Droid by Motorola

In case you are interested about the technical specifications of Motorola Droid, or you are a developer interested to develop applications for the Droid, check out these MOTODEV pages on Droid. Motorola is rumored to develop GSM version of the Droid, so most likely the mighty Droid will hit Europe in not too distant future. As you fellow Borgs already know, resistance is futile ...

Android 2.0 update for HTC Hero

So, the Droid is out - with Android 2.0. Those of you owning HTC Hero phone and suffering from bad case of Android 2.0 envy, don't worry, HTC is currently busy in preparing Android 2.0 update.

Android SDK 2.0, Release 1 is available!

The first release version of Android SDK 2.0 is out - in time before the first Android 2.0 phones are to be officially published. Now, if HTC would just release the official Eclair update image for my HTC Hero.

Android 2.0 introduces several new significant features, such as Quick Contacts API, a proper Bluetooth 2.1 API (finally), search functionality for SMS/MMS messages, improved camera API, HTML 5.0 support, revamped graphics API with better hardware acceleration support (good new for game developers), and improved virtual keyboard ... nice. A complete list of new and improved features can be found from this Android 2.0 Platform Highlights document.

Sony Ericsson Android phone

November 3rd will be the date when Sony Ericsson will release their long rumored and partially leaked Android-powered XPERIA X10 (source Mobilecrunch) smartphone with cool Rachael UI. You can check out the web site dedicated for the release from here. So, mark your calendars for the date. I have myself quite high expectations for this phone. I have not owned a Sony Ericsson phone since 2001, but XPERIA X10 could be my second SE phone.

Another day - another new Android device

They just keep coming, like zombies, wave after wave. Another day - another new Android device sees a day light. In fact, there have been days, when actually a bunch of new Android devices have been either leaked to publicity or officially released. Not just mobile phones, but more interestingly a variety of device types including e-book readers, multimedia players, mini laptops, and MIDs. Google's CEO Eric Schmidt predicted that "Android adaptation is about to explode", and that is exactly what is going on right now.

You can check (an almost :)) complete list of Android phones from Techcrunch'es web page: "Android Avalanche". In addition to those officially released Android phones, there are lot of leaked phones published on Internet. Just today, one of most interesting ones, Dell Strike was leaked on a Vietnamese web site. This beast is running Android 2.0, and boasts both 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, huge 5 inch WVGA multitouch capacitive display. A 5 megapixel camera is backed up with dual-LED flash.

Competition is good. I think the fierce competition among Android device manufactures will result as a rapid evolution of Android devices, as well as fuel innovation of Android related UIs, applications, and services.

Motorola Droid hands on

The Boy Genius Report has released the first hands on story about Motorola Droid with a nice collection of photos. They will publish a more detailed story later on. Their initial impressions for the Droid are surprisingly positive: Really good capacitive touchscreen, decent keyboard, Android 2.0, very good performance with TI OMAP3430 processor, 5 MP camera with flash, etc. in a thin form factor. The Droid seems to be a serious challenger for iPhone 3GS.

iDon't, but Droid Does ...

Motorola Droid is to be released in November by Verizon Wireless. Here is their first (anti-iPhone) video spot for the Motorola Droid. At least the robot voice speaking word "Droid" in the end of video is really cool. Reminds me of the Cylons in the original Battlestar Galactica TV series :).

Android loves Snapdragon

The rumor goes that Acer Liquid will not be the only new kid on the block utilizing Snapdragon processor: SonyEricsson Experia X3 is about to join the party.

Android could become the "Windows" of the mobile phones

Wally Rhines, CEO of Mentor Graphics gave his speech in Solution Expo in Espoo, Finland. Rhines predicted that there will be one de facto standard operating system for mobile phones - similarly what Windows has been for PCs. A such "standard" OS would make application development easier and more profitable in many ways. He argued that most likely this dominating OS will be open source and Linux based. Rhines would place his bet on Android ...

Android 2.0 Screenshots

Android 1.6 a.k.a "Donut" is not yet even officially available for most Android phones (including my own HTC Hero), but version 2.0 "Eclair" is already well on its completion. The Boy Genius Report has published a really nice Android 2.0 screenshots walktrough. Dear Santa, can I have my Eclair, like now, plox.

An article about Android CPUs

Engadget.com (one of my personal Top 3 sites) has started a new monthly column called Core Values from Anand Shimpi. The first column happens to discuss about the CPUs powering Android devices now and in near future. According to this article, we will see the next generation of very powerful Android phones in 2010.

Acer A1 - First Snapdragon Android Smartphone

Acer have officially announced their first Android smartphone called the Acer Liquid A1. Interestingly, it is also the very first Android handset to utilize Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor. The capacitive touchscreen has the impressive 800 x 480 WVGA resolution (same as in Nokia's N900 Maemo 5 device). Liquid runs Android version 1.6 a.k.a. Donut. The speedy Snapdragon chipset also means that the Acer Liquid can feature high performance 3D graphics. Acer has also developed some proprietary extensions to Android platform including, for instance, geo-tagging, Spinlets™ application providing free streaming of worldwide music and video, and smart integration of the most popular social services (seems to be the trend for Android platforms nowadays). Release dates and prices were not yet revealed by Acer.

Droid Fonts

Android uses a really nice looking system font family called "Droid". Droid fonts are created by a company called Ascender Corporation. Droid fonts are designed to work well on typical Android screen sizes and at small font point sizes. I also found that quite many developers like to use Droid Mono Sans font in their code editors because the font appears be a good looking coding font (here is a sample blog review). I wanted to install the Droid fonts into my OSX and Linux machines, so that I could use them in another great open source creation GIMP, which I use extensively to create the graphics for my applications.

The latest versions of the Droid Fonts can be found, for instance, from the official Android Open Source site, but more conveniently, you can get the TrueType Font files from within the Android SDK, for instance:

/android-sdk-mac_x86-1.6_r1/platforms/android-1.6/data/fonts/