Android 1.5 to hit G1 owners in May

lawn-cupcake.JPG

T-Mobile G1 owners yearning for an onscreen keyboard, video recording and Latitude for Google Maps need yearn no longer. Well, not much longer anyway. Android 1.5, better known as ‘Cupcake’, will be hitting handsets in May.

T-Mobile has sold 100,000 G1 handsets since its launch in October, six months ago. That might not seem like much compared to the iPhones dominance of the smartphone sector, but it’s not bad for a completely new OS, brand and device. It’s T-Mobile’s most popular handset, too.

The Cupcake update will be delivered over-the-air to phones, so you won’t have to do anything except maybe hit ‘yes’ once or twice. The onscreen keyboard should help ease complaints that you have to flip out the QWERTY to enter even small bits of text.

T-Mobile has also announced that it’ll be releasing a second Android handset in 2009. This isn’t the G2, or the HTC Magic, which is coming out on Vodafone and will be available this weekend to people who’ve preordered.

No, it’ll be completely new device. A device that we know absolutely nothing about – because T-Mobile won’t tell us anything. Damn them. When we find out, we’ll let you know.

T-Mobile

OPINION: Why is nobody using Android?

i-am-a-sad-robot.jpg

I’m going to do you a favour before I make you read everything I’ve got to say. I don’t know the answer. I don’t know why just about every phone manufacturer save Apple and Nokia has given Google’s mobile OS the cold battery cover ever since the G1 came out in October last year. I don’t know.

You don’t hear any Android user talking about how rubbish the platform is. You don’t hear any developers saying it isn’t any good either, and in techland, that’s a sign that a product is more or less perfect. So, what’s the problem…

Video surfaces of the Android-based Dream G2

The good news is that the G2 seems to exist. I suppose someone could have installed Android on a random phone and added a Google logo to the back, but it seems like quite a lot of effort for a hoax. Unfortunately it matches the previous rumours in that it has no physical keyboard, relying instead on a stylus for input (eww).

Back on the bright side, though, Google Reader, Notebook, and Docs are all present. I’d kill for a decent RSS reader that syncs with a desktop or web-based reader on a mobile phone. Lastly, at about 0:48, check out the awesome green android charger! Omg, how cute is that!

(via AndroidGuys)

Related posts: G2 (and G3!) rumours surface, debate over release date | Get an “Android Dev Phone 1” (that’s a Google G1 phone) by becoming a “developer”

Googlers getting G1 for Christmas

t-mobile-g1-gift.jpg

Normally companies pay out cash as a Christmas bonus, but not Google this year. The search giant will be handing out T-Mobile G1 phones to all its employees as thanks for their hard work this year. The phones will come without a SIM card, but unlocked. They’ll also be specially customized, with a “‘droid” on the back.

The company, in their Christmas email, jokes that it’s a great chance for them to ‘dogfood’ the product – i.e. get employees of the company to test it. Perhaps this mass stock clearout (20,000 people work for Google!) lends weight to yesterday’s rumours that the G2 will be coming along sooner than we think.

(via Valleywag)

Related posts: G2 (and G3!) rumours surface, debate over release date | Google shows off 2008’s top searches

G2 (and G3!) rumours surface, debate over release date

t-mobile-g2.jpg

It’s no secret that, badass as the T-Mobile G1 is, it’s not a perfect device. The keyboard’s a little clunky, the GPS is a bit iffy from time to time, and there’s a fair bit of functionality missing out of the gate. That said, it’s the closest competitor we’ve had to the iPhone’s dominance, so many people are praying for a decent second iteration of the device.

I have little doubt that the rumours that surfaced over the weekend owe more to that yearning than any factual reality. First off, a site called CellPhone Signal posted a specs list for a “G2” that seems plausible, but tacked on a deeply unrealistic release date of January 26th.

T-Mobile G1 has its firmware hacked out by a camera with a twitch

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for t-mobile-g1-android-handset2.jpg

The T-Mobile G1 phone isn’t even available over here until Thursday, but already the hackers on the other side of the Atlantic have sunk their teeth into it, and so far don’t seem to be doing too badly. Though it’s a relatively open platform compared to the restrictive iPhone, it just wasn’t open enough for hacker RyeBrye, who took it upon himself to extract the firmware (the phone’s operating system) in perhaps the most convoluted way possible.