Handset Hackers Getting Google’s Music Syncing Service For Android To Work A Bit Early

Sometimes you just gotta do things because you can, you know? It’s the sign of being a true gadget geek. Lets say you stumble across the Music application that comes built into the Motorola Xoom and other Honeycomb Android tablets — you’ve just gotta install that on an Android phone to see what happens, right?

Turns out, it does some pretty cool stuff. XDA-Dev member WhiteWidows found an APK for Honeycomb’s Music app, Frankensteined it onto his rooted phone in place of the default app, and then popped into the settings menu. In there, he found a new option: Sync Music.

He tapped the box, and let it do its thing overnight. Morning came, and sure enough: all of his tunes had been synced to some mysterious server in the cloud, and could be played back without issue. Even with a brand new, fresh SD card in the slot, his tunes played back no problem.

Not bad for a service that hasn’t even been officially announced, right?

Who’s Xoom-ing Who? Trademark Lawsuit Hitting Motorola On Eve Of Tablet Debut

We’ve seen lots of build-up to the debut of Motorola’s Xoom tablet today, but—wouldn’t you know it—there’s always someone there to spoil the fun. Yesterday, the online payments company Xoom Corporation filed a case with the U.S. District Court for Northern California for trademark infringement against Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Mobility. It’s asking for a permanent injunction against the company, as well as a “temporary restraining order and/or preliminary injunction”. If successful, this could upset the launch of the first Android tablet that some people believe presents true competition to the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iPad.

The suit, filed by the firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, alleges that Motorola Mobility has exhibited “willful and intentional conduct” in using the name. It is seeking treble damages in the case (the actual amount doesn’t appear to be specified).

But the odds seem to be in favor of Motorola here: There have been several trademark cases for high-profile smartphone products in recent years, but we have yet to see a product change its name as a result. When Apple first launched its iPhone, Cisco (NSDQ: CSCO) piped up about having offered a VoIP product with the same name. That wassettled out of court, and the two agreed on co-usage again when Apple branded its mobile operating system iOS.

Google (NSDQ: GOOG), too, has fended off various accusations related to both Android and Nexus. The latest on Android was from Android Data and its founder Eric Specht, who was suing for nearly $100 million in damages over the use of the name. A judge threw that suit out last December.

As patent/trademark watcher Florian Mueller, who first brought this case to our attention, points out, the crux of the issue is whether the Xoom Corporation can demonstrate that there is a reasonable chance that someone might mistake Motorola’s tablet with the products of its own company. There is a possible opening there, if you consider what kinds of payment services Motorola might put in place for content and other goods/services purchased using the Xoom tablet.

However, the force of a trademark infringement claim gets a bit more diluted when you also consider that there is at least one other Xoom-named company in existence in the U.S.—an office supply outfit in Texas.

Yesterday, Motorola Solutions had a setback in another U.S. district court. It ruled in favor of plaintiffs Huawei in a case involving Huawei intellectual property present in Motorola’s networking business, which the company is trying to sell to Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Siemens Networks for $1.2 billion.

The Xoom Wrap: Reviewers Praise Software, Wince At Price, Waiting For iPad2

The Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Xoom today officially went on sale today at Verizon. The Android-based tablet has been called the first viable competitor to the iPad, but with a new Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) tablet expected to launch next week, does the Xoom pack enough of a punch to keep competition at bay? We take a look at what the gadget pundits are saying:

One of recurring positive are remarks on the the smooth, “3D” graphic elements in the interface: scrolling through music, YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG), or other native apps are smooth and multidimensional, with icons appearing as if they are coming out towards you (something that Verizon and Motorola have tried to play on in their recent advertisements and “Grab you” slogan). It’s interesting to note that the camera is on the wide side of the device, and many of the promotional pics are landscape, too—implying more horizontal rather than vertical use (somewhat of a differentiator from the iPad).

One common negative is the pricetag: $800 off-contract, or a still-high $600 with a two-year contract. The device will be supported on Verizon’s 4G network later this year, so that gives it another unique selling point against the iPad (at least for now).

Ever-present are two facts: this is the first big tablet to be released commercially using Honeycomb, the new Android OS optimized for tablets; and the iPad is coming out next week. Will this cause hesitation from buyers or early-mover advantage for Motorola and Verizon? “Until Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 and LG’s G-Slate reach shelves, the XOOM has the Honeycomb space all to itself. Still, neither Motorola nor Google can afford to rest on their respective laurels. The iPad 2 is expected to debut a mere week after the XOOM goes on sale, and considering the first-gen version is still the benchmark by which new tablets are measured, the second-gen model is only going to raise the table stakes,” writes Slashgear. More from them below.

—Battery life is “beyond excellent” but navigation is a “learning process”: “We did experience some slowdown when transferring files from our computer or jumping quickly between lots of apps, but we were blown away by the robustness and speed of applications like the browser and some of the included games. The general responsiveness of the UI and touch reaction was inline with the best the iPad exhibits…Battery life on the Xoom was excellent. Beyond excellent, actually—some of the best performance we’ve seen on a slate…Someone is steering the ship with far more resolve than ever before witnessed in this OS. From a purely visual standpoint, Android 3.0 comes together in a far more cohesive manner than any previous iteration of the software, and the changes aren’t just cosmetic… Unlike Apple and it’s single-minded iOS, however, Android is still filled with variables and choices which make general navigation a learning process, and even though Honeycomb has made huge inroads to making that process simpler, it’s not 100 percent there.” 

—Key strengths are how the tablet utilizes Google’s native apps; weaknesses are the lack of other apps: “For the past few days I’ve had a Motorola Xoom. I accepted a loaner because I wanted to prove that it would suck next to an iPad. One problem: I’m falling in love with it…The browser feels closer to Google Chrome than Safari does. It has one box for URLs and search, which I really love (the two box system Safari has feels lame in comparison) and it has tabs, just like my Chrome does on my desktop…Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Calendar apps are WAY better than the ones on iPad. As you might expect…Will I recommend my dad get one? No. Not this year. Why? No apps that have been specifically designed for the 10-inch tablet, which in my experience does demand new apps. Yes, Android phone apps “stretch” to bigger sizes a lot better than iPhone apps did when stretched up, but sorry we haven’t seen great apps like the History of Jazz, Aweditorium, NPR, BBC, Flipboard, Heritage, etc, like what you see on iPad.
The apps are ALL that matters for the market and Android does NOT have them yet.” (Robert Scoble)

—Big is beautiful? “The Motorola Xoom tablet is easily the best competition Apple’s iPad has ever seen…With a 10.1-inch screen, you’d think Xoom would feel larger than the 9.8-inch screen-wielding iPad, but it actually comes off as slightly smaller. As tablets go, the Xoom carries its weight in its hips, stretching its screen area out to a more wide-screen-worthy 1,280x800-pixel WXGA aspect ratio…The Xoom’s keyboard, in general, deserves a round of applause. With its ample size and well-spaced virtual keys, typing performance is excellent in both landscape and portrait orientations.” (Cnet)

—Half-baked. “In its haste to reach Verizon shelves, the XOOM could seem a little half-baked; it doesn’t get Flash Player support for another few weeks, and won’t have 4G until an update sometime in Q2. Still, as the iPad has shown, there are undoubtedly benefits to being first out of the gate… Stills from the 5-megapixel main camera are good, though not outstanding. The biggest surprise was how comfortable taking photos is on a tablet; while the 7-inch Galaxy Tab felt like a somewhat ridiculous, oversized smartphone, the 10.1-inch XOOM doesn’t feel awkward, and the large on-screen controls make it straightforward.”

Early Xoom News: powerful but too expensive, rushed

The very first, pre-release reviews for the Motorola Xoom (our hands-on) have surfaced and provided mostly positive looks but with significant flaws. The WSJ's Walt Mossberg, often a champion of Apple hardware, noted that Android 3.0 is much improved; it takes much of the "geeky feel" out of Google's OS, he said. He enjoyed the browser's Chrome-like interface, with tabs and private browsing, and the much improved notification system.

He singled out, however, important issues with battery life and ergonomics. Where Apple is often conservative with iPad battery claims and can exceed the 10-hour official figure for video, Motorola's claims to the same were optimistic. The Xoom could only muster 7.5 hours. He felt the Xoom also focused heavily on its landscape mode and was "unbalanced" when held vertically for a long time.

A CrunchGear look was more optimistic about battery life and gave it 18-20 hours of real use, although the test avoided video playback.

The same test, and most others, agreed that the Xoom's Tegra 2 was "lightning fast" and could easily beat the iPad even in areas where Android has usually fallen short, such as scrolling through a website; it can play 1080p video. Google hadn't properly restrained the OS, however, and led to the OS becoming unwieldy after a significant number of apps were active. Apple's selective multitasking was held up as an example since it kept the performance and stability in check.

"The horrors that Apple seems to have avoided in iOS are readily apparent here. I had quite a few app crashes and many apps designed for [Android] 2.x devices crashed," the site said.

Software was more of a double-edged sword for Engadget. It said the OS still had glaring issues, including an interface that required shifting attention too often to the top and bottom as well as a "UI overload" that had a tendency to overwhelm with too many or sometimes unclear UI elements. Movie Studio, an attempt to compete with iMovie, was slow and "obtuse." The OS nonetheless was cohesive, showing the "work of a single mind" like interface lead Matias Duarte. It was powerful and, unlike the iPad, felt more like it could be used independently.

"The Xoom feels much more like a real netbook or laptop replacement," it explained. "Being able to multitask in the manner Google has devised, having properly running background tasks, and real, unobtrusive notifications feels really, really good in the tablet form factor. Additionally, the fact that Google has included active widgets that plug right into things like Gmail makes monitoring and dealing with work (or play) much more fluid than on the iPad."

App variety was a serious problem. Where Apple launched with over 1,000 iPad-native apps, very few have been made available on the start and included iPad ports such as Pulse News Reader. Android 2.x apps were also mixed and sometimes worked poorly.

Cameras were seen as not being quite as valuable as hoped by most, owing both to the image quality for the front camera but also in the relative impracticality of taking photos and videos with a 10-inch tablet. Video chat was a help but needed Wi-Fi to work smoothly without the immediate presence of 4G. Video viewing, an intended strong point, had problems through a lack of codec support and the comparative certainty of the iPad.

Every review criticized the price. At $800 contract-free, the price was hard to take, and the contract $600 price obligated users to spend at least $480 more over two years. Verizon's decision to effectively force users to stay at least one month to unlock the Wi-Fi was also seen as deceptive and an "Achilles' heel" that could keep it back. Apple here had an advantage, especially as many would be fixated on the iPad's $499 Wi-Fi price, which didn't have an answer even with the upcoming $600 Wi-Fi version.

A consensus also emerged that rushing to adopt the Xoom wasn't necessarily wise. It "outclasses the iPad in many ways," Engadget wrote, but the site and peers still gave it modestly positive reviews, warning that it wasn't necessarily the best Android 3.0 tablet. The next iPad also loomed overhead and could lead some to regret buying too quickly.

"The Xoom and Honeycomb are a promising pair that should give the iPad its stiffest competition," Mossberg said. "But price will be an obstacle, and Apple isn’t standing still."

'Real' Motorola Xoom ad now has users trapped by the tablet

Verizon took a visibly different strategy than Motorola with its own Motorola Xoom ad. The promo drops the anti-Orwellian tones of the Super Bowl spot and instead suggests that being ensnared by technology is a positive. A passer-by grabbing a Xoom is promptly caught up by a pod that envelops him without warning.

"Grab it, and it grabs you," Verizon said about the ad.

The ad is more in the tone of Verizon's ads for phones like the Droid X, which also showed a cybernetic hijack, and has reinforced Verizon's emphasis on very aggressive, masculine ads to push its Android hardware. It also follows a pattern set during the original Droid phone commercials that briefly teased the coming of the device before showing the real product weeks later.

Both Motorola and Verizon are counting heavily on the Xoom launch as an important part of their strategy. The two depend heavily on each other for revenue and could see Motorola falter if its efforts making the Xoom aren't rewarded. Verizon is less dependent on the Xoom through its Galaxy Tab and iPad deals, but the high profile of the Xoom as its first Android 3.0 tablet has set expectations high.

The tablet is due to cost $800 when it ships February 24, but owners will have to pay for a month of 3G service before Verizon enables the Wi-Fi.

Adobe: Xoom, other tablets will get Flash 10.2 in 'a few weeks'

Adobe in an update tried to assuage fears surrounding the delay of Flash for the Motorola Xoom. It now expects the Xoom and other Android 3.0 tablets to get Flash 10.2 within "a few weeks" of the OS being available. Some will get it pre-installed, while the Xoom and others will have to wait for an over-the-air update, team member Matt Rozen said.

He also took an opportunity to repeat Adobe's confidence in mobile Flash and said it had raised its estimates for the year to where 132 million mobile devices would have native Flash installed. People were "clearly asking" for Flash on devices, Rozen argued.

The timing could lead to a short wait for Flash but would also leave many of the first reviewers running the Xoom without Flash, one of its most heavily advertised features. Adobe has drawn much attention to Flash on Android 3.0 since it will not only benefit from 10.2's hardware graphics acceleration but from the much faster stock tablet hardware, which will almost always revolve around dual-core Tegra 2 processors. Performance of 10.1 on early tablets has often been flawed both through 10.1's overdependence on the main processor and the weaker, single-core performance it has had to lean on. Flash on the Xoom should both be more seamless and also use less battery by offloading work to the more efficient graphics hardware.

Apple initially refused to use Flash on iOS for a number of technical reasons that often centered on performance and battery life. It's unclear if those arguments will have gone away, but the eventual addition of Flash to the Xoom may leave stability as the one remaining issue.

Verizon Xoom teaser ad is going to eat you up

Verizon's first Xoom ad is out leaving little doubt about how the company plans to market Motorola's new tablet. While the Honeycomb slab might lack the Droid branding, VZW looks set to maintain theovertly machismo tone that helped sell so many Android handsets over the last year while dismissing any of that cerebral nonsense preferred by Motorola. And really, who amongst us, man or woman, can resist the temptation of strapping on an $800 jetpack come thursday?

Mobile News: iPad 2 Next Month?; Xoom / Flash; Windows 8 Tablets

—iPad 2: Sightings and hints of Apple’s next-generation iPad have been cropping up here, there and everywhere in the past several weeks. Today we got one more indirect clue: stock of the current crop of devices is, apparently, running out. 9to5 Mac is taking this as a sign that a new iPad could be coming as soon as next month. In Europe, it notes, major reseller Carphone Warehouse has run out of 64 GB WiFi model, and all 3G models; while operators like T-Mobile and Orange have reduced the price on their 16 GB 3G/WiFi devices by half, to £99.99, for those taking them with two-year 3G contracts. Real shortages/stock shifting or supply issues and two operators keen to drive sales after a lacklustre start to their subsidised iPad push? We’ll only know for sure next month. In the meantime, real fans can already start picking out their favorite color of case (pictured).

—Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Xoom: On the back of the latest teaser ad for the Xoom, a 15-second “grab it and it grabs you” clip (embedded below) that continues the sci-fi, brave new world theme introduced in the Xoom effort for the Super Bowl, it now looks like the tablet, due to launch this Thursday and priced at $800, will not come with Flash support until this spring. Up to now, Android tablet makers have been touting Flash support as a key differentiator against the iPad. 

—Windows 8: Tablets running Windows 7 have never really taken off, with reports criticising their battery life and touch interface as inferior to those of the iPad and Android-based devices. Now there are reports that Windows 8 tablets, which will aim to fix these issues, might be out as early as the end of this year. A research note from Morgan Stanley says that a tablet running Windows 8 on an ARM-based chipset could be out by the end of 2011 or the beginning of 2012. Apparently Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has put 1,000 engineers to on the project to make sure it runs smoothly.

Motorola Xoom available Thursday, pre-ordering at Best Buy now

The Motorola Xoom Android 3.0 tablet can now be pre-ordered in-store at Best Buy for Thursday, February 24 release. Also listed alongside the $800 tablet are its accessories, which includes the Porfolio Case ($40), the Dock ($50), HD Speaker Dock ($130), and the Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard ($70). When it hits the market it will be the first bona fide challenge to the mobile OS tablet market created by Apple’s iPad, although the pricing of Wi-Fi plus 3G model has created controversy and may hurt its sales.

The tablet will be the first shipping tablet to feature Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), Google’s first attempt at a tablet-optimized mobile OS. This has enabled the device to have a much larger 10.1-inch than the erstwhile iPad challenger, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, which was limited to maximum screen size of 7-inches because it runs a non-tablet optimized version of Android. It will also have an at least temporary edge over the iPad in that it will be powered by a dual-core, ARM Cortex-A9 based NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor.

Other hardware potential advantages that the device will bring to the table for tablet users over the iPad are front and rear facing cameras, full multi-tasking and support for Adobe Flash Player for a full web browsing experience. However, users looking to purchase the 1.6-pound tablet and who plan to use its Wi-Fi function will need to pay for one-month data activation with Verizon before the Wi-Fi function will be enabled.

em>Electronista has had a hands-on with the device and found a lot to like, but also found that we had some misgivings about its responsiveness and weight.

Motorola pushing up Atrix 4G launch to Feb. 22, shoves Xoom pre-sales back to Feb. 20th?

The best laid plans of Motorola may be in disarray, as we hear the device manufacturer is shuffling release dates for its hottest new Android devices. Supposedly, AT&T customer service reps are getting the above message in their inbox, which suggests the modular Atrix 4G smartphone may arrive more than a week earlier than planned, while a Best Buy memo (image after the break) pegs Xoom tablet pre-sales for February 20th, three days after the date originally communicated. Still, we haven't heard anything to suggest that the Xoom won't be 100 percent ready for purchase on February 24th, so you should be just fine saving your eight Benjamins for then.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]