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.

Right now there are only 15 apps up there, including free things like the Bank of America app, Myspace Mobile, and Flyscreen, and for-pay games like The Sims, Pac Man, and Call of Duty mobile.  Currently, only two apps are unique to Verizon, the free “My Verizon” app for account information, and the free Visual Voicemail app which requires a $2.99 monthly fee to use.  The latter of these comes pre-installed on the Droid and reportedly can’t be uninstalled….actually hang on, let me check and see if people aren’t just total morons….

Okay, they may be right.  When I looked through “manage applications,”  the only apps I can uninstall are the ones I installed myself.  This is, of course just a cursory judgement, and I’m sure some further probing will uncover a way to fix that, and I’ll post it when I do.  If not, that’s kind of stupid.

There really isn’t much else to say about the Verizon section of the Android Market, but there is one huge question:    If this is a V Cast-related market, are the for-pay apps billed to my account?

NOPE.

They’re Google Checkout just like everything else in the market.

Complete and total bust.

But that’s hopefully only for the time being.  Once the section provides apps unique to the Verizon network, or apps that are billable to your Verizon account, then it will be useful. For now though, it’s like a bar at 3:30 in the afternoon:  ghost town with potential.

"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.

The keyword with Eclair is interoperability.

Motorola recently launched its custom Android build with a UI called MotoBLUR, the central function of which is the ability to integrate with a user’s many social web services from a single interface. The new APIs included in Eclair give this communicative function to all developers. So with the new Account Manager API, developers can centrally store account credentials on the device, the Contacts application can now sync and aggregate contact data from multiple accounts, and the Sync Adaptors API provides full two-way contact sync with ANY backend.

To provide a single, unified face for this data, the Quick Contact function has been added. By clicking on a contact’s picture, a user can pull up a menu of all the different ways to reach that contact…Gmail, Email, IM, Phone, and the various Social networks. It’s like the existent “live folder” concept for contacts, but brought together under the standard contact list, or in any app the developer chooses.

Android 2.0 also updates the Bluetooth API so apps can now access Bluetooth controls to discover, connect and share information with nearby devices, which unlocks the ability to make peer-to-peer and proximity-based applications.

The built-in Android browser has been updated with a refreshed UI with an actionable address bar, bookmarks sorted by thumbnail, double-tap zoom command, and HTML5 support, which opens up Application cache, client-side SQL databases, geolocation API support, and fullscreen video tag support.

The camera app has again been tweaked, but this time it includes digital zoom (with macro mode), built-in color effects (posterize, solarize, etc) and built-in flash support.

It even adds Exchange Support and includes Multi-touch support for the soft keyboard.

Throw this out there with the upcoming availability of Verizon Droids, the Sony Racheal, and whatever else is coming out, and we’ve got a really huge quarter for Android. I’m gonna start doing video blogs soon, it just takes a bit longer to write and record them.

I’m going to make two predictions, one a longshot, one more logical.

Here are the factors adding up:

1.) Verizon’s Getting an Android phone (and we now know Eric Schmidt’s boner for Verizon)

2.) At the Google earnings call late in the day today, Eric Schmidt says, “Android adoption is about to explode.”

3.) …on the same day the giant Eclair lands?

Prediction one (longshot) Verizon is getting the first Android 2.0 phone.

I mean, they only released the Donut SDK last month…and we first heard about that in May. BUT if you remember, as I’m sure you do, they showed off all the Donut features at Google I/O not even one month after the big foam Cupcake dropped and all our G1s updated.

It’s too early in Android’s lifespan to be able to predict these kind of trends, but dropping a comically huge representation of the OS’s codename is about as obvious a hint as you could hope to receive. Something with Eclair is going to happen very soon.

What sucks is that we don’t know anything about Eclair, really. So that leads me to my second, and probably more likely prediction:

Verizon and AT&T will be getting their Android phones at the same time as Sprint and T-Mobile gets their new devices, summarily “exploding” the OS onto all United States carriers with four new devices…then after the five minutes of pants-pooping is over, and tons of new Android users are born, we’ll get to see an early build of Eclair to tease the new users with sick new upcoming features.

Also, Michael Arrington commented on the article I linked to above, saying he’s seen a new Android device that’ll “blow everyone away.” (I could have the quote wrong, but that’s the gist of it.) I’m hoping it’s Rachael from Sony Ericsson, because that looks really hot. But hell, it could be something even better.

All of this, combined with the daily media coverage making the “duh!” prediction that Android is on its way to market domination make it a very good time to be an Android early adopter, and everyone who’s going through the 528MHz generation right now has my personal permission to refer to himself as an “O.G.”

…or something less dorky.

Verizon’s on board with its first Android device in the next couple of weeks, and Eric Schmidt slathered praise all over Verizon like barbecue sauce on a chicken wing. I quote: “It’s absolutely a fact that Verizon’s data network is the best in the US by far, and I’m not talking ten percent here, I’m talking about many multiples.”

Now the rumors are flying that AT&T is coming out with its first Android device, and not just any device, but the Dell Dork Phone I (aka the Mini 3i) that I talked about a few weeks ago. To be honest, my interest in that was only half-hearted and if I don’t get my hands on one, it’s going to lose out to something much more concrete like the freakin’ 800 MHz Samsung Moment.

What are we looking at, then?

Pretty much what we all expected, right? It’s not world domination or anything, but Android this week stepped onto the threshold of being a viable, multi-handset option on all carriers.

Meanwhile, Gartner is predicting that Android will have a market share only exceeded by Symbian by 2012. 14.5% or roughly 72 million phones per year. That would cut Symbian down to 39% and iPhone down to 13%, Blackberry would stay at 12.8% and Windows Mobile to 12.5%.

From inception to the number 2 in the world in four years.

Let’s see how long it took Symbian…well, its roots go back pretty damn far. Let’s start at the Psion Series 5 EPOC 32 days in 1997, which turned into Symbian in 1998. It wasn’t until 2004 that it began moving like crazy. So roughly six years from birth to the top?

So maybe 2014 for Android to take the #1 spot? Heh…maybe, but it’s late and I have a headache.

RELEASED/CONFIRMED:

@HTCDream, @TmobileG1 This is the phone that started it all one year ago: Keyboard, Chin, Trackball, Slider, and Android 1.0

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

@HTCMagic, @Mytouch3G, @Dopod, It’s still got the chin, but no keyboard. Shellable, skinnable, endorsed by Whoopi.

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

@HTCTattoo yet another all-touch device with #HTCSense bound for Europe. Mysteriously ditched the “chin” but went with custom shells.

@HTCDroidEris, @HTCDesire Launch partner of Verizon Droid, standard 528MHz CPU, very similar to the Hero

@HTCNexusOne  Sold directly through Google, all-touch, snapdragon, very controversial.

@MotorolaCliq, @MotorolaDext first Android phone from Moto, features #MotoBLUR, second big UI for droid. Surefire Sidekick replacement.

@MotorolaDroid aka @sholes aka @tao aka @touchstone. QWERTY slider as thin as an iPhone. #VZW’s first Android and first Android 2.0 (eclair) device. A killer.

@MotorolaBackflip, aka @Enzo, a weird form factor with keyboard on back of chassis and trackpad behind the screen, also rocks #motoBLUR

@TmobilePulse, #Huawei makes this, the first prepaid all-touch Android device “perfect entry level smartphone”

@LG GW620, @LGEtna this QWERTY slider was launched in EU, turned up unlocked in France €450. lacks d-pad/trackball but has arrow keys.

@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

@AcerA1, @AcerLiquid, like #Moto, #Acer said it’s focusing on Android now. Launched UK 10/14, runs Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset.

@Dellmini3i, one of #ChinaMobile’s first Ophones, rumored to be AT&T’s first Android phone, we’ll have more. Dell is good with staying in touch.

@LenovoO1, another TD-SCDMA Ophone for China. Pretty, but not likely to come to the U.S.

@SamsungBehold2, shown with #TouchWiz #Cube UI, will be first Samsung droid phone in US on T-Mobile

@SamsungMoment, thought to be the #InstinctQ, this 800Mhz QWERTY monster is headed for Sprint in Nov.

@SamsungGalaxySpica @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

@SonyEricsson 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.

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.

A lot of pundits have put a lot of weight behind Motorola’s first two Android handsets, saying that this is the company’s “last chance” to recover its phone-producing arm, or some sort of swan song because of the spin-off that was supposed to take place in the third quarter of 2009.

Last October, Co-CEO Sanjay Jha said “While our strategic intent to separate the company remains intact, we are no longer targeting the third quarter of 2009, primarily due to the macro-economic environment, stresses in the financial markets and the changes underway in Mobile Devices.”

Not having support from AT&T is a big detriment, some say, as it’s the only carrier consistently stealing subscribers away from other carriers.

But wait, AT&T didn’t just cock-block Motorola. It’s actually given the big thumbs down to TWO companies offering an Android device. Apparently it pitched HTC’s Lancaster into the dumpster this summer as well, only that time, we don’t know exactly why. Rumors were that it could have been too underpowered or perhaps even too problematic for a successful launch.

Because AT&T is the exclusive iPhone carrier, people often forget that it offers any other smartphones. Maybe they don’t consider any other products noteworthy, I don’t know. But the point is, AT&T’s selection of smartphones is led by Windows Mobile. Check this out:

AT&T's smartphone roster by OS

If you look at these stats as a direct reflection of the U.S. smartphone market as a whole, you’ll notice right away that the OS distribution is kind of out of whack. Yes, AT&T has 70 million subscribers, and that’s an important factor in the availability of an OS…but how much does it really determine market position?

I mean, does Windows Mobile have the lion’s share of the domestic smartphone market because it is the most common OS in AT&T’s smartphones? Of course not: Blackberry does, then iPhone, THEN Windows Mobile.

Let’s assume that on September 10th, T-Mobile and Verizon get Motorola Android phones, and lets see how their charts look.

Here are our friends over at T-Mobile. We know those zany Germans love Android (they got the Samsung Galaxy before anyone else, after all.) However, we see that Android happens to be T-Mobile’s ONLY smartphone OS that isn’t Windows Mobile or Blackberry. It’s probably because they’re too busy gunking up their phone lineup with those silly Sidekicks.

T-Mobile's smartphone OS distribution

And here’s Verizon. As you can see, they’re the most balanced/least diverse smartphone carrier in our list thus far.

Verizon's Smartphones if they get Motorola Sholes

AT&T already offers the most diverse selection of Smartphones, at least by operating system…so maybe it’s not trying to thin the proverbial broth by adding any old mediocre Android device to the pool.

Now, you’re probably going to say “Hold up a second, fancy pants! Where’s the Palm Centro in all this?”

I know right? Check Sprint, they’re the only carrier still offering Palm’s (awesome) gear as of this very moment. While we’re looking at them, you’ll notice that Sprint’s got quite a diverse OS lineup…but that diversity is mostly due to Palm’s multi-platform delivery.

No Android here...yet.

So yes…my point. The carriers we expect to have Android on them also happen to be the ones with the least diverse smartphone selection.

I know there’s only a correlative link between number of OSes and likelihood of new OS adoption (and not a causal one,) so don’t bite my face off for pointing it out.