Donut 1.6

Aug

Eclair Hops The Pond - Unofficial Android 2.1 Update Now Works On The AT&T Dell Streak In The US

Posted by Brian O'Toole in Dell, Donut 1.6, Eclair 2.1, News, Streak

Owners of Dell’s 5” tablet in the UK were lucky to get their hands on a leaked pre-release version of Android 2.1 earlier this week. The hack, however, was only compatible with the O2 version of the device in the UK, so owners of the US counterpart released only 2 days ago on AT&T have been stuck with their new giant babies wearing an ancient 1.6 Donut diaper. To make matters worse, it looks like Dell decided to skip the 2.1 update altogether and go straight for 2.2, delaying the upgrade even longer.

Not to worry - the Android community has now come up with a way to flash 2.1 on the US version of the Streak.

Aug

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Finally Comes To The US - Available For Pre-Order Now, Out August 15th On AT&T

Posted by Nate Kimmey in AT&T, Donut 1.6, News, Sony Ericsson, Xperia X10 (es209ra)

Yesterday, a countdown showed up on SonyStyle's website, promising something "smarter was coming." Here's what it looked like:

The contour and image enhancement (cranking the brightness all the way up) all but confirmed that Xperia X10 was imminent. Sure enough, this informed guess was correct, and Xperia X10 is headed for AT&T. This will be AT&T’s second high-end Android handset, and the first Android phone from Sony to launch here in the US.

In case you’re not familiar with the phone, it’s got all the high-end specs you’d expect from a smartphone in 2010:

1 GHz processor
4.0” screen
8.1 megapixel camera with LED flash
WiFi 802.11b/g
and expandable memory up to 32 GB (it ships with a 2 GB microSD card)

However, there is one big exception: the phone is most likely running Android 1.6, and there’s been no word on an update to Froyo, though an update to Android 2.1 is expected sometime this quarter.

Jul

Meet Andy: Android’s History In A Nutshell

Posted by Ron Hamelin in Android OS, Carriers, Cupcake 1.5, Devices By Manufacturer, Donut 1.6, Eclair 2.1, Editorials, Froyo 2.2, Gingerbread 2.3, News

Last Updated: November 5th, 2010

Before Apple's iPhone and Google’s Android OS burst onto the mobile device scene in 2007, there were few significant advances in mobile technology. Frankly, "smartphones" (if we could even call them that at the time) were boring: they did little more than email, general messaging, picture taking, some basic apps and games, rudimentary internet browsing, and enterprise integration.

The biggest players at the time were Microsoft Windows Mobile, RIM's Blackberry, Palm, Symbian, and Linux. They all had their respective place in the mobile world (see chart below).

The Status Of Mobile Operating Systems In Late 2006

EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) was clearly led by Symbian.

Jun

Samsung Behold II Update To Android 1.6 Donut Going On Now, Brings New Features, Fixes Bugs, Hates How Mad We Are

Samsung Behold II Update To Android 1.6 Donut Going On Now, Brings New Features, Fixes Bugs, Upset At How Mad We Are

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Behold II, Donut 1.6, News, Samsung, T-Mobile

In an unsurprising and entirely boring turn of events, Samsung Behold II upgrade to Android 1.6, aka Donut, has started on June 21st and is expected to be completed on June 25th.

As we mentioned earlier, Behold II will not be getting past 1.6, to shock and outrage of numerous device owners, and this week will be the last (if not the only) highlight of Behold's about to be slow and boring life.

The bad news is: lots of you are unhappy, some to the point that you vouch never to touch Samsung products again.

The good news is… there is always the hacking community.

Jun

Android Updates Will Slow To Once A Year, According To Andy Rubin

Posted by Chris Dehghanpoor in Android OS, Cupcake 1.5, Donut 1.6, Froyo 2.2, Gingerbread 2.3, News

We’re all aware that Android has been taking some flack for ‘fragmentation’ problems, and one of the more prominent contributing factors has been the breakneck pace of the update release cycle.

According to Android chief Andy Rubin, we can expect this cycle to slow down a bit to an Apple style release schedule of one update per year. I’m sure this comes as a huge relief to device manufacturers, especially those who have custom skinned versions of Android, as they’ll now have more time to prep updates before the next one hits. For example, HTC and Sprint just released the official 2.1 update for the Sprint Hero as Android 2.2 is very much around the corner.