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Maybe you're like me: you don't find Voice Search all that useful; you have an impenetrably foreign, non-Google-approved accent; you find yourself frustrated by the single-entry nature of Android's traditional clipboard.
BoyGeniusReport just got a nice clear photo of the HTC Merge, a device we may or may not have seen pass through the FCC with a red keyboard, better known as the dual-mode QWERTY slider for Verizon. The phone appears to be running Sense, and is now rocking a rather svelte brushed-metal style keyboard - one with a markedly different layout to the G2.
This is what happens when you try to one-up the open-source community. Just when we were beginning to think HTC Sense might have come up trumps with a real killer feature in their Fast Boot, CyanogenMod creator Steve Kondik's right there with a cheeky "Yeah, CM6 "does" too :)". Tweeting that the feature will be committed to the CyanogenMod source soon (possibly with the arrival of version 6.1), Cy noted that the Nexus One would likely last in this hibernation state for about a week. Now, let's see what it looks like in action:
Back in the good old days, before our fantasies were crushed by manufacturer-carrier partnerships and vested interests, we dreamt of being able to make calls over whatever medium we damn well pleased. T-Mobile fed that desire further, with “Hotspot Calling” in 2007, subsequently causing temper tantrums with levied surcharges in a way that now reminds us of Ma Bell and their ludicrous femtocells. It’s such a pity they never took it any furth-
To the sound of a resounding “Meh”, Sony Ericsson have publically indicated that they have dropped Symbian off their roadmap for future handsets. Having been a member of the Symbian Foundation since its creation, Sony Ericsson are now jettisoning the aging platform for greener fields, leaving Nokia as the sole steward of the Symbian brand. According to spokesman Aldo Liguori:
People like Android because they like openness and because they like choice. The ability to boot a second, open-source operating system on your Android device is then a pretty compelling proposition. Following a flurry of activity around various fora, some progress has been made in booting the Linux-based Maemo 5 successor, MeeGo, on select Android devices. These devices, namely the Nexus One, Streak, and Desire are all based on the Snapdragon QSD8250 and it is that chipset the development community is focusing on.
Those of you following the official @AndroidDev account on twitter may have spotted a cryptic tweet sent out yesterday, urging developers to check their e-mail inboxes. Contained within was an e-mail with some exciting news: Google will be bringing access to paid applications to more countries. The when and the where have still yet to be determined, but Ireland bleedin' better be one of those countries.
Here’s something to get your teeth into. Over at LaptopMag, a whole host of Androids have been put through their paces in a grueling battery life endurance test. The goal was to keep the phones’ screens on while doing a moderate amount of processing, namely cyclically browsing a collection of web pages. Despite the supposed power savings afforded by AMOLED screens, the phones employing that screen technology fell quite a ways behind in comparison to the traditional LCD phones.
In the excitement of HTC’s unveiling of the Desire HD and Desire Z in London, we missed out on this sweet little gadget. HTC announced plans to release a Media Link wireless DLNA adaptor in Q4 2010, as a companion piece to its continued expansion of the Sense experience.
While there have been several third party retailers already grabbing headlines with pre-orders of the T-Mobile G2, T-Mo themselves have been keeping mum about when the phone will go up for sale. Well, several T-Mobile customers have been reporting today that the G2 has appeared in their online store with an enticing label: “Pre-ordering starts soon!”
Good news for those of you with Verizon phones and a 'Total Equipment Coverage' insurance plan. VZW have just let us know that they are partnering with Asurion to provide some useful security functions for Android owners. The free Mobile Recovery application includes the ability to remotely:
It’s difficult to keep track of all the leaked device names out there, we know, but if you can cast your mind back a month or so you may remember the mysterious HTC Lexikon and HTC Bee phones whose details were sourced from the 911sniper blog. Well, the same guys over in China have just posted what is believed to be a copy of the Lexikon’s operating system, complete with “VERIZON” in the filename, and a render of the phone to keep you hooked.
Apart from SlideScreen, it seems like pretty much every alternative Android launcher out there is a slightly different version of the same thing; namely, the stock Android launcher. Well, SlideScreen is no longer alone. With Zune Home, we have something rather familiar but entirely different to what we’ve seen before on Android.
A couple of weeks back, Boy Genius Report got their hands on some photos of a very svelte looking, EVO-esque HTC phone that is supposedly coming to Verizon.
From the Unsurprising But Still Exciting department comes this fresh tip, via everyone’s favourite rumour rag, Digitimes. With a suitably vague allusion to “Taiwan component makers”, Digitimes claims that HTC will be leveraging their strong partnership with Google in releasing a tablet worldwide.
One of the more obvious settings missing from Android is the ability to use one keyboard, say Swype, in portrait orientation, and then automatically switch to another keyboard when the phone is in landscape.
While the teaser site for the T-Mobile G2 has been up for quite some time now, HTC, the company actually manufacturing the device, have been quite reticent about its specifications and what’s driving that stock Froyo goodness. Of course, we’ve known of its MSM7230 and various other details for a couple of weeks, but it’s nice to see the official specs solidified on HTC’s website. There are no surprises contained within, but something about the confirmation of what was once nebulous rumour can’t help but bring a warming pulse to every Android’s circuitry.
One of the most common complaints about the recent builds of CyanogenMod 6 has been that Nexus One owners’ GPS would suddenly take ages to get a fix or wouldn't get a fix at all. The most frequent solution posted has been to change your Mobile Network APN type to “default,supl” to enable A-GPS through your cellular network. However, for some people this still didn’t solve the problem, including myself.
Getting my hands on the Charm was no mean feat. Motorola didn’t seem keen to send out review units to anyone in a hurry, so I took it upon myself to go buy one, under the pretext of it being a gift for my girlfriend (she has a Nokia 1661 for chrissakes).