Posts tagged Android
New iGoogle for Android
Jun 12th
iGoogle is so convenient on mobile devices. When you’re waiting in line, you can check iGoogle on your phone for a quick "info snack". Many of the users told us that you wanted to use more of your iGoogle gadgets on your phone.
Google employee in January said:
We’ve found that people hit iGoogle from lots of different phones — we want to ensure you’ll all see the same version,
Previous version of mobile iGoogle doesn’t have tabs and it’s optimized for WAP phones, not for today’s smartphones.
But now Google rolled out an improved beta version of iGoogle for the iPhone and Android-powered devices. This new version is faster and easier to use. It supports tabs as well as more of your favorite gadgets, including those built by third-party developers. Note that not all gadgets — like those with Flash — will work in mobile browsers.
One of new features is the in-line display of articles for feed-based gadgets. Now you will be able to read article summaries without leaving the page. You can also reorder gadget or keep your favorite gadgets open for your next visit.
The new version of iGoogle for mobile is available in 38 languages. You can also try the new iGoogle, just go to igoogle.com in your mobile browser and tap "Try the new Mobile iGoogle".
You can also bookmark the page or make it your home page so you can return to it quickly.
Android, iPhone dominate web in April 2009
May 27th
According to fresh AdMob data., the quality of web browsing on Android and iPhone devices has led both to be used online far more than other devices. Android’s presence online is also disproportionate as its 1 percent share of actual phones is met by 3 percent of mobile web use.
As we all have seen that in the past month expansion of Android devices was great, including the formal launch of the HTC Magic as well as the Samsung’s Samsung i7500 was declared official.
Google’s mobile OS is also no longer a near-exclusive for T-Mobile and is now available on Vodafone in Europe, with a Canadian release coming in less than a month. Motorola and Sony Ericsson are likewise poised to add Android phones of their own in coming months.
The research firm says that the low cost of licensing Android and its partly open-source foundations will help give the software a better footprint as it allows for lower-priced devices and for both manufacturers and carriers to write their own interface elements.
Strategy Analytics director Neil Mawston says:
Android is now in a good position to become a top-tier player in smartphones over the next two to three years,
Apple and Samsung were the only device manufacturers in the top 8 to show positive change in worldwide data requests month-over-month. Apple reported a 4.1 percent increase in total requests, while Samsung showed a 0.5 percent increase. Of the other manufacturers in the survey, only HTC and Sony showed positive change in the number of data requests, but the market share of each is less than 2 percent.
HTC Lancaster – The first AT&T Android-based Smartphone
May 25th
AT&T will get an Android-powered phone after all. Behold the HTC Lancaster with a striking resemblance to the HTC Magic when closed and looks a lot more like the Touch Pro in form factor for a QWERTY slider than the T-Mobile G1.
2009 has been a great year for HTC as they had released a plethora of cellphones worldwide, and everybody seems to be satisfied with the firm and its products. HTC is dumping Windows Mobile and it moves forward towards Android OS and with the Android 1.5 Cupcake going live soon, HTC smartphones should be considered major contenders for the “handset of the year” at least in the eyes of the public.
The HTC Lancaster measures 109 x 54 x 17.1 mm, and it weighs 109 grams. Am0ng its features we can find Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, AGPS, microSD card expandable memory, multi-IM client, and an unusual but unique HTC Social Messaging user interface. What’s that supposed to mean? Well, we should find out soon as the HTC Lancaster should be released on August 3rd this year. No words on pricing yet.
The HTC Lancaster will be made available on August 3. The price of the HTC Lancaster for AT&T is not mention yet.
Now experience ebuddy for Android
May 15th
Get a fast and stable chat experience with eBuddy for Android. Stay online when you need to do something else or when you get a phone call during a chat.
eBuddy for Android will run in the background and will alert you about new messages in the Android status bar. You can also enable sounds or vibration to notify you when you receive new messages. If your internet connection is lost, eBuddy will reconnect you automatically. Now, you will never miss another message from your friends.
With eBuddy for Android you have one single buddy list with all your friends from multiple accounts. Sign in with all accounts at once or select which IM account you want to login automatically.
eBuddy for Android, lets you to easily switch between chat conversations. Just go to the Chats tab for an overview of all your open chats.
Check out the new unique features for ebuddy Android:
eBuddy ID – one login for MSN, Yahoo!, AIM, Facebook, Google Talk, and ICQ
Free, fast, reliable IM experience
Stay online when you get a call
New message alerts in the Android status bar
Switch easily between chats
Support for emoticons, sound, vibration, and buzzers
Automatic reconnect
Receive offline messages
It is easy for you to manage your buddy list. You can add new buddies and organize your friends in groups or sort them by IM account.
Set your status and personal message to let your friends know where you are and what you are doing.
Also, don’t be afraid to express yourself in your chat. Use emoticons or buzzers to personalize your chat exactly like you want it.
T-Mobile to stick with Android
May 14th
It seems that T-Mobile is determined to stick with Google’s mobile operating system Android. Cole Brodman, T-Mobile chief technology officer has outlined Android to play an evolutionary role for T-Mobile’s long term plans. Building on the release of HTC’s G1, first Android based handset, Cole Brodman has said that more devices are lined up, and this time its not going to be all about phones
Moreover, he did not seem as excited about the Windows Mobile 7 and Symbian operating system. In an interview he stated:
I think the promise of Windows Mobile 7 is still to be seen, but we’re hopeful from what we see from Microsoft and what we hear from partners about WM7. But for us, there was less opportunity to drive with WM7, than there was to see how it develops. [With] Android I think we have a unique opportunity to work with Google and try to drive it. [As for] Symbian, when Freedom was originally announced, we were very encouraged by it, but I’m not seeing a lot of momentum, so the fruits of that alliance commercially has yet to be seen, and I think we’re definitely more cautious on what we see happening there.
T-Mobile is currently in coordination with 3 partners in their effort to roll out more devices. One them is Motorola, which apparently might be responsible for the production of G2 from HTC. Other partners include computer makers Dell and Hewlett-Packard
PayPal app comes to Android
May 12th
If you happen to own a PayPal account and have an Android based phone in your possession, you are gonna love this news. The news is that PayPal application has been released for the Android platform. What this application will do is that it will provide you access to your PayPal account directly from your Android phone, view your balance and send money to whom you desire.
Here are the features that it provides:
- Direct integration with the contact list: With this feature you will no longer be required to remember people’s contact number or e-mail addresses in order to send them money. Now you have to just select their name from the list of contacts and PayPal will ensure that the money gets to the deserving recipient.
- Recent History: Want to get hold of your previous transactions, well this feature just does that.You can use your phone to look at your transactions over the last couple of months. So if you ever need to check whether or not a payment has come through, it’ll be simple to find out.
- Balance checks. An account holder certainly needs to check his balance every now and then. This application shows you all your balances in any of the currencies you hold.
Here are the steps for downloading the PayPal application
- Click on the Android Market
- Search for “PayPal” (or scroll through the finance category)
- Click install
If anyone is worried about the security then consider this statement made by PayPal
All your mobile payments are kept safe using the same start-of-the-art technology we use on paypal.com.
Get hold of interesting features of Android 1.5
May 8th
Android, developed by the Open Handset Alliance, delivers a complete set of software for mobile devices: an operating system, middleware and key mobile applications. Just today I came across a page informing about the features that latest release of Android, Android 1.5 has to offer. The latest version of the Android platform brings new features, improvements, and enhancements to Android-powered phones. The features ( a few of them) are:
- Ability to easily record and upload videos onto YouTube right from your Android powered phone.
- Easily upload photos directly to your Picasa Web based album.
- Multiple thread selection feature is enabled in Gmail making it possible for you to easily archive, delete label or mute several threads all at once.
- Speech recognition capability has vastly improved making it possible for you to search by voice.
Besides providing you the ability to upload vides onto YouTube, YouTube also provides you with the flexibility to take control over your privacy. Now you have the decisive power in hand to decide who can view your videos and who cant.
Picasa’s picture uploading process has improved in the sense that the number of clicks to share pictures with your loved ones has been reduced.
If you are a frequent desktop based Gmail user, you would certainly appreciate the batch edit functionality on Android. Previously you had to select and archive multiple emails by selecting one email at a time, now you can select multiple Gmail conversations and treat them as a single group, saving your time.
In the end, it can be said that the latest Android release contains pretty interesting changes.
Motorola’s first Android phone – Calgary
Apr 30th
Motorola’s long awaited debut Android handset has finally been announced, and it has QWERTY-keyboard Calgary, which would be the first of its type on the market.
Previously Samsung announced its first Android device, and of course the HTC Magic goes on sale from tomorrow but the Calgary, with it’s full slide-out QWERTY and sleek touch-screen could be a real game changer.
This is slightly more of a worry, as social networking handsets generally tend to be pretty lightweight in the functionality stakes, but given Android is supposed to be a high-spec interface to allow lower-cost phones into the market.
Not a lot more information is known at the moment, although rumors of a release in the next two months continue to circulate. Given Motorola’s strong US focus, it’s unlikely the UK would get it until later in the year.
It really is about time it announced an Android handset – for a company that often tries to be an innovator, it lagged sadly behind on that one. Given what people want from devices at the moment, and what they are willing to spend, it’s best to concentrate on getting the basics right. It’s great to see another two possible runners for Android OS as well.
Samsung announces its first Android phone
Apr 27th
After the Samsung S8000 was unveiled, now Samsung has just launched its first handset to use Google’s Android operating system.
The hardware developer said:
the i7500 will be released in major European markets in June with a 3.2in touch-screen, 5-megapixel camera, 8GB of onboard memory, and up to 32GB of external memory. The phone is just 11.9mm thick.
Connectivity options includes the 7.2Mbit/s HSDPA and Wi-Fi, and a range of Google services, such as Google Maps with GPS support, YouTube, Google Search and Google Talk.
J K Shin, executive vice president and head of mobile communications, Samsung said:
Samsung is among the earliest members of the Open Handset Alliance and has been actively moving forward to introduce the most innovative Android mobile phone,
With Samsung’s accumulated technology leadership in the mobile phone industry, and our consistent strategy to support every existing operating system, I believe that Samsung provides the better choices and benefits to our consumers.
Samsung is claiming it to be the first of the three major cell phone manufacturers to launch an Android-based phone.
Below is the list with the specs of Samsung i7500:
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Android 1.5
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Quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE connectivity
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Tri-band UMTS/HSPA connectivity (900 / 1700 / 2100 MHz)
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3.2 inch capacitive AMOLED display with HVGA (480 x 320) resolution
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GPS
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Wi-Fi
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Bluetooth
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5MP camera with LED flash
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3.5mm headset jack
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528 MHz Qualcomm MSM7200A CPU
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8GB of internal memory
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MicroSD card support
Gmail Mobile improved for iPhone and Android phones
Apr 8th
Yesterday, Google Mobile team announced that they have made significant and impressive changes to the Gmail version used with Android and iPhone devices. These significant changes were made possible using aggressive caching, making use of latest browser technologies namely HTML5 and Gears.The full impact and benefit of these technologies is not completely visible at the current phase, but will enable the Google Mobile team to improve performance and come with more features.
The noteable changes include:
- Improved Speed when opening an email, performing navigation and searching tasks.
- Ability to read, compose email messages in offline mode.
- Improved Look and feel for messages.
- Search menu made more accessible by placing it in the top header.
- Easy to read labels and their look is similar to the one you are used to with the desktop version of Gmail.
- A floaty bar which scrolls with you as you move up and down to making it more convenient for you to archive, delete your messages and other similar tasks.
Few points to keep in mind which include:
- The latest Gmail edition for mobile only provides support to iPhone/iPodTouch OS 2.2.1. or above. If you have anything below this firmware, you will get the previous version of Gmail mobile.
- Supports all android based devices.
- The latest edition is available in English only.
