Welcome to the Geek Choice Blog

It has been reported that Amazon has placed an order with the company Foxconn to build 10 inch versions of the Kindle Fire which by all accounts should be released this summer. DigiTimes had reported that Foxconn received orders for the new device from Amazon and that it could be shipped by the second quarter of this year. It would seem that Amazon has had some success with the Fire, seeing as though they are considering making an upgrade to the Fire so soon. The Apple iPad has sold more than 55 million since 2010 and Amazon hasn’t released any numbers but they did report that they had the best holiday ever for the Kindle devices, including the Fire which was launched in November. Although some estimates have the Kindle Fire selling around 6 million units in the fourth quarter which is quite an achievement since 15 million iPads were sold in the fourth quarter.

Nuance the company that has brought you Dragon Naturally Speaking has added support for Android 4.0 otherwise known as Ice Cream Sandwich. The Swype feature that many people are using these days now includes the Dragon Go! software that is a free app in the Android Marketplace. It adds what has been called a Siri-like voice search functionality. You can just tap and hold the Dragon Go! button on the screen and ask a question like you do with Siri. Based upon reports I have read the Dragon Go! addition is very accurate just like Siri. It does pull the answers for you questions from different places like Google search, Yelp, Fandango and many more.

As you have read in some of my past blogs, Apple is setting up an event in the first week of March to announce the next iPad. The date has been set for March 7th. The speculation is running wild on what will be included in the iPad 3 but the rumblings are a quad-core A6, a 2048×1536 Retina display and there is also speculation with 4G LTE networking. They are putting 4G LTE into the iPhone 5 which is set for October of this year. So the fact that the iPad 3 would get 4G LTE earlier would be nice since it is a tablet and not a phone and having those types of speeds on a tablet would be tremendous. The other speculation is going to be on the camera which is going to be a 5 or 8 megapixel camera for the rear and a FaceTime HD front camera. The starting price for the entry level model is being speculated at around $499. So far this is all just speculation and we will know what exactly the iPad 3 will have on March 7th but I must say if these rumors are true I might actually think about getting one finally.

So we have been awaiting the major release of Ice Cream Sandwich on more devices. Well it seems like it isn’t the software that is holding up this being on more phones but the hardware. The senior vice president and GM of Motorola’s Enterprise Unit, Christy Wyatt, stated that writing code to support hardware other than Google’s Nexus model has become a tall order for many smartphone makers. The problems with this is that upgrades to phones are more difficult and it takes forever for a person with an Android smartphone to enjoy an major upgrade. They do understand that people want upgrades sooner rather than later but the process is very complicated. Although they will be working hard to make sure that phones can upgraded as fast as possible, it’s just people with Androids will just have to be patient but most people’s patience is getting thinner.

So if you read my blog you know that Apple is planning an event in San Francisco to announce the iPad 3. Well apparently now the company is in crunch mode and is trying to line up all of the apps for both on stage demos and also show off some advertisements for the new iPad. Apple has been known to be very picky about what apps it will show off on its hardware, on the iPad 2 they showed iMovie and also Photo Booth. This time around my money is going to be on apps that show off the display. With everyone clamoring about the Retina display, you would think they will show off apps that are visually stunning. Now this is still not all confirmed but All Things D reported this and I must say they have been spot on with speculating Apple announcements and I am sure this one will be no different.

February is going to be a hush month for Apple as many believed they would be talking about the iPad 3 this month and when we might see it in all its glory. Well now it is being said that iPad 3 is going to be announced in March. This event is been speculated to be held in San Francisco and will be one of its trademark special events of the year. Not much is known on what will be included in the announcement especially since there are no street dates of it as of yet and we all hope that is announced in this event. Though from what I have read it is going to be very close to the iPad 2. It is going to be running much faster with better graphics and will have a 2048×1536 Retina Display and if that is not the exact numbers you will be looking at something very close to it. There is nothing we can really say on this event yet other speculating on it until the date is announced but from what I have read it will be sometime in the first week of March and we might be in for some surprises.

Google has updated its stats for Android and well this time around they showed how many Android operating systems have been installed on each device. The latest update is that Ice Cream Sandwich is up to 1% of all devices. The Ice Cream Sandwich was first on Galaxy Nexus and over the time the release has been out there for official and unofficial devices. It looks like Gingerbread holds the most installs which is over 60% across every device, while Android 2.2 Froyo Follows right behind them and hopefully Android 4.0 which is Ice Cream Sandwich will be on more devices in the near future.

The Google Docs that you can normally edit on your Android device now has been updated and now you can view your documents offline and sync them later to your Google Docs. So when you download the Google Docs app in the Android market or if you update your previous app, you will now see an option to “Make Offline” for your documents. However there are a few docs that aren’t supported yet, such as Google Sites, drawings, forms , fusion tables and collections. So basically what happens here is you select a document to go offline with and it will actually download to your Android device. After you have made your updates simply go back online and it will auto sync with Google Docs, but it can also be manually set to sync by just hitting update. The update has also added a sharper look for the tablet users for easier reading.

First off, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year and hope it was fun and safe. Well it looks like Sony is trying to play it safe to start this new year by cutting the prices on their Tablet S now starting at just $400. This nice tablet by Sony sports a 9.4 inch screen and has memory of 16Gb for now just $400. If that isn’t enough memory for you, well then we can get you a 32GB model for $500. It looks like price is really the only thing tablet makers outside of Apple can really do to compete with the iPad. You would have to think this price cut is due to the actual lack of sales on the tablet and price seems to be the only thing people really can answer too these days. A cheaper alternative to the iPad. The problem is, has there really been a tablet that could stand up to the iPad? I really haven’t seen anything that comes close to it yet and the sales figures would most likely back me up on this. So good luck to Sony in this new year and I hope your Tablet S sales get better!

First I would like to say I hope everyone had a safe and fun holiday weekend. Now for a gift that keeps on giving form the people over at xda-developers, a pre-alpha version of the Android operating system I know I have been waiting for, Ice Cream Sandwich! They have it running on the Kindle Fire which is really exciting for me since well, I have a Kindle and I have been less than impressed with it so far. From reports here is what I have gathered, it does run pretty smooth on the Fire but there are some issues, there are times when the sound isn’t as consistent as it should be and there is some video glitches that tend to happen as well. As there is more developing and tested on this lovely OS I will keep you updated and once it gets better maybe I will see an Ice Cream Sandwich in my Fire. Above is a video of the Kindle Fire with the Ice Cream Sandwich OS, so please enjoy!