QuickPWN » Android

Google has over 30,000 Android Apps in Android Market

Hans — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:23:07 +0000

Google recently told MobileCrunch that they have a total of 30,000 Android applications available in the Android Market. This is a good number, but it is still 5 times less than the number of apps currently available in Apple’s App Store.

Apple announced in a recent press release that the App Store has over 150,000 apps, most of which will also work with their upcoming iPad device. Apple will also be creating a separate App Store for just books which will be available to iPad users on April 3.

Will Google’s Android Market ever be able to catch up to Apple’s App Store? I don’t see this happening any time soon because Apple has made a very good easy to use SDK for developers, and the iPhone OS is still more popular than Google’s Android operating system.

Apple starts Patent war with HTC

Hans — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:12:16 +0000

Today Apple sent a press release announcing that they’ve filed a lawsuit against HTC for infringing 20 of Apple’s patents related to iPhone interface and the underlying architecture and hardware. The lawsuit was filed with U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and in U.S. District Court in Delaware.

“We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

Apple is specifically going after HTC’s phones that are running Google’s Android software rather than the phones that are running Windows Mobile. By suing HTC for using Android’s operating system, is Apple trying to scare other manufacturers from using Google’s Android operating systems on their future devices? This is what it looks like to me. Going through the boring list of patents Apple listed in their complaint, I noticed that one of the patents they complained about was the “Swipe to unlock” feature. I find it ridiculous that a company can patent these types of simple features, and hope that Apple looses this case. If you are bored you can see a list of all the patents here.

[via Apple Press Release]

HTC Desire Specs

Hans — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:56:39 +0000

Here are the specs for the HTC Desire Superphone that HTC announced during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Operating System: Android 2.1 with HTC Sense user interface
Processor: 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon
Screen: 3.7 inch AMOLED capactive touch screen with a 480 x 800 WVGA resolution
Battery: 1400 mAh Rechargeable Lithium-ion
Camera: 5 megapixel color camera with face detection capablity. auto focus and flash, widescreen photo capture, and geotagging
Connectors: 3.5 mm stereo audio jack, micro-USB 2.0
Sensors: G-Sensor, digital compass, proximity sensor, and ambient light sensor
Memory: 512 MB ROM, and 576 MB RAM
microSD™ memory card with up to 32 GB support
Network bands:
- Europe
  - HSPA/WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz
  - GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
- Asia
  - HSPA/WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz
  - GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
Internet: 3G with up to 7.2 MBPS download speed, and up to 2 MBPS upload speed, full HTML browser with Flash 10.1 support
WiFi: IEEE 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth: Bluetooth 2.1 with Enhanced Data Rate, A2DP for wireless stereo headsets, FTP and OPP file transfer, and support for the following profiles: AVRCP, GAP, GOEP, HFP, HSP, PBAP, SPP, and Service Discovery Application Profile
Multimedia: Supports .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma, .amr, .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv, and .3gp
Location: Internal GPS Antenna, Google Maps, and HTC Footprints

HTC Desire Superphone

Hans — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:31:04 +0000

HTC has just announced their new smartphone named HTC Desire. HTC calls the HTC Desire a superphone rather than a smartphone, just like Google calls their Nexus One a superphone as well. This phone will run on Android 2.1 and have the beautiful HTC Sense UI just like HTC’s other phones. The HTC Desire has a 3.7 inch AMOLED capacative touch screen with pinch-to-zoom, and a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. It will ship with Adobe Flashplayer 10.1 software.

Unfortunately the HTC Desire won’t be available in the US, but the Nexus One is a good alternative for US users. Te HTC Desire will be available to customers across major European and Asian markets in early Q2. The HTC Desire will also exclusively be available in Australia through Telstra. You can see HTC’s full press release here.

iPhone Devs: Android in app description = BANHAMMER

Hans — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:03:49 +0000

When it comes to iPhone apps, Apple is infamous for rejecting them for silly reasons. Once a developer’s application gets rejected, it can take a very long time until it’s approved again. Surprisingly, this time Apple acted differently. The developer of the Flash of Genius iPhone application put “Finalist in Google’s Android Developer’s Challenge!” in his app description and that triggered Apple to e-mail him and ask him to remove the Android reference or face the consequences of having the app removed from the App Store.

In it’s defense Apple told the developer that the application contains irrelevant information, and placing references to other platforms in the App description is not allowed. Instead of removing the application directly, Apple kindly e-mailed it’s developer and told him to remove the reference otherwise his app will . Kudos to Apple for doing that! iPhone users are downloading the iPhone app, which is a different platform than the Android so it was misleading of the developer of the Flash of Genius app to include this in there. The developer of the Flash of Genius app was patient and he complied with Apple and removed the reference to Android. Other iPhone developers take note!

[via Flash of Genius: The Blog]

Droid does have a release date

Doug — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:46:56 +0000

The Verizon Droid does have a release date! The Verizon Droid phone will be released on October 30,2009. You can find that out by going to the Droid Does website (www.droiddoes.com) and decoding the timer at the bottom of the page. You can also enter in your e-mail to be notified once Verizon actually releases it.

Most of the features of the Droid have been posted on the Droid Does website. The important features that the Droid includes, and the iPhone doesn’t are:

Android 2.0 Operating System
QWERTY Keyboard
Multi-tasking
Night shots
Open development
More customizeable
Widgets
Interchangeable battery

I’m really looking forward to October 30. The Droid really sounds like it will be a great iPhone killer! What do you think about it? I haven’t actually tried Android before, but now that it’s coming to Verizon I’ll finally get the chance to try it. Remember, this is Android 2.0 so it’s going to be better than the current Android OS in all the other popular Android phones!

Droid does

Doug — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:37:51 +0000

Verizon recently aired a Droid Does commercial during the Yankees-Angels game on Saturday. This commercial does a good job of making the iPhone look bad. I really liked this commercial, and I hope that the Droid Does commercial pushes Apple to improve their iPhone and make it more open! Obviously Verizon hasn’t heard of jailbroken iPhones, because if they did then they would know that we can already get most of the features by jailbreaking. You can watch the Droid Does commercial here.

I am kind of disappointed about this commercial because it means that the iPhone will not be coming to Verizon any time soon. I do look forward to seeing what Verizon comes out with. Anyone else excited about the Verizon Droid? It really does have the potential to be an iPhone killer, especially since it’s being launched on one of America’s most reliable network.

Verizon Droid Features

Here is a list of some features of the Droid that Verizon has listed on their website.

Video
Tunes
10,000+ Apps
The Network
Multitasking
High speed
Hi-Res
5 megapixels
Android 2.0
Speech Recognition
Notification Panel
Directions

You can sign up to be notified once Verizon launches the Droid. No release date has been announced, the DroidDoes.com website just says “Coming Soon”.

Verizon mocks the iPhone with their “i Don’t” ad

Hans — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 03:15:14 +0000

During tonight’s Yankee’s/Angel’s game, Verizon aired their “i Don’t” ad that was clearly aimed at making the iPhone look bad. To be honest, Verizon made some excellent points. The iPhone is missing a lot of simple features that can be found in other phones like the Palm Pre.

i Don’t have a real keyboard
i Don’t run simultaneous apps
i Don’t take night shots
i Don’t allow open development
i Don’t customize.
i Don’t run widgets
i Don’t have interchangeable batteries.
Everything iDon’t.

Most of the things that Verizon mentioned already do exist on the iPhone, but only with a jailbreak. If you are an iPhone user you can jailbreak iPhone 3.1.2 and customize just about everything on your iPhone.

Watch Verizon “i Don’t” commercial

Motorola Cliq: Motorola’s first Android smartphone with Moto Blur

Hans — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:13:51 +0000

Today Motorola announced their new Motorola Cliq smartphone at the Mobilize conference. This smartphone is powered by Android, and uses Motorola’s own interface dubbed as Moto Blur.

The Motorola Cliq has a slide down keyboard, 3G/HSDPA and WiFi, 5.0 megapixel auto focus camera, full HTML browser, and more. The Moto Blur interface syncs all your pictures, e-mails, Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace messages and displays them all in one screen. Moto Blur also continuously updates and backs up your data.

With all the continuous update the Motorola Cliq does I would imagine that it has a short battery life and would be laggy, but it’s too early to judge this right now. The Motorola Cliq will be available in Fall 2009 on T-Mobile and it will be available in white and platinum. No pricing information has been released yet. Head on over to Motorola.com to see a full gallery and more information on the Motorola Cliq.

HTC Hero Coming to Sprint

Hans — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 01:51:25 +0000

The HTC Hero is coming to Sprint on October 11th! Well, actually HTC and Sprint haven’t made any official announcements yet but HTC has revealed this on their website. Go to http://www.htc.com/ca/faq_detail.aspx?p_id=288&act=um, and you’ll notice a page titled HTC Hero (Sprint).

The October 11 HTC Hero release date has not been confirmed yet, but a reputable forum member on the XDA-Developer forum posted the following proof picture:

Are you looking forward to the HTC Hero launch? I am! This may be the first Android phone I’m getting.