I’m not slacking, I’ve just been busy at Betanews trying to adhere to the prime directives.
You know…serving the public trust, protecting the innocent, and upholding the law…
That’s how I do.
But I’m gonna do better and spread my work out among a couple of other blogs soon. For now, here’s a look at the two different builds of AVG’s Android antivirus software: phone and tablet.
AVG did a pretty good smartphone survey in February and they shared the results with me at CTIA when I shot this quick video. It was kind of ridiculous, actually. Like many security surveys, it was sort of geared to show how ignorant most people are.
Of nearly 30,000 smartphone users that participated in the survey, 25% DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT OS THEY WERE USING!
That was more than any other single OS named. iOS had 24%, RIM BBOS had 19%, Windows Mobile had 12% and Android had only 9%.
51% said they had, at some point, accidentally signed up for some product or service without knowing it cost money.
59% said they were unsure if they had ever shared their location via photo metadata.
53% said they were unsure if their “confidential payment information” was being shared through third party apps.
AVG is free/freemium. While I’m not personally convinced of the utility of smartphone security apps against good old fashioned conscientious usage, you can’t really argue with their intentions and their price point.
Stay Tuned, I’ll be posting a review of Mikrosonic’s MPC for Android that goes by the name SPC.
They do it to me every time. A carrier announces something that I want, and then starts teasing for something a little further down the road. It makes it very hard to be an early adopter, for sure.
Tomorrow, the most powerful Android phone on T-Mobile, the Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant will land. Unfortunately, it’s not an HSPA+ capable device, and the rumor is that T-Mo is going to launch their faster networks on July 21, just one week from today. The first phone capable of taking advantage of the new network is rumored to be the HTC Vision…which won’t launch ’til September. And even then, we don’t know the specs of it.
We do know the Vibrant is powerful, and I have handled the beautiful thing. It’s skinny and the screen is big and bright. If I pick one up tomorrow, it won’t be with any great hesitance or regret. I just can’t help but wonder what’s next.
I’ll update with the Samsung Vibrant tomorrow if it’s available in stores. It’s certainly not available as an upgrade on mytmobile.com. It’s been in their database of phones for weeks, but you couldn’t order it.
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.
Hey everybody! My name is Tim Conneally and this is Android Bakery, a place where we’ll look at the exciting new developments in Google’s mobile operating system: the hardware, the apps, and the lifestyle.
I chose the blog format because I’d like to write without having to limit my bias or tendency to think aloud. So for the first post in Android Bakery before we delve into any awesomeness, I will provide a full disclosure.
I am primarily a writer for Betanews.com, a developer and co-founder of Baltimore-based event mapping site Localist.com and stockholder in several wireless infrastructure and software companies: specifically Motorola, Alcatel-Lucent, and Nuance Communications.
I am a huge fan of Google and its services, so that’s why I got into Android even before the G1 was released. Since it’s been out, I’ve followed a number of burgeoning software companies as they’ve helped the platform grow, and I really love to watch the ecosystem change as it fulfills the demands of the mobile user.
My primary goal for this site is to have a single post per day: a review of an Android App released that day, a video of me flipping out about something, or an interview with software developers.
If you enjoy Android as much as I do, I’d love to hear from you, and I’ll have my first real post later tonight.
Hey everybody! My name is Tim Conneally and this is Android Bakery, a place where we’ll look at the exciting new developments in Google’s mobile operating system: the hardware, the apps, and the lifestyle.