your unofficial guide to the google android
Posts tagged europe
Orange HTC Hero Getting First Half of Android 2.1 Update
Jul 27th
from Android Phone Fans by Kevin Krause
Orange HTC Hero Getting First Half of Android 2.1 Update: ”
As the HTC Hero update to Android 2.1 continues to make its way to all corners of the world, the latest reports are that those that purchased the phone for Orange’s network in Europe are now receiving the first part of the two part update. This initial update is not Android 2.1 itself, but rather a preparatory update that will get the Hero up to speed for the push to 2.1.
No word on when the actual big package will drop, but it should be getting close. With this latest update for Orange it looks like only those with the phone on Three’s network are left without any sign of the update whatsoever.
[via EuroDroid]
“
The Complete Guide of The Latest Android-Compatible Phones
Jul 23rd
Samsung Android Phone I7500.
In mid-April news of their Android phone was again leaked but this turned out to be a false start. Then suddenly out of the blue O2 Germany announced that they would be launching the I7500, making it officially Samsung’s first Android phone, and what a phone it turned out to be.
With it’s slim features (just 11.9 mm thick) and stunning OLED screen, this phone is a real competitor to HTC’s offerings to date. The Samsung I7500 is scheduled for release in Germany in June 2009 and will be an O2 exclusive.
Vodafone HTC Magic Smartphone.
As a handset, HTC Magic is not a major departure from the G1 although it does up the ante in terms of style. The phone is thinner and lighter (owing to the exclusion of a full keyboard) and the original G1’s pronounced ‘chin’ has been smoothed for a much sleeker look. In terms of specifications, the HTC Magic is very similar, using the same Qualcomm MSM7201 processor, a 3.2 inch LCD touchscreen and 3.2 megapixel camera. Internal ROM has also been doubled to 512MB. Obviously the initial battery life issues of the G1 did not go unnoticed, and the Magic will ship with a 1340mAh battery meaning increased talk time.
The HTC Magic phone is a Vodafone exclusive and will be available across Europe from April 2009. At this stage there are no definite dates for availability outside of Europe.
T-Mobile HTC Dream Google G1 Smartphone.
From a technical perspective, the phone comes with everything we’ve come to expect from HTC devices including 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support together with a passable 3.2 Megapixel camera and GPS. Being a Google-branded device, integration with all of the Google applications (search, mail, talk, calendar, maps etc.) is seamless and intuitive as is the rest of the Android UI. The phone ships with a 1150mAh Lithium-ion battery and is quoted as having up to 406 minutes of talk time on GSM although reviews seem to indicate that battery life is nowhere near as good as it should be. Extended 2200mAh batteries are now becoming available and are highly recommended for heavy users.
Overall of the Google G1 is a nice phone that handles adequately. It may not have the wow-factor visually or even technically but as a first mover it is a good example of the potential of Android-powered smartphones. Now bring on the G2.
Smartphone (Android) Applet Developer Training Program “ICONapps" – by MSC Malaysia
Jul 22nd
Calling for software developers to submit your idea proposal and join our 5 days intensive boot camp of “Smartphone (Android) Applet Developer Training Program – ICONapps” by MSC Malaysia.
The Training
Covers the major components of Android applications and their roles, what languages and development tools one uses to create Android applications the first time, and the core business models for making money in the Android ecosystem.
This program is designed by one of the top names in the Android development industry, Mark Murphy, founder of CommonsWare and author of The Busy Coder’s Guide to Android Development (Version 2.0) from US, and supported by our local team, which includes technical directors of award winning Smartphone app. Our evaluation team panel includes representatives from venture capital (VC) community, industry players and MDeC.
Training Sessions
Seats Are Limited! Secure Your Seat Now!!!
How to Apply?
- Select your preferred batch to attend.
- Call us at 03-89963033 or Email the registration forms to book.
- Submit your proposal to sara@sage.com.my
- Please submit your application before the application deadline.
Note: Applicant must be Malaysian Citizen and only 1 person per project.
- Please note that you only need to pay RM500 out of the total training fee. Please retain the original receipt of payment in order to claim it back later.
- If your proposal is successful you will be informed in 3 working days.
- Once you have completed the training, you will be encouraged to submit a working prototype (source code) of your app for evaluation before 17th September 2010.
- If successful, you will be entitled to the following:
1. Refund of RM500 training fee (require original or certified true copy of receipt)
2. Subsidy of a purchase of a development system/android phone of your choice, however the maximum subsidy is RM3500.
Google will stop selling Nexus One phones in U.S.
Jul 19th
Google’s Nexus One phone, touted as a “super” phone by Google and a key iPhone competitor when it launched in January, is now history in the United States. The search giant said it will no longer sell the phone via its website once existing stock is depleted.
“Once we sell these devices, the Nexus One will no longer be available online from Google,” the company said on its blog. “Customer support will still be available for current Nexus One customers. And Nexus One will continue to be sold by partners including Vodafone in Europe, KT in Korea, and possibly others based on local market conditions.”
The Nexus One got high marks from reviewers, and is considered a signature Android phone, using the operating system that Google helped create. But it has struggled to find a market. The advent of other high-profile Android phones — including those built by HTC, which makes the Nexus One — have marked stiff competition, and lessened the need for Google to sell a gold-standard phone of its own. Notable models include Motorola’s Droid, Droid X and HTC Droid Incredible running on Verizon Wireless, Samsung’s Galaxy S, which will appear on a variety of carriers, and the HTC Evo, which runs on Sprint’s high-speed 4G wireless network.
Sales of the phone were also hurt by Google’s novel and early efforts to sell the phone only via its website, with spartan customer support in the first weeks after the $529 phone became available.
“With only a small percentage of handset sales going through the Web, it was difficult for the Nexus One to gain much momentum,” said Ross Rubin, NPD Group analyst. “Google may have backed into such limited distribution to avoid competing too directly with its (Android) handset partners.”
Customers could order the phone to be used on T-Mobile’s network, and pay $179 for it with a two-year contract. The Nexus One also runs on AT&T’s network, but the carrier does not subsidize the cost of the phone, as it does with most others. Sprint, which had indicated it would run the Nexus One, later changed its mind, with the company saying it would instead concentrate on the new HTC Evo. (Verizon Wireless also quietly backed away from supporting the Nexus One.)
Then, in May, Google said it would stop selling the Nexus One on its website “once we have increased the availability of Nexus One devices in stores.” That did not happen.
Story continues below More below
Advertisement | ad info
Sponsored links
Marketplace
.While Google has not released sales figures for the Nexus One, “it’s likely in the hundreds of thousands, not millions,” said Michael Gartenberg, vice president of strategy and technology analysis at Interpret, LLC.
“It was an experiment in retailing that might not have succeeded, but it also redefined the standard for Android devices and that was successful,” he said. “Google managed to drive hardware partners to better designs, specs and features in order to stay competitive.”
The Nexus One, with its 3.7-inch touchscreen and 5-megapixel camera, “remains one of the best Android devices on the market,” Gartenberg said.
The phone is the second high-profile one in a month to be abandoned by its creator. Microsoft’s Kin, a social networking phone carried by Verizon Wireless, was discontinued in June after only six weeks on the market. (Msnbc.com is an NBC Universal-Microsoft joint venture.) Some attributed the failure not to the phone’s sticker price but to the fact that Verizon decided to charge customers for a full smart-phone data plan, in spite of the phone’s limited functionality.
Google’s Nexus One announcement came Friday, the same day Apple CEO Steve Jobs held a press conference about the iPhone 4 and its antenna issue, saying iPhone 4 owners will get free bumpers to deal with the reception problem caused by how the phone is held.
“Earlier this year, we announced that we will be closing the Nexus One web store,” Google said on its blog. “This week we received our last shipment of Nexus One phones. Once we sell these devices, the Nexus One will no longer be available online from Google ….
“To ensure our developers have access to a phone with the latest Android OS (operating system), Google will be offering the Nexus One through a partner for sale to registered developers.”
Update: Nexus One changes in availability
Jul 16th
To ensure our developers have access to a phone with the latest Android OS, Google will be offering the Nexus One through a partner for sale to registered developers. Visit the Android Market Publisher site and log into your developer account to purchase a Nexus One.
Earlier this year, we announced that we will be closing the Nexus One web store. This week we received our last shipment of Nexus One phones. Once we sell these devices, the Nexus One will no longer be available online from Google. Customer support will still be available for current Nexus One customers. And Nexus One will continue to be sold by partners including Vodafone in Europe, KT in Korea, and possibly others based on local market conditions.
Google Sync 101
Jul 7th
If you are like most of my friends, the lower cost of entry into the smart phone market has made you give up that Motorola Razr from 2006 and upgraded to the plethora of available smart phones in the market.
But what now?
Its amazing how many times I have come across someone who owns a smart phone yet is not taking advantage of some of the many tools available to you with the additional power of a smart phone. One of these tools I want to touch upon now is Google Sync. Whether you own a Blackberry, an iPhone, an Android device or a WebOS device (and those in Europe a Symbian device) Google Sync can make your life much easier.
The idea for this write up was sparked from a few friends informing me via facebook that they have lost their phone and need my number again. I’m flattered my friends want to keep in contact with me, but I’m amazed many don’t know about the great tool of Google Sync. We’ll begin with the first question.
What is Google Sync?
Google Sync is one of the many apps provided by Google for different phone platforms. The technology is actually built directly into the Android and WebOS Operating system, but the application is available for the iPhone and Blackberry platform. Google Sync allows you to sync information from your Google Calender and Google Contacts directly to your phone as well as from your phone to your Google data.
First thing you’ll need is a Gmail account. Most people seem to have picked up a Gmail account but if you haven’t as of yet I highly recommend it. Gmail is currently my favorite E-Mail provider and it has the added benefit of working cross platform with many different Google owned services.
Now for those with an account, if you want to set up your Google Contacts your first step should be here:
In the highlighted box is the Contacts section of GMail. Once you click there you are greeted with this screen:
(please excuse the redaction’s as this is my personal contact list)
As you can see, it is mostly setup as you would expect. A few small things to point out. You may be wondering what the difference is between “All Contacts” an “My Contacts”. Google setup contacts to automatically add your frequently emailed email addresses into your All Contacts area along with everyone from My Contacts. My Contacts is comprised of all contacts you have added manually.
As you dive into the editing of contacts you’ll notice that they have many fields to fill out. Of course you do not have to fill out all fields but I will advise that you fill out as much information as you know as most phones will pull in all the information provided.
Once you have added all the contacts that you wanted to I advise you to also export your contact list just so you have a copy of the information on your own computer in case Google ever suffers a major data loss (highly unlikely but general rule to follow is if you don’t have more then one copy of your data, its not that important).
Once that’s out of the way, you have the easy part up next. Syncing all your information. This post would be a bit too drawn out if I walked through each process depending on the phone but here is a short run:
WebOS (Palm Pre and Pixi): When you first get your phone as you open your email app, your contact app and your calender app you are greeted with a screen asking you to add an existing account. All you need to add is your Gmail address and the phone and the “cloud” will magically start syncing your data over. The first sync will be the longest so I advise doing it while in the range of wifi. And that’s it! Your phone will periodically check in with the Google server to see if there is anything it needs to update. And remember, this works 2-way. From your phone as well as from GMail.
Android: Android works very similar to WebOS where you will be greeted with a prompt when you first turn on your phone to add different accounts (including Facebook and twitter). Once you add your Gmail account and any other account you wish to add, it will start syncing much in the same was as WebOS.
Blackberry and iPhone: These two OS’s actually require you to download the Google Sync app from the App Store and Blackberry App World. Just do a search and they should be easy to find The actually app itself will give you parameters for when it syncs and what it will sync and if you want 2-way sync. Once that is setup, they will sync again, much like WebOS and Android and you should be all set.
And that’s it! You can use Google Calender as well (which I do) and it works the same way with contacts. I’ve been using Google Sync since I owned a Blackberry Curve and I haven’t found a downside to it yet. To those that own a blackberry there is actually an easy way to export your contacts from your phone to an .xls (excel) file that then can be imported into Gmail. Not only is the ability to never have to ask your friends for their number again a great help, but the fact you can access your information from virtually any computer and all modern smart phones use this service makes updating and changing phones a snap. I also included the quick run-down video created by Google that may be able to answer any remaining questions.
If you have any further questions please feel free to reach out to me via E-Mail or in the comments. If you have made the switch to Google Sync let me know what you think.
Microsoft Stumbles Over Its KIN Phone
Jul 6th
Although the main focus of this blog is publishing, periodically I post about major computer companies because of their potential to impact the publishing industry.
On May 13, Microsoft released its two new KIN phones, intended to appeal to the youth market. The problem was Microsoft couldn’t loosen up enough to really engage the market it was targeting.
Six weeks after the KIN’s release, Microsoft decided to kill the product. On June 30, Microsoft announced:
We have made the decision to focus exclusively on Windows Phone 7 and we will not ship KIN in Europe this fall as planned. Additionally, we are integrating our KIN team with the Windows Phone 7 team, incorporating valuable ideas and technologies from KIN into future Windows Phone releases. We will continue to work with Verizon in the U.S. to sell current KIN phones.
Engadget reviewed the KIN here on May 5 and reported:
What [the KIN] was designed to do … was work really well doing a couple of key tasks, most of them centered around social networking, photos and video, and some overarching concept of capturing your mobile/digital life in a whole new and easy manner. Lofty goals indeed for a product like this, and unfortunately for everyone, Microsoft misses the mark by a long shot. It’s not even close.
Gadgetell also reviewed the phone here and had this to say:
Here’s the part that gets us mad: the phone checks in for updates every 15 minutes and sometimes not that fast. For teens and others on the go, how is this acceptable? How is this not plastered on the box as a warning? … Social doesn’t happen ever[y] 15 minutes, social is in the moment and Microsoft has missed this fact.
And here comes the insulting: Verizon will charge you the full data plan price – even though the phone is throttling usage. That’s right a full $29.99 per month just for the data that is given to you in 15 minute intervals. I’ve gone back and read this 4 times now as I was sure I misunderstood it.
On June 30, Wired opined here as to why the KIN failed:
- The Windows 7 Phone is scheduled to be released in time for this year’s holidays. “KIN’s OS isn’t exactly Windows 7 Phone but it’s not entirely a new operating system either …”
- “The KIN isn’t a smartphone, but it sure had a monthly cellphone plan priced like one.” Even though Verizon dropped the monthly cellphone cost from $50 to $30 (with a two-year contract) soon after the launch, the KIN still required users to have a data plan, too. “That means a $70 a month minimum on the bill.”
- The KIN isn’t really a smartphone because “… Microsoft crippled the overall functionality of the device by not allowing apps or games on the phone.”
- The KIN lacked a “cool factor” and “Microsoft’s marketing of the KIN seemed to make it worse.”
In one of the early posts I did on this blog back on October 6, 2005, I said:
This morning’s Search Engine Journal [SEJ] talked about the newly announced distribution partnership between Google and Sun Microsystems. Google’s Toolbar will be distributed with Sun’s Java. This deal brings Google into direct competition with Microsoft.What it also does is bring open source software in direct competition with proprietary software.
Bill Gates’ Microsoft is the prototype for a proprietary (closed source) company. We all know that Microsoft’s programs only run on Microsoft’s operating system. However, “an application built on Sun’s Java can be run on any platform regardless of the architecture.” (SEJ 10/4/05) Java’s operating system fits Google’s open source philosophy to a tee.
Rob Sullivan is quoted in the Search Engine Journal as saying: “Google could become a viable alternative to Microsoft. And not just Microsoft applications, but Microsoft as a whole . . . This is the true power of the deal today . . . this is all in line with Google’s mission of making the world’s information universally accessible.”
Google is pitting its open source philosophy against Microsoft’s proprietary culture.
Start placing your bets.
Sunday’s New York Times here summed up both the KIN and Microsoft’s problems:
… the Kin debacle is a reflection of Microsoft’s struggle to deliver what the younger generation of technology-obsessed consumers wants. From hand-held products to business software, Microsoft seems behind the times.Part of its problem may be that its ability to intrigue and attract software developers is also waning, which threatens its ability to steer markets over the long term. When it comes to electronic devices, people writing software have turned their attention to platforms from Apple and Google.
Meanwhile, young technology companies today rely on free, open-source business software rather than Microsoft’s products, so young students, soon to be looking for jobs, have embraced open-source software as well.
“Microsoft is totally off the radar of the cool, hip, cutting-edge software developers,” said Tim O’Reilly, who publishes a popular line of software development guides.
Take that leap of faith, Bill Gates. Lighten up on the proprietary philosophy.
HTC Hero May Get An Update to Android 2.1 Starting June 29th… in France
Jun 23rd
by Quentyn Kennemer
HTC Hero May Get An Update to Android 2.1 Starting June 29th… in France: ”
I know some of you are getting just about peeved by now, but we have to report it anyway. If Frandroid’s sources are correct, HTC Hero owners in France will be receiving Android 2.1 in traditional OTA style this June 29th.The firmware’s version is currently being broadly numbered “3.XX.405.XX”.
After taking my trusty “Google Translate” for a spin, this chart’s indicating that the device will get an initial, smaller update (versioned “2.73.405.93″) on June 25th to prepare for Android 2.1’s OTA a few days later. None of this is confirmed, but we’ll always take what we can get. At this rate, one has to wonder when (or if) the rest of Europe will be able to get their own taste of chocolatey Eclair anytime soon.
[via FranDroid]
“
Skype Plans to Bring Video Chat to All Android Phones
May 31st
By Alice Straight, TMCnet Web Editor
Skype (News – Alert) will be offering an application to all Android handsets later this year, which will include a video chat feature. Currently Skype on Android (News – Alert) is limited to Verizon Wireless’ handsets.
“Skype envisions a world where video plays a larger role in the way we communicate. It’s on computers, televisions, and it will eventually be coming to mobile devices too. We’re betting big on video, and we intend to set the bar on mobile video calling, and it’s something we’re going to do this year. We will be bringing a direct to consumer app to the Android marketplace later this year. This application will be available for all consumers globally to download regardless of carriers,” the company said in a statement.
Fring, a Skype competitor, recently announced a new Android application that offers free video calling. Fring wraps together a number of services, such as Skype, MSN, ICQ, GTalk and other IM platforms into a single application. On Tuesday, Verizon (News – Alert) Global Wireless announced that its customers used 200 percent more VoIP time in 2009 than in the previous year. “Since we launched our VoIP portfolio 10 years ago, we’ve seen steady growth reflecting customer desire for reliable, cost-effective IP voice services,” said Mike Millegan, president of Verizon Global Wholesale, in a statement. “And, as this market grows, we continue to add new VoIP services while enhancing our existing portfolio.” Verizon has added new applications such as short-duration calling systems for call centers and mass notification systems. The company also announced plans to add a more robust VoIP network interfaces in Europe later this year. Also by the end of the year, Verizon expects to offer a VoIP-based feature that will enable its users to dispense with paper invoices and instead receive electronic invoices with call details included on them. Verizon Wireless has forged a close relationship with Skype, the independent VoIP pacesetter, over the past few years.