Sprint to sell Android HTC Hero in October
The new Palm Pre’s in Sprint stores are going to have some attention-grabbing competition in a few weeks. Sprint has announced its plan to sell the Hero phone, made by HTC and loaded with Google’s open-source Android operating system, starting October 11. A Hero will cost $279.99 in the store with a two-year service plan from Sprint. There’ll be a mail-in rebate for another $100, bringing the total cost for the phone down to $179.99.
Given… Continue Reading
HTC Hero phone will have a Flash player
If you’ve got an iPhone in your pocket, you know what’s most conspicuously missing from it (besides a keyboard): a Flash player.
Adobe’s Flash technology has evolved in the past four years from being hated for the proliferation of “Skip Intro” website home pages, to being loved as the Internet’s default TV-watching technology. Flash made YouTube work reliably in 2005. So why isn’t it on our phones yet?
Well, now it will be, although not on an… Continue Reading
Roundup: Twitter’s ready for its close-up, Apple says yes to the Kama Sutra, and more
Here’s the latest action:
Twitter on the tube – More producers are turning to the micro-blogging service for television-based projects, and the site is only too happy to go Hollywood.
Auctions on the way down for eBay — The site is frantically trying to reinvent as its core business starts to decline in earnest. The Wall Street Journal has the details.
The Apple of North Carolina’s eye? — The state may be changing its tax policies to lure technology companies,… Continue Reading
HTC takes a European vacation with the G2. Will we see it stateside?
The Mobile World Congress is officially underway in Spain, and one of the biggest stories of the show so far seems to be the complete and utter lack of new phones running Google’s Android mobile platform. While many companies are promising to have their own Android phones at some point this year, HTC’s G1 remains the only one actually out there. But that may change shortly — at least for Europeans. The G1’s successor, the… Continue Reading
Supposed leaked Android G2 shots reveal no keyboard
After the launch of T-Mobile’s G1, the first phone running Google’s Android mobile platform, I trashed its keyboard, calling it a failed lesson in ergonomics. But the bigger picture is that physical keyboards, as much as some hate to admit it, are going to be a thing of the past in the not too distant future. Don’t believe me? Look at the newly leaked shots of the G2, HTC’s follow-up to the G1, which Gizmodo… Continue Reading
Video of the G1’s new virtual keyboard in action
I hate the keyboard on the G1, T-Mobile’s first HTC-built phone running on Google’s Android platform. So it’s with great pleasure that I present the video below, a G1 running a fully virtual keyboard on its screen — yes, like the iPhone.
This virtual keyboard is part of the so-called “cupcake” development branch for Android that Google is working on. (You can read about other cupcake work here.) It gives the G1 (and other Android phones),… Continue Reading
Whispers of the G2 Android phone grow louder
Yesterday, the T-Mobile blog CellPhone Signal published a list of new features it claimed would be in the G2, the second HTC-built phone built for the T-Mobile network running Google’s Android platform. The most outrageous claim, however, was the supposed date of the device’s release: January 26, 2009.
Would T-Mobile really risk enraging the million or so people who bought the G1 just a few months after its release by launching an updated version? No, says… Continue Reading
Android’s expansion into China: a big deal
For the moment, the G1 phone, made by HTC and carried by T-Mobile, is the device American consumers think of when they happen to think of Google’s Android operating system. It’s important, though, to remember that Google has much bigger ambitions for Android — It aims to make it the operating system used on phones and other devices around the world. It took another big step towards that with the introduction of the i6-Goal device… Continue Reading
A million G1s by the end of 2008
HTC, which makes the first phone to use Google’s Android platform, the T-Mobile G1, said it expects shipments of the device to reach one million before the end of 2008, according to DigiTimes. The number, stated by HTC chief executive Peter Chou a few days ago, represents a significant increase from the company’s original forecast that it would ship 600,000 G1s by the end of 2008.
The G1 launched last month with a fair amount of… Continue Reading
The T-Mobile G1 keyboard: A lesson in failed ergonomics
I have pretty average-sized hands for a guy. And trying to use the keyboard on T-Mobile’s new G1, the first phone built to run Google’s Android platform, is ridiculous. I got my hands (literally) on the device for the first time this weekend, and all I can say is that if you complained about the iPhone’s keyboard because it didn’t have physical buttons, get ready for an even worse experience on the G1.
The problem is… Continue Reading
Hacker finds a security hole in the Google Android software on the T-Mobile G1
A veteran security researcher has found a security hole in the T-Mobile G1 phone, which runs Google’s Android software. Charlie Miller of Independent Security Evaluators in Baltimore told the New York Times that he was able to redirect the G1’s web browser to a malicious web site.
Miller, Mark Daniel and Jake Honoroff were able to hack the G1 just a few days after it started selling to big crowds on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning…. Continue Reading
The Android phone is loose: The scene at the T-Mobile G1 launch in San Francisco
The competition between the Apple iPhone and the first Google Android cell phone is afoot.
T-Mobile opened its San Francisco store on Market St. this evening to launch the T-Mobile G1,the first cell phone with the Android software from Google. The 3G cell phone, built by HTC, has a bunch of cool features that will give Apple’s iPhone a run for its money. The rest of the stores nationwide open at 8 am tomorrow.
Judging from the… Continue Reading
HTC’s T-Mobile G1 Android phone up close: A nice touchable gadget
I got a close-up view of an Android phone today. It was an HTC phone, dubbed the T-Mobile G1. It is the first phone that runs Google’s Android software, and it is probably going to give the iPhone a run for its money as the coolest gadget of the season.
T-Mobile has already signed up 1.5 million people who want to buy this phone, sight unseen. It goes on sale on Oct. 22. The pre-orders suggest… Continue Reading
T-Mobile Android phone to hit stores on Oct 17, Sprint Android phone coming next year
Android, Google’s new operating system for devices, will be officially unveiled as part of the HTC “Dream” phone launch on T-Mobile on September 23rd, at a press conference in New York. The phone, to be officially called the “G1″ will ship on October 13th and arrive in stores on October 17, sources tell us. This is a few days earlier than previous reports suggested, but otherwise fits with what we’ve been hearing.
The Android team, which… 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
Android wants to be on any device, not just your phone
Google’s much anticipated Android mobile phone operating system, due to launch within the next few weeks, may actually be much more than a mobile OS. Industry sources tell us that although Android will indeed start as a mobile OS, Google intends to expand it to be a sort of universal operating system that will span set-top boxes for televisions, mp3 players and other communication and media devices and services.
Rumors about this plan have actually been… Continue Reading
Sources: HTC’s Google Android phone is “weeks away” from launching
Over the past few days, we’ve gotten multiple confirmations from reliable sources that the first phone built on Google’s Android platform will launch in the next several weeks. It will be an HTC phone, likely the HTC Dream, and will be launched internationally on the T-Mobile network. A window of between Oct 15 and Nov 30 is most likely, according to these sources.
Around mid-July we received some information that T-Mobile had started its preparations for… Continue Reading
HTC Android device still set for 2008 release
Reports indicating a delay in HTC’s first phone utilizing Google’s Android platform are “inaccurate,” a representative from Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, the public relations firm that handles HTC, has informed us.
The representative goes on to specifically say that the first Android-based HTC phone is still set to launch “later this year.”
HTC was said to be having “structural problems to incorporate Google’s demanded feature set,” Barron’s reported Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research as saying. Based on… Continue Reading
A glimpse of the HTC Dream running Google Android?
The video embedded below looks to be the first live glimpse of the HTC Dream, which is likely to be one of the first phones to utilize Google’s Android mobile platform. The video hasn’t been verified, but it certainly looks real enough, as The Boy Genius Report notes.
You’ll notice that it has a large touchscreen interface just like the iPhone, but that it also has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. This could be the killer feature… Continue Reading
First Android phones pushed to 2009?
It seems like once a month there is some talk of either delays or dismay surrounding Google’s mobile Android platform. Today brings a new report that the first phones built for Android, so called “Gphones,” could be delayed from the end of this year until the beginning of next year, according to Barron’s.
Specifically, one of the handset makers that is thought to among the first to deliver a device, HTC, is “having structural problems to… Continue Reading