FCC taking a look a Verizon’s $2 “convenience fee”

The FCC, who has been busy dealing with plenty of cellphone carriers business as of late is now apparently looking into another pressing matter. Verizon’s recently announced $2 convenience fee has caught the FCC’s attention and they are now looking into the new plan and hopefully will report back.

According to Reuters the telecommunications regulators at the FCC are looking into a fee for such conveniences and this is what they had to say:

“On behalf of American consumers, we’re concerned about Verizon’s actions and are looking into the matter”

Basically not a lot, but enough to make us report the news and wonder if we’ll see anything become of it. I know many friends and readers alike weren’t happy with the news that Verizon would start charging us for a simple task such as paying your bill online — so we’ll see.

This new fee for Verizon Wireless customers is set to take effect on January 15th 2012 so we’ll have to wait and see if anything comes from this FCC report. We wont be seeing much but hopefully they can change Big Red’s mind. Other carriers have been charging for similar things for years so the chance this gets dropped is doubtful — but it’s really anyone’s guess at this point.

LTE Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 receives update, brings TouchWiz and other fixes with it

If you have been patiently waiting for your Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 LTE model to receive theTouchWiz update you will be pleased to know the update is now rolling out. The update brings a mini apps tray, a quick panel for easy access to things like screen brightness, wifi, auto rotation and more. In addition to adding TouchWiz to the device they have also enhanced the wifi connectivity, fixed issues with emails not marking themselves as read, added a photo editor, memo application and much more. For full details be sure to hit the source, and if you take the upgrade be sure to let us know in the forums how it works out for you!

Richard's most-used Android apps of 2011

Over the course of the last 12 months, I've lost count of the sheer amount of applications that I've downloaded, tried, deleted, and in some cases tried again. When all is said and done though, there's a select group of apps which I use a whole lot more than others to the point that they've become part of everyday life. Here's a little list of what's been getting me through the week.

1. Pocket Casts

This is without a doubt one of the most used applications I have ever downloaded. Literally every morning begins by opening Pocket Casts, refreshing and downloading the latest podcasts to listen to on my long and endless car journeys around the UK in search of a paycheck. I used to be a Google Listen fan like so many of our readers, but Pocket Casts was good enough to tear me away and not look back. The UI is a lot nicer than Google Listen, and recently got an update to make it look just that bit sweeter on my new Galaxy Nexus. It has never crashed on me, but the most important thing of all is it's listings. I can't remember the last time I had to enter a URL for a podcast feed, whereas Google Listen this became far too frequent. And of course the icing on the cake, the worlds greatest Android podcast is in there ready to roll. 

2. Google Reader

Many would argue that there are better RSS readers out there, and said many may well be correct. But again, daily life consists of a lot of checking Google Reader throughout the day wherever I may be, which is never in front of a computer. It does what it needs to which is the most important thing, and it looks real nice in its ICS style. 

3. Wind Up Knight

We love Wind Up Knight here at Android Central, that's no secret. But there's not one game I've enjoyed playing more, and more to the point not one game I've wanted to complete more than this. It's so simple in execution, looks absolutely amazing and is most importantly great fun to play. Some may not favour its in-app purchasing model, but just for the record; I spent about $3 completing the game. 

4. Spotify

In the UK we've been using Spotify for some time now, and it still doesn't have much competition over here. Coupled with an unlimited data plan, there is almost no need to carry music on the actual phone anymore. Spotifys catalogue is so vast that anytime, anywhere, I can listen to pretty much anything that takes my fancy. 

5. HDR Camera+

I was so impressed with the effects produced by this app, that it actually became for a long time a total replacement for the stock camera app. My phone is always my go to camera if i need a quick snap, but I often feel like the images lack depth and vibrancy. It's not perfect but this app has accounted for about 75% of all the photos taken on my phone this year. 

6. Alf for LOVEFiLM (UK only)

Amazon owned LOVEFiLM is pretty much unique in the UK, offering both a streaming and postal rental subscription service for DVD's, Bluray's and games. As with a lot of my day to day online operations I basically rely upon my phone 100% for managing this. Alf is the solution to this. The official LOVEFiLM app isn't a patch on this. 

7. Swiftkey X

Without question my personal favourite keyboard. I've tried others, and there are indeed many excellent ones to choose from. But I always go back to Swiftkey X. It's predictions are first rate and apparently I'm 30% more efficient from using it. For me that's a whole lot more efficient.

8. Google Maps

I drive approximately 40,000 miles every year, up and down the length and breadth of the United Kingdom in my dayjob. I used to use a £250 TomTom Navigator to get me about, but that has been pretty much completely replaced by Google Maps Navigation. It has it's flaws I agree, how I long for offline maps. But it's always there when I need it, and its route planning is as good if not better at times than the TomTom ever was. 

9. TuneIn Radio Pro

The biggest reason for going for the pro version of TuneIn Radio, was for the recording capability. There are some radio shows which I really love listening to, but don't usually have the time to listen live. This lets me set it going in the background, and record to listen to at my leisure. The catalogue is superb, the UI is really nice and above all, it lets me tune into a quality radio station that kept me sane in the desert of Arizona! 

10. Alphascope (Socialscope)

First things first, this isn't available in the Market. For anyone not familiar, Socialscope is a social networking application that is currently in private beta that requires an invitation to join. Thanks to one of the exceptionally good people over at the Crackberry Forums I managed to snag myself an invite and their current Android offering has quickly become my go to Twitter and Facebook client. While there are naturally bugs and bits and pieces that don't work quite as well as they should yet, what there is at present suits me better than Tweetdeck of which I was a long time user. Keep your eyes out for this one, and if you can snag an invite from someone give it a whirl. When it's finished it could well become a big player.

And there we have it. The improvement in the offering in the Android Market during 2011 has been quite remarkable. Long may it continue in 2012. 

Ice Cream Sandwich ROMs for the Nexus S 4G [from the forums]

   

Google may not have officially pumped out Ice Cream Sandwich for the Nexus S 4G yet, but that won't stop you from having it.  We've got two custom ROMs in the forums that are dripping with ICS goodness.  If you're a fan of the stock Android experience, you can get a fully working AOSP 4.0.3 ROM for your 4G, with just enough changes from standard to make everything work well from Beezy.  It's like having a smaller Galaxy Nexus in your pocket, with face lock, beam, and everything else you've seen in videos and reviews.

If you want something a little different, fergie716 has ported over the latest ICS MIUI ROM to the Sprint Nexus, with everything good to go except for Wimax (which you'll never see working on MIUI).  It's also Android 4.0.3 under all the candy, and offers a very different experience that everyone should try for themselves at least once.  It's subtle, beautiful, and a nice change of pace.

Of course, nobody here will blame you if you just want to wait for Google to get the official 4.0.3 build pushed to you.  But if you like to tinker around, there's no need to wait.  Check 'em out

Verizon Wireless axes $2 convenience fee — that was fast

’ve tried not to use this word too many times but for this one we can say #winning. This is a score for all of us — the good guys. After Verizon announced they’d start charging a ridiculous $2.00 fee as a “convenience fee” for customers paying their bill online and a few various other methods there was a huge backlash and plenty of bad PR that surrounded it. It appears that Verizon has listened because today they’ve already axed that plan.

Verizon announced this new and super lame fee earlier this week and even this morning we reported the FCC was taking a look at said fee’s. Between the backlash from customers and blogs, to the FCC comments its safe to say they got a little scared because today have released this statement:

“At Verizon, we take great care to listen to our customers. Based on their input, we believe the best path forward is to encourage customers to take advantage of the best and most efficient options, eliminating the need to institute the fee at this time,” said Dan Mead, president and chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless.

While I’ve seen countless tweets and G+ comments of users saying they’ll leave Verizon over the fee — I felt that was a bit extreme. Now we don’t need to worry about it because just a few short days after the idea it is now officially dead in the water. As of now we’ll all be $2 dollars richer for all of 2012 — spend it wisely guys.

Verizon axes $2 convenience fee upon possible FCC probe

Verizon recently confirmed that it plans to charge its wireless customers a $2 convenience fee for certain methods of credit card payments, news that sparked immediate criticism from consumers. It has even caught the attention of the FCC, which now intends to take a closer look into Verizon’s actions. And that was enough for Verizon to retreat on the plan altogether.


In a statement issued today and published by the NY Times, the FCC expressed concern over the matter and said it will be looking into the proposed $2 convenience fee that Verizon has scheduled to take effect starting January 15.
“On behalf of American consumers, we’re concerned about Verizon’s actions and are looking into the matter,” said the FCC in the statement.
The $2 fee would be applied to any one-time credit card payments made online or via telephone. The fee can be avoided if payments were made by electronic checks or auto-pay plans. Gift cards, in-store, and mail-in payments would also be exempt.
Fortunately, following the FCC statement, Verizon has quickly axed its plans to institute the new convenience fee. The carrier attributed the change of mind to customer feedback.

“At Verizon, we take great care to listen to our customers. Based on their input, we believe the best path forward is to encourage customers to take advantage of the best and most efficient options, eliminating the need to institute the fee at this time,” said Dan Mead, president and chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless.

Samsung smartphones leading in India

Though the popularity of Nokia is declining, it has played a key role in introducing the Indian terrain to mobile phones. The Finnish player has now been taken over by Samsung in India. According to TOI, in November the volume market share and value share were 38 percent and 35.2 percent for Samsung as per GfK research firm. It is for the first time that it has exceeded these figures to overtake Nokia.

Sneaky Samsung

Samsung Mobile and IT country head, Ranjit Yadav said, "At Samsung, we believe in offering our consumers innovative smart mobile devices across different operating systems and different price points, and giving them more choice. This has helped Samsung emerge as the preferred brand in the smartphone market in India."

Samsung witnessed the highest share in October in value, while Nokia was leading in terms of volume. In India, we saw a surge in the market as the month of November contributed 6 percent of the overall phones of the year. Reportedly, CyberMedia Research claims that smartphone shipments reached 7.9 million units from January to September in 2011. It also says that Samsung appears as the market leader with larger value share in September. Nokia has been striving to bounce back and this year we saw it put forth the Lumia range.

Verizon’s Samsung Galaxy Tab getting a major update, including TouchWiz UX

If you own a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 LTE on Verizon, you are now been treated to an OTA that brings the controversial TouchWiz UX to the Tab. The update, version  I905, brings a bunch of new features, mostly from TW, support for Bluetooth 3.0, DivX, security patches and much more. After you update, there's no way to go back t stock Honeycomb if you don't like TW UX without rooting.

 

So if you haven't gotten the update yet, check for update in settings, make sure you are connected to Wi-Fi to download the 351MB file so you don't use all your bandwidth.

 

Here's the full list of changes:

• Device features, Improvements & fixes
  • Fixed issue that caused email to stay bold (reflecting an unread email) even though the user has read the email.
  • Google Security Patches have been applied.
  • TouchWiz user interface has been updated.
  • Wi-Fi Enhanced Connectivity
  • DivX
  • BT 3.0 support has been added
  • Additional support has been added for more wireless Wi-Fi routers.
• Applications & Widgets
  • The following apps and widgets have been added:
    • AllShare
    • Memo, Penmemo
    • Photo Editor
    • My Files
    • SocialHub
    • WorldClock
  • The following apps and widgets have been enhanced
    • Music Player(TouchWiz)
    • Video Player(TouchWiz)
• Email & Messaging
  • Enterprise ActiveSync supports additional security policies.
• Enterprise application support
  • Built-in support for industry standard VPN clients like Cisco AnyConnect.
  • Strong encryption for data in transmission, hardware Encryption and remote wipe capability.
  • EnhancedMobileDeviceManagement (MDM) through partnerships with Sybase and Afaria clients.

Samsung shipped a million units of the Galaxy Note, hints at a U.S. release ‘next year

When Samsung announced the Samsung Galaxy Note, it received a lot of bad press, with people saying it wont sell, but turns out Samsung knows what they are doing after all. There is a market for people who want a 5-inch plus phone, and to prove that that announced that they have shipped one million units globally to date, and that's not even counting the US. According to Samsung, it's making most of it's movement in France, Germany, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and will be available here in the US "next year."

 

Samsung’s flagship smart device Galaxy Note has reached 1 million global shipping.

 

Samsung Electronics said on the 29th that it has shipped more than 1 million units of Galaxy Note globally. The worldwide sales of Galaxy Note are also on the rise in Europe and Asia including France, Germany, Hongkong and Taiwan. The rapid global sales of Galaxy Note are notable since it is creating a new market for something between smartphone and tablet pc. The speed of the global sales is expected to accelerate further next year when it will be available in the US.   Recently, Financial Times reviewed highly of Galaxy Note, commenting it as“a happy medium for consumers who want to carry just one device, rather than both a smartphone and a tablet and whatever other portable gadget they pick up on their way out”.   A Samsung official also said “1 million global shipping of Galaxy Note means it has well positioned itself as a market creator,” also adding “Samsung will continuously strengthen its leadership in the global smartphone market as well as create new markets with innovative devices.”

GTA III modifications appearing in Android version

The anniversary edition of Grand Theft Auto III is quite simply magnificent. It truly is a mark of how far technology has advanced in the last ten years. And in true Android fashion, GTA III can be customised with just a tiny little bit of work.

It turns out that modifying the Android version of the game is in fact as simple as modifying the PC version. By adding files to the directory on the SD card. As an added bonus, it turns out the PC and Android versions of the game are so similar, that many PC modifications actually work on the Android version so you can soup up your cars and add custom textures to your heart's content. 

Hit the source link for more information if you fancy a go, and check out one happy modifiers video after the break.

Deal of the Day: Seidio Innocell 3200mAh Extended Battery for AT&T Galaxy S II

The Dec. 30 ShopAndroid.com Deal of the Day is the Seidio Innocell 3200mAh Extended Battery for the AT&T Galaxy S II. It effectively doubles the amount of juice in your Galaxy S II, includes a replacement battery door with Seidio's signature soft-touch coating and keepse things as slim as possible. And it's available today only for just $49.95. Get yours while supplies last!

Samsung says Galaxy Note is coming to America soon

Samsung’s plus-sized Galaxy Note smartphone has proven to be a surprise hit, as the company announced today that they’ve shipped a whopping 1 million units worldwide. For an expensive and ostensibly niche phone, that’s a gigantic figure, especially considering that it’s only available in Europe, South Korea and a few other markets. US fans still have to import a Galaxy Note if they want to try out the 5.3-inch monster for themselves, but that may change soon enough: the company noted in its congratulatory announcement that it will be coming to the US in 2012.

Previously we’d only seen the barest hints that the Galaxy Note was headed stateside, in the form of a pair of FCC filings with AT&T bands. That’s indicative but not definitive - we’ve seen plenty of devices go through the FCC without ever getting a US release, particularly with AT&T’s internationally compatible radios. But if Samsung thinks the Note is coming to America, we won’t argue, and with consumers’ desire for bigger and bigger screens it could be a veritable hit.

For the uninitiated, the Galaxy Note represents the middle ground between Samsung’s high-end smartphones and tablets. The star of the show is a 5.3-inch 1280×800 screen using Samsung’s much-loved Super AMOLED display technology, with the added benefit of a Wacom digitizer and stylus. The specs are no slouch, either, with a dual-core 1.4Ghz processor and a full gigabyte of RAM underneath. Reviews from overseas have been overwhelmingly positive, despite the large size, and Korea is currently enjoying an LTE variant. We’ll be keeping a very close watch on the Galaxy Note, anxiously awaiting its US debut. A Note to Samsung: shipping it with Ice Cream Sandwich would be a great way to justify the wait.

Verizon Samsung Galaxy Nexus Software Tour

Since we've already shown you most of what's new in the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android that ships with the GSM version of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, this video is going to show you a couple things that Verizon has added and then we'll go through some of the things that I personally really like, as well as a few things that might be confusing or frustrating for some people.

I really like the on-screen back, home, and recent tasks buttons that have replaced Android's usual hardware navigation buttons. It's reminiscent of the old Windows Mobile which was completely usable using only the touch screen. Unfortunately, Google didn't put a whole lot of thought into this new user interface design since there are still instances where the navigation buttons just don't do anything. Then there's the menu button. Many of the bundled apps now include a vertical ellipses icon that represents the menu. Sometimes this menu button appears in the lower right corner next to the recent applications button, and I think that's a great place for it. However, many times the menu button will relocate to completely different and inconsistent locations depending on which app you're in (leaving the lower right corner spot empty). This oversight makes Android Ice Cream Sandwich feel like there's no cohesive design plan for the user interface.

I didn't have much luck with 3rd party apps either. The main one that I would want to use on a smartphone is the Facebook app, and Google has decided to block the Facebook app from integrating with thecontacts app. There isn't even any message explaining this to the user. It just doesn't work. Then there's the issue where if I would forget to manually quit Facebook, the phone's battery will die in about 4 hours. There wasn't any warning about this rapid battery eating either, so if you've got a Galaxy Nexus, be sure to keep a frequent eye on the task manager and battery usage graphs.

Samsung Galaxy Note Headed To The US Early Next Year

Yesterday we heard that Samsung had shipped over one million Galaxy Note handsets, and one thing we missed in the announcement was that Samsung has now officially confirmed that the Galaxy Note is headed to the US in 2012.

We have previously heard a rumor that the Galaxy Note would launch with US mobile carrier AT&T in January, this has still yet to be confirmed by AT&T, although now it looks like a possible date considering the recent Samsung announcement.

Samsung hasn’t given an exact release date as yet but we suspect the Galaxy Note will be available in the US sometime in January 2012.

Samsung Galaxy S III/3D Might Feature Quad Core Processor

The first two Galaxy flagships – the Galaxy S and the Galaxy S II have had great success and Samsungare doing their best to make sure the next generation Galaxy flagship will grab everyone’s attention as well.

The  original Galaxy S was a great device but it wasn’t perfect. The Galaxy S II on the other hand is still one of the best phones on the market and most phones that are put against it end up performing worse in comparison.

With the Galaxy S III, they’re looking to provide customers with the best of technology and rumors indicate that Samsung might put a quad core processor in the device. We’ve heard several rumors in the past. Some indicate that the phone will feature a 1.8GHz Dual Core processor while others suggest a Quad Core processor (Clock Speed 1.2 – 1.5GHz ?). We think that there’s more chance of it being the latter. Samsung have been making the impossible in the past few years and next year might be no exception. But if they’re unable to perfect it, they might play it safe and fit a dual core processor with faster clock speed.

As for the naming, there’s a possibility that it would be called the Galaxy S 3D since Samsung have been studying the 3D technology for a while and trying to find the best way to integrate it into the product. The other rumored specification are:

• Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0
• 4.65″ HD Super AMOLED Display with 1280×720 Pixels Resolution
• 1.5GB – 2 GB RAM

We can most definitely expect to see the device launched at MWC (Mobile World Congress) in Barcelona from 27th February – 1st March. Let’s hope that Samsung does indeed give us a quad core device

Samsung Galaxy S to get a Value pack update instead of ICS

Despite Samsung's recent announcementthat it is to reconsider its decision about the Galaxy S ICS update, it appears that the former flagship won't get an official taste of the latest Android ROM.

According to the latest rumor theSamsung I9000 Galaxy S will get a Value pack update, instead of the real Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The value pack update is said to improve the user experience by bringing some of the ICS features to the Gingerbread ROM. Better web browsing, multi-tasking and new widgets were explicitly mentioned, but there's no saying if other apps will be updated as well.

Samsung did a similar thing with their low-end Bada phones, Wave525 and Wave533, which were deemed unable to run Bada 2.0 and were promised a Value pack update instead.

Obviously, Samsung decided that the I9000 Galaxy S hardware would be unable to provide satisfactory user experience with Android 4.0 ICS and TouchWiz on top. Now that might as well be true, but the Galaxy S is fully capable of running the stock ICS, as proved by the guys over at XDA.

So maybe it would have been best if Samsung released an optional ICS update without the TouchWiz launcher and let people decide which one they prefer, but unfortunately that didn't happen. Of course, you can still have that, but you will have to go the dark ways of manual flashing and voiding your warranty in the process

Samsung aims to ship 374M phones in 2012, to rival Nokia

Samsung had an excellent year in term of phone sales in 2011, and it hopes to replicate its success in 2012. According to Korea Economic Daily the company expects to see a growth in total sales by as much as 15%.

This means that the Koreans hope to sell about 374 million phones (including 150 million smartphones) next year, which should be enough to almost equal Nokia as the top cell phone manufacturer. The Finns are expected to ship about 399 million phones next year, so the gap between those two is as minimal as it gets.

Just two years ago Nokia had almost twice the market share of Samsung (36.4% vs 19.5%), so the Koreans are really making significant progress towards their goal of becoming the world's number one manufacturer.

And we also shouldn't forget that Nokia failed to meet its sales target in 2011, whereas Samsung exceeded it, so we might see a reversal of roles even sooner than expected. Then again, 2011 was a transitional year for Nokia and things should be much different now that it has finally started selling its first WP smartphones.

Is this the Samsung I9500 Galaxy S 3 first camera sample?

The first three months of the next year should see the official announcements of plenty of new smartphones, but few of them are more hotly anticipated than the Samsung Galaxy S3. And what you see here might be the first image captured with the upcoming Android flagship.

Admittedly, the evidence that points to this conclusion isn't rock-solid. It's all based on the EXIF of the photo, which says that it's captured with the Samsung I9500 and that's a model number higher than that of both the Galaxy S II (I9100) and the Galaxy Nexus (I9250). And since the only smartphone worthy of such position is the expected Galaxy S II successor, logic suggests that we are looking at a Galaxy S 3 photo sample.

Plus the EXIF shows coordinates that belong to one of the Samsung centers in Korea.

The first thing to note here is that the image has 5MP resolution and we can't see Samsung releasing the Galaxy S 3 with a 5MP camera, given that the Galaxy S II already has an 8MP snapper. Also, the EXIF data is relatively easy to fake, but we guess if someone was to try and fool us he would write in more believable information across all the fields (notice the 50s exposure time?).