Well, the rumors are coming in, and they’re not exactly the most positive things. As usual, people are throwing around the same tired-ass fragmentation argument.

Rumor 1.) Android 3.0 (Gingerbread) is due in mid-October, with the first handsets shipping in the Nov/Dec range for the holidays (which sounds like a revisitation of 2.0)
Rumor 2.) Minimum hardware requirements for Android 3.0 devices are: 1GHZ CPU, 512MB or RAM, displays from 3.5″ and higher.
Rumor 3.) A New 1280×760 resolution is available for the devices with displays of 4″ and higher (I keep screaming “convergence,” but I don’t know if anybody is listening…)
Rumor 4.) Completely new 3D-esque UI. This one seems almost logical. Hopefully you will be able to turn off all animations.
Rumor 5.) 3.0 will be for high end devices, and lower-end handsets will keep Android 2.1/2.2

According to Adobe today, the following devices will have Flash Player 10.1 (and consequently, the Android 2.2 “Froyo” update if they don’t already:)

Dell Streak
Google Nexus One
HTC EVO 4G
HTC Desire
HTC Incredible
Motorola Droid/Milestone
Samsung Galaxy S

Future devices running Android 2.2 will also support it, of course. My Droid is sitting here with 2.1 just itching to be updated. Of course, I’m also expecting the Archos 7 tablet in the mail for review, and the Creative Vado HD 3rd gen camera so I’m just itching all over.

Wirefly is offering the Cliq XT Titanium for free with a 2-year contract/data plan. Cliq XT has no physical keyboard, LED flash 5 megapixel camera, FM radio tuner, and touch-sensitive trackpad. 3.1″ touchscreen, MotoBLUR (based on Android 1.5), 802.11 Wi-fi, and A2DP Bluetooth. It’s a decent phone that didn’t get a lot of hype. If you know somebody up for upgrade on T-Mo, or somebody looking for a free entry-level smartphone that you’d like to turn onto Android, this is a damn good start.

All the way at the other end of Motorola’s line is the upcoming Droid X. It’s going to be huge in size and power and I’m going to go up to New York next week to get in on the launch event. Bear in mind, they didn’t invite me this time even though I’ve gone to the launch of two other Motorola Android devices this year and Sanjay Jha is my bro. I emailed them today, though…so I should be covering it quite thoroughly when they get back to me. …And with my newfound love for instant YouTube videos, I’ll have tons of hands-on video of it.

The particularly funny thing about the Droid X ad above is that it’s INCORRECT. The Droid X absolutely does not have an HD screen. It can capture HD video, but that’s different.

Android 2.1 with HTC Sense
600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor
512MB ROM/384MB RAM
3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen (320×480)
5-megapixel camera
2GB microSD card included
Dimensions 4.1″ x 2.3″ x .46″
Weight (with battery): 3.8 ounces
Battery: 1200mAh
Quadband EDGE (850/900/1800/1900), dual band HSPA (850/1900)
Digital compass, WiFi, aGPS, HSPA 7.2
Available on June 20, $129.99 after $100 mail-in rebate and 2 year contract.

It kind of reminds me of the HD Mini which didn’t end up coming to the states.  I’ll ping HTC in a minute to see if they’re gonna give out more info.

Tim Bray has joined the Android team at Google, so get used to him speaking for the platform.

The 55 year old co-creator of the XML standard left Sun and picked up at Google this week, and explained in his blog some of the reasons why he chose Google over a company like Apple.

In short, he thinks Android is the place to be, and had this to say about the iPhone:

“The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It’s a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord’s pleasure and fear his anger.

I hate it.

I hate it even though the iPhone hardware and software are great, because freedom’s not just another word for anything, nor is it an optional ingredient.

The big thing about the Web isn’t the technology, it’s that it’s the first-ever platform without a vendor (credit for first pointing this out goes to Dave Winer). From that follows almost everything that matters, and it matters a lot now, to a huge number of people. It’s the only kind of platform I want to help build.

Apple apparently thinks you can have the benefits of the Internet while at the same time controlling what programs can be run and what parts of the stack can be accessed and what developers can say to each other.

I think they’re wrong and see this job as a chance to help prove it.

The tragedy is that Apple builds some great open platforms; I’ve been a happy buyer of their computing systems for some years now and, despite my current irritation, will probably go on using them.”

I don’t think I’m alone in giving this a big round of applause.

“Sterile” …what a good word to describe iPhone.

I too am a daily Mac user who has absolutely no interest in the iPhone. It’s simply not exciting (the goddamn iPad just serves to remind me how boring the platform is) despite the elegant hardware and snappy interface. It’s so uniform and uninspiring and STERILE. Nobody goes “Wow, is that an iPhone?” anymore. Nobody. Because once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all, and they’ve been the same for three years now.

My peer group is increasingly being overtaken by Android devices, and any time someone pulls out their phone, there’s a conversation between them about different facets of the platform, UIs, apps, and future developments. It’s a more inclusive environment not only to OEMs and developers, but also to users.

It’s funny that ZDNet’s Dana Blankenhorn said “This beat is about to get a lot more fun” now that Tim Bray is involved, because I always thought it was the most exciting area in all of mobile technology.

Maybe it just takes someone of his stature to make people believe it.

I’m lying on the floor watching the Olympics with a stomach full of vindaloo and a post-prandial coffee in my hand.

I’ve got to tell you…I’m kind of glad that I’m not in Barcelona right now.

Though I did really want to go to GSMA’s Mobile World Congress 2010, the exciting announcements so far haven’t been anything extremely shocking.

The first noteworthy announcement today was that Sony Ericsson’s first Android device, the gorgeous Xperia X10, is now the parent a full family of devices. The new members of the Sony Ericsson Android family include the X10 mini and X10 mini pro. It’s a bit like the iPod line now, you’ve got the full-sized version, and the miniature ones (one with keyboard, one without, lots of color choices.) Not a bad way to go, actually.

Here’s the features and stats right from Sony Ericsson:
Timescape UI
“Four corner control”
5 megapixel camera and video
QWERTY keyboard – slide and text for quick and easy messaging (Mini pro only)
X10 mini and X10 mini pro support HSPA 900/2100 and EDGE 850/900/1800/1900, HSPA 850/1900/2100 and EDGE 850/900/1800/1900.

Xperia X10 mini:
Size: 83 x 50 x 16 mm
Weight: 88 grams
Phone memory: Up to 128MB
Memory card support: SanDisk microSD, up to 16 GB
Memory card included: 2GB
Operating system: Google Android 1.6
Processor: 600 MHz Qualcomm MSM7227
Talk time GSM/GPRS: Up to 4 hours
Standby time: GSM/GPRS: Up to 285hrs
Talk time UMTS: Up to 3.5 hours
Standby time: UMTS: Up to 360 hrs
The X10 mini will be available in selected markets from Q2 in Pearl White, Black, Pink, Lime, Red and Silver

Xperia X10 mini pro:
Size: 90 x 52 x 17 mm
Weight: 120 grams
Phone memory: Up to 128MB
Memory card support: SanDisk microSD, up to 16 GB
Memory card included: 2GB
Operating system: Google Android 1.6
Processor: 600 MHz Qualcomm MSM7227
Talk time GSM/GPRS: Up to 4 hours
Standby time: GSM/GPRS: Up to 285hrs
Talk time UMTS: Up to 3.5 hours
Standby time: UMTS: Up to 360 hrs

The X10 mini pro will be available in selected markets from Q2 in Black and Red.

Motorola just announced another new device, the MotoROI.

We’ve had the MotoRAZR, MotoROKR, MotoRIZR…but, MotoROI? what the fuck does that even mean?

I laughed when I first saw it because we commonly encounter ROI in venture capitalist blogs and such as “return on investment,” which would be kind of hilarious in Motorola’s case…it’s effectively investing everything in the Android platform, and this is what we get. Is that really what they’re going for here?

If his device ran Android 1.6, it would have been perfectly named MoTOROID!

*waiting for laughter*

…this might help…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toroid_(geometry)

see?

Toroid=Donut!

RDRR!!

Seriously though, I’m looking for what they’re going for in Korean. There’s a popular Korean site called “Roiworld” which has fashion games for little girls and shit. I’m having trouble because 저는 한국말 잘못 해요 and pretty much the only things I know in Korean end in a “da” or a “yo.”

Watch, it’s probably something stupid like KRAZR.

Since I’ve now handled almost all of the following devices, I decided to re-do my “140 characters” list and just do a simple rundown of every Android phone with pictures. We’re going to see a lot more at Mobile World Congress. I really want to go, but it’s a little expensive, and I’ve got about 5 trips coming up that are going to be expensive. I also really really really want a Sony Vaio X Signature Series (VPCX115KX/S)…but that’s $1,589.99. money.

RELEASED/CONFIRMED:

G1 (HTC Dream) This is the phone that started it all one year ago: Keyboard, Chin, Trackball, Slider, and Android 1.0

Mytouch3G (HTC Magic) , (Dopod) It’s still got the chin, but no keyboard. Shellable, skinnable, endorsed by Whoopi.

HTC Hero (World) Slim and sexy, this is the first ‘droid with a custom UI #HTCSense The CDMA version is Sprint’s first Android device.

HTC Tattoo yet another all-touch device with HTC Sense bound for Europe. Mysteriously ditched the “chin” but went with custom shells.

HTC Droid Eris (HTC Desire) Launch partner of Verizon Droid, standard 528MHz CPU, very similar to the Hero.

HTC Nexus One  Sold directly through Google, all-touch, 1GHz Snapdragon, cross-carrier, world phone. Very controversial and reputed to have some problems, but otherwise a totally compelling device.

Motorola Cliq/Dext the first Android phone from Moto, which unveiled MotoBLUR, the second big UI premiered for Android. Thanks to the timing of the big data loss of 2009, this became a replacement for many Sidekicks.

Motorola Droid aka “Sholes,” “Tao,” and “Touchstone.” QWERTY slider as thin as an iPhone. VZW’s first Android and first Android 2.0 (eclair) device. A killer.

Motorola Backflip, aka “Enzo,” a weird form factor with keyboard on back of chassis and trackpad behind the screen, also rocks the MotoBLUR interface.

Motorola MotoROI, First released in China and South Korea, this powerful device features 720p video capture with HDMI output and has a fully-featured 8 Megapixel camera. Rumors say it’ll be released in the U.S. also.

Huawei U8220 aka T-mobile Pulse, the first prepaid all-touch Android device “perfect entry level smartphone”

Huawei U8230 3.2 megapixel camera on the back, VGA cam on the front, update to the T-Mobile Pulse.

LG inTouch MAX (GW620) aka “Etna” this QWERTY slider was launched in EU, turned up unlocked in France €450, and is now available in the UK on Virgin and T-Mobile.

LG GT540, don’t know the name of this one, but is all-touch, runs 2.0, and comes in various colours. Launched at CES, coming to EU/Asia

Acer A1 or Acer Liquid, like Motorola, Acer said it’s focusing on Android now. Launched UK 10/14, runs Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset.

Dell mini 3i, one of China Mobile’s first Ophones, rumored to be AT&T’s first Android phone, we’ll have more. Dell is good with staying in touch.

Lenovo O1, another TD-SCDMA Ophone for China. Pretty, but not likely to come to the U.S.

Samsung Galaxy, @I7500, typical Samsung quality display, all-touch AMOLED with light sensor, not a “Google phone,” available in Germany, Austria, and Poland.

Samsung Behold 2, shown with #TouchWiz #Cube UI, will be first Samsung droid phone in US on T-Mobile

Samsung Moment, thought to be the #InstinctQ, this 800Mhz QWERTY monster came to Sprint and is being test marketed as an ATSC TV.

Samsung Galaxy Spica @I5700, 800MHz CPU, 3.2-inch HVGA, a 3mpix cam, 180MB internal memory. Actually quite dull. Announced on Nov 16.

@GeeksPhoneONE QWERTY slider available in EU (Spain) in December “extremadamente ágil y eficiente!”

@SaygusV1 Their V1 has 2-way video calling and is a huge, heavy monster of a phone

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, comes with slick UI and new “UX Platform,” powered by Snapdragon. SE is forgoing the Android praise and just sticking with making phones. This thing is big and burly, it’s one of 2 I still haven’t played with yet.

UNCONFIRMED:

@MotorolaDevour aka @Calgary…the name has shown up for 2 years, and only recently has any actual evidence shown up.  We’ll see at CES!

@MotorolaHeron or @IronMan This Windows Mobile phone was pulled from AT&T, listed as “specifications subject to change due to move to Android.” Whereabouts unknown.

@MotorolaZeppelin Spotted in China in a regulatory filing, with not much known besides 5Mpx camera, and HDMI output

@MotorolaOpusOne – Supposed to be the first iDen Android Device, to ship with 1.5, 3.1″ screen, 3 megapixel cam—looking cheap

@TMobile “Tap” shown on the Samsung Behold II launch paper…possibly a #ZTE device?

@INQ committed to an Android device, but we haven’t seen anything yet.

I  made it my mission to handle every Android device at CES 2010…and believe me, there were a lot of Taiwanese manufacturers cranking out random ass Android-based devices…but there were also a fair amount of major companies showing off new phones and new uses of the platform.

LG actually debuted a new Android phone at CES with pretty much no fanfare whatsoever and a very forgettable name (GT540)…however,  it’s actually a pretty slick phone destined for Europe and Asia. Sorry, fellow Yanks.

GT540 specs that LG is advertising:

• Custom theme and active widget (I guess it’s just one of each)
• Social Networking Manager:  Linkbook 1.3, SNS Widget, Dedicated Client
• Motion UI player
• DivX and WMV support
• 3Megapixel camera with face detection and tagging as well as camera effects
• Support for LG 3Way Sync

This phone totally has the Y2K bug.

Click that picture to enlarge it and see what I’m talking about.

LG surprised me with its new smartphones, and I actually ranked the Expo’s keyboard as the best of the dozen or so new devices I tested. There was another LG Android device there which has already been released, so I’m going to have to update my “every handset” list.

Up next: Huawei’s unbranded Android sets (including 2 camera model), Broadcom VOIP units, Android-powered microwave, and more!

"Drrrrrroooooid!"

(UPDATE: I originally wrote this for new Motorola Droid owners, but since I’ve answered many of these questions for other Android devices, I’ve changed it to be more far-reaching.)

For whatever reason, you bought the Motorola Droid a new Android phone; and you’re sitting there with no experience with the platform at all, no Earthly clue what can be done with your new phone, and a new two year contract saying you’ll hang onto it. You’ve heard people say how powerful it is, and how it’s comparable to the iPhone and blah blah blah. Let me just invite you to clear your mind of any preconceived notions, and fill it with these important things about Android that no one seems to talk about:

The Long Press is your most useful command

It seems like the most overlooked fact about Android: you can’t live without the long press.  And if you’re new to the touchable OS, it’s not really an intuitive command.  I mean, flip open an old RAZR,  hold down a key and see what happens.  But press and hold your finger on nearly anything in Android, and you get super important and useful results. Try it on the home screen and you get the “add to home screen” menu, which lets you put new app shortcuts, widgets, live folders, or change the wallpaper. If you want to get rid of the icons on your homescreen when you get your new device, just long press them and drag them to the trash can that appears on the bottom of your screen. Long press an email and you can open, delete, forward, reply/all, or mark as read; Long press a link in the browser, and you can open it in a new window, bookmark it, save it, share it or copy the URL. It is the single most useful command you have.

Long.
press.
everything.

The first place you must go is the “settings” menu

Find the menu button and push it, and then push “settings.” On the first Android phones, this was one of the most important things to do, so you could optimize performance and stretch out your battery life. It’s not quite as necessary to tweak the Droid in this way, because right out of the box you’ll find it is able to sustain a great deal of use without much lag and without battery slaughter. However, you absolutely must must must (impossible to overstress) familiarize yourself with the tweakability of Android 2.0 so if something bothers you, it can be changed.

I read an awful article today on Silicon Alley Insider about “The 10 Things we Love and Hate about the Droid, ” and most of their complaints could have been negated with conscientious use of the settings menu. You can turn haptic feedback off, you can adjust media and ringer volumes, you can turn off screen re-orientation, you can turn off screen auto-dimmer, and such. Most of their other complaints stemmed from the Droid’s differences from the iPhone. They concluded that it’s “not better than the iPhone.” Which is just retarded. It’s different, and you love your iPhone. Nobody fucking decides an interface or ecosystem is better right after switching to it.

After a few days of using your new Android phone, I highly suggest going to the settings menu, and then hitting “about phone,” and then “battery use.” It’s both eye-opening and hilarious. Chances are good that more than half of your battery power is consumed by the screen being on and a tiny fraction by the Android Operating System and apps. It makes for a strong argument in favor of electrophoretic displays (e-book/kindle screens.)

You don’t need iTunes, no, wait… FUCK iTUNES!

Harsh, yes…but anyone who tells you that Android is somehow inferior to iPhone OS because it “lacks sync” has obviously spent too much time with their iPods and iPhones. It amazes me that people actually believe the need to sync their devices is A POSITIVE THING?!?! If you have to take time to hook your computer up to your phone so all the files stay fresh and up-to-date, guess what…they are fundamentally out of sync. They are working in their own little worlds and must be strung together after the fact. That is an old way of doing things, and anyone who has owned a Palm Pilot or similar PDA will tell you, it is goddamn annoying and should be abolished.

Repeat after me:

Sync is not a positive feature.
The need for sync means incongruity is programmed into the device.

So if you’ve come to Android expecting an iPod, where your desktop and your handheld are in constant communion, you will be disappointed. Though there are ways to hook up the Droid with iTunes, I hope you will look at Android as a mobile portal to the Web and Web-based services, and not an extension of your lousy desktop and your pirated mp3s. Get used to this. Without network connectivity, most of your devices are probably pretty worthless, right? Your laptop can bear some heavy computational loads, and your workstation can do the serious powerlifting, but we don’t live in the supercomputer era of homebase power computing any more. Even the burliest teraflop setup would be considered crippled if it wasn’t connected to a larger-scale network. And our wimpy sub-1GHz mobile phone processors have helped this become a reality.

Besides, if you’re looking for music, Pandora (and to a lesser extent Slacker Radio) are the great equalizers. They’re free, “cloud-based,” and on Verizon, stream like magic. The network is, again, the power.

With all that being said, I’ll give you your next point.

Hook up with any email service (how-to)

My inbox receives my work email, gmail, aim/aol mail, yahoo mail, and windows live hotmail and so can yours. Here’s how you do it, in order of increasing difficulty.

Gmail: This is part of the device setup, and Gmail gets its own app. You’re walked through it, so this doesn’t even factor in, really.
Windows Live Hotmail: This is delightfully easy. Go to the email app, push the menu button, push “add account,” then type in your Live/Hotmail address and password, and you’re done.
Yahoo Mail: This is a bit more tricky. When you get to the “add account” part, you have to enter your Yahoo email name and password, but then hit “manual setup.” From here, (Incoming Server Settings) make the IMAP server “imap.mail.yahoo.com” and the Port is 143. In Outgoing Server Settings, set the SMTP Server to “smtp.mobile.mail.yahoo.com” and the Port to 587. Then, check “Require sign-in” and press Next.
AIM Mail This is almost identical to Yahoo, but just change the IMAP and SMTP server names to “imap.aim.com,” and “smtp.aim.com.” The ports are the same.
Others I highly encourage you to poke around, and try setting up connections to any Webmail accounts you have. And because the Droid is Exchange compatible, you can set up your work-related email accounts and calendars just as easily as you set up a Windows Live account. Just enter your username and password and it’s good to go.

Next: Apps in the “Verizon” directory in the Android Market and what’s so special about them.