March 2012
1 post
4 tags
Pre-SXSW goodness and the new Galaxy Note: Nice to... →
Hugh MacLeod is a writer, artist (mainly in cartoon form) and ‘media guy’ who has apparently been given a Galaxy Note to play with at SXSW this week - and he seems to like it!
January 2012
1 post
3 tags
Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto →
For those who don’t know, Roboto is Android’s new system-wide default font, replacing the older Droid Sans. I really like the new font, but then most things look stunning on the Galaxy Nexus’ high-density screen, particularly if they’re designed for it.
To be honest, most of this analysis is beyond me, but it has a high-quality feel to it which makes it interesting to...
November 2011
1 post
4 tags
New nooks! →
I’ve got an original 3G/wifi nook, and a nook Color - neither of which are easily available to me outside the US - and in principle I’m very happy with both. I don’t use the e-ink nook, partly because I can’t be bothered to carry a single-use device, but mainly because I read in the dark (in bed) more than I read outside (in sunlight), so one of e-ink’s main features...
October 2011
1 post
4 tags
August 2011
5 posts
3 tags
Rooting a very very large phone... →
Just a fun little vid of a guy showing off the enormous demo Nexus S in a store, which he’d rooted for all the world to use.
App Inventor for Android (no more) →
App Inventor was always a bit of a strange beast - one in a long long line of building-block development environments, but with the bonus features of being at least partly web-based, and having the resulting app actually run for real on your phone. It was never going to replace a full development system, and as far as I know it couldn’t generate apps which could be published in the market,...
2 tags
The Android Story →
How did we get here? Well… it started in October 2003, and this infographic tells the story from there.
6 tags
Logitech Revue - Google TV box for $99.99 →
Two closely-connected links today - both about Logitech’s Revue device. Google TV is Google’s Android-based set-top-box platform, which has so far been pretty much a flop, but which is available integrated into Sony and Samsung TVs, and as a standalone device from Logitech, the Revue. A few days ago, Logitech admitted that sales of the Revue had been dire, and slashed the list price...
5 tags
Apple Suit Puts Samsung Tablet Sales in Australia... →
Apple just pipped Samsung to the lead in the global smartphone market in the last quarter, after Nokia’s spectacular implosion. The iPad is probably the best mass-market tablet on the market (although I couldn’t let myself be tied down in the way iOS does it), but the Galaxy S2 is the best phone in the world right now - and it shows that Apple are choosing to compete with litigation....
June 2011
1 post
3 tags
Google fears it may have inadvertently stolen... →
April 2011
1 post
3 tags
All About Android →
A new Android podcast from Leo Laporte’s TWIT network. Frost show was okay, with some rough edges needing smoothing, and there’s still a little too much comparison with everything ‘i’ - but otherwise, a good start!
July 2010
2 posts
3 tags
Android Debugging Tips →
Some people should not be allowed to… breathe?
3 tags
Nook for Android →
Barnes & Noble have been putting quite a lot of energy into their nook platform recently, setting off a minor price war a few weeks ago with their new wifi-only nook, and now releasing a nook app for Android phones. Unfortunately, it’s very big (17.7MB installed) and not all that good compared with the existing leading Android ebook apps, fbreader and Aldiko. Still, good to see support...
October 2009
7 posts
1 tag
Striking It Rich: Is There An App For That? →
Not really an Android article, for today, but still of interest. Newsweek trying to pull apart the myth of the millionaire iPhone app developer, talking to a few indies about how the app store is treating them. The story has an obvious message, and is slanted towards that message, but I don’t think the message is incorrect. There absolutely has been a race to the bottom on pricing - which...
1 tag
Reality, improved →
A month-old article from The Economist (whose audio edition works very well on Android, by the way) about the growth of augmented reality, and how in many ways it’s an unexpected fulfilment of the unfulfilled promise of 90s virtual reality. Lots of stuff about various different solutions competing in the market, but it’s notable that most of them are described as running on Android -...
1 tag
Experience Google Mobile Service, Enjoy Android... →
Sciphone are a relatively well-known Chinese maker of knock-off phones. I live in Hong Kong, and go over to Shenzhen around once a month for shopping, massage and food, and you see stacks of their phones, even in the tourist shops at the border, never mind in the actual phone malls. I’ve found myself walking away from a shop more than once, with the shopkeeper waving a fake iPhone - almost...
1 tag
AdBlock (alpha) →
Something slightly different today - this app was posted in the market earlier on, and I was tickled by the comment in the description: “Dear Google, please contact me before delete this app from market.”. The linked developer homepage is in fact just a large STOP sign with a bunch of German text in it, which is apparently a rant against Internet censorship. To be honest, I’m...
1 tag
LG Shows Off GW620 – Plenty of Pictures and Video... →
Pictures and information about the upcoming Android phone from Korea’s LG. It may not be the most exciting phone in the world, although there is a small but vocal minority which is all over any phone with a QWERTY (or AZERTY) keyboard - but it’s a good sign. Android got off to a slightly narrow start, with HTC taking the lion’s share of early handsets, but with LG, Huawai,...
1 tag
HTC’s Hero May Be Your Scene →
Walt Mossberg is one of the best-respected tech reviewers in the US, writing mainly for the Wall Street Journal, and generally considered one of Apple’s friends in the press. This is his review of the Sprint-model (CDMA) Hero, due to be released imminently. He’s pretty positive about it, with a few caveats, and considers it a worthy competitor in the smartphone market. In some ways,...
1 tag
Dunkin' Isn't the Only One Delivering Donuts... →
Looks like Android 1.6 is actually rolling out to at least a few test phones tonight, very soon after being formally released by the AOSP. Of particular note is that the first updates are apparently going out to G1s, refuting the earlier reports that there would be trouble delivering post-cupcake updates to G1s due to the lack of available flash. My Magic is HTC-branded, so I’ll have to...
September 2009
5 posts
1 tag
Building an Ombudsdroid →
Mark Murphy is generally worth reading, when it comes to Android stuff, and his latest column suggests the creation of an Ombudsman, who would serve as an interface between Google and the developer community when it comes to questions which aren’t purely technical. An individual or team with privileged access to Google folks who might not otherwise deal with the ‘public’, but...
1 tag
Android 1.6 update for Dev Phone 1 now available →
The first ‘shipped’ build of Android 1.6 - the release built from the donut tree. It’s an ADP1 build, so not really designed for end-users, but it can be easily flashed onto any rooted G1/Dream.
The lines between Google, Android, the Android Open Source Project, and HTC are still somewhat blurred, and it’s interesting that these builds are - I believe - put together by...
1 tag
Digital Devicement: Part Two – Magical Heroes →
Stephen Fry - for those who don’t know - is a very well-known and pretty popular British writer, comedian and actor, formerly the comedy partner of Hugh Laurie, now famous with a fake American accent as ‘House’. He also, somewhat surprisingly, turned out to be a pretty hardcore gadget freak, starting a blog a year or two back with some accurate analysis of the smartphone market,...
1 tag
Market spammers →
Android link of the day
Yes, it’s my blog - in particular, my thoughts on some of the worst abusers of the Android Market: “The Android Market has many problems, some of which may be solved or at least eased with the upcoming 1.6 release - but it seems like spam will be around for at least a while, and will doubtless expand if/when the Market grows and there is really serious money to...
1 tag
A Note on Google Apps for Android →
Android Link of the Day
Google’s take - in the voice of Dan Morrill, aka morrilldl on Android IRC or on Twitter - on the Cyanogen issue. Short summary: They really really want people to work on Android in the community, they’ve nothing against rooting or replacement OS images, but the ‘Google apps’ like YouTube, GMail, GMaps and, yes, the Market client, are proprietary,...
June 2009
1 post
Taking my Magic home tonight
Going to Taiwan for the weekend - the gf is going to a j-pop concert, I’ve never been to Taiwan before and it’s keeping up my record of leaving Hong Kong at least once a month. Hoping to meet up with one or two Android devs on Saturday night for beer and chat, and looking forward to the view from the top of Taipei 101. Unless the threat of the tropical storm materialises and we end...