News We Missed, You Shouldn’t
Its impossible to cover every little morsel of Android news, especially when its the topic of every other article on the web (we’re still looking for writers, btw). Needless to say, we missed (or passed) on a whole lot of info that we still think you’d enjoy reading, seeing or watching.
So, I’ve compiled a little list of information from other sites that you’ll probably find interesting. Its by no means exhaustive, so feel free to use the comments to share other Android stories you think we may have missed (that are worth the read).
Google’s New Patent. Its called Flexible Communication Systems And Methods and would ultimately create an auction type marketplace for all of your wireless services. The concept is that consumers should have a right to easily choose who their provider is in different locations. One at home, one at work, one in your car, one here, there and everywhere. An Adwords/Adsense bid system would turn wireless signals into a commodity whereby Google helps broker a deal between carriers and customers. This isn’t likely to happen any time soon… if ever. Google seems to be reaching on this one – hopefully it doesn’t piss off the AT&T’s and Verizon’s that we want to see get Android devices so badly!
T-Mobile G1 Commercial. It promises this phone will be more betterer than any other device you’ve ever likered or somethinger like that er. er. er:
Droid – The Android Font. It took about 2 years to create the font, dubbed Droid, that you’ll find in use on every application and on every screen of the T-Mobile and other Android handsets. This Forbes article discusses the 2 year search for the perfect mobile font. Below is the final font in the middle with samples that weren’t selected to the left that err on the side of bubbly and robotic, respectively.
Investment Bank Piper Jaffray Compares iPhone & Android but Gets It Wrong. The story opens up like this, “To use a baseball analogy, when Apple comes out with a product, they try to hit homeruns, but Google’s Android strategy is swinging for base hits.” Ummm, you’ve determined that from the release of ONE handset? Its no wonder that American Investment banks are in the worst financial times the country has ever seen… its a moronic statement that makes an idiotic conclusion.
Android handsets will have what all great baseball teams have… BALANCE. They’ll have your speedy, versatile phones that do more than most phones in the 1 and 2 spot, the heavy hitters in 3, 4 and 5 spots and a range of handsets batting 6, 7, 8 and 9 that will serve various niches in the low to mid range area. Some will be superstars and some will be role players but ALL of them will COMPOSE the best team in baseball.
Apple can swing for homeruns all they want. Remind me again how far the San Francisco Giants got when Barry Bonds hit 73 homeruns in one year? Thats what I thought.
Android SDK 1.0 Available For Devs. Yup, Android Developers can now develop their apps on the actual operating system that their applications will run on for consumers. This is actually very important in terms of the development life cycle.
One Thing I Liked About Android. Watch Android Developers Share some of their favorite features, tips and tricks of Android on the T-Mobile G1:
Walt Mossberg’s First Impressions. Mossberg calls the G1 “the first real competitor to the iPhone” and he’s absolutely right. Because its all about the apps. He does a nice overview of the G1 and does his analysis from a very fair standpoint. Great article.
Google Engineers Can’t Tell Time. Yet another Gizmodo article dissing Android and the G1, but this “time” its warranted. On some of their press photos they have the clock widget displaying a completely different time than the actual digital clock in the phone’s taskbar. A funny little error you can get a giggle from catching.
T-Mobile G1 Leaves Out 3.5mm Headphone Jack. In probably my only REAL complaint, the G1 doesn’t have a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. It does COME with headphones/mic that fit its own proprietary input method and maybe I’ll like that more. But I doubt it.
Like I said. This list isn’t exhaustive. Just wanted to catch you up on a few things!