Some rumors state that some dude called KingKlick has a working build of Android 2.1 running on his HTC Hero. This build has multitouch support and allows HTC Sense to run in landscape mode. Also the rumors are that the browser speed has been highly increased. If this all is a hoax we don’t know for sure but lets all hope this is reality. The ROM has not yet been released to public but hes currently testing the build and want to make it work on the Magic and the G1.
Archive for November, 2009
The up and down android relationship with Gameloft
Some days ago Gameloft complained about the Android platform and that they where planning to stop some of there activities on creating games for the Android Market. This message came to public and a lot of blogs where writing about it. It was funny how Gameloft and there public relation department hasted to give a statement. There actually not planning to stop production on the platform this because they gave a quick press release about the development of HD games for the next generation android phones like the Sony Xperia X10 and the Motorola Droid. In this press release they also noted the production of a new title called Assassin’s Creed.
This is pretty funny because a few days ago the financial director Alexandre de Rochefort stated:
We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like … many others.
It is not as neatly done as on the iPhone. Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue.
Lets hope the latest press release is real which means good news for the gamers out there. We could use some good quality games for the android.
A howto guide for installing a HTC custom rom on your Hero
HTC Hero has been to market a little longer now, and since I have one myself I have rooted the device and installed some custom firmware on it. Why you ask? Well just because I like hacking my own device and love the thrill of breaking it… No really, Ive read a lot about custom roms and how they would speed up your phone too some amazing speeds. I was in unbelief but still wanted to try it out. But the main thing was how, well I will help you get it done on your phone. And do this at your own risk I’m not held responsible of bricking your phone.
Why do it
Well for me its simply because you can, but secondly because a large group of developers exists that have there focus of making this rom as fast as possible, and including lots of extras in the process. One great thing is that you can run Wifi Tethering an application that makes a wireless router of your phone so you can connect to it with your laptop and start internetting. More applications can run that needs root access. You can run a fully functional distro of debian… (if your ever gonna use it), and it makes your phone even faster.
Prerequisites
Well setting up your device to run a custom rom is really easy actually. Just follow me along the way, first of all I will tell you about the prerequisites to do this all.
- USB Cable
Well where would you be without connecting the device to your PC. - A HTC Hero
Yup, sorry this guide is only for the HTC Hero. - Root Access to your device
To install the rom you need to have root access on the device, I will post instructions on howto obtain root access on a HTC Hero later on. - A custom recovery image
You can download this recovery image from here this zip file contains all files to deploy the custom recovery image on your phone. I will guide you throught the process once you read further. - A custom rom
This will be the new hearth of your phone, it will beat a little faster, it will tick a little smoother etc etc. For this howto guide we are using the modaco custom rom, made by developers at xda-developers.
Step by step
Ok to start installing the custom rom you need a way to get on the phone, well like you see on prerequisite 3 you needed a custom recovery image. With this image your able to install custom roms from the phone, it will install the rom from the SD card of the device. Lets download the recovery image zip file from the provided link if you havent already done that. Then after the download do the following
- Connect your phone to your PC with the USB cable.
- Goto Settings > Applications > Development and check the USB debugging.
- Unzip the the zip file to a location thats easily accesible from the command line, it will work alot easier that way. For our example we unzipped the package to “c:customrecovery”
- In this package there is a file called “adb-windows” this command line executable will connect to your phone and is able to give your shell access.
- Execute the following commands (each line is a new command, wait after each command and look at your phone):
adb-windows shell reboot bootloader
fastboot-windows boot recovery-RA-hero-v1.2.3.img
install-recovery-gsm-windows.bat
Well that was easy right? The custom recovery image is installed. Why was this needed you may ask? Well thats simple, now you can reboot your phone into recovery mode which let you install the custom rom from a beautiful menu.
Now we want the custom rom to be placed on the SD card of the phone. To do so we must stay connected too the PC with the USB cable and mounted. You got that option on your phones event list. After its mounted drag the modaco custom rom zip file to the SD card.
Ok once that is done your ready for the big stuff read carefully.
- Shut down the phone
- Start the phone and hold the home button
- The custom recovery mode will boot up (a nice green screen with options)
- I always make a backup of the system if something goes wrong, this recovery rom gives you this option with the Nandroid option (pretty awesome)
- The best way, and maybe required is the Wipe. Just do the wipe before you update the rom. Once you installed this custom rom you dont need to do a wipe anymore, you can just update the custom rom to a new version.
- Select the option to install from a zip file (not the update.zip)
- Select the modaco custom rom zip file
- It will guide you through the process
Bam! This will take a little while, after the process is done it will ask for a reboot, once rebooted you have the new ROM in place! Yippie! You can check the xda-developers forums for any updates on this ROM!
Handy Android application called PowerTutor
A new application for the Android phone has hit the streets. PowerTutor is a nice app that monitors power consumption of each individual application running on your phone. I always have troubles finding those power hungry apps and always wondered why my battery was drained so quickly.
With this application build at the University of Michigan in conjunction with Google you can see at realtime which application use resources. In Android 1.6 you can already see some of these details, under the about screen but this application shows it in a much more detailed way.
From: http://www.androidplanet.nl
Google Chrome Operating System Revealed
Yesterday Google revealed there Google OS (Chromium) to the audience, This OS is build with another mindset than other Operating system currently on the market. Google OS put its focus on the internet use. Its focused on how fast your able to start your way on the internet and browsing for content.
Normally when you boot op a operating system you need to wait for the system to initialize, like booting up the kernel, activating all the drivers, initializing hard disk, configuring this, configuring that… and after that has happened you click on the browser and navigate your way without touching any other icons on your desktop. Well Google thought about that and instead thinking from a hardware perspective it focussed itself on booting up the browser and start anything from that.
You can download a installation of Google Chrome OS as a virtual image at the following location:
Motorola Motus (BackFlip) details spotted
First of all sorry for the blurry image!, So I watched some twitters, crawled some websites and this is what comes up. A new phone of Motorola that will handle the social networks with its blur interface. Its some leaked data so we can’t be totally sure about this phone. But who cares, looking at the specifications of this phone I’m only thinking why do we need another phone like this? They got the Click, why release this one. Lets take a look at the specifications:
- 528 MHz Qualcomm MSM7201A
- 512 MB ROM and 256 MB RAM
- 3.1 inch display 320 x 480 (HVGA)
- 5 megapixel camera with LED flash
- WiFi / Bluetooth 2.0 / GPS
- OS Android 1.5 with Motoblur
- GSM 850/900/1800/1900 W-CDMA 850/900/1700/1900/2100
- Reverse flip keyboard
- Rear directional touchpad
This phone will be released in Q1 of 2010, then why will it run on Android 1.5 has a 538MHz Qualcomm CPU. We want Snapdragon! This phone has nothing extras actualy, lets hope I’m wrong and the specs will change to make it a little bit more interesting.
Sprint pushing OTA Hero update *updated*
Some people reported that they have received a new OTA update on there HTC Hero devices, while they hoped for an nice new Android 2.0 version they where left in tears. It was nothing like that, not even an update for Android 1.6. So whats this update all about then? Seems they fixed some minor issues, sms bug fixed? Or anything else important? Maybe some visitors can enlighten us on this matter? I’m pretty interested in the actual changes this update has.
Next thing we are awaiting on is a nice OTA update that contains all the goodies on Android 2.0.
Read on www.androidguys.com thanks for the quick report on this item.
## UPDATE ##
On the sprint forums there is a post about what to expect from this update:
Feature Updates and Enhancements
HTC Hero Software Enhancement SW 1.56.651.2 provides feature updates and enhancements to address the following:
- Improvement to camera picture quality
- DST (Daylight Savings Time) issue addressed
- Unable to receive SMS due to full memory
- Memory leak when Bluetooth is in connecting state
- 3.5mm mono when not using headset with mic
- Dialer application causing excess battery draw
Important note: Dedicated Mute/Speaker buttons have been added to the Talk screen
Verification of updates:
To verify the customer has the updated build after the update:
- Press Menu, Tap Settings
- Flick Up, Tap About Phone
- Scroll up and check Software version: After update 1.56.651.2
The Samsung Galaxi Spica i5700 available
This weekend samsung released a new phone to the audience. The phone called Galaxi Spica is a nice looking small phone, probably a phone thats easy to put away in your pocket after you drained its battery because of playing. The one will be positioned before the Galaxy i7500 and will be cheaper in price.
Some of the specifications are:
- 3.2 inch AMOLED screen
- 3G HSDPA
- 3.2 Mega-pixel camera
- A 528 Mhz processor
- De 1500 mAh battery
- Bluetooth and MiniUSB
As you can see these specs aren’t that spectacular, 3.2 Mega-pixel camera is not really high standard at the moment. I think Samsung introducing this phone to the ones with a slightly lower budget or for those who want to get equated with the Google Android OS.
A fix for the camera bug on the Motorola Droid?
The people that have a Motorola Droid phone may have expirienced a problem with pictures taken with the camera. The picture was blury and not at a good focus. But recently the issue seems to be fixed because everything seemed ok! What resolved this issue? A sneaky push fix or something? We did not installed a thing to fix it right? Well something funny is going on. A report has been made of this bug, and someone found the answer! Its all based on a date related bug. Here a quote I found on that issue:
There’s a rounding-error bug in the camera driver’s autofocus routine (which uses a timestamp) that causes autofocus to behave poorly on a 24.5-day cycle. That is, it’ll work for 24.5 days, then have poor performance for 24.5 days, then work again.
The 17th is the start of a new “works correctly” cycle, so the devices will be fine for a while. A permanent fix is in the works.
Pretty funny isnt it? You can take pictures each 24 days you can take nice pictures and after that you need to wait for another 24 days of horror. Lets hope they release a permanent fix for this.
Is the Motorola Droid a real succes story?
The Motorola Droid has been released for a while now after a long period of silence. Motorola has not produced any phones that hit the news for a long time. But they came back. And how! They managed too deliver a nice piece of technology! The droid has been one of those phones that has goods specs and a nice keyboard. The user interface called Motoblur interacts with all kinds of community networks like facebook or twitter.
I’m not getting into any details about this phone because a lot of sites already did that but just wanted to notice that sales for this phones has going into the right direction! The first weekend it was live they sold 100.000 phones, a week later that number raised to an amazing 250.000. I guess Motorola’s future will be a golden one next year.