Thread: All Things Android

A thread in which to drop (or read) stories related to the Android Operating System, whether it be on Smartphones, Tablets or other mobile devices.

Not sure how his M$NBC bosses will take it, or maybe he was told to write it. A well balanced piece on the current Android.

I have, of late, fallen in love with Android, and my hunch is, you will too.

I've carried an iPhone in my hip pocket for what seems like aeons, content in the belief that no other device could navigate to a little park in a town 100 miles away, sync a grocery list with my wife's phone, tell me where to get decent sushi in Park City, remind me of the bones-to-water ratio of veal stock, and stream music or New York Times headlines to me on demand — both at the same time, even.

I was wrong. The latest Android phones, running the latest Android software, can do all of this and more — most of what an iPhone can do, in fact. In some cases, the Android phone does it better.

If I sound at all surprised, it's because Google's little mobile OS did not explode out of R&D with any competitive edge. It was clumsy, both aesthetically and functionally, did not have a huge line of developers waiting to write apps, and was available first on an underpowered phone sold only by T-Mobile, the fourth-place U.S. carrier. Inauspicious beginnings, you might say.

Last fall, Android got its biggest forward push when Verizon Wireless, the country's biggest carrier, rolled out the Motorola Droid, first in a line of Droid-branded phones from Motorola and HTC. It was made of sturdy metal, with a fast chip and a Lucasfilm-licensed name. Most important was its software: It ran the vastly improved 2.0 version of Android, and came with Google's own voice-guided turn-by-turn GPS navigator. People who had disregarded earlier pretenders to the iPhone throne got behind this one. Not just customers, app developers.

Now, Android is available on every carrier, in multiple shapes and sizes. Many are at least as powerful as the Moto Droid. Google itself released the Nexus One, in part to spur Android's hardware partners to keep their specs cranked and their screens crisp. (Though I tested four Android phones for this article, the Nexus One is the demo I used for photos, because it runs only the Android OS — no carrier or manufacturer interface extras — and it has the latest version, Android 2.2 "Froyo." Sadly, the Nexus One is being discontinued in the U.S.)

Now, all the carriers are up to speed. In the $130 to $200 range, you can pick up Verizon's Droid Incredible by HTC and Droid X by Motorola, Sprint's HTC Evo, T-Mobile's MyTouch 3G Slide, AT&T's Samsung Captivate and HTC Aria. And soon you'll see Samsung's Galaxy S phone, coming out on all of the big four carriers (albeit under confusingly different model names).

This surge has given Android a jump in market share, from 9 percent to 13 percent, according to ComScore, with more momentum last quarter than any other platform. A huge part of that momentum comes from developers, who have to date contributed more than 70,000 apps to the Android Market. That may pale in comparison to the iPhone's 230,000 apps, but it's hard at first to find any apps that aren't available for Android — or promised as coming soon.

Look, when the iPhone 4 isn't dropping calls — and to be honest, it doesn't really drop any more calls than its predecessors — it has beauty and grace that you won't find in the above handsets. But let's look at what you can find, plentifully, in the current crop of Android phones:

Apps and widgets
On the iPhone, there are apps. On Android, there are apps and widgets. A widget is a tiny slice of an app that shows up on the phone's home screen. This lets you experience a bit of the app without actually launching it. Take social networking, for example: To get a Facebook update on an iPhone, you either dive into the Facebook app, or set it to give you push notifications, pop-up messages that tell you that someone has written on your wall, or replied to your direct message. On Android, you can browse the most recent posts in your feed without leaving the home screen, diving into the app only if you want to go deeper.

Widgets, like apps, are made by developers, and you get the option to add them to your home screen once you download the app. For instance, before you download the Epicurious cooking app, you don't see the widget. But once you download the free app, the widget appears in the widget menu.

Multitasking
The iPhone OS was famously bestowed with "multitasking" powers this year, after owners clamored for it for years. And what does it mean, exactly? For phone users, it mostly means being able to play music, or download files, or get GPS instructions, while running a different app. Android has natively supported multitasking among apps since its start, though it was long ridiculed for supporting something that everyone knew could contribute to terrible battery life. Battery life is still an issue — in my experience no Android phone can beat an iPhone on battery life — but newer Android phones do last longer on a charge. Besides, the latest version of the OS is smarter about managing apps to preserve memory (and battery life).

What's important to know about multitasking is that Android — having done it longer — does it better, in terms of interface. There's a pull-down "drawer" at the top of the screen that can be accessed no matter what you're doing. It serves to alert you when you need to be alerted, but it gives you lots of other information — how many messages you have, how far along a file download has come — information you just can't get from Apple's multitasking. That's not to say Apple's isn't workable, and a huge improvement over what came before. It's just not as nice.

Web browsing
Since both iPhones and Android phones have terrific Web browsers, the biggest differentiator between them is Adobe's Flash. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has ranted and raved against this video and graphics platform used all around the World Wide Web. Flash support wasn't something that any phones came standard with, mostly because, just like Jobs said, it is very taxing on a phone's processor. But Android 2.2 gives phones the ability to play Flash video inside the browser. And playback on the phone I tested, the Nexus One with 1GHz processor, worked fine.

Since most of YouTube and much of the Web is now distributing low-resolution video in a phone-friendly video codec called H.264, you really don't miss too much. But Jobs has crusaded against Flash on the iPad as well, and that's where it gets dicier. Let's put it this way: Apple should damn well beware an Android tablet that's built to compete with the iPad.

Though both Apple and Google also have their own computer browsers (Safari and Chrome, respectively), only Google is using it to teleport Web pages and files directly to the phone. With the latest Android OS release and a small app, Android users can zap anything from their Chrome browser to their phones in a blink. There are iPhone apps that can do similar feats, but none have this kind of native simplicity.
John Brecher / msnbc.com
The iPhone (right) has a new music control that lets you stop and start songs playing in the iPod app or third-party apps like Pandora or Rhapsody. But Android's OS (left) lets you embed widgets that do the job even better.

Music and movie syncing
Apple is one of the world's biggest music retailers, and iTunes is one of the most downloaded computer apps in history. So it's no surprise that the iPhone — which, along with its iSiblings, enjoys an exclusive ability to sync to iTunes — is a media machine first and foremost. Watching movies, listening to music, this is what people do on an iPhone. (In fact, iPod sales have gone down because nobody with an iPhone really needs one.)

By contrast, Android has been ridiculed for its lack of media support. The phones play all kinds of files — more kinds of files than iPhones can. But the phone's native video player is hidden inside the Gallery app, and there's no official software for syncing all of your music and movie files from desktop to phone.

Google envisioned the Android platform as one that isn't tied to the desktop, but I personally own 15,000 songs, and I'm not sure how else to port them all over. Movies take up 1GB a piece on average — shifting those around wirelessly is downright dumb. You can plug in an Android phone and drag files to it, but that is an intimidating process for many people (including both my parents, both my in-laws, and a fair number of my siblings and friends).

Enter DoubleTwist. It looks like iTunes, runs on Windows and Mac machines, and syncs with most or all Android phones, just like iTunes syncs with iPhones. It slurps all of your music and video files from iTunes, and even pulls up your iTunes playlists. (If you're like me, this is of utmost importance.) DoubleTwist has Amazon's music store and Android's app market built in, and it even notifies you when you have music files that aren't compatible with it, because of Apple copy protection. It's not perfect, but it's a huge step forward for a platform that needs a better media juggler. Best of all, there's a DoubleTwist app for the phone itself, so you can easily find videos, albums and playlists. And did I mention it's free?

Still catching up
There are some important reasons why Android isn't completely neck and neck with iPhone. There may be plenty of apps, but some developers fear writing for a platform with so many phone models, with so many different screen sizes and processor speeds. Notably late to the Android party is the video game industry, which has seized on iPhone as a post-Nintendo darling. Screen and processor differences would affect your first-person shooting far more than they'd affect your Facebook statuses, but still, word is that most major mobile-game developers are planning some kind of Android rollout this year.

Another thing that can be confusing to developers and shoppers alike is that Motorola, Samsung and HTC tend to put their own software layers on top of Android, the way they did with Windows Mobile before. With HTC, this is fairly innocuous and can be pleasant — the Sense interface lets you view multiple screens at once, and jump around to find the app or widget you need. It's not necessary, but it's not offensive. Others, such as Motorola's Blur interface and Samsung's TouchWiz interface are not as beloved in the nerd community. The truth is, Android is at its best when its interface is clean.

Because of the interface and under-the-hood differences, Android hardware doesn't all get updated at the same time. This is a particular concern now, since the Froyo Android 2.2 update makes phones run faster and more efficiently, and provides some neat tricks, too. The Google Nexus One phone is already updated with 2.2, but it won't go out to other phones for a few weeks, if not a few months. iPhones, by contrast, are all eligible for software updates at the same time.
John Brecher / msnbc.com

Buying advice
It's important that you know about those things, so that you don't buy the wrong phone. For starters, you need to buy a phone with at least 1GHz processor and a minimum screen resolution of 480x800 pixels. That will keep you from walking out of the store with an obsolete phone in your hand. When buying, you should ask the sales person if the phone is running the latest version of Android, and if not, when the carrier predicts that the version will arrive.

As bumpy as that might seem, bear in mind that Apple currently sells two iPhones with different screen resolutions and processor speeds, and recently provided an update whose major benefit, multitasking, only applied to phones sold in the last year or so.

I'm not about to ditch my iPhone — Hey, I'm in a 2-year contract! — but if you're in the market for a smart phone now or anytime through the holidays, take a look at Android. It's finally out of the geek garage and ready for a spin.

https://secure.logmein.com/welcome/android/

I use this all the time on Win 7. Would be excellent on an Android netbook or tablet.

SlideME.org is an alternative App. store which aims to fill in the gaps in the Android Market, whether it be geographical limitations, payment methods or just by providing apps. that for whatever reason don't make it to the Market.

www.slideme.org

A rake of Android tips and tricks here:

Android Tips and Tricks for The Galaxy S, Evo 4G, Droid X and the Nexus One.

5 Must-do's here:

5 Google Android Tips and Tricks For Everyday Users

And a related article on the Android Market

How to Use Android Market

And some seriously useful Android sites:

http://androidcommunity.com

http://phandroid.com

Android Geek Tips

Android Forums

AndroidZoom - Download thousands of Android applications from the Android Market

Android Apps - Daily video reviews by AndroidApps.com

A list of 25 Android-related sites:

25 Awesome Google Android Websites You Should Follow | Android Tapp. Android App Reviews

And another 25:

25 MORE Awesomer Google Android Websites You Should Follow | Android Tapp. Android App Reviews

from here:

Android Tapp. Android App Reviews, Android Apps, News, Ratings, Interviews and Showcase

And a couple more:

Android and Me - Google Android phone news, apps, and rumors

AndroLib, Find all the applications and games available in the Android Market for your Android Phone, HTC Dream, HTC Magic etc...

Installing Android on your PC (via virtual machine)

VMware: Workstation Zealot: Google Android running on your Workstation

Originally Posted by mc2

Installing Android on your PC (via virtual machine)

VMware: Workstation Zealot: Google Android running on your Workstation

If you are brave enough to try it out, or you have an oldish machine to spare, then you there's plenty of info here:

Android-x86 - Porting Android to x86

^
From that site,
These are the supported netbooks:
------------------------
Tested platforms

The tests are done by the project members and others from android-porting group.

Most Eee PC Models, including
701
701SD
900
900A
901
904HD
1000
1000HE
1000HD
1005HAG
S101
T91 (VESA mode), touchscreen works.
Eee Top 1602C (VESA mode), touchscreen works.
Lenovo ThinkPad x61 Tablet
Except T91 and Eee Top, all can run the native resolutions (800x480 or 1024x600) via i915 driver. Thanks to the kernel mode setting (kms) feature introduced in kernel 2.6.29.

I've run the Live CD on the ASUS eew PC1000. It's certainly not there yet, but they've made fantastic progress.

I don't think I'll download it myself, but....

AOL Releases New Smartphone Portal and AOL App for Android

By Deepika Mala, TMCnet Contributor

A new smartphone portal, m.aol.com, has been launched by AOL (News - Alert) Inc. The portal takes the best of AOL and optimizes it for any mobile device.


In addition to this, AOL, with the launch of the AOL app for Android (News - Alert), is increasing its focus on the Android operating system and is giving users a simple and convenient way to access dozens of AOL’s most popular properties, and the DailyFinance app for Android.
David Temkin has been appointed as the new Vice President of the company. He will be responsible to guide the company’s focus on mobile apps and content.
The newly introduced portal of AOL works on any mobile browser and has been designed to make it as convenient as possible for users to access their favorite AOL content on any mobile device.
A touch-driven interface is provided by the portal for smartphones supporting HTML5, including iPhone (News - Alert) and Android devices. This helps the users to easily scroll through articles and content; location-based services, updates on local weather, movie, traffic and an application directory to easily find your favorite mobile apps as well as support for video content.
In addition to the new smartphone portal, AOL has released two new free applications for Android-based devices. The AOL app provides a simple way to read content from some of AOL’s most popular sites like PopEater, Engadget and FanHouse.
Sites such as MapQuest and AOL Mai can be accessed by the users. They can also hit the AOL app list to find links to all available AOL apps for Android.
Also, AOL’s popular DailyFinance app is now available on Android devices. The users, through the DailyFinance app are also allowed to receive real-time stock quotes and financial news. In addition to this, up to 25 different can be tracked by the users. It also boasts sophisticated interactive charts and graphs that are easily customized.
“Android has emerged as a top-tier smartphone platform,” Temkin, said. “So, while we’ll continue to focus on development for multiple mobile platforms, this time, we are releasing an early version of an app on Android first – the AOL app. We’re also releasing DailyFinance, one of the most popular apps on other platforms, on Android.” Temkin pointed to AOL’s growing library of smartphone-optimized sites and apps as the beginning of a new focus. “Today’s smartphones offer a completely different experience from the previous generation of WAP-based sites, and AOL will be taking full advantage of the possibilities these new devices can offer, both on the mobile Web and in apps.”
In related news, ITN Productions and AOL UK have signed a partnership agreement that sees the news and multi-media content company providing AOL with its digital video output to run across the AOL portal and its content sites.

$150 Android tablet pops up in Kmart flyer - The Tech Report

Interpad Android tablet packs NVIDIA Tegra 2 | iTech News Net - Gadget News and Reviews

Probably not entirely happy with Apple's restrictive policies.

Developers are flocking to Android in their droves, making it the most used platform for mobile developers in 2010, according to a report by Vision Mobile.

The study, entitled Mobile Developer Economics 2010 and Beyond, surveyed over 400 developers worldwide working on eight different platforms: Apple's iOS for the iPhone, Google's Android, Nokia's Symbian, BlackBerry, Java ME, Windows Phone, Flash Lite, and mobile web.

The research found that the Android and iPhone platforms are, as one would expect, top of the list for developer mindshare, taking over from Symbian and Java ME, which previously held the crown in 2008, but Symbian still remains a contender in terms of sheer volume and market share.

The big twist, however, is that Android has outdone the iPhone in terms of developer experience. 60 percent of the developers asked had been or are working on Android projects, with the iPhone and Jave ME following behind with roughly 50 percent each. This may come as a surprise to Apple enthusiasts who have been citing the App Store as being significantly larger than that of the Android Market, so suggesting that the iPhone was the favourite toy as far as developers were concerned.

Android market share swells 886% year-on-year in Q2 2010; RIM and Apple trail behind - SlashGear

Smartphone demand is up, and the winner is Android according to market analysts Canalys. They’ve been tracking US and global trends, and reckon that in Q2 2010 Android sales rose 886-percent from last year (851-percent in the US), giving them the number one market share in the US with 34-percent; they’re trailed, supposedly, by RIM at 32-percent of market share and Apple at 21.7-percent.

Someone has written an extension for Firefox that emulates a feature already in Google Chrome.

Mozilla Firefox gets a Send to Android extension

Google Android 2.2 introduced a new feature named Android Cloud to Device Messaging.

Google released an extension for Chrome that made use of this feature on the Android devices.

You can use this extension to send a link that is currently open in Chrome to the Android device.

Now, a similar add-on is now available for Mozilla Firefox but from a third party developer.

The extension is named Send to phone and it also works from the context menu on a web page.

This feature is likely to be further enhanced in the future to improve the connectivity between your smartphone and your desktop browser.

Something else for the Christmas stocking perhaps?



Motorola Verizon Android Tablet Foreseen as Taking on Apple iPad - DeviceMAG

A breakdown of Android tablets whether available, confirmed or rumoured.

There are 45 there already.

All Android Tablets

those tablet things can make great Internet appliances for the majority of home users, who are, let's be honest, retarded in terms of computer skills.

Although it's in the desktop version, they've now added this nifty feature to Google mobile:

Struggling to find a site or string together the magic set of key words that helped you locate that perfect recipe for waffle batter the other day? If you only have access to your Android handset or iPhone you can now pull up your previous history of any searches performed while signed into your Google account. The new History link will bring you to a page detailing your searches and results, and if you performed the search on a computer you even get thumbnail views of results to help you easily recognize the most helpful sites. Mobile searches are marked with a cell phone icon.

Full article: http://phandroid.com/2010/08/04/goog...mobile-search/

Just did a search on ebay, they are selling android 1.5 400mhz phones from china for about 5000 baht including EMS shipping. Looks tempting.

NEW Google Android 1.5 WI-FI SmartPhone Q8 EMS - eBay, Other Mobile Brands, Mobile Phones, Phones. (end time 08-Aug-10 16:42:05 AEST)

I think you would quickly become envious of other phones with a later version of Android and you probably can't upgrade it.

An interesting spin on the "Instant On" ready for quick Internet boot that several manufacturers have invested in.

Remember netbooks? They’re no longer trendy with the launch of the iPad and the resulting tablet fever, but Acer still appears to be tinkering with the tiny, inexpensive laptops. The company’s latest trick: putting the Android OS on a system running Windows XP. Like other netbooks that have attempted to combine a Linux quick-boot option with Windows, the Acer Aspire One AOD255 deploys Android for instant launching of Internet functions (plus all of its mobile apps) while XP will handle the more traditional PC capabilities. A configuration manager lets you control which OS runs when. The AOD255 has typical netbook specs, including Atom N450 CPU, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, and 10.1-inch screen.
Acer has been showing off the AOD255 in Taipei, but there hasn’t been an official launch date announced. According to Fudzilla, it will launch soon somewhere for about $350. I’m not sure this will help keep netbooks relevant, but it can’t hurt Acer to put the trendy OS on a system to see if the market responds to an Android-flavored netbook.

got to try the iPad today, had a long session with it. It's nice and could be useful for some users, but it's missing a SIM slot to make it perfect

great to play games, but completely overpriced

Originally Posted by Butterfly

got to try the iPad today, had a long session with it. It's nice and could be useful for some users, but it's missing a SIM slot to make it perfect

great to play games, but completely overpriced

Butters, this thread is entitled "All Things Android". I think you'll find the iPad doesn't run it.