The Android open mobile platform initiated by Google is one very exciting mobile operating system that I have been following. Mainly because it’s open source and the operating system core is based on Linux. I’ve recently gone to different mobile phone shops in the Philippines to check out whether Android based mobile phones are starting to appear at the shops. After my trips, I’m a bit happy and sad from what I have found. Here’s why.
Even as the world is experiencing an ecomonic upheaval it looks like that the American smartphone market has experienced a considerable growth in the last quarter of 2008. According to the NPD Group fourth quarter sales survey , smartphones have almost doubled to 23 percent of the US consumer market as compared to only 12 percent in the same quarter of 2007.
Also noteworthy is that half of the smartphones now sold has touch screens and 70 percent offer QWERTY keyboards. Two thirds of the smartphones now use 3G networks as compared to only 46 percent in 2007. Apple’s iPhone, Rim’s Blackberry Storm, the Android G1 phone are some of the top gainers.
It seems Qualcomm is also one of those companies benefitting from all these. The company has just announced that it’s Board of Directors approved an annual dividend increase of 6 percent per share of common stock. This brings the annual dividend to $0.68 per share.
The Android development team has just made available version 1.1 release 1 of the Android SDK. This is inline with the recent updates to Android devices providing new features and functionality. API changes are quite minor. Several items have been fixed, some new features for the Map and dialer have been added, plus several API changes. You can check out the release notes.
With all the layoffs happening globally because of the economic crisis, a group of former Vivendi Games Mobile employees who found themselves needing a job took matters into their own hands. They have created “Talented People”. Is “Talented People” an Android open mobile platform outfit?
It looks like Boy Genius’ smart radar caught a photo of an upcoming Acer mobile phone. What’s blurry besides the photo is whether the cell phone, which might be announced in the upcoming Mobile World Congress this February, is powered by Android or not. The Acer mobile phone has a sliding keyboard and … that’s about it for now on the specs I guess.
We’ll just have to wait until next week when the Mobile World Congress opens up in Barcelona, Spain. Wish we could all join Acer in the announcement plus see all the other mobile goodies just waiting to get released to the public. Want to make a bet on how many Android mobile phones will be announced at the Mobile World Congress? Anyway, here’s the photo of the rumored (for now) Acer Android mobile phone courtesy of Boy Genius Report.
General Mobile will be showing off a dual SIM Android cell phone at the Mobile World Congress next month. The mobile phone is said to have a 624MHz Marvell processor, 5 megapixel camera with flash and autofocus, Wifi, and bluetooth. The rendered image and specs look pretty except for the lacking 3G / 3.5G capability. Plus a not too sweet 400×240 pixel display. I think mobile phones this size show at least have a 700 pixel resolution. Better make that 800. [via Android Authority]
When Google released the Android open mobile platform, they have made an Eclipse plugin to be able to develop Android software using the Eclipse IDE. If you’re a Netbeans user, don’t worry because you can use Netbeans for creating Android applications also. Several guys created a Netbeans plugin that makes it possible to do Android software development under Netbeans.
When the first Android-based T-Mobile G1 mobile phone came out, it doesn’t have support for multi-touch. Luke didn’t take this sitting down. Instead he created the needed code to have support for multi-touch features on the Android open mobile platform. Although it’s not available on the commercially available T-Mobile G1 just yet, you can alway try it out by replacing your current Android OS (caution: some technical geekiness required 
).
Watch the video and check it out for yourself to decide whether it’s worth the risk of bricking your Android cell phone. You can read about the details of the multi-touch hack for Android over at Luke’s blog.
I’ve been very excited with the Android open mobile platform and have been following up it’s developments. I believe it to be a disruptive technology that has a good potential to change the way we can use our mobile phones.
Already, a good number of phone manufacturers and even computer makers have expressed their intention to create a mobile phone that is based on the Android open mobile platform. After the launch of the T-mobile G1 cell phone last year, everyone has been waiting for the next Android phone to arrive on the market. I’ve made a list of the Android based mobile phones.
The Palm Pre mobile phone is not even out the door and it looks like some very cool guys are starting to do their homework on how to jailbreak and Pre’s WebOS to allow dual booting of the Android open mobile platform. People have started looking into the Pre’s TI OMAP processor to study the possibility of hacking the Pre.
Android already runs on the OMAP processor like the Nokia N810 tablet so it should be something of a walk in the park to make it run on the Palm Pre.
The Pre is Palm’s upcoming mobile phone that based on Linux and offers a touch interface plus all of the features you’d expect in a modern mobile phone. Features like GPS, high resoluton screen, wifi, bluetooth, 3G.
