Weekend Roundup: Holiday Edition
Only a few short days until Christmas and less than 2 weeks until 2010 – crazy how time flies, right? Also crazy how the weekend flew by and you may have noticed that we missed a story or two or ten while we dealt with a record-breaking 2 feet of snow. So without further delay… stories we missed but you shouldn’t:
HTC Espresso Screengrabs Show New Sense UI
It will be a matter of opinion whether the boxed buttons in the new Sense UI are an improvement in aesthetics, usability or both but either way the Espresso is an unannounced Android Phone so its pretty remarkable that the folks at HTCpedia have got these to begin with. Normally I would send you there for more pics but you’ve got to be a member to view them… so visit Engadget instead:
Sholes Tablet in China/Russia
The Chinese equivalent of the FCC just let a few images of the Motorola XT701 through and they appear to be the Motorola Sholes Tablet we’ve wanted to hear so much about. It looks like it’ll have Android 2.1, HDMI-out, 720p vieo, FM radio and a 8MP camera in this varation. A couple pictures included seem to look a little bit chunky and what’s up with that little swerve on the right hand side?
And Even More Sholes Table Pics
The more the merrier in terms of leaks and with the holidays upon us I suppose the leaks can’t help from being merry indeed: more pictures of the Motorola Sholes Tablet XT701 have landed on the interwebz. You can see them all here but I’ve included one of them for your sampling below. Also interesting that these pics seem to indicate a 5MP camera and not a 8MP camera as above:
Rogers HTC Dream and Magic Stuck With Android 1.5 Forever
Part of the beauty of smartphones, including those running Android, is there ability to receive software updates that improve the phone’s performance well beyond the purchase date of the device. Unfortunately for HTC Dream and HTC Magic owners in Canada with Rogers service, you won’t enjoy much of anything OTA related as Rogers/HTC is depriving customers of any update beyond Android 1.5. [Read More]
Role Reversal: Sony Ericsson Candybars Don’t Have Android
A couple months ago it seemed like Android was about to get its first candybar phones when we snuck a glimpse of the Sony Ericsson Sunny and Susan. Unfortunately the company has officially announced these as the Elm and Hazel “GreenHeart” phones and they don’t have Android. Oh well, at least we still have the Xperia X10 to look forward to right? But if you want an affordable SE Android looks like you’ve got some time to wait. [SE via LeakDroid]
StackOverflow Becomes An Official Dev Spot
If you’re a developer looking to have beginner or intermediate questions about Android programming answered you’ve now got an additional place to get some answers. The Android Developer Relations team has announced that they’re now working with the programming-centric site StackOverflow.com to make it “an official Android app development Q&A medium”. Of course you can still use the android-developers google group, IRC, Android Forums and all your other go to sources. Have at it! [Read More…]
Different Strokes for Different Codes
Different Android Phones have different hardware and lately we’ve seen variation in hardware buttons. QWERTY keyboard or not? Hardware buttons or touch sensitive buttons? Or maybe no buttons at all? Hmmm… how do you code differently for these instances? The Android Developers Blog provides some information on how you can approach this scenario and breaks it down into a short, medium and long story depending on how much you care. So if you want to maintain maximum cross-device compatibility… dive in! [Read More…]
Anything Else???
If there are other stories that we may have missed which you think other people would want to know about, feel free to link to them in the comments so we can all catch eachother up on the latest Android happenings. Then get prepared for the last 2 awesome weeks of 2009!