Posts tagged G1
Introducing the T-Mobile G2! The Revolution Continues with First HSPA+ Handset
Aug 18th
T-Mobile has come out and officially named the G2 as their first HSPA+ handset. If you head tofirst-hspa-smartphone.t-mobile.com this morning, you’ll be redirected to g2.t-mobile.com where interested parties can sign up for more information. The carrier is sending out emails teasing the device and promising details in the coming weeks. We’ve pasted it after the jump.Now we play the agonizing waiting game.
T-Mobile is proud to have launched the world’s first Android-powered phone, the T-Mobile G1, which captured the imagination of developers and consumers alike nearly two years ago. Now, we are readying its successor – the T-Mobile G2 with Google. Delivering tight integration with Google services, the G2 will break new ground as the first smartphone specifically designed for our advanced HSPA+ network, which delivers today’s available 4G speeds. In the coming weeks we’ll share more details about the G2, including information on how current T-Mobile customers can get exclusive first access. Visit http://g2.t-mobile.com to register for updates.
NOTE: Introducing the T-Mobile G2! The Revolution Continues with First HSPA+ Handset originally appeared on AndroidGuys.
The G1 is gone.
Jul 27th
This is a hard article for me to write! I feel like I am saying goodbye to a good friend, a comrade in arms, a companion that has been with me through thick and thin. I remember the first time I saw the image to the left, and got really excited about the future of smartphones, and the fact that I finally would have an alternative to the iPhone.
The G1, is no more. Meaning, T-Mo has stopped listing and selling the unit officially on their site. Of course, there are still plenty out there you can get your hands on if you really wanted to, but the life cycle of the G1 has officially come to an end.
The G1 was a ground breaking device, the first to really challenge the iPhone’s dominance of the market, and the handset that gave birth to sites like our own.
The G1 is gone, a moment of silence needs to be observed as a piece of our history moves on. We will always remember you.
NOTE: The G1 is gone. originally appeared on AndroidGuys.
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App Review: MLB At Bat 2010
Mar 20th
Main Screen of App
Being a displaced Boston Red Sox fan, I am always looking for ways to either watch or listen to my hometown team while living elsewhere in the country. Not to sound Apple like, but being an Android G1 user, there is now an app for that in the form of MLB at Bat 2010.
For $14.99, baseball fans can download MLB’s app for their Android powered handset. The app provides a lot of statistical information, box scores and standings as well as baseball news, but the killer aspect of this application is the fact that users can listen to every single game played in the MLB this 2010 season via MLB’s Gameday Audio built into the app. This includes the playoffs and the World Series. Using a data connection, an At Bat user can be anywhere they have data connectivity or wifi access, and listen to their favorite baseball team live and in real time.
This is the first time this application will be appearing on Android handsets, it debuted last year on the iPhone and iPod Touch, and was one of the top selling applications. It has already been selling very well on the Android Market, and is a sign that major developers may be finally making the move to develop for Android as well.
The app itself is a pretty small one, about .9 meg, which was nice to see a lightweight app with this much functionality.
Box Score info view
The user interface is pretty straight forward, when you launch the app you see all of the games that are on the schedule for the day in the MLB, you can skip ahead and back days to see past scores and future games. Upon pressing a game box, you get an info screen about the stats of the game, along with tabs to select different information sets. You can get the pitch by pitch description, box score, field positions, play by play or video information. Unlike it’s iPhone counterpart, you cannot watch live video on the Android version.
Menu Buttons
To listen to Gameday Audio, you use your Menu button, which brings up another screen with more options. During the pre-season, some games do not have an audio feed, or if they do, you may get just one of the teams broadcasts. During the regular season, you will be given an choice to pick the home or away teams broadcast, which is pretty classy.
At Bat feels like a polished beta version. All the buttons and information feeds work pretty well, where the app skips a beat is the audio. It will lose the data stream pretty regularly, and you have to reconnect it manually to get the game going again. This problem however is not Android specific, as I own the app on the iPod Touch and that app has the exact same issue of dropping the stream forcing a manual reconnect.
Gameday Audio Player
Major League Baseball has always been ahead of the curve technology wise, so I think that they will be working to fix the issues that they are having system wide, and by the time the first pitch of the regular season is thrown out, the app should be humming along then.
Gameday Audio notification
At $14.99, At Bat seems a bit pricey, but when one thinks about the fact that you can listen to every single game played this year, it becomes a pretty good value if you like baseball. For displaced fans, this is a dream come true, giving the ability to listen wherever and whenever you want. If you are a baseball nut who lives in a different town your favorite team, pick this application up now. If you live in the town your team plays in, perhaps waiting until all the bugs are worked out may be the best course of action. Overall, this is a great application that has a lot of realized potential as well as future possibility in it. A must have for baseball fans!
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My Life With The Nexus One (or, How I Became a Rabid Android Fanboy)
Mar 11th
It was almost like Christmas, and I was an 8 year old boy again. Only it wasn’t Christmas and this wasn’t a puppy I had found under the tree. It was just after Valentines Day and this was a brown cardboard box in my hands. This brown box was a gift from The Greatest Girlfriend In The World, and it was my drug of choice… a brand new gadget. But it wasn’t just any new gadget; it was a Nexus One.
And now it was mine.
I feel as though I have joined a club… When encountering another Nexus One owner, we both readily whip out our phones to share any tips or tricks (did you know that speech to text recognizes supercalifragilisticexpialodocious?). I don’t see this camaraderie with any other type of device. Sure, while some would say that Apple/iPhone users share a bond, I’d go so far as to say that it’s more like a cult with His Holiness Jobs looking down from on high instructing his minions on what to do. I have made friends with people in other cities, states, and even nations… simply because of our shared ownership of this handset.
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Minor G1 Update Happening Right Now
Mar 1st
A minor update to the T-Mobile G1 started to trickling out late last week. Designed only to improve call performance, Android 1.6 update (DMD64) should be complete by the middle of March. All flavors of the myTouch 3G including the Fender Edition have already received this update. If you own a G1, look for your notification over the next two weeks.
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The Future of MotoBLUR, Sense and TouchWiz
Feb 17th
Android is on the verge of earning the moniker “the future of the mobile operating system.” Although it is still in its infancy, the Android platform currently operates on nine handsets in the U.S. Five of the nine handsets, the G1, the MyTouch 3G, the Moment, the Droid and the Nexus One, run the standard version of Google’s mobile operating system. The remaining four, however, run operating systems that are customized by the device’s manufacturer. The Hero and Eris run HTC’s Sense, the Cliq runs Motorola’s MotoBLUR, and the Behold II runs Samsung’s TouchWiz.
Prior to the release of the Nexus One, and more importantly Android 2.1, these custom operating systems were incredibly appealing, and may still be to some users. The standard version of Android, prior to version 2.1, featured a measly three home screens, and to many was very bland. I, for one, had no interest in Android until HTC’s Sense UI debuted. HTC Sense expanded the number of home screens from three to seven, added useful widgets, and completely altered the theme of the operating system from a white, playful theme to a clean, black and grey theme. MotoBLUR also features a number of custom widgets and social-oriented theme to differentiate itself from “vanilla” Android.
The release of Android 2.1 raises an important question: What is the future of the manufacturer customized versions of Android? Android 2.1 is a vast improvement over previous versions of Android. Since it has been discussed ad nauseam, I will not go in depth into said improvements here, but cards and added home screens come to mind. Furthermore, these manufacturer customized versions of Android fracture the fledgling mobile operating system. Currently, the Hero, Eris, Cliq and the like run Android 1.5, the G1 is runs 1.6, the Droid runs 2.0, and the Nexus One is runs 2.1. Some may not consider that to be an issue, but there are a number of applications, specifically widgets, that are unavailable for Android devices running Android 1.5 or 1.6. I fear that Android, if it remains fractured, may find itself in the same position as Windows Mobile.
While writing this editorial, I spoke with our insightful Editor-in-Chief to get his opinion. He posed an interesting question: How does a handset manufacturer differentiate its product without a manufacturer customized operating system? Hypothetically, without a customized operating system, the only differentiating characteristics would be the phone’s design, the screen size/resolution, and the phone’s internal components.
I have decided to stick with Sense UI in the future because you always have the option to turn off Sense UI. Regrettably, upon turning it off, you are most likely going to find yourself stuck with an antiquated version of Android. Ultimately, consumers will decide the fate of these manufacturer customized operating systems.
What say you, loyal readers of AndroidGuys.com?
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Non-Google Android Languishes in Obscurity
Feb 13th
So I have several G1′s, a myTouch 3G, two Motorola Droid’s, and just one Archos 5 Internet Tablet. While, certainly no expert, I have been using Android the week the G1 was released and was following it before it was a Google acquisition and the only device that I have chosen to not keep is the Archos 5 Internet Tablet.
Let’s begin. The A5 IT debuted with Android 1.5 and has just gotten a critical update to 1.6 that added global search, widgets, and other system updates but mobile phones are marching their way towards Android 2.1. Even though, I enjoyed the novelty of the A5′s ARM Cortex 800 MHz processor and 800×480 4.8 inch screen I could not get over not having Google applications like Gmail, Contacts, Voice, Maps, Market and the almighty sync feature for my Google ID. And don’t even get me started on Archos’ AppsLib.
So even when I tried to use the native e-mail application I had to either manually enter my contacts or load them via USB from my PC, not a good solution when you have as many as 1,600 contacts or more. And even though the A5 has GPS it doesn’t have Google Maps so you are forced to use the maps application that has flaky GPS connectivity and dubious directions at best.
Archos is rumored to deliver the new A7 Internet Tablet soon and Camangi released their WebStation to minimal fanfare and even worse reviews. Can non-Google survive in the wake of Nexus One’s, Droid’s, and Hero’s? I don’t think so. Without Google apps and sync ability, the plain Android OS is just like any other OS. Is it open, is it still Android, can dev’s write for it? Yes, yes, and yes. Is it useful for everyday consumers without Google apps/sync? Not really.
When we pick up and use Android phones, rooted or not, we are accustomed to the fact that we can just enter our Google usernames and passwords and get all of our critical data back. I flirted with a TouchPro 2 recently and without Google sync it was not useful. Ditto for non-Google Android.
Is this just my opinion or do you think vanilla Android will survive or is it just a hobbyist’s dream platform?
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