists, now it's up to our cell carriers to distribute it.

Yeah, yeah yeah, cast everybody who wants some privacy as an ignorant Luddite

I am always surprised in these discussions on /. about Glass that no one brings up this patent

Don't look for logic in these sorts of aquisitions anymore - its another tech bubble getting ready to burst.

Nothing is bursting. Capital suction has little or no effect in the digital world these days. No one cares if you burn a million or a billion. It's about data and market share, revenue be damned. Do you think running whatsapp indefinitely cost any more than a crew or two of developers and some rackspace in some datacenter nowadays? Twitter is run by 13 people. 13 people!
They don't care about revenue, they want your data and they want lock-in. And they'll trade lock-in for data and omnipresence at any time.

It's about 4,5 billion people on this planet about to be connected to the internet in the next few years, with devices that cost less than what a fourtnights worth of Starbucks costs us.

We are moving head on into a post-scarcity economy, at least in terms of digital connectivity - from there on out it's all about attention and mindshare. The purchase might bomb, yes, but it might as well just turn out to be a real bargain. And if it bombs it won't even do a blip on FBs bank account. And others won't care either. Those who have VC can buy into WhatsApp like startups for peanuts because deving, deploying and scaling has become so dirt cheap. So even if they all bomb we'll be back to business as usuall 4 weeks into that.

The world is changing, and it's changing fast. The dot-bomb era was just people getting ahead of them selves in a way that wasn't good for them. The hardware wasn't there, Databases and IDEs costed more than luxury cars, and what passes as a toy today was a cray workstation in 2001 that would set you back 30 grand. It was silly back then. It isn't now.

Reality is catching up. Fast.

Bottom line:
I wouldn't hold my breath for any bubble of sorts bursting any time soon.

My 2 cents.

They don't have the ability to install Gapps and Services. People download them from other sites that are committing copyright infringement and which can be taken down by Google.
http://phandroid.com/2009/09/25/cyanogen-gets-cd-from-google/

I likes my tablets and phones as rectangles. Just don't make this Apple:

http://phandroid.com/2011/10/06/dunder-mifflin-releases-new-pyramid-tablet-challenges-conventional-rectangle-tablets-video/

Nice information pulled out of your ass, there. Have you seriously never heard of the nightmare AT&T's and Verizon's labs are for manufacturers (all manufacturers)? For example with Sony/Android: http://phandroid.com/2010/11/30/android-2-1-update-delay-due-to-atts-stringent-testing-according-to-sony-ericsson/

Just for amusement only, I would like to point out this.

The Church of Android

Disclaimer: I am an android fan, not that there's anything wrong with that.

They have a trade dress patent which is a collection of almost a dozen individual features

Almost a dozen? Holy shit. I never realized the iPhone was that unique. You've totally convinced me.

Also, in regards to your regurgitated infographic, have some knowledge.

--Jeremy

There are some niches, like airline pilots, who actually gain a real, tangible benefit from a compact, touchscreen computer, because it replaces their flight manuals. At the moment, the iPad is fitting that bill. In the future, we should expect (and hope) that there are alternatives.

Eh, there are already alternatives.

Motorola is giving people $100 if their phone doesn't get upgraded to Jelly Bean: http://phandroid.com/2012/09/06/motorolas-100-device-trade-in-site-now-live/

Don't link to the LG Prada

"Just ignore this evidence that pretty much blows up all of the rest of this rant I'm about to give."

Phones had been converging on these interfaces and designs for years before Apple released the iPhone. Here, have some knowledge:

http://phandroid.com/2012/07/31/pre-iphone-design-concepts-add-weight-to-samsungs-defense-in-patent-trial/

http://www.osnews.com/story/25264/Did_Android_Really_Look_Like_BlackBerry_Before_the_iPhone_

--Jeremy

That would be this:
22 inch tablet

They're only not-evidence in the fiction that is the legal world. Nobody's rights are being protected by restricting this evidence; there's no poisoned tree here. There is no logical reason that it shouldn't be considered in the trial.

http://phandroid.com/2012/07/31/pre-iphone-design-concepts-add-weight-to-samsungs-defense-in-patent-trial/

--Jeremy

You've bought into Apple propaganda.

Look at the graphic provided by Samsung here.

There were plenty of phones with touchscreen-only (no keyboard), black, and round corners before the iPhone.

How can Apple claim something as its own original work when neither the design nor even the name was original! (The name iPhone was owned by Cisco.) Just because Apple spends a lot on marketing and the media contribute to the Apple hype doesn't mean that they deserve exclusive rights to the basic touchscreen smartphone.

http://phandroid.com/2012/07/31/pre-iphone-design-concepts-add-weight-to-samsungs-defense-in-patent-trial/

July 14, 2012: Samsung’s request for expedited Galaxy Nexus hearing accepted, Apple groups them with “pirates, thieves and counterfeiters”

No "cocksmoking teabaggers"?

Also, fixed the damn link for you:http://phandroid.com/2012/07/14/samsungs-request-for-expedited-galaxy-nexus-hearing-accepted-apple-groups-them-with-pirates-thieves-and-counterfeiters/

Looking at the version history for android (and a few other sources), they contradict you.

I couldn't be bothered to go back before eclair but I'm pretty sure it follows a similar pattern:
Eclair - Release date: October 26, 2009. Source code release date: Nov 16th 2009 (source)
Froyo - Release date: May 20, 2010. Source code release date: Jun 23rd 2010 (source)
Ice Cream Sandwich - Release date: October 19, 2011. Source code release date: November 14, 2011
Jelly Bean - Release Date: not available on a shipping device yet. Source code release date: July 9, 2012

Now I know they didn't release Honeycomb in a timely fashion but gave reasons in advance for that. As that code forms part of the version history for Ice Cream Sandwhich you still have it available to you. However, I don't think you can say that they are particularly slow in releasing their code. And let's look at the definite positive here: they are releasing the source code!.

I am really disappointed that there was no anti-google rant in your post. But back on topic...

Try to motoactive watch. GPS, music, radio, android- based, records your workouts, syncs with your android phone to receive texts and messages. And touch screen. What more could a geek want?

http://phandroid.com/2011/10/18/motorola-actv-a-smart-fitness-watch/

Apple's tablet market share declines

Apple's smartphone market share declines

Seriously boycott Apple for poor working conditions in China?

What next? boycotting Apple for using metals, because they were mined, causing pollution? While pretending this wasn't the same for every manufacturer on earth.

Remember the Foxconn workers threatening mass suicide. They were Xbox 360 workers:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45969515/ns/world_news-asia_pacific/t/xbox-workers-china-threatened-mass-suicide/

Or how about the Android products made by Foxconn, like the new Amazon Tablet:
http://phandroid.com/2011/07/14/amazon-chooses-foxconn-to-manufacturer-their-10-1-inch-android-tablet/

Would any of those pushing an Apple boycott add Amazon/Android/Microsoft products to the list?

It isn't even just tech products, in fact the lower down the price/technology scale, the worse the conditions likely are.

Where were your jeans made? Go watch China Blue:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1488092077/

Well, why did samsung sell unlocked wifi only tablets and then lock encrypt them at the same time they added google video? Also, this:
http://phandroid.com/2011/04/17/source-samsung-will-not-lock-bootloaders-unless-google-requires-it/

So did Google require it, or is Samsung just a dishonest company? (by dishonest I don't mean the leaked statement above, I mean boosting sales with unlocked tablets and then locking them later)

Asus pretty much "blamed" Google for encrypting the boot loader on the Prime. I haven't seen any statements from Samsung on the matter. I did call and email support to see if they would, phone support told me to email and email support told me to phone.

Anyway, I know Samsung cannot be trusted and I'm suspicious of Google.

It seems you're having difficulty understanding the question, his point is that while supposedly these 'apple fanbois' said 'nobody would build for android', it turns out that was incorrect.

So where is Infinity Blade?

I can't believe you're still having so much trouble with this, I'll try to make it simple for you:
Does anybody build for Android? Yes, in fact a significant amount of people do. Hence the statement that 'nobody would build for android' is false.

How hard is that to understand?

It seems you're having difficulty understanding the question, his point is that while supposedly these 'apple fanbois' said 'nobody would build for android', it turns out that was incorrect.

So where is Infinity Blade?

There *is* a stock IPSec (Cisco) client for Android, though it lacks a lot of functionality. Ice Cream Sandwich release addresses those failings. As for connecting to a non-Cisco IPSec device, well, that's a different kettle of fish of another color, if you will.

The closest you can get are tablets that don't sign the kernel and allow you to customize the OS (load cyanogenmod or something) but increasingly vendors are on the attack against that (B&N clamping down on the Nook Tablet, Samsung pushing out an update that locks down the platform.)

Uh...would that be the same Samsung that donated Galaxy S II phones to the cyanogenmod devs, so they could get it working well with the platform? What update are you talking about? They seem very friendly to the rooting and custom rom community.

They were never evil. They're not MS/Apple. Do you have a short term memory loss? Honeycomb was withheld, and they told people why.

They said basically honeycomb was a bad implementation, they didn't want people to move forward with it, they do want people to move forward on ICS. It's not like a "honeycomb is a goddamn secret!" This has been announced like 500x. It's like a design for a car that they say "this design causes engines to explode" so they don't release the design. Is this a surprise that they then release ICS source? Did you hear them say "ICS is a bad implementation"? No.

That's not a lack of transparency either, they announced this repeatedly.

[Andy] Rubin says that if Google were to open-source the Honeycomb code now, as it has with other versions of Android at similar periods in their development, it couldn't prevent developers from putting the software on phones "and creating a really bad user experience. We have no idea if it will even work on phones." "Android is an open-source project," he adds. "We have not changed our strategy."

Sounds like this is what you want: http://phandroid.com/2011/10/12/by-zeros-studio-pen-shows-off-with-chris-chavez-caricature/

cisco vpn is coming to android with the enhanced vpn apis available in ice cream sandwich. http://phandroid.com/2011/10/25/ice-cream-sandwich-will-have-cisco-anyconnect-vpn-support/

most samsung touchwiz enabled products already support it, too.
https://market.android.com/search?q=anyconnect&so=1&c=apps

As far as your link. Google also pulled an app for allowing a third party in-app payment solution....

http://phandroid.com/2011/02/25/google-pulls-popular-voicemail-app-for-in-app-payment-violation/

then those of us in the streaming video world also had to build specific streaming solutions just for IOS devices when Android, Windows, and Linux devices can all use the same streams.

They didn't have to build a "custom solution". All they had to do was stream H.264 using a standard HTML 5 video tag (like Vudu did). They chose to use an app for DRM. Hulu and Netflix also use a custom app for Android and WM.

Windows Phones also don't support Flash.

Then there is the reality that only a few developers make a lot of money from the app store and that's provided they don't violate secret app approval rules that have shown to be rather arbitrary.

If you mean by "secret", one that is clearly spelled out when you sign the developers agreement....

Additionally, Google's App market only pulls apps which either violate copyright or are malicious, you will be hard pressed to use that as an argument that Google is equally as anticompetitive as Apple as it's simply not true.

So was this malicious?

http://phandroid.com/2011/02/25/google-pulls-popular-voicemail-app-for-in-app-payment-violation/

Trying to say developers make more money in one walled garden versus another doesn't really counter the argument presented that walled-gardens are bad ideas anyway.

Silly me for thinking it is actually good to be able to get paid for your work.....

As far as your link. Google also pulled an app for allowing a third party in-app payment solution....

http://phandroid.com/2011/02/25/google-pulls-popular-voicemail-app-for-in-app-payment-violation/

then those of us in the streaming video world also had to build specific streaming solutions just for IOS devices when Android, Windows, and Linux devices can all use the same streams.

They didn't have to build a "custom solution". All they had to do was stream H.264 using a standard HTML 5 video tag (like Vudu did). They chose to use an app for DRM. Hulu and Netflix also use a custom app for Android and WM.

Windows Phones also don't support Flash.

Then there is the reality that only a few developers make a lot of money from the app store and that's provided they don't violate secret app approval rules that have shown to be rather arbitrary.

If you mean by "secret", one that is clearly spelled out when you sign the developers agreement....

Additionally, Google's App market only pulls apps which either violate copyright or are malicious, you will be hard pressed to use that as an argument that Google is equally as anticompetitive as Apple as it's simply not true.

So was this malicious?

http://phandroid.com/2011/02/25/google-pulls-popular-voicemail-app-for-in-app-payment-violation/

Trying to say developers make more money in one walled garden versus another doesn't really counter the argument presented that walled-gardens are bad ideas anyway.

Silly me for thinking it is actually good to be able to get paid for your work.....

Global figures:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/01/us-smartphones-research-idUSTRE7704MS20110801

US figures:
http://phandroid.com/2011/08/31/android-tops-comscores-us-market-share-chart/

In addition to mobile.engadget.com as others have suggested, there's www.phandroid.com. As the name suggests, it's Android specific, but has lots of good previews/reviews of upcoming/new phones and tablets. They do have an RSS feed.

Now I know you're trolling; Firefox for Android DOES support Flash

If Firefox for Android supports Flash they're being pretty quiet about it. News reports announcing the Firefox 6 beta complain that it has no Flash support. User comments on the Firefox Beta page on the Android Market complain that it still has no Flash support. The release notes for Firefox 6 say Flash and other plugins are not supported. This bug report has been open since January and as of late June it just says "we're working on it." If you guys are using Flash with Firefox for Android I'd love to hear how you've managed it. Sounds like the Mozilla Foundation would love to hear about it, too.

No, they are making it better.

As soon as they get rid of the guys pulling 30 to 100 gig a month there will be some bandwidth for the rest of us.

Yes, we would all like a 3g network that could be used like a cable modem, but the the fact of the matter is that
wireless is more constrained for bandwidth than wireline, and even wireline is getting caps.

Yes it would be nice if unlimited meant truly unlimited, but we are all adult enough to realize that was never the case in any market for any commodity at any time in the history of earth. There are always limits.

ed.

I believe Sprint begs to differ.

disclaimer: happy sprint customer for 5+ years, my bill is even always the same, to the penny.....

although it's easy to create a fake US identity to get apps for free (e.g. http://phandroid.com/2011/03/28/work-around-discovered-for-amazon-appstore-users-outside-of-us/ ) there's more headaches for purcashing apps. I've read that Amex doesn't do (much) address validation, so maybe you can use an Amex card to buy apps in the US app store even if the card's home address is in Europe?

I hear they make some mobile software too...

Try this.

A trivial google search suggests (and the first two links are to *ANDROID* community sites, so please no whining about this being "apple press releases") that:

-- Xoom has sold ~100,000 units: http://phandroid.com/2011/04/06/more-insight-on-xoom-sales-100000-since-feb-24th/

-- Samsung have claimed, then backtracked, then clarified, then re-clarified that they've sold 2 million Galaxy tablets. Of course, that's sales to the retailers & carriers, not sales to customers: http://androidcommunity.com/samsung-backtracks-on-galaxy-tab-sales-figures-shipments-not-sales-20110131/

-- Samsung went on to say that they need to "seriously rethink" their tablet strategy & pricing in the face of the iPad 2, which certainly suggests that sales are far lower than anything they would have liked to see: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20040072-1.html

The simple fact is, if either of these devices were legitimately selling as well as the iPad, we'd hear it trumpeted from every rooftop. Samsung & Motorola would NOT be bashful about saying, "We're selling as many as Apple! Our device is great and you should buy it!" Or did you think that Motorola and Samsung were trying to keep their fabulously successful tablets a secret, because they want people to give their money to Apple?

People in the US don't necessarily "prefer" Android. They are forced to to stay with their own carrier.

TFTFY.

In Europe, Asia and Australia I can take my unlocked phone to most carriers in these three regions.

They've relegate Android to the bargain bin.

I'd do a fact check if I were you. HTC thunderbolt is outselling Iphones at 28% of Verizon stores, Iphones are outselling Android at a mere 11%.

Then you've got Europe and Asia were Iphones are pretty well under represented.

And that is why Geeks have a bad reputation with regard to tech. For every one of you that wants everything you said, there are 1,000 people who just want a phone to work right, not have to mess with it, and easy to use.

And you can have your phone if you want to root one. And from your requirements you listed, you should be able to root just about any Android phone and put Linux on it, just like you want. And since you want it and can have it, you should have googled it and got this link ... showing Ubuntu running on Android Phone.

http://phandroid.com/2010/07/08/ubuntu-running-on-nexus-one-video/

So, quit you bitching and do it. Oh it is too expensive, and too hard and too much bother? Then you don't really want it, you're just whining to whine.