The Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101 is already running Ice Cream Sandwich, but Asus is still hard at work, cranking out updates to fix issues and bring new features. The latest of these updates is version 9.2.1.24, which brings system stability updates, although some users are reportedly still having issues after the update. Also improved is the Mail application, with stability fixes, threaded messaging, out-of-office responses, scheduled syncing. Bluetooth firmware has been updated to version 8.30, although it’s not mentioned in the changelog. And finally in the way of new features, Face Unlock is now working on the Transformer.

[Asus Support] [Asus Facebook]

It might have taken them a week or two to realize it was a bad idea, but Facebook has finally removed those annoying Camera and Messaging shortcuts from the Android app with the latest update. Sure it makes sense if you’re trying to force users to use Facebook more, but the shortcuts were overkill and redundant. It’s not all that hard to share a picture to Facebook from the stock camera or gallery. And Facebook has had a stand-alone Messenger app for quite a while, perfect for those that use Facebook as a primary communication.

If you haven’t already, head over to the Play Store and update to get rid of the extraneous icons. Or if you just couldn’t stand it and uninstalled, feel free to reinstall at will.

[via Droid-Life]

The photo sharing platform Instagram only just arrived for Android barely a week ago. After clocking in over a million downloads on Android in less than 24 hours, Instagram now boasts somewhere around 30 million users. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg announced in a post today that his company will be buying Instagram for the mind-boggling price of $1 billion dollars:

I’m excited to share the news that we’ve agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook.

For years, we’ve focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family. Now, we’ll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests.

We believe these are different experiences that complement each other. But in order to do this well, we need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram’s strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook.

That’s why we’re committed to building and growing Instagram independently. Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people.

We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience. We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.

These and many other features are important parts of the Instagram experience and we understand that. We will try to learn from Instagram’s experience to build similar features into our other products. At the same time, we will try to help Instagram continue to grow by using Facebook’s strong engineering team and infrastructure.

This is an important milestone for Facebook because it’s the first time we’ve ever acquired a product and company with so many users. We don’t plan on doing many more of these, if any at all. But providing the best photo sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together.

We’re looking forward to working with the Instagram team and to all of the great new experiences we’re going to be able to build together.

While there don’t seem to be any immediate plans to change Instagram at the moment, the sentiment around the Twittersphere seems to be that Instagram users do no approve of the purchase. For Facebook, the move is not only to gain the technology of Instagram, but more-so to reach its users, which are apparently valued at about $33 each.

[Source]

Greetings to everyone in The Android Site community. My name is Tony and I am an Android junkie.

Some of you may know me from one of the many social networks I frequent. I can usually be found on Google+ or Twitter, but I gotta admit — I still have a Facebook account too. You may also have seen some of my work on other Android-related blogs, like AndroidSPIN and AndroidOS.in, or possibly on a small site I created last year called OMG!Droid. Regardless if we have met or not, it’s nice to see you on this side of the fence and I look forward to bringing you guys and gals some of the best content Android has to offer.

For those wondering, I own a few different Android devices. As for phones, I have an HTC myTouch 4G, which has been put on the back burner as of late, thanks to my shiny HTC Amaze 4G. I’m also quite fond of my Asus Eee Pad Transformer and have often dreamed about trying to impregnate it — hey, don’t judge me.

If there’s any thing else you’d like to know about me, drop a comment in the thread below or hit me up on your favorite flavor of social network using the links I so shamelessly promoted myself with in the first paragraph of this post.

Here’s to a new era — and don’t forget today is April Fool’s. Let the games begin!

Android 4.0 has already been announced as coming to the HTC Sensation on T-Mobile US, and owners of the device are patiently waiting for their update. However it has been delayed and T-Mobile took to Facebook to explain to customers the reason for the delay. The TL;DR version is that HTC provided T-Mobile with the ICS ROM, but it didn’t pass Tmo’s quality checks for compatibility with T-Mobile radios and wifi calling. So they bounced it back to HTC for bug fixes and we’re still waiting. Here’s T-Mobile’s full statement:

“HTC has delivered a ROM to us however it is still having issues the reason that other sensation types have the update without issue and ours did not come out that way is because every ROM must be adapted to the hardware of the device because we use a different radio than other providers and also have applications such as wifi calling it also has to be compatible with those. What the HTC rep told you is most likely correct because once a ROM is delivered we have 2 weeks to test it and then approve it or send it back they then have 4 weeks to fix the bugs and return it back to us, where we are exactly in that process I do not know but that is how a ROM is delivered to the customer.

The original ROM was not delivered to us in November, we started testing it just recently but I think it has been longer than 2 weeks so at this point HTC most likely has the ball.

You bought a phone and it has been announced that you are getting ICS you have every right to know what’s going on with it and when you can see these awesome features. I did go into a lot of detail about how a ROM gets to the end user (you guys) but that wasn’t to point fingers only so you would have a better understanding of why you don’t have it yet, the bottom line is the Sensation has T-Mobile’s and HTC’s name all over it and both companies want to make you proud to be a Sensation owner so we are working as fast as we can to deliver it but also want to make sure that it stands up to your expectations.”

They didn’t get into specifics about when they expect to have the update complete and ready for customers. But kudos to T-Mobile for at least explaining the situation and keeping us in the loop.

There’s no shortage of apps in the Android Market Google Play Store that allow you to access videos from TED Talks. Today TED Conferences launched their official app for Android devices. It features over 1,200 audio and video presentations for easy viewing and sharing on your Android phone, tablet or Kindle Fire and more content being added all the time. The app also has the ability to save content for offline access, which is great for a subway commute or airplane trip.

TED for Android features:

• Up-to-the-minute videos: TEDTalks are published daily, and Android app users can see the latest TEDTalks videos as soon as they’re available online.
• Browse + search: Whether they’re online or off, users can browse the entire TED library – by theme, tag, rating or popularity – and search for a talk by speaker name or topic.
• Easy sharing: Users who are inspired by a talk can share it easily over Facebook, Twitter or email.
• Bookmarks.  Users can mark and save talks for viewing later within their “My Talks” tab.
• Offline viewing: The app is designed to support a mobile lifestyle, in which users move fluidly between online and offline use. Users can download video and audio directly to the device to watch on the plane or other locations where Internet connectivity may not be possible. The full library is searchable in offline mode.
• Curated audio stream. Out for a jog, multi-tasking, or just interested in listening, TED app users can listen to TEDTalks, either on an individual basis or through TED’s curated audio stream.

Download the official TED app in the Google Play Store for devices running Android 2.1 or higher.

Archos had said they were aiming to upgrade the G9 series tablets to Ice Cream Sandwich in the first week of February. The company did release an update at the beginning of Feb, but it was not Android 4.0, just a minor update. Now that it’s already March, they have taken to Facebook to assure their customers they’re sorry for the delay. Archos says they anticipate the update will happen within the next two weeks. The post neglects to mention which specific hardware the update will be hitting, but we can only assume they mean the 80 and 101 G9 series, and perhaps the Archos 70b as well.

[Archos Facebook]

A little over a month since the Transformer Prime was updated to Ice Cream Sandwich, the same is about to happen for the original Transformer, the TF101. As Asus posted on their Facebook page today, the FOTA update started today in their home country of Taiwan, and should be rolling out in the US starting tomorrow, per a mention on Twitter.

Although Android 4.0 was also promised for the EeePad Slider also around the same time, there’s no specific word on when the ICS update will happen for that device.

[via Engadget]

HTC’s last update about Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades pertained more to global devices and not so much the ones specific to the US. And that left a lot of us wondering if the Thunderbolt and other phones would ever get Android 4.0. Today, HTC has laid to rest those worries and given us Ice Cream Sandwich updates, the North American edition. The HTC Thunderbolt, Rhyme and Droid Incredible 2 are all promised Android 4.0 upgrades sometime in the future, as well as the Rezound which was already announced.. As always, HTC has been shy about a specific time frame. Additionally, the HTC Raider on Rogers and Bell in Canada will also get some ICS love.

[HTC Facebook via Droid Life]

HTC gave anxious users an update about Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade plans today on their Facebook page. Towards the end of March, the first devices to get the upgrade to Android 4.0 will be the Sensation lineup beginning with the HTC Sensation, HTC Sensation 4G and HTC Sensation XE, then the HTC Sensation XL probably closer to the beginning of April.

They also confirmed Android 4.0 would also be coming soon for 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. No specific time frames were announced for these additional devices, but we’ll be sure to let you know once anything official is announced. You may notice there’s a few recent devices missing from that list. We’re hoping this isn’t the end-all list for upgrades and devices like the Thunderbolt, Rhyme, Droid Incredible 2 and others will also get ICS.

[HTC Facebook]