The Android Devices Blog

Pictures of the HTC Dream handset, complete with T-Mobile branding, have been posted on Slashgear. They show a full QWERTY keyboard that slides out under the display, as had been expected. What they also show is that this clearly isn’t an iPhone killer. The device is looking rather a bit cheap, to be honest with you. This is clearly not a high-end device, but rather one for a broader mass-market. It lacks the elegance of an iPhone or even some of the more advanced Windows Mobile devices. I guess we’ll have to wait until next year to see more elegantly designed devices make it to the market. But at least this is the first Android device and it might even be a good thing that it’s not a high-end device. Android clearly has some way to go to even be feature-complete and high-end buyers might be a lot less forgiving of some of the lacking features.

Google has announced the final results of the Android Developer Challenge. 10 finalists were awarded US$ 275000 each, 10 more received US$ 100000. A gallery with screenshots and short descriptions of all the 50 finalists is available on the Android website.

The winning applications are a pretty balanced mix of productivity and entertainment applications. cab4me for example, one of the US$ 275000 winners, developed an application that will get a taxi to wherever you are at the press of a button. You don’t even need to know your address. Two applications, CompareEverywhere and GoCart use the phone’s builtin camera to scan barcodes and get additional pricing and/or review information online, a nice way of combining shopping at a store with the convenience of being able to compare prices and read reviews.

Have a look at the entire application gallery here. Many of the apps, if they don’t show up preinstalled on the first Android phones, will be available through the Android Market mobile store, which was also announced yesterday.

Alright, I’m still not quite up to the task of reporting things as they happen. Why is there always important news as soon as I go away for a few days…?

Anyway, the big news last week was of course the release of a new Android SDK version. It’s not quite a 1.0 release yet, but 0.9 should come close enough. Techcrunch has a few screenshots and details about what’s included and what isn’t. The new SDK is of course what the finalists of the Android Developer Challenge have been working with for months now. All other developers (the ones that didn’t abandon the platform for greener pastures) were stuck with an old preview that was last updated in February, so they should be quite relieved that finally they are getting something more current to work with.

HTC has gotten FTC approval for the Dream handset, which means that the rumors about T-Mobile launching that device pretty soon might actually be true. Of course the approval is for the hardware, it doesn’t mean that the software is finished. But it’s a step in the right direction. The rumor-mill continues to buzz (or whatever else a rumor-mill does) with variations of the actual release date and so far the only thing that seems to be set in stone is that it’s going to be a Q4 release, probably in October or possibly November.

The Android team have created a security FAQ and issued a challenge to security researchers to help harden the platform. That sounds like a good move, considering that various vulnerabilities were discovered in earlier versions of the SDK. And the very nature of these more and more powerful and connected devices demands greater attention to security details.

Lots of rumors are circulating about the HTC Dream, which is supposed to be the first Android phone to be released. Only a few days ago the conclusion seemed to be that it’s going to be delayed and may not meet the Q4 target that had previously been set by Google for the release of the first Android device. Both Google and HTC denied those rumors, stating that it was still on track for a Q4 release. A bit later a video was leaked that showed the device in action running a recent version of Android, with some of the more tricky features like the orientation sensor working properly.

And now TmoNews report that it may even be a bit early. Well, not exactly, but they claim that pre-ordering will start on September 17th for existing T-Mobile customers. This makes a lot of sense, considering that T-Mobile were previously reported to be offering an Android phone for their 3G launch in October.

Anyway, I guess we’ll have to wait a few more weeks to find out what’s really happening. Maybe we will see this device sooner than many of us thought – until then, it will remain a dream. Let’s hope it turns into a HTC Dream soon.

Sorry my holiday break took a little longer than planned. Just a lot of stuff going on, so I needed a bit more time off. But I’m back now and working my way through lots of Android news releases to figure out what’s still relevant. Oh and I’m also busy playing with my new iPhone - so I can tell you what Android needs to do better. So please do come back frequently now or just subscribe to the feed to stay updated.
Oh by the way, in one of my next posts I will share with you about the pain of writing this post with the iPhone auto-correction.

There will probably be few updates to this site for the next 10 days, since I’m taking a short break and going on holiday. I’ll have my laptop with me, so if anything exciting happens, I’ll probably post, but if it’s something that can wait a few days, it will.

The register has an article on unhappy Android developers threatening to abandon development for the Android platform if Google doesn’t at least explain why there have been no updates of the Android SDK since February. They are especially upset because they know there is a newer version of the SDK, but Google isn’t sharing it with everyone. So far only the finalists of the “Android Developer Competition” have had access to it so far and they had to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

It’s a rather weird situation – on the one hand, there’s a good number of developers who are really enthusiastic about developing for what The Register calls “the most closed open platform to not yet exist”, but they can only test their applications in an emulator and what they have worked on so far may need major modifications once a new version of the SDK is released. Google needs to get their act together quickly – this is mainly a communications issue. Google needs these developers, so the least they can do is to keep them happy by communicating clearly why newer SDK versions are not available, give them a timeline they can work with, let them know at least what changes they can expect from newer SDK versions.

If this situation isn’t resolved quickly, the Android platform may lose a number of key application developers before it even launches. The iPhone may be a lot more restrictive and closed – but it’s available now, sales are looking good and Apple is a lot more helpful than Google is proving to be at the moment.

Techcrunch are running an article today stating that the Gphone may really happen. Basically what they are saying is that the speculation about a phone from Google, which pretty much died down since they announced the Android platform, may gave been right after all. They have even managed to track down the design company that is supposed to be designing it.

Techcrunch usually have very reliable sources, so if they quote someone off the record as saying this company is doing the Gphone design, I take that as a credible statement. Of course it may never make it to the market, but the idea is certainly exciting…

CNet has a good summary of various rumours that not only is T-Mobile set for an October 1st launch of the 3G network in the US, but also that one of the 3G phones they will be offering as part of this plan is going to be an Android-based phone.

Commenters in various blogs that report on the 3G launch seem to be confirming the launch date, but so far I have not seen confirmation of the Android rumours anywhere. The device is supposed to most likely be a HTC Dream. Of course, October 1st is in Q4 (just), so even with a Q4 delay of the first Android devices, this could well be true.

Sometimes when I look back a few years, I become a bit nostalgic about how easy it was back then to keep a mobile device secure. When all a phone did was… well, make phone calls and maybe send and receive text messages, all one needed to worry about was keeping the phone physically secure (i.e. in your hand or pocket). The only connections were to the mobile service provider to establish a voice or SMS connection. Not much could have happened there.

Then came Bluetooth and with it came the first round of security problems. Now why anyone would keep Bluetooth switched on all the time is a bit of a mystery to me anyway (considering the amount of battery drain), but people did come up with sophisticated solutions that would allow reading or changing someone’s address book or even making calls through someone’s phone from quite a few meters distance. Still, it was something that was quite easily mitigated by either switching Bluetooth off (if not needed) or at least making sure it didn’t accept just any connection.

Today all this has changed dramatically. Phones are no longer just phones, they are little computers with most of the capabilities of modern desktop computers and they even have at least equally good connectivity. The problem is that with those capabilities come certain risks – and it seems like parts of the industry are not sufficiently aware of them, and much less the users. It’s either that or they don’t care. Apple for example has come under a bit of fire recently when it failed to provide security updates to the Safari browser for the iPhone.

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