Last week I had the chance to watch Google’s Honeycomb presentation. Android 3.0 is the latest version of Android and optimized for devices that utilize larger resolutions such as tablets. The Motorlo Xoom will be releasing this month which will carry this new UI. With five customizable home screens your quickly able to give yourself access to what you want. Google also redesigned the keyboard for larger resolutions reshaping the keys to make typing a lot easier. Honeycomb is also set up to allow both video and pictures to be taken. In the presentation they used the video chat via your contacts which was pretty cool and seemed to work well. I also liked the 3D in the UI where your scrolling through content such as music or your browser windows; really sleek. You also get notifications at the bottom of the UI when different events occur such as getting an email. As far as graphic goes, Honeycomb is optimized for that as well with an Open Gl renderer. Google also spoke about Renderscript, a framework that provides an API for building 3D scenes and shader language that provides additional acceleration. When you watch a tablet in action with Honeycomb it speaks volumes to what’s coming in the future from Google. What we’re experiencing now on the phone is just a taste of what Android is capable of. Google’s Android, the king of mobile and soon to be tablets. We’ll soon find out after the release of the Motorola Xoom which is already being compared to Apple’s iPad. Although comparing Apple’s iPad UI to Honeycomb is kind of laughable. Google is one of the best at focusing on the user experience. Over at Apple it’s  the same story with closed development on their platforms. Google has done a fantastic job providing information to developers to create great applications for mobile phones and it will be no different for the tablet.  To read more about Honeycomb check out the Android 3.0 developers page.

A few days ago I asked TMobile if they had plans on updating the Samsung Vibrant with Android Froyo 2.2. Well TMobile replied to me earlier today and the answer was yes, it was released about a week and a half ago.  I didn’t receive any notice through my phone about it. Wouldn’t be a bad idea to text users of the phone and notify them. The update isn’t OTA, meaning you have to go and download it manually. You can find the update for the Samsung Vibrant here over at the TMobile site. As far as updates go I was impressed with this one. I knew Google was going to deliver with Froyo. You notice overall the phone is a lot smoother. YouTube got a fresh look when you click on a video while the browser has mobile Flash. I noticed TMobile pushing one of their own apps called TMobile tv. A pretty cool feature added was the Google search which allows you to start applications  or functions by speaking into the phone. The speaking feature had been in place before with search but now with commands it’s pretty nice. Well what else…. how about wifi phone calls? I thought this was great especially when your in an area that doesn’t have great coverage but amazing wifi. Along with all of this Google really pushed Froyo to the future of mobile development by enhancing the capabilities of the OS. Already they have Gingerbread and Honeycomb for the tablet to be previewed soon. So I have to say I’ve always been impressed with how Google is handling Android and it keeps getting better!

A couple days ago I noticed a TMobile commercial that was taking some shots at Apple and the iPhone 4. Basically the new marketing campaign is “look what the HTC MyTouch 4g can do and what the iPhone 4 can’t do”. Now as far as I’m concerned I do not like Apple for many reasons including their stance on Adobe Flash. So to say the least I am not an Apple fan, that being said it’s a little interesting how TMobile is going about pitching the new MyTouch from HTC. I mean honestly the reviews from Sprint’s 1st 4G phone (HTC EVO) has been good but many are sayin the 4G coverage is sporadic at best and with this we know that 4G coverage isn’t quite there yet, a work in progress I would say. So what I’m basically trying to say is that TMobile’s marketing campaign is kind of silly and they should work on their own network before making commericals like these. How about working on 3G coverage; making it great then step it up to 4G. It’s just an idea, or better yet make the 4G coverage what 3G was never CONSISTENT! How many of us use the TMobile 3G coverage and see it go to Edge. It’s not much of a complaint at this point because I’m so use to it but I think TMobile should take a look at themselves before they go mentioning other companies like Apple about how great one of their products are.

I haven’t been waiting that long for Android’s Froyo 2.2 for the Samsung Vibrant but after reading some of what Samsung has been releasing I would of expected to have it on the phone by now. From what I’ve heard the original date was set for the end of the September then moved to the end of October. Samsung is saying the release will be done by each carrier. Even more recent people are reporting that the update will come by the end of the year. I don’t know about you guys but this is almost pushing me to just root the phone and install it myself, something I’ve been avoiding. I’ve rooted other phones before and it’s not the biggest deal but honestly how hard is it to release an update. If anything I would think an update via download would of been the quicker solution. So what do you guys think? Have any of you rooted your Samsung Vibrants and if your running Froyo 2.2 already how is working out?

A few days ago Samsung Mobile in Spain announced on Facebook that the Android 2.2 Froyo update for Galaxy S phones would be available sometime in October. The talk now is, what happened to that message Samsung put on Twitter saying that it would be released in September. Personally I can wait for the update because the Galaxy S phone I own(Vibrant) is running fine and the update will just make it better. That being said it is a little bit annoying when Samsung releases news in another market with conflicting information. Before I go joining those who are already trashing Samsung I’m going to wait until the end of this month. I think Samsung USA should verify the information that was announced in Spain, it would be good PR. If any additional information becomes available I’ll post more on the blog.

If your like me and own a Samsung Galaxy S phone your probably waiting for the Android 2.2 Froyo update. Unless you’ve rooted your phone and installed one of the roms out there with the update! I’m waiting for the actual release. Samsung originally made the announcement via Twitter that the update would arrive sometime in September. Since we only have ten days left in the month I figured I would mention the month is almost over. Most people agree that the update will be released this month but I also heard that Samsung doesn’t have the best track record releasing these updates as scheduled. I hope they release it within a reasonable amount of time. For anyone not familiar with the Froyo 2.2 update Google has a pretty useful short video explaining it. The talk regarding this update is that Flash will be enabled in the browser…after installing the Flash player available in the Android market. It’s pretty interesting how they worked this out. If you go to the market now and your not running Android 2.2. and you type in “Adobe Flash” you will not get any results for a player. Basically if your os is not meant to have the player, your not going to get it. So bottom line for all of us waiting, well we have some things to look forward to in 2.2. Faster os, faster browser, and a new updating feature for your installed apps where you can run multiple updates at once. The new update also includes some enhancements to the API and services that will give developers even more capabilities producing applications for Android. That’s about all I’ve read or watched about this 2.2 update. Now let’s wait for Samsung to release it for the Galaxy S phones!

Some great progress has been made with the Linux and Android project for the HTC HD2. A new build was released titled New Extra Smooth Cotulla Android. This is very exciting as the build will give an almost full user experience running Android on the HTC HD2. As the developers  noted it includes the latest Linux Kernel available for Android along with hardware 3d acceleration, bluetooth, WiFi and 3g connection. Now for the best part installing it. I downloaded the zip, put it on my storage card and extracted it. That was about it, next I ran the program in Windows Mobile and before I knew It was running Android 2.1 on my HTC HD2. This was so much fun. For someone who has been asking for this from the first day I bought the HTC HD2 it’s amazing to see the development on this project. The developers working on this project deserve all the credit. I would like to note though some have reported they can run Android with 3g on this device with the TMobile network while a large percentage say they cannot. When I bought the HTC HD2 TMobile told me I was now on a Windows Mobile plan, the cost was the same but it had to do with their network. So if you would like to use 3g on this device with Android I suggest you call TMobile and tell them you are now using an Android device. I’m not going to do that because well this build isn’t yet complete and I would like to wait until I know it’s the best it can be before I use it all the time. But I have to tell you it’s very cool to send a Tweet from the Twitter app produced by Twitter for Android on an HTC HD2! Think about it, HTC was asked about this how many months ago and they had no interest in participating in this project. They were already thinking about the Evo at the time and people were saying this would never happen. Guess what, check out the image top left, it happened! I’ll see you guys in the next post.