Tomorrow is Christmas and all I can think about is all the new stuff I’m going to have to keep track of at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in the first week of January. It’s going to be my fifth year in attendance as a professional journalist, and the previous years I’ve gone are starting to blend together in my mind. Fortunately, I can gauge the year in history by the amount of Android stuff I see there. Two years ago, there was only the smallest bit of Android-based stuff because the first open source version of the OS was only just released. Last year, the presence had increased significantly, and I saw a lot of new smartphones, a couple of e-reader/tablets and a couple of strange and unique contributions like desktop video phones and Android-powered Microwaves.
This year, aside from the Verizon LTE Android phone that we’re expecting, everyone thinks CES 2011 is going to be all about tablets.
I have my reservations about that prediction.
Yes, Motorola is undoubtedly revealing an Android tablet of some sort, and LG, NEC and Dell have all said they will be showing something off too…but other than that the field is pretty wide open.
Speaking of LG though, there’s a company who’s in the Android space way less than it should be. Last year I saw two Android phones from LG, and earlier this year the company pledged more presence in the area, but frankly I was highly unimpressed with its smartphone attempts. Many of the phones LG showed off last year were solidly based in the pre-iPhone, post BlackBerry design ethic. The company’s got a lot of clout in consumer electronics, but last year it looked to be focused solidly on its TV sector, maybe a tablet would kickstart interest in their smartphones.
A ton of Android-based tablets pour out of China every day. I mean, just check out dealextreme and you’ll be treated to a new piece of shit $99 plastic tablet running Android 2.2 every day of the week. I really hope predictions for CES 2011 will be proven wrong and that there will be something to take my breath away, because I want to see how far companies have taken Android out of its comfortable niche of portable/pocketable touchscreen devices.
Specifically, I want to see OTHER devices running it, like point and shoot cameras, pocket camcorders, media players, clocks and watches, game systems, in-car systems, DVD players and TVs, set top boxes, digital toys, and home automation gadgets.
Frankly, after hearing that Samsung is on track to sell 10 million Galaxy S smartphones before this year is even out, I’ve accepted that Android is now the mainstream smartphone OS. It has reached the average user who upgrades his phone only when his contract runs out, and my efforts will be best invested in tracking the smartphone market overall, and the specific unique applications of Android’s open source branch.
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.
I talked to Mint.com about their Android App before it was released a couple of weeks ago. Even though they developed for the iPhone first, they had a lot of positive things to say about Android: Development is easier, less restrictive, and more community-supported.
After actually launching their app, they have already issued version 1.2 thanks to all the user feedback they got. In case you missed my review on Betanews, Mint is a personal budgeting app that accesses all your online banking records, investments, and lines of credit and gives you a live snapshot of your finances and where you stand in your budget. It doesn’t allow transactions to be made, so it’s a bit safer than some of your regular banking apps.
Version 1.2 has 1.2 in response to user feedback. The new version of Mint for Android allows users to view their financial data in landscape mode, it now works with hardware keyboards (including Shape Writer,) it
enables widget viewing in a 4×1 area, and offers improved categorization and cleaner refreshing.
Once you get over the initial skepticism of putting all your financial records into Mint, you find that it’s a really handy app. I find myself using the live folder of my recent transactions very often. It’s the first time I’ve really put live folders to good use.
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.