
Android gaining momentum in smart phone race - gibsonf1
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/09/BU141A327G.DTL
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AndrewDucker
You can add INQ to the list of companies producing Android Phones - they
produce custom phones designed for social networking/IM and are very popular
in Europe. They used to use their own custom OS but announced that they were
moving to Android last month:
[http://www.gsmarena.com/inq_to_also_use_android_os_soon_do_s...](http://www.gsmarena.com/inq_to_also_use_android_os_soon_do_some_cool_stuff_with_it-
news-1117.php)

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Zak
The only advertising I've seen[0] for Android phones has been from T-mobile
for the G1 and MyTouch. There is _zero_ Android branding in these ads. The
only indication that the two run the same software is a mention of "with
Google" at the end of the ad.

I see this as a major branding fail.

[0] I don't really watch TV, so I haven't seen as much as most people.

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joeyo
Why does google need to advertise to end users? Most of the savvy ones already
know about Android and the rest probably don't care what their phone runs as
long as it can do email, get map directions, etc.

If they are spending money on marketing, they are spending it on the handset
manufacturers.

~~~
joezydeco
Also, no carrier is going to advertise that their phones run the exact same
system as another carrier's phone. Why give customers an easy reason to
switch?

There are half a billion Nokia users that have no idea what Symbian is.

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Zak
If I'm Verizon and I'm selling the Motorola Sholes, I want my potential
customers to know that the cool app they saw their friend using on a G1 last
week also runs on the Sholes. The ads I've seen so far have been T-mobile, so
maybe others will try to do that.

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davidw
I think it's nearly time to get one - maybe an HTC, as they're well into their
second generation of phones. Hecl needs more attention on Android, and real
live device is the surest way to accomplish that:-)

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thismat
I'm still loving my first generation HTC G1. it's a little bulky and can be
slow at times (unless I kill the processes left from applications running the
background, then it's snappy), but I really enjoy it.

I've heard really good things about the HTC Hero though, and would love to try
one out.

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bockris
I was a bit underwhelmed by my 'donut' update. More fit and finish than new
features.

I really can't wait for Verizon's offerings because I need better network
coverage than T-Mobile. My phone doesn't work at my parents house or my in-
laws house. :-(

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thismat
Ah that's a shame, I have pretty good coverage in Texas, but the speeds are a
serious drawback. Do you know if Verizon has a "tether" restriction?

If you tether with your G1 and go over a 10gb transfer quota, they will reduce
you to edge speed for the rest of the billing cycle.

I mainly stick with T-Mobile because my entire family uses it, so we all get
to call each other for free, but I'm not against moving to a new carrier if I
can get better speeds and be allowed to tether.

EDIT: I thought the donut release was pretty good overall, I saw huge
performance gains and also the UI has been cleaned up a lot. Though not much
else seems terribly different.

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bockris
I'm in TX also, Austin to be specific. My network speed is pretty good but I'm
only comparing it to an EDGE connection on my work BB.

The donut release isn't bad. Good performance boost (I wouldn't classify mine
as 'huge' but we might use our phones a lot differently). Battery life about
the same for me. (I still have a battery charging level issue leftover the
from the cupcake upgrade.) I don't know if there were any browser updates in
donut but Google Wave on my G1 is very slow to load. (1-2 minutes even on
wifi.) I was mostly comparing the cupcake upgrade to the donut upgrade. There
was a huge visible difference between them.

All in all, I love my G1. Way better than my work issued BB. I'm just wanting
more. ;-)

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thismat
The browser was definitely updated, I notice most browsing is at least a
little snappier, though I'm disappointed with the browsing experience overall
on the G1.

Battery life is pretty bad, but I pretty much keep it on a charger all day
long now anyway, got used to knowing it's going to need a charge regularly, if
I'm out and about for a while I'll use locale and power center to trim it down
to only the basic needs.

I mostly just use the standard calendar, mail, messaging, remember the milk
and a little irc and twitter. but I'm pretty regularly going in and purging
applications with TasKill.

I'm in Fort Worth, you're pretty much a stones throw away from me.

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joezydeco
I work with both the G1 and iPhone at my job and carry both around with me,
and the browser on Android just kills the whole deal.

I don't know if it's the lower DPI screen on the G1, the lack of multitouch,
or just the rendering speed. I know they're both Webkit under the hood, but
man Apple spent a lot more time optimizing Safari and it shows.

The new Android SDK supports variable DPI, so maybe that's a hint that newer
phones with iPhone-like screens are on the way.

~~~
thismat
I can't argue there, I can only hope as the platform matures this changes.
They did such a good job with Chrome that I'm left wanting and curious with
their mobile browser, at least compared to the iP(hone|odtouch).

Luckily there is also multi touch support on the android SDK I believe as
well, so at least we know they have plans to implement it.

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callahad
Aside from the ADP1, are there any Android devices available that allow root
access per default?

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mbrubeck
The Creative Zii Egg is another full-access developer device:
<http://www.zii.com/>

Note: It's a multimedia tablet like the iPod Touch, not a phone.

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nek4life
I need to learn Java for work and I'm looking for an interesting project to
learn it with. Any thoughts on building an Android app for my first project?
Would this be a good way to become familiar with the language?

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dminor
Just be aware that Android operates in a resource constrained environment, so
that some practices (such as avoiding garbage collection through resource
pools) aren't typical in desktop or server-side Java applications. Also, if
you're going to be doing desktop UI stuff at work, Android's UI APIs are very
different from Swing et al.

~~~
nek4life
Good things to be aware of, I certainly won't be doing any android development
for my current job. More server-side web app type things.

