June 1, 2009 by Tap
It seems that Google Mobile Platforms director Andy Rubin really generated some buzz with his prediction at Google IO that there could be as many as 20 Android phones available by the end of this year. While this was interesting (but not really that surprising given Android's success and growth to date), what I found of more interest were his comments regarding Google's commitment to Android as an "open" platform as well as clarification of the various Android flavours available to carriers and handset manufacturers.
Google has taken some flack from critics who see the strongly Google-branded G1 and HTC Magic phones as cause for concern regarding the openness of the Android platform. Even manufacturers have expressed some concern, most notably Samsung which blamed its delay in announcing an Android phone on the fact that "some operators were concerned about the vision Google has". In an effort to allay these concerns, Google has actually released three different versions of Android as follows:
Option 1: Obligation free – manufacturers can install Android on their devices and provide access to as many apps as they want but cannot preload Google applications like Gmail or Google Calendar.
Option 2: Same as option 1 but manufacturers must sign a distribution agreement to preload Google applications on the device.
Option 3: Google Experience phones – includes Google branding and Google applications which cannot be removed from the phone. This option also provides uncensored access to the Android Market.
By offering these three flavours of Android, manufacturers and carriers are able to choose to what degree the phones integrate with Google so in the case of Samsung's I7500 (a.k.a. Samsung Galaxy), it looks like they’ve gone the Option 2 route as opposed to producing another HTC-like Google Experience Phone. Hopefully we’ll start to see more customisation of the interface and applications as manufacturers embrace the openness of the Android platform. This can only help to increase the number of new Android phones released this year as well as the number of carriers that offer these phones.
Via: The New York Times
May 12, 2009 by Tap
With yesterday's news of Samsung's forthcoming Android phones making headlines together with the public outing of Donut I decided to do a bit of browsing over on Google's Android Discussion group to see if I could dig up some more information on this forthcoming release.
Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much available as yet but I did read something interesting regarding the general assumption that Donut equals Android v2.0. This may in fact not be the case. According to various comments posted on a particular thread:
"Cupcake was the code-name for a development milestone, as well as the name
for the source code branch corresponding to that milestone... Cupcake is now a defunct name, since that milestone is past. Android 1.5 is the actual name+version for the current Android platform release.
You may also see references to 'donut', which is simply the next (current) milestone."
So does that mean the next milestone a.k.a. donut is version 2?
"It's still early in the cycle for the next milestone, and so a version number hasn't yet been assigned."
Source: Android Discussion Group
May 11, 2009 by Tap
So my G1 finally got the OTA update last Friday and while it kept me entertained for a while this weekend I have to say that overall I was a little underwhelmed. True, I knew what to expect and so probably set myself up for disappointment but treating the update as an average phone user might, I can't say that any of the changes provided any major real-world improvement, not for me at least.
Yes the onscreen keyboard is handy but I've always preferred physical keyboards and after a few attempts at touch screen typing (more like mistyping) I soon gave that up. The camera is certainly a lot more responsive which is nice, but a 3.2 Meg camera with no optical zoom was never going to excite anyway. The various tweaks to Google Mail, SMS, contacts etc. are nice but I still find myself using Google Mail via the browser so no real benefit there.
Most probably my biggest disappointment was the new calendar widget. I've long wanted a decent calendar widget on my G1 and was hoping this was it but sadly no. But it's not all bad news. Personally I think that the introduction of secure widgets is the most important aspect of Android 1.5. Over the coming months we’ll see a lot more focus on Android widget development and I wouldn't be surprised to see a dedicated widget section appearing in the marketplace. Come on Android developers – impress us with your widget skills!
May 4, 2009 by Tap
So the big news right now is the complaint filed by one Erich Specht against Google, the Open Handset Alliance and just about anybody who's dared to use the term Android, or so it seems. This does come as a bit of a surprise considering Google's previous history with trademarked terms/domains. I'm referring of course to the infamous Gmail dispute in Europe which they lost. You would have thought that they'd have learnt from that mistake when it came to the term Android but according to Specht, Google "stole first and asked questions later." But was that really the case? Here's some interesting information for you to consider.
Yes, Specht trademarked the term 'Android Data' in 2002 in reference to his company which produced/produces "a suite of software that enables the remote administration of ecommerce content." But that seems to be all he did. The company itself was dissolved in 2004 and the associated domain name, androiddata.com, lapsed and appeared to become a parked link page back in early 2006 (according to WayBack Machine).
Now this is where it starts to get a bit muddy. The OHA first announced Android in 2007, but this was before Google had actually had their trademark application for Android approved. As it turns out their application was denied in early 2008 but by then it was already too late – the term Android had already been established in reference to the new open platform. Despite this it looked like they'd actually gotten away with it until last month when, at the last possible moment, Specht decided to put up a fight. Suddenly, his company re-appeared with a new website, www.android-data.com, registered just days before he submitted his complaint.
Interestingly, the current website seems little changed to the one that disappeared back in 2006 apart from the addition of a product roadmap which starts 'now' and moves forward – no history there. This may just be Google's saving grace. For all intents and purposes, it looks like Specht resurrected a dormant company and product suite simply to initiate a money-making claim and I guess that will be Google's argument. The big question is, will Google be willing to let this go to court or will they just pay up to make this all go away, making Specht a very happy and wealthy man?
April 14, 2009 by Tap
A preview SDK for Android 1.5 has been released and I have to say it's looking good. This is no minor update and the list of improvements is considerable. It seems like the 'cupcake' offshoot finally seems to have merged itself back into the main SDK so thankfully we can stop talking about cupcake updates and just focus on Android 1.5.
As I said, the list of improvements is considerable and you can view the highlights here but here are some of the things I'm most looking forward to.
UI Improvements to the Browser, Gmail, Calendar and Email
Although the new web versions of Gmail and Calendar are great I still find myself using the native Android versions of these apps on occasion. It will be interesting to see how the 1.5 versions of these applications compare (batch updating in Gmail is already a big improvement). On the subject of Android's browser, there was no mention of security improvements. A big issue I have is the inability to access Windows password protected websites which I'm sure is a problem for many business users. Let’s hope we see a fix for that in the near future.
Home screen widgets
There has been a serious shortage of home screen widgets as a result of potential security issues. One of cupcake's features was support for secure widgets and this has now been included in 1.5 so hopefully we will start to see some useful third-party widgets in future.
SD card filesystem auto-checking and repair
When I first got my G1 I had a hell of a time trying to get it to see the SD card properly (and I know I'm not alone in this regard). After much fiddling and formatting I eventually got it to work but it would have been nice if there were some built-in tools to check SD cards.
General Usability Improvements
- Accelerometer-based application rotations – at last, we will be able to use apps in landscape mode without opening the keyboard.
- Faster Camera start-up and image capture
- Much faster acquisition of GPS location
As you can see, there are some significant improvements which are aimed at providing real benefit to end-users - this is not just a developer-oriented update. All that remains now is to see how long it takes to reach our phones. Not too long I hope.
April 9, 2009 by Tap
Don't get me wrong, Google's recent updates to the mobile versions of Gmail and Google Calendar are great but as an Android user they leave me with a bit of a dilemma. Here's why.
Firstly, Gmail. I really like the new interface. It's clean, simple and intuitive. I like the easy access to the labels menu. The compose screen is easy to use and I particularly like the context menu that stays on the screen when you scroll through the contents of an email. Add to that the fact that (with Gears installed) you can create emails offline and send them later. All of this makes the new mobile Gmail far better than the native Gmail app that comes with Android. The problem is that Gmail notifications are still linked to the native app so clicking on a new notification in your status bar opens the native Gmail instead of the browser version.
Moving on to the Calendar, Android's native Calendar works pretty well for me as it is and the addition of event editing to the web version is of no real benefit to Android users using the native app. What is nice about using the online version is the ability to easily switch between Gmail and Calendar in your browser. Another gripe I have about the web Calendar (and maybe this is just a setting thing) is that in month view, I can’t see which days have events scheduled. The native calendar app displays this very well.
The upshot of all of this is that I'm still left with a mail/calendar solution that, instead of being a single integrated app, ends up being a mix of both native app and browser versions in order to give me all the features I want, the way I want. This leaves me a little bit disappointed.
Oh, and does anyone know if there's a calendar widget for Android yet? Before moving to the G1 I had a WinMo HTC TyTN that displayed events/tasks on the home screen. I have yet to find a way to do this on my G1.
April 6, 2009 by Tap
February's mobile browser share report showed Android gaining 1.24% on the previous month making it the fourth most popular mobile OS according to Net Applications. Figures for March show an even greater increase of 2.31% making it second only to the iPhone.
Whilst this continued growth is an achievement in itself, equally impressive and good news for the future, is a new report by Net Applications which shows that in the first four months of its launch, Android has achieved near identical growth to what the iPhone achieved during its launch. I guess all that remains now is to watch as Android slowly eats away at the iPhone's dominant market share.
Source: Net Applications
March 25, 2009 by Tap
Mobile advertiser AdMob has released its latest metrics report for February which shows that Android now accounts for 5% of US smartphone operating system share. Now this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise when you consider that Net Application's reports released earlier this month for January/February showed similar figures.
What is interesting however is how AdMob's reports have tracked Android's growth over the last few months. Here's a summary.
- October 2008 – as you would expect, no mention of Android or the G1/HTC Dream.
- November 2008 – both Android and the G1 make their debut with the G1 generating 15 million requests (that's already 7% of all T-Mobile traffic) and Android gaining a 2% share of the US smartphone OS market.
- December 2008 – G1 requests increase by 46% month over month and the handset just makes it into the US top 20 models list with 0.8% of requests. Android is still at 2% of the US smartphone OS market.
- January 2009 – The G1 rises to number 18 in the US models list with 0.9% of requests. Android increases its US smartphone OS share to 3%.
- February 2009 – The G1 rises again to number 13 in the US phone models list with 1.7% of requests and becomes the number one device on T-Mobile's network. More importantly however, the G1 becomes the 5th most popular smartphone in the US taking Android to 5.2% of the US smartphone OS market.
Source: AdMob
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 10, 2009 by Tap
It seems like we have a little "Mobile OS Olympics" developing here as everyone reacts to Informa's report which predicts that Android phone sales will overtake the iPhone by 2012. But why are we still using the iPhone as a benchmark? For me, the iPhone's gradual loss of market share over the coming years (or even months) is a given. The real race is going to be an open source one between Android and Symbian (I’m still not convinced by LiMo).
Let's face it, the things that differentiated the iPhone (the desirable handset, the intuitive touchscreen interface, the app store) are no longer unique selling points. Toshiba's new TG01 is an iPhone killer on the design front alone. Add to that the fact that mobile app stores are a dime a dozen (Android Market, Windows "SkyMarket", Nokia Ovi Store) and it seems like Apple can do nothing but watch its market share slowly being eroded. And while open OS smartphones get cheaper (hopefully Acer and potential Dell will see to that), is Apple really going to try and compete – cheap is just not their style.
There's no denying that the release of Windows Mobile 7 is going to breathe new life into the WinMo sector but it may already be too late for Microsoft. Android will continue to capture more market share and once the Symbian Foundation releases its platform, the race will really be on. Now we just have to wait and see who will be the official mobile sponsor of the real 2012 Olympics.