We do know that HTC’s new handset flow will begin to wane in 2012 in favor of better quality devices but we don’t know if that also translates to a greater focus on updating the massive amount of different handsets it released last year. At the moment, everything is just talk but we’re more than happy to hear HTC filling in its customers.

HTC has been working hard to get its Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades ready, and we’re excited to announce that our first round of ICS upgrades will roll out by the end of March for the HTC Sensation, HTC Sensation 4G and HTC Sensation XE, followed soon there after by the HTC Sensation XL.

In addition, we can confirm Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades will be coming later this year to the HTC Rezound, HTC Vivid, HTC Amaze 4G, HTC EVO 3D, HTC EVO Design 4G, HTC Incredible S, HTC Desire S and HTC Desire HD. Stay tuned for more updates on Ice Cream Sandwich releases in the coming weeks.

If you’re rocking a Sensation, which includes the 4G, XE, or XL, you can expect to get your handset updated within or around a month’s time. All other handsets will likely be waiting for a while. It doesn’t come as a surprise that HTC’s 2011 flagship handset line will be getting updated the quickest but most of the remaining handsets to be updated are more than capable of handling the next version of Android and Sense. It remains to be seen as far as the Incredible S, Desire S, and Desire HD are concerned. Hopefully there is enough space without stripping too much out.

HTC is the latest among a decent list of manufacturers who have already announced its upgrade schedule for Ice Cream Sandwich this year. Now, it’s time to wait and see which company does or doesn’t make good on their promises.

[Via: Droid-Life, Facebook]

The recovery is still in beta form but it works quite well, so just keep that in mind. The normal navigation method (volume keys and power button) still work as they should, so you don’t have to use the touchscreen.

*You’ll need to have the correct drivers (ADB and Fastboot) installed to perform this*

• Download the appropriate recovery: Galaxy Nexus — Nexus S (GSM)
• Place the downloaded file in the folder your ADB and Fastboot files are (example: C:\SDK)
• Open command prompt and navigate to the folder the recovery image is found. (example: cd c:\SDK)
• Type: ADB reboot bootloader to enter Fastboot.
• For Galaxy Nexus, type: fastboot flash recovery touch-tuna.img
• For Nexus S, type: fastboot flash recovery touch-crespo.img
• After a successful flash, type: fastboot reboot
• You’re done!

[Via: ClockworkMod]

The Tapjoy Android Fund includes such hits as MachineWorks Northwest’s 3D Hunting: Alaskan Hunt, with more than 1 million total users, and Duke Nukem, which reached the top of the charts for Arcade & Action games; Craneballs Studios’ Overkill, with more than 900,000 users; Making Fun, Inc.’s Santa’s Village, which has 680,000 users; and many more.

Some other developers in the fund include CerebralFix, Sneaky Games, SkyVu, Bushi-Go, Galatea, Candella Software, Liv Games, Mention Mobile, Veraxon, Digital Harmony, PixoFactor, and Stark Apps. More apps will be launching in the coming weeks and months.

If you recall, the Tapjoy Android Fund offers monetary and discovery support to game developers looking to port existing apps to the Android platform. Developers selected to the program receive large-scale distribution through Tapjoy’s performance-based advertising network, as well as the ability to leverage Tapjoy’s virtual currency monetization engine.

If you don’t know what card.io is all about, you should know that it allows consumers to take a picture of their credit card to process payments, without any extra hardware. Since its iOS platform launch in June over 80 apps have integrated the card.io SDK, with more than 750 new developers signed-up.

Among the apps that already use card.io’s service are Venmo, a social payments platform, Merchant Billing, a billing, payments and processing company; and Qthru, a retail application that is geared toward improving the way people shop.

Finally in case you wonder, the company is founded by two former AdMob employees, Mike Mettler and Josh Bleecher Snyder; and backed by angel investors Michael Dearing of Harrison Metal, Jeff Clavier and Charles Hudson of SoftTech VC, Manu Kumar of K9 Ventures, Alok Bhanot (former VP, Risk Technology at PayPal), and Omar Hamoui (CEO and founder of AdMob).

card.io payments (FREE) [Android Market link] [iTunes link]

The main idea behind Gimmie is to turn brand promotions into in-game incentives without distracting game players with ads that force them to leave a game altogether.

Through regular/sustained app use, players earn Gimmie points, which they can save and redeem for free and/or discounted real world products. In other words, Gimmie doesn’t force ads on users — rather it motivates them to take desired actions, such as buying virtual goods, signing up for newsletters or advancing to higher levels.

Developers get to keep the control and are able to implement Gimmie’s in-app incentives program in just minutes. On the other hand, brand partners can target those mobile app users they wish to reach with multiple options for coupons and free products, and to amplify this consumer engagement over Facebook and other social media channels.

I like the idea of unobtrusive ads though I still have to see Gimmie in action to have a real opinion. In the meantime, we have a short, 1-minute video to show you, briefly describing the Gimmie platform…

In a nutshell, here is what all three updates bring to the table:

Google Maps:

• Google Maps Navigation (Beta) will enter ‘night mode’ when going through tunnels

Google Listen:

• Fixes an issue in which Listen while in the background would improperly take audio focus from other apps.

Google Goggles:

• Don’t store inaccurate locations for queries in search history.
• Show the description field for user-submitted results.
• Don’t crash when loading large bitmaps.

As you can see, most of everything added within the updates are rather incremental but that’s not to say they aren’t helpful. The new Google Maps feature that will adjust to Night Mode once you enter a tunnel is a very thoughtful addition on Google’s part, and Listen’s audio focus bug fix will surely help many who use it. As for Google Goggles, the application is pretty solid on its own, so any update is a good thing. The same goes for Google Maps. If Google were to Ice Cream-ify the Listen app a bit, I’d probably use it a bit.

I’m still waiting for Google to update its own Finance application, as it’s miles behind some applications the Android Market offers.

So there’s you triple play of the day. Hit the links below to update!

Google Maps  Google Goggles  Google Listen

[Via: PocketNow]

Things that DO NOT WORK:

• Hardware Video (OMX). As a result, Netflix does not work, YouTube works only in non-HD videos.
• Audio is a mess. The microphone does not work. Work on the current libaudio solution has halted because we will eventually switch to a CAF libaudio.
• Camera does not work. The only libcamera.so that we have is from froyo and its closed source. There is a wrapper for QCOM gingerbread libcamera libraries that could likely be used as a basis to get our camera working.
• Market filters prevent some apps from being installed (this can partly solved by switching back to standard DPI settings(120, 160, 240). The current build is using 160 which fixes the market but makes everything look ugly and low resolution.
• Titanium Backup crashes the kernel. There’s an investigation in progress…There are reports that older versions do work.
• Most of the hardware problems from CM7 still exist in this CM9 alpha build.

The aftermarket firmware makers have been on a roll as of late, recently announcing an impressive milestone of 1 million installs (combining both official and unofficial). That said, don’t get super excited because this is after all an alpha build, which means lots and lots of bugs.

[RootzWiki via Android Central]

Touted as 2.5X faster than desktop jQuery and much smaller to download (only 3K vs. 36K), JQ.Mobi is made with particular focus on delivering an “identically high quality user experience” to both iOS and Android devices.

Included with jQ.Mobi are a query selector engine, a user interface (UI) library, and a collection of plugins. When compared to other JavaScript mobile frameworks like jQuery Mobile and Sencha Touch, jQ.Mobi is both smaller and faster.

jQ.Mobi is offered free of charge as an open source asset under the MIT X11 license, though at the moment it’s in private beta. appMobi, which sponsors the framework, encourages interested developers to stay up to date with jQ.Mobi development by joining the email list at jqmobi.com…

The problem, however, may turn to be communication between a tablet (or smartphone) and receipt printer. No more, at least for retailers who use select Epson thermal and multifunction receipt printers. The company released iOS and Android SDKs, allowing for receipt printing from mobile apps. The new SDKs are touted to “provide developers with fast, convenient, and cost-effective tools to connect iOS and Android devices to networked POS printers, enabling wireless printing throughout the store from a wide range of input devices.”

As a result, sales personnel not only will be able to help you select the right product for you, but also to complete the buying process from their iPad or any Android tablet, printing out a receipt after the successful purchase.

We’ll see which retailers will be first to take advantage of this capability and in the meantime developers can grab Epson’s SDKs from here…

The CM team has been developing an alpha 1 and 2 build of its wildly popular CM7 platform, but with CM9 right around the corner it not only expedites the process but should make things a lot better on functionality. According to CyanogenMod ”everything except the camera and video playback works and they’re ‘well on their way in terms of progress, and hope to give you something to play with soon.”

The aftermarket firmware makers have been on a roll as of late, recently announcing an impressive milestone of 1 million installs (combining both official and unofficial). These guys are really great at finding ways to innovate and bring new features to stock Android. CM not only revives older devices left in the cold, but frees them from their shackles placed on them by the overlord — manufacturers/carriers. This is clearly the case with their ongoing work with porting Android into the TouchPad.

Checkout the embedded video below of CM9 running on the HP TouchPad:

[via ZDNet]

This is how the numbers shake out. The most flashed version of CyanogenMod is CM 7.1 (Gingerbread), with over 235,000 unique installs across various devices. When it comes to the top five devices (most installs), the HTC Desire comes in number one, with over 80,000 installs. Second, is the ruggedized Motorola Defy with more than 55,000 installs. Finishing off the top five spots is the Motorola CLIQ, HTC EVO, and ZTE Blade.

I remember when I started getting into rooting (unlocking) and uploading custom ROMs on to my phones. It started when I purchased the Nexus One almost 2 years ago, then it carried on with a few more devices, including the Samsung Vibrant and HTC myTouch 4G. Thanks to the awesome work from developers associated with CyanogenMod and others, it’s because of them we don’t have to be prisoners of our own handsets, as these guys routinely turn limited to limitless.

[via Droid-Life]