Phandroid Newsletter

Get weekly news recaps, access to exclusive contests and giveaways, invites to beta applications, promotions/coupons and more!

We respect your privacy. We'll never share your Email address and you can always unsubscribe.


January, 2009 Articles

Samsung Android To Sprint, T-Mobile

by Rob Jackson on January 19th, 2009 8 Comments

As with all tech/mobile related rumors, remind yourself that it is just a rumor. That being said, this isn’t a far fetched claim. According to NewsOXY.com (who?) Samsung officials have confirmed they are working on an Android Phone that will be featured on both Sprint and T-Mobile and will be a touchscreen. Other, unconfirmed reports [...]

Android Market: Now In Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Netherlands & Poland

by Rob Jackson on January 17th, 2009 8 Comments

In an Email from Google’s Eric Chu, Developer’s learned that they can now target new countries with their applications in the Android Market: Hello, I’m writing to let you know that Android Market will become available to users in Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Netherlands, and Poland in the coming weeks. You can now target these [...]

DroidBerry: Android Theme For BlackBerries

by Rob Jackson on January 16th, 2009 3 Comments

So you’ve got yourself one of them there BlackBerry devices, like the BlackBerry Storm, but you really envy the T-Mobile folks who have themselves a G1. Mainly you like the way the UI looks. And now you no longer have to be jealous. Introducing DroidBerry, a theme for BlackBerry phones that replicates the look and [...]

Kogan Agora Is No Mora

by Rob Jackson on January 16th, 2009 2 Comments

Kogan founder Ruslan Kogan had this to say about the world’s hopeful but canceled 2nd Android Phone, “Since the design of the Agora, the Android community has been growing quickly. I now believe that in order to access all (that) the Android platform has to offer, the Agora must be redesigned.” And so the Kogan [...]

How To Instantly Ruin Your Credibility

by Rob Jackson on January 15th, 2009 15 Comments

Want to how to instantly ruin your credibility in regards to mobile technology? Publish an article comparing and rating the Palm WebOS, iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile… and then… declare Windows Mobile the overwhelming winner. That’s exactly what MobilitySite.com did when they took Gizmodo’s Pre/Android/iPhone article and added BlackBerry and WinMo to the mix. [...]

Chinese Dream G2 Video Surfaces

by Rob Jackson on January 15th, 2009 11 Comments

When we first heard about the “Dream G2″ Android Phone coming from China we immediately pegged it as a super cheap knock off that was trying to leech off HTC’s “Dream” and T-Mobile’s “G1″ name. And although we still think the naming is a cheap way to steal the spotlight, we now have a video [...]

Exeda Andriod Phone: Excessively Ugly

by Rob Jackson on January 14th, 2009 20 Comments

We just got a little tip (Thanks Dean) about CompuLab’s brand new Android Phone they have coming out called the Exeda. After doing a little background research it appears that CompuLab is an Israeli company with products used in datacom, medical equipment, transportation and avionics. While they have a Handheld Computer, the Exeda would be [...]

Alk CoPilot GPS Software on Android/G1

by Rob Jackson on January 14th, 2009 3 Comments

A few days ago we wondered what happened to Android at CES 2009. While there wasn’t much of anything in terms of new Android based mobiles, it appears that some interesting applications flew under the radar. Today, NaviGadget reported on Alk’s CoPilot application and displayed it running on the T-Mobile G1. Alk has their CoPilot [...]

G1/Android Video Recording… Blah

by Rob Jackson on January 13th, 2009 3 Comments

We were all disappointed that the T-Mobile G1 didn’t come prepackaged with the ability to record video. Android enthusiasts like myself chalked up the missing feature to the platforms Open Source nature – why develop a solution that you’ll want 3rd party developers to trump at some point anyways? It appears my approach may have [...]

HTC Sapphire Might Be The T-Mobile G2

by Rob Jackson on January 12th, 2009 19 Comments

Earlier today, HTC’s entire 2009 roadmap was leaked and it included 25 different devices. We already knew that at least one or two of these would be Android devices, right? But which ones? It seems the HTC Sapphire is probably the T-Mobile G2. That information is lining up perfectly with information and pictures that TMO [...]

UPDATE: HTC 2009 Roadmap Leaked, Android Included

by Rob Jackson on January 12th, 2009 5 Comments

UPDATE: See full list of HTC Phones at bottom of article! We’re only a couple weeks into the new calendar year and we MIGHT already know everything that HTC has planned for the next 12 months. That is if you’re to believe a post by Arlen on PPCGeeks. He included 25 different pictures of HTC [...]

Multi-Touch on the G1 (VIDEO)

by Rob Jackson on January 12th, 2009 7 Comments

We’ve heard that Android has Multi-Touch capabilities before but we’ve never seen it in action with such detail and such great explanation/description. The video uses a lot of developer lingo but illustrates beautifully how multi-touch could work on real applications like Google Maps scaling (4-minutes in): This Multi-Touch “hack” does NOT require a recompilation of [...]

FCC, Google Going Global With White Spaces

by Rob Jackson on January 12th, 2009 1 Comments

If you didn’t know, analog televisions will soon stop working. The United States government is officially ending the reign of the dying technology but more importantly, it opens up value spectrum that can be used for other technologies. A couple months ago, the FCC agreed to make this spectrum “open” and Google praised the move [...]

Where Was Android at CES 2009?

by Rob Jackson on January 12th, 2009 5 Comments

I just read an article on jkontherun that is a “farewell to CES” kind of post and the theme of the article is, “Where Was Android?” There is a nervous tone in the piece as if the absence of Android might signal something. Exactly what it might signal is anyone’s guess. It could be the [...]

Motorola Armageddon Coming Soon, Featuring Android

by Rob Jackson on January 12th, 2009 8 Comments

Ever see the movie Armageddon where an Asteroid the size of Texas is headed directly towards earth and the unlikely Bruce Willis and company are sent to blow the big rock to smithereens, saving humans from extinction? We thought so. Pretend that Earth is Motorola, the Asteroid is the economy and Bruce Willis is Android… [...]

NIMble Desk Phone: Land Lines Of The Future

by Rob Jackson on January 11th, 2009 6 Comments

As far as independent people go, it seems the younger you are the less chance there is that you have a home phone land line. More and more people are using their cell phone as their home phone number, too. Why not since you always have it with you and it’s always on? I have [...]

Lenovo OPhone Coming Soon To World’s Largest Carrier

by Rob Jackson on January 10th, 2009 2 Comments

China has the largest population in the world at over 1.3 Billion. The country’s largest mobile carrier – China Mobile – has more than 400 Million subscribers. To put that in perspective, that’s more subscribers than the United States has citizens at about 300 Million. Considering those statistics I think it’s fair that when Lenovo [...]

Skype Hits Android Market, Demoed

by Rob Jackson on January 10th, 2009 9 Comments

Skype has released a Lite version of their software for the Android Market that is now available for download. For those not familiar with Skype, it is software that uses your internet connection to make phone calls, messaging, file transfers and video conferencing. In 2005, Skype had nearly 75 million user accounts, was purchased by [...]

10 HTC Phones in 2009, How Many Androids?

by Rob Jackson on January 10th, 2009 4 Comments

HTC had an amazing 2008 – no doubt. Not only did they increase quarter to quarter revenue by 20%, with nearly $50 billion bucks streaming in, but they also set a new bar for mobile hotness. Everywhere you turned, people were wishing this, that and the other looked more like one of HTC’s new Touch [...]

Palm To Compete With Android, iPhone

by Rob Jackson on January 9th, 2009 9 Comments

Oh geez, where to begin… How’s the weather? And did you know that Palm is no longer comatosed on its deathbed, connected to a heart monitor with a roomful of monks praying at its bedside? Nope. Instead they announced the Palm Pre – the first phone based on Palm’s new operating system dubbed WebOS – [...]