Reading rumor sites.... LOL.

"LOL" indeed.

Cc: +Dan Morrill

Those days it seems like there are entire chains of posts, where one blog posts an unsubstantiated article, another re-posts it as a rumor, another re-posts it as a leak, another re-posts it as a fact, and it then gets translated into other languages where the subtlety of the attribution chain gets lost, and people take it as certainty.

Given my job, I happen to know the plan for the next release: the version number, the target release date, the hardware, the feature set, and it's really hilarious to compare that to the rumors.

We now know why Google was laughing at recent rumor reports. It was brought to our attention that the details contained in the post Rumor: Android 4.2 to feature Project Roadrunner, new Play store, Customization Center, enhanced Google Now were fake. A rumor is a rumor, but we try to post only the ones that we can verify with multiple sources and we believe to be true. I apologize for failing to confirm this rumor with multiple sources and spreading false information. While we are on the topic of rumors, we still believe the LG Nexus details to be true and we believe it will launch with Android 4.2.

When first announced, the Galaxy Note II looked and felt very much like a supersized Galaxy S III with a slightly fancier stylus attached. After spending some quality time with it, I’ve come to the conclusion that that’s exactly what it is. And that’s a good, nay, a very good thing indeed. The S Pen has matured and improved in subtle but significant ways, while the GS III formula has only been upgraded with a larger battery and an even more generous screen size. At nearly 5 inches, Samsung’s flagship 2012 phone is already too big for a lot of people to comfortably use one-handed, so why should they not opt for the larger, but also more capable, Galaxy Note II?

Relative to its predecessor, the Galaxy Note II is a clear and unequivocal upgrade. It’s now more powerful, lasts even longer, and ships with the best software that Samsung has yet put on an Android device. It doesn’t feel as characterful or quirky as the original Galaxy Note, and it is indeed festooned with superfluous apps and software presets, but those are small hurdles you can either disable or avoid. The commercial success of the first Galaxy Note came as a surprise, however the same won’t be true of the Galaxy Note II. It represents the best possible marriage of the Note lineage and Samsung’s 2012 technology and is likely to cement the Korean company’s position as the premier Android device maker.

Remember when Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook's HTML5 Android app was a mistake? Well, one of our tipsters, embedded deep inside the Social Network, has let us know that the native version for Google's mobile OS has entered final testing. As such, it won't be long before the software is ready for consumption by the public at large, give or take an angry Winklevii or two.

[Thanks, Anonymous]

We got tired of seeing OEMs include many GB of internal storage for music, while users were still running out of space for apps and data. This approach lets us merge everything on one volume, which is way better.

-- Dan Morrill, Android engineer at Google