Droid, the phone that finally lets me cancel my iPhone — here’s why
A new phone called Droid is about to hit the market at the end of October, and it will likely have the glitz and power to bury the iPhone.
So I’m canceling my iPhone contract today. I’ll smugly wait out the rest of the month without the iPhone and rely on my second phone, the Blackberry Curve, which is a vastly inferior device to the coming Droid — but at least it can make calls more… Continue Reading
Android’s search gets a lot richer than the iPhone’s
If there’s one area where Google’s Android platform should blow Apple’s iPhone completely out of the water, it’s search.
So Google’s aiming to do just that with the Quick Search Box it released today for Android-based phones. It combines web search with search inside your phone. That means you can look up your personal contacts and do a generic Google search from the same place. It also learns from your prior behavior — if you’ve looked… Continue Reading
From CTIA: The rise of open mobile (and congratulations Android team)
[Richard Wong, a venture capitalist with Accel Partners, submitted this piece to VentureBeat.]
Mobile has never been hotter with the iPhone, Android, the explosion in mobile advertising, and the rise of mobile apps, but, you’d never know it walking around the mobile conference called CTIA, held here in San Diego today.
The CTIA show that once was the key meeting place for the mobile industry seems less and less relevant with each passing year. We wrote about this… Continue Reading
Augmented reality meets scavenger hunt with GeoBeagle, Wikitude
Geocaching, an outdoor game where players use GPS on mobile devices to leave or track down hidden packages, may be about to get a bit easier.
Instead of relying on GPS coordinates and written clues to find packages, players can see visual markers on an Android phone’s viewfinder thanks to an augmented reality project by U.K.-based developer Nicholas Tollervey. It’s one of augmented reality’s newest uses after two companies released application programming interfaces last month to… Continue Reading
Nokia and Symbian: Forget about Android, it’s all about Cutey (Qt)
Nokia, the world’s largest phone handset maker, is denying reports stemming from “industry insiders” that it is developing a smartphone that runs on Google’s Android software. Nokia said, “everyone knows that Symbian is our preferred platform for advanced mobile devices.”
However, the truth may be more complicated. Nokia is instead embracing something called Qt, a software toolbox for developers, which lets those developers port their applications to any of the major operating systems. At the moment,… Continue Reading
Samsung I7500 has iPhone-like keyboard, Android software
An Android phone without a hardware keyboard, Samsung’s I75500 also sports a five megapixel camera. Yet its winning feature may not be the keyboard, but Android’s live folders, which let phone apps fill your phone with data in the background so you can access it later, even without a connection. Yes, this is a Twitter phone.
Samsung’s design isn’t just plain, it’s boring. Powered off, it has none of the sexiness of a Blackberry or iPhone…. Continue Reading
Google geeks shaking with excitement over this week’s Android surprise
Arrogance isn’t a word you would use to describe Andy Rubin and his team of engineers who build Google’s Android software for mobile phones. Rubin, who developed handheld gadgets for Apple and Danger before Google beamed him aboard, isn’t one to call his own work revolutionary.
Until now. Four years after the Android project began in Mountain View, insiders are telling VentureBeat that we can’t miss this week’s Google I/O developer conference, which runs Wednesday through Thursday… Continue Reading
Panasonic: Open-source smartphones are the future
“The global market for smartphones based on open source platforms including Android will reach 100 million units in three years.” That’s the claim made by Panasonic’s director of mobile terminal business, Keisuke Ishii, at a press conference on Thursday.
A hundred million units is a lot. It’s comparable to today’s entire smartphone market. But Panasonic is, at least publicly, placing its bet on Android and other open-source platforms to replace today’s “feature phones” — industry jargon… Continue Reading
BlackBerry apps four times as pricey as iPhone, Android software
BlackBerry users pay more for their apps. Lots more. That’s the finding of a new report from Skyhook Wireless, maker of location-based service software. Skyhook’s study found that BlackBerry apps average around $12 each, compared to the popular $2.99 price for an iPhone app and Android apps that average less than a dollar. Most Android apps are completely free.
Skyhook’s study also confirmed the conventional wisdom that users are cycling through apps, buying new ones and… Continue Reading
Android attack continues: Skytone Netbook to cost $250, Samsung i7500 confirmed
Everyone has been waiting for the wave of Google Android-based phones and devices to arrive, and here they come.
This week, we’ll see the second Android phone, the G2, launch in Germany.
Now we’re getting news that a bunch of other Android devices will hit the market soon. The most exciting is the first Android netbook, called the Alpha 680 (pictured left). Made by China’s Skytone, it will cost $250. It will run on an ARM chip,… Continue Reading
An FAQ about those Android netbooks
Since our post yesterday about Google’s Android platform running on netbooks, we’ve been asked a lot of questions. Here are the most frequent questions, along with our answers.
Do you think Android could run on laptops or PCs?
The simple answer is “yes, with an asterisk.” The operating system Linux runs on PCs and laptops, and Android uses a Linux core. But the reason for the “asterisk” boils down to an important difference between Android and Linux.
Android… Continue Reading
Android netbooks on their way, likely by 2010
[Update: Since posting this story, we've had a lot of inquiries from readers, with questions ranging from whether Android is ready for laptops and full-scale PCs, why Android can't rely fully on Linux, and so on. See our follow-up Android FAQ post.]
The image above shows a netbook Asus EEEPC 1000H running on Google’s mobile operating system Android. Huh? You thought Android was for mobile phones, right? Well, as we’ve written before, Google is planning to… Continue Reading
Android roundup: Google’s web-wide plan, Ericsson to join OHA?, and more
The hype is continuing to build as Android’s launch looms next month. Here’s the latest:
Google wants there to be more internet on more devices — Google’s strategy is becoming clearer as more details emerge. The single best way to reach mobile users today is by serving them on the web, not by trying to access the phone’s deck, which is owned by closed and sometimes jealous carriers. So, through “the 1-2-3 combination of Android, Chrome, and Gears,”… Continue Reading
Google’s Android phone, the HTC Dream, is apparently approved by FCC — Nov. 10 is the latest release date
Updated
The Federal Communications Commission has approved the much anticipated Google Android phone, and documents suggest a release date of about Nov. 10 at the latest.
That’s because in the document, the manufacturer of the phone, HTC, requests the Commission grant it a short-term confidentiality request on its design attachments until Nov. 10th, 2008.
If Nov. 10 turns out to be Android-HTC release date, this is in the window of our recent prediction it would be released between… Continue Reading
Google challenge winners give Android thumbs-up
updated
Two weeks ago Google announced the first-round winners of its two-round Android Developer Challenge (ADC). The contest, which is promising a total of $10 million in prize money, is intended to entice developers to come up with exciting new applications for the company’s mobile Internet platform, Android, which is clearly important to Google’s future (chief executive Eric Schmidt says the mobile web will be bigger than the PC Web within a “few years”).
The contest’s first round… Continue Reading
The Danger-ous IPO?
Danger, the company that builds software for the “Sidekick” and other mobile devices, has filed an initial public offering after years waiting hungrily for three years to make such a move.
However, the Palo Alto, Calif., company lives under a big shadow emanating from Mountain View’s Google. That’s where one of Danger’s co-founders, Andy Rubin, is now working on a much bigger vision than Danger’s: A cross-platform mobile operating system called Android that lets you access… Continue Reading
Android, open-source mobile developer platform, gives developers an early look
The Google-led Open Handset Alliance, the industry consortium developing an open-source mobile developer platform called Android, is now providing developers with an early look at its software development kit (or SDK).
And to spur development, Google is also creating a $10 million fund for promising new applications built for Android.
The hope is that developers will build mobile applications that make the platform more compelling to consumers and to the many large handset manufacturers, carriers and mobile… Continue Reading
Whatsopen.com: More details on the secretive local search company
Whatsopen.com, the secretive mobile local search company that lets you find local businesses and user generated reviews, isn’t just going to offer its service on Google’s Android mobile phone system.
It will let users search reviews from Facebook and other social networks that provide open access to their users via Google’s OpenSocial developer platform, a source tells us.
There are many local search companies and mobile search companies that have already launched publicly. Whatsopen is the first… Continue Reading