Android!

[Quinton]

Bastards!

I enjoyed this (from the info page linked off the sales page):

Android designer Jeff Y: “Hey, I really like vinyl collectibles. Wouldn’t it be cool if we had some mini Android figures?”
Android designer Chris N: “Totally.”
Android coder Dave B: “I know a guy who can make those! We hang out at Comic-Con every year.”
Android designers Jeff & Chris: “Nerd.”
time passes
Andrew Bell: “I can make those, I love Android, this will be awesome.”
more time passes
…and here we are!

which is pretty much what happened.

[schild]

Which is also the set of quotes that made me notice he's using Echofon

[Jerrith]

They were up, and sold out, again.  More later today, I believe.

Hint:  This store isn't quite perfect on quantity checking...  Checkout through the store - none left, checkout through google checkout, order goes through just fine...  :)

[schild]

Well, this was a fun case of amateur hour.

I'm just going to assume I'm never going to get any of them from this point on.

[Nerf]

Is there a hard release date on the x10 that I'm not finding somewhere?  I could've sworn that it was today, but I'm not seeing anything anywhere.

[TripleDES]

April with T-Mobile, from what I know.

[KallDrexx]

So I rooted and rommed my droid to get all the uber 2.1 stuff that is being rumored to not be in the Droid's 2.1 update.  Having 5 homescreens is awesome, and I definitely like the black status bar (Smoked Glass theme) over white. 

However, as graphically cool the 2.1 launcher is, functionally it is annoying me.  I can't scroll as fast because the launcher seems to insist on slowing down too fast and then trying to rebound the icons so you only see full icons on your screen and no partial.  So now it takes me 3-4 swipes to get from top to bottom.

[schild]

I do not have that problem on the Nexus One.

[NiX]

Quinton (or anyone else that might know): Any chances a non AWS version of the Nexus will be coming out?

[TripleDES]

I just had the most brilliant idea! I wish the goddamn SMS implementation in Android had its own dock mode (or automatically activated with Wifi) in which a Bonjour (or whatever else serverless IM protocol) implementation is being run and acts as intermediary between the phone SMS stuff and my desktop instant messenger, allowing me to send and receive SMSes via Pidgin and shit.

[bhodi]

From my friend:

"Yes the Canes and Leafs are at the bottom of the East but was it really necessary to change the game icon to golf?"



Made me chuckle. Go SportsTap.

[TripleDES]

I've received mine a few days ago. Ace phone.

I wish Google would hurry up with the Froyo release tho, since only that one seems to get the highmem kernel (based on stuff from Google's Brian Swetland posted on XDA and lwn.net). Currently, I'm using Cyanogen for highmem and it makes me feel dirty. I'm already anticipating idiotic quirks like with CM4 on my Magic.

[NiX]

Just got my Hero. Still a lot to figure out and have to see which apps are worth downloading. The only downer is that it's still running 1.5 and HTC won't be releasing an update until Mid-March. Maybe. Even though it would mean longer for a carrier branded update.

Also, why isn't Chrome on Android?

[Quinton]

Chrome and the Android browser share something like 90% common code (they're both WebKit derived browsers).  The Chrome UI is not designed for small mobile devices.  As devices start getting more memory, features like process-separation-per-tab will become practical to enable on Android.

[NiX]

Makes sense. I haven't really used the Android browser and was told I should get Dolphin as it's just that great.

[Quinton]

Dolphin is based on the stock Android Browser (it's open source!) with a bunch of assorted goodies added.  For example, they had pinch-zoom before it became part of the standard browser in the MR3 update to Eclair recently.

[NiX]

I wish I had Eclair.

[Draegan]

I'm hungry.

[Quinton]

Back during that whole "don't be evil is bullshit!" tirade, Steve apparently said that Cupertino would innovate so quickly that Google couldn't keep up (regarding iPhone).

Today we see what that means: http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/02/apple-sues-htc-for-infringing-20-iphone-patents/

Would love to see Steve go after, say, Motorola too.  He seems to think that smartphones (or possibly phones at all) didn't exist before 2007.

Anyway, good work Steve.  Patent trolling is a great way to win hearts and minds.

EDIT: really just another reminder of how braindamaged software patents are. grr.

[NiX]

What exactly are they filing against? This needs a TL;DR version of what Apple is all pissy about.

[schild]

What exactly are they filing against? This needs a TL;DR version of what Apple is all pissy about.

The possibility of .01% lost market share.

[Hawkbit]

I swear on all that is holy, if my HTC Hero gets fubared over this shit, I will begin a crusade against Apple.  Even with my 8gig touch and my wife's 16gig iphone.  They'll be the last apple anything that comes into my house, period. 

I'm kinda in love with my Hero. 

[KallDrexx]

Even if apple wins nothing will happen for years with our legal system.  If anything it will result in a cross licencing deal between HTC and apple

[Tebonas]

Damnit! I searched out all the patents and wrote it down, then the stupid site wants me to relog again and all is gone. Fuck it.

The short, they throw everything and the kitchen sink at HTC, beginning with patents from the nineties. Reads like Apple is pissed at Google making its own phone and throws the gauntlet down at their feet. These are fighting words.

[Speedy Cerviche]

OT but anyone know whats going on with PALM?

Stock is tanking on heavy volume, big sellers unloading...someone knows something...

One of their big products in pipeline looking like a flop? Any big phone geeks here know anything about their product development?

[KallDrexx]

Verizon put all their weight on the Droid, so they have been doing shit for advertising the Pre Plus and Pixi.  Even going in the stores the workers there will push you towards the droid rather than palm phones.  They can't get enough backing to help them overcome the lure of the plethora of Android phones, and when (if?) the iPhone comes to VZW that's it. 

[TripleDES]

My dream in this current situation, considering how I loathe Apple for their bullshit antics, would be Google rallying other OHA members, especially Motorola and Samsung, to pool their patents and preemptively fuck Apple sideways. Because it won't be done by suing HTC. Motorola's Droid was pretty successful, who knows what the Shadow will do. I figure they'd be next.

[Ghambit]

Just an FYI for you ATT peeps.  The Android OSed Motorola Backflip just recently came out (as I foretold last year, from an NDA-breaking insider).  It hasnt gotten stellar reviews obviously since it's using the 1.5 OS and a 'rola 528mHz proc. instead of snapdragon, BUT at least it's an entry level start.  It's only $100 and will probably be free within 6 months once the newer droids make it to ATT.  The OS is also upgradeable to the newer 2.1.

[Le0]

I'm about to get an android phone soonish, what are the best phones in your opinion? I kinda like the look of HTC but my provider only has the HTC Magic for the moment, new phones released next month apparently, maybe the HTC Hero?

[MuffinMan]

Which provider? I love everything about my Hero except that it's kind of sluggish. I don't even run any widgets and it can still get bogged down just by heavy text messaging.

[CmdrSlack]

So a friend is trying to sell me a HTC Touch Pro 2. He wants $250, says it's new in the box.

I currently have Sprint and am under yet another contract, so I'm not going to split off to another provider.

I am pretty damn sure that I can get my managing partner to pay for any smartphone (on Sprint) that is under $500. Everyone else in the office uses a Blackberry, and we're about to migrate our email, &c. to MS Exchange. Is there an android phone that I can get on the company dime? Or am I stuck with a Blackberry? If that's the case, is there one that isn't a small slab of fuggly?

[Le0]

Which provider? I love everything about my Hero except that it's kind of sluggish. I don't even run any widgets and it can still get bogged down just by heavy text messaging.

Well I'm from Switzerland so the operators are not the same.

[Torinak]

Just an FYI for you ATT peeps.  The Android OSed Motorola Backflip just recently came out (as I foretold last year, from an NDA-breaking insider).  It hasnt gotten stellar reviews obviously since it's using the 1.5 OS and a 'rola 528mHz proc. instead of snapdragon, BUT at least it's an entry level start.  It's only $100 and will probably be free within 6 months once the newer droids make it to ATT.  The OS is also upgradeable to the newer 2.1.

Apparently the ATT Backflip is also going to be locked down like the iPhone (so no third-party apps). Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of getting an Android-based phone?

[Quinton]

Some devices have shipped with install-from-web disabled, but I've yet to see one (including AT&T devices) that has install-via-usb disabled (use the adb tool in the sdk: adb install someapp.apk).  Obviously not as convenient, but not quite as dire as it first sounds.

[TripleDES]

Well I'm from Switzerland so the operators are not the same.

The Magic is being discontinued everywhere. Hardware wise, it's exactly the same to the Hero, except maybe for the headphone jack and 5mpix camera.

I'd suggest you stay with HTC phones for the time being, if it's for Android. The Milestone's ostensibly nice, but I haven't had one in my hands yet. The HTC Desire, which is almost the same to the Nexus One (however no noise cancelling dual mics, but physical buttons, optical trackball), comes out soon. It has the same retard UI as the Hero tho, remains to be seen what a battery drain it is.

As far as the case color of both the Nexus and Desire goes, the Internet pictures make it look worse than it is in reallife.