Gizmodo’s Guide To Smartphone OSes

October 9, 2008 by Kimberly Lau 10 Comments

Gizmodo’s in-depth look at smartphone OSes provides you with the pros and cons of each, allowing you to make an educated decision, if you’re in the market for a phone that also has email, a web browser, a calendar, and a decent contacts manager. If you’re attracted to the open source Linux-based Android by Google, you’ll also have to keep in mind that there aren’t that many business features. Other contenders include the Blackberry by RIM, which is great for email, but is completely closed and proprietary. The Apple iPhone is very pretty but lacks some basic features. They cover Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Palm Garnet too. It’s certainly a handy guide since most people haven’t used all six.

HTC Dream Android Phone

August 30, 2008 by Eliot 16 Comments

Engadget has a full gallery of the new HTC Dream, the first production phone running Android. It will be available on T-Mobile some time this Fall (missing features notwithstanding).

Key Features Cut Out Of Android API

August 26, 2008 by Benjamin Eckel 10 Comments

Google has decided that its initial release of the Android SDK will not include formal Bluetooth support or Google Talk. Bluetooth headsets will still work, but developers will not have access to the Bluetooth portion of the API. Google’s security researchers have announced that Google Talk was left out because of multiple security concerns. Bluetooth, on the other hand, was left out because the development team ran out of time.

Out of these two features, we think users are going to be most disappointed by the omission of Google Talk. Chatting has become one of the most useful features of new smart phones. The ability to just chat instead of sending a text message is one of the main attractions to phones like the iPhone, which has support for AIM.

[photo: dreamside]

Best Of The Rest

May 28, 2008 by Eliot 4 Comments

Here are some more stories from today that we found interesting:

First Wii Fit hack: Control Google Earth
New Android UI demoed
Google opens App Engine
Windows 7 demoed, multitouch ducttaped in
Mac security update released
Hacker scripts $50000 in microdeposits
Displacements shows history of white washed room
Biggest drawing in world was a hoax

Google Android Application Challenge Winners

May 23, 2008 by Sean Percival 5 Comments

The Google Android team recently launched a challenge to encourage development for their new cellphone based platform. Part of the first phase was to narrow down the 1,788 submissions to the best 50 application ideas. They’ve posted the complete list of winners on their website and put together a little slide show(PDF) as well. As part of the challenge some $10,000,000 is up for grabs from Google.

We browsed through the list and found a lot of social this and family that; nothing overly exciting honestly. There were a few interesting application ideas in there though:

BioWallet – Biometric authentication system that uses iris identification.
Talkplay – Video and voice message system, see and talk to your friends while on the go.
Writing Pad – A unique way to enter text into your phone where common words are replaced by simple strokes.

The Android platform will probably cause the largest adoption of Linux based cellphones yet. We can’t wait to see what the homebrew community does with the platform and so much development for an unlaunched phone is amazing. Apple seems to go out of their way to lock us out, where this platform couldn’t be more open. With 3G support, WiFi, SQlite, Virtual Machines, GPS and much more what’s not to like.

Have any of you experimented with the Android SDK?

[via LinuxDevices]