Author Neil Gaiman now lives near Minneapolis, Minnesota. He needed a new phone and thought the G1 might be nice so he headed down to his local T-Mo shop where he found posters advertising the phone and an eager, if slightly dim, staff. → Read More
It seems T-Mobile has taken a different stance on G1 activation than Apple did with the iPhone. Apparently, all you need to do is slip in a T-Mobile-activated SIM card and run through the phone’s setup process. Once that’s done, you can put your new SIM back in for full Android access expect for network access or apparently, keep the old one active for full network access except for voice calls. This is still developing so stay tuned as more details float in. LoveForBiz via Eng → Read More
Android is now available—yeah, it’s true—but you’re hard-pressed to find any review that raves about its user interface. (Ryan Block, of Engadget fame, called it “very raw” last week on Tekzilla, which is right on the money, I think.) But, in an alternate world, maybe where dogs walk people, these alternative user interfaces were developed. The Astonishing Tribe, the same group that developed Android’s user interface, just published a handful of what-could-have-beens, mockups and in-progress alternative Android user interfaces. Some look better than others—Asia Cute looks tremendous, as does Open GLES—but all of them are worth checking out. Given that Android is free as in freedom, perhaps some developer will create a user interface that doesn’t look like it was designed by committee. One can hope, at least. via Gizmodo → Read More
The extremely, highly anticipated, Android-powered G1 is now official available from T-Mobile. Somehow though, it’s doubtful that T-Mobile will see any iPhone-ish customer lines (please, send us pics if you see one though) due to lackluster initial reviews, but most official T-Mobile stores will open early at 8:00AM just in case there are a few eager buyers. Otherwise, T-Mobile’s website has ‘em available for the same $179.99 two-year contract price, but due to the “extremely limited availability” warning, it might be worthwhile to actually participate in society and head up to your local T-Mo stores. → Read More
The G1 doesn’t officially hit the streets until tomorrow, but the 3rd and Market store in San Francisco will begin selling the first Android device starting today at 6PM PDT. If you’re not in the area and you didn’t pre-order then you’ll have to wait until tomorrow if, of course, you’re in a 3G market. Otherwise you’ll have to order online or in-store. Said 3G market stores will open at 8am local time for those interested. → Read More
Not a huge surprise here, since a Panasonic exec basically leaked the $799 MSRP for the Lumix a few weeks ago, but here it is officially: The Lumix G1 will have an MSRP of $799. Ta-dow. It’ll be available in mid-November. Also available at the same time will be an optional 45-200mm lens for $349. → Read More
From this guy The blogs vilified Apple over the “kill switch” found in the iPhone; let’s see those blogs tear into Google for the very same thing. Found nestled deep in the G1‘s “About” menu is this notice: Google may discover a product that violates the developer distribution agreement… in such an instance, Google retains the right to remotely remove those applications from your device at its sole discretion Lo! How dare Google reserve the right to protect your phone. Evil, evil, evil. Now, if Google remotely removes an application that you pay for, it says it’ll do its darnedest to recover your money. Thoughtful. Whether or not people try to make a distinction between how Apple handled remote removal—that is, by not telling you about it—versus Google’s “here’s what’s up” approach, I don’t know. At the end of the day, does that make any difference whatsoever? → Read More
I will keep this review short and straight to the point, folks. You know how Google likes to keep things in Beta for years and years? Well, Android is no different. Like many of you I was excited at the prospect of a new OS to muscle it’s way in and take down the iPhone, but I’m afraid Android is not it – at least not yet. The OS actually isn’t that bad, but it does have its issues and those cannot be overlooked. Unfortunately it’s the hardware that will be Android’s folly this go around until the other manufacturers can churn out some better goods. Let’s start with the hardware. → Read More
A quickie for those of you who own, or are about to own, a phone with a touchscreen. You know, iPhone, G1, et cetera. The guy who founded Cool Hunting—an online version of the “strange but true” section of your local newspaper—started Freehands, a company that creates gloves with removable fingertips. The idea here is that whenever you need to call someone, answer a text message or fiddle about on Google Maps you simply fold back the finger tip part and touch away. There’s three types of gloves, leather ($40), stretch ($30) and fleece ($20). Now we have a gift to give that person you really don’t care about, but can’t outright ignore, especially if they drive. → Read More
If you happened to pre-order a T-Mobile G1, it might be on the way via UPS right now. Reportable, the Googlephone is coming via the 3-day shipping method meaning you might get it as early as this Friday, the 17th, a couple of days before the official launch. Sounds like Christmas might be coming early this year for some T-Mobile subscribers. phandroid via Giz → Read More
With hundreds of thousands of G1s already pre-ordered, it looks like T-Mobile may have decided to celebrate by opening the floodgates a few days early. A number of users have reported that their order status has been changed to “Shipped”, with a tentative delivery date of Friday, October 17th. That’s just two days short of a whole week early, granting new G1 owners the whole weekend to strut their new toy around town. I’ve played with the G1 a lot over the past few days. Unfortunately, that’s about all I can say on the matter until embargoes drop tomorrow. [BGR] → Read More
Not tethered by the likes of embargoes and bravely challenging the heavy hand of their employer, a T-Mobile employee (Update: They work for a T-Mobile Master Dealer, not corporate) who doubles as a member of the AndroidCommunity forums has posted a user review of the T-Mobile G1. Fortunately, the giddiness of being one of the first in the world with the G1 didn’t keep “kaziko” from being objective in his review. On the upside, he mentioned that the phone starts up quickly (relative to other HTC handsets), is surprisingly lightweight, has a solid keyboard, and that the call quality and speakerphone volume were satisfactory. On the downside, it “has a big memory leak somewhere” which slows things down until the device is reset, even after which point it “doesn’t run as smoothly as you would think”. He also notes the lack of a virtual keyboard or accessible file system, difficulties getting .mpg and .wmv files to play, and that the handset gets “extremely hot” while charging. (Update: Kaziko has since revised his review – see comments) To help pacify the barrage of questions that began after folks realized they’d found someone with a G1, Kaziko has also been maintaining a Q&A. With just under two weeks to go before the first round of pre-orders are fulfilled, expect the reviews to begin pouring in over the next few days. → Read More
As the video right up there shows, predictive search works just swell on the T-Mobile G1. As you enter your search term—here, Google uses safe searches like “flowers” and “sushi chicago” to demonstrate its inherent awesomeness—the search engine generates a list of possibly relavent terms. That way, all you have to do is enter the first few letters of a term—flo—and Google will pull up “flowers.” It’s handy, and when you’re trying to search for something on the street using your cellphone, handy is exactly what you’re looking for. via 9 to 5 Mac → Read More
The first Android-powered handset’s launch is coming soon, but some lucky folks already have their dirty mitts on the complete package. The picture set doesn’t reveal anything spectacular including a lame carrying, but if you’re the type that gets giddy with pre-release photos, there is enough here to get you through this morning. The rest of us can wait until October 22 for the somewhat unimpressive release. → Read More
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1 Micro Four Thirds broke cover a few weeks ago, but the press release didn’t include the price. (hate that) Thankfully, a loose -lip Panasonic Suit let it slip that the G1 is going to carry a $799 MSRP here in the States. → Read More
T-Mobile has removed the 1GB 3G data cap ahead of the G1‘s launch. People had been freaking out, as they do, the past two days when they read the fine print of T-Mobile’s terms and conditions, realizing that the wireless carrier imposed a “soft” 1GB cap on 3G data. Meaning, that if you downloaded more then 1GB of data—isn’t that a big selling point of the G1, fast Internet everywhere?—T-Mo would cut your connection speed to levels below that of EDGE. And no one wants that. But have no fear, for T-Mo told the Times’ Bits Blog that it has removed the 1GB cap. Keep in mind, however, that T-Mo, doing its best Comcast impression, said it still reserves the right to manage its network in order to prevent abuse. But yeah, it never seemed smart for T-Mo to put a cap on the connection, strangling the G1 before it even got home from the delivery ward. → Read More
The first Android phone launches on October 22, and while the Android SDK has been out for a while now, Google just released version 1.0. The latest version allegedly fixes numerous bugs and adds a few things API thingies. So if you’re a developer, fed up with Apple’s iron fist over the App Store, now might be the time to switch over to Google’s laissez-faire marketplace. via MobileWhack → Read More
We understand that your emotions were flying high yesterday with the G1 launch. So many questions that you had to have answered ’bout Google’s first foray into the mobile world and just in case you missed something, here is a rundown of our G1 coverage. T-Mobile G1 specs leaked prior to announcement G-day: Other September 23rds in history Confirmed: Amazon MP3 on the T-Mobile G1: 89 cents per song T-Mobile G1 Launch Liveblog T-Mobile officially announces the G1 Android phone T-Mobile G1 gets priced & dated The must-see Android video demo from Google The G1: Almost perfect G1: The only phone that makes you smarterer G1 walkthrough videos: maps, browser, Facebook, and all that Hands-on with the T-Mobile G1 Android phone Video: Google co-founders on Rollerblades! More like ROFLblades! → Read More
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin made a surprise appearance at the T-Mobile G1 unveiling in Manhattan today. They joked about the traffic being backed up and suggested that they had to rollerblade to the event in order to get there in time! I don’t know if that’s true or not but whatever the case, Sergey saying “I’m a bit of a geek” got more laughs than the entire rollerblade bit. Anyway, still kinda cool to see what Brin and Page think about the new phone. → Read More
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