By Long time no see. Nice to meet you again. I’m Rob Jackson and if you didn’t notice, we’ve fallen behind a bit. Only one thing left to do/eat…. KETCHUP! Here are the stories from the past several days that WE missed but YOU need:
Sprint HTC Hero now available at… Sprint
Duh… you can now Buy the Sprint HTC Hero
Motorola DEXT now available at Orange UK
Just like it says… you can now Buy the Motorola DEXT
HTC Tattoo now available on Vodafone
No mysteries… you can now Buy the HTC Tattoo
Ink Up Your HTC Tattoo
You couldn’t name a phone the “Tattoo” without allowing customers to deck it out with custom designs, could you? I guess you could but HTC wasn’t about to let that happen. You can choose from 15 premade designs or delve into your artistic side and use the online tool to make your own. They cost 11.99 euro for a ready made design and 14.99 for a custom design plus shipping of 3.99 euro… and then you’ve got other little taxes and whatnot. [Via TattooMyHTC.com]
Verizon Open Network Yielding Android Fruit?
Remember when Verizon purchased all that spectrum and Google fought with the FCC to ensure that Verizon was forced to keep it open? It looks like that move may have paid off as several sources (Unstrung, PhoneArena, EngadgetMobile) are reporting an Android Phone has passed Verizon’s Open Development System test and will be qualified to run on the Verizon Wireless network in early 2010. The device will apparently be a smartphone from a “specialist” manufacturer who will offer the phone with the added feature of acting as a MiFi personal Wi-Fi router. Very eeeenteresting.
DoS Attack On Your Android? Not Any More
For those not geeky enough to know what a DoS attack means it is a denial of service attack. A vulnerability in Android 1.5 made a DoS attack on Android Phones possible through malformed SMS messages from a badly formatted WAP Push message. There was also a security issue concerning the Android Dalvik API. Both have been patched by Google. Thanks, G. [Via ChannelWeb]
Angry Sidekick Owners Directed To Android
If you haven’t heard about the Sidekick fiasco… it is pretty bad. In fact it makes our own downtime seem like an ice cream sundae. Sidekick owners had data stored in the cloud… and then the cloud precipitated – meaning the cloud disappeared – and their data was lost for permanent real. Yes… for permanent real. To make up for this T-Mobile is letting some customers (probably those who complain enough) either get out of their contract or snag a G1 for $20 bucks off. I say give them the G1 for free… [Via CellPhoneSignal]
Sprint HTC Hero: EVDO Rev. 0 or A?
Sprint advertised their first Android Phone – the HTC Hero – as compatible with their EVDO Rev A network but some folks are seeing Rev O connectivity on their phone’s status indicator. Fear not… HTC has released a statement claiming that the status indicator is showing a static image that is just plain wrong. Regardless of what your Sprint HTC Hero SAYS it is receiving, it is in fact receiving EVDO Rev A if you’re in a Rev A capable area. A future update will fix this issue. For now you’ll just have to keep the faith. [Via EngadgetMobile]
Sweet Android Applications, Hot Off The Presses
Sometimes it is difficult to know what apps are worth downloading/buying and which ones are garbage. Scratch that… its almost ALWAYS difficult. The guys at Gizmodo put together a list of some recent apps that are definitely worth checking out. Listed below but visit Giz for the deets:
Developers Gaming Android Market?
There are only a few ways you can “sort” applications in Android Market and one of the more popular ways is “Just In” for obvious reasons. But with the new Android Market you only need to update your application to be considered “Just In” and it seems developers are releasing incremental updates that do little or nothing, just to reap the benefits of being listed at the top of the new apps section. If you’re selling applications… yeah, you can see what is going on here. [Via AndroidGuys]
Android Faces Fragmented Fate?
The open nature of Android is awesome, but it also means you have all these different manufacturers and carriers doing their own thing which ultimately leads to different “versions” of Android running all over the globe. Tons of combinations of tons of different factors. It makes developing an app for the platform incredibly difficult. This is an issue Google and OHA members will have to face head on sooner rather than later and Michael Arrington of TechCrunch discusses the issue in depth.
Android Market Updates: Screen Resolutions and Carrier Targeting
As we know from the article above, Android will inevitably face fragmentation issues. That fragmentation can come from manufacturer and carrier customization and Google addressed two of those issues last week: screen size/resolution and carrier targeting. The screen size issue simply places them in one of three categories: small, normal or large. It will be interesting to see what is done about backward/forward compatability as time goes on and more differences arise. Carrier targeting is pretty straight forward so… yeah.
In regards to Sprint Hero Rev A. I ran two speed test with my new Hero and here are the results.
Speedtest.net using flash 1.66mbs
Using speedtest app 1234.9kbs.
Looks like Rev A to me.
Very happy with my new Hero.
You know, I had a feeling that people were going to blast T-Mobile for the sidekick data loss. IT IS NOT THEIR FAULT! It’s the fault of the companies in charge of the service that stored the data, namely Microsoft/Danger. They’re the ones who stored the cloud data. T-Mobile only provided the network connectivity to that cloud, and last I checked, T-Mobile’s network is still operating normally. I understand that customers need to be compensated, but it should be Microsoft/Danger that are doing the compensating, not T-Mobile.
Of course, anybody’s welcome to their own opinion on this, but I don’t think the blame should be pinned on T-Mobile, and I applaud the fact that they’re trying their best to make amends despite that. Oh, and for the record, I am a Verizon fan, not a T-Mobile fan. I just don’t like seeing anybody being unfairly accused for something they didn’t do.
That’s an interesting new feature mentioned for Verizon – use your device as a Mi-Fi when necessary. Very nice!!
@AlexDroid It’s very nice I rooted my Google Ion (MyTouch 3G), installed HTC Sense and it came with the same feature as a Mi-Fi and now I can tether with my phone for free. Note: pretty much every rom you install in your phone has this tethering app already built in.
gasp!! jdog, really? Let’s say I picked up the new HERO. Could I do the same?
I agree with you Brad. It is not tmobiles fault. By the way…..tmobile is giving 100 dollar credit to those who lost their data. I agree with Rob about giving out g1s, but it should be microsoft/savage paying for it.
@jeremy, brad
unfortunately, thats how business works. tmobile made the decision to use microsoft/savage. they have to take the [public] fall. im sure there are some legality issues being sorted out behind the scenes.