Android Portal

There were some rumours since weeks that ASUS is going to use Android on their Netbooks. But on Cebit 2009, they announced that they definitly will bring up Netbooks with already installed Android on it. This could be a huge boost for the Android platform, because till now, only some mobile devices use Android as their operating system. But since Android does not require big hardware like Windows does, its predestined for the use on netbooks like the Eee PC`from ASUS. Some developers already ported Android on netbooks like the guys from VentureBeat.com .It shows that Android has a big potential not to only run on mobile devices but also on netbooks. So we could also imagine that Google is also planning to install Android on “Set Top Boxes” or Satelite receivers for example. Then you could easily browse the net and use all the fance stuff which is included in Android right from your TV.

Since the MWC this week, Vodafone will exclusively sell the second Android powered mobile device this year. As you might know, it will be called HTC Magic and will not have a keyboard like the G1 has. It will only have a softkeyboard as you know it from the Iphone or from latest Android RC33 screenshots.

But we just found a picture of a google presentation on the net, which shows the HTC Magic with a T-Mobile branding.

Seems that it is not as exclusive to Vodafone as told on MWC.

It seems that since yesterday, paid apps are available within the android market. You should Update to RC33 to get the latest Android Firmware Update. You should then be able to buy your first commercial android application. The whole shopping process  is done via googles checkout technology. So you should be able to pay with your credit card.

As of today, T-Mobile Germany is accepting preorders for its new flagship phone, the G1. Prices range from 1 Eur to 59 Eur for the device, depending on which data plan you choose. T-Mobile offers four different plans:

“XS”, monthly fee of 25 Eur + 59 Eur -> G1

“S”, monthly fee of 45 Eur + 1 Eur -> G1

“M”, monthly fee of 59 Eur + 1 Eur -> G1

“L”, monthly fee of 120 Eur + 1 Eur -> G1

So make sure you order “one” before they are all sold out :)

A few days before before christmas we received a white box labeled “Android Dev Phone 1″. Early Santa indeed. After seconds of unpacking I held the Android handset in my own hands. The first impression of the device was: robust, brown colored and with a slightly smaller screen than my current Iphone. Of course I had to take a blurry picture of the “process” with my Iphone:

After freeing it from its box, I immediately inserted my O2 Germany SIM Card. After a few seconds of booting I was prompted to touch the “Android” (Whoaaaa) ;) Now it was time to enter my Google Account. I was a bit disappointed that I could not use my Wifi access point. So I had to do some online research to find out the correct APN settings for O2 Germay because the device itself only has predefined APNs for T-Mobile, obviously. For all people looking to use the Dev Phone or G1 with O2 Germany please use “surfo2″ or “internet” as APN Name. That’s all the info you need to get a working connection to Google’s server.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m current using an Iphone, so the big question was:

How do I get my contacts and music from the Iphone to the new Android phone?

The solutions were relatively simple:
For music, just connect your Mac/PC via USB and simply copy all your music folders to the external drive (YOUR Phone). No DRM, no Itunes, just copy and paste to your heart’s content. This is one of the features I missed with the Iphone: Transferring data from Mac/Mobiles to Iphone without having to install a bunch of additional apps.

For contacts, if you are using  MAC OSX, just use the built-in sync utility and you are fine. If not, and you are using a PC with Windows just sync your Iphone with Itunes. Then you have all the contacts in your Windows address book. Now the only thing you have to do is: Export the contacts via CSV and upload the generated CSV file into your Google Mail account.

Now you should have your contacts inside your Gmail Account. Now wait a couple of minutes with your device connected either via 3g or WIfi and Android will sync your Gmail Data with your Android phone. Or if you don’t want to wait: Just enter the settings menu of your phone and trigger a contacts sync manually.

That’s all for the first part of my “Android Dev Phone testing experience”.

Next part will be about everyday use, battery life and the installed Android Market.

PS: Thanks to Open-Xchange.com (Raf in particular) for making it possible to test this really cool mobile device.

Samsung announced that they will deliver their first Android powered Handset in Q2 of 2009. It will be based on the Samsung Omnia Device shown below with modifications for Android.The Device will be available in Spring Nextel And T-Mobile US stores first. Seems that 2009 will be a great year for Android and the OpenHandSet Alliance.

As of today, T-Mobile Germany announced that they will sell the G1 Phone in Germany with the Start of the CEBIT in March 2009, the biggest IT Exhibition in the World. Details regarding the different monthly fees for Data and Speach are not currently published but we think they will offer Flat Fees like they do for the Iphone 3G.

Update: T-mobile Germany will sell the G1 Phone from 2.2.2009 with completly new Data Plans.

Today, 14 new players joined the Android OHA “Team”. The Open Handset Alliance has now members like Sony Ericsson and ASUS, only to mention the big ones, but also some small ones joined the Android Eco System:

- Sony Ericsson

- AKM Semiconductor

- ARM

- ASUSTek Computer Inc.

- Atheros Communications

- Borqs

- Huawei Communications

- Omron Software

- Softbank Mobile Corporation

- Vodafone Group

The most interesting new players are Sony Ericsson and ASUS.  Rikko Sakaguchi, CVP and head of Creation and Development at Sony Ericsson said, that they will try to bring much of their experience to the Android Platform to build more consumer focused multimedia handsets with thrilling user experience. Huawei communicated that they will release Android based Handsets in 2009, but this could also mean Q4 of 2009. Interesting is also the statement from ASUS regarding new Handsets/Devices, HC Hung, General Manager of Personal Mobile Device said that ASUS will soon deliver high quality, innovative Android devices and technology for world class carriers and consumers. These are all good news concerning new Devices, so let the games begin.

As we learned a couple of days ago, the T-Mobile G1’s firmware revision RC29 contained a rather embarassing bug: Any text entered via the keyboard could be interpreted as a Linux command and executed with root privileges. That means typing <enter>reboot<enter> while writing an email, for example, actually rebooted the phone. Annoying, obviously, but also very dangerous. An attacker could potentially trick users into launching telnetd (thereby giving the attacker remote access to a root shell) or if he just wants to cause a little mayhem, convince them to enter commands that would brick their phones.

Until now Google has been somewhat tight-lipped about the patches, presumably because they didn’t want to supply information to would-be hackers before the OTA updates had reached G1 users, but now they have revealed a little more about the fixes in RC29 and RC30, even though a full changelog is not available yet.

While RC30 focussed mainly on the root console bug and the potentially dangerous G1 “jailbreak”, it also fixed two vulnerabilities in the phone’s WebKit-based browser: a buffer overrun bug that could allow attackers to take over the browser and another one that allowed access to the phone’s memory, possibly enabling malicious websites to hijack cookies from other websites.

RC29 fixed the WebKit cross-site scripting vulnerability and a security hole that would allow someone to circumvent large parts of Android’s security mechanism by booting into safe mode.

via CNET

Mozilla has recently released an alpha version of Firefox Mobile (dubbed Fennec). The features definitely sound intriguing: The browser can hide the user interface completely to free up space on the screen, it will support Weave, allowing users to access the bookmarks and browsing history on their desktop computer, it features a smart address bar that can guess what you’re trying to type (important when using a tiny keypad) and future version may even provide tactile feedback using the vibration motors.

There’s a catch, though. In an interview with ABC, Jay Sullivan, Mozilla’s vice president of mobile, revealed that we may not see an Android version of Fennec if applications cannot run natively on Android phones. At present all apps in the Marketplace are written in Java and are interpreted by the Dalvik Virtual Machine. This means they can run on all kinds of different Android phones, and since access to the underlying operating system is restricted, it’s also rather secure.

Running applications natively would take away this layer of security, and it may also make it harder to produce software that works on a wide range of phones. On the plus side the performance would probably be a bit better, and it would be easier to port software to Android without having to rewrite it in Java.

Personally, I don’t think we will see official support for native Linux apps in Android anytime soon because the security implications are considerable and because this would eliminate some of the core features of the OS (ability to interact with other apps, managed resources). There will definitely be user efforts to install native apps and it won’t take long until someone finds a new way to gain root access to the OS now that the pre-RC30 root shell bug is patched, but whether Mozilla will make a Fennec version just for the Android “tinkerers” remains to be seen.