Android Authority On Air - Episode 27 - IFA 2012 Recap

If you don’t know what IFA 2012 is, that’s ok. All you need to know is that it’s similar to CES…but in Berlin. It’s an extremely large electronics show. And, like any electronics show in this day and age, it’s littered with tons of mobile devices and gadgets. Of course we had to be there, check out our hands on devices reviews  from IFA 2012. Naturally, this week on the show we talked about a few popular ones such as the Samsung Galaxy Note II, the Samsung Galaxy Camera, the Archos GamePad (it runs Android) and a few others.

This week had a ton of major app updates. We saw an extremely nice update to the Google Play Store with personalized recommendations. That’s right, you’ll now get recommendations from your friends as well as similar users and items popular in your area. Google also updated Google Now, the information automation service that comes with Jelly Bean. Google Now users will receive public service announcements, movie showtimes and you can now manually add your favorite sports teams (as long as your favorite team is not a college team). HBO Go now supports Jelly Bean and PayPal got a major UI overhaul. If you want to send text messages from your Android tablet, have we got an app for you! And last, but not least, the much anticipated 3D Android game that was demoed at Google IO 2012, Horn, finally launched this past week. And man, does it rock!

We ran around the rumor mill a few times this week with an upcoming device from Motorola. All we know thus far is that they’re bringing it to the edge. Does that mean a device with zero bezel? Or is that the name of the upcoming #motoedge device, the Motorola Edge? I guess we’ll find out on September 18th. We didn’t stop the rumor mill there though. We hammered away at the 3G variant of the Nexus 7. Will this device launch in 6 weeks? Will it ship for just a few bucks more than the WiFi only Nexus 7? Will it come with HSPA+ only? Your guess is as good as ours. Finally, the Kindle Fire 2. Rumor has it that Amazon will launch an ad-supported version of the Kindle Fire, making it the cheapest 7″ tablet to date.

Samsung plans to unleash the legal beast against Apple if they launch an LTE equipped iPhone 5 in a few days. Sammy owns roughly 10% of all LTE patents. Apple has repeatedly argued that these Samsung patents should be made industry standards due to their broad, sweeping nature…where have we heard that before. Hey kettle, how ya doin? And finally, there’s a rumor going around that Tim Cook and Larry Page are going to meet to discuss patents. Only time shall tell.

The Give Away

We’re giving away a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 (International) here in the near future. If you’re interested and want another chance to win, during the show we give away a super secret entry code. Once you get the code, just head on over to the contest page and enter your code into the Rafflecopter.

Miss the show? Tune in or watch below:

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7orrDq6ainJGqwam70aKrsmaTpLpwrc2dqaihlGKutsDHqKmirKlivK95wKKpZp2gnsCwsMRmaXBlmZuubn6PamlmqpWYrrF5kGppamtjZA%3D%3D