From the minute it was introduced, Apple’s iPhone was destined to be a mobile music powerhouse given the device’s dual-role as an iPod. Competing smartphones have struggled to make that same mobile music connection, despite having many of the same applications and capabilities.
[via Billboard.Biz]
Developer Cyanogen has modified Google’s Android 2.1 mobile operating system to endow Google’s Nexus One smartphone with multitouch, which lets users navigate the device with more than one finger at once. The absence of this function has been a the source of great consternation for some users, and many speculate the reasons are legal in nature. Some believe Apple has locked down multitouch patents and guards them. Erick Tseng, product manager of Android at Google, attempted to clarify Google’s position when in an interview with Engadget.
A developer has modified Google’s Android 2.1 mobile operating system to endow Google’s Nexus One smartphone with multitouch, which lets users navigate the device with more than one finger at once.
[via eWeek]
Version 3.0 of Nutsie, a mobile application soon coming to Android phones, is more than an anagram for iTunes.
As I watched Melodeo engineering Vice President Bob Wise demonstrate the new Nutsie on a Motorola Droid at the company’s Seattle office on Monday, I had to wonder why Google doesn’t have its own Nutsie-like app.
[via cnet]
[via BusinessWeek]
There I was, sitting in Las Vegas Airport after CES. The WiFi in the airport is now ‘sponsored’ by Google. Indeed when I brought up my favorite time-killing web game, the Nexus One had the primary GoogleAds position, waiting for me to click. As I’m currently looking at my bricked HTC Touch Pro, I easily resisted. Others have not, and are buying. What they say afterwards in some cases has been negative, although it’s otherwise being well received.
[via ITWORLD]
British scribe Paul Carr is not one to mince words. For him, Google’s newfound morality around censorship and China is too little, too late. Four years too late, to be precise. And I agree with him — up to a point. Morality has to be absolute; it cannot be used as a tool of convenience. That said, and despite being a born cynic, I’m actually unable to view Google’s decision through the same lens.
I mean, if as a society we’re all too ready to forgive steroid-enhanced baseball players when they come clean, how is that we can’t give a company a second chance when it finally decides to do the right thing? Moreover, the company is risking a lot of money by adopting what Carr describes as “scorched earth diplomacy” — especially when it comes to Android.
[via GIGAOM]
As competition heats up, smartphone vendors are scrambling to woo developers to their respective OS platforms. But some developers are more desirable than others. The discovery of suspected malware in the Android Market online app store is evidence that mobile platforms are becoming as attractive to criminals as they are to legitimate software vendors.
[via InfoWorld]
Touch-screen comparison between the iPhone, HTC Droid Eris, Motorola Droid, and Nexus One. Click for larger version.
(Credit: Moto Development Labs)
Moto Development Labs devised a simple method of analyzing capacitive touch screens using drawing programs. They put the iPhone, the Nexus One, the Droid, and the Droid Eris through the paces and proved not all touch screens are created equal.
DIY Touchscreen Analysis from Moto Development Group on Vimeo.
[via cnet]
LAS VEGAS–CES 2010 didn’t produce quite a showstopper like last year’s Palm Pre, but there’s certainly one theme that dominated the show in the cell phone and smartphone categories and that’s Android, Android, and Android. After a false start at CES 2009–last year’s show defied expectations to produce no Android announcements–Google’s OS finally emerged from its shell this year.
The Nexus One wasn’t at CES, but it was the talk of Vegas.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET)
Of course, there was plenty of buzz about it even before CES started, after the official announcement of the Nexus One. Though neither Google nor HTC were officially showing the Nexus One in Las Vegas (thus making it ineligible for CNET’s Best of CES Awards) it went on to be the buzz of the show. We posted our review from Sin City the day before CES began.
Beyond the Nexus One, AT&T committed to launching five new Android devices in the first half of 2010, including the Dell Mini 3. Motorola also introduced its latest Android smartphone, the Motorola Backflip, which won our Best of CES award in the cell phone category for its fresh take on design. We go our first hands-on with the Android-powered Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 and we learned about OS updates to existing Moto handsets.
Outside of Android, Palm continued its tradition of making product announcements at CES and introduced the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus for Verizon. The company also unveiled details for WebOS 1.4, which will come out sometime in February and add video recording and Flash Player 10.1 for all WebOS devices. T-Mobile also made it official and said it will bring the HTC HD2 to its lineup this spring. Whatever your preference in OS, it looks like it’s shaping up to be another busy year for smartphones.
The Moto Backflip won Best of CES in the cell phone category.
(Credit: Bonnie Cha/CNET)
LG introduced two new messaging phones: the LG Lotus Elite (another nominee for Best of CES in the category) and the LG Rumor Touch, which are sequels to the Lotus and the Rumor 2, respectively. Both Sprint phones now have touch screens and updated features. The Rumor Touch has a 3.0-inch display and a slide-out keyboard, but the Lotus Elite caught our eye with its unique design and dual QVGA displays.
We also took a closer look at the Casio Brigade and LG’s line of global smartphones. LG also said it would release more smartphones for the U.S. market. As for Bluetooth headsets, Jabra introduced the Jabra Extreme, which promises more aggressive noise-cancellation.
In a big change from previous years, Samsung had a quiet show. The company showed just its Moment with digital TV and announced a pledge to recycle one million phones. Yet, we did get to play with Sammy’s W9600 and Diva. Sony Ericsson displayed a gallery of recent models, including a handset with a clear display; Sonim unveiled the rugged XP3.2 Quest Pro (the third Best of CES nominee for cell phones) and HTC showed its new Smart phone for Europe and Asia.
That concludes the cell phone and smartphone highlights of CES 2010. Be sure to read our full coverage for many mobile tidbits.
For months, analysts have said that this would be the year of the tablet computer and just one week into 2010, it looks like their predictions may be coming true.
On Monday, while Apple fans continued to trade rumors about when the company’s long-awaited tablet would debut, Freescale Semiconductor got down to business.
In advance of the Consumer Electronics Show this week, the Austin, Texas, company announced its own touchscreen tablet that it calls the “future of the smartbook category.”
At 7 inches, Freescale’s tablet is smaller than the 10- or 11-inch model expected from Apple and others, but the smaller size comes with a big payoff: A $199 price tag, instead of the thousand-dollar (or more) price tag that will likely accompany Apple’s. | The company said its lightweight device provides four times the viewing area of a typical smartphone, but is about one-third the size and volume of the average netbook.
The tablet is Wi-Fi and Bluetooth-enabled and can be fitted with a modem to run on 3G networks. And it’s ready to serve a wide range of on-the-go needs, from Web browsing and office applications to social media widgets, picture taking and more.
Though Freescale will demo the device, which runs on both Android and Linux operating systems, this week at CES, it won’t be ready for mass consumption until the summer.
[via ABC news]
