The HTC Touch Diamond2 is in stock NOW from FREE on O2!
The hottest device of the moment with it's 5MP camera with touch focus and WVGA screen, the Touch Diamond2 is in stock NOW from FREE on O2 @ Mobiles.co.uk [aff]! Stock is expected to sell out fast...
Chris reviews the Touch Diamond2
Are you considering splashing out on the Touch Diamond2? If so, check out the MoDaCo review by podcast co-host and moderator Chris (aka Monolithix)! See this topic for his thoughts on HTC's hot new device!
HTC Hero is the world’s first Android-based phone with a customized user interface
HTC Sense to be integrated across a portfolio of phones beginning with HTC Hero
LONDON – June 24, 2009 – HTC Corporation, a global designer of mobile phones, today debuted HTC Sense™, an intuitive and seamless experience that will be introduced across a portfolio of phones beginning with the new HTC Hero™. With its distinct design and powerful capabilities fully integrated with HTC Sense, Hero introduces a unique blend of form and function that takes Android to new heights.
HTC Sense is focused on putting people at the centre, by making your phone work in a more simple and natural way. This experience revolves around three fundamental principles that were designed by quietly observing and listening to how people live and communicate. ‘HTC Hero introduces a more natural way for reaching out to people and accessing your important information, not by following the status quo of today’s phones, but by following how you communicate and live your life,’ said Peter Chou, Chief Executive Officer, HTC Corporation. ”HTC Sense is a distinct experience created to make HTC phones more simple for people to use, leaving them saying, “it just makes sense.”’
HTC Hero
HTC Hero continues HTC’s leadership in cutting-edge design that focuses on introducing a variety of distinct devices to represent your own individuality. Boasting bevelled edges and an angled bottom, the HTC Hero is contoured to fit comfortably in your hand and against your face while you’re on a call. The HTC Hero is built to last, beginning with an anti-fingerprint screen coating for improved smudge-resistance and a longer-lasting, clearer display. The white HTC Hero includes an industry-first, Teflon coating, resulting in an improved, durable white surface that is soft to the touch. With its 3.2-inch HVGA display, the HTC Hero is optimized for Web, multimedia and other content, while maintaining a small size and weight that fits comfortably in your hand. It also boasts a broad variety of hardware features including AGPS, digital compass, gravity-sensor, 3.5mm stereo headset jack, a five mega-pixel autofocus camera and expandable MicroSD memory. HTC Hero also includes a dedicated Search button that goes beyond basic search, providing you with a more natural, contextual search experience that enables you to search through Twitter, locate people in your contact list, find emails in your inbox or search in any other area in Hero.
HTC Sense
Built on a culture of innovation and a passion to enhance people’s lives, HTC shapes the mobile experience around the individual. Debuting on the HTC Hero and available on all new HTC devices moving forward, Sense delivers on three basic principles: Make it Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected.
Make It Mine
Make It Mine is about feeling your HTC phone was created for and by you. To do this, HTC encourages you to dictate and organize how you want to access the people and content in your life in a way that fits best for you. For some, this means adding glance-view widgets that push content like twitter feeds, weather and other content to the surface while others may want quick access to business-focused information like email, calendar and world-times. HTC is also introducing a new profile feature called ‘Scenes’ that enables you to create different customized content profiles around specific functions or times in your life.
Stay Close
Today, staying in touch with the people in your life means managing a variety of communication channels and applications ranging from phone calls, emails, texts, photos, status updates and more. HTC Sense takes a different approach by integrating these communication channels and applications into one single view, enabling you to stay closer to your important people. With HTC Sense, friends’ Facebook status updates and photos, along with their Flickr photos are included alongside their text messages, emails and call history in a single view.
Discover the Unexpected
Many of the most memorable moments in your life are experienced, not explained. HTC Sense is focused on providing a variety of these simple yet innovative experiences on your HTC phone that will sometimes bring you moments of joy and delight. It can be something as basic as turning the phone over to silence a ring or as simple as improving the smart dialler for making calls quicker. HTC Sense also includes ‘Perspectives’, a new way for viewing your content such as email, photos, Twitter, music and more in different ways.
On 24th June, 2009 at 11:30AM BST HTC are holding a launch event in London, and we'll be there, covering it live!
It is anticipated that the event will be Android focused (but we don't really know) and you can join in the action with a 'coveritlive' liveblog from around 11:30 AM onwards, bringing you all the news as it breaks!
The only thing I know about Huawei is they make USB 3G/HSDPA dongles for the likes of T-Mo/O2/Three/etc. and that Paul and I recently got a boat load of 'em cheap as chips!
It would seem, however, that Huawei are not just a one trick pony and that they might have some interesting devices on the way....
QUOTE
The Android-powered U8230 smartphone allows users to switch between full and half QWERTY keyboards and to navigate programs easily via a 3.5-inch LCD touch screen. Huawei' s U8230 uses the Google Chrome Internet browser which supports a variety of Google applications such as Google Map, Google Search, Google Talk etc.. It is also fitted with a battery which has a capacity of 1500 mAH - the longest battery capacity of any Android-powered handsets currently available
A plethora of information there(!) but thanks to TalkAndroid(*cough* and to a lesser extent Paul *cough*) you can also have a look at a lovely (non-working!) prototype.... Expect to see this floating around the Asian market under a variety of different names in the future, some time
Are you moving / have you moved from WinMo to Android?
If so, then you may well have the same issue as my wife, whereby you have a bunch of SMS on your WinMo device that you want to keep as you migrate across to Android. Now, I scoured every corner of the internet trying to find a solution to this particular problem - to no avail - so i've hacked together a solution for devices with ROOT access, that you can find in this topic.
As well as solving this particular issue, writing WMSM was an interesting exercise in checking out the Android development environment (Eclipse = FREE), the SDK / emulator (= FREE) and the Market submission process, all of which, frankly, put Windows Mobile to shame...
While we're talking Android, i'm interested to hear the thoughts of those here who have had a play with the OS. How serious a competitor do you feel is it to Windows Mobile? Discuss here!
The Android SDK has been updated to version 1.5 r2, downloadable as always from the Android SDK Home Page.
The release notes state...
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This SDK release provides the same developer tools as the Android 1.5 SDK, Release 1, but provides an updated Android 1.5 system image that includes a security patch for the issue described in the oCert advisory below:
Android, an open source mobile phone platform, improperly checks developer certificates when installing packages that request the shared user identifier (uid) permission.
Normally, Android applications will be allowed to share a uid if the packages are all signed by the same developer certificate and request permission to do so at install-time. This allows for packages from the same author to share data. Without enforcement of that behavior, it is possible for any application to be installed in such a manner that it gains access to another (existing) application's data.
Interesting... also the probable cause of the Cupcake update delays perhaps?
With today's launch of the new Ovi store from Nokia (which TechCrunch say is going rather less than swimmingly) it's interesting to note that not all is well on the other side of the fence in Android land!
Large numbers of users are reporting two major problems with the Android Market.
Firstly the complete disappearance of apps from the market (including wildly popular application such as the free FBook Facebook application and the paid MyBackup Pro backup application). Upon a search in the market, these apps simply don't appear, and nobody seems to know why. Over on the official Android developer support forum, developers are reporting that their apps have indeed gone AWOL (and therefore stopped receiving downloads), and the big G seem to be doing little at this time to reassure developers.
Second comes a problem (as pictured here) which seems to be affecting only some users on some devices / versions but is no less serious. In a rather bizarre kind of way, some Market servers almost seem to have got out of sync. Users are unable to download some free or purchased applications because the Market front end version information mismatches what is actually on the server - therefore when the client tries to download the application, it gets a 404 and the feared ' Download Unsuccessful' message appears. I personally am experiencing this right now on my stock Vodafone HTC Magic, trying to download the Record It application I purchased! The thread about this problem on the official Android developer support forum has 101 replies at the time of writing but again, no resolution. Note the version numbers mismatch in the image below!
Are you experiencing either of these issues? Reply here!
P
QUOTE(Debug Logs)
D/DownloadManager( 3626): http error 404 for download 21 I/vending ( 3253): com.android.vending.AssetDownloader$DownloadManagerBroadcastReceiver.getDownloadStatus(): Unexpected status from download - 404
Google have now integrated barcode scanning into Google Products on the Android platform.
A picture paints a thousand words as they say... so here are 9000 words for you showing the Google products page, one time install of barcode scanner, the scan itself and the results!
Our second post of the day with goodies from Hakyuro!
A new SPL has been made available for the G1 which almost doubles the size of the main system partition, dramatically improving the overall performance of the device!
I have installed the SPL (available here) on my G1, and using ADB, these are my partition sizes:
Nice eh?
You can also view your current partition sizes by installing 'Terminal Emulator' from the Android Market, launching it and then typing 'df'. I'd be interested to hear what people's default sizes are (especially if you're on a Magic!) The SPL is installed on rooted devices with an appropriate recovery partition by downloading, renaming to update.zip then flashing via the recovery partition. Your main ROM also needs to be reflashed afterwards, but there is no data loss.
HOWEVER!!!
Some devices seem to take issue with this update! I flashed 2 G1s. 1 flashed fine, 1 is dead. The problem seems to be related to the board version. If you turn off your G1, then turn it back on while holding down 'camera', the top line shows your board version. It will say DREA100 then either PVT or something else like DVT2-1. My PVT device flashed fine, my DVT2-1 device is toast. This is not 100% confirmed as the cause though, so flash at your own risk!
Master android ROM builder Haykuro has released an updated HTC IME (Input Method) for the G1 device!
Available for download from this entry on his blog, the IME adds QWERTY, 12 key and 20 key input methods that are far, far superior to the standard QWERTY provided in cupcake! A couple of screenshots for your pleasure...
I've installed the new input method on my device (via ADB) on my rooted, cupcake'd G1 (running Haykuro's 1.5 ADP build) and I love it! I've also actually removed the standard cupcake keyboard to free up a bit of memory.
I'm assuming root privileges are required to install... anyone? I understand a similar keyboard is preinstalled on the Magic, but since my review handset hasn't arrived yet, i'm not sure! Anyone?
"Glympse™ is a groundbreaking new way to share your location with anyone for a specified period of time using patent-pending GlympseWatch™ timer."
Glympse is a new tracking utility for Android that has just landed at the Android market! Glympse allows you to send a live updating link with your current location (as defined by GPS, cell towers and Skyhook) to your contacts, allowing them to watch your position online for a predefined period of time (hence the 'patent-pending GlympseWatch')!
It's probably easiest to explain with a couple of screenshots! On the device...
On the recipients PC...
So how well does it work? Incredibly well! The UI is well thought out and easy to use on the device, and for the trackee () the live updating map looks great with north orientated or direction orientated options.
Glympse is FREE and you can grab it now from the Android Market!
I first wrote about We-Fi on the Windows Mobile side of MoDaCo back in April 2008!
I said...
QUOTE
A great feature of many Windows Mobile phones is the ability to connect via WiFi.
Particularly valuable if you don't have a flat rate data plan or if you are roaming, WiFi is supremely useful but - undoubtedly - something of a nightmare to use.
Case in point: When I was away on business recently my wife and daughter were on holiday in sunnier climes. My wife wanted to keep in touch with her mail etc. while she was away and she didn't want to spend a fortune on GPRS, so WiFi was an ideal solution. She uses a Touch Dual normally (non WiFi!) so I gave here an Eten X600 to take with her too (also handily loaded with navigation software for the hire car!) That was the easy part, the tricky part was explaining the intricacies and oddities of WinMo connection manager, all the different places the setup and settings live and so on. She's very Windows Mobile savvy, but it just is an AWFUL experience.
Enter WeFi.
At it's heart, WeFi eases this pain. It provides a single UI for turning WiFi on and off, discovering networks, determining which networks have internet access and automagically connect to the best one at any given time. It's a brilliant concept, and it works great... i've been testing it on my Pocket PC, my Mac and my WiFi's Vista laptop even!
WeFi also has some interesting social networking features built in, but I think the real gem for us Windows Mobile users is the simple connection management ability.
Over the past year We-Fi has grown and matured, and is now available for Android. It remains a great tool for managing WiFi networks and for keeping track of WiFi keys for locations that you visit.
So it's still useful, it's still free, and now supports more platforms than ever. Grab it from the Android Market.
As we know, Samsung's first Android device (and indeed the first Android device from anyone other than HTC) will be the i7500. Already announced my O2 Germany and Bouygues France (where it becomes the Samsung Galaxy), the i7500 features...
- Android 1.5 'cupcake' - 3.2 inch HVGA OLED display (drool!) - 5 megapixel camera with flash (and we know Samsung make decent cameras) - 8GB onboard storage - microSD - 3G / GPS / WiFi / HSPA / Bluetooth - 3.5mm jack - microUSB charger (yay no proprietary Samsung connector!) - 115 x 56 x 11.9 mm
...do you want one yet?
Over the past week or so there has been a bunch of new content about the device, so I thought i'd just round it up here!
Here's an interesting couple of images courtesy of Boy Genius!
As you can see, it is a HTC Sapphire device (aka the HTC Magic on Vodafone) sporting a 5 Megapixel camera (as opposed to the 3.2MP camera found in existing variants) together with T-Mobile branding. Rumour has it that this will become the 'T-Mobile myTouch' (as opposed to the G2) and will hit the USA in July... no word of a European release yet but I suspect this device will become official soon enough.
PayPal have recently released an application for Android, yet they have bizarrely only released it in the US... preventing UK users from using it. Now, theoretically it is possible to ask a US residing friend to provide you with a copy of the APK... but this means the application won't appear in your 'My Downloads' list in the market, and therefore you won't automatically get updates etc.
There is a better way!
An application by the name of 'Market Enabler' is the answer. This application is designed to let people from countries that don't have the ability to purchase apps do so - it effectively makes your device think it's in the US, giving you access to the US market. By installing this, switching region, installing PayPal, switching region back and then uninstalling Market Enabler (if you desire), you end up with the PayPal app on your device and in your 'My Downloads' (as shown in this screenshot).
The downside? You need a rooted device... which means for the moment this will only work for G1 owners and not Magic owners...
The problem seems to be related to the board version. If you turn off your G1, then turn it back on while holding down 'camera', the top line shows your board version. It will say DREA100 then either PVT or something else like DVT2-1. My PVT device flashed fine, my DVT2-1 device is toast. This is not 100% confirmed as the cause though, so flash at your own risk! 
