Archive for February, 2009

Android OS on more devices

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

Huawei Android Phone
Android Phone from Huawei
About a week ago Huawei announced an Android powered phone at the Mobile World Congress ‘09. Huawei is not really known outside of China except as a mobile infrastructure provider. Though many people outside the People’s Republic do not know that brand, everyone in China knows it. Being the biggest mobile phone market (more that 400 mio. mobile subscribers) speaks for itself. The phone itself looks like a direct iPhone copy but with a good OS :)
ASUS Eee PC - running Google’s Android OS
Android on ASUS Eee PC
Besides the Chinese dudes I just read from other (free) Chinese dudes in Taiwan over at ASUS. They are working on a custom version of Android to run it on their Eee PCs which come with Windows XP right now. Google’s Carolyn Penner said that Android hasn’t been designed for phone exclusively. It is rather been intended to run on any kind of mobile device – this would include the Eee PC as well. Especially on such extreme mobile device it is quite important to use as less resources as possible. Microsoft’s Windows – no matter if it is XP, Vista or even WM Mobile – was never really fast.

HTC Magic w/o SIM Lock
I just found: HTC confirmed that the Vodafone / HTC Magic will not come with a SIM Lock like the T-Mobile G1. This is good news!

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Android Phone: HTC Magic for Vodafone

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

Android Phone: HTC Magic for Vodafone

The brand new HTC Magic is the second Android phone that has been published by HTC so far. Besides the existing HTC Dream (aka T-Mobile G1) and the less popular Kogan Agora this seems to be the third official real phone running Android.

Android Phone: HTC Magic for Vodafone

Besides the missing keyboard the specifications are about the same like the G1 has.

HTC Magic Specifications

Processor Qualcomm® MSM7201a™, 528 MHz
Operating System Android
Memory ROM: 512 MB
RAM: 192 MB
Dimensions 113 x 55 x 13.65 mm ( 4.45 x 2.17 x 0.54 inches)
Weight 118.5 grams ( 4.18 ounces) with battery
Display 3.2-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with 320×480 HVGA resolution
Network HSDPA/WCDMA:
  • 900/2100 MHz
  • Up to 2 Mbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds

Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:

  • 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

(Band frequency and data speed are operator dependent.)

Device Control Trackball with Enter button
GPS Internal GPS antenna
Connectivity Bluetooth® 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate
Wi-Fi®: IEEE 802.11 b/g
HTC ExtUSB™ (11-pin mini-USB 2.0 and audio jack in one)
Camera 3.2 megapixel color camera with auto focus
Audio supported formats AAC, AAC+, AMR-NB, MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC-LC, MIDI, OGG
Video supported formats MP4, 3GP
Battery Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
Capacity: 1340 mAh
Talk time:

  • Up to 400 minutes for WCDMA
  • Up to 450 minutes for GSM

Standby time:

  • Up to 660 hours for WCDMA
  • Up to 420 hours for GSM

(The above are subject to network and phone usage.)

Expansion Slot microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
AC Adapter Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 47/63 Hz
DC output: 5V and 1A
Special Features G-sensor
Digital Compass

Android Phone: HTC Magic for Vodafone

Website: HTC Magic – powered by Android

(more…)

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Android Market: Commercial / Priced Applications available for Developers from US and UK

Monday, February 16th, 2009

Android Market Icon
There was just an article called “Android Market update: support for priced applications” published on the Android blog. The problem is that only developers from the US and UK are able to upload priced applications to the Android Market. While it is possible to create an Android Market from all over the world, selling applications for Android requires a Google Checkout account.

Google Checkout is widely known by now as an alternative to several existing online payment gateways. While the idea of Google Checkout is really great and I am looking forward to use; I have to say that I am very disappointed by Google with their Google Checkout strategy. Since Google Checkout has been started they were not able (or just did not want to) allow sellers from all over the world to use their system. A company that has “international” written in bold capitalized letters on their flags, should actually be a bit more international. Anyway, Google is still my favorite search / maps / image engine :)

Following the announcement of Eric Chu in the blog post, saying:

We will also enable developers in Germany, Austria, Netherlands, France, and Spain to offer priced applications later this quarter. By the end of Q1 2009, we will announce support for developers in additional countries.

… tells us some interesting fact about Google Checkout: Google Checkout will be opened to sellers (merchants) from the five mentioned countries and more other countries in this quarter. I am just hoping that my country will be in there sooner than later! I am sorry to be that direct: but I do not see any reason why this is not possible now. We are living in an international world, Google is an international company, the Internet has even international as a part of its name. There are not just developers in the – so called – rich countries who would like to share their products with others. Seems we have to keep publishing free software for a free world! 8-)

Android Market: http://market.android.com/publish/Home

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Android 1.1 SDK has been released!

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

The brand new Android 1.1. SDK is now available for us to download! Some stuff changed some new API routines have been added. Check them out here:

Overview

  • Adds annotations for test systems, no actual (non-test) API changes.
  • Adds a method to allow a process to easily determine its UID.
  • Adds support for marquee in layouts.
  • Adds new methods for determining padding in views. Useful if you are writing your own subclasses of View.
  • Adds new permissions that allow an application to broadcast an SMS or WAP Push message.

New Features

  • Maps: Adds details and reviews when a user does a search on Maps and clicks on a business to view its details.
  • Dialer: In-call screen timeout default is now longer when using the speakerphone.
  • Dialer: Adds a “Show dialpad” / “Hide dialpad” item to the in-call menu, to make it easier to discover the DTMF dialpad.
  • Adds support for saving attachments from MMS.
  • Adds support for marquee in layouts.

Check out the full release notes page for more detailed information: http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-1.1.html

Everyone who is not interested in details can go straight away to the Android 1.1 SDK download: http://developer.android.com/sdk/1.1_r1/index.html

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