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Top Android news of the week: Split-screen, patent war ends, Note 2 news
In the world of Android this week were reports of an Acer tablet getting a split-screen feature, a patent war against Android ended, and the Note 2 may be getting Lollipop.
The ability to divide a tablet screen and display two apps side-by-side is nice, but only a few Android devices can do it. An update to the Acer Iconia Tab 8 brings the feature to that tablet.
Acer calls the feature Split Screen, and two apps can be displayed beside each other in landscape or one on top of the other in portrait.
The Rockstar Consortium that includes Microsoft and Apple, has ended its long patent war with Android. This comes in the form of Rockstar selling the patent portfolio it was using to fight Android.
The Consortium was formed in 2011 with 6,000 patents in its portfolio, with the intention of keeping them out of Google's hands and to use them against Android.
Owners of the popular Galaxy Note 2 phone will be delighted to hear it is supposed to get an update to Lollipop. Older devices like the Note 2 aren't guaranteed to get Lollipop, but Samsung's Finnish web site showed it would.
What's not clear is how well Lollipop will run on old hardware like the Note 2.
Evernote, the note-taking app on steroids, has gotten the Context feature on the Android version that was previously available on iOS. Context bubbles up relevant information from the web, other Evernote notes, and coworkers as you enter text in a new note.
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