Android is unstoppable. I'm sometimes amazed how the Apple fanclub of bloggers and journalists use so-called facts to make iPhone a much bigger success than it really is. Perhaps they're living in denial about the Android reality. I don't really care why. For a week, and even today, I've put up with their prognostications that Android is suddenly in decline before Apple's Jesus phone.
That's simply, and undeniably, not reality. Analyst firms sometimes complicate things by what they state about data they present and how statements don't reconcile with it. Irreconcilable Data Differences I contacted Nielsen late this morning, because of something that made no sense to me. Turns out that Nielsen has changed how it presents the data. I'll start with the data presented today, which shows Android phone adoption by new purchasers at 27 percent for March to May, which is flat compared to the previous three-month period.
Looked at differently, iPhone is taking little away from Android phone sales. iPad cannot win the tablet wars. Marco Arment's post, "The Android tablet problem, nicely summarized by one review's conclusion", stirred up some fierce debate here at Betanews on Friday. Instapaper's creator uses an ArsTechnica review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 to diss Android, for which the Mac fan club of bloggers and journalists beloved with links over the past two days. But Arment's assessment is short-sighted. My response here could easily have been titled: "The iPad problem, nicely summarized by one developer's blog post. " The "Chicken-and-Egg" Problem Arment's reasoning is fatally flawed, making applications more important than they really are for a mobile platform to succeed. He writes about the "chicken-and-egg problem", which has doomed many good platforms. Arment states: "Developers will rush to Android tablets once a lot of people are buying Android tablets.
There is good reason, and it has little to nothing to do with applications. Typically, successful platforms share five common traits: 1. Google’s Building 44 gets a face lift! – Android and Me. Amidst the massive collection of buildings filled with Googlers in Mountain View, California, is the infamous Building 44. This building is, as they say, where all the magic happens. Building 44 houses the offices where Android development takes place. You’ve probably seen the pictures; the lawn of the building is home to a collection of massive Android sculptures. These sculptures, made by the Themendous statue makers, have been growing right alongside Android and filling the lawn as they do so.
Now Building 44 is decorating not only the lawn, but the building itself. Earlier this week Android Engineer Dan Morill showed this image of the “Bugdroid” now plastered above the entrance of the building, complete with antennae growing out of the top. Among other things, the big green window cling probably casts a pretty cool looking shadow inside the building and blocks out the ridiculous sunlight that comes pouring through that entrance. Szekely’s Principle (a.k.a. an Ode to the Nexus One) at Kevin Purdy. Unlocked and ready to roll. Moore's Law is a popular tech journalism touchstone.
It states, roughly, that the raw processing power of electronics will double every two years, and it's been generally true for the last 45 years. It's why trying to make a smart computer, tablet, or smartphone purchase these days feels like choosing a car in a Formula One race happening 18 months from now--after alien xenomorphs have arrived on Earth and started working with Ferrari engineers. There's a parallel to Moore's law in how we appreciate bold-for-its-time technology. Try to remember the impact the iPhone had on technology, popular culture, and the future of wireless technology when it arrived. It's harder still to think back to when the Nexus One launched and appreciate what it really meant, both at the time and for the future of the Android platform.
There were Android phones before the first Nexus, of course, and even Google-blessed "launch" phones. Then came the Nexus. Me? HTC To Launch HTCdev Developer Center, OpenSense SDK. HTC is always working hard to bring new devices to consumers, however, lately they have been focusing on Android developers. Awhile back around the time the Flyer and Evo View 4G were announced, HTC had announced that they would be giving developers the opportunity to get involved with HTC’s pen based Scribe technology. Today, HTC has announced HTCdev, along with the pending release of their OpenSense SDK. The HTC OpenSense SDK will allow developers to harness software and hardware innovations on HTC phones to develop more deeply integrated mobile apps and experiences.
Altogether, you’ll have access to documentation, sample code, APIs and more importantly, the support and inspiration of the HTCdev community. At the moment not much is actually known about this program, but we do look forward to the launch when we will be a ble to learn more. Source: Android Central. Android vs iOS; A Usability Battle. Lately I’ve noticed a number of articles with gripes and groans about the Android user experience, the way interfaces are designed, the usability of Android apps, and a lack of satisfaction with the whole Android ecosystem.
As someone who works on day-to-day basis with usability testing and user experience design, my interest was piqued. Were these users just iPhone users who expressed dissatisfaction after a brief flirtation with Android, or was there something deeper going on? I can’t honestly say I’ve had a lot of experience with Android – although I do own two iOS devices – so I couldn’t write off these concerns one way or another.
But rather than basing it off a few, possibly biased opinions, it seemed the fairest way to compare the two was to set up a quick usability test. A/B Testing and Preference Testing This particular tests uses two different questions types; an A/B test, and a Preference test . A Preference test has the two designs or interfaces side by side. Android 1 – iOS 1. Android. Custom Boot Animation. Tesseract | rasdroid. Google starts blocking access to Android tethering apps – Cell Phones & Mobile Device Technology News & Updates.
Device tethering is a feature we would all like the option to use on our smartphones, but the network operators want to limit and control. The reason? There’s money to be made in offering access to tethering as a separate data plan. For the uninitiated, tethering is a feature that allows you to connect multiple devices to the Internet using your smartphone or similar device as the access point. In real terms it just means that data plan you already pay for as part of your smartphone contract becomes more useful as you can use it with a laptop, for example. You could burn through your allowance very quickly using it in this way, but in an emergency or just for a quick surf it is an ideal solution. AT&T has been in the news lately for warning subscribers who jailbreak their iPhones and use unofficial tethering.
If it continues they will automatically be charged as part of a smartphone tethering plan. Has your Android smartphone been blocked from accessing these apps yet? This ‘Gal Took The Moron Test! April 28th, 2011 admin In an effort to broaden my game playing and to find out if I’m a moron, I recently installed The Moron Test. Now before I get to the results ( or maybe you’ve already decided them for me ) let me tell you, this game is not for morons.
It’s a lot of fun, and it moves very quickly! It reminds me of the the trivia sort of games I really enjoyed when I first got my Nintendo DS. This game is a paid app that you can grab from the Android Market . Creazione applicazioni android Connect me on You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site. The Motorola Xoom Giveaway, Round 2 - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News. When we reviewed Motorola's Xoom, all that was available was the $799 3G version. Since then Motorola has released a more affordable $599 WiFi only edition with 32GB of NAND on board. Inside the Xoom, as you're all familiar with is NVIDIA's Tegra 2 SoC. Tegra 2 was Google's reference SoC for the Honeycomb release of Android, and thus it's been the heart and soul of all recently announced Honeycomb tablets.
NVIDIA, eager to parade its success with Tegra 2, shipped me a box containing four WiFi Motorola Xooms to give away to our most loyal readers. We're still trying to contact the winner of the first Xoom. Here's a shot of the remaining three: We'll be giving one away every two days until we're out of WiFi Xooms. To enter the contest simply respond to this post with comment explaining something you'd like to see in the next-generation of tablets or SoCs (please only respond once).
Now the basic rules. Good luck everyone :) Eligibility. 5 things HTC’s Sense UI needs to change NOW – Android and Me. Arguably the most popular of the “UI Improvements” offered by manufacturers is HTC’s SenseUI. While personally I am a fan of the Stock UI found on the Nexus S, the “Google Experience” devices are something of a minority nowadays. So, when I was given the opportunity to review the HTC Thunderbolt, I was once again confronted with the latest version of Sense. I gave it more than a fair shake, and am still using it as my primary device today.
I can’t help but feel, however, that in HTC’s attempt to provide us with the “ideal user experience” they removed or altered some critical things that Google had right in the first place. So, here it is, the 5 things that HTC needs to fix right now. Charging Percentage on the Lockscreen This seems like a fairly trivial thing, unless you are used to it.
Put my Browser back in the Launcher That personalize button on the far right of the launcher? Stop isolating HTC Widgets Simplify the “connect to PC screen” Homepage configuration. Swappa (Android) Buy and sell Android devices. No fooling, just some free stuff. Win prizes with just a comment! – Android and Me. UPDATE: Contest closed! Thanks for all the fun links! Check the bottom of this post for the winners. Having spent a good portion of my childhood and now adult life connected to the internet, I’ve seen my fair share of April Fools’ pranks come and go. For a long time I participated in such jokes, but now years have passed since I actually possessed the proper energy and snark to pull of a solid April Fools’ prank. Luckily (well, depending on how you look at it), there are others who carry on the torch.
That silly, nonsensical, do-we-even-need-this torch. So today, we’re just going to let you, the reader, provide the April Fools’ funny in the form of a comment linking to your favorite April Fools’ prank. You’ve got til the end of the day to leave a comment, at which point we’ll randomly draw three winners. We’re picking the winners randomly, it has nothing to do with the comment voting. Aside from that, have fun! Winners! Rs:theSlapApp App Review » Uncut Android. 40% Will Switch to Android for Next Phone, Says Survey. A survey commissioned by independent third-party mobile application store GetJar found that 40% of respondents claimed they will switch to an Android device when it comes time to purchase their next mobile phone. In comparison, only 18% said they would switch to iPhone. This, proclaims GetJar's headlining of the news, means Android will trump iPhone "two-to-one. " Of course, there are a couple of problems with this data.
For starters, surveys that ask consumers what they will do are often not nearly as accurate as those which show what consumers actually did. Sure, people may say they're switching to an Android phone, but when push comes to shove (and when they discover the $49 iPhone 3GS), will these switchers follow through? Additional Data The survey also measured other trends, including app usage. When it comes to app choice, the survey respondents said that the quality of the brand made the app trustworthy (80%). A few other details from the survey: Do You Trust the Survey? It’s About Time Apple.. We’ve Had That Since October 08. One of the greatest things packed in the arsenal of any Android Enthusiast as they prepare to fight the Android vs iPhone war is this little thing we take for granted called Google Apps or G-Apps for short.
You see, Apple has been offering this product called Mobile Me for years which costs just $99. It integrates your email, calendar, contacts, picture account etc in one neat little package that keeps it synced to your computer and your Apple i-device. Sound familiar? Well Android users have had this sine October 2008 and the first version of Android on the first Android device the HTC/T-Mobile G1. Android, through the use of your Google Account, syncs your Gmail, contacts, picassa web albums, browsing history, etc and it does it all for free.
Google Apps even allows you to sync multiple Google apps accounts, multiple contact lists and multiple calendars on one or 9 Android phones, the possibilities are limitless and free. They always have been. Source: Unwired View. The Year in Android Phones — So Far | Product Reviews. We've seen a flood of Android phones so far in 2011. We got our first whiff of the coming deluge in January when we went to the Consumer Electronics Show and saw around a dozen really impressive models on the show floor, all with big displays, 4G radios, beefy processors and promises of epic battery life. Some had interesting add-ons, like big physical keyboards for thumb commandos, or the Motorola Atrix's whacky full-sized laptop dock.Some of these Android handsets have since arrived, and there are plenty more to come.This collection represents the best Android phones we've received to test here at Wired over the past few months.
So, if you're in the market for an Android phone, start with this short list of our recommended picks.Of course, there are older phones on the shelves that are still great options, like the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, the HTC EVO 4G and the Samsung Epic 4G. Hacking Competition Leaves Android and Windows Phone 7 Devices Undefeated | Gadget Lab. The Nexus S is the Android phone target in the 2011 Pwn2Own competition.
From the results of the Pwn2Own hacking competition, it looks like Android and Windows Phone 7 are tough nuts to crack. It took only two days for hackers to crack into the Apple and Blackberry operating systems during the three-day Pwn2Own tournament last week, while Android and Windows Phone 7 models were abandoned and left unhacked by the end of the contest. Is this because their operating systems are more secure? Yes and no. “The survival of a target at Pwn2Own does not automatically declare it safer than a target that went down,” last year’s Internet Explorer Pwn2Own winner Peter Vreugdenhil cautions. Pwn2Own, now in its fifth year, is a hacking competition divided into two areas: web browsers and mobile phones.
This year, Microsoft Internet Explorer 8, Apple Safari 5.0.3, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome were the web-browser targets. Pwning and owning occurs if the hacker defeats the frozen version. Instant Previews Now Available On Your Android Device! HTC to launch dual-core “Doubleshot” with Android 2.3 this month | Mobile Phone News | DialToSave. Android Boot Animation. Mechanical Welding Arm. Photo : yfrog.com/h42ex1j - Shared by technobozo. Social Media Operations por Fernando Fonseca. Donna winter | technobozo. 2 Questions, What The Heck Happened & Can Your iPhone Do This? DEVELOPERS, Pay Attention :) Did You Miss the Honeycomb Event? Check It Out Now. Study: Android users more likely to click app ads. Google Android: Best-Selling Smartphone Platform Q4 2010 | CNet Analysis. Toshiba Tablet Runs Android 3.0 to Challenge Apple iPad - Mobile and Wireless.
Donna Winter (technobozo) Sorry Google, But "Open" Is A Crock. Nexus One Gingerbread Update Due “Any Day Now” The Android Community Means Nothing Apparently. When a Fanboy Meets a Fangirl. Royal Pedigree. Trend Micro Secures the Android Platform. Android On Tablets Shows Why There's No Reason For Chrome (GOOG) Dell Streak 7: The First 4G Tablet In the US. Verizon HTC Thunderbolt and AT&T HTC Inspire 4G show up in Rolling Stone ad – Android and Me. Android’s Users Eclipse IPhone’s for First Time, comScore Says - Digits. AT&T HTC Inspire 4G is first U.S. phone with the new Sense UI – Android and Me. Coming To CES? Stay Connected With The CES App For Android » Android News, Android Phones, Android Tips, Google News, Tech News and More Thedroidguy.com.
Google could compete head-on with Verizon, AT&T - Dec. 30, 2010. It’s not “rooting”, it’s openness. Toshiba Prepares 10.1-Inch, Tegra 2-powered Android Tablet. Alchemy – Genetics. Malware infected apps threatening Android devices. The iPhone Fanboys Can't Handle the Truth On Android. How Was Everyone’s Holiday? Weekly Developer Soapbox [Punk.Kaos] | RadioAndroid. My Grown-up Christmas List. Gingerbread on Nexus One! DAGRONS AHEAD « ChrisSoyars. Google Maps 5 Available Now in the Market. #Android My HTC Desire HD is here. Sexy phone! The New Android Market Vs The Old » Thedroidguy.com Android News, Android Phones, Android Tips, Google News, Tech News and More.
Nexus S review and unboxing roundup – Android and Me. Android-open source daily. Android Figurine Appears in Big Bang Theory » Android Phones, Tips, News and Technology Thedroidguy.com. Dead Zebra Unveils Android Snowman Collectible.
Open your garage with your Android device. The Android Show for November 24th [Episode #11] | RadioAndroid. Cute Andy Contest! What Google's NFC Android Phones Will Mean For You - PCWorld. Android Market will finally allow promotional videos for apps – Android and Me. The Latest and Greatest….With Looks! | AndroidGuys. Market Housekeeping Alert. App Inventor for Android has been updated - App Inventor Coffee Shop. Android Gingerbread launching this week: Fact or fiction? Droid wallpapers : un album. “Droidette” Backgrounds!- Women With Droids. Android Gals - Girly Android... Android-open source daily. Android-open source daily. iSteam Andy shirt: What if Leonardo da Vinci worked for Google? | DroidDog Android Blog. Long Overdue: Peggle and Plants vs Zombies Coming To Android Early 2011.