March 19, 2009 by Tap
Earlier this month I blogged about a German court ruling which threatened to scupper HTC's plans to launch any new 3G smartphones in Germany, including the forthcoming HTC Magic. At the time, HTC indicated that it would appeal and it looks like they did as latest reports now indicate that the original ruling has been suspended by an appellate court.
Whether this new ruling is an indication that the original claim is unfounded is hard to tell although HTC certainly thinks so. All we know is that HTC and IPCom will be back in court in four weeks time to try and settle this once and for all.
Source: Yahoo Finance
March 17, 2009 by Tap
Yes folks - that blurry little picture, courtesy of Pocket-lint is supposedly Samsung's first tenative steps into the world of Android. The image was revealed in a slide show presentation at a dealer event in Amsterdam and comes with equally unclear specs:
- "large" capacitive touchscreen
- 3G support
- 3.2 or 5 megapixel camera
- 528MHz processor
- microSD slot
- Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP
Samsung exec, Won-Pyo Hong, has already said that the firm would start selling more than three Android phones by the end of the year - this looks like number one, although I won't be adding it to my official Android Phone List just yet.
March 17, 2009 by Tap
There's no denying that HTC are on a roll. According to a Reuters report, the company is extremely bullish for 2009 and that can only mean one thing for Android fans - more Android phones. At a Merrill Lynch technology conference in Taipei today, HTC CEO Peter Chou made mention of HTC's second-generation Google Android phone (the HTC Magic) and added that "a total of three such models would be introduced this year."
The Reuters report also mentioned HTC's acquisition of industrial design consultancy One & Co. - these were the guys responsible for the design of the sleek HTC Touch Diamond. Let's just hope that they'll be adding some of their design flair to the company's next Android phones.
March 17, 2009 by Tap
It looks like Sprint subscribers are not going to be seeing any Android-based smartphones any time soon. That's according to PhoneNews who claim to have received a leaked copy of Sprint's 2009 Roadmap. Of most interest to Android fans is the 2009 Smartphone Roadmap.
Don't get too excited about seeing Android mentioned on the slide - they've just lumped Linux/Android/Google into one category and the Palm P100 mentioned is actually the Palm Pre which will run Palm's Linux-based webOS. Trust me, the chances of Palm producing an Android phone are less than zero.
There have been concerns voiced about the authenticity of this information and of course roadmaps can always change but as things stand right now, you can forget about seeing anything Android-based on Sprint this year.
March 16, 2009 by Tap
Paging through my copy of Stuff magazine again (old-school I know) this weekend I was confronted once more by the stunningly sleek and sexy new Toshiba TG01. With its 4.1 inch screen and at just 9.9mm thin, this phone is guaranteed to be a top seller based on looks alone. A few pages on and there was a write-up on HTC's new Touch Pro 2, another great looking (albeit chunky thanks to the QWERTY keyboard) piece of kit.
Now there's one problem with both of these phones (if you're an Android fan that is) – they run Windows Mobile. I have no doubt that the majority of phone users don’t know or even care what OS their phone is running and the T-Mobiles/Vodafones of this world know this. Just look at Vodafone's preview page for the HTC Magic – there is no actual mention of Android on the page (in the browser title and meta description only). Instead they try to pitch the Magic as sleek and stylish. The problem is that compared to the likes of the TG01 and Touch Pro 2, the Magic looks like a bit of an ugly stepchild.
But are looks really that important? I would say yes. Some phones sell because they are technically superior, but a lot of phones sell simply because they have the looks and the desirability factor. Is it possible that without the looks, the current Android phones will never be able to achieve the same degree of desirability (and sales) as their sexier competitors?
Come on HTC, we know what you're capable of, so what happened with the G1/Dream and the Magic? It's almost like the HTC Android team was ring-fenced and told to keep well away from the WinMo team. What's that all about? Yes Android has some specific requirements in terms of buttons an then there's the trackball (or chinwart as I like to call it) but surely all of that could have been incorporated into a better looking design.
That said, I can understand why maybe HTC didn't want to commit its best designs to a platform which, until now, has been an unknown and therefore a bit of a risk. Hopefully, based on the popularity of the G1 to date (and no doubt the HTC Magic from April), HTC will now commit its best and brightest designers to come up with some new designs for their next Android phone. I think it's time that we had a sexy Android phone don’t you?
March 16, 2009 by Tap
Tired of waiting for the on again, off again Cupcake update? Better Android has just announced the release of a paid version of Open Home, their home replacement app, which now includes Cupcake features. According to the Better Android blog, they have managed to back port some Cupcake features to the current firmware and Open Home, available for $2.99, includes both live folders and a soft keyboard.
Other home replacement apps have been released before now but Open Home seems to be the first one based on Cupcake and while other home apps on the Android Market may stop working once Cupcake is officially released, Better Android claims that theirs will continue working.
March 13, 2009 by Tap
Earlier this week, thanks to a post by Pocket-lint, there was a new spate of rumours that the infamous cupcake update was going to be released in the UK next month. I made a point of staying quiet on this because a) we've heard it all before and been disappointed and b) it just doesn't make sense. Now it seems my initial thoughts may have been correct.
Google has already stated that cupcake itself would be a major update, something beyond v1.0 and not released as an RC update to the current version. Surely it stands to reason that before launching any major new version publicly, there would be an official non-beta SDK release for developers? As we haven’t seen that yet, a full release of cupcake seems unlikely. What's more likely at this stage is that we could see some cupcake functionality back-ported into the current version via an RC update but even that seems to be in doubt following a report by BetaNews. According to T-Mobile USA’s Erica Gordon, an April release date for a Cupcake update is "just a rumor."
Of course this could just point to a lack of communication between T-Mobile USA and UK but right now I'm less inclined to believe that, so until I see an official public statement from T-Mobile to say otherwise, there is no cupcake update next month.
March 12, 2009 by Tap
Motorola shares gained 4.4% on Wednesday following a stock upgrade announcement by Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Ittai Kidron based, in part, on the company's plans to ramp up smartphone production in the second half of this year. According to the analyst, "checks indicate Motorola could launch as many as 10 new smartphone models in the second half of this year."
Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jan has already confirmed (Motorola To Focus On Android In 2009) that they have plans to release Android-based smartphones, but 10 new phones seems quite ambitious, even if they are a mix of both Android and WinMo devices. That said, given Motorola’s financial woes of late and the fact that smartphones are the way forward, the company will want to make a serious play in the market. Let’s just hope that whatever they come up with is nothing like the MOTOQ.
Hopes of an Android-based phone launch by Motorola at this year's Mobile World Congress proved fruitless. Perhaps they’ll have something to show at CTIA Wireless next month.
Via: Yahoo Finance
March 11, 2009 by Tap
It looks like the wait is finally over for UK G1 owners as T-Mobile confirms that paid apps will be available in the UK from tomorrow, March 12th. This news comes straight from a live blog post on Pocket Gamer this morning, reporting from a T-Mobile Android event in London.
While the bombshell was obviously paid apps, Richard Warmsley, T-Mobile UK's Head of Internet and Entertainment, also revealed a few other tasty titbits. He confirmed once again that the G1 currently accounts for 20% of T-Mobile sales but went on to say that it's now reaching 70% of iPhone sales in the UK. He also went on to reveal some interesting G1 user demographics as well as some of the current top Android apps including The Weather Channel, MySpace Mobile, ShopSavvy, Daily Horoscope, Free Dictionary, RingDroid, BarScanner, SaveMMS and CompareEverywhere.
The overall impression is that T-Mobile is incredibly enthusiastic about the future of Android and will be ramping things up by Q4 2009 with not just more Android phones but also possibly Android tablets and Ultra-Mobile PCs in future. It looks like we have a lot to look forward to in the coming months.
Via: Pocket Gamer
March 10, 2009 by Tap
"Many sites have been re-hashing a loosely worded story posted by T3.com that stated that LG's KS360 QWERTY slider would be re-released with the Android OS this summer as LG's first Android powered device." So said Android Authority and I have to fess up and say that TAP was one of the many sites that helped to perpetuate this rumour last month.
Fortunately Android Authority's Michael Oryl got in contact with LG Mobile UK's Jeremy Newing, the company's head of Marketing (T3's original source), who confirmed that this was never the case. He had simply stated that LG "is considering a similar form factor for social networking focused Android phones in the future." Just goes to show, even a respected site like T3 can get things horribly wrong sometimes.
Source: T3 via Android Authority