With Samsung we see another major phone manufacturer entering the market of Android phones. The phone is gonna be released at O2 Germany in June ‘09.
Not too long ago we wrote about T-Mobile USA G2 shots that were found on the web. Now the German news channel N-TV reports on their website that the HTC Magic will be released tomorrow (April 24th, 2009). The phone will cost just €1 in combination with a 2-year contract where you pay €25 – €120 per month depending on which terms and services you subscribe to.
Website: T-Mobile Germany
I just found this article on a German news site. It says, a new Android powered Notebook just appeared on a Chinese website. It looks like this:
The technical data of this notebook reads as followed:
| Model Name | Alpha 680 |
| Operating System | google android |
| Display | 7“ TFT LCD true color |
| LCD resolution | 800 x 480( WVGA) |
| Internet Connection (Optional) | ADSL, WiFi,（ GPRS, CDMA,EDGE,WCDMA） |
| Memory | 128MB DDR2 (up to 256MB Optional) |
| Solid-State Disk | 1 GB Nand Flash Memory (up to 4GB Optional) |
| CPU | ARM11 533 MHz 32bit |
| LAN / Connection | 10/100 MB Ethernet ; RJ-45 |
| Wireless | Built-in WiFi |
| Media | Support MPEG1/2/4,H.263,H.264,WMV9 |
| USB Output | USB 2.0 x 2 |
| Media Storage | SD/MMC card slot ( support SDHC) |
| Input Device | 80 Key standard keyboard; Capacitive TouchPad |
As it is supposed to be used by kids, the artwork can also look a bit more funny:
Website: Skytone Alpha 680
More Chinese companies with Android products:
Update 2009-04-28: Golem.de and Internetnews.com report this device will cost $250. Pretty cheap!
Just some days ago we wrote about the Dream G2 Phone “Made in China” that looks like Android but isn’t one.
On that same show I took a flyer with their product showcase and it listed not just the fake Android phone. Bluelans actually plans to publish a real Android powered mobile phone in July 2009. At least that’s what they told me. I am not sure if they can hold their roadmap and release but it would be great to have another Android on the market! When I saw the fake one I first thought: “Why don’t they just take the free Android OS and put it on a phone rather than using a crappy Chinese OS and lots of programmers to wirte a fake Android User Interface?
Anyway, here is the data of the upcoming N12 SciPhone from Bluelans; if it will ever be released:
Here you can download the original scanned Flyer which I took from the fair: N12 SciPhone with real Android OS Flyer.
A Chinese company called “Shenzhen Bluelans Communication Co., Ltd.” showed a mobile phone on their HK Electronics Fair booth called “Dream G2″:
I was checking this out and the user interface actually looks like Android, it works like Android and even the programs look like Android. However, it is NOT Android. I also took a flyer and here is the data sheet:
While the phone has GPRS/EDGE, WiFi a camera, email access, audio/video support, instant messangers, an FM radio as well as support Java applications; the interesting point in there is “Google Android style user interface”.
Price: HK$1,000 (US$130)
Website: www.mysciphone.com
Google has just released the early-look for Android 1.5. So I suppose there will be a software OS update available for the current Android devices soon.
Below is listed the original quote on what is going to be changed in the next version of Android.
The Android 1.5 platform introduces many new features for users and developers. The list below provides an overview of the changes.
User interface refinements
- System-wide: Refinement of all core UI elements, Animated window transitions (off by default), Accelerometer-based application rotations
- UI polish for: In-call experience, Contacts, Call log, and Favorites, SMS & MMS, Browser, Gmail, Calendar, Email, Camera & Gallery, Application management
Performance improvements
- Faster Camera start-up and image capture
- Much faster acquisition of GPS location (powered by SUPL AGPS)
- Smoother page scrolling in Browser
- Speedier GMail conversation list scrolling
New features
- On-screen soft keyboard: Works in both portrait and landscape orientation, Support for user installation of 3rd party keyboards, User dictionary for custom words
- Home screen
- Widgets: Bundled home screen widgets include: analog clock, calendar, music player, picture frame, and search
- Live folders
- Camera & Gallery: Video recording, Video playback (MPEG-4 & 3GP formats)
- Bluetooth: Stereo Bluetooth support (A2DP and AVCRP profiles), Auto-pairing, Improved handsfree experience
- Browser: Updated with latest Webkit browser & Squirrelfish Javascript engines, Copy ‘n paste in browser, Search within a page, User-selectable text-encoding, UI changes include: Unified Go and Search box, Tabbed bookmarks/history/most-visited screen
- Contacts: Shows user picture for Favorites, Specific date/time stamp for events in call log, One-touch access to a contact card from call log event
- System: New Linux kernel (version 2.6.27), SD card filesystem auto-checking and repair, SIM Application Toolkit 1.0
- Google applications: View Google Talk friends’ status in Contacts, SMS, MMS, GMail, and Email applications, Batch actions such as archive, delete, and label on Gmail messages, Upload videos to Youtube, Upload photos on Picasa
New APIs and developer tools
- UI framework: Framework for easier background/UI thread interaction, New SlidingDrawer widget, Horizontal ScrollView widget
- Home Screen framework: APIs for creating secure home screen widgets, APIs for populating live folders with custom content
- Media framework: Raw audio recording and playback APIs, Interactive MIDI playback engine, Video recording APIs for developers (3GP format), Video and photo sharing Intents, Media search Intent
- Input Method framework: Text prediction engine, Ability to provide downloadable IMEs to users
- Speech recognition framework: Support for using speech recognition libraries via Intent
- Misc API additions: LocationManager – Applications can get location change updates via Intent, WebView – Touch start/end/move/cancel DOM event support, SensorManager – redesigned sensor APIs, GLSurfaceView – convenience framework for creating OpenGL applications, Broadcast Intent for app update install succeeded – for smoother app upgrade experience
- Developer tools: Support for multiple versions of Android in a single SDK installation, Improved JUnit support in ADT, Easier application performance profiling
The API changes look promising and I will take a look in this more deeply. Perhaps I can put a nice Android 1.5 coding example together soon. I am still missing something like a nice and convenient facility in the Android SDK to automatically build, sign and deploy an Android application for the use on a device. I know, we could script this with ANT or other tools, but it would be nice to have this built into the SDK by default. Also a developer certificate generator, nice and fancy. It would make everything much more easy for developers to write and easily deploy an Android app for end-users. Perhaps an Android Market integration to upload/update an application in there directly through a button in the SDK would make sense as well?
Check out How to earn money with your application through the Android Market
