colorware g1

so i saw that you can color any device you have via a company called colorware. My g1 is in pretty good condition but its still not as sleek as i think it could be. Hmm should i send in my g1 and get it colored purple black and white? *thinks*… maybe… its fucking expensive though its like 100-200 bucks depending on what you get. I probably wont get it colored but itd be nice if i could…

Motorola Taps Nero For Android Syncing

The Motorola Cliq is going to be a highly-sought device when it’s released later this year, but we haven’t heard about how users will manage and sync their multimedia files. Motorola said Friday it has tapped Nero to craft its desktop media software, and, from what I’ve seen, it looks pretty good.

A lot of the appeal of the Android operating system is being able to do much of the syncing and management over the air, as the G1 and myTouch 3G simply have you punch in your Google account information and all your contacts and calendars are auto-magically brought to the phone. Nero said OTA has its role, which will grow significantly over the next few year, but it’s not the right setting for transferring music or videos. Motorola will be using Nero’s software for its Media Link software, which will enable users to manage their multimedia files with the Cliq and other Moto phones.

The user interface is about what you’d expect from this type of software, and it was easy to import, find, mange, and make playlists from your files. There was a cool little ringtone maker that was simple to use, and you can purchase songs from Amazon’s MP3 store within the software. Media Link also makes it simple to get photos off your phone, and there are also basic photo-editing tools for cropping, rotating, red-eye reduction, and more. There’s some social networking integration as well, but I thought the latest Real Player software was a bit stronger on this front.

Videos can be transferred with the Media Link software as well, but if you want the really good stuff like automatic transcoding for the best resolution and screen size, you’ll have to pony up $39.99 for the premium version. The premium version also includes calendar and contact synching, but Android is pretty adept already at that over the air.

Of course, the major problem for companies like Research In Motion, Palm, and Motorola is that the iTunes ecosystem is so strong, and many smartphone users already have much of their media tied into Apple’s software. Media Link does enable users to import playlists from iTunes, as well as Windows Media Player, so that’s a step in the right direction. RIM has essentially ceded the heavy lifting of multimedia syncing to iTunes with the Media Sync Software and Palm has also been fighting hard to enable its webOS customers to use Apple’s software, but there should be a growing market for alternative mobile media management programs. I think iTunes is pretty bloated and a chore to use on Windows, so here’s hoping something like Media Link can take off.

via Motorola Taps Nero For Android Syncing – Mobile Blog – InformationWeek

iphone ist tot, es lebe android

Vor einer Woche hatte ich mehrere Stunden die Gelegenheit mit einem HTC Magic rumzuspielen. Gestern habe ich mir bei einem großen Händler noch mal einige Zeit genommen und nun steht mein Entschluss fest: ich wechsle vom iPhone zu HTC. Eigentlich wechsle ich allerdings von Apple zu Google.

Mein Eindruck vom G1 war gelinde gesagt: erschrocken. Die Hardware war das schlechteste was ich in den letzten Jahren in der Hand hatte. Nur irgendein Blackberry, den mir Vodafone mal (Mitte 2005) mit leuchtenden Augen andrehen wollte war noch schlimmer. Das G1 war nach meiner Meinung nicht mehr und nicht weniger als ein Prototyp, der niemals das Labor hätte verlassen dürfen.

Mit Android 1.6 und der hervorragenden Hardware des HTC Magic gibt es jetzt endlich einen würdigen Anwärter auf die offene Position des iPhone-Killers. Und dies obwohl die Featureliste sich in wenig bis nichts von der des iPhone 3GS unterscheidet.

Die Liste der technischen Ausstattung birgt keinerlei Überraschung: Quadband, WLAN b/g, 3MPixel Cam, GPS, Bewegungssensor. Nicht neues, nichts aussergewöhnliches. Im Vergleich zum iPhone fehlt dem Magic momentan noch Multitouch. Zoom von Web-Seiten, Bildern oder Karten findet also mittels Lupen statt. Who cares? Der Strassenpreis mit 300 Euro ist akzeptabel und deutet lediglich an, dass in dem Preissegment von Apple kein Platz für andere ist.

Was also sollte mich als bekennenden Fan vom und Developer für das iPhone dazu bringen, die Plattform zu wechseln? Ganz einfach: Apple. Ich habe die Schnauze gestrichen voll von der analfixierten Art und Weise, wie Apple alle und jeden bevormundet.

An erster Stelle in der Liste, der durch Apple Gegängelten stehen die Käufer der Produkte selbst. Sync nur mit iTunes. Aber bitte nicht irgendein iTunes, sondern immer die letzte Version. Damit die Nutzer auch ja in den Genuss der großartigen Neuerungen wie HTML-aufgehübschte Alben kommen oder sich mit Hilfe von Genius zu noch mehr Käufen hinreissen lassen. Ich bin sicher kein Verfechter von Acht.Drei-Verwaltung von Musik, aber manchmal wäre es sinnvoll, beliebige Daten einfach hin- und herzuschieben.

Zur Bindung der Geräte an einzelne Netzbetreiber fällt mir eigentlich nichts mehr ein. Nur soviel: Es bestand ursprünglich die Hoffnung, dass das iPhone das Oligopol der Mobilfunkanbieter durchbrechen würde. Immerhin war von vornherein klar, dass Apple ein Branding durch die Provider niemals akzeptieren würde. Und dieses Branding war für lange Jahre eins der größten Übel des Marktes. Immerhin hat sich Vodafone damit die Marke nachhaltig verbrannt. Inzwischen ist jedoch klar, dass das Branding nur ein Randphänomen ist. Das Hauptproblem ist und bleibt die Vertragsbindung mit all den seltsamen Effekten, wie sich automatisch verlängernde Verträge, Hürden beim Wechsel von Bestands in neue (bessere) Verträge und natürlich vollkommen intransparente Bedingungen. Von Roamingkosten ganz zu schweigen.

Apple hat mit der Politik der Providerbindung diese Marktumstände massiv gestärkt und am Leben erhalten. Alleine dafür gehört Apple schon gevierteilt.

Als nächstes werden die Entwickler gegängelt. Kleine, fiese Appstore-Zwerge blockieren den Zugang zu potentiellen Nutzern durch intransparent Ablehnungen. Ein großer Teil der abschlägigen Bescheide wird dabei mit doppelter Funktion oder Verwirrung der Nutzer begründet. Zumindest der erstere Punkt ist an sich schon ein Fall für das Kartellamt. Denn hier wird von Apple ganz offen gesagt, ‘wir wollen keine Konkurrenz auf unserem eigenen Gerät haben’. Aber selbst der zweite Punkt ist mindestens seltsam, denn wenn man eines Software von Apple generell nicht unterstellen kann ist es, dass sie eine konsistente Benutzung hätten.

Eine weitere Gängelung der Entwickler besteht in der eingeschränkten Verfügbarkeit von Frameworks. Egal ob es sich um Zugriff auf die Google-Karten, die Videokamera oder XSLT handelt. Man kann als Entwickler eigentlich immer davon ausgehen, dass es irgendeine Bibliothek, die man gerne hätte nicht oder nur eingeschränkt gibt. Bestimmt geht es in der nächsten oder übernächsten OS-Version. Aber eben gerade nicht. Nicht, dass die Funktionen vom Gerät nicht unterstützt würden. Es ist nur so, dass die externen Entwickler nicht rankommen.

Unter diesen Bedingungen versteht es sich von selbst, dass der Entwickler nur die hauseigene Sprache verwenden darf. Man möge mich nicht falsch verstehen, ich benutze Objective-C seit Jahrzehnten und finde es eine ausgezeichnete Sprache, die mir wesentlich mehr liegt als zum Beispiel C++ oder Java. Aber ich würde für viele (insbesondere kleinere) Projekte inzwischen gerne lieber mit Ruby oder XSLT verwenden.

Selbst die Telcos werden gegängelt. Das mag paradox klingen, da ich ja oben deutlich ausgeführt habe, dass ich die Provider nicht für eine schützenswerte Gattung halte. Aber die harten Rahmenbedingungen der Verträge mit Apple verhindern innovative Pakete. Wenn Vodafone in Deutschland das iPhone für Bestandskunden aus anderen europäischen Ländern einführt um T-Mobile etwas von dem Hyperkuchen abzunehmen dann riskiert es in anderen Ländern Liebesentzug durch Apple. Letztendlich ist Apple dadurch mit Schuld, wenn sich dieser Markt nicht weiterentwickelt. Das Verbot von VoIP oder die katastrophale Situation in Bezug auf das Tethering durch die großen Telcos ist indirekt ein Effekt aus der Bündelung des iPhones an wenige Carrier.

Wenn Apple also jeden und alles kontrollieren möchte und sich nur auf massiven Druck zu kleinen Schritten in Richtung fairer Wettbewerb drängen lässt, dann müssen sie dies ohne mein Geld und meine Begeisterung tun. Ich wende mich jetzt mal dem Adroid SDK zu und werde meine Programme einfach an Kollegen und Freunde per Mail versenden, und sie hier zum Download bereitstellen.

Viel Spass noch und danke für den ><<<<\°>!

Netcounter, The app for people without data plan!

Introduction:

NetCounter is a simple network traffic counter for EDGE/3G and Wi-Fi. It shows your data usage. Data are persistent and you can set the counters (monthly, last 7 days, today, etc) you need.

Features:

• Open-source software.
• Network traffic counter for both EDGE/3G and Wi-Fi.
• Available in English, German, Czech, Italian, French, Russian, Spanish and more.
• Data are persisted.
• Dynamic counters that can be added, modified and removed. “Total”, “Last 30 days”, “Last 7 days”, “Today”, “Yesterday”, “Weekly”, “Monthly” and more are available.
• Alerts on a counter basis if limit exceeded.
• Starts automatically if you restart your phone.
• Export/Import data to/from the SD card (CSV format).

Download:

Scan with your android device!

-Droidboy

Android to Soon Be Everywhere but AT&T

With the HTC Hero slated for October 11th on Sprint, and now the Motorola Sholes coming closer than everyone thought, finally Android will be on something that isn’t Tmobile. And lord knows I really enjoy TMobile, but the majority of people do not. And getting on Verizon will be huge, because for the same price per month as the iPhone/aT&T you get a shitton more coverage. Verizon is an evil corporation (they all are), but at least they back it up with coverage. Finally, Android with service choices.

Plan wise it is a matter of whether you want cheap service via Sprint (basically, unlimited everything but landline calling for $69) or Verizon’s nationwide coverage, or TMobile being pretty well priced with good phone selections. Honestly, unless you travel a lot to rural areas, Sprint and the Hero is a no-brainer in this economy. AT&T would suck and is the same price as Verizon, so I am not crying at Android not being on AT&T yet.

Phone wise impossible to say without seeing the Sholes in action, but it does have a long way to go to beat the HTC Hero in performance. . Video via phonescoop.

Comenzando con Android III

Bueno, en el post pasado comenzamos a conocer las partes de un programa escrito para Android, hoy continuamos con esto hablando de qué es un IntentReceiver.

Un IntentReceiver puede ser usado cuando se desea que la aplicación se ejecute como respuesta a cierto evento, por ejemplo una llamada, o a cierta hora. Este tipo no crea UI, pero pueden utilizar el NotificationManager para comunicarsele al usuario que ocurre algo. Los IntentReceiver deben ser registrados en el archivo AndroidManifest.xml, pero también pueden ser registrados de manera automática por el propio programa haciendo uso de Context.registerReceiver() función que permite registrar en el archivo AndroidManifest.xml nuestro nuevo IntentReceiver. La aplicación que se diseñe no debe estar necesariamente corriendo para que los IntentReceiver puedan ser llamados, estos son llamados por el sistema inmediatamente cuando el evento dado ocurre.

Otro punto son los Service o servicios, estos son una aplicación que se mantendrá activa por un largo tiempo sin generar UI alguna, por ejemplo, una aplicación para reproducir música desde una lista. En este caso, esta aplicación podría iniciar un servicios y reproducir la música sin manipular la pantalla dejando el campo limpio para otra aplicación. Es posible comunicarse con un Service dado utilizando el método Context.bindService() que incluso “despierta” al servicio dado en caso de que no esté corriendo, la comunicación depende de la interfaz que el servicio entregue.

Y por último, Proveedor de contenidos:

Un ContentProvider es una clase que implementa un conjuto estándar de métodos para que otras aplicaciones alamacenen o recuperen cierto dato. A difierencia de una base de datos que use la aplicación el ContentProvider permite compartir esta información.

Wireless Weekend Recap - did AT&T Crash and burn?

The top stories of last week were the 4G and will it become the ‘game changer’ the industry expects; we heard the same about 3G and how wonderful it would be.  The 3G networks leave much to be desired in many ways, but we are still doing more on a small handheld device weighing a few ounces that we were on our desktops not that long ago.

Motorola is betting the farm on Android and the Cliq resuscitating Motorola’s handset division and getting it off life support.  T-Mobile has also jumped head first into Android and will have 3 handsets available on their network; will Android be able to battle Apple’s iPhone in the enterprise space?

Research in Motion (RIM) announced Q2 results which showed lower profits and their shares tumbled as the news hit the financial markets.  With a modest forecast, is the iPhone taking an even larger bite out of RIM’s valued Enterprise market?  RIM has teased us with a pending launch of new higher-end BlackBerry devices; will it offset their market share loss?

Finally, AT&T unlocked the MMS (picture messaging) feature on the iPhone Friday morning and everyone was holding their collective breath to see if AT&T’s network would crash and burn or slow to a crawl.  It seemed neither happened so I guess all is ok in AT&T-ville.

Monday is almost here and I wonder what the hot stories will be – stay tuned.

//

Google's a Hata of Android Hackers?!?!

The Situation: Google has reportedly filed a cease-and-desist order against one of the Android platform’s most exciting developers. The developer, Steve Kondik, who’s known as Cyanogen, basically makes better versions of the android OS with their closed source apps such as gmail, youtube, and market. CyanogenMod, as the app is dubbed, claims 30,000 users, many of whom appear to be hardcore Android fans. Lauren Weinstein, who writes extensively on Internet and privacy issues, wrote on his blog:

“I myself run a Cyanogen ROM on my G1. It’s fantastic stuff. Cyanogen provides an array of useful functionalities not yet in official Android releases — some of these enhancements may never be in official Android releases. Yet Cyanogen’s ROMs don’t cheat T-Mobile out of phone call revenue, won’t steal gold bullion from Fort Knox, nor will they even increase global warming…While I’m not a lawyer, I can understand Google’s formal concerns from a lawyer’s point of view. On the other hand, given the overall situation, such a stance seems not to be of the high ‘Googley’ caliber that I would normally expect from Google.”

Weird: This move is definitely a wakeup call for devs that google does give a care. However, google actively promoted its laissez-faire strategy with Android — a tack that contrasts starkly with Apple’s heavy-handed policing of its App Store. An online petition has been established in an effort to persuade Google to drop its alleged legal action against the CyanogenMod app.

My Part: I will update this as more news comes.

-Droidboy

Carta abierta a Google

Estimados señores de google,

No se el suficiente inglés como para esperar mi total desacuerdo, a la par que vergüenza, al leer vía Twitter, que le habéis mandado una carta a cyanogen diciendo que debe de parar de desarrollar, dejar de ampliar y de modificar vuestras ROMs. Quiero recordar porque sois una empresa de éxito frente al iPhone de Apple y contais con apoyo social: siempre habíais apoyado la libertad en el software e incluso ahora, nos habíais deleitado, con el anuncio de un nuevo sistema operativo. sí todo esto lo habéis bajo la bandera del software libre, por qué ahora lo censurais? Este señor ha hecho parte de vuestro trabajo, ha conseguido que gente, mucha gente, COMPRE vuestro teléfono. Se demuestra que se puede ganar dinero con el software de código abierto y el market tiene éxito porque la gente desarrolla para el. Entonces, que estáis haciendo? os da rabia que un señor, de la nada, haga parte de vuestro trabajo, gratis o por donativos, y además lo haga muy bien? da rabia que tenga mejor resultado que vuestras ROMs? Tal vez que el sólo, tenga mejor sistema de actualizaciones y más rápidas y mejores que las vuestras? o, simplemente, es que queréis comprobar nuestra fidelidad y aguante? Pues yo digo una cosa… si es la última razón… mejor no ponernos a prueba… no es una amenaza, es simplemente recordar, que para algunos, este movimiento va más allá y roza o es un sentimiento y aquí ya no jugamos…
Espero que no haya que llegar a mayores con este tema, cyanogen es un magnífico cocinero y tiene todo nuestro apoyo y debería tener el vuestro.
Este post esta escrito desde Android, desde la Magic, y espero no arrepentirme.

Ruego, si alguien sabe el suficiente inglés y je parece adecuado, traduzca este mensaje.

HTC Hero: Day 6

Day 6 with the HTC Hero and I’ve already been flashing and re-flashing it’s ROM – countless times. If you’re gonna root your Hero, I can’t stress how important it is for you to do a Nandroid backup of your working ROM so that you can roll back to it if anything goes wrong. Earlier this evening, I screwed up during an installation and my Hero could not be rebooted till I press the Power and Home button to get to the Root screen. Did a quick restore of the last ROM back-up and things got running again. Pheeeeew. I noticed 2 problems today, the 2.2 MoDaCo ROM I have running has disabled the in-call volume of the Volume Rocker and somehow – the weather widget on the clock just doesn’t update itself anymore. Rooting, can be fun yet frustrating at the same time. But I like it …

Layar Enhances Augmented Reality Browser Platform With 3D Capabilities

Layar, one of the first companies to start popularizing the concept of augmented reality browsing using modern day’s mobile phone cameras, is today announcing the addition of 3D capabilities to its AR browser platform for Android and will be demoing the experience starting tomorrow at the Picnic Conference in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

With 3D, third-party developers can now tag real-life objects with three-dimensional text, place 3D objects on top of real-world space and create multi-sensory experiences. The general idea behind the addition of 3D capabilities to Layar is to encourage developers to create more realistic and immersive augmented reality browsing experiences for mobile devices. [...]

via Layar Enhances Augmented Reality Browser Platform With 3D Capabilities

Recovery image for Hero v1.2.2

Features

• root
• full ADB access in recovery mode
• Partition your SD directly from the menu! (500MB Ext2, 32MB Swap, remaining Fat32)
• Repair ext filesystem, convert ext2 to ext3, fix package mismatches, move apps2SD directly from the menu!
• Flash ANY .zip from your SD – by krut0n
• 51dusty’s sdparted v0.5.1 util
  
• Loads of scrips and binaries from Cyanogen’s v1.4 dream recovery
• Nandroid v2.2 backup and restore
• Busybox
• Green colored menu with a nice HTC logo

Download

Latest :
RA-HERO-v1.2.2 – MD5Sum: 05cf03c4d9f273072f2df868da593a36

How to use/install

Try it out WITHOUT making changes to your device (NO flashing):

Code: fastboot boot Recovery-RA-HERO-v1.2.2.img

Flash it permanently :

Code: adb shell reboot bootloader (wait for device to reboot into bootloader) fastboot boot Recovery-RA-HERO-v1.2.2.img adb shell mount /sdcard adb push Recovery-RA-HERO-v1.2.2.img /sdcard/Recovery-RA-HERO-v1.2.2.img adb shell flash_image recovery /sdcard/Recovery-RA-HERO-v1.2.2.img

The smartphone is a mass market product

We’ve been taking for granted what I think may be a central insight:

The smartphone is for the masses, not a high-end niche of techno-geeks and status seekers.

Within 5 years, smartphones will represent roughly 50% of mobile device shipments, 75% of device market revenues, and 90% of industry gross margin potential.  In developed economies, smartphones will represent 40-50% of the installed base of users.  In 7-10 years, virtually all mobile phone subscribers will carry a smartphone.  Different markets will develop at slightly different rates based on replacement cycles, how prepay vs. postpay plays out, etc.  But the end result will be the same:  People will own smartphones like they own toasters or microwaves or shoes.

Quick messaging devices (QMDs), feature phones, and basic mobiles are the niche devices:  A smaller segment of users willing to accept a constrained experience in exchange for…  In exchange for what, exactly?

In the US, the $99 value menu is already dominated by late model smartphones such as the iPhone 3G and earlier Blackberries.  In some other markets, the iPhone is already free with a subscription.  Costs and prices will only go down from here.

Displays, memory, processing power, battery life, wireless broadband connectivity – all are getting cheaper by the day.  The major barrier to smartphone adoption was the user experience.  The smartphones of three years ago (think Symbian or Windows Mobile) could do lots of things but none of them very well.  And the added capabilities would come at a steep price premium.  Under those conditions, people chose a device with limited capabilities – a targeted device that worked well for the activities that a particular customer or segment cared about.   A device that could be squeezed into a low enough price point to attract a wide enough audience to recover all the non-recurring engineering costs associated with the broad product line required in such a market.

But these conditions no longer apply.  The smartphones of today and tomorrow (think iPhone, Android, Blackberry, WebOS) are joyfully easy to use, and can meet all of these customer requirements in just a few form factors.  The functionality of a smartphone is as seemingly infinite as that of a PC – perhaps more so as many additional use cases are opened up by the anytime, anywhere availability of having a smartphone in your pocket.  Costs will come relentlessly down.  Performance and capabilities will improve.  Late model and “pre-owned” smartphones will find their way to the bottom of half of the market, either shipped to developing markets or sold on Ebay or Craigslist.

How will the market be different with billions of smartphone users?  How will the world be different?  These are the fundamental questions facing our clients.

Adobe Flash CS5 sneaks out from FOTB'09

 

There had been varied rumors had been flying around for a few days before this FOTB’09 that that we would be able to check some sneak peaks at this year’s Adobe keynote, and that’s exactly what happened. Richard Galvan and Mark Anders, “Senior” Principle Scientist at Adobe, were back again this year with an update on the Flash platform and a sneak peek on Flash CS5 and the new Flash Mobile features. YES. IT IS FLASH CS5 Marc Anders started off by going over the current platform situation and Flash Player 10 installs continue to impress. New figures due out shortly will put the coverage at over 90%. Mark used some community demos to run through features in the Flash Player 10 and AIR runtimes. (Click any of the images to see the high-rez version) Flash CS5 Richard Galvan gave us our first sneak peak of “Viper” Flash Professional CS5. The big news for developers is that Flash authoring finally gets integration with FlashBuilder. If you’re using Flash CS5, a new FlashBuilder project can be created from Flash CS5 through a new export dialogue.

 

There had been varied rumors had been flying around for a few days before this FOTB’09 that that we would be able to check some sneak peaks at this year’s Adobe keynote, and that’s exactly what happened. Richard Galvan and Mark Anders, “Senior” Principle Scientist at Adobe, were back again this year with an update on the Flash platform and a sneak peek on Flash CS5 and the new Flash Mobile features. YES. IT IS FLASH CS5

Marc Anders started off by going over the current platform situation and Flash Player 10 installs continue to impress. New figures due out shortly will put the coverage at over 90%. Mark used some community demos to run through features in the Flash Player 10 and AIR runtimes. 

Flash CS5

Richard Galvan gave first sneak peak of “Viper” Flash Professional CS5. The big news for developers is that Flash authoring finally gets integration with FlashBuilder. If you’re using Flash CS5, a new FlashBuilder project can be created from Flash CS5 through a new export dialogue.

Rest will be followed here.

 

Apple and Google, sitting by the tree.....

Well, it seems that the best of friends, Apple and Google, have turned in to bitter enemies and it is not going to get easier between the two. I knew that as soon as Android was announced, this will get ugly sometime in the future. If you think about it, it was matter of time Google challenged Apple’s dominance in iPhone with Android. Both companies knew they had conflict of interest in board members and that forced Schmidt out of Apple’s board, which was the first sign of their strained relationship. Google is not going to stand by and see a lucrative market be dominated by others when they know they can dominate the market in a few years with right strategy and money. It’s like Microsoft all over again, except Google gives away their technology, funded by search engine revenues.

So, it seems that Apple rejected Google’s Voice App for iPhones because it threatened their cash stream, well, more likely their partner AT&T’s cash cow. When the government went to investigate the reason for the rejection (such is the job of government bureaucrats) Apple said we didn’t reject the app. Now Google is saying Apple did reject the app. He said She said.

I am big Apple fanboi but I think Apple blew this one. They are acting like Microsoft. Yes, companies have right to defend their turf if others threaten it. However, government will come fix it so you can’t do whatever you want to do. Look at the net neutrality mandate government set in motion. If it wasn’t for that, we wouldn’t be able to get to all web sites because it is a private site. Secondly, I think Apple is lying. I think they did reject the app, regardless of semantics of their action. They are trying to back peddle right now but I think the government will come down on them and they will eventually admit their wrong doing and move one. Their guilt is not rejecting the app, it will be lying to government investigations. Sounds familiar? Hello, Barry Bonds.

This is just the tip of the iceberg for the future of media and internet dominance. Google already announced a ebook reader to compete with Amazon and Sony. I have a feeling that Apple is working that as well. As for the next fight? Net-tablet-light computer device. Whatever it’s called, I am pretty sure Apple is working on it and Google can’t be too far behind. Finally the current buzzword of the day, cloud computing. In this area, Google is ahead of Apple and Microsoft, both of which just starting to get in to the market with their applications and file storage.

So, will they ever be friends again? Of course. This is the Silicon Valley after all, where the term Coopetition was coined. They will work together, Google needs Apple for the distribution of their software and search engine. Apple need Google’s technology to enhance their products. However, this spat will definitely put a damper in their relationship.

Android 1.6

Android Projesi, Donut kod adlı Android 1.6′yı, yeni özellik ve güncellenmiş teknolojileriyle duyurdu.

Özellikler

Yeni Kullanıcı Özellikleri

1 – Çabuk Arama Kutusu için Android

Android 1,6 ile tarayıcı ,yer imleri ve tarihçe, rehber-gibi birden fazla kaynaktan arama motoru olarak kullanıcılar için, etkili, hızlı ve tutarlı bir şekilde ana bir menü ekran geliyor gayet şık.

Sistem sürekli olarak hangi arama sonuçları daha iyi ve verimli sonuçlar veriyor ise tıklanma arama sonucuna göre değişiyor.

Arama çerçeve de kolayca ve Çabuk Arama Kutusu uygulamaları alakalı kolay bir yol sağlar.

2 – Kamera ve Galeri

Güncelleştirilmiş bir yeni kullanıcı arayüzü ve galeri deneyimi, entegre kamera, video kamera keyfi sunuyor. Hızlı video ve çekim modları arasında geçiş yapabiliyorsunuz.

Android 1,6 da daha hızlı bir kamera deneyimi sağlıyor. Önceki sürümü ile karşılaştırıldığında, kamera başlatma şimdi% 39 daha hızlı, ve orada bir sonraki atış tamamlamanızı zaman içinde% 28 oranında hızlı.

3 – Pil kullanım göstergesi

Pil kullanımı ekranında kullanıcıların uygulamalar ve hizmetler görmenizi sağlayan alıcı pil gücü göstersi var buda yeni bir özellik.

Türkiye'nin ilk 3G Android telefonu

Akıllı telefon pazarına hakim Windows Mobile ile Symbian işletim sistemlerine karşı Google’ın geliştirdiği Android, sonunda Türkiye’ye de giriş yaptı.

Android işletim sistemine sahip Samsung i7500 Galaxy, bugünden itibaren Turkcell satış noktalarında abonelere sunuluyor.

Android 1.5 sürümü yüklü olarak gelen 3G destekli telefonda 3,2 inç dokunmatik ve 16 milyon renkli AMOLED ekran, SGPS (GPS ve baz istasyonları üzerinden kapalı mekanlarda da konum belirleme), 5 megapiksel flaşlı otomatik odaklamalı kamera, Gsensor hareket algılayıcı, D-compass dijital pusula, Wifi 802.11b/g, yakınlık sensörü, ışık sensörü, 8 GB dahili bellek, ses ve video kayıt gibi özellikleri bulunuyor.

Cihazda ayrıca Google search, Gmail, Googletalk, Contacts, Calendar gibi Google uygulamaları da yüklü. Açık kaynak kodlu Android sistemi için hemen herkesçe geliştirilebilen ve sayısı hızla artan yüzlerce uygulama da telefona indirilip kurulabiliyor.

ntvmsnbc

Rumor: Verizon's First Android Phone Coming-- It's a Motorola

Information Week is reporting that Verizon (s vz) is going to roll out its first Android phone “within a few weeks.” It was widely expected that Motorola’s (s mot) Android announcement last week would include two phones, and not just the Cliq. Motorola’s CEO did tell me in an interview that they would be announcing a second Android device “in just a few weeks.”

IW has a source at Motorola that claims another Android phone is ready to go but they are waiting for “Big Red” to get ready. That sure sounds like Verizon, which fits all the various rumors floating around. I wonder if this phone will be the Double Cliq? We probably don’t have long to wait — the fall edition of the big CTIA industry show is just around the corner, taking place on October 8 and 9.

Android 1.6 ist da

Android 1.6 (Donut) ist da

Schreibt Golem gerade

http://www.golem.de/0909/69865.html

Mal schaun wann das auf meinem HTC erscheint.

Da auch der neue Market dabei ist wirds bestimmt spannend, ob man nun mehr Bezahlapps verkaufen wird.

Interessant: Verschiedene Auflösungen.

Ja da bin ich ja mal gespannt wie die Spielepixelschubser das lösen werden

Mal schaun

Mehr Infos auf:

http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-1.6-highlights.html

Neu:

Quick Search Box for Android

Camera, Camcorder, and Gallery (hoffentlich mit mehr Helligkeit)

VPN, 802.1x

Battery usage indicator

Android Market Updates

Expanded Search Framework

Text-to-speech engine

Gestures

Expanded support for screen densities and resolutions

2.6.29 Linux kernel

CDMA

New Framework APIs

und noch was interessantes:

Iphone OS 3.1(.1) schon wieder offen:

Ältere Iphones mit dem neuen 3.1 und Ipod-Touches mit 3.1.1 sind wieder frei:

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/iPhone-OS-3-1-fuer-aeltere-iPhones-geknackt–/meldung/145375

Android 1.6 Now Released; Coming to a Phone Near You Soon

The Android 1.6 SDK requires a new version of Android Development Tools (ADT). The SDK also includes a new tool that enables you to download updates and additional components, such as new add-ons or platforms.

You can expect to see devices running Android 1.6 as early as October. As with previous platform updates, applications written for older versions of Android will continue to run on devices with Android 1.6. Please test your existing apps on the Android 1.6 SDK to make sure they run as expected.

[via engadget]

T-Mobile Pulse

The T-Mobile Pulse

As per my last post, I was curious as to what TMO Hauwei was referring to in the launch calendar.  Apparently Hauwei is the manufacturer creating the T-Mobile Pulse, and it is also set to launch in November.

This device has been talked about numerous times in the Android community but the specs don’t impress me too much.

• Quad-band GSM
• 320 x 480 pixels TFT touchscreen
• WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth
• 3.2MP camera
• Qualcomm 7200A processor 528MHz
• 256MB flash memory
• MicroSD card support, 2GB card included in the box
• Talk time: up to 210 minutes
• Standby time: up to 300 hours
• 135 x 62.5 x 13.6 mm
• 135 grams

Apparently rumors say that a USA release is unclear for the time being but the Pulse will be coming to European markets in October.

LG GW620, el primer Android de LG con pantalla táctil

Mientras la semana pasada se lo mencionaba en la IFA bajo el nombre de Etna, el primer Android de LG acaba de ser anunciado de forma oficial como el LG GW620, y de esta manera se suma a otras compañías como Motorola o Samsung que incursionan ya en el OS de Google con sus smartphones.

Con pantalla táctil de 3 pulgadas y teclado QWERTY un poco más grande que lo normal que incluye todos los números en la parte superior además de las flechas de dirección, sus especificaciones también hablan de conectividad HSDPA y WiFi, incorpora Bluetooth, GPS y cámara de 5 megapíxeles con autofocus entre lo más importante.

El GW620 llegará a algunos mercados de Europa en el cuarto trimestre de este año.

Google has released version 1.0 of the Android software developer kit.

The kit lets programmers create applications that will run on Android phones, even before T-Mobile starts selling the first Android-powered G1 on October 22. The biggest difference from the previous Android SDK 0.9: software built with version 1.0 will actually, not just probably, work on those real-world phones, according to the SDK release notes.

Google hopes its Android operating system project will help spur the mobile phone industry into a more enthusiastic embrace of Internet technology. Google of course profits from ads next to search results, and Google Maps opens up other advertising possibilities that are more closely tied to a phone user’s physical location.

A major part of the Android effort is Google’s attempt to woo outside programmers into writing their own applications for Android phones, because Google hopes to bring the easier innovation of the PC market to the relatively closed mobile phone industry. The SDK is a key part of that effort, as is a forthcoming application download site called the Android Market. That market won’t necessarily let people sell Android applications at first, though.

Also in the SDK release notes, Google called out some specific changes, such as some new abilities to make use of Android phone sensors, handle audio files, and use Wi-Fi networks. Serious programmers can look at Google’s catalog of API (application programming interface) differences.

Google couldn’t help adding a little nerd humor to the release notes:

“We regret to inform developers that Android 1.0 will not include support for dot-matrix printers.”

The Real Android Agile Problem

As you know G1 Androids cannot be updated to anything past Android 1.5. I took a look at how fast the ROM space of the OS is growing per major version and the ROM space of new devices. We will  encounter the same exact problem with the new devices at Android 2.5 or Android 3.0.

So what does that mean?  We have Unit and Mock Test classes changing at both the minor and major versions of the SDK. Thus, if you wanted a true TDD Agile continuous build you must test code against 2 different SDK versions, ie run more than one emulator during the continuous builds to get the unit/mock tests and etc. Thus, part of the solution is a build system set-up with preprocessing support as you wil lbe writing test casses/code that adjusts to the SDK version due to the unit and mock test classes in the framework changing.

Part of the issue is also that you will have the need to run more than one emulator during heap/memory testing. Obviously, grabbing several devices and flashing with hacked up stuff to root is not an ideal solution or waiting for ADP2, ADP3, or etc. What if we treated the emulator instances as test servers? So we need to manage this with a framework that allows it to be set up programmitcally as we do not want to have 3 to 5 terminals open typing commands.

OPSCode has this framework called Chef. Basically using rake/ruby you can write cookbooks that set up the whole infrastructure, in this case its the set up of android emulators. Now remember, in your build system you already have unit/mock test targets. This means that you can use Chef to write a functional white box test bench that calls those Gradle tasks or Ant test targets based on the cookbook test plan.

Basically, that means those Gradle test tasks or ANT test targets should be rewritten to support installing the debug package on a emulator be serial number, if no serial number provided default to 5554 or a similar low number where a single emulator might operate as there will be times where you might not run the build system in conjunction with other emulators through the Chef framework.

That is what baffled me before when starting AndCooper Android Java Application Build System development was how would one set up test plans.

[Via http://mobilebytes.wordpress.com]

Spotify for Google Android Phones - G1

The Spotify application was released a couple of weeks ago for both the Google Android operating system (for phones such as the T-Mobile G1) and also for the Apple iPhone.

Being a T-Mobile G1 mobile phone user and loyal to the HTC manufactured phones, Spotify is just excellent as it now means that you don’t need to be downloading music, or paying for music for purchase anymore, as Spotify can satisfy this through its streaming.  It does cost £9.99 per month but that means that you can listen to non-stop music, as much as you want for that great price.

This is an amazing development for Spotify as they now have the music on computer market in the UK, France, Spain, Finland, Norway and Sweden covered and now they have the potential for music on the move to be covered – especially with the S60 platform and windows for mobiles soon to be given the Spotify app!

See below for a demo of the Spotify app that I found on YouTube!

[Via http://interestsofchris.wordpress.com]

Business smartphone choices

When investigating the smartphone offerings today, I came up with a shortlist of Operating Systems/ Devices:

• Microsoft Windows Mobile
• RIM BlackBerry
• Apple iPhone
• Symbian S60
• Google Android

To match enterprise usage, I looked at Microsoft Exchange support (ActiveSync), third party applications and provider independency. By combining all these capabilities, the list get smaller.

Only Microsoft Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 stay in the list.

I would guess that if Apple would only decouple their iPhone from the network provider they would be even more popular. Their application store is already huge (including enterprise applications) and ActiveSync support is included in the OS.

Google Android only has to support Exchange natively to accelerate in the race for the ultimate business smartphone. The Android Market has grown very fast since the opening.

For the moment I will stick to my HTC Touch 3G Windows Mobile smartphone, until Apple or Google reads this post .

[Via http://bobkous.wordpress.com]