"This week has seen two interesting stories about Android and trademarks: Google being denied it’s trademark application on the name Nexus One, and Samsung trademarking the term Android, in reference to hardware, and only in South Korea."
Read on at AndroidAndMe: http://androidandme.com/2010/03/news/roundup-a-tale-of-two-android-trademarks/
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Buzz Works on Pre2.0 Handsets
Some guy (aka me) at AndroidAndMe just posted some info and screenshots on the news page about Buzz working on pre-2.0 handsets.
Take a look: http://androidandme.com/2010/02/news/google-buzz%E2%80%94now-for-the-rest-of-us/
Take a look: http://androidandme.com/2010/02/news/google-buzz%E2%80%94now-for-the-rest-of-us/
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Data Only Plans
I've been doing some research on how friendly Android is to hearing impaired and deaf users over the past week. In a few days I'll be writing it up into a full op-ed piece and posting it either here or at AndroidAndMe.com. Look forward to it.
In the mean time, here are my notes on what each of the major U.S. carriers has to offer in the way of data only plans. Some of this information I was able to find online but most I had to call in for. Even the web sites that explain these plans are not usually linked from the main plan pages of each carrier's site. Tricky.
T-Mobile:
Data only plans are not available unless you use a BlackBerry. I believe they have retired the SideKick line so no option there either unless you are upgrading from a sidekick to an Android handset.
So, an Android user can get the minimum talk plan, Even More 500. To get unlimited messaging and data it would cost a total of $79.99 per month.
Grade: F
It is ridiculous, as has been mentioned all over the internet before, to not offer a data only plan. There are too many deaf and hearing impaired users who just want to stay in touch on the go.
AT&T:
A plan with data only, and unlimited data at that, is only $30. To add unlimited text messaging, though, it becomes a total of $50 per month. This can be used on any smartphone, so I don't see them adding a no-Android restriction once their Android handset offerings are available.
Grade: B
Verizon Wireless:
VZW offers a $34.99 per month data only plan for featurephone users, which doesn't help us at all. For $54.99 per month, though, you can get unlimited data and messaging on any smartphone.
Grade: B-
Sprint:
Surprisingly, Sprint has the best plan in this arena. SRDO (Sprint Relay Data Only), is a plan offered through their Relay services site, so it's obviously already targeted at the hearing impaired. You can get unlimited data, text, and a 5GB PAM (phone-as-modem) allowance for only $29.99 per month. On the first page for phone selection you have a choice of several BlackBerry phones, the Palm Pre, and the Samsung Moment. Once you click "View more Sprint phones" you can see that the Pixi and, thankfully, the HTC Hero are choices, too.
Grade: A+
Sprint is really cutting out the cost of voice here. If you tack on unlimited data to a voice plan it's usually only $30 a month, so why should it be any more to get a data only plan?
In the mean time, here are my notes on what each of the major U.S. carriers has to offer in the way of data only plans. Some of this information I was able to find online but most I had to call in for. Even the web sites that explain these plans are not usually linked from the main plan pages of each carrier's site. Tricky.
T-Mobile:
Data only plans are not available unless you use a BlackBerry. I believe they have retired the SideKick line so no option there either unless you are upgrading from a sidekick to an Android handset.
So, an Android user can get the minimum talk plan, Even More 500. To get unlimited messaging and data it would cost a total of $79.99 per month.
Grade: F
It is ridiculous, as has been mentioned all over the internet before, to not offer a data only plan. There are too many deaf and hearing impaired users who just want to stay in touch on the go.
AT&T:
A plan with data only, and unlimited data at that, is only $30. To add unlimited text messaging, though, it becomes a total of $50 per month. This can be used on any smartphone, so I don't see them adding a no-Android restriction once their Android handset offerings are available.
Grade: B
Verizon Wireless:
VZW offers a $34.99 per month data only plan for featurephone users, which doesn't help us at all. For $54.99 per month, though, you can get unlimited data and messaging on any smartphone.
Grade: B-
Sprint:
Surprisingly, Sprint has the best plan in this arena. SRDO (Sprint Relay Data Only), is a plan offered through their Relay services site, so it's obviously already targeted at the hearing impaired. You can get unlimited data, text, and a 5GB PAM (phone-as-modem) allowance for only $29.99 per month. On the first page for phone selection you have a choice of several BlackBerry phones, the Palm Pre, and the Samsung Moment. Once you click "View more Sprint phones" you can see that the Pixi and, thankfully, the HTC Hero are choices, too.
Grade: A+
Sprint is really cutting out the cost of voice here. If you tack on unlimited data to a voice plan it's usually only $30 a month, so why should it be any more to get a data only plan?
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Manufacturer Customizations-- What BLUR, Sense, and TouchWiz Mean for Users
"Cons: Samsung's TouchWIZ interface hurts Android experience." (InfoSync Behold II Review)
"My opinion of TouchWiz on Android? Sluggish. It just seems to eat up processor capacity for breakfast." (UnwiredView.com Review of Behold II)
"[We] have never hidden our feelings about it (we love it). HTC Sense really shows what Android is all about—the customization." (AndroidCentral on HTC Hero and Sense)
"How successful MOTOBLUR is for you depends on how many contacts you have in Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, and how much time you spend glued to your smartphone." (Slashgear on the CLIQ and MOTOBLUR)
As you can see, reviews of the various OEM-created custom Android UI layers run the gamut--from praise to cries of agony and despair. The main problem here, of course, is user preference. Not all of us like the way that BLUR looks, or maybe we prefer TouchWiz over Sense. But at the end of the day, even the prettiest and slickest UI layers can make us go crazy if they aren't efficient and fast.
By now I think most users of Android handsets are fairly familiar with the limitations of first-generation hardware. The standard 528MHz processor found in the G1, Hero, CLIQ, and others seems limiting at times, especially when we weigh it down with extra UI addons that are not optimized to run as quickly as the stock user interface.
So what's the solution? Well, in recent months we've seen what Google has in store for the vanilla Android user interface--Eclair seems to include a lot of the fancy social media integration features that make BLUR and Sense seem useful. The key difference lies in the fact that it runs more smoothly. All the pretty widgets and addons are useless if they don't run quickly and they are doubly useless if the stock operating system has an equivalent or better UI.
In the user community, of course, we have other options. Recently a popular trend in the CDMA Hero community has been to run an AOSP (Android Open Source Project) ROM instead of the standard HTC-developed one. Many of the users at the XDA forums have flashed a 1.6 AOSP ROM and customized kernels, giving users two sources of increased speed.
True, it's not the full Eclair UI, but once again the hacking community has provided an alternative to things like Sense that runs better and accomplishes many of the same goals. While AOSP 1.6 may lack social media integration, the performance boost seems to outweigh the usability features of Sense for the community.
There's no hard and fast rule on which will win, but performance and new features will always jockey for the top position in the minds and hearts of smartphone users.
How do you feel about Sense, BLUR, and TouchWiz? Have you tried a stock or AOSP ROM as well or compared one side by side with a custom UI layer?
"My opinion of TouchWiz on Android? Sluggish. It just seems to eat up processor capacity for breakfast." (UnwiredView.com Review of Behold II)
"[We] have never hidden our feelings about it (we love it). HTC Sense really shows what Android is all about—the customization." (AndroidCentral on HTC Hero and Sense)
"How successful MOTOBLUR is for you depends on how many contacts you have in Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, and how much time you spend glued to your smartphone." (Slashgear on the CLIQ and MOTOBLUR)
As you can see, reviews of the various OEM-created custom Android UI layers run the gamut--from praise to cries of agony and despair. The main problem here, of course, is user preference. Not all of us like the way that BLUR looks, or maybe we prefer TouchWiz over Sense. But at the end of the day, even the prettiest and slickest UI layers can make us go crazy if they aren't efficient and fast.
By now I think most users of Android handsets are fairly familiar with the limitations of first-generation hardware. The standard 528MHz processor found in the G1, Hero, CLIQ, and others seems limiting at times, especially when we weigh it down with extra UI addons that are not optimized to run as quickly as the stock user interface.
So what's the solution? Well, in recent months we've seen what Google has in store for the vanilla Android user interface--Eclair seems to include a lot of the fancy social media integration features that make BLUR and Sense seem useful. The key difference lies in the fact that it runs more smoothly. All the pretty widgets and addons are useless if they don't run quickly and they are doubly useless if the stock operating system has an equivalent or better UI.
In the user community, of course, we have other options. Recently a popular trend in the CDMA Hero community has been to run an AOSP (Android Open Source Project) ROM instead of the standard HTC-developed one. Many of the users at the XDA forums have flashed a 1.6 AOSP ROM and customized kernels, giving users two sources of increased speed.
True, it's not the full Eclair UI, but once again the hacking community has provided an alternative to things like Sense that runs better and accomplishes many of the same goals. While AOSP 1.6 may lack social media integration, the performance boost seems to outweigh the usability features of Sense for the community.
There's no hard and fast rule on which will win, but performance and new features will always jockey for the top position in the minds and hearts of smartphone users.
How do you feel about Sense, BLUR, and TouchWiz? Have you tried a stock or AOSP ROM as well or compared one side by side with a custom UI layer?
Friday, January 22, 2010
Hero Kernel Source Available!
Well, it looks like early this morning HTC released the kernel source for the CDMA (Sprint) Hero!
And the people rejoiced, and the people did feast upon the lambs, and sloths, and carp, and anchovies, and orangutans, and breakfast cereals, and fruitbats...
This really is great news. For everyone asking and all the people who are less familiar with operating systems, especially Linux, here's a basic rundown of what having the source code for the kernel opens up for CDMA Hero users:
-Developers can more easily upgrade us to newer kernels, and, importantly, newer versions of Android because they can fully see how the current kernel works.
-The current 2.0 and 2.1 ROMs can be fixed, as there are many issues in them caused by lack of kernel source code.
-We can see more optimizations in the ROMs we flash to our phones. More speed, more power, less battery consumption, etc etc. This is my favourite advantage of having the kernel source.
So, keep your eyes open for new and refreshed ROMs in the next few weeks. It'll be great to see what our Android hacking community developers can come up with.
And the people rejoiced, and the people did feast upon the lambs, and sloths, and carp, and anchovies, and orangutans, and breakfast cereals, and fruitbats...
This really is great news. For everyone asking and all the people who are less familiar with operating systems, especially Linux, here's a basic rundown of what having the source code for the kernel opens up for CDMA Hero users:
-Developers can more easily upgrade us to newer kernels, and, importantly, newer versions of Android because they can fully see how the current kernel works.
-The current 2.0 and 2.1 ROMs can be fixed, as there are many issues in them caused by lack of kernel source code.
-We can see more optimizations in the ROMs we flash to our phones. More speed, more power, less battery consumption, etc etc. This is my favourite advantage of having the kernel source.
So, keep your eyes open for new and refreshed ROMs in the next few weeks. It'll be great to see what our Android hacking community developers can come up with.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
WTB: CDMA Hero's Kernel Source Code...
I think many people are oblivious to something that is pretty frustrating for Android developers: HTC has not released kernel source code for the CDMA variant of the Hero.
In fact, when prompted, their customer service reps seem to be confused and often suggest that the code for the GSM kernel is identical to the CDMA kernel, or that HTC has no plans to release such code, or that they have no idea what is being asked for and will pass on the request.
On the CDMA Hero forum at XDA, though, a 30+ page thread has been growing since December 30th, documenting various attempts to get HTC to release the kernel source for the CDMA Hero.
Click here to read the thread, starting at page one. (I'd suggest skimming.)
I'm not going to speculate on the legality of HTC's delays or the intricacies of GPL, Apache, and other open source licensing models. I'll leave that for everyone else to talk about.
However, I DO want this code released. It'll be like putting the CDMA Hero hacking community on steroids, in a good way.
In fact, when prompted, their customer service reps seem to be confused and often suggest that the code for the GSM kernel is identical to the CDMA kernel, or that HTC has no plans to release such code, or that they have no idea what is being asked for and will pass on the request.
On the CDMA Hero forum at XDA, though, a 30+ page thread has been growing since December 30th, documenting various attempts to get HTC to release the kernel source for the CDMA Hero.
Click here to read the thread, starting at page one. (I'd suggest skimming.)
I'm not going to speculate on the legality of HTC's delays or the intricacies of GPL, Apache, and other open source licensing models. I'll leave that for everyone else to talk about.
However, I DO want this code released. It'll be like putting the CDMA Hero hacking community on steroids, in a good way.
Sprint's WiMax + Android = ?
I'm not one to put stock in rumours, but if this one pans out soon (and honestly, why wouldn't it?) we'll be seeing the first of the 4G-wars. True, I don't expect aggressive hostility and flaming in ads from carriers and OEMs, but I do see the first "4G" phone being released as a major milestone for cell data.
Personally, I'd rather see Sprint pursue LTE but hey, beggars can't be choosers, right?
See all the info on the new HTC Supersonic at Engadget.
Personally, I'd rather see Sprint pursue LTE but hey, beggars can't be choosers, right?
See all the info on the new HTC Supersonic at Engadget.
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