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Open Handset Alliance releases mobile OS android as Open Source

Christian — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 06:52:43 +0000

Jason Chen, android-Developer-Advocate at Google, just blogged the good news: One day before the first T-Mobile-G1 android-smartphones ship in the US, the Open Handset Alliance released the sourcecode of the android operating system as open source. Quite logical and necessary step … but don’t under estimate this: This step may change the mobile industry like LINUX changed the computer industry.

First Review of the brand new T-Mobile G1 at Engadget

Christian — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:20:28 +0000

Joshua from Engadget.com just published a first review of the Google-Phone T-Mobile G1 just before the official roll-out of the Android-cellphone in the US. He tested the hard- and software – so this is a must for all those of you, who want to know more about the new phone! Thanks Josuha!

Android T-Mobile-Google G1 Online Emulator

Christian — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:44:15 +0000

Don’t expect too much … the online emulator gives just a first impression of the look-and-feel of the first Android-smartphone. The mobile, manufactured by HTC and equipped with the Android-OS created by Google and the Open Handset Alliance, will enter the US market in the end of this month.

It’s fun to play around with the user interface within the emulator created in Flash. Although you find the warning ”This screen is not fully functional!” still on many screens – it’s the absolute right step in a new form of customer communication: Customers should not by the G1 because of the datasheet-facts – but because of the user interface and the additional functions. Finally it’s more “selling a great user experience” and no more “selling-nice-looking-hardware”. Great news for mobile application development!

Sources: Thanks to aptgetupdate

T-Mobile G1 the first Android Mobile of Google and HTC at the end of 2008 in the US and Europe

Christian — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:19:05 +0000

A black day for Microsoft and Windows Mobile … the Open Mobile Alliance did a great job in launching T-Mobile G1. For 3 years T-Mobile, Google and HTC worked on bringing the first handest of the Open Mobile Alliance to the market.

The features:

Touchscreen
Full slide out keyboard
Multithreading
Compass-Mode
Android Market for new applications
No out-of-the-box desktop-syncing … but the developer community will close that gap soon
WiFi, 3G (UMTS dual band), GSM (quad band) – with GPRS/EDGE
3 Megapixel camera
Bluetooth
GoogleTalk presence service implemented in the phone book
SIM-locked to T-Mobile

Available in the US: October 26th 2008 – $179 for the G1 with a T-Mobile voice plan plus a data plan. Data plan with unlimited data and 400 messages for 25$ option or an unlimited data and messaging plan for 35$.

UK: Early November 2008 and rest of Europe in the first quarter of 2009.

This add’s a lot of competition to the mobile handset market where Apple speeded up the innovation circle with the iPhone. So, let’s get ready to rumble!

Source/Video: Pressconference T-Mobile, New York Sep. 22, 2008, Picture: T-Mobile

Top 50 Apps of the Android Developer Challenge

Christian — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:23:32 +0000

Jason from Google just posted the top 50 mobile applications which where selected in the challenge part 1, round 1. Looks like there are a lot of companies and people from Europe – like the Zelfi AG in Germany. So, innovation is not a Silicon Valley only phenomenon I’m really curious to get more information on all the top 50 apps.

Congratulations to all the developers behind the to 50 apps!

Google Mobile Application Design Competition for the new Android Platform

Christian — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:40:10 +0000

Google is running fast forward with the Mobile-Handset-Operating-System, called android, they are developing with the joint forces of the Open Handset Mobile Alliance. To attract the creativity of developers worldwide, they started a competition – or as Google likes to see it as the Android Developer Challenge. Google will provide 10 Million $ in awards for the best applications. So it might really be interesting for some developers out there – may be great seed capital for a new startup
Yesterday, on January 28, Google extended the deadline for the first round in the Android Developer Challenge to April 14 2008. There will be a second challenge when the first handsets ship. And those first android handsets should ship in the second half of 2008.
So, get your mobile applications on track

iPod touch and iPhone update enables location based services in cooperation with Skyhook Wireless

Christian — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:04:49 +0000

Steve Jobs presented a new feature of the iPhone – and also the iPod touch. Especially the iPod touch transforms into a new category of devices by adding location based services: By cooperating with Skyhook Wireless it is possible to get the own location by triangulating the signals from different WiFi-hotspots. The iPhone uses also the well known method by using the cell-ids to find the current location. It’s quite interesting, that it seems that Apple is not cooperating with the mobile network operators to get the location by cell ids and triangulation: They realized this feature by cooperating with Google. When I think of the hurdles to realize mobile Location Based Services (LBS) with the different operators … this is not a bad idea.
We really can be curious, whether the iPhone SDK will be the kickoff of a new era in LBS. Maybe Apple will also provide the iPhone web developers with the LBS-SDK Loki SDK for their web applications – that would really roll up the LBS-scene