Google Phone

Just a few weeks ago we were all in the dark about what carrier the HTC Dream would be released on. But in less than a month’s time, we’ve gotten our first look at the smartphone, exclusive images and video of the long-awaited Android operating system and confirmation that the Dream will be called the G1 from T-Mobile. That’s a lot of ground to cover but in keeping with the world of tech, these announcements tend to fly out quickly and then get lost in the heap. Now that the first ever Google phone is being released very soon, we thought it would be appropriate to take a look back at some of the highlights of the HTC Dream and how we’ve gotten familiar with it over the past few weeks.

After it seemed like the Android was in development forever, information finally started rumbling to the surface about a month ago when a rumor that the first Android handset had been delayed was squashed. Soon after, a video was leaked that supposedly showed the HTC Dream in action. You can watch it below. Sure it was a little blurry, but it sent the Internet ablaze. Was this the real HTC Dream or was it a fake? After all of the image leaks, diagrams and more that have surfaced since then, we now know that video was 100% real and it gave us new hope. Android was definitely alive! 

A week later, the FCC approved the Dream and we got a look at a diagram of the phone that revealed it has a jogball. And then the shocker came out. A phone called the T-Mobile G1 had been lurking around on the edges of our attention when all of a sudden all the pieces came together. The HTC Dream is the T-Mobile G1. T-Mobile will be the carrier for the very first Android-based headset. A rumor hit first that the device would be available starting September 17th, but now it seems you’ll be able to get your hands on one starting October 13th. 

A little later, a diagram leaked showing some very interesting specifics about the new smartphone, including a “chin” area. Just last week we got our first clear look at the HTC Dream with T-Mobile branding and buttons through a series of images. A few days ago the Android Developer Challenge came to an end and Google revealed the winners, which ties in directly to the announcement of Google Chrome yesterday. The new browser uses the exact same Webkit as the browser contained in the Android OS. And with good reason, considering Google is the developer of both. To make it all the more fitting, today Google announced that Chrome would more likely than not be coming to Android sooner rather than later in a lite version. 

Whew! The Android news machine has been cranking constantly and with the very first phone, the HTC Dream, now branded as the T-Mobile G1 to hit the carrier in October, this is most definitely not the last we’ve heard about it. 

We do apologize for the lack of updates here on Google Phone. But to keep up with the latest on the Android OS, why not visit Android Community? If you want to join in the discussion, be sure to stop by our forums at http://androidcommunity.com/forums/. 

The deadline for phase one of Google’s Android Developer Challenge closed yesterday, and so the entrants are beginning to show off their wares. One of the more eye-catching is Enkin, an augmented reality app for Android which overlays GPS, motion information and other data over a live camera view of a user’s surroundings. As an idea it’s similar to designer Mac Funamizu’s encyclopedia frame concept, using real-time queries of online information to offer users pertinent information about their environment.

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The quest to get Android running on any hardware possible continues apace, with the gang over at the xda-developers forum working to fettle the OS for HTC hardware. They’ve managed it, too, albeit in a roundabout way; apparently the TyTN II is basically running Android as an emulation: an .EXE on top of the original Windows Mobile OS. That’s a new approach; previous hacks to get the software working - such as on the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet we saw earlier in the week - took advantage of Android’s compatibility with things like OMAP chipsets, which are relatively common among mobile devices, to force the OS to install.

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Flying in the face of the current trend for making cellphones more and more complex, NTT DoCoMo are apparently planning to remove high-end functionality from its handset OS that will free manufacturers to develop simpler designs more suited to international sales. The functionality, which is believed to include i-mode, internet connection services and the FeliCa mobile payment system, has traditionally kept the Japanese cellphone industry at the forefront of development, but recent saturation of the market has seen several manufacturers (most recently Mitsubishi) withdraw to concentrate on overseas sales.

NTT DoCoMo also revealed that it expects to introduce Google’s Android as its new OS by 2010. The two companies previously agreed to load apps such as Google Maps for Mobile and Gmail onto the i-mode platform, with Android-based handsets a possibility still under discussion.

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Rumor is swirling around the forthcoming iPhone-like HTC Dream. Handset maker High Tech Computer (HTC) is expected to be the first company out the door with an Android-powered phone set to release sometime in 2008 (possibly near the June time frame).

The HTC Dream will include many of the iPhone features, such as the full touch screen interface and keyboard. It is expected to measure 5-inch long and 3-inch wide. According to AllHeadLineNews, there will be a keyboard below the screen.

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If Google’s Rich Miner was a developer, he’d be coding for the iPhone; however, he’s actually Group Manager for Mobile Platforms, and as such is more interested in boosting Android’s profile with confident predictions that handsets based on the platform will wildly outsell Apple’s cellphone.

“Once you have devices out there from Motorola, HTC, Samsung, and so on, there’s a much larger potential market on Android than for the iPhone. [Apple is] a single manufacturer, it’s targeted at a particular demographic, and it falls far short of the 1 billion mobile phones sold every year worldwide” Rich Miner, Google

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Core Security, who research exploits and loopholes in software releases, have identified eight different security issues in Google’s Android beta, including some that are blamed on the developer’s use of outdated and vulnerable open-source image libraries. The flaws could see a hacker take “complete control” of an Android-powered handset, including exploiting heap overflows and integer overflows, and Core Security demonstrated the issues with proof-of-concept code that worked successfully on the Android SDK emulator.

“Several vulnerabilities have been found in Android’s core libraries for processing graphic content in some of the most used image formats (PNG, GIF an BMP). While some of these vulnerabilities stem from the use of outdated and vulnerable open-source image processing libraries other were introduced by native Android code that use them or that implements new functionality” Core Security statement

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Having gone to Barcelona more than a little ambivalent about Android, Vincent ended up pretty impressed by the state of Google’s mobile OS (you can read all our coverage here); from what he saw, the software and hardware partners Google has managed to bring on board are doing a pretty good job of turning what could be just another Linux cellphone distro into something capable of threatening Symbian and Windows Mobile. It looks like the BBC’s Darren Waters feels much the same way after meeting with Android developer Andy Rubin (and shooting the video you can see after the cut); despite demonstrating an alpha version of the software stack, the handset Rubin brought was still capable of browsing the full internet, smoothly showing Google Maps and even the hitherto desktop-only Street View location-image app.

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Although nowhere near as polished as the offerings from Sony Ericsson, Samsung and the rest, a number of Android prototypes and reference designs are on show here at the Mobile World Congress, and I’ve been shooting exclusive video demos of them for PHONE Magazine. Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and ARM all had displays, and in the three videos after the cut you can see exactly what they would - and wouldn’t! - show me. In Qualcomm’s case, the setup might have looked cobbled together and the processor is the last-gen 7201a, but the screen was an amazing WVGA touchscreen running at 800 x 480; that’s the same sort of display Sony Ericsson picked for their XPERIA X1.

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Google has released a new version of the Android SDK, m5-rc14, making significant GUI and API changes that, in many cases, have been prompted by developer feedback. Layout animations have now been included, making transitions within and between apps smoother, a greater number of audio codecs are supported (including Ogg Vorbis and MIDI) and there’s a geocoding process that streamlines location searches in the mapping software.

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