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In a recent report, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said that, "Over the next six months or so you will see devices like Palm Pre and a second generation Storm." Quite a stunning statement and one that has caused some heated debate online. By all current accounts Sprint has the Pre for six months, when that six months starts and ends could be a bit blurry, but as things stand now, Sprint has the higher ground as far as the Pre timing goes. Then again, Verizon really isnt the type of company to spout off some nonsense like this, so who is right? Well, its possible that the six month exclusivity on the Pre has already started perhaps it was delayed behind the scenes, and the contract will expire within a shorter public time frame, but that seems rather unlikely. Especially, considering that as of now, Sprint has come out publicly in response to state, "We have the Pre through 2009."
Its minutely possible Lowell wasnt actually talking about the Pre. Its a bit easy to read into, but he says "like Palm Pre", perhaps indicating they will have some sort of Pre competitor. Unfortunately I cant really imagine that being true either since he also refers to the "cousin" of the Pre, which I can only imagine is the fabled mini Pre/Eos.
So at this point, evidence seems to be piling up, so who is wrong? As things stand currently, it would seem to be Verizon unless they shed some more light on the situation.
Also big news in there, aside from the conroversy, is the second generation BB Storm. Previously we had heard that the Storm 2 could hit as soon as next month or July, but it seems as of now that will likely be pushed back considering the 6 month timetable on the device, I cant say Im really surprised though.
And just to put some icing on the cake they also announced that they would be selling Android phones in the future, likely starting with the Android Motorola device later this year.
Big news for Verizon fans, but do you think the Pre will hit Verizon this year or not? | |
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T-Mobile USA released an awesome application today for the G1 that is great for all of us who dont purchase unlimited everything, and even then, it provides you with some cool details. The application is pretty simple in principal, it shows you your usage information. While that might not seem like much, you now know exactly how many minutes and how many text messages you have used, so you dont go over and get a ton of fees.
I applaud T-Mobile for releasing this application, as it shows a strong desire to communicate openly about their account information so they dont suffer excessive overages. It would have been much simpler for them to not release the application and perhaps make more money in the long run.
In addition to the usage stats it displays your account balance, your bill cycle, your plans, available capacity on the device, battery life, guides, tips & tricks, troubleshooting, and even a link to their forums. This device is great for anyone who is using the G1 on T-Mobile, and I really consider it a must have for anyone without unlimited texting/calls. Its available now, for free, on the G1 Market. | |
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Chinese Unicom subscribers have some great stuff coming their way. Both of these hot handsets appeared on the carriers page recently. The validity is still a bit questionable, especially on the G1 page considering the pictured phone is branded G1 and has the T-Mobile logo on the pictured devices, both of which are quite obviously T-Mobile trademarks. In addition the specs for the G1 differ a bit than the standard specs, most notably is the drop in internal memory, also glaringly missing is Wi-Fi from both the feature lists. Regardless, China Mobile subscribers must be feeling envious. | |
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Things have been pretty crazy since admob released its data about smartphone web usage, and the iPhone came in at nearly 50% all by its lonesome. Most of the other carriers dropped substantially to compensate for this, except android/G1 who eked out a meager 5% of the mobile traffic up... well, 5% from 6 months ago. But while this data certainly has generated a lot of buzz around the Internet mobile community, its validity as a correct sample of mobile traffic has been cast heavily into question especially considering how most blogs title the news in broad, sweeping terms.
But this data comes from admobs advertising data; whose service as their name suggest is to deliver advertisements on mobile devices by places advertisements in applications. First and foremost, this is not a correct sampling by itself, not every single person who owns a smartphone uses applications, at least with not any frequency. The big problem is that their services target iPhone and Android specifically, the former of which has a disproportionately high application rate compared to most other devices, skewing the results of Internet wide usage substantially. And while the iPhone probably is responsible for a significant portion of mobile smartphone traffic, I think these numbers are overinflated due to the method in which they were collected.
This data is still interesting for people who use the admob service, but dont misconstrue it as Internet wide usage statistics. | |
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A cool new application was released on the Android/G1 Market today called simply "Documents to Go." The application currently supports Microsoft Word and Excel files, but has a hefty price tag of $19.99, quite expensive for an android application, and thats with $10 off for a limited time. Regardless, the application has been very well received and seems to get the job done for a mobile document/word processor. With a few more file formats added it could become quite the killer-app, unfortunately the lack of power point and pdf functionality really hinders the application; but its possible both would simply require too much power processor and battery for the G1 to bare. Regardless, if you need to edit apps on the go, this is currently your best choice on the Android platform.
-Via androinica | |
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Overview: BarTor is the first product of Androidandmes first bounty contest. The contest was simple, write an Android G1 application using some guidelines and win a prize. The rules were fairly simple, make an application using the barcode scanner API and use it to search for torrents and submit them to a computer remotely. If you dont know what all that means, its fairly simple: the application starts a download on a computer at home and you can search for things to download using the camera which acts like a barcode scanner. Of course, this application has some potentially fraudulent or illegal applications, and we do not condone such actions and nor should you.
Functionality: The first thing is you need to set up a compatible torrent manager on the computer that will be downloading the files, and then you need to set it up. I wont go into the details, but the instructions on the application are well, sparse. It took a few minutes of browsing online before I was able to find some instructions on how to set up the connection between the application and my home computer and I think the developer would do well to include a fuller set of instructions in the program.
The main feature of the program works great, scan barcode, get product name, submit to related sites and then you submit them to your computer where it will begin downloading. In addition, you can also manually search by typing in a title as well as configure which sites you want to search.
The program could use some more features though, mainly a way to manage your downloads remotely. Although this may be more of a problem with the computer side of things than the applications. A simple file manager and a way to start/stop/delete downloads would make this program a whole lot better.
Look and Feel: The main screen is fairly simple, feature white text and outlines on a simple black background. Unfortunately, once you get into the background and do search youll be gretted with thin font deep red text on many things, which frankly is hard to read and very unappealing to look at. A simple color change would go a long way.
Conclusion: This is a great application if you like downloading on the go, but at $2.99 it may make people think twice. It works great, but could use some UI improvements and a download manager. | |
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Well, honestly, I suppose these changes will be most important for iPhone users since the typical G1/Android user probably just uses the gmail/calendar application and wont ever notice these improvements. Regardless, the calendar changes are probably the biggest change people will be excited about; the new mobile calendar site now allows you to respond to invitations as well as manage your attendance. While that isnt exactly what I would deem exciting, Google has apparently had a fair outcry for it.
The Gmail changes are a bit more general but greatly increase the speed and reliability of the platform by caching which if you dont know, is just a fancy term for saving parts of the site/program for faster use later. In addition this will let you compose mail even if the internet connection is non-existent or spooty. The other changes like being able to select multiple messages and some design improvments combined with increased speed make the site much easier to use and much more convenient. Keep it Google, I just hope you havent forgotten about the Cupcakes in the oven.
-Via Androinica via Google Mobile Blog | |
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Google is taking considerably longer to release the much-anticipated cupcake update for the Android mobile operating system than originally planned. Speculation will lead me to think that part of the reason is that the G2 is coming out soon and so they want their bases covered and have this update work well on the current T mobile G1 as well as be a solid, good OS for the G2 device.
And all of that will take time and lots and lots of testing, especially considering that the next generation of the Android device from HTC for Tmobile will not have an external keyboard.
My guess is that it is fairly certain that the new update will hit G1 devices right around the time that the G2 is being released. Originally, it seemed as if the update was coming early 2009 but all plans of that were squashed when news of the pending G2 broke out. Since then it has become pretty clear that G1 customers will get an update only around the time that the new device hits the market. | |
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Well, its no secret that the G1 tethering applications were recently pulled from the android marketplace but are still available if you wish to download them directly, but a new interesting one has surfaced called tether blu, and as its name suggests, it uses Bluetooth. It manages to escape the clutches of T-Mobile/Google by only transferring wi-fi over the bluetooth connection, which obviously hinders its usability immensely, since almost everyone wants to use the cellular data network on the go with tethering applications.
So if your computer doesnt have wi-fi you can effectively use your phone as a wi-fi antennae; unfortunately depending on your internet speed you may IE: will be significantly bottlenecked by the Bluetooths 3 Mbit/s speed, but it should prove to be handy in a pinch.
Its available for free on the Android marketplace now, but it does require root access, so I hope you dont mind hacking your phone for a little utility. | |
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Today Im going to look at my top five applications for the Android G1. Ive personally used all of these extensively since I got the device, and I personally recommend all of them to ANY G1 user pac-man/twitter haters not included. Coincidentally, all of these are free applications that are available now, so give them a shot!
Shopping: Compare Everywhere/ShopSavvy - While this is technically two applications, they both have very similar purposes: you scan a barcode or type in a product title and it brings up locan and internet prices for the product. If anything, I really consider this to be the major "killer app" on the G1 and it can potentially save you a lot of money in the long run. Just be careful around some retailers, they really dont like you price checking in the store. I recommend you take your business elsewhere if they give you grief, since that probably means they arent going to be winning any price wars or customer service awards. Overall, ShopSavvy is the more popular application, but I recommend checking out and using both since they pull up different information occasionally.
Gaming: Pac-Man by Namco - A retroc arcade classic available for free. Not much to say there, if you love Pac-Man, youll love this... if you dont, well, you probably wont like this either. As a cool bonus, it offers several ways to control Pac-Man; you can use the trackball my preferred method, the touch screen, and you can even tilt the phone to control him.
Social Networking: Twidoid - In my opinion, out of the varying social networking tools on Android, this one is the most full featured. There isnt much to say here, it gives you all the functionality of twitter at your fingertips without using text messages. The author is constantly writing new updates as well, so we can look forward to even more features in the future.
Multimedia: Shazam - If you listen to the radio a lot you may have the same problem I do: you frequently miss the name of the song youre hearing. This can be quite the pain trying to find later, typing random lyrics you remember into google trying to find the song, but now you have an easy solution. If you hear a song you like, just run Shazam and itll listen to the song and tell you the name. It will them pull up Amazon store where you could buy the MP3. Its very useful and pretty cool to boot.
Productivity: AK Notepad - This is a very simple application, but one that you may get a lot of use out of I know I have. It is simply a little digital notepad, its even colored like one. It may not seem like much, but its great if you dont have a pen and paper lying around. In addition, you can set reminders for each note as well. Im really surprised such an application doesnt come standard. | |
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